Hell no. I’d forgotten the meaning of the word patience by then. All I could think about was explaining to Marc what really happened before it was too late.
“I hear you in there. Come open this damn door before I break it down.”
“Give it a rest, Faythe.” It was Vic, speaking calmly from the other side of the door. The still infuriatingly closed door. “You’re waking up people in the next county.”
“Let me in so I can talk to him.” Rain rolled slowly down my spine beneath my shirt, tracing the line of fear building inside me. I had to make Marc understand. This couldn’t be the end for us. Not like this. “I can fix this,” I shouted, dismayed to hear the edge of panic in my voice. “I swear I can.”
“I’m sorry. He’d skin me alive. You’d better give him some time to get over it.”
“That’s just it.” I pounded on the wood again, and Vic swore, then jumped back. Too late, I realized he’d been leaning against the door. “If you don’t let me in so I can explain it to him, he’s not going to get over it. He doesn’t understand what he heard.”
“I’m sorry, Faythe,” he said again. “He just doesn’t want to see you.”
This isn’t possible, I thought, wringing rain from my ponytail. Of course, Marc had been mad at me before. He’d been mad at me for five straight years after I’d broken up with him. But he’d never refused to speak to me. He’d never locked me out. I’d spent holidays with Sammi and her family to escape his relentless pursuit, and still he’d called me at least once a week for three years, baring his soul to my voice mail with so much pain in his voice that I couldn’t listen to the messages without tearing up.
When he finally stopped calling, the hush felt strange. It felt like the whole world went silent when Marc did, as if I could see people’s mouths moving, but I couldn’t hear what they were saying. Like I’d gone deaf.
That emotional silence didn’t stop until Marc came for me at school. And it descended on me again as I stood on his front porch. All I could hear was the rain, as if the very heavens were crying for us both.
I glanced at my mother again, only to see her turn away from the window. She looked back once and shook her head. Then she was gone. My resolve strengthened in the face of my mother’s desertion. She might or might not know what I’d done, but she believed I’d lost Marc for good. After years of nagging me to go back to him, she’d given up on us.
But I hadn’t.
I backed down the steps, facing the front door as I descended into the rain. Water poured down on me, replastering loose strands of hair to my cheeks and forehead. I wiped my face with both hands, blinking rain and tears from my eyes as I assessed the door. It was solid, and strong in spite of its age. But so was I, in spite of my youth.
And anyway, the frame would break long before the oak panel would.
I pushed back my hair one more time and ran up the steps. At the top, I grabbed the support post for balance and kicked the door as hard as I could, concentrating the blow just below the doorknob. Wood splintered, and I smiled in satisfaction. I grabbed the doorknob and shook it with both hands. Nothing happened. It didn’t even budge.
Damn it!
Fingers appeared in the window, pushing aside a set of cheap white miniblinds to reveal a pair of dark blue eyes and a lock of brown hair. “Faythe, what the hell are you doing?” Jace yelled through the glass. His face disappeared and the steel chain rattled as he tried to unlock the door. But then something heavy hit the wood, probably someone else’s hand.
Vic laughed. “That’s not Faythe,” he said. “That’s the Big Bad Wolf, come to blow us all away.”
“She’s gonna get in one way or another,” Jace said.
Vic laughed again. “She’s gonna try.”
“You bet your ass,” I shouted, and kicked the wood again. More splintering this time, but still the door wouldn’t budge. However, this time the problem wasn’t the strength of the door, but the strength of the guys holding it in place from the other side.
For a long moment, no one spoke. I was almost convinced they’d gone out the back door when Parker said, “Okay.”
“What? No!” Vic insisted. “He doesn’t want to see her, and that’s his choice.”
“I’ll take the blame,” Parker said, and the chain rattled again. “Get out of the way.” The dead bolt slid back and the door opened just wide enough for me to see his face. Parker’s eyes were hard, his brows furrowed in unease. “I’m going to let you in here on one condition.”
