The Snow Leopard's Love Read online

  Of course, they do. With a jolt, he let go of his mate and searched a wider area. There, I can sense them. Four people coming this way. He brought his awareness back to the truck.

  “They’re slowing down,” Caleb cracked the back passenger door open. “We’re going to need to act fast, the truck isn’t far behind.”

  “You can sense them, too?” Rift asked.

  Of course they can, his snow leopard replied drily.

  “Yeah. Part of me is tempted to stay here and face them head-on, ask them what they’re doing,” Caleb admitted, his fists clenched.

  “But that’s not the part that’s in control,” Elise pushed him toward the door. “We just need to keep Belle and her family safe. No heroics, thank you.”

  “Elise is right,” Rift agreed. “Although it’s hard to fight the need to stop them right here, right now and sort the situation out. I don’t want Belle and her family to be running forever.”

  “They won’t if they come with us to Wishing Moon Bay,” Flora said.

  “No, they won’t. But as much as I want Belle and her family to come with me back home, this isn’t the way I want it to be. I want them to choose to be there. It’s the only way they’ll ever be happy.” Rift nodded to Caleb who slid out of the truck, Elise followed.

  Flora placed her hand over Rift’s as he moved to follow the others. “She will make that choice one day, Rift. I’m sure of it.”

  He gave a tight smile and nodded. “I can only hope you’re right.”

  Aiden glanced over his shoulder, his hands still gripped the steering wheel. “Flora is always right.” He winked and inclined his head toward the door. “Now, get going. Go be a hero.”

  “Thanks.” Rift choked down the lump of emotion in his throat. “I couldn’t ask for a better family than you guys.”

  “Yeah, you could,” Aiden said. “They’re right there. Now go help them.”

  Rift slid out of the truck as Belle slowed the car to a stop. With a deep breath, he leaped into action. There wasn’t much time.

  He would keep them safe. No matter what.

  Chapter Nine – Belle

  “Are we sure this is a good idea?” Belle slowed the car to a stop next to Aiden’s truck.

  “I’m not sure of anything right now,” Katrina answered. “But if you’re asking if we should trust these guys to help us, then yes.”

  “Why? Because we don’t have any choice?” Were they being manipulated into splitting up? What if this whole thing was a ruse?

  “Partly. And partly because Rift is the real deal.” Katrina gathered up her purse and turned to look over her shoulder at the children in the back seat. “Are we ready to go on an adventure?”

  “Where are we going?” Jack asked suspiciously, his video game stashed in his backpack which lay next to him on the back seat.

  “We’re going for a ride in that truck.” Katrina pointed to the truck that was stopped on the side of the road about two hundred feet ahead.

  “Why?” Jack looked mutinous. “Why aren’t we staying with Mom?”

  “Because you’ll be safer in the truck.” Belle adjusted her focus on the rearview mirror and looked beyond the two children in the back of the car. So far there had been no sign of the other truck since they’d turned around. Perhaps they’d given up.

  Maybe Katrina was wrong and this whole thing was a robbery, nothing more. They’d thought that the passengers in the car would be easy pickings. But once Belle had turned around and driven off, they’d given up.

  If so, was it a good idea to let her mom and children get in the truck with strangers?

  “We should just keep on driving.” Belle didn’t take her foot off the accelerator.

  Katrina placed her hand over the mouthpiece of the phone which she still held to her ear. “We’re not taking any chances. Those guys meant business. Did you see the eyes of the one in the passenger seat?”

  Belle glanced at her mom, the fear in her eyes was real. “Okay.” She shook her head. “You’re right. But I still don’t like it.”

  “We can see you,” Katrina spoke to Rift and then nodded. “Slow down, they’re getting out of the truck.” She pointed as three people got out and stood behind the vehicle.

  “Mommy, I don’t want to go,” Rosie wailed.

  “Rosie, please. Grandma will be with you.” Belle used her not-open-to-negotiation voice. “We’ll get ice cream as soon as this is over. Okay?”

