by Moira Rogers
“I’m fine,” Nick told Jackson as he moved to sit next to her.
She wasn’t fine. Her body vibrated with tension, and the knuckles of her right hand were swollen and bruised. “What happened?”
She didn’t answer at first. Instead, she dragged a ponytail holder from her purse and used it to secure her hair in a careless knot at the back of her head. “You’d think that Alec, of all people, would know better than to simply regurgitate some tired old ultraconservative shit, wouldn’t you?”
As soon as the words were out of Nick’s mouth, Jackson groaned. She was almost rabidly protective of Michelle, but backhanded references to the painful events of Alec’s life would only make things worse.
“Watch your mouth, Peyton,” Alec said, his voice cold. “You don’t know—”
“Enough.” Steven’s quiet voice overpowered Alec’s easily. “We’re already in over our heads. Perhaps we could stop jabbing at each other?” His eyes cut to Alec. “And let’s remember that, regardless of our personal feelings, Michelle Peyton is the only hope any of us have of facing down Charles Talbot and surviving.”
Alec wasn’t one to back down to anyone, but the sheer intensity in Steven’s eyes seemed to give his partner pause. “Fine.”
Jackson turned to Nick and raised an eyebrow, waiting for her to apologize. She exhaled and looked away. “I’m sorry, Alec. I shouldn’t have said that.” Then she mirrored Jackson’s expression and added, “But if anyone so much as hints that my sister is crazy, there’s going to be an ass-kicking after this is all taken care of.”
Mahalia sat next to Alec and patted his leg. “Don’t worry. I don’t even think she could kick your ass. Must have just…” She waved a hand at his face. “Well, she must have caught you off guard, that’s all.”
Alec snorted. “That girl’s damn scrappy for someone who doesn’t even come up to my shoulder.”
Jackson slid an arm around Nick and tugged her to his side. “We’re going to meet your dad and sister in New York?”
She nodded. “I just talked to Michelle. She’s pretty busy getting ready, so we’ll pick them up on our way.”
“All right.” The better prepared Michelle was to face Talbot, the more likely they’d get through this confrontation in one piece. “Steven, is there anything else we can figure out or plan right now?”
Steven shook his head. “Let’s get to New York.”
Chapter 14
The world came into focus with terrifying slowness. Mackenzie fought her way out of sleep, vaguely remembering she was supposed to be scared but not why.
Then she opened her eyes and saw Marcus, and everything came flooding back. She bolted upright on the bed, her eyes darting around the small bedroom. It was plain but tastefully decorated, with a desk, a bookshelf and an open door that led into an adjoining bathroom. The door to the hallway was open, meaning no one cared if she ran. Probably because they could stop me before I got more than twenty feet, she thought in annoyance, remembering how easily Marcus had restrained her.
She returned her gaze to Marcus. He’d been reading a book, though he closed it now as he smiled at her. “Feeling better?”
“No,” she retorted, annoyed by his dogged friendliness. She could see the marks her teeth had left on his neck, yet he seemed completely unbothered by the fact that she’d hurt him.
He shrugged and reopened his book. “Maybe you need more sleep.”
It was infuriating. “Sleep is supposed to make me feel better about being kidnapped?”
He kept his eyes on the pages of the book, though he raised a brow. “Is screaming going to make you feel better?”
“Kicking you some more might make me feel better.” Maybe then he’d show a reaction other than a casual lack of concern.
“You’re welcome to scream or kick me again, whichever you prefer.” He tilted his head and flashed her a charming grin. “I’m not all that bad. You’ll see.”
He had a dangerous charisma, the kind that made it hard for Mackenzie to remember he was a fanatic. She swung her legs over the edge of the bed and pressed her feet to the cool hardwood floor. “You could be the greatest guy in the world, and it wouldn’t make up for the fact that you’ve hurt people to get to me. I’m a prisoner here.”
Marcus actually looked remorseful. “I really wish it hadn’t had to happen,” he told her quietly, laying the book on the bedside table. “If I’d been able to make you understand your importance, your role, none of it would have been necessary.”
