I could kill him in half a second, if I wanted to. Marc presenting me with his throat said he trusted me with his life. It was the biggest compliment one cat could give another.
But the scary part was that he trusted me with his heart.
I forced that thought away and stood on my toes to reach his jaw. His hands roamed up from my waist, brushing the lower curves of my breasts. My tongue traced the line of his neck, following it to his collarbone. I lapped at the water pooled there, then my tongue ventured back up, searching out his mouth.
I pulled his head down for another kiss, and Marc groaned. His tongue found mine, and he walked us one step backward. My back hit the cold tile wall, and he pulled away to lift me beneath both arms, his stance wide for stability. I wrapped my legs around his hips and clung to him, my skin slick against his.
My breasts pressed into his chest. My good arm went around his neck. He lifted me higher, and I half sat on the soap shelf to help support my weight as his fingers slid down my side, leaving trails of fire in their wake. His hand slipped between us, testing, guiding. Then he lowered me slowly.
I held my breath until he was all the way in, and my next inhalation was so ragged it almost hurt. I rocked forward, and he moaned. His eyes closed, and he rocked with me. I draped both arms around his neck, closed my eyes and rode him. I let him set the pace—slow at first, but gaining speed as friction built.
He drove into me, pinning me to the wall, drawing small sounds from me with each stroke. He rocked me back and forth with a grip on both my hips. I clung to the top of the stall with my left hand and lightly clutched the showerhead with the fingers protruding from my cast. Each breath came faster, each thrust harder. My legs tightened around him as I sought more contact. Greater friction. More heat.
Finally, when I was sure I couldn’t hold back another second, Marc groaned and his strokes became frantic. I let go, and sensation washed over me, scalding compared to the now lukewarm water.
Spent, Marc leaned into me, and his head found my shoulder. His heart raced inches from mine, and I could hear each whoosh of his pulse.
After at least a minute like that, he lowered us until we sat on one corner of the shower floor, water spraying my back. I straddled him and leaned back so I could see his face. He stared at me, but he wasn’t smiling. He looked…scared. Determined.
I started to ask what was wrong, but he spoke before I could.
“Marry me, Faythe.”
I nearly choked on surprise. How many times was that request going to catch me off guard?
“This is the last time I’ll ask. I mean it. Marry me so that when all this is over, we can get a house of our own. A little land. A lot of privacy.”
“Marc…” But I had no idea how to finish that thought.
“We can do it however you want. We can have a ceremony, or stop by the courthouse on our way to Venice. You can wear a white dress, or a red dress, or jeans, or nothing at all. We can get married in the nude. I don’t care. We’ll do whatever you want. Just tell me you’ll marry me, so we can get something good out of all this.” His wide-spread arms took in every disaster the past few months had thrown at us, but his gaze never left mine. “Marry me, Faythe. Please.”
His face broke my heart. His eyes seared my soul.
I wasn’t good enough for him.
“Marc, we have to talk about…something.” I swallowed thickly, and put my good hand over his mouth when he started to protest. “I’m not saying no,” I insisted, and he relaxed visibly, as the spray of water across my back continued to cool. “But I can’t…I can’t do this now. There’s too much going on, and we need to talk first.”
He sat straighter, and I slid a few inches down his legs. “Whatever it is, it doesn’t matter. If it’s kids, or becoming Alpha, or whatever, it doesn’t matter. We’ll work it out.”He looked so hopeful, I wanted to smile, but didn’t let myself. He hadn’t heard what I had to say yet. “I—”
And that’s when the power went out.
Eleven
“Someone give me a flashlight.” My father’s voice rumbled from the other end of the hall. A bobbing shaft of light accompanied heavy footsteps toward him, and a Vic-shaped shadow handed over his flashlight.
Marc tucked his towel tighter around his waist, and the thin beam from his own penlight showed off drops of water still clinging to his chest and dripping from his hair. Having anticipated neither the full-scale air raid nor my wet embrace, he hadn’t brought a change of clothes.
In the deep shadows, the four parallel scars running across his chest looked terrible. Fresh. No doubt they were fresh in his mind, but he’d had them since he was fourteen, when the stray who’d raped and killed his mother had gored him, too, bringing him into my life.
