by K. N. Banet
“Please don’t scare me like that again,” he murmured, holding onto me. “I know what they did to you. I saw it. It’s wrong, and they didn’t just violate you. They violated your entire species. They violated everything you try to protect. They don’t understand. They’ll never understand.”
I slowly stopped shaking.
“They’ve done it to werewolves,” he continued, rubbing my back. “As much as I want them to stop, I can’t make them. They try to see us as citizens, but they barely see us as humans. They don’t care that you were raised like any of their daughters were, and I’m sorry they don’t care. I’m so sorry.”
“I’ll make them understand,” I said hoarsely. “Watch me.”
He didn’t say anything in return. When I moved to get up this time, I was steadier. He got to his feet only seconds later.
“If you make this a fight with them, it could jeopardize other werecats,” he said softly, a warning coming from his good nature of wanting to see everything turn out okay.
“I won’t make it about the werecats,” I said softly. “I’ll bring it up after everything else is figured out. They can’t…they can’t do that to people.” I pointed at my phone. “They…they have copies somewhere, Heath. Someone is probably showing someone else right now, talking about this new freak they found.”
He hugged me again and rocked gently. This was what I had wanted after my family yelled at me and each other. This was what I wanted from them, just for a moment. I was sure they didn’t mean to hurt me. They were in panic mode, too, trying to figure out what to do with this new revelation.
I didn’t need to ask Heath.
Heath offered it without words.
I clung to him, knowing how I fell for him, why he was such a vital piece of my life, that I was willing to risk everything to be with him. He didn’t need me to ask. He only needed to be in the same space as me.
“How are you so good at this?” I asked, leaning into his chest farther, putting my weight into it, practically letting him hold me up.
“The truth or the poetry?”
“Both?” I frowned into his shirt, wondering what he meant.
“The poetry is, I love you, and my favorite place to be is with you. I’ll give you anything you need, whenever you need it. The truth is, I’m an Alpha werewolf, and this is my job, to know the needs of the people who are in my life and make sure they’re taken care of. Giving that to you, even though you’re my lover and not my pack, is something that comes as naturally to me as breathing.”
“There are bad Alphas,” I reminded him, pulling back.
“There are,” he agreed. “They do the same thing, though. They just do it in their own awful ways.”
“Ah.”
The off-topic conversation took my mind off the video, off the photos, off the problem, but I knew I’d have to get back to all of those things soon.
“I see them again tomorrow,” I whispered, going back to the conversation. “They gave me forty-eight hours to figure out what to say to them after I decided to throw them out.”
“Better you throw them out the first meeting than attack them,” he said, nodding. I felt his cheek rubbing my hair.
“I didn’t want to attack them at that moment. I don’t know what I wanted. To turn back time?” The hug ended naturally this time. Heath took a step back, putting his hands in his pockets as he stared at me with those stormy grey-blue eyes. “Do you really think I was about to…”
“I’ve seen enough werewolves do it, I know the signs, but…I know werecats do it much less frequently than we do. I don’t really know, but it was too close to something I had seen before,” he said as if he was admitting something painful.
“What would you have done?”
“Put a silver bullet between your eyes,” he whispered, reaching out to push my hair out of my face. He meant every word, and there was no guilt. He wasn’t blocking his scent from me to make it even clearer. He would do it. There wasn’t another option. I’d be a danger not just to him but to Landon, Dirk, and Carey as well.
“Good.” That was the correct decision. It might have seemed harsh to anyone else, but the Last Change meant becoming a monster. It was the reason movie werewolves existed and why so many people truly feared them. All rationale was gone. The ability and need to kill anything and anyone that might threaten the moon cursed was all that was left. When a moon cursed was pushed to that point, everything was a threat.
He dropped his hand and sighed. “Tomorrow—”
“Landon! I’m ready to go! Isn’t Dad taking me to school today? He promised he would.”
That voice was like an electric shock on my system. I wiped my eyes, wanting to see her, but I wasn’t sure how I looked. I had just had a breakdown.
“She can’t see me like this, can she?” I asked, looking at the door.
“You look like you’re tired,” he said diplomatically. “You can always see her, but she’ll know you’ve been crying.” In the background, Landon was consoling his sister about their dad not being available.
“Okay…” I took a deep breath. “I’m going to go see her, then we’ll talk more.”
He followed, silent, patient, and always at my back. She was standing at the end of the hall near the front door as Landon pulled on some shoes.
“Dirk, why are you here?” Carey asked innocently.
“Ah, uh…” He looked around and caught sight of me before anyone else. “Jacky and I had to stop by for something important. There she is.” He pointed at me.
“Hey, Carey,” I greeted with a smile, even though it felt shaky and weak at best. “Heading back to school, huh?”
“I went yesterday, too,” she said, coming up to me for a one-armed hug. When she stepped back, her calculating mind worked on what was going on as she looked me over. “Why did you need Dad?”
“Werecat things,” I said, shrugging. “Sorry, but it’s above your pay grade.”
“Oh. Well…since we didn’t hang out on Monday, do you want to do something today? Or tomorrow?”