  Rosie pouted as she nodded.

  “I’m staying with you.” Jack folded his arms, his mind made up.

  “No, you’re going with Grandma and Rosie. I need you to keep them safe.” Belle took her foot off the accelerator and eased down on the brake, she didn’t want to stop too fast and skid across the road.

  “We need you to take care of us, Jack. Can you do that for Grandma?” Katrina half-turned in her seat to face her grandson.

  “I guess,” Jack replied petulantly.

  “Okay. Seatbelts off.” Belle stopped the car and turned around to help the kids and as she did so, the passenger door flew open. Rift leaned into the car and hooked his hands under Rosie’s arms. Belle’s immediate reaction was to tell him to get his hands off her daughter. However, the tender expression on his face robbed her of words.

  “Okay, Rosie. You are going for a ride in my brother’s truck.” He lifted her out and she threw her arms around his neck, clinging onto him as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

  “Belle.” Her mom’s hand dragged her attention away. “I have my phone. We’ll keep in touch. It’ll be okay.”

  “Take care of them, Mom.” Belle’s eyes swam with tears that she quickly brushed away. This is not the time to cry, she needed to keep it together. But watching her children as they were bundled into the back of Aiden’s truck, followed by her mom, made it difficult.

  This was wrong. It was all so wrong. She should be with her kids.

  “We need to go.” Rift yanked open the passenger door and slid into the seat.

  “They’re getting close.” Caleb climbed into the back seat with Elise next to him.

  “Can you sense them?” Belle put the car in drive but didn’t move until the truck containing her family drove off.

  “We can. They’re close, they’ll be in view soon.” Rift buckled his seatbelt and placed his hands on his thighs.

  Belle pressed down on the accelerator and the car crept forward. “We should make sure they see which way we go.”

  “Aren’t we trying to outrun them?” Elise asked.

  “If they don’t see which way we are going, they might go in the same direction as the truck.” Belle neared the turn. The truck took a left and as they drove away, she was struck by the overwhelming sense of loss. She should be with them. How could she put her faith in a bunch of strangers?

  “Belle’s right.” Rift’s gentle reassuring smile made her heart flutter and chased her fear away.

  “Okay. I told you I was ready to fight,” Caleb said. “We could always force them out of the truck now.”

  “No!” Elise and Rift chorused. “Let’s stick to the plan.”

  “Maybe Caleb is right. I need to know what they’re doing. I need to know why they are after us.”

  “Not here.” Rift shook his head. “We want to put some distance between us and your family.”

  “I checked out the map,” Elise began. “Aiden’s going left and heading for Wishing Moon Bay. We’re going right. If we drive for approximately five miles, there’s a road we can take that leads nowhere. If they follow us, that would be the perfect place for an ambush of our own.”

  “An ambush of our own?” Caleb didn’t hide the shock from his voice.

  “Yes.” Elise half-turned to look at him. “You said there were four people in the truck behind us, right?”

  “Yes,” Caleb answered.

  “You don’t like those odds, considering we have two shifters and a fae?” Elise leveled her gaze at him.

  “We don’t k
now if any of the people in the truck are shifters,” Rift reminded her.

  “True. But I still like those odds. Plus, it means Belle and her family won’t be on the run for the rest of their lives.” Elise glanced at Belle. “Sorry, I should be more tactful.”

  “It’s okay, you haven’t said anything I haven’t thought about myself.” She’d stopped at the end of the road, not yet turning right as she watched in the rearview mirror for the truck to come into view. “There they are.”

  “Okay, go,” Rift instructed and waved his hands forward as if that would make her go any faster.

  Belle eased her foot down on the accelerator and gripped the steering wheel tightly as adrenaline pumped through her body once more. She was exhausted, her shoulders ached after fighting to control the car at such a high speed on a winding road. The added stress of her family being in trouble caused the pounding beat in her temple to increase, but she ignored it despite rising nausea caused by her headache.

