Jace saw the determination in my eyes, and he frowned. “Hell, don’t do this to Marc. What will his life be like if you go with him? He’d spend every day fighting for you, and even Marc can’t fight forever.”
Fear sank through me like an anchor to the seafloor, pinning me to the spot where I stood. But Jace wasn’t done.
“That’s assuming the council doesn’t go after him for kidnapping you. And you know Calvin would do it.”
He was right. Marc was as good as dead if I went with him. There were strays in the free zone who would kill him for a shot at me. If the council didn’t get him first.
And my father would waste incalculable time and resources looking for me.
Damn it!
I exhaled slowly, and when my shoulders slumped in defeat, Jace let go of my arms. “This isn’t over,” I whispered as he pulled me into a hug that bruised my heart as much as it comforted me. My eyes watered, and I blinked away tears. I would not cry about this again. I was done crying. It was time to get mad.
Anger was so much more productive than tears.
I pulled away from Jace gently so he wouldn’t take it personally, and met his eyes with a fresh layer of determination reinforcing my resolve. I would do what the council wanted; I would help them with Kaci. But I’d do it my way, and if they couldn’t handle that, they could go fuck themselves.I had nothing left to lose. Except for my life, which had less and less value each time they cut something out of it. So while I was playing their game, I would also be playing mine. I would find a way to get Marc back into the Pride. A loophole or something.
If I couldn’t talk him out of submitting, his exile would only be temporary. I would see to that.
Bending, I snatched my hiking boots from the floor and pulled them on one at a time, so angry I tugged the laces tight enough to cut off the circulation in my foot, then had to loosen them. “When is Marc leaving?”
“His plane takes off first thing in the morning.”
“Where is he?”
“In his room,” Jace said, and I glanced at the wall separating me from Marc, now aware that he’d probably heard every word we’d said.
“What about everyone else?” The cabin was silent around us, but for the distant hum of the refrigerator in the kitchen.
“At the lodge. Your dad said to take you over when you woke up.” He followed me out of the bedroom and across the living room.
“Fine.” I pulled open the front door and kicked the screen with one foot. It crashed into the exterior wall of the cabin then bounced back, and I held it open for him. “Consider your duty done.”
He stepped outside and I pulled the screen shut behind him, locking it with a quick flip of one finger. “What are you doing?” Jace demanded, rattling the handle.
Instead of answering, I closed the heavy oak door in his face and twisted the knob lock, then slid the security chain into place.
“Faythe! It isn’t really bringing you in if you don’t come with me!”
“I’ll be there in a few minutes. Walk slowly. I’ll catch up.”
“No. Faythe! Open the damn door!” Jace’s fist slammed into the screen door and Plexiglas splintered. He could tear the screen right off its hinges if he wanted to, but the solid oak panel would take him much longer to get through. Satisfied for the moment, I was headed toward the kitchen to secure the back entrance when footsteps clomped across the front porch and his knuckles rapped the window, rattling it in its frame. “Don’t make me break the glass, Faythe. You know I’ll do it.”
I exhaled in frustration, then marched back to the front door and unlocked it.
“Half an hour, Jace.” I pulled the door open and stared at him through the screen, begging wordlessly for a few minutes alone with Marc. “Is that too much for a dying woman to ask?”
He scowled, unamused. “You are not dying.”
“Somehow I doubt your stepfather would agree.”
Hinges creaked behind me and I turned to see Marc standing in his bedroom doorway wearing a faded Poison concert T-shirt and jeans with a hole in one knee. “What the hell are you doing, Faythe?”
“Bargaining for a little privacy. I need to talk to you, and I’m tired of everyone overhearing every word we say.”
Marc hesitated, watching my eyes for several seconds. Then his gaze shifted from me to Jace, and he nodded.
“Marc…” Jace complained, and I turned to find confliction drawn in the deep lines around his frown.
“Go,” Marc ordered, and Jace glanced back and forth between us in uncertainty. Technically, Marc had no authority over him anymore. But I wasn’t going to tell him that, and apparently Jace wasn’t, either.
