Rogue

  “I didn’t know about the partial Shift, Marc. I had no idea this could happen. If I had, I would never have gone near Andrew, or anyone else, for that matter.”

  “Well, it’s too late for regrets now,” Marc said, his arms spread to either side of his torso. “In case you don’t remember, since you seem to think you’re above the council’s laws, creating a stray is a capital crime. The council’s going to want your life for this. And they’re going to want me to bring it to them. So you tell me how the fuck I’m supposed to deal with that.”

  Twenty-One

  So that’s what was wrong with Marc. He thought he was going to have to kill me.

  Well, clearly that wasn’t the only thing bothering him, but we’d finally gotten down to the part he couldn’t get over.

  “Marc, it was an accident,” I said, shifting awkwardly on a twisted lump of comforter. “The council won’t condemn me over an accident.”

  “You said it yourself, Faythe. They’re going to want your head on a spike in the front yard.”

  “That was hyperbole. You guys didn’t seem to think they’d execute the rogue tabby for murder, so why would they execute me for an accidental infection?” I reached out to touch his arm, but he pulled away as if I’d scorched him.

  My eyes watered, and I stood to turn my back on him as I blinked away the tears, hoping with each passing moment that he would touch me. I wanted a hug, or even just a pat on the back to let me know he regretted pulling away from me. I would have even taken an apology. But he didn’t offer one. Not that I could blame him.

  When I turned to face him, still standing in the middle of his room, I avoided his eyes. I didn’t want to know what he was thinking, but even worse, I didn’t want to not know. I desperately didn’t want to see his poker face staring back at me. So I didn’t look.

  “They’re not just going to take your word for it, Faythe,” he said. “They’re going to need proof that this was an accident, and last I heard, you couldn’t give it to them.”

  Still avoiding his eyes, I crossed the room and righted his suitcase in one rough, angry motion. “Well, I can sure as hell try.” Kneeling on the floor, I folded one of his shirts in a series of fuming, jerky movements. Dropping it neatly into the bag, I snatched another shirt from the floor, uncomfortably aware that I was now helping him pack. But I had to do something with my hands. “And even if I can’t do it on command, I’ve already proved it to my father, and he’ll speak up for me.” For a single heartbeat, I hesitated, my hands pausing in mid-fold. “You could do the same, if you were so inclined.”

  “Oh, come on, Faythe.” On the wall in front of me, Marc’s shadow threw up its arms in exasperation. I turned my attention back to the clothes, vowing not to look at his shadow-self, either, as he gestured at me in frustration. “They’re not going to believe me for the same reason they won’t believe your dad. They’ll think we’re both lying to save you.”

  Damn, were he and my father sharing a brain? Or were they just right?

  I shook out a pair of jeans, my gaze centered on the worn denim beneath my fingers. If things were normal, I’d have changed out of my soaked clothes and into some of his dry ones, but at the moment, I had serious doubts Marc would want his clothes smelling like me.

  “What about Andrew?” I asked, still holding his jeans. “We’ll find him and make him testify. Surely they can’t think he has any reason to want to protect me. If anything, he wants me dead.”

  Marc walked around the end of the bed to kneel at my side. “What did he say?”

  When I didn’t answer, he snatched the pants from my hands. Irritated, I met his eyes without thinking and regretted it instantly. I hated that he didn’t trust me, even though I knew he had several good reasons not to.

  “He congratulated me on a life well lived,” I said, my voice heavily laced with sarcasm. Marc glared at me, and I shrugged. “Well, what the hell do you think he said? He’s pissed at me for infecting him, then abandoning him. He said he has something to take care of tomorrow, then he’s coming here for a reunion.”

  “It’s amazing that he survived your bite, you know. Lots of strays die within a couple of days of being infected. I don’t think I could have made it through my own transition without your parents taking care of me. I don’t even remember being scratched,” he added, and I could almost feel my ears perk up, in spite of my self-centered fear. He’d never spoken to me about his attack, guarding his memories like a leprechaun guards his gold. “I just remember seeing my moth—”

  He stopped abruptly and stared out the window behind my head, his mouth firmly closed.

