Pride (Shifters #3)(47)

Marc exhaled deeply, and the sound settled into a fragile, excruciating silence. In spite of everything I’d done, he still respected me too much to sugarcoat the truth. To absolve me of all blame. And as much as it hurt, I loved him for it.
“Tell me what you want, Faythe. Just tell me what you want me to do, and I’ll do it.”
I wanted a do over. A time machine. That magic wand. But real life didn’t have any easy outs, and very few happily-ever-afters. The real world was more like a Choose Your Own Adventure book, with most of the choices ripped out before you even opened the cover.
“I…” I stared at the floor so I wouldn’t have to meet his eyes while I impaled my heart on my sleeve, where it could be shredded by a single sharp word from him. “I want you to love me enough to stay.”
There, I’d said it—I’d admitted aloud what I hadn’t once said directly in the ten weeks since we’d broken up. And it was too late to take it back now, no matter how he reacted.
I looked up to find surprise in the slack line of Marc’s mouth and the slight tilt of his head. Pain rippled across his features like a repressed shudder, and when he spoke, it echoed in his voice, hollow and hurt.
“I’m walking away because I love you. Because Calvin Malone is after me, not you, and if I go, he’ll leave you alone.” 
Twenty

“What?” I blinked, trying to make sense of the new information, without much luck. “Why would he leave me alone once you’re gone?”
Marc gave me one hand, and I let him pull me up. “Malone never approved of your dad taking me in, and Blackwell can’t see anything beyond his damn good old days. They aren’t the only ones, either. This has been coming for a long time, and now they’ve found a way to get rid of me. They’ll make your dad choose between you and me.”
I shook my head, still confused. “I don’t understand. How is Daddy choosing between us?”
“Malone gave him a choice—off the record, of course. If Greg doesn’t fight my exile, Malone—as the head of the tribunal—will suddenly decide the death penalty isn’t warranted for you.”
What? “You can’t be serious.” Yet suddenly Malone’s phony fear for my safety—even as he pushed to have me executed—made sense. The trumped-up charge against Marc was intended to force my father’s hand, to make him kick Marc out.
And it had worked.
Marc pushed his suitcase over and sat at the head of his bed while I sank onto the one opposite his. “Unfortunately, I’m completely serious. Your uncle thinks once I’m gone, Malone will have a change of heart. He’s guessing they’ll give you a warning, probation, and probably a long-term suspension, to make it look real. And the worst part is that that corrupt son of a bitch is going to come off looking merciful on us both.”
But he was wrong there. The worst part was that Marc would be gone.
I let my skull thump against the headboard as I stared at the ceiling. “That’s so wrong! My hearing has nothing to do with you! He can’t make Daddy choose.”
Yet we both knew he could. If he got a majority vote, Calvin Malone could do whatever he wanted. I’d known all along that he hated Marc; I just hadn’t realized how far he was willing to go to get rid of the token stray.
The rest of the Territorial Council had been tolerant of my father’s eccentricity at first, amused by the tenderhearted lion taking in the orphaned kitten. But when that kitten grew up big and strong—and especially when he became the front-runner in the race for my heart, a position as Alpha of our Pride, and a seat on the Territorial Council—a handful of them had panicked. For the last five years, several of the Alphas, including Calvin Malone, had been pressuring my father to marry me off to someone else—one of their sons, naturally. But he’d steadily refused, insisting that I would make up my own mind when the time was right.
But, shrew that I was, I’d proved him wrong; I’d turned down every offer of marriage that came my way—including Marc’s. Now that I’d come home and was trying to win him back, those Alphas were evidently panicking anew at the thought of a stray sitting on the council with them. Led by Malone, they were going to all new lows to get rid of him.
And I’d just given them the perfect opportunity.
“So it’s all a game!” Fury fused with relief and I sat up, my hand clenching and unclenching around the bedspread. “It’s just a fucking game, and they’ve made their move. All we have to do is outmaneuver them. Which should be easy now that we know they aren’t really going to execute me.”