“I’ll wait here—on the porch—for half an hour. But the deal’s off if anyone comes out here. Or calls.”
“Fine. Thank you.” I forced a small smile of gratitude, but he turned away before it was fully formed. I closed the door again, trying not to think about the dejection in his eyes. I had enough of my own emotional shit to shovel at the moment. I’d deal with Jace later. Assuming I had a later.
“What was that all about?” Marc leaned against the bedroom door frame and crossed his arms, pulling his shirt snug across the well-defined planes and bulges of his chest. The concert tee was his idea of casual Friday, though it was only Thursday. We’d been on the mountain four days, and so far I’d killed a stray, been gored, counseled a feral tabby and gotten Marc exiled.
Overall, not my best week.
“Nothing.” I leaned with the sole of one boot against the closed front door, trying to decide whether to yell at him for leaving or beg him to stay. “You don’t have to go, you know. You can’t just roll over and bare your throat for Malone.”
He sighed and shook his head wearily. “Don’t do this, Faythe. It’s over, and you have to let it go. Let me go.”
“No.” I shoved away from the door with my foot, jogging after him into his room. He swung the bedroom door shut but I slapped it aside with one palm. “Hell no. I’m not going to let you walk away from this. From me.”
Marc sat on the rumpled right-hand bed next to his packed suitcase, his elbows resting on his knees. “What do you want, Faythe? What the hell do you want from me?” When he looked up, I saw fire in his eyes—a familiar blaze of indignation that made my heart thump harder in the hope that he might get mad enough to save himself. To save us, if we were to ever be us again. And I’d always assumed we eventually would be.
“I want you to do something, instead of bending over while they fuck you. I want you to stand up for what you want!”
“That’s not what you want.” He rose, eyes glittering furiously in spite of little available light, and stepped into my personal space. “I stood up for what I wanted two months ago and you handed me my heart—not to mention my balls—all wrapped up in your fucking pride and independence. And now you stand here yelling at me for not being willing to sing that song all over again? That’s bullshit, Faythe. What is this about? What do you really want from me?”
“I said I didn’t want your damn ring,” I said, flashing back to the night we’d broken up “I never said I didn’t want you.” My words came out in a gutless whisper, which was the most I could manage without either crying or shouting. “This was not in the plan.”
He huffed and leaned with both palms flat on the dresser, his back to me. “Plans change.”
“Not if you don’t let them.”
Marc shook his head in either disgust or frustration; I couldn’t tell which. “When are you going to learn? When are you going to grow the fuck up and understand that you don’t make all the rules. Hell, you don’t make any of the rules, and neither do I.” He straightened and faced me expectantly, like he really wanted an answer, but I had no idea what to say because he was right. But he wasn’t done.“You don’t want me to stand against the council. You want a magic wand, so you can walk around smacking people with it until everything’s just the way you like it. But guess what, Faythe? Life doesn’t work like that. Life bites, and the harder you fight it, the more leverage it has to tear your heart right out of your chest. And if you really want to wake this particular sleeping dog, the truth is that if you’d just taken that ‘damn ring’ five years ago, none of this shit would ever have happened!”
Stunned, I stared at Marc, blinking in silence as pain ripped through my chest, an echo of what Radley had done to my stomach, only infinitely worse. More personal. More agonizing. My breath abandoned my body in one long, ragged exhale. I fell against the wall and slid to the floor, my arms wrapped around my knees.
“I’m sorry.” Marc’s arms fell limp at his sides and his head dropped in defeat. Or in regret. “I shouldn’t have said that.”
“Yes, you should have. It’s the truth.” If I’d married him the first time he’d asked me, we’d probably have a home of our own several miles from the ranch, and a backyard full of swings and sandboxes. No excitement and no danger—for me at least. No capital crimes, no dead ex and no possibility of an execution.
“I’ve messed everything up. I know.” And in that moment, if I could have taken it all back, I would have.