Rogue

  “When he took my baby.”

  “Your baby?” I glanced at her stomach, where her good hand still rested over the white down comforter, nails ragged, fingers callused.

  She smiled softly and shook her head. “My first baby. I fight him for the child. I broke his nose, and claw his arms. But he took my son anyway.” She looked at my mother through haunted eyes. “I need the gun. I cannot kill him without it, and I will not be taken alive. Not again.” Her free hand caressed her flat stomach and her eyes hardened. “I will not lose this baby.”

  Taken alive?

  A sudden deluge of understanding washed over me, and I fought to keep from drowning in it. We’d been so close to the truth.

  Manx was one of the missing South American tabbies. She was among the first victims of an ambitious, brutal project intended to provide breed-able tabbies to some jungle cat—likely several jungle cats—in the Amazon. Sara, Abby, and I were part of the project. But beyond that, the dead college girls and strippers were also involved, in Luiz’s attempts to create tabbies, alongside the greater plan to take them.

  Somehow Manx had fought free from her captors and was now out for revenge. I couldn’t help but respect that.

  “You’re safe here,” my mother said, almost crooning as she stroked the tabby’s hand. “We won’t let anything happen to you, or to your baby.”

  But Manx looked skeptical. Downright disbelieving, as if the very concept of trust were foreign to her. Which was understandable, considering that she’d spent the last four years in hell. In a place where every man she saw beat her and raped her. Then one of them stole her child. Learning to trust men again would likely be the hardest thing Manx would ever do. If it was even possible.

  And suddenly I understood why she’d killed the toms. I didn’t excuse it, mostly because I couldn’t picture Jamey Gardner ever hurting anyone. But Manx wouldn’t have known that. She would only have known what she’d lived through, and was determined never to go through again.

  I opened my mouth, intending to say something brilliant, and comforting and singularly appropriate. But before I could think of a single thing, the screen door squealed open at the end of the hall, and footsteps pounded on the tile.

  “Greg!” Marc called, dashing past the guest room in nothing but jeans and a pair of work boots.

  I was out of my chair in an instant, running after him in time to see my father emerge from his office, a pen in one hand and a legal pad in the other. “What’s wrong?”

  “He’s here.” Marc leaned over, propping his hands on his knees as he caught his breath after what had obviously been a mad race to the main house. “Luiz is here.”

  Blood drained from my face, and chill bumps popped up all over my arms. For a moment, I couldn’t move. Could barely even breathe. Then a slow smile spread over my face. Luiz is here. On our land. My land.

  There were half a dozen of us, and only one of him. He didn’t stand a chance. I was going to get a second shot at him. Or was it my third? Regardless, it would be my last, and when everything was over, there would be one less jungle stray to worry about.

  “Where?” my father asked while I crossed the hall into my room, still listening as I prepared for the fight.

  “In the woods. Parker and I found his scent on the back edge of the property, just past the stream. It’s fresh.” The guys had been patrolling twice daily since we got back from Henderson, just in case.

  “Faythe!” my father bellowed as I pulled my shirt over my head, stripping in preparation to Shift. It would be suicidal to face Luiz again on two legs.

  Still wearing my bra and shorts, I jogged into the office, where Marc, Vic, and Owen stood, apparently waiting for me. My father nodded when he saw me, then turned toward the guys. “Vic, Marc, I want you to Shift, then spread out into the forest with Parker. We’re going to search every acre of our woods, and the preserve, too.”

  He paused, rubbing his temples with one hand as he considered how to continue. “Owen, go to the guesthouse and help Jace over here. Put him in Ethan’s bed, then you Shift and join us.”

  Owen headed straight for the door.

  “Move silently and quickly,” my father said. “Don’t give away your position until you find Luiz, and once you have, roar loud enough to wake the whole damn county. Forget about taking him alive. Manx can tell us what we need to know about her fellow tabbies. We’re going to take care of this jungle cat once and for all.”

  I gaped at my father, a silent thrill coursing through me. He was going hunting, too. For the first time since I’d become an enforcer, I was going to get to hunt alongside my father. My Alpha.

