Hunted by Jaycee Clark

of the name John the same way again.
    “He went crazy.” She picked at the hemline of her coat; even with it on, she was cold. “As I said, I don’t remember them taking me to the brothel.” She took a deep breath, nausea coating her stomach. “Wh—when I-I was better and able to move enough—” She stopped, closing her eyes against the memory, hardly the worst, but not one that was pleasant. “He-he brought me to his office naked and . . . and . . . ” She rubbed her neck, the turtleneck suddenly suffocating. “In a collar and said this was my new place. I’d see what a whorehouse was really like.”
    A moment stretched between them, then another and another. There was an expulsion of breath, part growl, and a muttered, “Bastard.”
    At least she thought that was what he’d said.
    “You’d insulted him,” he stated, no judgment or pity or condemnation.
    She looked at him, just as he looked at her. Their eyes met and something loosened within her even as something else recoiled. “Yes. Yes, I had.”
    He shook his head and she could see a muscle in his jaw up near his ear was twitching. “You’re bloody lucky to still be alive.”
    “I suppose.” Then very quietly she confessed. “There were times I wished he’d just killed me.”
    He looked at her, the edges of his eyes barely crinkling, as if he were thinking of smiling. He shook his head. “You’re bloody damn lucky. He’s not known for mercy killings.”
    Ebony. “I know.” She shifted, swallowed and rolled down the window, wanting some fresh air. She didn’t see the need to answer him. He knew what Mikhail had been like, there was no need to go into more, to hash over every detail that if God were merciful she’d forget.
    She laid her head back again and watched the window roll up.
    He said, “It’s cold and the last thing we need is you ill. You already look as if you could drop dead.”
    For some reason she found that almost funny. Almost. She smiled. “Thanks. It’s been so long since I’ve had a real compliment I’d forgotten what they sound like.”
    He smiled and she caught her breath. He was really handsome. That smile could charm the devil from his pitchfork, as Becca had said.
    “You need to rest. I’ll wake you,” he told her, turning up the heat.
    She didn’t want to rest. She wouldn’t know where they were going.
    As if reading her mind, he added, “We’re going to a hotel in Berlin. I promise I’ll wake you when we get to the outskirts of town.”
    She nodded and settled back into the seat. She’d close her eyes for just a minute and wait. Though he said he’d wake her, she’d learned the last thing any woman ever did was trust a man.
    The lights woke her. Once upon a time she slept like the dead. Now every noise woke her unless she was literally passed out.
    Berlin sprawled around them, busy this early in the morning.
    She looked at the clock readout on the dashboard. After four, almost five. It would be dawn soon.
    Morgan didn’t move, tried to keep her breathing the same.
    “I was about to wake you,” he said quietly.
    So he knew she was awake. “You know, my brothers used to hate that I could lie so well and convincingly.”
    He maneuvered through the traffic. “Those would be the same brothers who reported you missing?”
    Should have kept her mouth shut, but she’d already spoken of them, so she could hardly deny it. And he already knew.
    “Yeah. Two.” Two brothers. The thought of them rushed tears to her eyes. How could she ever face them? She didn’t want him to know any more about her. She’d managed to keep who she was a secret from Mikhail. Even he hadn’t known of her brothers. But if Mikhail learned that Dusk was Morgan Gaelord? He’d come after her and damn anyone who was in his way. She curled into herself.
    “I don’t want to talk about it.”
    She heard his fingers drumming on the steering wheel. “We’ll be at the hotel in a few minutes anyway.” Again, he drove through the