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Matt steered the SUV carefully over the bridge, mindful of black ice. His nerves were jangling like sons of bitches, but it wasn't the road he was worried about.
Kayla was picking at one of her fingernails. The wolf shifter wasn't usually nervous about anything, but here she was alternating between finger-combing her short, black hair, picking at her nails, and feeding Matt's anxiety right back at him in a loop of tension.
He cracked a window, hoping to dilute the stale scent of nervousness. "Special K, can you settle down?"
She frowned at the nickname, but stopped picking at her nail and reached for a bag of chips on the dashboard. "So I was thinking, maybe we should grab a motel room in Helene."
"Scared to face Jameson?" Matt asked, sending a calculated smile her way.
She shook her head and tossed a Frito at him. "You are, too."
"Maybe we should've told him we were coming."
"And give him a chance to tell us no?" Kayla asked. "Hells no. He's a sucker for a sob story, and once we tell him in person how bad we've had it with fucking Bronson and Sloan, he'll let us in. He won't have a chance to talk himself out of it."
Matt nodded. "And you want to delay going back to the Ring of Fire because...?"
"Because I'm scared, you asshole. I don't want to have to go rogue and find new territory, and you don't, either."
Matt just shrugged. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad to just walk away from this whole thing. Say goodbye to the shitstorm that was Idaho shifter politics and find somewhere else to start over. He frowned at the snow that had just begun falling. He'd choose a warmer territory, for sure. Maybe Nevada or Texas.
"So?" Kayla said, tossing another Frito at him.
"So what?"
"So, how about getting a motel?"
He sighed. He really didn't want to delay this for longer than necessary, but Kayla was looking at him with her puppy dog eyes, and what the fuck did he care, anyway? "Fine."
"Yay, thank you!" She gave a little bounce in her seat. "Oh, and I need to stop at the next gas station."
"Are you serious?"
"Seriously full of pee," she said.
Matt shook his head. "Can't you wait just one more hour?"
"Nope. There's that little station near Helene, the one the rogue grizzly owns."
Yeah, that was a meeting Matt could do without. The grizzly was a cranky motherfucker. Matt pointed at the giant to-go cup Kayla had filled with soda when they got gas at the start of the trip. "I knew I shouldn't have let you get that."
"You're not the boss of me."
"I rank higher than you in the pack."
"We're not in the pack anymore—we're rogue until the RCC takes us in."
He shot her a look. He was more dominant than her, and they both knew it. However, he didn't feel like arguing the point to death. Arguing might lead to questions, and he didn’t want to lie to Kayla if he didn’t have to, so he shrugged and went back to driving.
The trees were thick on either side of the highway, but not so thick snow hadn't reached the ground beneath them. The landscape would be a perfect January page for an Idaho calendar, all trees and mountains and snow. And within the wilderness, he knew, there were battling factions of monsters, all intent on keeping territory and gaining power.
And Matt—he was just a pawn in Bronson’s game.
"What are you gonna do there, anyway?" Kayla asked.
"Whatever Jameson wants me to do. I can run patrols around the territory again, or find a job working construction." Matt didn't really care. He just wanted to get in and get out.
They went around a curve and the little gas station came into view.
"There it is," Kayla said. "Pull over." Then, seeming to remember that he actually was the more dominant of the two of them, she added, "Please?"
Matt groaned, but he did as she asked.
Another SUV sat at the pumps, so Matt pulled up on the other side, thinking he might as well feed the beast while he was here. "Give the man a twenty for gas while you're in there," he told Kayla.
She gave him a mock salute and then hurried into the convenience store.
Matt climbed out of the car and checked out the two women standing next to the other SUV. Attractive, in their early thirties.
"Hey, handsome," one of them said, eyeing him appreciatively.
Oh, he knew how to play this game.
"Hi," he said, giving his most flirtatious grin.
"Is she your significant other?" the brunette asked, pointing to the store where Kayla had disappeared.
"More like a sister," he said.
The blonde spoke up. "Oh, you're traveling with your sister? How nice."
Kayla wasn't really his sister, but that was a minor detail. Humans couldn't scent his lies. No one could scent his lies.
"Except she's a pest," he said with a smile directed at them both.
They chuckled.
"Still," he continued, "I love her. And with our parents gone, well, she's all I've got."
What was taking Kayla so damn long to pee? Matt gave a sad smile to the women. They both looked enamored, and he mentally gave himself a fist bump for the charm working once again.
He uncapped the gas tank and pumped some fuel into the car while the women peppered him with questions about his life with his sister. He answered their questions with a mixture of truths and falsehoods, entertaining not only himself, but the two women. By the time he was done pumping the gas, Kayla had emerged from the store, carrying another giant cup of soda and bearing an armful of junk food.
She took one look at him with the women and rolled her eyes. "Stop flirting, butthole."
Matt turned to the women and grinned. "Like I said, she's a pest."
Kayla hurled a pack of Twinkies at him, which he caught easily. "Stop talking about me—let's go."
With a last grin at the women, Matt said, "It was truly wonderful chatting with you two beautiful women. I hope we run into each other again sometime."
They beamed at him and waved goodbye as he got into his car and pulled away from the station. He tossed the Twinkies into Kayla's lap, ignoring the way she was staring at him.
"So, we're going to Helene to find a motel?" he asked.
"Yeah, sure, whatever." She sounded annoyed.
"What?" he asked. "And hand me one of those Twinkies."
"I'll never understand how you do it," Kayla said. "Even I believe you're in love with them. You're not, are you?"
"Nope."
"I just don't understand how you can be so convincing," Kayla muttered, tearing open the Twinkies package. She handed one to him.
He popped the pastry into his mouth. "I don't understand it, either."
It was an outright lie.
Despite being a shifter, Kayla would never know he was being dishonest. Because Matt Camden had a rather unique talent—as far as he knew, he was the only person in the world who could successfully lie to shifters.