Pride (24 page)

“Marc…” Jace complained, and I turned to find confliction drawn in the deep lines around his frown.

“Go,” Marc ordered, and Jace glanced back and forth between us in uncertainty. Technically, Marc had no authority over him anymore. But
I
wasn’t going to tell him that, and apparently Jace wasn’t, either.

“I’ll wait here—on the porch—for half an hour. But the deal’s off if anyone comes out here. Or calls.”

“Fine. Thank you.” I forced a small smile of gratitude, but he turned away before it was fully formed. I closed the door again, trying not to think about the dejection in his eyes. I had enough of my own emotional shit to shovel at the moment. I’d deal with Jace later. Assuming I
had
a later.

“What was that all about?” Marc leaned against the bedroom door frame and crossed his arms, pulling his shirt snug across the well-defined planes and bulges of his chest. The concert tee was his idea of casual Friday, though it was only Thursday. We’d been on the mountain four days, and so far I’d killed a stray, been gored, counseled a feral tabby and gotten Marc exiled.

Overall, not my best week.

“Nothing.” I leaned with the sole of one boot against the closed front door, trying to decide whether to yell at him for leaving or beg him to stay. “You don’t have to go, you know. You can’t just roll over and bare your throat for Malone.”

He sighed and shook his head wearily. “Don’t do this, Faythe. It’s over, and you have to let it go. Let
me
go.”

“No.” I shoved away from the door with my foot, jogging after him into his room. He swung the bedroom door shut but I slapped it aside with one palm. “
Hell
no. I’m not going to let you walk away from this. From me.”

Marc sat on the rumpled right-hand bed next to his packed suitcase, his elbows resting on his knees. “What do you want, Faythe? What the
hell
do you want from me?” When he looked up, I saw fire in his eyes—a familiar blaze of indignation that made my heart thump harder in the hope that he might get mad enough to save himself. To save
us,
if we were to ever be
us
again. And I’d always assumed we eventually
would
be.

“I want you to
do
something, instead of bending over while they
fuck
you. I want you to stand up for what you want!”

“That’s
not
what you want.” He rose, eyes glittering furiously in spite of little available light, and stepped into my personal space. “I stood up for what I wanted two months ago and you handed me my heart—not to mention my balls—all wrapped up in your fucking pride and independence. And now you stand here yelling at me for not being willing to sing that song all over again? That’s bullshit, Faythe. What is this about? What do you
really
want from me?”

“I said I didn’t want your damn
ring,
” I said, flashing back to the night we’d broken up “I never said I didn’t want
you.
” My words came out in a gutless whisper, which was the most I could manage without either crying or shouting. “This was
not
in the plan.”

He huffed and leaned with both palms flat on the dresser, his back to me. “Plans change.”

“Not if you don’t let them.”

Marc shook his head in either disgust or frustration; I couldn’t tell which. “When are you going to learn? When are you going to
grow
the
fuck up
and understand that you don’t make all the rules. Hell, you don’t make
any
of the rules, and neither do I.” He straightened and faced me expectantly, like
he really wanted an answer, but I had no idea what to say because he was right. But he wasn’t done.

“You don’t want me to stand against the council. You want a
magic wand,
so you can walk around smacking people with it until everything’s just the way you like it. But guess what, Faythe? Life doesn’t work like that. Life
bites,
and the harder you fight it, the more leverage it has to tear your heart right out of your chest. And if you really want to wake this particular sleeping dog, the truth is that if you’d just taken that ‘damn ring’ five years ago,
none
of this
shit
would ever have happened!”

Stunned, I stared at Marc, blinking in silence as pain ripped through my chest, an echo of what Radley had done to my stomach, only infinitely worse. More personal. More agonizing. My breath abandoned my body in one long, ragged exhale. I fell against the wall and slid to the floor, my arms wrapped around my knees.

“I’m sorry.” Marc’s arms fell limp at his sides and his head dropped in defeat. Or in regret. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

“Yes, you should have. It’s the truth.” If I’d married him the first time he’d asked me, we’d probably have a home of our own several miles from the ranch, and a backyard full of swings and sandboxes. No excitement and no danger—for me at least. No capital crimes, no dead ex and no possibility of an execution.

“I’ve messed everything up. I know.” And in that moment, if I could have taken it all back, I would have.

Marc exhaled deeply, and the sound settled into a fragile, excruciating silence. In spite of everything I’d done, he still respected me too much to sugarcoat the truth. To absolve me of all blame. And as much as it hurt, I loved him for it.

