Seven Days (11 page)

I shook my head, trying to negate what he'd told me, but there was no turning back. Even if I didn't change, Xavier couldn't give me children. My dream of being a mother, a grandmother, floated away on the wisps of pain that escaped my iron control. I looked up to find Xavier watching me, a broken and silent sentinel to the end of my--our--plans.

"I'm okay," I said, struggling to stand up, to be on equal footing with Xavier. "So we adopt. Big deal." I laughed, but the sound was brittle like old glass. I could see he didn't believe me, but he wasn't going to believe anything I said to him now. I looked back at Elise, trying to plead silently that she talk some sense to her grandson. Something in my gaze must have been clear because she finally sighed and sat on the arm of the couch.

“Xavier, I know what we’re saying won’t change your mind,” she said. “I can see that stubborn set to your shoulder, but I beg you to wait until you have taken the time to calm yourself. Don't go head-first into danger in the state you're in. You'll regret your actions for more reasons than the ones I can see you considering and just as Kerry doesn’t want to lose the man she loves, I don’t want to lose the grandson I love.”

Xavier opened his mouth to say something, but Elise’s tear-bright eyes stopped whatever justification he'd planned to utter. Instead he nodded and said, “I’ll wait until tomorrow, Gram.” He hugged Elise and kissed her cheek. “You aren’t going to lose me, Gram. I’m tougher than that.”

“I know you're tough, Xavier, but there are some things no one should ever have to do. The murder you have in mind is one of those things.”

Xavier shuddered and turned away from Elise. “It’s not murder if it’s for the good of the pride and those we protect,” he said.

"So you think now, but if you leave this house with his death on your mind, you can call it whatever you like. It will still weigh on your soul like murder." A tear slid down Elise's cheek, splashing onto her hand where she clasped them in her lap.

"I said I would wait, Gram. I know you're right," he glanced at me. "You're both right."

"But you won't change your mind," I said.

Xavier shook his head. "I can't let him keep killing. As the leader of this pride, it's my responsibility to lead the chase for the monsters we deal with. I've let my desire to comfort you keep me from my responsibilities long enough."

"But you...."

Xavier silenced my objections with a finger laid upon my lips. "I needed to comfort you as much as you needed comfort, Kerr. But now I need to face my foe head on rather than letting others fight my battles for me." He nodded toward the kitchen. "How many more of my panthers need to come to this house looking like Christian did tonight? Can you really want me to suffer that kind of pain in addition to knowing what I now know about Lane?"

"No, of course not. But Xavier, I...."

"I don't want to talk about this anymore, Kerry. Not with you, either, Gram." He held his arms open and I stepped into his embrace. The warm scent of damp fur and clean skin rose to envelope me further into his embrace. If I were going to lose even a part of him, I wanted--needed--this moment.

He held me, laying his head against my neck. “I don't want to talk anymore. I want to hold you tonight,” he whispered. “I want you to know how much I love you and that no matter what I do for the rest of my life, nothing will mean as much to me as your love.”

"I want that too, Xavier," I said. "But I want to know you'll be here to hold me tomorrow and the next day and every day until we die together many years from now."

I heard the click as Xavier swallowed. He wouldn't look at me and I knew he was trying to come up with a way to say yes to what I wanted without lying to me. I wanted to scream at him, convince him of what his loss would mean to me, to Elise, to the pride, but I knew that was not how I was going to change his mind about going after Lane.

I glanced at Elise over Xavier’s shoulder. Her look begged me to reason with Xavier and convince him not to chase Lane. I'd do what I could, but I knew Xavier was going to seek out Lane and if he found the man who had infected him, Xavier was going to kill him. Nothing I said or did would change his mind. Rather than spend the night fighting the inevitable, I decided to spend it just as Xavier wanted to.

I kissed him and let him lead me to his bedroom. We lay together on the bed, wrapped in
each other’s arms, and talked about what we would do with our future together. We talked about college, careers, even pride politics, but it was all lies. I didn’t believe I had a future and couldn’t think past the coming full moon. Xavier had murder on his mind and any future he might claim to want with me now would be forever changed by the decisions he made when he found Lane. Lies or not, we both needed to pretend. I needed to pretend there would be a future as normal as the one Xavier described. I wanted to go to college and have a family and live happily ever after. Xavier obviously wanted the same things. So we shared our false dreams and let the night push forward toward the dawn.

“I want to marry you, Kerry,” Xavier said as the sunrise began to touch the edges of the horizon outside his window. "I want you to be my wife. I want to know I'll come home to you every day and every night. I don't care what else happens in my life. I only care that you share it with me.”

