“It’s the one Manx shot Jace with.” But I didn’t truly realize what I’d said until my mother scowled at me from across the counter, frozen in the act of wiping down the countertop.
Kaci’s hazel eyes widened in horror. “Manx shot Jace?”
I cursed myself silently for not giving her my full attention. That was probably one of those things a thirteen-year-old didn’t need to hear. At least, not without the full story. “It was an accident. She was aiming at…the bad guy behind me, but Jace thought she was aiming at me. So he jumped in front of me and got shot.”
Though it hardly seemed possible, her eyes went even wider and glazed over with what could only have been total adoration. “Jace took a bullet for you?”
“Um, yeah.” Actually, he’d taken a bullet for Luiz, but I wasn’t going to downplay his heroics—he’d been willing to take the bullet for me. And he still was. Jace would have done anything for me, and everyone in the house knew it.
But so would Marc.
I’d been staring at her brownie when I got lost in my own thoughts, and Kaci mistook my emotional turmoil for hunger. “Here.” She pushed the saucer and half her snack toward me. “It’s the last one. Take it.”
I forced a grin. “Thanks.” But as I chewed, Marc’s voice floated my way from the office.
“…she’s not going to go for that.”
“It’s not up to her,” my father replied, and I dropped the remainder of the brownie on the little plate.
“Just a minute…” I mumbled, then slid off my stool and raced across the dark hall and into the candlelit office. They’re talking about Manx or Kaci, I thought as I stepped past Jace and into the room. But that wasn’t true. I could tell from the way they all stared at me, their eyes identically shadowed in the gloom.
“What’s not up to me?” I demanded, in as respectful a tone as I could manage.
My father sighed and stood from his armchair. “We can fight them, but it isn’t going to be pretty. So I want you to take Kaci, Manx, and Des somewhere safe until this is over.”
No! But shouting at my Alpha—especially in front of his peers—would only make things worse. So I sucked in a deep breath and regrouped as everyone watched me, waiting for the fireworks. “I’d really rather stay and fight. Can’t someone else take them?”
“Teo’s volunteered to go with you,” Di Carlo said. “But we’re going to need everyone else here to fight.”
I glanced at Mateo, but he was ostensibly absorbed in cleaning beneath his fingernails. I’d never known Mateo Di Carlo to back down from a fight; Vic and his brother were very much alike in that respect. But he might never have another chance to spend so much time almost-alone with Manx. He was willing to miss the action for a chance to convince her that she’d be better off with him than with Owen.
Most toms never got a chance to learn to be subtle in their affections.
“Dad…” I began, but stopped when his eyes pleaded with me silently.
“Faythe, in all honesty, you can’t fight with a broken arm, and we want to send someone the tabbies trust with them. That’s you. We’re not trying to get rid of you, or even protect you. We’re depending on you to protect them.”
That was the truth; I could see that much. But it was only half the truth. He was trying to protect me.
“They won’t be in any danger,” I insisted. “The birds are supposed to get us out of the way, anyway, so they’ll probably let us drive right off the ranch, completely unmolested.”
My father nodded slowly. “That’s what we’re hoping. But just in case, we feel that you and Teo are best prepared to defend them.”
Okay, he had a point there. Mateo was in love with Manx—at least, he thought he was—and I’d give my own life to keep Kaci safe. “I’m not going to talk you out of this, am I?”
“I wish you wouldn’t try,” my father said evenly. So I nodded once. Decisively.
“Fine. I’ll go.” I swear every eyebrow in the room shot up and a couple of jaws dropped. They didn’t have to look so surprised. I wasn’t such a shrew, was I? “Where are we going?”
“If it wasn’t such a long drive—and through the free zone—we’d send you to Bert’s place.” Umberto Di Carlo ran his territory from a suburb north of Atlanta. But since Manx wasn’t a legal citizen, and had no ID, we couldn’t fly. “For now, head north to Henderson and get a room. We’ll be in touch with more concrete plans soon.” Fortunately, we all kept fully charged backup batteries for our cell phones, just in case. A lesson we’d learned the hard way.“Okay,” I said, and my father sighed in relief. I turned toward the hall to see Kaci standing in the doorway, clutching her votive. “Get packed, Whiskers. We’re going on a road trip.”