“Tell me what you want, Faythe. Just tell me what you want me to do, and I’ll do it.”

I wanted a do over. A time machine. That magic wand. But real life didn’t have any easy outs, and very few happily-ever-
afters. The real world was more like a Choose Your Own Adventure book, with most of the choices ripped out before you even opened the cover.

“I…” I stared at the floor so I wouldn’t have to meet his eyes while I impaled my heart on my sleeve, where it could be shredded by a single sharp word from him. “I want you to love me enough to stay.”

There, I’d said it—I’d admitted aloud what I hadn’t
once
said directly in the ten weeks since we’d broken up. And it was too late to take it back now, no matter how he reacted.

I looked up to find surprise in the slack line of Marc’s mouth and the slight tilt of his head. Pain rippled across his features like a repressed shudder, and when he spoke, it echoed in his voice, hollow and hurt.

“I’m walking away
because
I love you. Because Calvin Malone is after me, not you, and if I go, he’ll leave you alone.”

“W
hat?” I blinked, trying to make sense of the new information, without much luck. “Why would he leave me alone once you’re gone?”

Marc gave me one hand, and I let him pull me up. “Malone never approved of your dad taking me in, and Blackwell can’t see anything beyond his damn
good old days
. They aren’t the only ones, either. This has been coming for a long time, and now they’ve found a way to get rid of me. They’ll make your dad choose between you and me.”

I shook my head, still confused. “I don’t understand. How is Daddy choosing between us?”

“Malone gave him a choice—off the record, of course. If Greg doesn’t fight my exile, Malone—as the head of the tribunal—will suddenly decide the death penalty isn’t warranted for you.”

What?
“You can’t be serious.” Yet suddenly Malone’s phony fear for my safety—even as he pushed to have me executed—made sense. The trumped-up charge against Marc was intended to force my father’s hand, to make him kick Marc out.

And it had worked.

Marc pushed his suitcase over and sat at the head of his
bed while I sank onto the one opposite his. “Unfortunately, I’m completely serious. Your uncle thinks once I’m gone, Malone will have a change of heart. He’s guessing they’ll give you a warning, probation, and probably a long-term suspension, to make it look real. And the worst part is that that corrupt son of a bitch is going to come off looking merciful on us both.”

But he was wrong there. The worst part was that Marc would be gone.

I let my skull thump against the headboard as I stared at the ceiling. “That’s so
wrong!
My hearing has nothing to do with you! He can’t make Daddy choose.”

Yet we both knew he
could
. If he got a majority vote, Calvin Malone could do whatever he wanted. I’d known all along that he hated Marc; I just hadn’t realized how far he was willing to go to get rid of the token stray.

The rest of the Territorial Council had been tolerant of my father’s eccentricity at first, amused by the tenderhearted lion taking in the orphaned kitten. But when that kitten grew up big and strong—and especially when he became the front-runner in the race for my heart, a position as Alpha of our Pride, and a seat on the Territorial Council—a handful of them had panicked. For the last five years, several of the Alphas, including Calvin Malone, had been pressuring my father to marry me off to someone else—one of their sons, naturally. But he’d steadily refused, insisting that I would make up my own mind when the time was right.

But, shrew that I was, I’d proved him wrong; I’d turned down every offer of marriage that came my way—including Marc’s. Now that I’d come home and was trying to win him back, those Alphas were evidently panicking anew at the thought of a stray sitting on the council with them. Led by Malone, they were going to all new lows to get rid of him.

And I’d just given them the perfect opportunity.

“So it’s all a game!” Fury fused with relief and I sat up, my hand clenching and unclenching around the bedspread. “It’s just a fucking game, and they’ve made their move. All we have to do is outmaneuver them. Which should be easy now that we know they aren’t really going to execute me.”

Marc shook his head slowly, sadly, and twisted to look at me. “It’s not a game, Faythe. It’s a power play, and they’ve already won. The death sentence isn’t a bluff.” He inhaled deeply, preparing to say something I was obviously
not
going to like. “I think it
was
a bluff at first, to scare you into letting one of their sons knock you up. But now they think they’ve found a replacement for you—a tabby with no connection to either me or your father. With whom they could edge us right out of our own Pride.”