  She had to stay strong, she had to stay in control.

  “Thank you.” She glanced at Rift as she pressed down hard on the accelerator. They needed to keep a good distance between them and the truck behind, while also making sure they didn’t lose them, if they were to follow Elise’s plan.

  “I told you, I’m here to protect you.” Rift lowered himself down in his seat and angled his head so he could watch the truck as it reached the end of the road.

  Belle held her breath as she glanced in the rearview mirror. If the truck turned left and followed Aiden and her family, she’d have to turn around. Follow us. Follow us. The words beat to the same rhythm as the blood thumping in her temples.

  “Are they coming this way?” The road curved around to the left and she could no longer see the truck. “Can you tell? With your senses?”

  Rift nodded and sat up a little straighter in his seat. “They’re coming this way.”

  Elise and Caleb sank down in the back seat. “We’d better look like children and not adults.”

  “If they are shifters, will they be able to tell that you’re not children?” Belle kept looking in the rearview mirror, waiting for the truck to catch them up. Would they try ramming the car off the road? Surely it was too exposed here with cars passing in the other direction.

  “Possibly. It’s not an easy thing to tell. The main problem is they might be able to tell if we’re shifters. If they risk getting that close.” He turned around in his seat. “I think we need to go with Elise’s plan.”

  Caleb sucked in a deep breath and nodded. “You’re right. But we need to make sure it doesn’t look too obvious.”

  “How much farther?” Rift asked Elise.

  “A couple of miles.” Elise showed him the map on her phone.

  “We need to go faster,” Rift told Belle. “We need to look as if we’re trying to outrun them. If not, it’s going to look pretty obvious that we’re trying to lure them off the road.”

  “Okay.” She nodded and pressed her foot down on the gas. The car leaped forward, it was easier to drive faster on the more open road but there were still plenty of twists and turns that might hide danger.

  “Great. You’re doing great,” Rift told her.

  “That’s not how I feel,” she admitted. “Where are they taking the kids and my mom?”

  “Aiden and Flora are taking them to Wishing Moon Bay. It’s where we live. They’ll be safe there, I promise.” Rift kept his attention fixed on the road behind.

  “Wishing Moon Bay. I’ve never heard of it. Is it far?” Panic rose inside her. Had she made a mistake? What if this was all part of their plan? Was she the one heading into an ambush?

  “It’s a couple of hours away. Our mom owns a hotel there. They’ll be safe. Our brothers are there. They’ll protect them,” Rift assured her.

  “More brothers?” Belle asked. “How many are there?” Although she was happy the rest of her family would be safe.

  If she could trust these people.

  “Six. Our mom, Valerie, adopted us when we were young. She’s the only mother we’ve really known. She’s one of the kindest people you could ever meet.” Rift swallowed hard. He obviously loved his mom.

  “That’s good to know.” Her jaw tensed. “I just want this over with.”

  “I know.” He lifted his hand and reached for her but then changed his mind and placed it back down on his thigh before looking in the side mirror once more. “I can see them. I can sense them.”

  “The turn off the road is about a mile up ahead,” Elise said. “The road curves right and then left. If you speed up a little more, it’ll seem like you’re trying to outrun them.”

  “If I get too far ahead, they’ll miss me turning off the road.” Belle pushed the car to go faster.

  “Once they find out they’ve lost you, they’ll double back.” Rift kept watching in the mirror. “Or, if they turn off right after us, we’ll know at least one of them are shifters.”

  “So, right now, they can sense us just like you can sense them.” Belle nodded, of course, they would. She still couldn’t get her head around the idea of shifters. But she couldn’t deny what her eyes had seen.

  What was weirder? That shifters could change from a person to an animal, or that they had super senses. Each was unnatural to her. Yet perfectly natural to them. As natural as walking and talking.

  She ran her hand through her hair. This day was the craziest day of her life. Even crazier than the day Landon had told her he was leaving her and the kids. She’d always figured that would be the worst day of her life. Now, she wasn’t so sure.

