Not for the first time that night, he wondered how much pain she was in and how she could put up such a strong front. Idiot. If she would just tell him she needed a rest, he would let her. Even though she didn’t deserve his pity.

Maybe it was a good thing they were on the same team. If they hadn’t been, he might have killed her before now.

They walked in silence for a while, her weight surprisingly heavy at his back. Though she was slender, her body was all lean muscle, firm but not hard owing to the thin layer of feminine fat that softened her curves.

She could use a little more of it, he thought, shifting her so her bony pelvis didn’t bite into his back. He was not, he assured himself, not irritated at the fact her body being pressed so close to him would probably succeed in giving him a fatal hard-on. He was pissed off that she didn’t listen, and now he had to cart her heavy ass all over Grand Rapids .

She’d gone so long without talking, he wondered if she’d fallen asleep. But then she sat up abruptly, her body completely rigid. “He is close. That way.”

“Of course he is,” Max grumbled, turning in the direction indicated by her impatient shirt tugs.

The direction of Cyrus’s old place.

Anger burned in Max. Of course he would have something to do with this. “I know where he’s going.”

“Then take us there faster,” she ordered impatiently.

Max picked up the pace a little, not quite as eager to find their quarry as she seemed to be. “Why? You’re in no shape to fight, and I certainly can’t with you hanging on me like a diseased monkey.”

She slapped him on the top of the head, a pretty ballsy thing to do to someone she was riding on, in his opinion. “I am a wolf. Please do not make me any closer to your pathetic species than I already am.”

“Oh, sorry.” He rolled his eyes, despite the fact she wouldn’t see it. “But you seem to conveniently forget I’m not a human.”

“You were, once.” She said it like it was a bad thing.

He let that slide. “If I’m right—and as we’ve established, I’m rarely wrong—he’s going to Cyrus’s mansion.”

“On

Plymouth Street

?” She sounded as surprised that he knew about the place as he was surprised she knew.

“That’s the one. In cozy with him, were you?” It was a cheap shot. No self-respecting werewolf would get it on with a vampire.

That bothered him more than it should.