Free The Twiceborn Queen (The Proving Book 2) by Marina Finlayson Page A

room and found the guys had stripped it nearly bare, so I grabbed a suitcase out of the hall cupboard and packed a few of my own things too. Leandra had the best of everything, and her clothes fit me pretty well, but we’d been two different people. Her taste in music, for instance, sucked. And she didn’t appear to own a single pair of running shoes. Too busy prancing around in designer outfits.
    Lucky we’d brought the big car. Even with the back row of seats laid flat we barely managed to squeeze everything in. Poor Steve had boxes piled up all around him. I felt a wrench as we pulled away from the kerb, and had to resist an urge to wave goodbye to the old house. Who knew when I’d see it again? But Garth already thought I was mad enough.
    He kept glancing in the rear vision mirror as he drove, a preoccupied look on his face.
    “What’s wrong?”
    “We’ve got someone on our tail. No, don’t turn round!”
    I froze guiltily, then tried to pretend I hadn’t had any such intention. Not that I would have been able to see past the piles of boxes.
    “Who is it?”
    “Don’t know. I don’t recognise the car. They’re sitting two cars back.”
    “Are you sure they’re really following us?”
    I don’t know why I should feel so surprised. People had followed me all the time when I’d worked as a herald delivering messages for shifters, though at the time I’d had no idea of the real nature of my job. I thought there were just a lot of secretive people in the world who were prepared to pay well for keeping their messages private—and a whole bunch of other people busy trying to find out where those messages were going. Delivering the messages undetected had been like a kind of game.
    When I thought about it now it didn’t make that much sense, but at the time I’d been in a very different headspace. With Lachie dead I didn’t give a crap about anything else, and I moved through the world in a kind of fog of despair, detached and completely lacking in curiosity. In fact I’d liked the thrill of adrenalin being followed always brought. It was the only time during those dark months that I’d ever felt alive.
    “Of course I’m sure.” Garth changed lanes and took a random left turn. In the rear-view mirror on the passenger side I caught a glimpse of a white sedan making the same turn. The driver had dark hair, but I couldn’t make out anything else in the tiny reflection.
    “Is that them? In the white car?”
    “Yep.” Garth checked his mirror again as we drove through a roundabout. “It’s a woman. Seems to be alone. She’s hanging back now—she’s let that guy in.”
    A car entered the roundabout from the right and slotted in behind us. The woman in the white car now sat two cars behind again.
    “What do you want to do?” I asked.
    He gave me a toothy grin. The big werewolf seemed to enjoy the adrenalin rush as much as I used to.
    “What would Luke do?”
    In the back seat Steve groaned. I shook my head. Garth and his damn Star Wars obsession. “Probably blow them up. Sadly for you, this is a Mazda, not an X-wing.”
    “Faith you must have,” he croaked in his best Yoda voice. “Show you I will.”
    I groaned too, but in truth I wanted to grin back. Garth so rarely showed a playful side. Always worrying. Always scowling. He looked about ten years younger when he smiled. Maybe he wasn’t as old as I’d thought. I was glad he wasn’t freaking out.
    For a time nothing happened. We continued along Epping Road. The sun shone and a catchy tune played on the radio. Around us the traffic flowed normally. The woman in the white car never got closer than two cars behind.
    We’d stopped for three red lights before we found ourselves the first car in line at the next one. We were in the middle lane. Garth stopped the car. The cars on either side pulled up too.
    Then he floored it, charging through the intersection as the cross-traffic started to move. Horns blared, but no one hit us. We were