A Kitty in the Lion's Den(31)

“I don’t think any differently of you, Marick, and I want my father dead just as much as the next person.”

He wanted to wrap his arms around her and comfort her, because the pain she was feeling was thick and suffocating. His little kitten was a gentle creature, and for as shitty and fucked up as Viktor was, and the fact she wanted him dead, she still felt bad for wishing death on anyone. He pulled into his driveway and cut off the engine. For a moment all they did was sit there in silence, their thoughts as loud as if they were speaking them. But Maverick had to touch her. He reached over, pulled her closer to him, and kissed the top of her head.

“You should, because I am not a good male, Kettah.” The touch of her hand along his had him pulling away just enough to look down at her. She held his hand with hers, ran her finger along the length of his thumb, and he felt his heart jerk in his chest.

“I can relate to feeling like you’re worthless, that you are guilty by association, and the evil that surrounds you will take hold and drag you down to hell.” She rested her head on his shoulder, and a serene, almost tranquil, stillness filled the air. “You are a good male, Maverick. You have wanted nothing more than to protect me since we first met, and I know that if not for you I would have already been found.” She slipped her fingers between his, and they sat in more silence for several seconds.

There was no running for her, or for them, because it would be a never-ending cycle, and eventually they would be found.

“I still can’t help but blame myself for bringing this to Sweet Water, if it comes to that.”

It would come to that, Maverick knew without a doubt. It was just a matter of how quickly it would land on his doorstep. “You have nothing to blame yourself for, baby. I may have been under their radar for the last six years, but I’ve also lived this life longer than you, and have been right in the thick of it.” But it might only have been a matter of time before I was found. I stayed too close. “Believe me. These men are ruthless when it comes to something they want. It just happens to be that I am smarter than they are.” He turned his head and pressed his mouth to the top of her head again. With the darkness surrounding them, and the still of the night, Maverick could almost picture himself with Kettah in a world that wasn’t fucked up.

****

Konstantine wiped the blood from his hands and looked at the work he had done on the wolf shifter. Bronson and Sevastian were busy untying him from the chair, and immediately his lifeless body slumped to the floor. Once they had reached Sugar Rush finding out some information on the whereabouts of Kettah hadn’t been easy. They had searched every square inch of the town and hadn’t come up with anything. Kettah wasn’t smart enough that she could evade them for this long, so it had meant that someone had helped her get out of this shitty little town. So what had Konstantine done? He had started talking with the shitty folk that lived in this rundown town, starting with the local drunks in a bar attached to the one and only motel, until one of them had some useful information for him. The three of them had ended up finding the asshole currently bleeding out on the floor, who had told them exactly what they wanted to know.

Konstantine pulled out his cell, punched in his father’s number, and grew fucking excited to tell him the information he had acquired.

“If you’re calling you better know where she is. It has been too fucking long, and my patience is thin as hell.” His father’s voice was low and annoyed.

“Not only do we know where she went, we also know the location of someone else that might be of interest to you.” There was a beat of silence.

“Don’t fucking play games, boy.” His father’s voice was a low growl.

“She left Sugar Rush with someone, because you and I know she isn’t smart enough to evade us for this long. The wolf male we got the information from described a certain lion shifter with fucking clarity.” There was a long pause, and Konstantine could practically feel the excitement come from his father right through the damn phone. “The wolf said some big motherfucker got into a fight over the girl, and then after they went into a motel room for a while, she left with him in a truck. He said some guy with nasty looking claw marks was bitching about the whole thing at the bar. That human is off the grid, but the one I got the information out of knew enough. He even described her to us, smelled her Pallas’s cat all over the human that apparently wanted a piece of her ass, and we know it’s Kettah. The way the wolf described the lion shifter she left with … I have no doubt it’s Marick. His description matches the lion to a fucking T.”