But the look in Kaci’s eyes was different than both of those. In her, I found…empathy. The kind of visceral understanding I’d thought could only come from a fellow stray, infected through traumatic violence.
What we had in common wasn’t how we’d become shifters, but how we’d reacted to that change.
“So, I accidentally killed my mother and my sister, and you accidentally killed your girlfriend.”
“Fucked up, aren’t we?” I said.
Kaci blinked at me. Then she threw her head back and laughed. “I’m sorry! It’s not funny. It’s just that it’s somehow so damn funny. I know that doesn’t make any sense.”
“It makes perfect sense.” I slid my hand behind her neck and kissed her again, slowly this time. Letting the connection linger. Because that’s what I’d found. Somehow, in my attempt to flee the country—the entirety of shifter society—I’d stumbled upon the only person in the world who made me want to stay.
But if I stayed, they’d execute me. Which left only one solution.
“Come with me, Kaci.” I pulled just far enough away that I could focus on her face. So I could watch her thoughts flicker as she processed my invitation.
“With you?”
“To Cancun. Or Scotland. Or one of the island nations where there are no shifters. I know that’s asking a lot, and you’d be leaving behind family and friends. But I’m mentally kicking myself for spending four months at the ranch wallowing in my own self-pity instead of talking to you. And kissing you. If you come with me, we can spend every day for the rest of our lives talking and kissing on the beach somewhere. Surfing, and eating seafood, and learning to make our own alcohol from coconuts, or sugarcane, or whatever grows locally wherever we wind up.”
Kaci smiled, but it was a sad smile. A face-reality, Justus smile.
I held up one hand in the universal signal for STOP. “Don’t say no—”
“I’m not saying no. I’d just like to propose an alternative.” She took a deep breath and set her water bottle on the coffee table. “You stay here with me.”
“Kaci, I can’t—”
“We’ll tell Faythe and Marc what you overheard. They’ll never let you sit through a trial that’s been decided before it even begins.”
I rolled my eyes. “It’s not like the tribunal members are going to admit they’ve already—”
“Justus.” She seized both of my hands in an iron grip. “Titus sent you here for a fair trial, and there has to be a way to make sure you get one. Faythe and Marc will know what to do. Now, I know Texas isn’t as glamorous as some tropical island, and you have to be twenty-one to do anything really fun, but…I can’t leave Faythe and Marc without even saying goodbye. They’re practically my parents.”
“Yes, but you’re grown,” I pointed out. “Birds are supposed to leave the nest.”
“Birds.” She shuddered. “Sorry. Flashback. There was a thing with thunderbirds a few years ago. I got kidnapped and—”
“You got kidnapped by thunderbirds?”
“One plucked me right off the ground. I was a lot smaller then. Everything turned out okay. Faythe and Jace rescued me. But I’m not a big fan of heights anymore. Or things with feathers. Or talons.”
“Well, there are no thunderbirds in the tropics. But Kaci, if I stay here, they’ll execute me.”
“Okay, but maybe they won’t. The council is much less anti-stray now than it used to be, and even five years ago they brought charges against Faythe for killing a stray.” Her eyes widened with the enthusiasm of her pitch. “That was kind of groundbreaking, if you think about it—the council being willing to punish one of its own, rare tabbies for an act against someone they didn’t even consider a citizen.”
“My understanding is that they found her guilty of infection—which I’m up on two counts of—and innocent of murder. Which shows how little they value stray lives.”
“They found her innocent because she was innocent. She acted in self-defense.”
“But I didn’t.”
“You have extenuating circumstances,” Kaci insisted. “Drew ripped away your human life, then he used you to frame your brother. To get him removed as Alpha.”
That was all true. But… “That’s not why I killed him.”
Kaci frowned. “Then why…?”