Tears burned in my eyes. More than anything, I wanted to say yes. Yes, I would marry Xavier and live the dreams we'd spoken of. But I couldn't bring voice to the lie. I still had no idea what kind of life I was going to have and who knew what would happen when Xavier found Lane. I knew he intended to kill Lane, but the older panther was bigger and more powerful. What if Xavier couldn't defeat his father? What if he came home broken, his soul damaged beyond repair. Would I still want to marry him then? Instead of giving him an answer, I kissed him and snuggled into his arms more tightly. The molten tears slid down my cheeks to pool on the pillow under Xavier's arm. Nothing we had said to one another had changed his plans. Nothing I could say now would make a difference either. I knew this would be the last time I had Xavier, whole and undamaged, and my heart ached with the thought. I pulled in a shuddering breath, hoping to cover the sound of my tears, but he heard me.

"I love you, Kerry. Now and always."

He kissed the top of my head and hummed a soft, simple tune until I drifted away, unable to escape Morpheus' embrace any longer.

The sun streaming through the open window woke me a few hours later. The bed beside me was cold and a note lay on the pillow beside me.

I will be back, Kerry. I love you. Stay with Mairin today.

It wasn't until my tears left spidery circles of blurred ink on the paper that I realized I was crying. His words, permanently embossed on paper and yet so easily marred by nothing more than a little salt water. I prayed Xavier's heart and soul were more permanently protected than the words he'd left behind. I wanted to scream for him to come back, but I knew he was long gone and wouldn’t come even if he could hear me. The tears were slow to stop. Each time I thought I had pulled myself together enough to call Mairin, another tear would splash onto the paper, further erasing Xavier's words. Finally the tears dried up, leaving me a dry and brittle husk of the girl who had lain in Xavier's arms just hours earlier. I was going to lose him. A part, if not all, of him would never come back to me after he had killed Lane. I knew it and I mourned that loss a moment more before calling my sister.

"I need you, sis," I said when Mairin answered.

"What's happened?" she asked. I heard Mathias in the background asking if I was okay.

I explained the revelation that had come from Christian's attack and told Mairin that Xavier had already gone searching for Lane.

"We'll be there in an hour, Kerry," she said. "Please wait for us at Elise's house, no matter what else happens."

"I'm not going anywhere, Maire. I don't think I could leave the house if I wanted to. Elise surely won't let me go looking for Xavier."

"Good. I'll send some of the puppy squad out looking and tell them to be his back-up. Xavier's a big boy, Kerry. He'll come back to you. You know that."

"I wish I did know that, Maire. You didn't see him last night. He is obsessed with killing Lane. I'm afraid that even if he comes back in body, something he needs to survive will be broken beyond repair."

"We'll deal with that if we need to," Mairin said. "Just stay with Elise. Mathias and I will be there soon."

Elise and I waited for Mairin and Mathias, taking turns standing at the window in the kitchen. Frustration ruled my wait and the longer I waited, the more I needed to scream. After hanging up with Mairin, I'd tried Xavier's cell phone. I followed the ringtone I knew he used for calls from me to the end table beside the couch in the living room, letting the phone ring until it pushed my call to his voicemail. I stood and stared at the phone. It's now silent presence speaking louder than I thought possible. Xavier never left the house without his cell phone. The pride knew to call if there was trouble and he called me throughout the day when we weren't in school. I knew he hadn't forgotten his phone, but rather had left it behind on purpose. He'd cut himself off from his family and the pride so no one could try to stop his quest to kill Lane. No one knew where he was or where Lane had holed up after attacking Christian, so no one could even go to help. We could do nothing but wait and so I waited, silently cursing Xavier as the day grew older. I waited and I prayed. I prayed he'd come home safe. I prayed he'd come home whole. I prayed I could live with whatever part of Xavier walked through his grandmother's door when he'd finally ended his quest.

Lane sat on the corner bar stool, watching the door and waiting for Xavier to arrive. When attacking and infecting strangers hadn't worked, Lane had changed tactics and attacked a member of Xavier's pride in order to ensure his son would finally understand who had made him a panther. Xavier might not know why he'd been infected as a child, but Lane was certain he'd left enough of his own scent on the boy he'd clawed for Xavier to recognize the panther who had attacked him and returned to Dorothy's house every summer to watch the boy grow to a man.

And while Lane admitted to himself that Xavier was more like Tyler than he might have wished, he was pretty sure he could count on his son’s testosterone to send the boy out into the alleys and bars in search of the man who had infected Xavier when he’d been a child.
No matter who had raised him, Xavier was Lane's son--Lane's panther. He'd made it nearly impossible for Xavier to ignore the facts of his birth and infection and Lane counted on the temper Xavier had inherited from his true father to bring the boy to him now.

The bartender put another shot in front of Lane who nodded and pushed a few bills toward the far edge of the bar. He didn’t see the look the bartender gave him. Lane was too lost in the past to want to talk to anyone in the present.

