His lids drooped low, shielding his eyes. “Kit—”
“Shut up!” I shrieked. The sound of it startled me, echoing all around us. Staring at him, I shook my head again, backing away as much as I could. “You wanted me to talk to you then, and I couldn’t. I can do it now so just shut up. Do you have any idea what that was like for me? I had that job weighing down on me and the only things I knew for certain…I couldn’t tell anybody so no way to ask for help in clearing you and if I screwed it up, you were dead.”
Spinning away, I shoved my hands into my hair, cradling my head. I felt like I was going to come apart into ten thousand pieces. “I couldn’t say anything,” I whispered again. “The one time I tried to give a warning was to Chang, after you’d walked away. I wanted to make sure you’d stay in the Lair until Justin told me it was all done and I had to stab myself in the fucking leg just to get the vaguest warning out.”
Somebody out in the circle of bodies muttered something. It might have been Chang. I didn’t know.
I heard somebody move and the sound of it sent fear scurrying through me. Spinning back around, I tried to find the source of the sound, but saw nothing. Great…just great. I’m back to jumping at shadows. Cringing at the smallest bump in the night.
“I did it for you.” I stared at him. “I tried to protect you the way you’re always trying to protect me. And you walked away.”
Damon just stood there and his eyes locked on my face.
“But I still tried to call,” I whispered as the agony ripped loose. “I still had the phone in my hand from calling the Lair when I realized I had a dart in my chest. All I wanted to do was tell you I was sorry…” I reached for the neck of the sweater, the scars feeling scratchy and raw.
“Kit, please….would you just…”
I had to make myself do this. He needed to stop. For the past few hours, while Justin did whatever he had to do inside that house, I had been hiding and cringing away while Damon stalked my steps. Maybe he needed to understand. Maybe he needed to see. I knew what had been done to me. I knew how broken I was.
“You were smart to end it when you did, Damon. Maybe it was sheer dumb luck on your part, but it’s best for you.” I tugged at the neck of the sweater. “I understand that you feel guilty, or angry, or upset. But it’s not going to be enough to help you see past what he made me into.”
“You’re still you,” Damon said. One big hand closed into a fist and his eyes glittered as he stared at me.
“No. I’m not.” Tugging the neck of the sweater down, I craned my neck to the side. On the other side, I had the marks Damon had given me. Jude had been careful not to touch those. I think he took some sort of perverse pride in marking up the other side, and mark it, he had. A map of scars marred my neck and there was nothing neat about them. “Two weeks as a vamp’s bloodwhore, Damon. His thing…his toy. I’m so far from me, I don’t think I’ll ever find my way back.”
“I’ll find your way,” he rasped.
“You can’t…and what’s more, I don’t want you around me right now.” I swallowed the lump in my throat and tried to breathe around it.
Damon took another step. “Kit, for fuck’s sake…please.”
“No.” I backed away, stumbling this time. Yet again, Doyle was there. I sank my hand into his fur and knelt beside him. Anything to avoid looking at the man still hovering too close to me.
Doyle bumped his head against my chest, once, twice. After he did it a third time, I slowly wrapped an arm around his neck. “Thank you,” I whispered against the warmth of his body. “I don’t know why you came after me, kid, but thank you.”
He wrapped himself around me and when somebody moved toward me, he growled.
“Don’t,” I whispered. I stroked a hand down his back. “You need to go to your Alpha, okay, kid? Just leave me alone with Colleen, okay? I need to be alone.”
He just twined himself tighter around me and continued to stare past me. And he wasn’t leaving.
Gradually, I realized the others had.
Gradually, I realized it was just us.
Me, Colleen, and a boy who’d shapeshifted into a tiger…a boy who’d somehow managed to track me across a continent.
Colleen settled against my back, her head on my shoulder.
“You’re still you, Kit,” she whispered.
“No, I’m not.”
I really wished everybody would quit telling me that.
* * * * *
“They’re moving him.”
Goliath appeared out of the snowy night.
Doyle nudged my chest again and I pushed my hand against him. “You need to go back to your clan,” I said quietly. In the past hour, I’d made myself look away from the protective circle of Colleen, Goliath and Doyle and I realized there were nearly twenty cats there, not including Doyle.
How could I include Doyle, when he’d all but glued himself to my side?
Goliath nudged the tiger with his foot. “He’s picked his place for the time being, Kit. You aren’t moving him, so don’t bother.” Then he patted my shoulder with a hand the size of a fist. “Come on. They’re moving him, I said. I heard the ruckus. A couple of his more stupid servants tried to fight and I think Justin was kicking ass.”
Moving him—
My heart shrank up, shriveled with fear.
The muscles in my legs knotted and I wanted to run.
“You don’t have to see, Kit,” Colleen whispered.
“Yes.” Goliath gripped my arm. “She does.”
He started to haul me across the frozen ground and I tensed up, started to jerk.
“You big bastard, let her decide,” Colleen said, her voice slicing through the air.
“She already did, before she started to panic,” he said, his voice implacable.
I clawed at his hand, popping my wrist but the heat wasn’t there. The music was gone. And I started to sob. She was gone—
A massive cat barreled our way.