“Fine. Anything.” I was perfectly willing to behave myself in exchange for admission. I could break open the door, but I couldn’t keep them from holding it in place. And if I went through the window, I’d be lucky not to bleed to death before I got to Marc.
“I’m letting you in to keep you from breaking the door, not so that you can break everything else in the house. No damage. Not to our stuff. Not to his stuff. And not to him. You go make it better, not worse.”
“That’s all I want. You should know that by now.” But I saw in his eyes that he didn’t know that. He didn’t trust me not to hurt Marc. After all, I’d done it before.
I closed my eyes and smoothed my hair back, trying to get hold of myself both physically and emotionally before I went inside.
Parker pulled the door open and I stepped over the threshold, dripping rain on the scarred hardwood floor. Jace and Vic stood side by side at the foot of the stairs, blocking my way. Their arms were crossed over their chests, forming a physical barrier, another wall to knock down.
I wasn’t up to it. Not anymore. Outside I’d had strength. I’d been willing to tear down the whole house to get to Marc if I had to. But now I was almost there, and I was tired. I was already sick of fighting, and I hadn’t even reached the ring.
“Come on, guys,” I said as I approached them. “Give me a break. Please.”
The conflict on Jace’s face was torture to see. I knew how he felt about me, but I hadn’t really considered how he felt about Marc until I saw how far he was willing to go to protect him. From me. Even from me. If he could, Jace would take me away from Marc. But he wouldn’t let me hurt him.
I met his beautiful cobalt eyes and nodded. It was the best I could do at the moment to acknowledge his pain and the awkwardness of the situation. Apparently it was enough, because he stepped aside.
Vic didn’t. My shoulder brushed his bicep as I walked past him and up the steps, still dripping, and now shivering from the air-conditioned breeze on my drenched skin.
The lights were on downstairs, but the upstairs landing was dark. If not for a bright flash of lightning through a rear window, I might have tripped over the throw rug at the top of the stairs. As it was, I had to feel my way past the bathroom and the first bedroom—the one Jace and Vic shared—with one hand on the banister. I felt along the opposite wall until I located Marc’s door.
My hand found his doorknob, and I hesitated. I let my eyes close and my head fall back as I listened to the rain, wondering how on earth I was going to get him to hear me out. Finally, I opened my eyes—not that it mattered, I couldn’t see a damn thing—and let go of the doorknob. I knocked instead. He would only react in kind if I started things off with discourtesy and aggression.
Of course, by being polite, I was giving him the opportunity to deny me entrance. Or to ignore me completely, which was exactly what he did.
“Marc?” I called, knocking again. He made no reply, but a light went on in his room, illuminating my soaked sneakers from the crack beneath his door. “May I please come in? I owe you an apology and an explanation, and I’d like to give them to you face-to-face. Please.”
Wood scraped wood on the other side of the door: dresser drawers opening. “Fine,” he said. “I have something to explain to you, too.”
My pulse spiked. That couldn’t be good.
I opened the door slowly, and the first thing I registered was his scent. The entire room smelled like Marc and literally made my heart throb. I swallowed, a
nd blinked tears from my eyes as I breathed him in. He was everywhere. He could leave at that moment and his scent would still be there ten years later.
Marc crossed the floor with a pile of clothes in his arms, and his movement caught my eye as I stood in the doorway, staring into his room. He dropped the clothes into a suitcase open on the unmade bed, balanced half on a pillow and half on a crooked mound of covers.
“What—” My voice croaked, so I swallowed and tried again. “What are you doing?”
“Packing. I thought it was kind of obvious.” He walked back to the dresser without even glancing at me. “I’m taking some time off.”
“Time off?” I heard myself and regretted the fact that I sounded like a brainless parrot, but I was helpless to stop it. In the nearly eleven years Marc had worked for my father, he’d never taken a single day off. Not one. Which meant he probably had quite a few coming…
I inhaled deeply, preparing to say my piece. To change his mind. “I’m sorry you heard it like that.” I tried to catch Marc’s eye, but he wouldn’t look at me, nor would he stop packing. I cleared my throat and started over, tracking his movement back and forth across the room. “But you didn’t hear enough to understand what happened.”
