Stray (Shifters #1)(25)

Marc cut him off with a snarl, sounding more canine than feline for a moment. “I said I’ll take care of it.” His eyes were fierce. “And if that isn’t enough for you, I’ll owe you. Each of you. Whatever you want, whenever you want it, so long as no one gets hurt.” He paused, still staring hard at Ethan. “Okay?”
Slowly, Ethan nodded, looking as if he wanted to throw up. He’d truly never been on my father’s bad side, which was exactly where he’d wind up if Marc’s little bribe ever came to light.
“Parker?” Marc asked. Parker nodded without hesitation, which made me wonder if he already had something in mind. Interesting…
“Jace?”
Jace shook his head, refusing. I stared at him in disappointment, hurt but not surprised. He was probably mad because Marc had interfered in our bet, and as pleased as I was with the outcome, I could hardly blame him.
“I don’t need a favor,” he said. “I’ll do it to prove I’m not all talk.” His eyes burned into me, though his statement was directed at Marc.
I rewarded him with a thankful nod and a hesitant smile, but it was gone in an instant when Marc nearly jerked me off my feet, backing toward the tree line with me in tow. “Whatever works,” he said, shrugging at Jace. But I’d never before seen anyone look so pissed off as the result of getting his own way.Marc dragged me across the yard toward the house with his lips drawn tight in anger. Both of us still nude, he pulled me through the back door, down the hall, and into my bedroom. Again. I was starting to sense a pattern.
Eleven

The moment we crossed my threshold, I jerked my arm from Marc’s grip and slunk across the room toward the dresser. Angry more with myself than with him, I yanked open the top right-hand drawer and pulled out a pair of panties. Slamming the drawer shut, I whirled around to face him.
Marc had his arms crossed over his bare chest, covering most of the fifteen-year-old claw marks. He stood in front of my open bedroom door, as if to block my escape. It bothered me that I was getting used to people positioning themselves between me and the nearest exit. Was I that predictable? I clamped my jaws shut; it probably wasn’t a very good time to ask questions.
Ethan appeared in the hall and pulled the door closed with his eyes averted, which was his way of giving us privacy. His footsteps receded down the hall, and my hope of anyone stepping in on my behalf went with them. Oh, well. Being rescued wasn’t my cup of tea anyway. Especially when I knew I didn’t deserve it.
I held Marc’s angry gaze for as long as I could, but after less than a minute, I chickened out. I love a good argument. I’ve even been known to go looking for one, especially with Marc. But I hate being in the wrong, and I hate it even more when he’s around to witness my screwups. Or worse, keep me from making them in the first place. And he’d certainly pulled my tail out of the fire this time.
“You’d better have a good explanation for that little lapse in judgment,” he whispered from across the room. With Marc, whispering is always worse than yelling. It means he’s so mad he can’t trust himself to shout without saying things he’ll regret. “Never mind,” he spat, running one hand through his head full of thick, dark curls. “There is no good explanation, so don’t bother. Why would you even think about attacking a human?”
I stepped into the panties, pulling them up in a series of angry, jerky movements. “I thought you didn’t want an explanation.” Without waiting for a reply, I turned my back on him, digging through a drawerful of shorts left over from high school. I hated naked arguments. They reminded me too much of when we were a couple.
“Don’t get smart with me, Faythe,” he said, his teeth grinding together during the pause. “I’m barely holding on to my temper right now as it is. If you were a guy, you’d be hurting already.” He was right. If I were a tomcat, I might have been declawed. He’d done worse to strays who broke the rules. But since it was clearly not the time to lobby for equal treatment for women, I opted for an apology. 
“I’m sorry.” I spiked my voice with a heavy dose of sincerity as I stepped into my shorts, but I couldn’t bring myself to turn and face him.
“You’re sorry?” Again with the whispers. This was definitely not good.
My hands shook as they pawed through a selection of old bras, and I was glad he couldn’t see how upset I really was. I’d rather let him think I didn’t care, than think I was emotionally frail.
“You’re going to have to do better than that.”
Better than that? In my opinion, nothing was better than an apology.
