Alpha (29 page)

“Sure.” Marc selected Shut Down from the start menu on his desktop, then turned off the monitor and stood to push his desk chair in. “Do you want me to bring you more coffee? Or some water?”

“I'm fine for now, guys. Really.” I glanced over Marc's shoulder into the hallway. “Could you close the door? I don't think Holly needs another demonstration quite so soon.”

Marc nodded and disappeared into the hall, and the door clicked shut behind him. And I was alone enough that I didn't have to wear the Alpha face I hadn't yet perfected. Or the enforcer's poker face I wore all too often. Or any other face that would hopefully hide how scared, and furious, and unsure, I was. How convinced some deep, dark part of me was that this new plan, this latest reincarnation of the fight-or-die routine, would fail spectacularly and kill not just me, but everyone I loved.

I couldn't let that happen. I couldn't afford to lose again.

I shoved my shorts down and stepped out of them, then carefully lowered myself to my knees on the rough carpet. My side felt like I'd been stabbed. My left hip protested sharply and my shoulder sang in harmony
with it. Even my nose throbbed harder from my change of position—or maybe altitude—and it felt like someone had driven a hammer through the left side of my skull.

I embraced the pain as both penance and consolation. It was the consequence of losing the most important fight of my life, as well as proof that I'd survived. Pain was a reminder of my arrogance and weakness, and if I ever forgot that lesson, Dean would kill me. I had no doubt of that.

So instead of ignoring the pain, I called out to it, reaching for more. Pain is part of who I am. It's the defining characteristic of a Shifter's transformation. Pain is what I suffer from my enemies. It is what I deal out to those who break our laws. It is what I protect my charges from. Pain is what I inherited from fate, that fickle bitch who gave me a mouth and fists, then put me in a world that wanted only my womb and my cradled arms.

Pain is what I feed from when nothing else will nourish the noxious fury in my heart. It's what I cling to when everything else—every
one
else—slips right between my grasping fingers.

And pain was what I clung to that afternoon, with my brother and father murdered, my Pride stolen, my body beaten, and my responsibility crushing me like the weight of the world resting firmly on my chest.

I closed my eyes and called out to pain—in all its glorious forms—and rode it like a runaway horse.

Miguel pins me to the floor of a commercial van, while I fight nylon rope and try to scoot away. His grip bruises my thigh, his invasion bruises my soul….
In my present hell, fueled by remembered rage and pain, my hands and feet thickened into paws.

Miguel straddles me on a bare mattress in a filthy basement cell. He punches my face, but that doesn't shut me up, so he punches me again….
On Marc's bedroom floor, my nails hardened into claws, digging into the carpet in lieu of enemy flesh.

In my own basement, Luiz kicks me, snapping two of my ribs….

My spine lengthened beyond my tailbone, already swishing angrily before my tail had even fully formed.

On a forested hillside in Montana, Zeke Radley stabs my right hip, plunging white-hot agony all the way to the bone….

That echo of pain sang deep in my marrow, and my face began to elongate, a muzzle forming where there had been only chin and broken nose before.

And finally the pain swept everything else away in a blinding wash of agony that incinerated thought, obliterated memory.

I'd Shifted for the first time since becoming an Alpha.

My cat form felt different this time, in no way that could be explained simply by my new rank. I felt powerful, and lethal, and barely restrained. My new body was born of pain and rage, and had both to unleash.

But I had nowhere to put the power. Nothing to unleash it on, without hurting someone I loved. I had no way to expend that vicious power, except in more pain for myself. So I Shifted back, less than two minutes after I'd first stood on four paws.

The pain was worse that time instead of better, in spite of the small wounds I could feel healing. As if pain was this violent power's purpose.
My
purpose…

I needed power, and I deserved pain, so I took them both. Again, and again.

I Shifted back into human form while bitter memories played behind my eyes like old filmstrips, jumpy and out of focus, and almost too fast to truly understand.

Andrew straddles me on the glass-strewn floor, punching me, over and over. Kevin Mitchell backhands me in a suburban living room, then the memory stutters and he jerks my arm hard enough to crack the bone. In the Montana woods, a big black cat pounces on me, his rear claws rip into my stomach.

