by PJ Schnyder
“The child needs to learn control.” Orson spoke after a moment of hesitation. “And she doesn't know what she doesn't know.” The big shapeshifter shook his head. “The potential mating should provide a stabilizing influence, but it could also hide developing madness.”
Marcus ground his teeth but held his peace. The Conservation representative hadn't given his judgment yet.
“We'll put the girl on probation,” Orson said finally. “Keep me updated on her progress and what choices she makes. If she can get past the trauma of the original attack and the last couple of days, maybe she'll stabilize. It's not only her mental and emotional stability in human form. She needs to prove she can shift and maintain control over her other form.”
Marcus nodded once. It was fair.
Orson reached out a hand; Marcus took it and shook it firmly.
They would give Mackenzie time and see if she could heal.
Chapter 14
“Me! He loved me! You've killed us both!”
Mackenzie woke with agonizing slowness, clawing her way up through the heavy dark of a deep and restless sleep. Stephie's voice followed her out of unconsciousness, accusing her even in waking. As she looked up through the transparent ceiling, the leaves sheltering Adam's bedroom cast shadows. Only a gray overcast sky could be glimpsed beyond the leaves, and the air weighed heavy with humidity.
Tears came to her, unsummoned, at the thought of a gloomy day, her chest hollow, as if something had gone missing from her soul. Her heart beat in a hesitant, fragile rhythm in the empty space. Her mind reached, trying to find the missing pieces, and between one breath and the next, she remembered the Challenge and what had happened afterward.
“Adam,” she whispered, and fear caught at her heart.
The sheets rustled beside her. Adam slept next to her, his bed so big she hadn't realized they’d shared it. Relief swept through her in a tide of emotion, taking her breath away. Suddenly shy, she peeked at him under the covers.
To her relief, most of the nasty gouges had already visibly improved. Bandages still wrapped around his ribs, and he had some fantastic bruises coloring his tanned skin, but his color appeared good and he rested easily.
She slipped out of the bed and padded out into the main living area, rubbing her upper arms as she looked for something she couldn't find. Her heart ached with loss, torn in pieces. She couldn't understand why a part of her could be happy just from the scent of Adam's T-shirt covering her, while the enormity of the evil she had wrought threatened to choke her.
Numb, she sat at the edge of the living room on a few cushions, looking out and yet studying her reflection in the glass at the same time.
In too many ways, she didn't recognize the girl she saw in the reflection, any more than she recognized the trees making up the vast forest of her surroundings.
“Kitten?”
Adam walked out of the bedroom, but she didn't turn to look at him. Instead, she hugged her knees to her chest, still too fragile to speak.
“Hey.” His voice soothed as he settled on the cushions behind her and wrapped his arms around her, immediately enveloping her in warmth.
“Why?” She had to swallow past the dry catch in her throat. “Why does everything seem to be okay when you're here?”
“Is that a bad thing?”
“I should feel worse.” Then the cold returned, seeping through her heart. “I did something awful.”
“Ah.” Understanding filled his voice. He paused, possibly considering her crime, and then he gave her a question back, his voice strangled. “Do you feel anything about what I did to Van?”
Blood flashed across her sight, but relief swept through her. “He won't be coming after me anymore. He won't do what he did to any other girl again, what he did to me and to…Stephie.”
He squeezed her close with a relieved sigh and gave her another question. “You're not afraid of me?”
“You did everything you could,” she said slowly, remembering his cat eyes as he held Van in his jaws. "He didn't yield, didn't give you any other choice.”
“Then why do you think what you did might be any different?”
Horror filled her. “She…she was my friend.”
The look of disbelief on Stephie's face hung in her memory in sharp relief.
“Why did you do it, Mackenzie?” His voice not judging, but gently prompting, and Stephie's voice echoed the same question in harsh accusation.