Stalling for time to think, I picked a bra at random and leaned over to scoop myself into it. Hooking the bra in place, I turned to face him, forcing my hands to stop shaking and cooperate, rather than ask him for help. I grabbed a T-shirt from the floor and tugged it over my head. Fully clothed, I felt like I had an advantage over Marc for the first time since I’d come home. Nude men don’t look threatening, no matter how mad they are. They just look vulnerable.
“Well?” He leaned against the wall, taking weight off his injured leg. My eyes wandered down his body, on their way to inspect his ankle, but when I got to his bare lower stomach, I stopped, jerking my gaze away as if the sight of him naked had burned my retinas.
His eyes, I thought. Only his eyes.
Spinning abruptly, I stomped over to my bathroom and opened the door, my hand hovering over the robe hanging on its hook. But it was lavender, embroidered with purple and white irises. Marc would never wear it. Shaking my head, I balled up a bath towel from the rack instead and tossed it to him, one-handed.
Marc shook the towel out and glanced at me quizzically, as if he didn’t understand what I expected him to do with it.
“Wear it, or get out,” I said, careful to look only at his eyes.
He scowled, but wrapped the towel around his waist, tucking one corner in at his hip. “Better?” he asked, arms spread for my approval.
My pulse jumped as my traitorous eyes traveled over his chest, lingering on the old claw marks. “Marginally.”
“Good, now talk.”
My eyes roamed the room, searching for any excuse to avoid looking at him. The empty suitcase caught my attention, lying on the carpet below the dent it left in my wall. “What do you want me to say?” I stomped past him and snatched up the suitcase. “I messed up—badly—and I’m very sorry. I’ll never do it again.” I opened the case on the end of the bed and turned to face him. “So hit me, or ground me, or do whatever it is you do when one of the guys gets out of line. Then get the hell out of my room.”
Fury flashed in his eyes, and his voice was barely audible. “You’re really tempting me, you know.”
“Tempting you to what, get out?”
“To knock some sense into you.”
“Go ahead. This can’t be the first time you’ve wanted to.” I snatched a lump of white nylon from the scattering of clothes I’d tossed from the suitcase that morning and swung around to face him with my arms open, inviting him to take his best shot. But the image must have been ruined by the bra dangling from my fist, because he just stared at me, his arms crossed over his chest.
Marc had never hit me, and he never would, not just because the council frowned heavily on hitting tabbies, but because he knew better. I wasn’t a turn-the-other-cheek kind of girl. But mostly he wouldn’t hit me because he’d never hit a woman. Even one who’d nearly bitten his foot off.
Anger at me had driven him to put his fists through walls, to rip doors from their hinges, and to pick fights with other toms out of frustration. On one memorable occasion, he threw my mother’s solid-oak dinner table across the room and into a wall, leaving a dent four feet long in the Sheetrock. But the word dent didn’t do justice to the damage. It was more like the wall buckled. The table actually snapped one of the studs, its splintered edges protruding through the wall into the next room.As well as docking Marc’s paycheck, Daddy had taken away my allowance for eight months to help pay for the repairs, though I hadn’t even touched the table. He’d blamed me for pushing Marc’s buttons on purpose. Like that was fair.
Marc sighed and shook his head slowly. “What am I going to do with you, Faythe?”
Not a damn thing, I thought. But I knew better than to dare him. If I claimed to be beyond his authority, he’d do something to prove me wrong, just to make a point. “You sound like my mother,” I muttered, tossing the bra into the suitcase as I bent to grab a dog-eared copy of Sense and Sensibility. I was intentionally ignoring my resemblance to my mother as I tidied up to keep my nervous hands busy. When left empty, they tended to form fists.
Marc’s eyes tracked me as I moved to place my copy of Beowulf on the shelf. “I feel more like your father,” he said.
“Well, you’re not my father.”
“Thank goodness,” he muttered, shaking his head. I had to agree. I crossed the room again with a small stack of books clenched to my chest. Marc stepped into my path. “Come on, Faythe,” he said, taking the books from me. He set the entire stack on my desk without breaking eye contact. “Tell me what happened out there.”