  “Faythe?”

  “Yes?” I stood ready for my orders, eager for a piece of the action. Luiz deserved to die slowly and painfully for what he’d done to Andrew, to Manx, and to all those other girls.

  My father stared down into my eyes, his expression both serious and concerned. And skeptical. Crap. “I want you to stay here while we search the forest—”

  “Hell no—” I started, but he cut me off with a furious look and a strong, firm grip on my left arm.

  “For once, you’re going to do exactly as you’re told. That’s your job. If you can’t follow orders, you can spend the night in the cage with Ryan. Is that clear?” I nodded reluctantly, and he continued. “I’m taking the guys with me, so we can cover the grounds more quickly. But I can’t leave your mother, Manx, and Jace here without knowing I can count on you to take care of them. To defend them, should the need arise.”

  A hint of a grin appeared on my face, in spite of my best efforts to keep it hidden. “You want me to protect the women and chil—er, the wounded?”

  My father frowned. He obviously had no idea why I found my assignment so amusing. “Well…yes. Can you handle that?”

  “It sounds like babysitting to me, and I’d rather go hunting.”

  “We’ve all done our share of babysitting recently,” Marc said, throwing my time under house arrest up in my face. “Think of it as paying your dues.”

  I glared at him. But then I nodded. I could pay my dues, even if my father was using the lame assignment to keep me safely out of the action.

  “Lock all the doors and windows until we get back. And close the curtains, just in case.” My father’s voice deepened and went gravelly in anger as he uttered what would normally have been a ridiculous order. We’d never needed to lock up before, because we’d never been threatened at home by anyone but our Alpha, who considered it his right to intimidate the living shit out of us on a regular basis.

  For a moment, as he watched me, my father looked like he might smile. Then the moment passed, and his expression was unreadable again. “Thank you,” he said, and the guys followed him into the hallway and out the back door.

  I watched them until they rounded the corner of the house and passed out of my sight. When I could no longer see their afternoon shadows stretching out behind them, I turned and plodded slowly toward the front door, which I closed and locked. I left the back door open for Owen and Jace, then moved into my own bedroom, to start closing and locking windows.

  As I flipped the lever to lock the one, high window in my bathroom, I heard the screen door creak open. Owen had arrived with Jace.

  “Faythe, is that you?” my mother called as I pulled the worthless lace curtain closed.

  “Yeah. I’m just locking the windows.” With my room covered, I moved on to Ethan’s, where I had both windows secured and covered by the time Owen appeared in the doorway, supporting Jace with one arm around his torso.

  “’Bout time,” I teased.

  “The doctor can only move as fast as the patient.” Owen lowered Jace gently onto Ethan’s bed. “Will you be okay until we get back?”

  “Yeah.” Jace nodded. “Just turn on the TV before you go, please.”

  Owen pressed the power button on Ethan’s twenty-inch set on his way out the door, already unbuttoning his shirt in preparation to Shift.

 
I handed Jace the TV remote and gave him a kiss on his stubbly cheek, then trailed Owen into the hall to lock the door behind him.

  For the next few minutes, I went from room to room, locking windows and closing curtains. I felt like a fool. If Luiz was strong and fast enough to get past the guys, a few covered windows weren’t going to give him more than a moment’s pause.

  Which meant—if he made it this far—the only thing standing between the weakest members of the household and a psychotic jungle stray was…well, me. And I welcomed the opportunity to kick Luiz’s brainwashing, raping, baby-snatching ass. Again.

  Thirty

  I saved the guest-room window for last, and for a while I stood watching Manx and my mother, marveling at how comfortable they seemed with each other. Manx wore the lacy white nightgown my mother had dressed her in, which set off her cascade of dark curls. Her right arm was in a cast and a sling, and her left hand held a glass of water. She looked feminine and delicate, and incapable of most of the things we now knew she’d done.

  “They take four of us, at first,” she said, staring into her glass. “They already have Ana when they catch me. They keep us apart, but we can see each other through the bars. She was so young….”

