Rogue (19 page)

“Hey!” Ethan shouted, eyes going wide as he sat up straight on the couch across from me. “Don’t bring me into this.”

“—but I have one ex-boyfriend, and you declare me the Jezebel of the county.” Blood pounded in my ears, and my fingers tingled in fury, itching for something to beat, or shred. I sprang from the couch, still-human fingers curled into claws.
Michael jumped up from the love seat, hissing at me through bared teeth.

Marc caught me in midair, both arms wrapped around my waist. He spun me around in one smooth, fluid motion and dropped me none too gently in the middle of the couch. “Don’t move,” he ordered, watching me through the flood of confusion and suspicious anger shining in his eyes.

“Ethan, out.” My father was still standing, his arms stiff at his sides, his fists clenched.

“But—” Ethan turned to argue, but the Alpha shook his head.

“Go. And take Jace with you.”

Jace stood and shoved his best friend ahead of him. I cringed when the door clicked closed, and all remaining eyes turned on me.

“Is Michael right?” Marc demanded, still standing in the middle of the rug. “Are we talking about
your
Andrew?”

“Well, I wouldn’t exactly call him my Andrew…”

“Faythe…” my father said, warning me again. He was making an obvious attempt to calm himself, and I was willing to do whatever it took to help.

I nodded. “Yeah, it’s him.”

Marc’s eyes closed, and his forehead wrinkled. “So we’re looking for a human? The tabby’s chasing a
human?
”

I shook my head. I couldn’t say it out loud.

“He’s a stray,” my father said, his voice gravelly and almost too low pitched to hear. The attempt to calm himself clearly wasn’t working; I’d never heard him any angrier.

“Yes.” I met his eyes, reminding myself that I hadn’t done anything wrong. Keeping the calls a secret didn’t count. I’d had no idea Andrew was involved with the strippers and the tabby.

Marc turned his back on me, heading toward the liquor
cabinet on the far side of the room, opposite the desk. “How?” he asked, glass clinking as he pulled something I couldn’t see from the cabinet.

“I don’t know.”

“Come on, Faythe. You’re in too deep to lie about it now,” Michael said.

“Fuck you,” I snapped. “I’m telling the truth!”

“Marc, make mine a double,” my father said, and I glanced up to see Marc pouring himself a glass of whiskey. Straight up.

Marc nodded and got out another glass. “Michael?” he asked, and my brother shook his head. Marc didn’t offer me anything.

My father cracked the first knuckle of his right hand against his left palm. It was an overtly aggressive gesture, which made me very, very nervous. “How long have you known?”

“I just figured it out. Maybe ten minutes ago. Outside.”

“How?”

“The message from Painter.”

Marc crossed the room again, this time carrying two short glasses of whiskey.
Full
of whiskey.

My father accepted his glass and sipped from it, watching me over the rim. “What about the message?”

My hands clenched together in my lap, I watched Marc lower himself onto the love seat across from me, instead of resuming his place at my side. He was mad. And it was about to get worse.

“Andrew’s been calling me.”

“What?” Marc sat up straight, almost sloshing whiskey into his lap. “Why the hell didn’t you—”

“Let her finish,” my father ordered, cutting Marc off with one raised palm. He nodded for me to continue.

I inhaled deeply. Then I exhaled slowly. “Those pops, and
that sound like a helicopter’s propeller at the end of Painter’s call? They were in my last message from Andrew, too. He and Painter are in the same place.”

Marc tossed his glass back and got up for more.

“He knows what you are?” Michael asked, just as my father said, “He told you he was infected?”

“Yes. And no.” I glanced down at my hands, wishing they were wrapped around a drink, but I knew better than to ask Marc to bring me one. “He definitely knows about me. About all of us. But I have no idea how he found out. And no, he never actually told me he was infected, which is why it took me so long to figure out that he was. And I swear I have no idea how it happened.”

My father nodded, as if to say he believed me. But I couldn’t help noticing he didn’t say it out loud.