Marc shook his head slowly, sadly, and twisted to look at me. “It’s not a game, Faythe. It’s a power play, and they’ve already won. The death sentence isn’t a bluff.” He inhaled deeply, preparing to say something I was obviously not going to like. “I think it was a bluff at first, to scare you into letting one of their sons knock you up. But now they think they’ve found a replacement for you—a tabby with no connection to either me or your father. With whom they could edge us right out of our own Pride.”Kaci. Shit. Fear rushed through my veins, throbbing viciously with each beat of my heart. They wanted the young, scared, impressionable, orphaned tabby instead of the stubborn, uncooperative hellcat they thought me to be. “Son of a bitch!” Once they had Kaci, they wouldn’t need me, at which point my existence became of no importance whatsoever. And that’s exactly what Marc had been trying to tell me.
They had trapped my father in a lose-lose situation, and they didn’t really care which option he chose. If he picked Marc, they’d execute me. Daddy would have no daughter, thus no heirs. He would eventually lose control of our Pride, and the council would give it to whomever they’d married Kaci off to—some tom they could easily control.
But if my dad chose me, Marc would already be out of the way, thus ineligible for a spot at my side and on the council. If I settled down with one of their sons, my chosen tom would inherit the territory and my father’s seat on the council. If I still refused to marry, they’d replace me with Kaci.
A chill raced through me, sprouting goose bumps in its wake. “They’re trying to handpick Daddy’s replacement. They think they can pair Kaci with the tom of their choosing and cut us right out of our own territory!” My head whirled, my thoughts flying too fast to examine. “They’ll probably pick one of Malone’s boys.” Who would one day become an Alpha, as well as a member of the Territorial Council, in effect giving Calvin Malone control of two territories, which would make him the most powerful member of the council. “We can’t let him do this! Marrying Kaci off to a tom of their choosing is no better than what Miguel had in mind for me and Abby.”
“I know. It’s revolting.” Marc swallowed thickly.
“Damn, I hope I’m wrong about her being a stray.” If she was a Pride tabby, even an orphaned Pride tabby, there would be a gaggle of brothers and enforcers out there somewhere looking for her. And surely whatever she’d run away from was no worse than what Malone had planned for her.
Or maybe it was. Why else would she leave the security of her own home to wander on her own for weeks at a time, sick, starving, and injured?
Shit. There was a very good chance that poor thirteen-year-old tabby was stuck between the ultimate rock and hard place—a location I was intimately familiar with. I had to help her.
“We have to find out where she comes from and who might be looking for her. We have to protect her, Marc.”
He shook his head slowly, as if it felt too heavy to move. “You have to protect her, and to do that, you have to be alive. That’s why I’m leaving. It’s the best thing I can do for both of you.” His gaze burned into me, branding my soul with the memory of everything we’d once been. Everything we would lose once he was gone. 
And he made it sound so damn permanent.
“There has to be another way to fix this.” I shifted on the spare bed, and the mattress creaked beneath me. “I can’t protect Kaci on my own, and losing you will make it worse, not better.” And I sure as hell couldn’t stomach the thought of spending the rest of my life without him. Much less ever replacing him, which the council would make me do eventually. The hearing had taught me that, if nothing else.
I brushed a strand of hair from my face, trying desperately to force down the fear clawing up the inside of my throat. “You can’t go. I won’t let you. I can’t.” My voice cracked as I spoke, and finally broke on the last word.
Marc crossed the room to stare out the window, as if it hurt to look at me. “I can’t stay here and watch them kill you. Please, Faythe. Just let me go.”
Tears blurred my vision, and I tried to blink them away, but they fell instead, scalding twin paths down my cheeks. “No.” I stood and crossed the room, wiping my face with my sleeve. Not for good.
“Don’t make this any harder,” he whispered as my hands found his chest. “Please.”
I stood on my toes and brushed my lips against his. His scent surrounded me, triggering memories I hadn’t thought of in years, and reactions I’d never once forgotten.