Goliath hefted me in his arms, glaring at the leopard in front of us. “You need to move,” he said quietly. “She needs to see she’s safe.”
The leopard opened his mouth, screamed defiantly.
Goliath’s lip curled back in a sneer. “If I didn’t currently hate your guts, that might impress me,” he said. “But she’s going to have nightmares.”
I struggled against him even as his voice stabbed into me.
“She’s going to remember this, every second of it for months, probably years. And if she can’t think back and remember seeing the box that hauled him away, part of her is going to wonder if he’s after her.”
Now Goliath looked at me and his eyes were gentle. “You’ll have those nightmares anyway. You probably know that. But it will be a little easier, I think, if you can tell yourself you know he’s locked away.”
Silver lights flashed out of the corner of my eyes and I heard a raised voice, distorted by magic. The charges being read against Jude.
They were bringing him out.
“You need to see this, Kit,” Goliath said quietly.
Some of that awful panic inside me eased as I looked into his pale blue eyes and I made myself breathe. “Yes.” I nodded. I shoved away from him. “I need to see it…and I need to walk.”
My legs were stiff and awkward, locking beneath me with each step as I started toward that house. I wanted to see it razed to the ground. Wanted to know nothing but rubble remained and then I wanted to burn the rubble until it melted away into molten rock.
Instead, I walked across snow-swept grounds, Goliath at one side and a massive tiger at the other side.
Whispers echoed and shivered around me, bodies creeping out of the night. I glanced behind me and saw just how many had hidden in the darkness. Twenty-four cats, I realized. Some of them had hidden so well, I hadn’t seen them, hadn’t sensed them.
Chang stood beside the leopard and when I glanced at him, staring just over his shoulder, his eyes shifted to the ground. None of them looked at me
now.
And Damon was nowhere to be found.
Good. That was good. One less heartbreak to worry about. He could deal with his guilt and whatever he felt away from me.
Pushing thoughts of him out of my head, I focused on others as I walked on.
I knew some of them. Some of TJ’s wolves and they stood apart from the cats, watching me solemnly. Unflinchingly.
And the others…witches of the Green Road. Colleen was the only healer among them. The rest were their warriors—five of them. They’d sent five of their warriors after me. A veritable army.
“Come on, Kitty,” Goliath said.
I froze when I saw a massive shadow up ahead. Working through the dark night like it belonged to it. My heart jumped into my throat as we rounded the corner and that shadow bled away into the night. What was he doing—?
Then I couldn’t think about anything, because now I was standing in front of the house.
And there was Jude.
A mass of people huddled in front, his slaves, all guarded by a long line of guards dressed in the distinctive uniform of the Banner cops. I was stunned to realize how many of the Banner cops were familiar.
One of the slaves was the healer Yasmine. Her gaze cut toward me and then moved back to the front of the house. One of the Banner cops, a slender black woman who stood nearly as tall as Goliath was still reading through the charges.
And Jude stood on the top step.
Impassive.
The woman from Banner wrapped it up and said, “You’ll be transported back to face trial with the Assembly. Do you wish to deny these charges?”
Jude’s eyes shifted and my heart stopped as he sought me out in the crowd. “I’d like a moment with my property,” he said lazily.
“Unless you want to kiss your house good-bye, there’s no fucking need,” Justin said as he came striding through the door. “People are not considered chattel under the charter and in case you didn’t figure it out, Whittier, you just majorly fucked up.”
Jude smiled.
Justin stopped long enough to stare at him and shake his head. “You know…part of me is really hoping you’ll fight when we go to lock you in the box,” he said, heaving out a sigh. “But you’re not that stupid, are you?”
“I always seek to comply with the trappings of law,” Jude said mildly.
Justin grunted and turned on his heel, striding toward me as the Banner cops started to herd Jude toward a long black box. The magic coming off of it stung my skin, my eyes to even look at it. Somebody opened the lid and I saw the silver lining.
Jude approached it without pause.
Goliath said, “Come on…be a pussy for once and fight.”
Jude slid a look in our direction, that queer little smile on his face and started down the steps, a guard at his front and at his back.
A scream, high-pitched, almost deafening, split the night and that shadow I’d glimpsed separated itself from the rest. It blurred, blended into the night. But only for a moment, and then that shadow became death.
Damon had shifted to his full cat form—a leopard nearly as tall at the shoulder as Doyle, and quicker than any other creature there. It happened so fast, my eyes were still processing it as he powered the guards out of the way and then hamstringed Jude with one massive paw.
Blood splattered out, an arcing spray. The stink of it flooded the air and Jude spun away, even as voices rose in the night.
Damon struck again.
Jude said something, but his words were lost in the roar of voices and magic. The magic, it built so thick, so hard and so fast, it all but choked me.
A leopard’s scream tore through the air, defiant and furious even as magic tried to wrest everything under control.
I saw Damon’s paw lift, slash down—more blood splattered.
I heard another growl, although how I could hear anything over the pounding of my heart, I don’t know. Those roars, the fury of them, echoed straight through me.
And Jude…somehow, I could even hear his mocking laughter as he shoved his way to his knees.