  “What’s the first thing you remember after being scratched?” I breathed, hoping that if I whispered softly enough he might mistake my question for a thought from his own head. No such luck.

  Marc turned from the window to look at me, a ghost of a smile haunting the corners of his mouth. “The first thing I remember is you.”

  “Me?” I frowned, sure I’d heard wrong.

  “Yeah. I woke up and saw you standing in the doorway, staring at me with these huge green eyes. You had a headless doll under one arm, and dirt smeared across your forehead. And all I could think about was what a beautiful child you were.”

  Lightning flashed outside and Marc blinked from the bright light. And just like that, the spell was broken. “Then I passed out again, and when I woke up, your mom was there with soup.” He shrugged, and I knew he was finished talking. At least about the past.

  “Marc, I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.” As the last raindrops pattered against the window, I closed my eyes, trying to decide how best to express my own regret. “I never meant for any of this to happen. I really, truly didn’t. But I can’t change anything now, and I understand if you still want to leave—”

  He shook his head slowly, as if in defeat. “I’m not going anywhere. Greg wouldn’t let me leave in the middle of an investigation, anyway.”

  “Really?” I fiddled with the still-damp, frayed hem of my shorts, unable to look at Marc as I offered him a way out. He deserved at least that much from me. “Because Daddy would probably let you go if you push the issue. He always sides with you over me, anyway.”

  “Are you trying to convince me to leave?”

  I glanced up at him, already shaking my head in denial. “No. Absolutely not. But I want you to understand what you’ll be getting into if you stay. It’s going to get worse from here, not better. We have to find Andrew, which means that eventually you’ll have to be in the same room with him. Without killing him, if I have any hope of him talking to the council.”

  Marc laughed ruefully. “I won’t hurt him unless I have to. You’ve already done enough to punish him for sleeping with you.”

  I glared at him, my fists propped on my hips. “How many times do I have to tell you it was an accident? A freak accident I probably couldn’t repeat if I tried.”

  He held up both hands, as if to ward off a blow. “All I’m saying is that he got more than he bargained for with you.”

  “I got more than I bargained for with him, too. Much more. I know he’s completely different now, but he was really nice and funny when he was human. But apparently his manners didn’t survive the transition.”

  Marc smiled. “Yeah, well, yours didn’t survive puberty, so you can’t really talk.”

  I opened my mouth to rebut, but Ethan cut me off, calling to us from downstairs. I hadn’t heard him come into the guesthouse, maybe because the rain was too loud. But more likely, Marc and I were too busy yelling at each other to notice. “If you guys have come to some sort of truce, Dad would like to speak to you both in his office. If it’s convenient with you, that is.”

  I laughed. There was no way on earth my father had mentioned our convenience. But sending a message with Ethan was like looking into one of those old funhouse mirrors. Everything got distorted.

  “We’re coming,” Marc called in Ethan’s general direction. To me, he extended his right hand. “Truce??
??

  “Absolutely.” I took his hand and shook it, expecting him to pull me into a hug. But he didn’t. On the way out of the room, Marc held the door open for me. But he didn’t grab my ass as I walked through ahead of him. And though I understood his reason, I couldn’t help but be hurt that he stayed several steps behind me on the stairs. I was disappointed, but not surprised. I couldn’t really expect things to go back to normal just like that. Of course, “normal” for me and Marc was a relative term, anyway.

  To say that Marc and I tended to run hot and cold would be like saying it’s a little chilly at the North Pole. I didn’t know how to deal with Marc’s new lukewarm presence. I’d never known him to demand anything less than all of my attention, and I didn’t recognize this polite, courteous behavior. It was too distant, too cold. He was acting as if we were strangers. Or worse, just friends.

  Downstairs, Parker gave me a hesitant smile, and Vic and Jace avoided my eyes entirely. But Ethan had never been one for subtlety. Or for tact. “So, did you guys break up, or what?” he asked, popping the tab on a can of Coke at the kitchen island.

  Marc glanced at me with an arched eyebrow and a wry smile. I shrugged. I would have liked to know the answer to that one myself.