  I stepped back to listen from the hall, afraid she would stop talking if I came in.

  “How young?” my mother asked, and I knew she was thinking of Abby.

  “Maybe, quince? Fifteen?”

  My mother gasped, and my own eyes closed in horror.

  “She cried for her madre. I cried for mine, too,” Manx confessed quietly. “When I lose my tail. Much pain.”

  Well, that explains the name, I thought, unwilling to even imagine how she could lose her tail.

  “How did you get away from them?” my mother asked. “Here, let me refill that for you, dear.” Her chair creaked as she stood, and light footsteps trailed across the room toward the master bath. “Faythe, it’s rude to hover in doorways.”

  Well hell. I turned the corner into the bedroom, my cheeks flaming. Manx watched me lock the window, and she cleared her throat as I was leaving the room. “Faythe? You are welcome to stay.”

  I bristled in irritation. Of course I was welcome to stay. It was my house. I plopped down in the armchair opposite the door and watched my mother tend to Manx. The pregnant murderer.

  “How did I escape?” Manx asked as water ran in the bathroom. “I fight. I finally know that if I do not fight, I lose this baby, too.”

  Mom crossed the room again and handed the glass back to Manx. “How long ago did you lose the other one?”

  “Not one. Dos. Two.”

  My mother made a strange strangling sound, likely choking on her own horror. I closed my eyes, trying to imagine how one woman could come out of so much tragedy with her mind intact. Just because I didn’t want my own children yet didn’t mean I couldn’t understand the loss of one. Or two.

  “Luiz took two of your babies?” Mom fell into the bedside chair, meeting Manx’s deep gray eyes with emotion far beyond mere sympathy.

  “He, and others. They pull my sons from my arms at birth and kill them. One—” her voice broke, her eyes filling with tears at the memory “—by one. But not this one. I will keep this one, and I will avenge the others.”

  “Why kill the babies?” I couldn’t resist asking, my fingers playing along the seam in the arm of my chair. “I thought the whole point of taking women was to make more babies and increase the size of the Pride.”

  “Girl babies,” Manx said, her eyes so full of pain that I could hardly stand to look at her. “They have many men. They want only girl babies.”

  “Did they get one?”

  My mother shot me another angry look, but Manx nodded gravely. “Last year. From Ana. She feed the baby for dieciséis months. But then they take the child away, because she not make more babies while she make milk. Ana went mad.”

  “That’s unspeakable!” my mother cried. It was the worst word she knew. According to my mother, the list of unspeakable acts included everything from terrorism to genocide. And apparently any crime that separated a mother from her children. But in this case, I had to agree.

  “Dan Painter said Luiz was calling you.” I stood and approached the bed hesitantly, tired of having to look around my mother to see the tabby. “Where did you get the phone, and how did he get your number?”

  My mother scowled at me, but Manx set her glass carefully on the bedside table. The movement made her wince, and she stiffened her injured right arm. “I take phone from the man I kill to escape. Luiz’s number is in the phone. I hear men talking before, so I know where he goes. I call him. He tells me where he is, and tells me come get him.”

  I sank onto the end of the bed, careful not to jar her. “Why the hell would he do that?”

  “To take me back.”

  Of course. Luiz was baiting her into coming after him. She was the “business” he and Andrew planned to take care of before coming for me. Manx knew what he was up to the whole time, and still came after him. That was one ballsy tabby cat, and as much as I wanted to hate her, I couldn’t help respecting her courage.

  “I try to take Ana with me, but she screams when she is touched. We would not have made it.”

  “What about the others?” I asked, as my mother leaned down to pick up the knitting bag beneath her chair. “Did they escape, too?”

  From Ethan’s bedroom, tires squealed, and canned gunshots rang out. I smiled. Jace had found an action movie.

  “No.” Manx twisted the edge of the down comforter in her good hand, and I briefly considered offering her my punching pillow. “Rosa died in childbirth, two years ago. Another boy. Carmela kill herself when they take her son.”