“My role.” The words came out flat. “You mean to have your…infectious babies.”
He threw back his head and laughed, the action stretching out the strong column of his throat. “You make them sound like one of the ten plagues of Egypt, Mackenzie. They’ll just be babies. Babies with an amazing gift.”
“And if I don’t want babies?” Or if I don’t want them to be yours?
His brows drew together. “Why wouldn’t you?”
The fact that he actually seemed to care about her answer made her pause. Marcus was a fanatic and a shapeshifter and who knew what else but, in the end, he was a person too. A man. If there was one thing she’d always been good at…
Instead of snapping out another angry retort, she paused to consider the answer. “I had a life. I went to college to study dance. I was working at something I loved, teaching lessons, making connections. You obviously know what it’s like to have a dream. Mine was dancing.”
“How am I standing in the way of that?” he asked slowly. “I don’t understand. I mean, I can help you.”
“When am I supposed to start having these children?” she asked quietly. “How much dancing can I do if I’m supposed to be pregnant all the time?”
Marcus wasn’t laughing anymore. He looked angry. “You think I’d want that?” He rose to his feet. “You’re not meant to be an incubator, Mackenzie. You’re meant to be my wife.”
She forgot about her plans to charm him. “You chased me through four states, made me terrified for my life, nearly killed an old woman and kidnapped me, and you’re mad that I’m confused about your motivations?”
“I told you exactly what my motivations were when we first met.”
“And I told you I wasn’t interested,” she snarled. “You took the choice from me. So as long as I have no choice in the matter, you have no right to be all high and mighty with me.”
He advanced on her until they were standing toe-to-toe. “You think I have a choice?” he whispered. “You think I wouldn’t rather strike out on my own and meet a woman who’s a little more suited to me than you? Well, I would, actually, but I can’t. Because this is important, Mackenzie. Without us doing what we’re supposed to do, our race is going to die. No more cougars. Don’t you get that?”
“No!” She took a step back, bumped into the bed and sat abruptly. She clenched her hands around the blanket, her voice dropping to a whisper as well. “I don’t belong to your race. Half the time, I still think I hit my head and have lost my damn mind, Marcus!”
His shoulders relaxed. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have yelled at you. Sometimes I forget you grew up hearing nothing of our destiny. It’s hard for me to fathom, really.” He sat in his chair again. “As for thinking you’re crazy, that will sort itself out once Dad removes the suppressive spell that’s been keeping you from shifting.”
There it was again. That word. Dad. Marcus apparently had no idea that Charles wasn’t his father. She opened her mouth to say as much, but the words died on her tongue. He isn’t going to believe you, she told herself sternly. It was the only weapon she had, but if she used it too soon it wouldn’t work.
Mackenzie closed her eyes and forced herself to relax. Whatever Charles’s misdeeds, it was obvious Marcus believed in the cause because he’d been told only what Charles wanted him to know. Just like my parents. Just like Steven.
If she wasn’t going to blame them for believing Charles, how could she blame the man who had been raised by him? It didn’t
mean she had to trust Marcus, but it made it easier not to hate him. She had to win him over to her side if she was going to have any chance of escaping.
She needed every advantage she could get.
Mackenzie met Marcus’s faintly worried gaze. “I want him to remove the spell,” she said, her voice trembling. “I want to learn what—who I am.”
And then I’m going to use it to get away.
Marcus came back later that evening with an armful of neatly folded clothing. “I had to guess at the sizes,” he explained as he set the pile on the chair beside the bed. “Once you get dressed, Dad wants to see you.”
“Are we going to break the spell?”
“I think so.” He turned his back to her and waited.
He wasn’t going to leave. Mackenzie stepped out of her bloodied pants and pulled on the clothes as quickly as possible. The trousers were too tight across the hips and several inches too long, but Marcus hadn’t done a terrible job.