Thirteen
Manx was getting out of the shower when I got to my room, so I filled her in while she stood in the middle of my floor, her hair dripping on her robe as ever-leaping shadows moved over her face. She listened with her dark brows drawn low, her mouth a grim, straight line. The spark of irritation in her eyes said she’d rather stay and fight, but the twitch in her arm—as if she wished she were holding her baby—said she knew she could no longer protect her son on her own.
I couldn’t stand to see her so…powerless. Dependent. And I knew well how close I’d come to sharing her fate. Or worse.
Manx cleared her throat, and I made myself face her silent suffering. “Twenty minutes. I will pack.” Then she was gone.
I shoved the essentials into my bag, then grabbed my candle and headed for our former guest room to check on Kaci. On the way, I stopped in the doorway to the guest bathroom, where Lucas sat on a bar stool brought in from the kitchen. My mother was wrapping the ankle he had propped on the closed toilet seat by the light of several candles, while Brian Taylor applied a clear, goopy ointment to my cousin’s shoulders.
Which looked like they’d almost been ripped from his body.
Three deep punctures pierced his skin below each collarbone where the talons had gripped him, and a fourth had apparently been driven through both his shoulder blades, completing the bird’s grip in the back.
“Shit, Lucas!” I set my bag down in the hall and stepped into the bathroom for a closer look. My mother frowned over my profanity, but didn’t look up from her work.
“Yeah.” Lucas glanced at his reflection, then down at me. Even seated on the stool, he was a good six inches taller than I was. “Looks nasty, huh?” He flinched as Brian worked on his left shoulder.
“They carried Kaci a lot higher and farther than they did you. How come she doesn’t look like this?” Brian asked, dabbing more ointment on the torn skin with a cotton ball.
“Because Kaci weighs about a third what Lucas weighs.” My mother finished the wrap and secured it with a metal butterfly-shaped clip. “So she had a lot less weight pulling against their talons.”
“That, and they had her by the arms, instead of the shoulders,” I added. “And they were trying not to hurt her, whereas their plans for Lucas likely included a forty-foot drop.”
My mom stood and carefully lowered his foot to the floor. “You’ll have to Shift a couple of times before you…head outside.” Her face went white at the thought of the fight to come, but her expression remained resolved. Strong. “But clear that with the doc, first. Those shoulders may not want to support your weight for a while.”
I shot my cousin a sympathetic look, then continued down the hall.
But I only made it ten feet before Mateo’s voice caught my attention and I stopped outside Manx’s bedroom. I shouldn’t have listened. The closed door said they wanted privacy, and the anxious whispers only underlined that fact. But across the hall, Owen was sleeping off his latest dose of pain pills, and while Manx and Teo weren’t my business, they were my brother’s business. So I told myself I was listening for him.
“…not safe here anymore, and our door is always open to you. You have choices, Mercedes. You don’t have to stay here just because this is where you landed, or because you feel obligated to them.”
A dresser drawer slid shut. “I like it here,” Manx said, in her firm, lilted speech.
“I know. I just want you to know that we’d be happy to have you. I’d be happy to have you. I can take care of you, Manx. You and Des.”
Her footsteps paused, and I pictured her staring at the ground, clothes in hand as she weighed what was best for her son against what was best for her heart. “Yes,” she said finally. “I believe that you can.”
That was all I could take.
Yes, Manx had choices, but sometimes choosing for yourself is just as hard as accepting someone else’s choice for you.
Twenty-four minutes later, we stood by the back door, the women at center stage. Kaci wore a stuffed backpack and cradled a sleeping Des, who was blissfully unaware of the danger we were about to carry him into. I had my old college book bag, and just behind us, Mateo Di Carlo carried Manx’s duffel over one shoulder, and his own smaller bag over the other.
My heart ached as I hugged my mother. We weren’t sure whether or not she fell under Malone’s orders to spare the women, since she was beyond childbearing age and long-since married. My father had tried to talk her into going with us, just in case, but she’d stubbornly refused.