“Okay. If you get called to testify against me, I’m screwed.” I meant it as a joke, because I had no intention of standing trial. But she looked more curious than amused. “I didn’t know how’d I’d become a shifter or who had done that to me until that night at the zoo. Drew infected me, then abandoned me. On purpose. He let me suffer through scratch fever and figure out how to shift back on my own, without any guidance or help. He didn’t teach me how to control my new instincts or fight bloodlust. Again, all on purpose, as part of his plot against my brother. He let those things rage inside me, then he sent me a picture of my girlfriend sleeping with some other guy. Less than a month after I’d been infected. Fully aware that emotional stress can trigger a new stray’s shift into cat form and that without training, new strays have little impulse control and difficulty thinking like a human in cat form.
“He treated me like a loaded gun, then he aimed me at Ivy and Leland, hoping I would lose control and hurt someone. Or infect someone. Or accidentally kill someone. Because he knew that my scent is so much like Titus’s that everyone would assume he’d committed my crimes. Especially since they had no idea I’d even been infected.
“It was Drew’s fault Ivy died. Hell, he killed Leland himself. That’s why I attacked him. Because of what he did to them. Because of what he made me do to them. Because of what he turned me into. I’m a killer because of that bastard.”
Anger on my behalf flashed in Kaci’s eyes. “Tell that to the tribunal,” she said. “Exactly like you said it just now. They can’t find you guilty if they understand the circumstances.”
“They already know the circumstances. Titus told them all of that when they tried to make him choose between me and Robyn. Armed with all of the information, at least two of the three tribunal members have decided to vote against me before the trial even starts.”
“Okay, but even if that’s true, you don’t know they’ll vote to execute. They didn’t for Robyn. Or Manx.”
“Manx and Robyn are women. The council needs them, but they don’t need me. They don’t even want me. There are more than enough strays, from the council’s perspective, and they’re already pissed off about being forced to give me a trial.”
“You don’t know—”
“Kaci.” I took both of her hands and captured her gaze, trying to make her understand. “There is no future for me in the territories. I have to go. I have to win what I can tonight, then get on an international flight in the morning. I want you to come with me. But I’ll understand if you can’t. I’ve gotten you into enough trouble as it is.”
Kaci stared at our intertwined hands. She rubbed my forefinger with her thumb. Then she took a deep breath and looked up. “I’m in.”
“You’re in?” For a second, I was sure I’d heard her wrong. I’d asked her for something crazy. Something that made no sense. I’d been prepared for the toughest rejection of my life. But… “Seriously?”
“Yes. I’m coming with you. So, let’s go downstairs and win some money.” She frowned. “How do we do that? I don’t think they’ll even let me on the floor.”
“They won’t. The bad news is that I’m going to have to gamble on my own. You can stay here and get some sleep or go grab dinner. There’s a great Asian place in the casino that’s open all night. Those are pretty much the options, though. The spa and the pools are closed.”
“Okay.” She looked disappointed, but resigned. “I’ll go get some dinner. Was there good news?”
“Oh. Yeah.” I leaned in and kissed her again. “After I win, we’re going to party. Then we’re going to book a one-way flight out of here.”
Five
Kaci
Light bl
ed through my eyelids, and the pain in my head was like an open wound, as if someone had cut off the top of my skull. The sound of running water offered an encore of sandpaper against my exposed and vulnerable gray matter.
I groaned as I pushed myself upright on something soft, and the sound of my own voice made me want to cry.
“Kaci? I’ll be out in a minute.”
My eyes flew open. Direct sunlight speared my brain straight through my optical nerve, and at first, all I could do was blink tears from my eyes as I waited for them to adjust.
Then the room came into focus.
A long gray couch. Gray carpet. A coffee table littered with clear plastic cups. A wall of windows, with the drapes pushed all the way open to reveal the Las Vegas strip…
Las Vegas.
Justus Alexander.
Kissing, and talking, and…drinking?
I had vague, blurry memories of pouring something clear into my soda. Several times. There was an alcohol-scented stain on my shirt.
What the hell? I tried to stand, but my legs were tangled in the covers. My bare legs. Shit.
Frantic, I kicked the covers off—it took several tries—and didn’t exhale in relief until I saw that I was still wearing my underwear.
