“Any idea how he got out of his cage?”
No. So far as I knew, no one had figured that out yet. But responding to Kevin’s question—even one I had no answer for—could be construed as cooperation, and I couldn’t let them think I was capitulating so early.
“So Kevin asks the questions, and Peter likes to hit girls. What’s your role in this?” I leaned to my left to peer at Dan around Kevin’s arm. “I mean, other than informant and traitor…?” Because he was the only one who could have told them Ryan was missing. My father hadn’t reported that development to the council, because technically they had no authority in the matter. And until the larger pile of cat shit hit the fan, we were hoping we could find him before anyone else found out.
So much for that idea…
Kevin stepped into my line of sight to block Dan from view, so I leaned the other way. “What are you getting out of this, other than Milo Mitchell’s pocket change?”
Dan shrugged, looking miserable. “Membership has its privileges.”
“Membership to what?” I demanded. “You were just eight months’ probation away from membership in the biggest Pride in the country, and you threw it all away! Why?”
“Because he sees logic, which is more than I can say for you recently,” Kevin snapped, moving between me and Dan again. “Your dad said he’d consider accepting Dan if he could keep his nose clean until September. But by then, the war will be over, and your Pride won’t even exist. Dan’s smart enough to side with the inevitable victor early on.”
“But for what?” I leaned the other way again, already tired of having to fight for eye contact. “You sold us out—sold Marc out—for a little cash!”
“No, that was Pete,” Dan snapped. “I just wanted out of the free zone.”
“Oh…” Understanding finally came, and I almost felt sorry for Dan. Almost. “You think they’re going to take you in. Did they tell you that? That after you’ve served as their spy, or their foot soldier, or whatever, that they’ll let you play their reindeer games? Because they won’t. You know that, don’t you, Dan?”
Surely he wasn’t that gullible….
Kevin growled, and backhanded me so hard I fell over sideways again, the living room spinning before me. I never even saw the blow coming. “My father will stand by his word.”
“The hell he will….” I mumbled, my words slurred by shock and the pain radiating through my right cheek. I tasted blood in my mouth, and licked it from my lips as Pete pulled me upright again, probably positioning me for another blow, rather than for my comfort. “He said you could come back, too, didn’t he?” I pinned Kevin with my gaze. “How often has he promised? How soon did he say you’d be back home, in your old room? Next month? Next week? Or was it last month?”
Kevin glowered at me. “Plans change.”
“Wow, you’re so naive for a bad guy!” I let genuine amusement leak into my tone, then leaned forward to spit more blood on Yarnell’s pale, plush carpet before I met Kevin’s eyes again. “He’s not going to take you back, and my bet is you already know Dan’ll never make it to the northwest Pride. So how’s he going to die? In a fight? Or peacefully in his sleep? Or are you going to bait one of us into killing him for you? Either way—” I leaned around him again to catch Dan’s gaze “—once you hand over Manx and Kaci, they’ll be done with you, and you’ll end your existence in an unmarked hole in the ground. Maybe right next to Adam Eckard. Because the truth is that my father’s the only Alpha in the country who’d seriously consider admitting a stray into his Pride. The proof of that is lying unconscious in the back bedroom.”
Marc, of course.
“Where you put him.” I glared at Dan, unable to censor my anger and betrayal even if he was my only shot at survival. “Were you there when they came for him? Did you fight him? We’d never have known, would we? Since you were the one who reported it, we didn’t think twice about your scent in his house.”
Dan closed his eyes and gritted his teeth. “I wasn’t there. I knew they were going to implant him, but I couldn’t help, or he’d know I was in on it. I didn’t know the guys they sent, and I didn’t even know when they were going to do it. I never touched him.”
“Yet he’s going to die because of you! What did Marc ever do to you? Other than teach you to fight and welcome you into his home?”
“Enough.” Kevin slapped me again, and this time when he picked me up, I spit blood in his face, knowing it would hurt his broken nose to wipe it off. He dabbed at his nose gingerly with the towel Pete had stuffed into my mouth, then dropped it on the floor, fury glowing crimson in his cheeks. “I’m going to give you one chance to answer, then I’ll let Pete go to work on you. How peacefully you die is up to you.”