Kaci.
Shit. Fear rushed through my veins, throbbing viciously with each beat of my heart. They wanted the young, scared, impressionable, orphaned tabby instead of the stubborn, uncooperative hellcat they thought me to be. “Son of a bitch!” Once they had Kaci, they wouldn’t need
me,
at which point my existence became of no importance whatsoever. And that’s exactly what Marc had been trying to tell me.

They had trapped my father in a lose-lose situation, and they didn’t really care which option he chose. If he picked Marc, they’d execute me. Daddy would have no daughter, thus no heirs. He would eventually lose control of our Pride, and the council would give it to whomever they’d married Kaci off to—some tom they could easily control.

But if my dad chose me, Marc would already be out of the way, thus ineligible for a spot at my side and on the council. If I settled down with one of their sons, my chosen tom would inherit the territory and my father’s seat on the council. If I still refused to marry, they’d replace me with Kaci.

A chill raced through me, sprouting goose bumps in its wake. “They’re trying to handpick Daddy’s replacement. They
think they can pair Kaci with the tom of their choosing and cut us right out of our own territory!” My head whirled, my thoughts flying too fast to examine. “They’ll probably pick one of Malone’s boys.” Who would one day become an Alpha, as well as a member of the Territorial Council, in effect giving Calvin Malone control of
two
territories, which would make him the most powerful member of the council. “We can’t let him do this! Marrying Kaci off to a tom of their choosing is no better than what Miguel had in mind for me and Abby.”

“I know. It’s revolting.” Marc swallowed thickly.

“Damn, I hope I’m wrong about her being a stray.” If she was a Pride tabby, even an
orphaned
Pride tabby, there would be a gaggle of brothers and enforcers out there somewhere looking for her. And surely whatever she’d run away from was no worse than what Malone had planned for her.

Or maybe it was. Why else would she leave the security of her own home to wander on her own for weeks at a time, sick, starving, and injured?

Shit.
There was a very good chance that poor thirteen-year-old tabby was stuck between the ultimate rock and hard place—a location I was intimately familiar with. I had to help her.

“We have to find out where she comes from and who might be looking for her. We have to protect her, Marc.”

He shook his head slowly, as if it felt too heavy to move. “
You
have to protect her, and to do that, you have to be
alive
. That’s why I’m leaving. It’s the best thing I can do for both of you.” His gaze burned into me, branding my soul with the memory of everything we’d once been. Everything we would lose once he was gone.

And he made it sound so damn
permanent
.

“There has to be another way to fix this.” I shifted on the spare bed, and the mattress creaked beneath me. “I can’t protect Kaci on my own, and losing you will make it worse, not better.” And I sure as
hell
couldn’t stomach the thought
of spending the rest of my life without him. Much less ever replacing him, which the council would make me do eventually. The hearing had taught me that, if nothing else.

I brushed a strand of hair from my face, trying desperately to force down the fear clawing up the inside of my throat. “You can’t go. I won’t let you. I can’t.” My voice cracked as I spoke, and finally broke on the last word.

Marc crossed the room to stare out the window, as if it hurt to look at me. “I can’t stay here and watch them kill you. Please, Faythe. Just let me go.”

Tears blurred my vision, and I tried to blink them away, but they fell instead, scalding twin paths down my cheeks. “No.” I stood and crossed the room, wiping my face with my sleeve.
Not for good
.

“Don’t make this any harder,” he whispered as my hands found his chest. “Please.”

I stood on my toes and brushed my lips against his. His scent surrounded me, triggering memories I hadn’t thought of in years, and reactions I’d never once forgotten.

“Faythe…” He pulled away from me, but I followed him, my fingers playing against the wrenchingly familiar planes and hollows of his chest beneath the faded cotton concert T-shirt he’d had for more than a decade.

I kissed him again, harder this time, demanding a reaction from him. Demanding an acknowledgment that we still had something together. That I still meant something to him. If I could make him remember what he’d be leaving behind, he might be willing to fight for it. For
us
. He just needed a reminder…

My hands slid beneath his shirt, and my fingers brushed the sparse, coarse hair on the rigid surface of his stomach. I inhaled deeply and his scent filled me.

My heart beat harder and my breath came faster. My hands skimmed higher on his chest, his flesh warm beneath my
fingers. A long, low moan shuddered in his throat in spite of lips pressed together in denial of the sounds we both knew he wanted to make.

“Faythe, please…” But he didn’t step back and made no move to push me away.

I slid my hands over each rib, dragging his shirt higher inch by slow inch. On my toes again, I trailed my mouth over his chin. I loved the rough, thoroughly masculine feel of his beard stubble against my lips. My hands moved farther up, my fingers splayed, and my thumbs brushed the hard edges of his pecs. His breath came faster, his mouth open now.