For better or worse.
Three other beams crisscrossed the packed hallway as my father held an informal roll call, but a single steady pole of light caught my eye. Jace stood across from my room and several feet down, his face harshly lit by the beam from the small flashlight my mom kept beneath the kitchen sink. But even poorly illuminated, his expression was unmistakable. His focus jumped from me in my robe to Marc in his towel, and his jaw bulged furiously.
A tangle of emotions churned through me, threatening to wash me away in a tide of confusion, guilt, fear, and regret. And for a moment, I thought Jace was going to expose them all.
But when his gaze met mine, his anger softened into carefully controlled envy. Then he exhaled and dragged his focus to the end of the hall when my father cleared his throat to capture everyone’s attention.
Marc’s hand wound around mine. He hadn’t seen Jace watching us; he was focused on the problem at hand. Like a good enforcer.
“Vic, you and Parker go downstairs and flip the circuit breaker,” my dad said from his position near the front door. “And stay away from the cage. That thunderbird has an incredible wingspan, and he can Shift instantly.”
Vic nodded, already headed into the kitchen with a flashlight. Parker followed, his steps heavy, his grim frown exaggerated by the dark shadows stretched across his face. To my knowledge, he hadn’t spoken since he’d heard what Lance had done.
I knew how he felt—at least better than anyone else could. Lance had let Malone frame us for murder, putting all our lives at risk, including Parker’s. My brother Ryan had sold me out to a serial rapist jungle stray who’d planned to sell me as a broodmare in the Amazon. Betrayal sucks, but I had more faith in my pound-the-shit-out-of-something therapy than Parker’s drink-till-you-go-numb method of dealing.
“Karen, can you pass out candles and matches, just in case?” my dad said, drawing my attention back on track. My mother raised a handful of tapers she’d already collected, then ducked into the kitchen, probably to dig for matches. All of the enforcers kept two flashlights in their cars as part of the standard trunk emergency kit. Except for me; I didn’t have a car.
Unfortunately, venturing outside to raid half a dozen trunks carried more risk at that moment than stumbling around in the dark inside. Especially considering that several of us could partially Shift our eyes, if necessary.
My father’s stern focus skipped from face to shadowed face. “Everyone else, grab a candle and find something quiet to do while you wait. The lights should be back on any minute.” Then, as the toms shuffled toward the kitchen, my father mumbled beneath his breath. “So help me, if one of you sets my house on fire, I will replace the rug in my office with your hide.”
I snorted. An Alpha’s sense of humor was a rare beast indeed.
But my smile died on my lips when Vic and Parker clomped up the basement stairs, yet the house remained dark.
Kai cried out from below, in a screeching, dual-tone voice loud enough to echo in the crowded hall. “They’ve cut your power to draw you out. That means there are enough of us now to take you on in groups!”
“So, what do they expect us to do?” Jace demanded, while my father scowled from the center of a huddle with the other Alphas. “Walk out and surrender?”
“No.” I drew my robe tighter and held my broken arm at my stomach. “They expect us to die.”
My dad’s scowl deepened, and he led the other Alphas into his office with the flashlight they shared.
“This makes no sense,” Mateo Di Carlo said to the house in general, once the office door had closed. He stood as close as he could get to Manx without actually touching her while she nursed Des back to sleep. “Why would they believe Malone’s bullshit story, but not our truth?”
“They’d believe us if we had proof.” I waved Kaci forward when she peeked out of Owen’s room. My injured brother lay inside, listening and watching by candlelight from his bed. Michael sat in a chair beside him, taking it all in. “And that would be enough of a reason for them to break their word to Malone,” I continued. “To nullify the deal they made. But without evidence, they consider themselves honor-bound to uphold their word. And to avenge their dead.”
“They’re trying to kill us?” Kaci whispered.
I wrapped my casted arm around her. “Not you. They could have killed you earlier, but they didn’t. They’re trying to protect you and me and Manx.”
She looked less than reassured.
“This is crazy.” Brian Taylor stepped from the kitchen with a candle in one hand, its flame flickering over his freckles and the pale brown fuzz on his chin, emphasizing his youth. “How are we supposed to stop them? Shoot them out of the sky?”