The bathroom door opened and Justus stepped out wearing nothing but a pair of boxer briefs stretched across a defined V of muscle below a set of abs that would have made any enforcer proud. He snapped his toothbrush into a plastic case, then tossed it into his open backpack. “Good morning.”
Justus didn’t look hung over. In fact, he looked…great.
He pulled me close and kissed the corner of my mouth, and my hands went automatically to his bare, hard chest, as if they’d been there before. As if they remembered something my mind did not.
“You okay?” He frowned down at me. “I’m so sorry about last night. I had no idea the drinks would hit you that fast.”
“So much for shifters having trouble getting drunk, huh?” I was afraid that anything else I said would reveal how little I actually remembered of the night before. Which was pretty much nothing but the half-empty bottle of vodka siting on the coffee table and…walking down the strip, holding hands with Justus. And not necessarily in that order.
“Yeah. So, it turns out that if you weigh a hundred pounds and you drink quickly—”
“One-ten,” I corrected him, running my hands through the crow’s nest that had grown on my head overnight.
“—and you’ve never had a drink before, except one little mini-bottle on the plane, you can actually get drunk pretty easily.” He brushed hair over my shoulder and stared down into my eyes, as if he were assessing me for a concussion. “You sure you’re okay?”
“Headache,” I managed, as I glanced over the room, hoping to trigger more memories of whatever we’d done.
“Oh. Yeah, just a sec.”
Shoes, sticking out from under the couch. Open, presumably empty soda cans standing on the bathroom counter, visible through the doorway. Pants, hanging over the back of a chair. All of it evidence of a night I couldn’t remember.
“Here.” Justus pressed two tablets of Tylenol into my right hand. I set them on my tongue, then took the bottle of water he offered and swallowed them. “You should drink all of that. Then several more.”
I drained the bottle of water while he stepped into his jeans, mostly for the chance to think back over last night without being expected to speak. I remembered the plane and the taxi ride to Caesar’s Palace, and I remembered eating noodles alone at a restaurant in the casino. But the rest was a blur.
“Justus?” My hand shook as I set the empty bottle on the coffee table. “What happened last night?”
He looked up, alarm flickering behind his beautiful gray eyes as he buttoned his pants. “You don’t remember?”
“Not everything.”
He waved one arm at the empty cups and the vodka bottle. “We were celebrating.”
And suddenly I did remember.
He was sure the tribunal was hopelessly stacked against him, so he was going to run. And I was going to go with him. After he won some money playing… “Poker!”
Relief washed over his face. “You do remember.”
“I remember that you were playing, and I was eating. So…” I glanced around at the evidence of our celebration. “You won? Crap, what time is it?” I patted my butt for my phone, but both my jeans and my phone were noticeably absent. “What time is our flight? Are we going to make it?”
“Kaci…” Justus took my hand and led me around the coffee table to the couch. “Sit down. Drink some more water. See if you can remember anything else.” He looked really worried.
“What? Did we already miss the flight?”
“No.” He cracked open another bottle and handed it to me.” Kaci, we weren’t celebrating…poker. I lost most of my money. You don’t remember that?”
“No.”
“I was up two hundred thousand dollars. Then I looked up and saw some guy hitting on you in the restaurant.”
I frowned at him. “You lost your money because some guy hit on me?”
“No.” He chuckled. “You shoved him, and he fell over a table, and security escorted him out. It was awesome. But then I realized I didn’t want to be playing poker while you were eating alone. So I doubled down, like an idiot. That would have been enough to get us out of here and hold us over for quite a while.”
“But then you lost.”
“Yeah.”
Damn. “Then…what were we celebrating?”
Justus took my hand again, and I expected him to intertwine my fingers through his. That was the best memory I had of the night before. Other than the kissing.
Instead, he lifted my hand into my own line of sight. Sunlight glinted off something shining on my…
“Holy crap!” I snatched my hand from him, staring in utter shock at the ring—no, two rings—on my fourth finger. My ring finger. “Is that…?”