  “Sounds like you should learn to listen better,” Marc said, stuffing his hands into his jeans pockets.

  Ethan grinned, unfazed. “Jace’ll fill me in later.” He was shirtless, as usual, and damp from the rain.

  Ignoring them both, I pulled the front door open and stepped onto the rain-slick porch, beyond caring whether or not anyone followed me.

  Ethan jogged after me, sloshing soda onto the porch without bothering to clean it up. “Come on, Faythe,” he said, throwing one arm around my waist as I stomped through the soggy grass, my newly wet hair already clinging to my face. He obviously wasn’t still mad about my right hook connecting with his jaw. “I’ve got twenty bucks riding on this. Did he forgive you?”

  “That’s none of your business.” I pulled his arm up by his wrist and ducked beneath it. In one smooth move, as fat droplets plopped down on us both, I stepped behind him, twisting his arm back and up, until his fingertips brushed his own shoulder blade.

  Ethan’s howl of pain brought a satisfied smile to my face. I should probably have felt at least a little guilty about getting the better of him twice in less than an hour. But I didn’t. I still owed him a few hard knocks from childhood.

  “Hey, thanks,” Marc said, plucking the half-empty Coke from Ethan’s free hand as he passed us. He drained the can, then crushed it in his fist, sparing a grin for my brother as he took off toward the main house, jogging ahead of us in the rain.

  “Damn it, Faythe, don’t make me hurt you,” Ethan said through gritted teeth, pulling against me to free his arm.

  I tightened my grip. “Who’d you bet against?” I asked, shoving him forward until he had to either start walking or fall on his face in the wet grass. “Jace?”

  “Hell no. Leave me out of this,” Jace muttered, passing me from the left. “I didn’t want anything to do with his dirty money. It was Vic.”

  I glared at Vic, and he shrugged.

  “You’re both assholes.” I let go of Ethan’s arm, and gave him another hard shove, for good measure. “You have no business sticking your noses into our personal lives.”

  “There’s no such thing as privacy around here.” Vic stomped off through the rain with his hands stuffed into the pockets of his jeans.

  Parker held the door open for us, and we tromped into the house one at a time, tracking water and clipped grass blades onto the tile in the back hall. On the way to my father’s office, I ducked into my bedroom to change into dry clothes and towel-dry my wet hair. Then I headed back down the hall.

  In the kitchen, the guys—all but Marc—were gathered around several half gallons of ice cream, each shoveling indiscriminately with his own spoon. I smiled at them, then turned toward the office. My fingers had just closed over the doorknob when it turned on its own.

  The door swung open and Marc stepped out, his hands curled into fists at his sides and his eyes blazing. He paused just long enough to meet my eyes, then brushed past me and stomped off down the hall and out the back door.

  All commotion from the kitchen ceased. Then, after mere seconds of silence, Ethan became the first to break it. As usual. “What crawled up his ass?”

  In his office, my father looked up from his desk at the sound of Ethan’s voice. But his eyes settled on me instead. “No sense standing in the doorway, Faythe. Come in and sit down.” He glanced over my shoulder and across the hall at the guys in the kitchen. “The rest of you put up the ice cream and get in here.”

  As I plopped on the end of the couch closest to him, tucking my feet beneath me, he stood and crossed the room to his armchair without waiting to see whether or not his orders were followed. He still wore his suit jacket, but his top button was undone and his tie was gone. It lay draped over the back of his empty desk chair.

  With the exception of the occasional postbedtime emergency, when my father came to his office still in silk pajamas and a matching robe, I couldn’t remember ever seeing him work in less than a full suit. It was disconcerting. And a little disorienting.

  “What’s wrong with Marc?” I asked, eyeing my father in suspicion.

  He watched me for a long moment, his lips pressed into a firm, straight line. “I split the two of you up.” He crossed one ankle over his knee, waiting for my reaction. He wasn’t disappointed.

  I sat up straight and my heels hit the rug a little harder than I’d intended. “You what?”