“How long?” Marc asked from the wet bar, sipping from his second glass of whiskey. “How long has he been calling you?”

I met his eyes, expecting to see pain and deep, deep anger. I wasn’t disappointed. “Once a day since Friday afternoon.”

“Three days?” Marc slammed his glass down on the bar and stomped toward me, stopping at the edge of the rug to tower over me. Michael stood, ready to intercede even though he was clearly just as mad as Marc, but a small shake of my father’s head held him back. “He’s been calling you for three days and you didn’t tell me? Why not?”

“Because I knew this would happen.” I made myself stay seated, knowing that if I stood, a fight would be inevitable. If I stayed calm—and seated—he might calm down, too. “I didn’t know what was going on, but I knew that his calling would upset you, and you’d want to go ‘take care’ of it. I don’t
want
you to take care of my problems. I can handle them myself.”

“Clearly.” Marc rubbed his forehead with one hand, as if staving off a headache. “You’ve done such a marvelous job of handling it that he’s now waltzing all over our territory, kidnapping strippers who bear a passing resemblance to you. Great job!”

“I didn’t know he had anything to do with any of that! I was just trying to avoid…well,
this!
You always do this. You take something small, something that’s really none of your business, and you twist it around to make it look like I did something wrong. But this time I didn’t. I was under no obligation to tell you anything.”

His brows arched high over eyes sparkling in fury. “You think this is
small?
”

“Well, obviously not the kidnapping part,” I conceded, shrugging. “But the phone calls were
nothing,
at least as far as I knew. And until I knew Andrew was involved in the rest of this, he was
none of your business.
”

A growl rumbled through the room, extraordinarily low and gravelly. His mouth never moved, but I knew it was Marc. I’d hurt his feelings, and his pride. And I’d pissed him off.

Sighing in defeat, I glanced down at my hands, where they lay in my lap.

“Well, you won’t have to worry about my nose in your business anymore.”

Movement blurred on the right edge of my vision. I turned toward it instinctively. Marc was gone. I whirled in my seat to see him disappear into the hall, his shirt a black smear passing out of sight beyond the door frame.

I was on my feet in an instant, running after him. My father appeared in front of the door out of nowhere, blocking my path. I ducked to dodge him. One iron-hard arm slid around
my waist. He held me back. I kicked and fought, my legs flailing in midair. “I have to tell him I’m—”

“Let him go, Faythe. He didn’t mean it. Give him some time and he’ll get over it.”

“No!”

“Yes.” And that was that. My father tucked me under one arm, in the most undignified position I could imagine. He kicked the door shut hard enough to make it rattle in the frame, then hauled me back to the small grouping of furniture, where Michael waited, his eyes wide with astonishment.

My father set me on my feet on the rug and gestured for me to sit on the couch.

I sat. What else could I do?

For a moment, he sipped from his whiskey, while my brother watched me in silence. Then, finally, my father opened his mouth…only to take another drink from his glass. Not a sip this time—a drink. More like a gulp. When he met my eyes again, determination was carved into the firm line of his mouth. “I know you’re upset, but we have to go on with this. I have to ask you some questions. Are you ready?”

I nodded. Of course I was ready. I was an adult who’d had a fight with her boyfriend, not a traumatized child.

“Did you ever Shift in front of Andrew, or have any contact with him at all in cat form?”

My jaw dropped. Literally. My mouth hung open, and I stared at my father like a drooling idiot, stunned into silence by a question so serious and insulting it bruised not just my pride, but my heart. I’d expected a real bitch of a question, but not that. Never that.

My father was practically accusing me of infecting Andrew. Of committing a capital crime—one of the most
serious we recognized. If I admitted guilt, the council’s law required him to have me put to death. Not locked up. Not declawed. Not put on display in front of my fellow werecats with a scarlet
A
on my chest.

Executed.