  “So now there’s only Ana,” I said, thinking aloud. And she’s mad.

  “No, they still have Sonia.”

  “Wait, who’s Sonia?” I sat up straight, closing my eyes as I did the mental math. My father’s contact had said four girls went missing. Manx was one of them. Then there were Ana, Carmela, and Rosa. “I thought they only took four tabbies,” I added, when my mother shot me a questioning look.

  Manx blinked up at me, and her gray eyes seemed to see straight through me. “They bring Sonia later. Maybe…eight months ago. She was human. Scratched. What you call scratched cats?” Her forehead crinkled and her eyes closed in thought.

  “Strays,” I whispered in incredulity. “We call them strays.”

  “Yes. She was stray. Very scared. Very sick.” Manx tapped her left temple. “Like Ana.”

  My mother’s clicking knitting needles paused, leaving a heavy, meaningful silence. Frowning, I scratched a mosquito bite on my foot. The implications of Manx’s claim swirled around in my head, making me dizzy. “How the hell did they—”

  My mother stood suddenly and blinked, as if that’s all it took to clear her mind of unpleasant thoughts. She laid her latest project—a scarf, from the looks of it—on the seat of her chair. “Is anyone hungry? I don’t think I ate any lunch today. Faythe?”

  I shook my head. Food was the last thing on my mind. We’d already had dinner, and I had more questions for Manx….

  “Mercedes, you must be starving, especially with the little one on the way,” my mother said, and Manx nodded, caressing her stomach. “I feel like chicken and dumplings. I don’t usually make that during hot weather, but some broth would be good for Jace.”

  “Thank you.” Manx smiled. “That sounds wonderful.”

  “Faythe? Come help me?”

  I arched my eyebrows at my mother in surprise. She wanted my help? With dinner? I didn’t even know where she kept the Crock-Pot—or whatever she used to cook four whole chickens at a time.

  Unfazed, she beckoned me with a wave, and I followed her into the kitchen. “That poor girl has been through hell,” she whispered fiercely, pulling a massive cutting board from the cupboard beneath the bar. Before I’d recovered from my mother’s use of profanity, she continued. “I want you to leave her alo
ne and be nice to her. She’ll have to repeat everything for your father, anyway, and I see no reason to traumatize her twice. Hand me the meat cleaver.”

  Huffing in frustration, I reached across the countertop and pulled the heavy nine-inch meat cleaver from a huge rack of knives, and hesitated only a moment before giving it to my mother. I was very reluctant to hand over such a big knife to someone so obviously irritated with me.

  I gripped the countertop hard enough to make the wooden trim creak. “First of all, this is me being nice to Manx.” I hadn’t cuffed her. I hadn’t thrown her downstairs with Ryan. I hadn’t even really questioned her. “And the truth is that I feel damn sorry for her. She has been through hell. But she also has information we need about Luiz, and whoever’s running this whole operation in the jungle. Not to mention the fact that she’s murdered three innocent tomcats!”

  My mother pulled a whole, plastic-wrapped chicken from the fridge and dropped it on the cutting board, much harder than necessary. “Her experience with men has hardly been positive, Faythe. I can certainly understand how she might have felt threatened by a couple of strange tomcats putting their hands on her.”

  “And the council may see things your way.” Though I had my doubts. “But the fact remains that you can’t pronounce her innocent just because you feel sorry for her. It’s the council’s place to try her, not ours.” Yet I had the distinct feeling I’d be supporting the other side of that argument when my own time came to face the council.

  “I agree with you completely.” She lifted her meat clever into the air with both hands and brought it down with a mighty thud, slicing the first unfortunate chicken clean in half, plastic wrapping and all. “Her fate is up to the council. But until then, her well-being—and that of her child—is up to us, and I will not have you upsetting her with questions you have no business asking. Leave the interrogation to your father, and be nice to Mercedes. That’s the end of this discussion.”

  Be nice? She wanted me to be nice to the serial killer in the guest room? My mother’s priorities were so screwed up.