“Arms up,” I whispered, my lips brushing his chin. Marc obediently raised his arms, and I slid the shirt over his head, then let it drop onto the floor behind him. My hands roamed his arms and chest, and my pulse roared in my ears, almost blocking out his heartbeat completely.

“Faythe, you don’t have to—”

“Shh.” My lips opened and my teeth found his chin, nibbling their way down the line of his jaw to his ear, where the delicious, musky Marc-scent deepened. I purred, capturing his earlobe between my lips. I was careful not to bite, but when I tugged gently, his hands finally found my hips, squeezing as his head fell back and a soft, throaty growl rumbled against my cheek.

My mouth dipped lower, nibbling the sweet, hot flesh of his neck, and his hands slipped beneath my shirt, kneading my waist in time with his own pulse. I murmured wordless pleasure against his throat and nuzzled closer, pushing us a step nearer to the bed. His hands slid beneath my jeans, cupping my hips eagerly, possessively. His skin was exquisitely warm against mine, his fingers wonderfully rough and willing.

He smelled so good. So intimately familiar and safe, yet dangerous at the same time, and I couldn’t get enough of him. My lips found his again, and when my mouth opened,
his parted in welcome. My hands trailed his torso once more until my fingers brushed the waistband of his jeans.

I pushed his button through its hole as his hands inched up the outside of my shirt and over my shoulders. His fingers tangled in my hair, tilting my head back to give him better access to my mouth. The kiss deepened and I shoved his jeans down, fighting not to wrap my legs around him where he stood. Marc hadn’t touched me intimately in two and a half months and we only had a matter of minutes before the inevitable interruption.

Patience did not come easily.

He must have felt the rush, too, because he let go of my hair to grab my shirt, only pulling from my mouth long enough to tug the black tee over my head. He turned us so the backs of my knees brushed the edge of the mattress, my fingers still playing along his back. His mouth claimed mine again as his hands worked at the waistband of my jeans. A second later, they hit the floor, my underwear pooled inside them.

His arms encircled me, hands fumbling with the latch of my bra as I shoved his boxers down, my hands trailing over the tight curves of his backside, the granite expanse of his thighs. He growled in frustration and his arms tensed against me. Threads popped and my bra slid down my arms, the hooks ripped free from the material.

Damn. That was a good bra too.
But Marc was better. He was worth however many articles of clothing he wanted to ruin, and if he’d stay, I’d gladly let him shred my whole wardrobe.

I let the bra fall as he stepped out of his underwear, and when his eyes found mine again I circled him, splaying one hand across his chest, my fingers half covering the old, white scars a psychotic stray had carved into him fifteen years earlier. Though I knew he hated them, I loved those marks because that was the injury that had brought him into my life. A permanent reminder of the moment that had ripped away everything he’d ever known, and given us to each other.

And after all that time, all those moments stolen, those cravings indulged, he was leaving—to save
me
. We’d been apart before, most notably the five years I spent at college. But this was different. Until I could get him reinstated, he wouldn’t just be stomping around in the guesthouse out back, or waiting for me to come home from school. He’d be truly gone—out of reach and officially persona non grata.

But not until tomorrow. For now, Marc was everywhere. His chest hair tickled my palms, his heart beat against my fingers. His scent filled the air. His voice rumbled through me with each moan of pleasure, each groan of impatience. Soon, the free zone would have him. But until then, Marc was mine, and I was gonna give him one hell of a send-off.

I smiled and shoved him backward. He let himself fall onto the bed, and a little thrill raced down my spine to settle low and throb steadily. I was on him in an instant, straddling his thighs as my hands sought every inch of his flesh.

His hands squeezed my hips, grinding me against him as he arched up from the bed over and over again. I gasped, and my knees clenched on either side of him, pinning us together as he throbbed against the most sensitive parts of my body.

I sat up straight and Marc’s eyes met mine. I nodded. He lifted me with both hands, guiding me forward. I closed my eyes, knowing he would watch my face the whole time.

He lowered me onto him slowly, inch by exquisite inch, until my thighs met his hips. I didn’t realize I was holding my breath until it slipped from my open mouth in a sigh of contentment. Satisfaction. An indisputable
right
ness I never, ever felt except when we were joined so thoroughly, so intimately that our pulses raced in twin rhythms, each breath pushing in and out in tandem.