He remembered Xavier running into the woods outside Tyler and Dorothy’s house. Xavier had headed straight for the spring-fed pond behind the house, just past the heavy underbrush line that marked the beginnings of the swamp. The irony of the boy running happily to the same place where Lane’s own life had ended had been too sweet for Lane to resist. He'd transformed just inside the edge of the tree line and then followed the boy to the pond. The panther followed the scent trail the boy left behind, finding the place where the child slipped into the water to splash and play as though his death did not watch him. The panther lay down and watched the boy. What remained of the human understanding in the panther's thoughts centered on the unfairness of its human life. Why should this boy have what the panther's man shape did not? Why should this boy live without suffering? Without the pain the man shape felt each day. Why shouldn't the boy be changed?

The panther watched the waving marsh grass with the scent of the muggy air and the taste of the boy's scent on
its tongue. The scent was both sweet and yet so bitter it burned. That burning took the last vestiges of the man shape and left only the echo of the man shape’s voice crying out that what the panther was going to do was wrong. The boy was not just any boy, but the man shape’s son, his flesh and blood. How could the man shape agree to allow the panther to make the boy what he was? How could the man shape let the boy be so destroyed at such a young age? But the panther and the bitter scent of not just the boy but the woman who had run from it when it most needed her drowned out the man shape’s voice until nothing remained but the swish of the swamp grass and the splashing water as the boy played.

The panther remembered what the
man shape wanted to forget. It remembered the woman and how she had screamed and run from them. It remembered the sweetness of loving the woman and the desperate and all-encompassing pain of losing her to the northern man. And it remembered it was due vengeance. Had the woman stayed with him after they had loved by this very pond, the rogue panther who had roamed the swamp that year would not have found the man shape and the panther now watching the boy would not exist. The panther remembered the pain of the attack, the fear of its first change, and the blood of every beast, woman or man it had consumed since that first change, including the rogue who had made it.

The boy hoisted himself out of the pond, using the same ladder generations of children had worn smooth with the passage of generations of feet and hands. He lay on the boards of the dock where he'd been conceived, letting the sun dry his skin and clothing. The panther slunk through the high grass until it was only two short leaps from the boy. The
man shape tried once more to assert itself, but the panther already knew how sweet the boy's blood would taste. It waited until the boy dozed before it coughed out a roar and ran to the end of the dock.

The boy's screams echoed in the swamp, submerging the panther in the sight, sound, and taste of the child. The blood dripped from its jaws, sweet as it had imagined. It drank until the child lay still and the last echo of its screams faded from the swamp.

The man shape returned, stronger than it had ever been when the panther wanted meat. Rather than finish its meal, the panther dragged the child's body back to the edge of the grass surround the house where the woman lived. When no one came from the house, the panther roared again and again, bringing the woman at a run from the house.

The woman screamed. The sound was so like the ones the boy had made that the panther shuddered.
It wanted to run, to snatch the woman away from her northern man and child and drag her screaming body into the swamp where it could consume her at its leisure, but the man shape had again asserted itself.

The panther stepped into the open, displaying its markings and ensuring the woman knew who and what had taken the child from the pond. As she had done the first time she'd seen the
man shape’s panther form, the woman screamed and ran for the northern man's arms. The man shape’s resolve had faltered, nearly enough to allow the panther to complete its work and consume the child, but something stronger than human compassion rose to stop the panther. Vengeance was sweet, nearly as sweet as meat.

The woman who had twice run from the
man shape’s reality was now forced to accept it for the sake of their son. The boy would not be able to hide his condition from the woman. She would have to love the child or show to the world how she feared him. It was a revenge the man shape reveled in and the panther's bloodlust was satisfied. The child would become a panther and the woman would suffer. It was enough.

The memory faded to the darkness that consumed Lane's heart and mind. He knew Xavier was hunting all of East Hampton and Highland Home for him. He knew that when his son found him, they would fight and one of them would not live to see the dawn. The vengeance Lane had exorcised against his son had not ended as he had expected it to. Dorothy hadn't abandoned their son when his infection became clear. Even Tyler had accepted Xavier's condition and encouraged the boy to grow and live with the infection in ways Lane could never have conceived of. Lane now understood that the only vengeance he would have that would truly harm Dorothy and Tyler was one in which Xavier were killed or harmed so deeply that their son would never return to them.

“Buddy, I gotta cut you off after this one,” the bartender said, pushing another shot toward Lane and recoiling when Lane growled.

“Do I look drunk?” Lane asked.

“No, but you’ve had half a bottle of Jack. Just because you’re not on the floor doesn’t mean you won’t keel over five minutes from now. I gotta think of the liability.”

Lane threw back the shot and hurled the glass at the bartender. The man hunched his shoulders and covered his head to avoid the explosion of glass as the shot glass exploded against the mirror behind the bar. Laughing, Lane left a twenty on the bar and walked into the darkening street. He caught a whiff of Xavier’s scent as he crossed the alley where the pride had found the last girl Lane had attacked. Lane smiled to himself. That boy was nothing if not persistent.