“On the back of a snowmobile? That doesn’t count, does it, Quinn?”

“No.” Quinn shakes his head with a snarl that shows an awful lot of teeth. “You definitely need to get closer. Show us what you can do.”

“What I can do?” I have no idea what they’re talking about.

“I mean, it’s obvious you’ve got something going on.” This time, when he breathes in, I’m sure Marc is smelling me. “I just can’t quite figure out what it is, yet.”

“Right?” Quinn agrees. “Me neither, but there’s definitely something there. So let’s see what you’ve got, Grace.”

He shifts, braces himself, and that’s when it hits me. What they’re planning on doing. And just how much danger I’m really in.

   7

Something

Really Freaking Wicked

This Way Comes

I whirl around, adrenaline pumping, and make a break for the stairs. But Marc reaches out and grabs me before I make it more than a few feet. He yanks me hard against him—my back to his front—and wraps his arms around me as I start to struggle in earnest.

“Let me go!” I shout, bringing my heel back to kick him in the knees. But I don’t have much leverage, and he doesn’t so much as wince.

I think about stomping on his feet, but my Converse aren’t going to do much damage to his boots, let alone his feet inside them. “Let me go or I’ll scream!” I tell him, trying—and failing—not to sound scared.

“Go ahead,” he tells me as he wrestles me toward the front door Quinn is conveniently holding open for him. “No one will care.”

I throw my head back, slam it against his chin, and he curses, jerks one of his arms up to try to hold my head in place. Which infuriates me as much as it terrifies me. Bending down, I bite his arm as hard as I can.

He yelps and jerks, and his forearm slams against my mouth. It hurts, has the metallic taste of blood pooling in my mouth. Which only pisses me off more.

“Stop!” I shout, bucking and kicking against him as hard as I can. I can’t let them get me out the door; I can’t. I’m dressed in nothing but a hoodie and a pair of fleece pants, and it’s no more than ten degrees out there. With my thin California blood, I won’t last more than fifteen minutes without getting frostbite or hypothermia—if I’m lucky.

But he still doesn’t let go, his arms like bands of steel around me.

“Get your hands off me!” I yell, this time not caring who I wake up. In fact, hoping that I wake up someone. Anyone. Everyone. At the same time, I slam my head back with as much force as I can, aiming to break his nose.

I must hit something, because he lets me go with a curse. I hit the ground, hard, my legs buckling so that I end up on my knees just in time to see Marc go flying across the entryway, eyes wide as he slams into the farthest wall.

I don’t have time to think about how that happened, though, because it takes only a second for him to recover, and then he’s charging back across the foyer, straight at me. I turn to flee, fists up in an attempt to ward off Quinn if he tries to stop me, but suddenly he’s flying across the foyer, too. He crashes into a bookshelf instead of a wall, and a vase falls off the top shelf and shatters against his head.

I turn around, looking for a way out, but Marc moves fast—really fast—and suddenly he’s standing there, between the staircase and me. I twist to the right, trying to decide my best bet to get away, and that’s when I run straight into a solid wall of muscle.

Shit. There are three of them now? Panic races through me, and I reach out, try to shove whoever it is backward. But like Marc, this guy doesn’t move. At least not until he wraps his hand around my wrist and tugs me forward hard enough to lift me straight off the ground.

It’s as he’s pulling me toward him that I get my first good look at his face and realize that it’s Jaxon.

I don’t know whether I should be relieved or even more afraid.

At least not until he yanks me behind him, putting himself between the others and me as he faces them down.

Mark and Quinn skid to a halt, the uneasiness on their faces turning to fear

“Is there a problem here?” Jaxon asks. His voice is lower than before and more gravelly. It’s also colder than the snowdrifts right outside the front door.

“No problem,” Marc says with a forced chuckle. “We were just getting to know the new girl.”

“Is that what they call attempted murder these days? Getting to know someone?” He doesn’t raise his voice, doesn’t do anything the least bit threatening. And still all three of us wince as we wait for the other shoe to drop.

“We wouldn’t have hurt her, man,” Quinn pipes up for the first time. He sounds a lot whinier than he did a few minutes ago, when it was just them and me. But he’s not slurring his words or anything, so I guess the vase must not have done him too much damage. “We were just going to toss her outside for a few minutes.”

“Yeah,” Marc adds. “It was just a joke. No big deal.”

“Is that what you’re calling this mess?” Jaxon inquires, and somehow his voice has turned even colder. “You know the rules.”

I’m not sure what rules he’s talking about—or why he sounds like he’s personally in charge of enforcing them—but his words have Quinn and Marc cowering that much more. Not to mention looking a little sick to their stomachs.

“We’re sorry, Jaxon. We just came in off a run, and things got a little out of hand.”

“I’m not the one you should be apologizing to.” He half turns, holds out a hand to me.

I shouldn’t take it. Every ounce of self-defense training I’ve ever had says I should run. That I should take the reprieve he—Jaxon—is offering and make a mad dash for my room.

But there’s a look of such intense rage simmering beneath his obsidian gaze, and I instinctively know he’s turned to offer me his hand in an effort to keep the guys from seeing it. I don’t know why; I just know he doesn’t want them to realize how upset he is. Or maybe it’s that he doesn’t want them figuring out how upset he is on my behalf.

Either way, he saved me tonight, and I owe him. I hold his gaze, telling him with a look that I’ll keep his secret.

And then I do what he is silently asking and step forward. I don’t take his hand—that’s a little too much after what he said and did earlier—but I move forward, knowing that Jaxon won’t let Marc or Quinn do anything else to me.

I must get too close for his liking, however, because he shifts himself partially in front of me again, even as he shoots Quinn and Marc a cold look that warns them to behave. The warning might be unnecessary, though, because they’re both looking pretty shamefaced already.