Chapter 320 Chapter 320
Deacon stared out the window as Giana drove. She’d been pushing the speed limit since they left her clan an hour ago. He was trying and failing at not thinking of what the king had told him. There was no way he was suddenly an Alpha in the Alliance. He dragged his hand over his beard for probably the tenth time in a span of a few minutes. He didn’t doubt the king had the power to do that, if he said it was fact, then it was. Deacon Parrish an Alpha? He started to reach for his beard again, then dropped his hand and looked at it. The child of clan less rouges that spent most of his childhood getting in fights and barely surviving, an Alpha? There had to be some catch. There was always a catch. Some sort of condition that wasn’t spoken, but still existed and you only found out after it was too late.
Deacon’s animal was anxious, and he had only himself to blame. The constant merry-go-round of his thoughts right now was enough to drive anyone crazy. He needed to distract himself and get out of his head. Usually going for a run helped with that, but as he was stuck in the van, that wasn’t an option. He glanced over at her again, she looked as tense as he felt. Both hands gripped the steering wheel like it was a battle of strength. “You can probably slow down now. You left all of your demons behind about twenty minutes ago.”
He watched her grin, but she didn’t look at him. “You never know.” She glanced at him, humor in her eyes, “if my father had a change of heart, he’d have no problem sending his hounds of hell for me.”
Deacon stared at her for a moment, “you call your brothers hounds of hell?”
She nodded, “yes, well, three of them.” She eased off the gas, “Walker goes against them almost as much as I do.”
“I like him.”
“He’s pretty likable.”
Deacon took off his hat and set it on the dash, “did your father send him down to the gorge?”
Shaking her head, she leaned back relaxing more, “no, Dad would have been calling someone and Walker didn’t feel like waiting around.”
“He could get a job with one of the teams if he wanted, he’s got good reflex actions.”
“Walker?” She held his look for a second, then looked back at the road, “he likes his administration job,” she shrugged, “it keeps Dad off his back while he still appears to be part of the clan and Alpha family.”
“So you’re the only rebel.” He crossed his arms and looked out the windshield for a moment. “I didn’t know things were bad enough that you moved out.”
She was quiet for a moment, “Dad tried to give me an ultimatum to persuade me to drop being on the co-ord team.” Putting the window down, she paused and breathed the air coming in like she was suffocating as she thought of it. “It didn’t work. I packed my stuff and left, just before we were to meet up with the others.”
“Where do you live now?”
Giana gave him a serious look, then smirked, “you’re riding in it.”
He leaned and looked back in the back of the van, then back to her. “You’re going to live in the van?”
“I didn’t have time to think of an alternative and then I got the call that I was going across the border to be part of the other team.” She gave him a quick glance, “Amari practically lives in her transport, the rest of the team too.”
Deacon sat back again, “yeah, we spend a lot of time on the road too.”
“I just want to get back down there and get more of ours out.” She nodded, still looking at the road, “the feeling I had when those people came out, it felt like I was finally doing something worthwhile.”
“The adrenalin is addictive.” He watched her as she navigated a corner, “but worth it when you see them realize that they’re finally free.”
“I can’t imagine what that’s like for them, to live like that.”