“She attacked you from behind. You couldn't see her coming, and no one else moved.” The fear she'd felt seeing danger come at his unprotected back had been a stab in the heart. “I had to move. But she went crazy, wild. She wouldn't listen.”
She remembered the madness in Stephie's eyes, burning with hate. Mackenzie began to tremble uncontrollably. He held her, his steady strength keeping her from shaking herself to pieces.
“She’d have killed me, if she could. She meant to kill you.” Her voice went flat. Stephie's intent had been clear, and Mackenzie had known it on a primal level. “I couldn't stop her until I kicked her away…but she… when she landed, she stayed down.”
Her gorge rose as images of innards and blood flooded her memory again.
He tucked her head under his chin and held her firmly. “Defense. I know you’ve never killed, but it was in self-defense.”
She whimpered. In her mind, the scene replayed over and over again, at the same time, tasting her own fear and panic. Stephie had fallen and died awfully because of injuries she’d inflicted. She felt monstrous, horrified by the memory of exactly what she done. She had taken a friend and disemboweled her, giving her an awful death.
“I should have found a way,” She insisted. “But I couldn't think of anything. I couldn't think! I didn't want her to kill me, didn't want her to go after you. That’s all, but I killed her and there wasn't anything clean or honorable about it. I spilled her guts all over the ground.”
He rocked her slowly, back and forth. “It isn't easy, Kitten, but you have to forgive yourself.”
“I don't know what I am anymore.” she staredpast the glass, out into the wild forest. “I can't get my bearings, and I don't know who the girl is staring at me from the reflection in the glass.”
Her insides twisted. “I killed myself, in a way. Stephie could have been me. I killed her, and you know what? I felt good when my claws sunk into her belly. I knew to go for the soft area, a weak spot, and I was glad I found it. I was glad I got her off me. It gave me a rush.”
“Kitten…”
“No, Adam.” She tried to pull away. “Van turned insane. He made Stephie, and she went insane. I'm right behind them, and you're going to have to put me down before I hurt somebody else.”
“No!” Adam yanked Mackenzie back into his arms and almost crushed her to his chest. Ignoring the pain from his still knitting ribs, he held her to him with everything he had. “Kitten, you're different from them. What happened in Circle wasn't rational. You can't expect yourself to react rationally. No one could.”
“Rationally? I'm a murderer!” Her eyes had lightened from dark brown to golden, her cat too close to the surface.
“You need to forgive yourself, Kitten.” He put every ounce of conviction he had into his words. “Violence is a part of what we are. Accept it.”
“Look at what I did.” Her voice dropped away from panic to a sudden desperate whisper.
“And I would do it for your sake again and again.” He gave her the promise. “Does that make me a monster?”
She pulled away enough to look up at him, eyes wide.
He knew he risked what he'd built with her already. He put his heart into his eyes, his voice and his touch. “I would do it over and over again for your sake, Mackenzie Sunton. And I don't care if I sound obsessive, because there is a world of difference between me and Van.”
“A difference,” she echoed as if his words were a lifeline.
“Why does anyone do what they do?” he asked, reaching for the words she needed, th
e lesson all cubs learned as they grew up within the pride. She had to hear it and know for truth, learning it faster as an adult than any cub took in their more flexible years. “We use teeth and claws and strength only when needed. Hunt only to feed. Fight only to protect. Violence is a part of who we are because the world we live in is a violent place, but we are more than violence because we have an honor code to live by.”
She listened, he could see it in her face and in the slow change from gold back to deep brown in her eyes.
“Predators are an important part of this world,” he continued, watching her closely. “We're needed to cull out the sick and the weak. You did what you were meant to do. You didn't go beyond to ravage the healthy.”
She dropped her eyes, long lashes brushing her cheeks as her lids closed, but she gave him the barest of nods.
“Try.” He released her enough to hold her face in the palm of his hands. “Give yourself time to forgive yourself. You deserve another chance. Anything you did, you did living by those things and the pride will stand behind you. I'll be right here.”