How could he even
entertain
such a thought? My shock gave way to anger that my own father could know so little about me. That he could accuse me of infecting someone.
Anyone.
Much less someone I’d once cared about.

“Fuck you!” I shouted, jumping to my feet as outrage surged through my veins, a thousand times hotter than blood.

My father—no, my
Alpha
—nodded to Michael, and he stood calmly, crossing thick arms over a broad chest. “Sit down,” Michael said. He didn’t tell me to watch my language, which said more than I could ever have hoped for.

I hesitated, standing only because sitting would be admitting defeat, no matter how minor.

“Sit, Faythe, and rein in your temper,” my father said. He drained the last of the whiskey from his glass and leaned forward to set it on the table at my end of the couch. When he leaned back, his eyes were calm, and still determined. “I have to ask. You know that. So just answer the question.”

“Fine, but I’m not going to sit.”

He shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

Damn it.
Standing with his permission didn’t satisfy my massive need to piss him off in return for insulting me.
Stupid reverse psychology.
I sank back onto the couch, and Michael followed my lead.

“Hell no, I never Shifted in front of Andrew. And he never saw me in cat form, either. To my knowledge, no human has ever seen…” My words trailed off as I realized
I’d been about to lie. Accidentally, of course, but that wouldn’t matter.

A human
had
seen me in cat form once. A hunter, three months earlier. Nothing had come of it, other than a series of Bigfoot-esque news reports on the local stations, but I wasn’t about to bring up something I
hadn’t
been accused of. No sense borrowing trouble, right? Besides, some of the guys would get into trouble along with me. Ethan, Jace, and Parker had all promised Marc they wouldn’t tell.

“No, he never saw me in cat form,” I finished weakly, meeting my father’s gaze to lend credibility to my statement and distract him from what I’d almost said.

His eyes narrowed, but if he suspected anything, he’d either decided to let it go, or to address it later, because he didn’t challenge my statement. “To your knowledge, has Andrew ever come into contact with another werecat?”

“Yes,” I said, without thinking. The answer seemed pretty clear to me, but based on Michael’s surprised expression, my phrasing needed serious work. “He’s
obviously
come into contact with a cat,” I amended. “Unless the ‘virus’ is now airborne, in which case public panic seems inevitable.”

My father nodded again, this time with a hint of a smile. That hint—that tiny upturn of one corner of his mouth—set me at ease as no mere drink could ever have done. He would never have smiled if he were planning to have his own daughter put to death.

“Yes, clearly he has come into contact with a cat. I meant to ask if you know the identity of that cat.”

“No.” I shrugged, rolling my head on my neck to release some of the built-up tension. “I have no idea. And just to speed things up, I’m not intentionally withholding any information
from you. Well, no information pertinent to this case, anyway,” I corrected myself. And there was that tiny smile again. “I don’t know who infected him. Or when or how it happened. Or how long ago.”

“And he’s called you three times?”

I shrugged, trying hard to appear casual. “Yeah. He was really angry, which I understand now. And he seemed to think I already knew he’d been infected, though I have no idea why he would thi—” My hand flew to my mouth, cutting off my words even as I choked on them. My heart slammed against the inside of my chest as a sudden realization singed through me like an electrical shock, setting off pain sensors I hadn’t even known I had. My skin tingled. My head ached. My stomach heaved. I clamped my jaws shut to hold back half-digested halibut and scalloped potatoes.

I knew who had infected Andrew. I even knew how it had happened. He’d only had contact with one werecat.

Me.

“W
hat’s wrong?” Michael leaned forward, as if to catch me if I fell off the couch. I barely heard him. I was too busy hearing Andrew.

You didn’t tell them about me.
Andrew’s words played in my head, his voice reproduced in my mind with frightening accuracy.
You owe me, Faythe.

What I’d said to my father was accurate—for the most part. I’d never intentionally or knowingly Shifted in front of Andrew. But I hadn’t meant for my eyes to Shift an hour earlier, either. And they weren’t the only part of my face to ever experience an unexpected partial Shift.