I rolled my eyes again, then met his gaze to let him see the derision swimming in mine. “I may be a girl, but I bet my rear claws I have bigger balls than either of you assholes. Not that that’s saying much.” Yarnell growled on my right, but I continued as if I hadn’t heard him. “I’m not going to answer your questions, no matter what you do to me. So why don’t you just save us all the trouble and kill me now?”
Not that I expected them to actually do that. In fact, I was kind of counting on their refusal. And hoping that the madder they got, the more careless they’d get. If I could stall them long enough for one of the toms to come out of their drugged sleep—and Marc was the most likely to wake up, since he’d been put under first—we might have a chance to make it out alive.
Kevin squatted to watch me from eye level, as if whatever he had to say was too important to be spoken at any real distance. “If you won’t cooperate, and we can’t beat the information out of you, we’ll just bring one of your boys in here and let you watch us beat him until you answer. How ’bout that?”
I refused to answer, my jaws clenched shut so hard I thought I heard the bones creak. Taking my own beating was one thing, but I couldn’t watch the guys suffer in my stead. No more than I could have watched Abby raped, or Kaci kidnapped. And Kevin clearly knew it.
“Should we start with Marc? I’m assuming he’s the one you’d most want to protect. But I don’t know…” His voice rose on the end, and he glanced up at Yarnell as if for an opinion. “Jace and the doc have nothing to do with any of this. They’re innocent bystanders, of a sort. And I’m guessing you don’t want to see them suffer, either. Maybe we should flip a coin….”
“Good idea, dumbass!” I knew smarting off was a bad idea, but I just couldn’t help myself. My mouth was the only weapon I had left. “You have a three-sided coin?”
Kevin bitch-slapped me again, and this time my lower lip split wide open, and blood spilled over my chin. “Go get Marc. He should be coming out of it soon anyway. I have a feeling there’s nothing she won’t do to spare him pain. Except marry him.”
Twenty-Eight
Yarnell clomped off down the hall, and I wiped blood from my chin onto my shoulder, then stared at Dan, begging him silently to look at me. “Dan, don’t let them do this! Marc never did anything but help you!”
Dan turned away from me, but his leg began to bounce, his foot rapidly tapping the thick carpet. I was getting to him.
“How can you sit there and watch them beat him for no reason?” Yes, Marc had often pounded information out of hostile trespassers, but Kevin didn’t want information out of him. He wanted it from me, and we’d never hosted a pounding by proxy. That was a line my Pride would never cross. “You can stop this, Dan. You can do the right thing. Hell, you fought with us in the ambush. Was that part of your act?”
He shrugged, still avoiding my eyes. “I’m not close personal friends with every stray out there. Besides, I didn’t kill anyone. And it’s not like I could stand there and watch you all get slaughtered.”
“But you can now?”
And finally he met my desperate, imploring gaze, silently begging me to understand. “Now, it’s him or me, Faythe.” His voice was empty. Hollow. Detached. That was the only way he could remain s
ane, because inside, I knew Dan Painter was a good person. He’d fought alongside us because he and Marc were friends. I was sure of that, because Marc was a wonderful judge of character.
But Kevin had preyed on his worst fears and his biggest dreams, convincing Dan that his only shot for acceptance by and protection from his fellow werecats lay in giving them Marc.
“If I help you, they’ll kill me.” He tossed his head at Kevin, who nodded smugly. “And even if they don’t, your dad will. Every cat in your Pride will be after me within the hour, and you know it. I’m sorry, but it’s too late. I gotta think about me.”
Fresh tears formed in my eyes, and this time the pain had nothing to do with my bruises. Dan was breaking my heart. Killing some relentlessly optimistic part of me that had truly believed Pinocchio would listen to Jiminy Cricket in the end. That good would triumph over evil, as trite as that sounded.
“That’s the difference between you and him,” I said, as Yarnell backed into the living room hauling Marc with an arm under each shoulder, his feet dragging the carpet. “He’d die for you, or for me, or for anyone he cares about. And you’re just gonna watch him do it.”