  “Not as a couple,” he said calmly, his hands folded in his lap. “As field partners.”

  Did that mean Marc would be taking his vacation, after all? I wrapped my hands around the scrolled arm of the couch, sinking my fingers into the cool, smooth leather. “Why? We work well together.”

  “Not on this assignment. You’re clearly better equipped than the guys to find and question Andrew, but I don’t want Marc anywhere near him. We need Andrew alive, and not just on the off chance that he might be able or willing to testify about his infection in front of the council. We have to know what happened to the missing strippers, and where they are, and we need him for that. Unfortunately, I’m not sure Marc can deliver him intact.”

  “He promised he would.”

  “And I don’t doubt that he meant that when he said it. But the fact that you needed a promise from him should say something. We can’t afford for him to accidentally go too far with Andrew.”

  “He won’t—”

  “It’s done.”

  Damn it. But I couldn’t help thinking it was a good sign that Marc was upset about being separated from me. If he’d taken it well, I’d have been worried.

  Jace sat next to me on the couch, and Owen settled onto the love seat, but I barely noticed either of them. Apparently neither did my father. “When this is all over, we’ll revisit the issue.”

  “Any room for negotiation on this one?” I asked, my voice sounding hopeless and drained, even to my own ears.

  “No.” He didn’t even smile, and with an almost bitter amusement, I realized I was tired of arguing, at least for today. Marc and I could probably handle one assignment without each other. After all, absence made the heart grow fonder, right?

  Or was it out of sight, out of mind?

  Twenty-Two

  “So what’s the plan?” I asked my father as Vic and Parker stepped into the room, each carrying several canned sodas.

  “Michael wants to go to Jamey’s funeral,” he said, politely waving off the can Parker offered him. “So, Owen, I’m keeping you here to help me.”

  Owen nodded, popping open the can Vic handed him.

  “I sent Michael to sleep in the guest room. Wes Gardner will be here first thing in the morning, and Michael and Ethan are accompanying him home for the funeral.” That was standard practice whenever a Pride cat died. Each Alpha would be expected to
send his own sons to represent both the Pride and the family, regardless of the inconvenience it might cause. “Did you hear that, Ethan?” my father asked, without raising his voice.

  “Got it,” my youngest brother called back from the kitchen, where he was loitering.

  “Faythe, when we find Andrew, I’m sending Jace and Vic out with you.”

  I glanced at Jace, surprised that my father would pair us after the last time we were alone together. But then, this time we wouldn’t be alone. Vic would be with us, which brought up another question. Vic and Marc had been partners for nearly a decade before I became an enforcer, so if my dad wouldn’t let me work with Marc, why hadn’t he put them back together?

  “Thanks,” I said, accepting one of Parker’s Cokes. But before I could question my father’s reasoning, Ethan came in carrying a mug of coffee. “Here you go, Dad,” he said, extending the mug. My father accepted it and nodded at Ethan in thanks.

  Someone was certainly trying to get on the Alpha’s good side.

  “Ethan, I want you to go to bed. We can’t afford for you to be pulled over tomorrow because you were too tired to be careful.”

  Ethan frowned, scratching one bare shoulder. “You want me to go to sleep now?”

  My father eyed the wall clock pointedly. “It’s almost three in the morning.”

  “Yeah, but…” He glanced around the room, appealing silently to the other guys. No one spoke. When Ethan finally glanced at me, I popped the top on my soda and smiled at him, then took a long, slow drink. “Fine,” he muttered, and shuffled into the hall. Seconds later, he slammed his bedroom door, and my smile widened.

  I was the only one who routinely argued with my father, but I wasn’t about to stick my neck out for the brother who’d bet twenty dollars that Marc would dump me.

  “Michael couldn’t find mention of any women going missing tonight anywhere in Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, or Arkansas—strippers or otherwise. So the last location we have for Andrew and whoever he’s working with is Henderson, Texas. I doubt he’s still there, but if the tabby isn’t there yet, I think it’s safe to assume she will be soon. So I’m sending Marc and Parker to Henderson first thing tomorrow, to look around and see what they can sniff out.”