“I heard plenty.”
“It was an accid—” I grabbed his wrist as he walked past me, another pile of shirts under his opposite arm. He froze in place. His head turned slowly, and finally our eyes met. His were blank. Empty. He jerked his arm from my grasp and continued toward the bed. “Marc, could you please look at me? This is hard enough without you…packing.”
“Well then, let me make it easier for you.” He dumped the shirts on top of the pile in the suitcase and looked up at me. “I. Heard. Enough. You infected Andrew. Your carelessness—and whatever freaky, furry game you were playing—condemned a man who was guilty of nothing more than fucking my girlfriend to a life of solitude and violence. Even worse, you’re responsible for everything he’s done. Those missing women are on your conscience. That’s all I need to know.” He flipped the top of the leather bag over and tried to close it, but the zipper resisted.
Furry game? Was he serious?
“That isn’t all you need to know. Will you—” I grabbed the handle of his suitcase in exasperation and pulled it away from him. Already strained to its limits, the zipper slid back and the suitcase popped open, spewing socks and underwear all over the bed and the floor, like an explosion from a cotton volcano. Marc growled and bent to pick up a shirt. I snatched it from his hand and held it behind my back. “Will you forget about the clothes for a minute and listen to me? Please?”
“Fine.” He kicked aside a balled-up pair of socks and folded his arms across his chest. “You want to explain? I’m listening. Explain how you somehow forgot to mention to me over the past three months that you infected your college boyfriend. Explain why you didn’t think that was significant enough to bother telling me before he started taking his anger at you out on other women unlucky enough to have black hair and green eyes. Not that I blame him for being pissed off. I know pretty damn well how that feels!”
Marc picked up his now-broken bag and hurled it across the room. I flinched as it hit the far wall, next to the window, and fell to the floor in a heap of worn leather and rumpled clothing. “You stood me up at our fucking wedding, and I begged you to come back. I just rolled over and took it, even though every cat in the country was laughing at me behind my back. But apparently my complete humiliation wasn’t enough to satisfy you. So why don’t you explain how you expect me to react when the entire werecat community finds out you created a replacement for me out of some preppy, khaki-wearing college boy who’s more familiar with waiting in line for his iced latte than with the finer points of self-preservation. Explain to me just what the hell you were thinking, Faythe,” he shouted, and I winced with every sarcasm-laced barb. “I think I’m ready to hear that now.”
I took a deep breath, doing my best to remain calm and to resist yelling. He had some valid points, after all. “I wasn’t trying to replace you. And I didn’t tell you because I didn’t know what I’d done. I didn’t figure it out until tonight. I did bite Andrew, but it was an accident. Well, the infection was an accident,” I said, my words rushing together as I backpedaled. “I bit him on purpose. Kind of.” I flinched as the last words left my mouth, uncomfortably aware that I wasn’t helping the situation.
Marc blinked at me and his expression hardened even more, which I hadn’t thought possible. “Do I even want to know why you bit him?”
Heat rushed to my cheeks. “Probably not.”
Outside, a sudden gust of wind pelted the window with rain, drawing Marc’s attention away from me. When he met my eyes again, his were flaming in fresh anger. “Well, I gotta give college boy credit for that, at least,” he spat, his tone dripping with enough acid to eat through the hardwood floor. “The way Vic described him, I didn’t think he would have the balls to go for any fur-and-claws action, especially considering how much damage you can do with your human teeth and nails. And with your damned dagger of a tongue.”
Speaking of sharp tongues… I sighed. This was not going well. “I never Shifted, Marc.”
“What?” Confusion flitted across his face briefly before the angry scowl settled back into place. “Then how the hell did you infect him? Spit in his drink when he wasn’t looking? Inject him with your blood in his sleep?”