  “Are you okay?” Rift asked.

  She blinked. “Yes.”

  “Only you’re easing off the gas.” He nodded toward her foot on the pedal.

  “I’m worried I’m going to go around one of these bends and crash into something,” she admitted but only to excuse her lack of concentration.

  “There’s no one in front of us. At least not a person or another vehicle,” he assured her.

  “And you would know that because of your senses.” She nodded. “They are handy, that’s for sure.”

  “Okay, here on the left. Two hundred feet. One hundred feet,” Elise sounded like a sat nav as she guided Belle to the turnoff. “There.”

  Belle took her foot off the gas and touched the brake, slowing down enough to take the corner without skidding across the road. Her car handled it perfectly. As she straightened the wheel, she pushed down on the gas. They needed to be out of sight of the road before the truck passed them by.

  “I can sense them. They’re close.” Rift turned around in his seat and stared out of the back window even though he said he could sense them. Caleb and Elise did the same as Belle kept her eyes on the narrow road ahead.

  “They went past.” Caleb turned to face his brother. “We need a plan.”

  Belle slowed down as they got to the end of the road, which ended in a trail that led into the surrounding forest. As she steered the car around in a circle, her passengers devised a plan to take down the guys who had been following Belle and her family.

  “Okay. Rift and I will get out of the car and head back up the road. When they come, we’ll follow behind and make sure they can’t escape.” Caleb looked at them each in turn. “Elise, you and Belle wait in the car.” He held up his hand as Elise was about to protest. “Please, you need to stay with Belle. You are our last line of defense.”

  Elise rolled her eyes. “Like if anyone can get past you two, I’d be able to take them down.”

  “If there are four of them, there’s a chance one might get past us. If so, I am confident my fae mate will take him out.” Caleb leaned forward and kissed her cheek, but Elise grabbed a hold of him and kissed his lips.

  A small smile slid across Rift’s face as he turned away to give the couple some privacy. As he moved, he locked eyes with Belle. How she longed to let her guard down and give in to this mating bond.

  What would it be like to trust in fate, to become the
mate of the man who was seated next to her?

  A man who would risk everything for her.

  After this was over, perhaps it was time to find out.

  Chapter Ten – Rift

  “They’re coming.” Rift’s words were met by a sharp intake of breath from Belle, while Elise and Caleb finally broke their kiss.

  “Are you sure?” Belle’s face paled. “Of course you’re sure.”

  She trusts us, at last, Rift’s snow leopard told him.

  She does, Rift agreed. When they’d first met up with Belle and her family as they escaped the people after them, Rift was certain she thought this might be a setup.

  She was wary of them. And she had every right to be, for all she knew they were playing her.

  Now, she looked at him with trust in her eyes.

  If only we knew what these guys wanted, Rift’s snow leopard said as he and Caleb got out of the car.

  It must have to do with Reggie, Rift answered. But what? There had been no time for discussions after they had swapped places with Belle’s family. But, depending on the outcome of this fight, they would have to try to figure it out.

  If we can get hold of one of the men, I can make him talk, the snow leopard was confident in his claim.

  Oh, we’ll make them talk, Rift assured him. This ends today.

  Although, there was no certainty of that. These men might be hired thugs sent by someone else. Someone who meant Belle and her family harm.

  It made little sense since Reggie was dead. Why would someone want to hurt them?

  Why did Murray take the twins after their parents were dead? His snow leopard had a point.

  But why after all this time? Why after Reggie died?

  Maybe there’s something in the house they want. His snow leopard flicked his tail angrily.

  Rift glanced at the trunk of the car. Was that the answer? Did the car contain something they wanted? If so, would it be easier for them to simply hand it over and be done with the whole thing? Unless it’s something of sentimental value. He looked at Belle through the windshield as he joined Caleb in front of the car.

  It’s too late to ask. He sniffed the air. They were close. Something was close.