My teeth had done it, too.

I’d bitten Andrew’s ear the very day I left school, not two hours before Marc had shown up in the quad. I’d broken the skin. Just barely, but enough to draw a single drop of blood. Apparently that was enough.

I’d infected him. I hadn’t meant to. I hadn’t even known I’d done it. Or that it was possible. Yet I’d accidentally made
him one of us, then left him, abandoning him to pain, fear, and incapacitating disorientation during his transition. It was a miracle he’d survived.

Huh. Look at that,
I thought, teetering on the razor-sharp edge of hysteria.
I committed a capital crime after all.
No wonder Andrew wanted to kill me. I couldn’t really blame him.

“Faythe, say something,” Michael urged, and it took me a minute to realize I’d gone completely silent. “If you don’t start explaining, Dad’s going to draw his own conclusions.”

“Too late.” My father eyed me with frightening intensity, and it took every ounce of willpower I had to keep from squirming where I sat.

“I think I know who infected Andrew,” I whispered. It was the best I could do.

The Alpha sat straighter in his chair, his eyes narrowing in suspicion. If he didn’t know exactly what I was going to say, he must have been pretty close. And he was no longer eager to hear it. “What happened?” he said at last. “And consider your words very carefully.”

Suddenly the silence in the soundproofed office seemed dangerous, and somehow wrong. I felt compelled to fill it with a blurted confession, followed by babbling apologies and tearful explanations. But I didn’t. I wouldn’t have shamed myself with such a display before I became an enforcer, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to do it now.

But I had to say something.

I hesitated one last time. I’d let my father down more times than I could count, but this was the Big One. This was humiliation, disappointment, and disillusionment all wrapped up together, tied with a big red bow of disgrace. The gift that keeps on giving.

“It was an accident,” I said, continuing calmly but quickly, before he had a chance to interrupt. “I didn’t understand what happened until just now.”

Michael nodded, urging me on. He seemed to be the only one who really wanted me to continue.

My heart thumped painfully, and my hands connected in my lap, my fingers twisting and pulling one another mercilessly. “I bit him. Accidentally.” I couldn’t help repeating that last part.

“You
bit
him?
Accidentally?
” My father’s green eyes hardened. I knew that look. The Alpha had arrived, and he was
angry.
“Explain yourself. Now.”

I nodded, grateful for the opportunity in spite of the rage in his eyes. “I was in human form. It should have been safe. I swear I didn’t know what was happening.” My hands moved wildly, punctuating each sentence, and I couldn’t seem to stop them. “At the time I had no clue this was even possible, but now I think my teeth Shifted. They couldn’t have changed much, because I didn’t notice it, and neither did he. But that’s the only way it could have happened.”

My desperate, babbling excuses faded into silence, and still my father stared at me. As did Michael. His eyes burned into me, seeing right past my defensive explanation to the truth. The whole truth, which our father obviously didn’t understand.

“You bit him in human form?” For one long, torturous moment, confusion replaced the anger in the Alpha’s expression. “Why? Why would you bite him?”

Well, hell.
He was going to make me say it.
This is
not
a conversation I want to have with my father. Ever.
But it was much too late to back out, so I took a deep breath and plunged forward into the dark abyss. Melodramatic? Hell yeah.

“We were…you know.
Together.
”

“I see,” he said, after a long, tense silence. But I had my doubts. He didn’t look like he saw.

My father stood, retrieving his glass from the end table, and crossed the room to his desk. As I sank deeper into the couch, he opened his bottom desk drawer and pulled out a half-empty bottle of Scotch. The good stuff.

Seated now, he poured two inches of amber liquid into his glass, hesitated, then poured a third inch. As I watched my father drink, it occurred to me that the testimony I was about to launch resembled a kamikaze’s final flight. It would be a sickeningly fast and exhilarating plunge, executed with the greater good in mind. And it was virtually guaranteed to end in death.
Mine.