I collapsed on Marc's bedroom floor, covered in sweat, yet shivering. My pulse raced. My breathing was too fast and too shallow.

I rolled onto my hands and knees, and the room spun around me. I clutched the footboard, and when the earth stilled, I pulled myself up slowly and turned to the mirror, mentally cataloging my aches and pains. My bruised ribs had gone from black and purple to bluish-green, but the cracked one still screamed every time I moved. My shoulder no longer hurt, so I swung my left arm to test it. All good. Holding the edge of the dresser for balance, I dropped into a deep squat. My left hip felt limber, my motion smooth.

The bruises around my eyes had faded and yellowed, but they weren't any smaller. The side of my head still looked lumpy, and it still throbbed without being touched. The swelling in my nose had decreased, but when I touched the bridge, it still hurt. Gritting my teeth, I pushed on my nose until my eyes watered from the pain, then I clutched the edge of the dresser and studied my reflection. Frowning. It wasn't enough.

Again.
I had to do it again.

I turned and dropped onto my knees. The carpet blurred with my tears while reality blurred with my pain.
Again…

The old deer stand gives beneath me, and my arm is shredded from wrist to elbow.

Colin Dean pins me to the wall by my neck. My feet dangle. I can't breathe. The memory stutters, and he's cutting my face, threatening worse….

I stood in cat form again, stretching. The buzz of power still burned beneath my skin, and my side still hurt, but I felt like I could jump out a five-story window and land on all four feet. I was
strong
. Starving, and hurting, and exhausted, but so incredibly strong…

I closed my eyes and my whiskers twitched. Warm, metallic-scented air brushed my fur from the vent overhead. And I called to the memories again…

Ryan turns out the light and closes the door, leaving me alone with Abby. I've never been so scared….

The thunderbird swoops, snatching Kaci from the front yard. Her legs dangle above my hand. I can't reach her. Terror and despair wash over me and I know I've lost her….

Human form again, and I could hardly move. My hair hung in my face, stringy with sweat. My arms shook. I pulled myself up using the edge of the dresser for support. I looked wild. The bruises were gone, but the flesh beneath my eyes was still dark. My cheekbones stood out sharply, and my face was pale. My head no longer looked puffy, but it was tender, and when I touched the bridge of my nose, my eyes still watered.

I dropped to the floor again. I needed to Shift, but I could hardly remember why. My tongue felt thick and dry when I swallowed, so I bit it until I tasted blood.

A black cat drops out of the branches and knocks Ethan to the ground. His unsheathed claws slash Ethan's throat. Ethan reaches for me. He dies with my name on his lips….

Cat form again, and that time I couldn't stand. I fell onto my stomach, panting, and the room refused to come into focus. The pain echoed inside me, filling the emptiness, sucking at the cold with blazing agony. My stomach was eating me alive, demanding fuel, but I wanted only the blaze. The fire.

Colin Dean aims his gun, and the flash is blinding in the dark. My father falls. Blood blooms on his shirt like a midnight rose. And then he is gone, and I'm being sucked into darkness the size of a pinprick, and the pain is…

The Shifts began to run together. Memories of loss and triumph—because Shifting was my glory; it enabled justice and was my sword and my shield—fueled them long after my energy waned, long after the buzz of power faded. The pain was all a blur—past and present, physical, and psychological. And for the past two cycles, I couldn't even stand. Could only force my body through its paces one final time, wondering if that would be enough.

When it was over, I couldn't sit up. I lay on the floor panting, huffing, sweating, boiling with agony. My ribs had healed. My knee had healed. My cheek looked normal at the bottom of my vision. And still there was pain. Deep, deep pain, in places I couldn't reach.

My weight on the floor bruised my hip. My neck creaked when I lifted my head. I tried to get up, but my legs wouldn't cooperate. How many times? It was too much. Too fast.

Tears poured down my face, silent, because I didn't have the energy to sob. The buzz of power had abandoned me, and part of me had gone with it. I didn't deserve the power. Not yet. But I deserved the pain.

“Faythe?” The door creaked open, and I smelled Marc. “Faythe!” He was at my side in an instant, lifting me, and even his gentle touch bruised. A second later, Jace was there, too. “Get her some water,” Marc whispered. “And something to eat. But don't say anything.”