She swallowed hard. Her cat remained prominent in her eyes, but her mouth pressed in a firm line as she struggled for control. In a way, he almost hoped her cat would take over enough to let her accept the necessity of her actions in a way a city bred human probably couldn't.
“I need to think about it more,” she finally answered him.
It wasn't self-destructive. He would take that and work with her on the rest. Hell, it had taken her to make him forgive himself. He only needed her to accept the person she had become at first. Forgiveness could come later.
“Okay.” He stood without wincing too much and pulled her up to stand with him. “Let's get some food into you and then go do something…restful.”
She paled again. “I'm not sure I can eat.”
“Just a little,” he coaxed. “Even toast. You have to have something in your stomach. You can't let yourself get too hungry or the beast in you will push you to hunt.”
He bit the inside of his cheek, realizing he’d chosen the wrong thing to say as she paled even further.
“Really not liking the idea of food right now,” she gasped.
“How about a little soup.” He changed tactics. “Soup might calm your nerves, and you like comfort food.”
She hesitated. “I'm sorry to be so much trouble. Maybe a little vegetable soup would be a good idea.”
Her scent held the faint tang of shame, and guilt for making him press her. His cat shifted restlessly inside his skin as he kissed her forehead. Her heart stretched too big for her own good.
“I think I have some of the canned stuff,” he said lightly, “It won't be more than a couple of minutes to warm up.”
He led her to the kitchen, worrying even more when she slid onto the stool by the counter instead of coming with him into the actual kitchen area to help him cook. He kept her in his peripheral vision as he retrieved a can, opened it and dumped it into a pot to heat on the stove. She still stared into space.
He groped for something to say, but the security panel chimed. Mackenzie almost shot straight out of her chair.
He turned and slapped the acknowledgment code into the panel before it chimed again.
“Yeah.” He engaged video and audio at the same time. While he would have preferred to ignore the call, the pride would have been swarming all over his aerie if he or Mackenzie hadn't answered. With both wounded, and her unstable, they’d be watching over them.
Marcus' face filled the vid-screen. “How goes the two convalescents?”
“Healing.” He glanced back at her over his shoulder.
“I'm coming up with Chryssa for your check-up.” Not a request. The pride alpha had taken the Challenge and the altercation between Mackenzie and Stephie very seriously.
Adam simply nodded acknowledgment. Marcus cut the call from the ground level and in minutes, Adam heard him and Chryssa landing on the platform of the first level. Adam went down to the entry way, careful of his wounds, and let them in at the main entrance.
“How is she?” Marcus got to the point, keeping his voice low as he and Chryssa entered.
Adam gave a sound of frustration in response. “She's not herself. The heat's passed, and she doesn't even seem to notice. She's been hard on herself for the death of her friend and she sounded…self-destructive.”
Chryssa listened as she bustled around Adam, checking his wrapped rib cage and the progress of several of the wounds. Finished, she spoke to both Adam and Marcus. “A couple of the stitches can come out today. Healing is going fine. We're lucky your hide is so thick, Adam, you're a tough one.” And then Chryssa turned her attention wholly to Adam. “Is her color off? Is she eating?”
“No, she's paler than normal and she doesn't want to eat.” Adam shook his head. It had been easier to hold his sense of humor up as a front. Giving in to the shadows of worry tore at him, but he couldn't seem to step into his old detachment. “I got her to agree to some vegetable soup, but anything with meat has her nauseous.”
He watched the little healer's face as she considered. Her presence had a calming effect on the anxiety building up as he had watched the drastically altered Mackenzie. After a moment, Chryssa nodded. “We'll know more once we get a look at her, but there's a couple of things I can think of contributing to the problem.”
“I need an honest assessment of how the girl is adjusting.” Marcus became all alpha and completely serious as he directed his statement to both Adam and Chryssa. “We've got a few days of time to give her, but we need a real idea of how she's going to move forward.”