“I might need to hold on for a week. This is big, but you’ll be the first to know when I have time,” I promised.
Will I still be allowed, or will the BSA think I’m too supernatural for her?
Another thing I would have to clarify at the second meeting.
I wish those guys hadn’t been so vague.
“Okay, cool. I got to head to school. Feel better, okay?”
“I will,” I answered, giving her a thumbs up.
She didn’t move, her grey-blue eyes, exact matches to her father’s, studying me.
“Have a good day.” She still didn’t move as if she was daring me to say I would have any other kind of day.
“You, too.” I didn’t think Carey had ever seen me like this. I didn’t normally present myself to the public, then break down into tears.
“Carey, come on. I don’t want you to be late for school,” Landon said. “Let’s get out of their way.”
“Where’s my hug?” Heath demanded, finally stepping around me. Carey stuck her tongue out at him and walked out the front door, making me laugh.
“No love from that child,” Heath muttered. Landon shrugged, and Heath glared at him next. “No love from any of you.”
Landon walked out, giving everyone a silent wave. Dirk was the last of the “kids” in the house, awkwardly standing in the entryway near the living room.
“She just walked downstairs, ate a pop tart, and acted like everything was totally normal,” he said, looking at me and Heath as though he didn’t honestly know what to do.
“I’ve finally discovered a Dirk weakness,” I declared. “Children!”
“Not funny,” he grumbled. “Not many of them in our family.”
“There really isn’t,” I agreed. Then I sobered. “Sorry about…” I pointed aimlessly over my shoulder.
“You don’t need to apologize,” he mumbled. “Are…are you feeling better?”
“Yeah
. Yeah, I am. Let’s get to work. I don’t need walls, but…”
“We can do something that matches the area,” Heath said patiently. “Let’s talk. Let’s try to fix this.”
12
Chapter Twelve
I stood in my office, watching out the window as Heath, Dirk, and several men I didn’t know, talked about the little trail that went to my house. Heath was moving a pointed finger along the edge of the parking lot, right at the tree line, saying something.
“We can…along here…barbed wire. Country…gate…”
I could only really hear bits and pieces when his voice went a little louder, and the wind outside died down. It wasn’t a blustery day, but there was just enough to mess with my acute sense of hearing. I knew what he was telling them, though. They were the fastest plans we had ever thrown together since we met. Kick Shot had been a slower rebuild, getting the details perfect because it was a place of business.
This was a needed security blanket, so I could feel safe in my own house. The physical look of the design didn’t matter, only the practicality.
There would be a new barbed wire fence woven through my trees as a clear line people couldn’t cross. Cameras and microphones would be tucked around the woods, carefully wired to a power source in my house. I would lose the trail and get a real driveway, with a country-style gate, something you would see on a farm. It suited the area more than a high-level mansion gate, and I didn’t want to stand out too much. I would park my car at home for its security, so I could see it. Motion detectors would tell me when someone was walking or driving down the driveway toward me. The gate would open automatically for people with a certain type of receiver. It was all very fancy, high-tech stuff. Heath had said it was this or magic, and since I was a werecat and so sensitive to magic in my territory, he figured I would like tech better.
He wasn’t completely wrong. I would have preferred never having either.
We don’t always get what we want, and I have to address what I need.
I was losing a lot of what I loved about my little corner of the world, but I was a werecat. I could adapt to physical changes in my world.
What I couldn’t deal with was the violation of my territory and feeling unsafe in it. It wasn’t just that I was a woman recorded on tape. This had tapped into something primal, a fear of any of my species. The territory we claimed was our kingdom, the place where we were the dominant power. When someone drew close to the center, our home, the place we laid our solitary heads, the more likely we were to kill those people.
I had fought that instinct, playing safe when I knew people were walking around my woods. I was paying for it now, with the ever-present sick feeling I couldn’t go home because it wasn’t safe and the idea I would never feel so comfortable again. I knew I had done it to myself.
That was why I let those men change something so vital to me.
I could tolerate the driveway, the barbed wire fencing, and the technology that ruined my pristine forest, but I couldn’t tolerate the feeling that felt like a slow rot.
I couldn’t watch anymore, turning to check the time on my monitor, its blue glow cold comfort. At least my computer was clean. They weren’t going to get me through it.
“One hour,” I whispered. “I have one hour.” With a shaky inhale, I knew the second meeting was going to be just as hard as the first. Looking down at myself, I was proud for just a moment. I had made it home for a simple shower, with Heath, Landon, and Dirk all hovering in my house—a silent guard. They weren’t just there to protect my privacy, but to make sure I didn’t lose control like I did in Heath’s house.
Once the shower was over, I put on a crisp suit and hunkered down in my office. Landon went to be with Carey while Heath and Dirk worked with the guys Heath had called the day before, once we were settled on what I wanted for security.
I sat down and sighed, but even as I tried to relax, I was ever vigilant. I could hear them still talking, then trucks revved, and some drove away. The back door opened and closed, then footsteps on the back staircase. I could hear their conversation as they headed to my office.