Martyrdom always seems so daring and courageous from an outsider’s perspective, but from the cockpit of the kamikaze’s plane, with the earth racing up to meet you, the view sucks.

My father screwed the lid on his bottle and set it in the drawer. He slid the drawer shut and took another drink. Then he started across the floor toward me, walking slowly, as if he were stiff, or achy. With a deep, weary sigh, he settled back into his chair. His eyes rose to meet mine, and they were completely empty. Blank.

Damn, he’s good.

For almost a complete minute, my father stared at me, sipping from his glass. Silence closed in on me, and I wanted to look away from his eyes, but I couldn’t. If I broke eye contact, he might think I was hiding something, and I desperately needed him to believe I was telling the truth. Now, more than ever. So we both sat still and silent, ignoring Michael.

Finally, he spoke. “I’m going to give you a chance to rethink what you just told us. That’s more than I would give any other cat in the world. Do you understand what I’m telling you?”

I nodded. He was giving me a chance to save myself. To take back what I’d just said. To decide I’d made a mistake—that I hadn’t infected Andrew. He was looking for a justifiable excuse to spare my life, at least until after the official inquisition the council would demand if he refused to have me executed. He’d have a good reason for that—if I was willing to lie.

But I wasn’t. I
couldn’t.
Lying about what I’d done would mean becoming the selfish, heartless monster Andrew must already think I was. The monster who’d turned him into what he’d become, then left him to die.

“Do you want to…
rephrase
your statement?” my father asked. “For the record?”

Slowly, regretfully, I shook my head. It was the single hardest thing I’d ever had to do. Harder than fighting for my life. Harder than leaving Marc years before. Harder than coming home.

But it was
right.
I knew that with every frenzied beat of my heart. In every shadowed corner of my soul.

I was doing the honorable thing. Just as my Alpha had taught me.

“Faythe…” My father’s voice shook, in fury and in…
terror.
He was afraid. For the first time in my life, I saw fear in my father’s face, lining his forehead, glazing his eyes.

“I can’t do it, Daddy. I’m telling the truth. I did nip him, but the infection was an accident. It’s not supposed to happen that way. It shouldn’t be possible.”

My father hurled his glass across the room. The movement was too fast for my eyes to track. I didn’t understand what had
happened until glass shattered against the wall and the biting scent of Scotch permeated the air. I jumped, whirling to see the wet smear across the oak paneling.

He shot out of his seat. His armchair fell over backward, slamming against the hardwood floor. “I give you the opportunity to save yourself, and you give me this partial-Shift nonsense? Again?” His face was flushed, his eyes blazing.

“It’s the truth.” I fought the need to pull my feet up onto the couch and curl into a protective ball. “
You
taught me to tell the truth, to take pride in doing the right thing, even when it’s hard. And now you want me to lie, because it’s
easier?
”

“I want you to
save
yourself, whatever that takes!” He dropped to his knees on the floor in front of me, taking my wrists in his hands. He stared into my eyes from inches away, pleading with me to listen. To understand. “We’re talking about your
life,
Faythe.
Our future.
Not who lost the croquet ball, or who broke the antique vase. You’re not eight anymore, so don’t throw your damned honor in my face. What good is honor when you’re dead?”

I swallowed thickly. “What good is the truth, if you only use it when it doesn’t matter?”

His eyes burned into mine. “
Damn
it, Faythe!” Dropping my arms, he leapt to his feet, storming past an astonished Michael, who could do nothing but watch. “We all know you went through something horrible in that basement, and you’re entitled to believe whatever helps you cope with killing Eric. But now you’re taking it too far. This isn’t a game. It isn’t therapy. It isn’t truth-or-dare. It’s your
life.
”

“I know,” I whispered miserably, wishing I could do what he wanted. Wishing it was that simple. But it wasn’t.