Dan’s jaw went tight, and he stood silently, then walked into the kitchen without another glance in my direction. Though I could have sworn I saw moisture glinting in the corner of his eye.
Though his eyes remained closed, Marc moaned when Yarnell dropped him on the floor, and I got my first good look at the wound Eckard thought had killed him. There was a two-inch-long gash on the side of his head, crusted over with blood. It was a miracle he’d survived that one. And if Kevin had his way, it wouldn’t be for long.
I had to do something. I couldn’t watch Marc beaten to death, but neither could I give Kevin information that might doom my father’s quest for allies against Malone. Unfortunately, the only trick I had up my sleeve was the partial Shift, and with my hands and feet bound, cat’s jaws wouldn’t do me any good unless someone came really close to my face. And trying to fully Shift with my wrists taped at my back would only dislocate my shoulders. Assuming Yarnell didn’t kill me when he saw what I was up to.
Now, if I could partially Shift my hands, that would be another story entirely. With cat claws, I could slice through duct tape like a canoe paddle through water. But I couldn’t Shift just my hands.
Could I?
With a start, I realized I’d never tried. But I’d gotten pretty damn good at Shifting just my face, and my hands couldn’t be that different, right?
“Bring him around,” Kevin ordered, recapturing my attention while Yarnell headed into the kitchen. Water ran, and a moment later he was back with a large, full glass. Which he promptly dumped over Marc’s face.
Marc’s eyes popped open, and he sputtered, trying to expel water from both his nose and mouth, even as he blinked it from his eyes. Watching him, and suffering along with him, I harnessed my mounting rage to fuel a partial Shift I couldn’t even be sure was possible. I pictured my left hand slimming and lengthening, and fur rolling over my fingers.
“Oh good, you’re awake!” Kevin peered down at Marc from two feet away—well within the danger zone, had Marc not been bound as I was. “Your part in tonight’s production is that of the whipping boy. If your girlfriend truly can’t be motivated by pain, then every time she refuses to answer a question, Peter will break one of your bones. Make sense? Or are you still foggy from the tranquilizer?”
“Leave him alone, you bastard!” I said through clenched teeth as I flexed my hands behind my back.
“Faythe…?” Marc’s voice was slurred, yet he called my name with a sense of urgency, of fear, and fresh tears spilled over my cheeks. I was the first thought on his mind, the moment he woke up from an ordeal that would have killed just about anyone else.
“Over here,” I whispered, and he twisted toward me at the sound of my voice, one shoulder slanted awkwardly into the floor, the side of his face pressed into the carpet. In my mind, I pictured my nails growing into long, curved claws, and I flexed my fingers to unsheathe them.
“Your face…” he said, and his features went hard with anger on my behalf, in spite of the drug-glaze in his eyes.
I forced a grin to tell him I was fine. “Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful.” My left hand twitched, and my heart leapt at the familiar sensation. It was working! And suddenly my smile felt genuine.
“Well, now that we’re all caught up, let’s move on,” Kevin said, and Yarnell stalked toward me, ready to commence with the interrogation. “Did your mother let Ryan go?”
“What?” For a moment, I couldn’t process the sudden subject change, and my partial Shift faltered as my concentration wavered. But then the question sank in, and the possibility flooded me like lead anchoring me to the sea floor.
Had my mother let Ryan go? The truth was that it was entirely possible. I have no idea how Kevin came by that idea when I hadn’t even thought of it, but it made sense. My mother couldn’t stand to see her son locked up, so she would have let him go for the same reason she’d taken care of him, even while he lived in the free zone.
Because he needed her.
Kevin saw the answer on my face, but that wasn’t enough for him. The bastard wanted to hear it. Wanted to force me to play his game. “Did she?”
“I don’t know,” I whispered, because even if my hunch was right, I couldn’t tell him. He’d stepped way over the line, going after my mother. Especially considering that she was well respected by most of the Alphas, even those who didn’t like my father’s politics.