“Okay,” she said when she was dressed. “Is this going to hurt? Because when the spell was getting all weird before, it was pretty uncomfortable.”
“It’s potentially dangerous, but Dad can help you through it. He’s very powerful, and he’s dealt with these things before.”
She followed him as he headed left down the hallway. “So…where are we? Or can I not know?”
Marcus shot her a bemused look. “We’re at Dad’s estate in upstate New Hampshire, not in some secret, underground lair.”
It was oddly disappointing. “That’s a little anticlimactic.”
“Sorry. I’ll try to take my role as evil henchman more seriously in the future. Perhaps I’ll take to wearing a monocle.” He squinted one eye and affected a very proper British accent. “Will that do, Miss Brooks?”
She didn’t want to laugh. She didn’t want to find him funny, or human, or the least bit sympathetic. In a perfect world Marcus would be easy to hate, a perfect cardboard cutout of evil. Jackson would be my dashing hero…
At least it would be easy to act as if she was warming to Marcus. She let herself laugh and give him a grudging smile. “I’d grow a mustache if I were you.”
He wrinkled his nose. “Oh, I’m bad at that. It takes me weeks, and I just look sad in the meantime.”
Marcus opened the door at the end of the hall. The room beyond was large, probably the size of Jackson’s entire apartment, though it was long rather than wide. It had been furnished as an office on one end and sitting room on the other, and offered a picturesque view of the forest through the sliding glass door on the wall opposite them.
Charles sat in a chair just outside the door, his back to the pair. “We’ll take care of the spell out here,” he said without turning around. “Come outside, children.”
It took all of Mackenzie’s willpower to follow Marcus through the door. A pillow sat on the ground in front of Charles’s chair, and the older man gestured to it. “Sit, Mackenzie. Marcus, please kneel behind her. It’s possible breaking the spell will disorient her.”
When she didn’t move, Marcus slid his hands over her shoulders in a light, reassuring touch. “It’s okay,” he whispered. “I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”
“Okay.” She sat on the pillow, strangely comforted by Marcus’s presence behind her, considering the fact that she’d spent the last month living in terror of him.
Charles rested his hands lightly on either side of Mackenzie’s head. His skin was warm and dry, and his hands trembled slightly. He drew in a deep breath, and a chill raced down her spine, raising goose bumps on her skin as she shivered.
Charles’s hands fell away. “It’s done.”
Mackenzie stared at him in shock. “What?” After all the buildup, after listening to Jackson and Mahalia discuss the spell and how dangerous it was, it terrified her to realize Charles had found dissolving it no more trying than brushing away a fly. Jackson and Mahalia could do things that seemed miraculous, things she could hardly understand. Charles surpassed them, eclipsed them.
It wasn’t surprising Charles thought of himself as a god. Fear filled her, honest horror as she realized for the first time just how out of her league she was.
It must have showed on her face. Charles smiled slightly. “It’s done. Ms. Tate’s attempts to bolster the spell’s effects were quite deft, though she lacked the power to truly finish what she started. Because of the framework she laid, I was able to remove the original spell. Right now I’m holding a temporary spell on you myself.”
“Why?”
“Because the minute I let go, you’re going to shift forms.” Charles’s voice was gentle. “You don’t want that to happen while you’re dressed.”
Which meant they expected her to strip naked in front of them.
Behind her, Marcus cleared his throat. “Would it make you feel better if I went first? Shifted, I mean?”
Mackenzie gathered her courage and turned to face him. “Yes. Please.”
Marcus nodded and pulled his shirt over his head, revealing a smooth, muscled chest. He reached for his belt as he spoke. “Have you even seen this happen before? I mean, are you going to be all right?”
“Steven showed me yesterday.” She averted her eyes. That peculiar yearning was back, the one that came from somewhere deep inside and didn’t feel remotely human.
“I see.” He shed his shoes and socks, and his cheeks reddened just a bit as he unfastened his pants. “Sorry. The circumstances are—”
“She doesn’t have time for this modesty,” Charles snapped. His chair scraped over the slate patio. When she looked over her shoulder, he had risen and turned his back to them. “Take off your clothing, Mackenzie. Please.”