“What happened?” Jace took his cue to whisper from Marc.

“I think she Shifted. Look at her face.”

“But…one Shift can't heal like that. Hell, four Shifts can't heal like that.”

“I know. Get the water. And close the door behind you.”

Marc laid me on the bed, and I blinked up at him, but his face wouldn't come into focus. My eyes were so dry it hurt to blink.

“What the hell are you doing? Trying to kill yourself?” His voice was thick with emotion, and his eyes were damp. “You're stronger than that. Suicide is the coward's way out. People are depending on you!”

“Don't want to die,” I whispered. “I needed the pain.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” His eyes narrowed, like he wanted to understand, but he couldn't. It wasn't in him. Everything was black and white for Marc. Right and wrong. Good and bad. He understood the spectrum of pain—he'd certainly been through enough of it—but not what it meant to me. He didn't understand how making myself suffer and relive so many bad
memories could possibly lead to catharsis, a psychological release of emotional poison. “You weren't in enough pain already?”

“It clears my head. I needed more.”

The door creaked open, and Jace came in with a sweating bottle of chilled water and a box of protein bars. He cracked open the bottle and handed it to me.

It took all of my concentration to manage the bottle, to keep from dribbling water all over myself, but I drained half of it before coming up for a breath.

“What the hell were you
thinking?
” Marc took the bottle when I lowered it, while Jace ripped open the snack box. “Even under the best of circumstances, you should eat between Shifts, and this is hardly the best of circumstances. How many times did you Shift?”

“I don't know. Lost count.”

“In half an hour?” Marc cursed in Spanish, and I flinched. “What are you, brain-dead?”

“I'm sorry.” I swallowed thickly and took the protein bar Jace handed me. “I didn't mean to go so far. I just…I needed to heal, and I needed it to hurt. That's the only way I could make sense out of any of this.”

“What the hell does that even mean?” Marc demanded, forgetting to whisper that time.

I couldn't answer. I couldn't make him understand what I could hardly understand myself.

Jace sighed. “She was punishing herself.”

“No, I…” I shook my head. That wasn't it. That sounded crazy. Yet he was right, though I would never have put it in those words. “It just… It seemed like a failure on so massive a scale should involve more pain. Like I shouldn't have been able to just walk away from
a loss that cost
everything
for so many people. Like if I wasn't hurting, I wasn't paying for what I cost us.”

“You didn't walk away from it,” Marc pointed out, ever helpful with the literal interpretation. “Jace carried you. And damn, Faythe, Dean nearly killed you. How is that not enough pain?”

“It just…wasn't.”

“You're not making any sense. You did the best you could, and what happened wasn't your fault.”

“Yes, it was.” I bit into the snack bar and avoided his eyes. “My best wasn't good enough, and that's not an option for an Alpha.”

Marc stared at me for nearly a minute, and I could almost hear the gears whirring in his head. Grinding. But he didn't really get it, and he hated that. Finally he stood and stomped toward the door. “Make sure she eats the whole box,” he growled. Then the door closed behind him, and I was alone with Jace.

I should have called out to Marc. I should have called him back and figured out a way to explain myself to him. But I was too tired to think, and beyond frustrated.

“He doesn't get it,” I whispered, wadding the first empty wrapper into a cellophane ball. “Why can't he get it?”

Jace laid back on the bed next to me, one arm propping up the pillow beneath his head. “Because he's never failed to measure up. Failure has never ripped a hole in his gut so deep and wide that physical pain is a mercy and a punishment all at the same time.”

“But you have?”

Jace sat up and met my eyes with a gaze so intense my next breath caught in my throat and refused to budge. “I left Ethan in the woods, and he died. We were partners,
and I left him, Faythe.” He glanced down at his hands, and I started to argue. He'd only left because Ethan told him to get Kaci to safety. He hadn't abandoned his partner. But before I could put my argument into words, he looked up again, and something deep in my stomach clenched. “And every time Cal hurts you, and I can't kill him, I feel the same way. Like I'm not worth the air I breathe if I can't protect you.”