They were trying to get to him through her, and in an odd way, I was disillusioned by that realization. Was nothing sacred to these pricks?
At that thought, and the fresh anger it triggered, the skin over my hand began to itch unbearably, and my fingers ached as they shortened and thickened, protective pads covering my palm.
Kevin nodded at Pete and gestured toward me grandly with one outstretched arm. “No bones yet. We don’t want her passing out this early.”
Yarnell pulled me to my feet by one arm, and I let him, still focusing on the weapon forming at my back. “Answer him.”
I could have repeated my reply, and technically it would have been the truth. But the words tasted bitter in my mouth. So I swallowed them.
Yarnell’s huge fist slammed into my stomach, dead center, driving the air from my body and folding me in half.
“No!” Marc thrashed as if he’d been hit, and I fell to the floor hard, bruising my knees. Several seconds passed before I could draw another breath, and when I finally looked up, agony still radiating outward from my center, Yarnell stood over me, a blissful smile on his face, as if he got actual physical pleasure from my pain.
Great. But the latest blow had so thoroughly pissed me off that my left hand had Shifted completely. Perfectly. That arm now ended in a fur-covered cat paw and claws. Unfortunately, the tape binding my wrists was too far up for my new claws to reach.
Or was it…?
My dewclaw! Cats have an extra claw—like a thumb-nail—high up on the inside of their paws, near where the wrist would be in human form. Dewclaws aren’t good for much. They don’t even hit the ground when a cat walks. But most werecats can flex their dewclaws, and I was no exception. If I could move it enough to puncture all the layers of duct tape, I’d have that weak spot in my bindings I’d wished for earlier.
“Did she let him out?” Kevin repeated, as I flexed my dewclaw desperately, trying not to squirm as I worked.
I glanced at Marc, silently hoping that they’d hit me again, instead of him. Then I met Yarnell’s gaze boldly. “I. Don’t. Fucking. Know.” But instead of hauling me up, he stomped across the room toward Marc and pulled his right foot back, preparing to slam his heavy boot into Marc’s ribs.
My pulse raced, and I swallowed thickly. “Wait! I’m serious. Even if she had let him out, she wouldn’t have told me about it. She wouldn’t have told anyone, so I can’t imagine where you’re getting your inform
ation.”
“Fine,” Kevin said, and Yarnell let his foot drop, though it was clear neither of them planned to reveal their sources. “Let’s talk about something you do know about. When will your dad move against Malone?”
My heart pounded, and I began to sweat in spite of the cool draft near the floor. I flexed my paw furiously, wiggling the dewclaw as much as I could. And finally that tiny, vestigial claw popped silently through the layers of tape binding my wrists.
I could have squealed with relief, but it wasn’t over yet. I couldn’t move the dewclaw enough to actually cut the tape, so I’d still have to rip it open the hard way. But I couldn’t do that with Kevin watching me.
Exhaling dread and frustration, I glanced at Marc, silently apologizing for what I was about to do. I needed a distraction, and the only thing that would take all eyes off me was putting them all on him.
Marc blinked at me and nodded, telling me to go ahead with whatever I had to do. My guilt level skyrocketed at his selfless submission, but I forced the words out anyway, staring at Kevin with challenge written in every line of my face. “Fuck you.”
Kevin’s face flamed with anger, and instead of looking to Yarnell, he turned toward Marc himself, drawing his own foot back. As all eyes focused on Marc, I pulled my arms apart with all the strength left in my body. My shoulders ached. Tape tugged at my recently grown fur. And my pulse spiked with the fear that even though I’d come so close, I would still be too late. Or too weak.
Kevin’s foot slammed into Marc’s ribs, and his whole body jerked in pain. Then, just when I though it wasn’t going to happen, the tape tore open at my back with a loud ripping sound.
All heads turned my way. Kevin’s foot was cocked and ready to fly again. I gave my arms one last, violent tug, and the tape pulled free from one arm, taking large patches of fur with it. I grabbed the edge of the couch for balance and was on my feet in an instant, slicing through the tape binding my ankles as I stood.