Feeling silly and exposed, Mackenzie waited until Marcus had turned away again before stripping her shirt off and dropping it to the ground. Her pants and undergarments followed, leaving her shivering slightly even in the warm August air.
Marcus glanced at her over his shoulder. “Ready?”
She was terrified. “Is there any way to be ready?”
“No.” It was Charles’s voice, right behind her. She felt his hand brush against the back of her head, and the world tumbled into chaos.
Arousal rose in her suddenly, a thousand times stronger than the lust that had gripped her in the car with Jackson, and she faintly heard Charles say, “Catch her, Marcus.”
Warm arms slid around her. Her entire body stiffened, her back arching painfully. An enormous pressure began to build inside her, slowly, inexorably, each second becoming more and more unbearable.
The scents assaulted her first, Marcus’s soap and aftershave, and underneath that something else, something tantalizing that smelled of musk and cat. She could smell the flowers, the freshly cut grass, the needles on the pines rising in front of them.
Then the sounds came and Mackenzie cried out, clamping her hands over her ears as the volume of the entire world kicked up several notches. Marcus’s heart beat strongly, and his breathing rasped so loudly her ears hurt. She could hear Charles’s heart pound too, even though he stood several feet away. The gentle breeze fluttering the leaves on the trees sounded like a screaming wind.
Mackenzie shuddered against Marcus, overwhelmed by the onslaught of sensation, and he lowered them both to the grass. The desire faded, replaced by a hunger which in turn faded to predatory rage. Charles’s rapid heartbeat spoke of fear or excitement, and she wanted to turn on him, to stalk him.
She started to pull away from Marcus to do just that when another spasm shook her and the intense pressure inside her twisted into excruciating pain. The world around her shimmered, turned dark, and she took a breath to scream—
But something inside her broke and she collapsed to the ground, too confused by the sudden peace to wonder why Marcus had let go. She closed her eyes and took slow, steady breaths as she listened to the sounds around her with her cheek pressed against the grass.
Instincts that had been repressed for a lifetime roused slowly, and
Mackenzie knew it had happened. When she opened her eyes, she wouldn’t be looking at the world as a human, but as a cougar.
It should have been terrifying.
It wasn’t.
Marcus knelt next to her. His gaze met hers but he didn’t speak. Instead he underwent the same shimmering transformation Steven had in Mahalia’s backyard. He didn’t approach, just crouched into a sitting position and watched her carefully.
With her mind still human, still her own, Mackenzie thought it would be difficult to physically adjust to the change. She rose to her feet slowly, expecting awkwardness, and was pleasantly surprised to find that her new body felt like the most natural thing in the world. She stretched her legs slowly, feeling the power in her muscles, and turned to look at Charles.
He watched her, his eyes alight with satisfaction. He came a step closer and a snarl rumbled out of her, an instinctive reaction she couldn’t control…and didn’t want to. She braced her hind feet against the grass and crouched, preparing herself to pounce on him.
She didn’t get the chance. Marcus nipped her flank and bumped his shoulder against hers, throwing her off-balance. He made a noise that sounded like a cross between a hiss and a whistle, and Mackenzie was surprised to realize she knew exactly what he meant.
No.
He was warning her away from Charles.
Charles took the question of whether she’d heed the warning away from her when he stepped back inside and closed the door quietly. Deprived of the object of her anger, Mackenzie turned again and studied the back yard from her new perspective.
The neatly kept lawn extended twenty feet behind the house before giving way to a hundred yards of wild meadow that led to the forest beyond. The sudden urge to explore gripped her. She needed to run, like she had in her dreams. She gave Marcus an expectant look.
This time, he made a chuckling sound and bounded across the grass in what seemed like an instant. When he dove through the unkempt grasses of the meadow, Mackenzie followed, forgetting about everything except how good it felt to run.