“It matches mine.” Justus held up his own left hand, where a platinum band encircled his ring finger.
“We’re married?” The words sounded like nonsense coming from my mouth. Yet…
“You don’t look happy. There wasn’t much of a selection at three in the morning, but we can get you a different one soon, if you want. You can design your own. Titus knows this place that—”
“How was there any selection of wedding rings at three in the morning?”
Justus shrugged. “It’s Las Vegas. There are actually a couple of twenty-four-hour jewelry stores.”
“And we… Wait.” I closed my eyes and the fingers of my right hand found the rings on my left and began twisting them. Now that I’d noticed them, I couldn’t unnotice them. “How did we go from you losing two hundred thousand dollars to us getting married? I still feel like I’m missing a big piece of the puzzle here.”
“It was for the money.”
“The money you lost?” How was it possible that the more I learned, the less I understood?
“No, the money I’m going to inherit. I get my first lump sum when I turn twenty-five, or when I get married. Whichever comes first.”
“You…!” I opened my eyes, and the glare from the ring made me want to close them again. But I scowled at him instead. “You didn’t tell me that. You said twenty-five. You never said married.”
“I told you last night, Kaci.” He sounded…wounded. “Last night you were happy about this.”
“Last night I was drunk! Evidently. I can’t even remember—” My focus snapped to the bed, where the tangled mass of covers made me want to cry. “We didn’t…?”
Please say we didn’t.
I wanted to remember my first time.
Justus followed my gaze to the bed. “Oh. No, you were drunk. That wouldn’t have been…” He cleared his throat. “You threw up. Then you fell asleep.”
“Without my pants.”
“You did that yourself. You were…eager. But then you passed out.”
“Oh my god.” I buried my face in my hands, and the ring felt cold against my scalding cheek. “Alcohol is the devil.”
“Kaci.” Justus pulled my right hand away from my face and held it, but I kept my eyes squeezed shut. I couldn’t look at him. Not knowing that I’d evidently begged him to sleep with me. To free the poor, man-eating tabby from her virginity. At three in the morning. Drunk on vodka. “Kaci. Look at me.”
Finally, I opened my eyes. But tears filled them almost immediately, blurring his face.
“Kaci. Oh, please don’t cry. I would never have touched you while you were drunk. No matter what you said you wanted. I—”
“Aaaghhhh!” I pushed him away and stood. “You’re just making it worse. No girl wants to hear that she got married while she was drunk. That she begged for sex, then didn’t even get it. Not that not remembering it would have been any better.”
“Wait, you’re mad because I didn’t sleep with you?”
“No!” I grabbed my pants from the back of the chair they were hanging from and leaned against the wall while I pulled them on with angry, jerking motions. “And yes. I’m mad about everything, Justus. All the things. This is all wrong.”
I was never one of those girls who dreamed about her wedding day. By the time I realized I’d be expected to marry a tom, I already knew that none of them would be interested. I also knew, thanks to Faythe and the glass ceiling she’d shoved her way through, that I wouldn’t be forced into marriage with someone who didn’t love me.
But as much of a relief as that understanding was, the knowledge that I’d probably spend my entire life alone kept me from truly celebrating the feminist victory Faythe believed she’d passed down to me.
“I don’t understand, Kaci.” Justus stood as I buttoned my pants. “I’m sorry, but I don’t know what I did wrong. I mean, other than the charges I’m facing.”
“Well then, let me see if I can explain this in asshole-friendly terms.” I glanced around the room in search of my socks, until I realized I hadn’t worn any. My shoes were slip-ons. “Yes, as the world’s only unwanted tabby, I am lonely and pathetic in a way that no one else on earth, as far as I can tell, will ever truly understand. But I was used to that. I was dealing with my emotional shit through a regimen of sexually unsatisfying human hookups that—at least so far—hadn’t gotten anyone hurt. Then you came along, and you were exciting, and funny, and so, so pretty, and—”
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