My brain finally caught up with what was happening, just as Damon took Jude down, one more time. A giant leopard, crouched atop the creature of my nightmares.
Jude struggling, but the silver bonds on him had his hands restrained. He rolled to the left, trying to dislodge Damon. The harsh, odd stink of vampire blood flooded the air as Damon managed to sink his teeth into part of Jude’s throat. But not close enough.
Power screamed through the night and something cut through them. Damon went flying back. Jude…he just lay there.
Still.
Unmoving.
But damn him, he wasn’t dead.
I flexed my hand…so desperately wished for the sound of the music.
* * * * *
“Alpha Damon Lee.”
The sound of Damon’s name came cutting through the courtyard like a blade.
I still stood there, unable to move.
Unable to breathe.
Damon was pinned, trapped by magic.
And Jude was bleeding, oozing black and bitter blood.
If only he’d bleed to death.
But at the sound of Damon’s name, in a familiar voice, I forced myself to look up.
Justin.
He stood just outside the puddles of blood and magic crackled around him.
His eyes glowed green and his gaze cut into Damon like a blade. “You will stand down, Alpha.”
Damon snarled, his scream building in his throat.
Justin lifted a hand and silver sparked in the air. The scream went silent. Cut-off, I knew. By magic.
Around us, Damon’s cats screamed in the night.
But here, in this place, magic outnumbered the clan. “You’ll stand down…or you’ll fall.” A sharp smile split his face. “Trust me, it makes no difference to me.”
Then Justin looked to me.
That look packed a punch and I all but fell away as I saw what he held. Mesmerized, I watched as he slowly closed the distance, one step at a time. Yards separated us, but it wasn’t enough. Suddenly, I wanted to flee. Needed to flee, as he came toward me.
I managed to take one pitiful, paltry step backward before he came to a stop in front of me, his green eyes locked on my face.
“Kit…”
I swallowed.
Mine…they are mine…
He held two things in his hands.
My blade.
My bow.
“Why were they still inside the house, Kit?” Justin whispered softly. He was one of few who understood. One of the few who knew what those weapons were, what my connection to them was.
And he’d know what it meant when I said the next words.
“He broke it, Justin. He found a way to break it.” Lifting a shaking hand, I touched the blade and although she felt warm under my hand, although she buzzed with a warm magic, it didn’t feel like mine. Tears burned my eyes. “They aren’t mine, anymore.”
I let my hand fall away, but he caught my wrist. “No.” He tucked the sword into my hands. “No. They are yours. She is yours. We’ll find out what he did and we’ll fix it.”
I stared into his eyes, wondered if he could possibly be right. But I didn’t know.
I looked around, keenly aware of what was spread out around me.
Jude, still bleeding, although now two Banner witches were hauling him to his feet.
Damon, nude, shoving upright, and staring at me with eyes that burned.
And everybody, staring at me. Everybody staring at broken, ruined Kit.
Even Jude, the bastard, as he was forced toward that silver box. He watched me with that knowing, taunting smirk. I flinched as I heard the top of it slam shut behind him.
Safe…I’m safe…aren’t I?
No. I didn’t know if I’d ever feel safe again.
Clutching the sword to my chest, I turned to Goliath and whispered, “I want to go home.”
He nodded. “We can start back no
w. I’ll let TJ know I’ll stay with you a while, if you want company.”
“No.” I shook my head and moved forward, leaning my head against his arm. “Take me to Wolf Haven, Goliath.”
I had to feel safe again.
He paused and then reached up, hugged me gently. “Wolf Haven is always home to you, Kitty. Come on, then.”
It was agony to walk away.
Not because I didn’t want to leave the house of my nightmares.
But because I heard a cat’s ragged snarl, echoing through the trees with every step we took. Almost as though my walking away from him was painful. Maybe it was.
Each step added to the scars on me, it seemed.
If there was a part of me left unscarred by this, it would be a miracle.
Read on for a snippet from Broken Blade…coming in 2014.
Broken Blade
“Oh, somebody had fun with you…”
I looked up and found myself staring into red, red eyes.
That fear tried to scream at me again, but I screamed back at this time. Flexing my hand, painfully aware of the absence of song in my head, I studied the vampire. Somewhere in the back of the room, a were snarled.
I blocked the sound out. The weight of the Desert Eagle strapped to my thigh was the only thing that mattered right then. Like most modern weapons, the Eagle hadn’t ever sang in the back of my head and sometimes I thought that made it easier. I didn’t miss the music and it wasn’t so painful now as I stared into those fiery eyes.
I missed my sword…I could see myself spinning, striking—
As those red eyes glowed, I forced myself to think past that. He was staring at my neck and that popped the bubble of terror as it tried to swell out of my control.
I realized I was furious.
Vampire. Young. Dead maybe as long as I’d been alive and that wasn’t very long. He had some strength, but he wouldn’t be much to deal with until he’d seen a century or more.
The gun’s weight at my thigh settled me even more and I realized I could smile.
“Not used to having vamps in here,” I said levelly. “We’ve only got some cheap blood whiskey on hand.”
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