“I don’t think you do!” He whirled on me from across the
room. “My job as Alpha is to rid the Pride of any threats. But my job as a parent is to protect you at all costs. What am I supposed to do when you
are
the threat? Why are you making it so hard for me to protect you? You have to give a little, Faythe. You have to meet me halfway.”

“For the last time, Daddy, I’m telling the truth. The partial Shift is real. Abby saw it. Hell, Marc saw it. You know that.”

He shook his head, pacing back and forth in front of the fallen chair. “Abby doesn’t know what she saw. It was dark, and she was upset and confused. She said the shadows scared her, for crying out loud.”

My palms began to sweat as I realized what an unreliable witness my cousin was. The council didn’t really
dis
believe her. They believed she
thought
she saw my partial shift. But they also thought I was responsible for planting that belief in a traumatized, impressionable young mind.

My head spun like a tilt-a-whirl, possibilities flying past too fast for me to catch. “What about Marc?” I asked at last, clinging to the only other witness I had. “He’s seen it. Ask him.” Surely the Alpha wouldn’t doubt his own right-hand man.

My father paused in his pacing to stare at me in surprise. “Marc would say anything to protect you,” he said, as if I should have already known that. “He was humoring you before because you were devastated by Sara’s death, and this time he’d lie to save your life. Not that I blame him, but the council will never believe him. He’s a stray. Half of them think his word is worthless, anyway. If you ask him to back up a story like this, his credibility will be shot for good. As will yours. This Pride can’t afford to lose your credibility any more than it can afford to lose you.”

No.
I shook my head, denying that the council would dis
credit Marc. It wasn’t true. It couldn’t be. And even if it was, so long as my father—my Alpha—believed me, the council would have to. Wouldn’t they?

And that’s when I realized it didn’t matter.
None
of it mattered, because he
didn’t
believe me.

My head fell in defeat. If my own father didn’t believe me, who would? “What do you want from me?” I asked, staring at my hands, where they lay limp in my lap. “You want me to lie?”

My father was in front of me before I could blink. He bent over, his nose inches from mine. His forehead was red and wrinkled, his brows dark and furrowed in fury.

I tried to pull away. He grabbed my chin, squeezing it between his thumb and forefinger. Pain shot through my jaw. Tears formed instantly, blurring my vision. His eyes swam before me, pools of green even brighter than my own, magnified by the lenses of his glasses. I whimpered, too terrified to be embarrassed by the sound of my own weakness.

“Dad—” Michael began.

“I want proof!” my father roared. He actually roared at me. From inches away. My sensitive ears rang from the abuse. My hands shook uncontrollably. I blinked as his Scotch-breath puffed in my face. I’d never seen him so mad. So scared. So
terrifying.

I couldn’t do it on demand. I’d tried—over and over again—but it never worked when I was relaxed and calm, so what were the chances that I could do it now, when I was half-hysterical and scared shitless?

“Do it,” my father ordered, giving me a sharp shake with the grip he had on my chin.

My brain rattled in my skull. I blinked, and tears fell from my eyes.

“Show me,” he hissed. “Or I swear I’ll have you declawed myself to save the council the trouble.”

My chin still pinched in his grasp, I closed my eyes. Tears spilled over again, running down my cheeks. He couldn’t be serious. He wouldn’t have his own daughter declawed. Or maybe he
would,
especially if he thought that would satisfy the council and keep them off my back.

But I
couldn’t
lose my claws. Without them, I couldn’t defend myself. I’d be dependant on my father and his enforcers for the rest of what passed for my life. And I certainly couldn’t go back to school with my deformed, nail-less human fingers.

Panic clawed at the inside of my throat, trapping my breath. My heart raced, and more hateful tears ran down my face to drip on my father’s hand. I couldn’t live with that kind of damage. I
wouldn’t
live with it.

I squeezed my eyes shut as the first lick of new pain shot through my jaw. I recognized what was happening immediately; evidently the list of emotions that could trigger a partial Shift included mind-numbing panic.