“You're not thinking of…” Adam dropped words for a threatening growl.
Marcus growled back at the challenge but added his own words. “We'll give her a chance, but we need to know if she's going to make the transition, for her sake and for everyone around her. You know it, Adam.”
“She adjusted fine,” Adam insisted, his growl gone, but he didn't stand down.
“And now she's not,” Marcus said in a flat tone, uncompromising alpha at the moment, and Adam knew once Marcus made a decision it would be final.
“You'll have to take me down with her.” Adam desperately added. He couldn't lose her, not when she had become so precious to him, not when she had driven herself to the edge of insanity to protect his back.
“We'll give her the chance and then decide.” Marcus didn't belittle Adam's commitment. He simply held the statement for when it would matter, if it would. Things might not come to it, and they both knew, hoped.
“Let's go see her.” Chryssa had been watching the exchange from one side, and her voice filled with compassion. She brushed a hand up Adam's upper arm in encouragement, a touch of comfort from pride member to pride member. Shapeshifters needed the simple gestures of affection every bit as much as they needed the more overt, sensual, contacts. In some ways, shapeshifters needed those little touches more.
Mackenzie hadn’t moved fromthe stool where Adam had left her. He noted she hadn't touched the soup or turn to watch their approach. Her hair appeared dull and uncombed, still in disarray from earlier in the morning.
Chryssa spoke in a brisk tone. “Perfect. You're in a good place for me to check you over, Big Mac.”
At Chryssa's words, Mackenzie faced them. Her lids drooped and she regarded the three of them with little expression.
“How you feeling, Mackenzie?” Marcus had also gone for the upbeat tone. Adam watched the alpha's personality reaching out toward her. Previously, the strength of the alpha's charisma had been something Mackenzie's own personality had met better than most people who had been shapeshifters from birth. But, the Mackenzie who sat before them dropped her eyes and hunched her shoulders submissively, every line of her body speaking of guilt and shame.
“Let's clean these cuts one more time.” Chryssa reached for her medkit and drew out cleaning solutions and fresh dressings. “You'll find healing faster has its upsides and downsides. Wounds not cle
aned out thoroughly will heal around foreign matter in the flesh. We got to you nice and early, rinsed everything, so you're healing very well. In fact, the wounds would really heal better if you Shifted fully once or twice to help the process along.”
Mackenzie jerked her hand out of Chryssa's loose grip. Fear filled the air with a metallic tang waking all of their beasts. Mackenzie's dark eyes dilated to almost black and then the thin rims of the irises turned golden as her panic brought her cat to the forefront.
“Careful.” Marcus' voice and his will rolled over Mackenzie before Adam could speak to calm her. “Get yourself under control before you hurt someone.”
Immediately, Mackenzie's eyes returned to dark brown. Still wide with fear, and her scent still stank of it, but she’d locked her beast down.
Chryssa remained still, never having backed away from the potential danger of Mackenzie's cat. “See there, you've got control. There's no need to be afraid for people.”
“But I'm a murderer.” The sadness in her voice tore at him. Adam wanted to reach out and shake her, to tell her not to hurt anymore.
“Personally,” Chryssa said in a matter-of-fact tone, “I owe you thanks.”
“W-why?” Mackenzie forgot herself and looked straight into Chryssa's eyes.
“Adam is pride. He's family. You took an attack aimed at his unprotected back and you won.” The fierce satisfaction in the gentle healer's voice rang true, reminding everyone in the room, despite her rare gift, Chryssa was still a predator.
The fear faded from Mackenzie’s eyes even though she still held them wide. Instead, disbelief had taken fear's place.
“Make no mistake,” Chryssa continued, “the entire pride knows what you did for one of our own, and we are all thankful for it.”
“Truth,” Marcus confirmed.
Mackenzie remained silent, watching them all.
“Now.” Chryssa stood. “You are under pride protection and one of mine to care for. There are several things I need you to do to heal properly. Healer's orders.”