“Do you know what my kind calls your…dad?” Heath asked, unsure about Niko’s title for Dirk.
“The Traitor, right? I had heard some use it against him.” Dirk shrugged.
“Yeah. He’s interesting, though. One of my favorites from Jacky’s family.”
“He’s not bad.” Dirk was about as evasive as he always was when Niko was brought up.
I let my mind trail off, considering Niko for a moment. The Traitor was Niko’s unofficial title in the same way people called Zuri the Politician and Hisao the Assassin. He was the Traitor, not because he betrayed his werecat family, though. He’d been born to werewolves, and his family didn’t want to get involved in the War raging at the time. They had been slaughtered. Hasan rescued Niko, finished raising him, and Niko decided to join the werecats instead. He’d “betrayed” the species he had been born to. He was a traitor to many werewolves old enough to remember, and others used the name just because they had heard it before.
It was an interesting story, but I knew the quiet man who had lived through it. Dirk said it right—Niko was pretty much always an outsider. I had a rocky start coming into the family, but from everything I knew, Niko’s was worse, thanks to the circumstances of the time.
As they walked into my office, I looked up and smiled at the two men.
At least I have the support here. My family will catch up. They always do.
“They’ll begin work tomorrow,” Heath declared. “I was up all night, drawing out the designs, and they got the final measurements needed through today. The driveway and gate will come first. The barbed wire fence will have to be done without a design plan because we don’t want to cut down any trees. They’ll have to go in and see what they can do. I’m calling the techs from my company tomorrow to talk about how we’re going to wire in cameras and mics. It’s do-able, but it’ll be hard.”
“How much is this going to cost me?” I asked, leaning onto my desk.
“I think you might want to ask Hasan to cover it,” Heath said carefully. “At least the technical portion. The driveway and fencing are pretty cheap, all things considered.”
“Seriously, Heath. How much?” I asked again. I couldn’t ask Hasan for help right now. Well, I could, but I didn’t want to. I brought this on my family, and I would eat the costs. I would do everything I could to keep them from getting more involved than they already were.
“The driveway and fence will be close to $50,000. The technical side will probably run close to a million out of pocket. They’re going to be breaking out some high-end, possibly prototype stuff for you, especially when you tell them what was used to watch you.”
“Those are already in the mail to my brother, so I hope you aren’t thinking about giving them what the BSA developed,” I said, sighing.
“No, no. And those weren’t developed by the BSA. They were developed by the CIA. Werewolves, however, already told both organizations if we get our hands on it, it’s ours. They should be more careful with their equipment. Finders keepers.” He gave me a wolfy smile, all teeth and definitely not nice. “I’ve broken down a number of their pieces with my own hands after finding them in my offices and in my backyards when I was an Alpha. They know better.”
“Didn’t it bother you to be spied on?” Dirk was hovering by the door, so I pointed at a chair. “Sit down. You probably need to hear all of this.”
He fell into a chair as Heath casually strolled around the desk and leaned over me.
“It bothered me,” he confirmed, kissing my cheek. “But I was already outed. I was more upset when Carey was young. I threatened the agents I knew in Dallas that if I found another camera in my backyard where she played, I would break their legs, so they couldn’t run on the next full moon. I would let my pack show them werewolves could, in fact, eat people, and some of them learned to enjoy the act. My daughter was off-limits to the spy
ing. All the children were, no matter the species. If they wanted to see any of them, they had channels to do that. I would have killed them if there was video similar to yours for any young werewolf.”
“Would you have really eaten them?” I asked softly, looking up slowly. Heath never, even at his most fearsome, struck me as a man-eating type.
“I do what I have to,” he answered enigmatically, pulling away. He fixed his button-down, making sure it was properly tucked in. Gone were the casual jeans and tight-fitting shirts. Today, he was in the business slacks that reminded me of the day I met him. This was business Heath or more aptly, Alpha Heath. He’d dropped this image over the two-plus years he’d been in my territory, but today it was back.
“I should go before they get here,” he declared. “They’ll be early to throw you off your game. They’re going to come in hard and fast with demands and questions, trying to put you off-balance. Hold your ground and make your needs and demands clear. If you press your side, they’ll be forced to listen. They’ll railroad you into a bad deal if they can. The BSA isn’t out to hurt supernaturals, but to better understand us and how we can be useful to the United States. They want to know how we can be used and controlled. Don’t give them an inch. Their goals are important enough, they’ll listen once they realize you’re not going to back down.”
“Thank you,” I whispered. “Dirk, go with him. Heath, can you keep…” I waved a hand at Dirk. I was already a bit frazzled by my upcoming meeting. Heath’s purposefully focused advice only made me more worried. We had already talked about how he couldn’t, under any circumstances, get involved.
“By the time everything is done, he’ll be ready to manage it. Promise.” Heath smiled and thumped Dirk’s shoulder. “Let’s go and give her some time to breathe before this happens.”
“Boss?” Dirk watched me. “Do you want me to go? I can stay and get whatever you need during the meeting. It’ll be fine.”