“Ha, ha.” I perched on the end of his bed, dripping rain-water onto his comforter as I wished for my punching pillow. Alas, as luck would have it, there was nothing in the room I could hit without breaking my promise to Parker. Marc sat against the headboard, facing me. He took one look at the grip I had on his comforter and tossed me one of his pillows.
That small act floored me.
Marc was hurt, humiliated, and pissed off. He was madder at me than I’d ever seen him, and he was scared of losing me to either the council or to Andrew. And on top of that, he felt mortified by what he apparently saw as the ultimate act of cuckolding. Yet he knew what I needed and provided me with it without a moment’s hesitation, or probably even a conscious thought.
Marc was always there for me, even when he was packing his bags to leave me. He deserved to hear the truth from me, but what he deserved even more was not to have to hear it.
“If you’ll promise to listen until I’m done, I’ll promise not to leave anything out. But please don’t go before I’m finished, because I don’t want to wonder later whether you left me because of what you heard, or because of what you didn’t hear.”
He tilted his head and watched me through eyes narrowed in suspicion and dread. “Does that mean there’s more to the story than your making Andrew into a stray in some sort of furry freak-fest? If so, you should feel free to leave out the nonpertinent details.”
I smiled a little at that. I couldn’t help it. “Um, yeah. There’s a little more to it than that. And yet a lot less to it than that. There was no furry freak-fest, Marc. Just normal, even average sex.”
Oddly enough, he seemed pleased to hear me describe sex with someone else as “average,” and I wasn’t complaining. Whatever made him more open to listening was fine with me.
“Talk. I might as well know what everyone else is going to be whispering about.” He pulled both of his legs onto the bed and sat cross-legged, looking amazingly vulnerable for a man of his bulk.
Marc’s new defenseless posture did little to make me want to spill my guts. Spew them, maybe. But I’d promised to explain, and I wasn’t going to pass up the chance.
“I was in human form when I bit Andrew,” I said, pulling my feet up to mimic his pose. “My teeth must have partially Shifted at the…um, height of things. It couldn’t have been much of a Shift, because there was no pain that I remember, and I didn’t notice anything different.” Embarrassed, I glanced at the pillow in my lap and discovered that I’d twisted it into little more than an amorphous bag of feathers. “Well, there was no pain for me, anyway.
Andrew yelped as if I’d bitten his ear off, but I barely drew blood. Just a couple of drops.”
Marc frowned. “So you did break the skin?”
“Yeah.”
His arm moved faster than my eyes could follow, and another feather pillow smashed into the window before falling to rest against the broken suitcase. Good thing that wasn’t a brick, I thought, absurdly.
“How could you even think about sleeping with a human?” Marc demanded, and I tore my gaze from the pillow reluctantly and turned back to face him. “There’s a reason we have the rules we have, and apparently you’re it.”
I stared at him openmouthed, waiting for him to realize he’d misspoken. My irritation grew with every second that passed without a retraction. “We don’t have any rules against sleeping with humans,” I said, my teeth clenched hard enough to make my jaw ache. “The guys do it all the time. Most of them lost count of the notches on their belts long ago. Hell, Ethan doesn’t even bother to learn their names anymore.” I threw the pillow at him, and he caught it in one fist. “But when I finally get a life of my own—and keep in mind the fact that this was a mutually monogamous relationship—everyone acts like I’ve committed a cardinal sin.”
With every word I spoke, my pitch rose a little, until by the time I finished, I was screaming at him, standing on my knees on the end of his bed.
“The problem isn’t that you’ve been dating humans, Faythe,” he said, tossing the pillow aside. “It’s that you’ve been infecting them.”
Only one of them, I thought, but I knew better than to say it aloud. “How was I supposed to know that was even possible?” I shouted, backing off his bed and onto the floor. “None of the guys ever infected anyone in human form, so how was I supposed to know I could?”
“That’s not the same, Faythe. You know human women can’t be infected.”
As a matter of fact, I did not know that for certain, and neither did he. But that was another argument entirely.