Kat
Packing took no more than half an hour. A duffel in the bathroom closet, probably the one Arik had used to bring supplies here for me, held a couple changes of clothes and a few toiletries, nowhere near enough to fill it. The hollow weight jostled as I slung it over my shoulder. So little evidence of my current existence. Like my joy, it had been short-lived, leaving both my heart and the bag doubly empty now, and yet its slight burden dragged at my shoulder, mocking me, filling my head with questions it was better not to ask.
But at least I wouldn’t be empty-handed. Where I was going, I had no idea, and in the hours that passed while I waited for noon to come, no clear plan appeared in my brain, only questions. Worries. The occasional painful snippet of memory, though those were easier to handle than the good memories, the ones that urged me to give up, give in.
No. I couldn’t give in. Because if I laid down my resolve now, even for a few minutes, I’d never have the strength to pick it back up.
In the group home where I grew up, money was used for food and occasionally clothes, not new toys. Most of what we’d had to play with was from the 1970s, including a banged-up set of Weebles. “Weebles wobble but they don’t fall down.” The housemother had repeated that jingle more than once. Right now I felt as battered as those old Weebles, but I knew myself, knew what I had to do. And so I took up the mantra, chanting it with every slow pass of the second hand on the clock: Get up. Keep going. Don’t stop.
Those Weebles had nothing on me.
I prayed Arik would be sleeping as I sneaked into the living room. Fear beat against my rib cage like a drum, and I struggled to draw a deep breath, but determination forced one foot in front of the other until I reached the door. That massive steel door that I’d never used on my own. Why did that scare me now? Or was my reluctance more to do with the male who lived behind this door than what waited on the other side?
It didn’t matter. Only one thing did: it was time to go.
I gripped the knob, the lifeline to my escape.
Heavy footsteps sounded behind me.
Oh God, I was going to faint. The roaring in my ears and the black spots dancing in front of my eyes confirmed it. Forget walking out—I didn’t have the strength to open the door, much less escape. Terror had stolen it all.
Keep going. Don’t stop.
Fear would never rule my life again. I gripped the knob harder, twisted.
“Kat.”
My name was more bark than language. Dog, not kitty cat. For a second the insane urge to laugh rose to choke me.
Arik’s pounding footsteps closed the distance between us. I held my breath, glanced over my shoulder.
And flinched. The intensity of his eyes burned me, their steel shine at once mesmerizing and the most intimidating thing I’d ever seen—and that included the face of the shifter who’d attacked me. Every drop of spit in my mouth disappeared.
Arik’s gaze dropped to my hands, one on the door, one clutching my half-empty bag of clothes, and that burn flared hotter. One sharp blond brow lifted. “I told you, you’re not going anywhere.”
I didn’t bother answering, just turned to face him, squared my shoulders, and planted my feet hip distance apart, bracing for whatever was coming. My chances of beating him were nil, but Weebles, you know. Never go down without a fight, and even if you do, get back up. At least until someone breaks you.
Arik crossed the last few steps to stand directly in front of me. He crossed his arms over his chest, and my gaze dropped. My blood heated. My heart ached. For a single breath my response threatened to shake my resolve, but I forced myself to look away, meet his eyes. Those eyes stripped all illusion away. Arik dismissed my combative stance with a single derisive glance, making me wonder what kind of sick dependence I’d developed that even with that look, I wanted him.
My lungs squeezed. No, not him. The male I wanted didn’t exist.
He held me with no more than his gaze for long moments. The smile that tilted one side of his mouth up made me jump. “Go ahead.” He threw a casual wave toward the door. “Have at it. See you later.”
Arik sauntered over to the bar separating the living room and kitchen. Without checking to see what I’d do, he set a squat glass on the counter and proceeded to splash amber liquid inside. He retrieved ice from the fridge and plopped a couple of pieces into the glass while I scrambled to figure out the catch. When I didn’t move, a short, bitter chuckle escaped him. “What’s the matter? You wanted to leave. So leave.” The drink disappeared with a single swallow.
Wary, unnerved, I turned, every inch feeling like a mile, until my back was to him and I faced the heavy steel blockade. In the dim light of the room, the handle taunted me, gleaming in my palm like a predator’s glowing eyes, waiting for that perfect chance to pounce. Shoving aside the notion, I firmed my grip and twisted.
Nothing.
I’d seen Arik go in and out of this damn door a hundred times. Maybe he’d locked it when he came in? Searching carefully but seeing no lock, I twisted again. The heavy knob turned, even clicked as if opening, but refused to release when I pulled. Even with both hands tugging, then jerking, I got no more response than that slight turn and click.
Finally, heart pounding in my throat, I turned back to Arik. “Open it.”
His chuckle was as cold as the ice cubes swirling in his glass. “Don’t think so, Kitty Kat. You’ll have to do that on your own.” He turned his back on me and headed out of the room.
A spike of warning sizzled up my spine. In a hot second, all the emotion of the last two days coalesced into a single burning ball of fury that exploded from my mouth. “Don’t you walk away from me, damn it!”
The cinderblock wall next to him erupted into chunks and ash.
Arik was on me before I could blink, the hot wash of his anger forcing me back against the door. “I’ll do whatever the hell I please, including keeping you wherever I want. I’m your captor, remember? Jailor? I don’t take orders from you. I take what I want, when I want it. Including this,” he snarled.
Hard lips met mine.
I tried to turn my head. A rough hand gripped my hair painfully, tilting my head to match the perfect angle of his. I opened my mouth to bite. Hard fingers forced my jaw open wider for the fierce thrust of his tongue. He kissed me, taking, forcing my response. His hunger was a taste I couldn’t escape, and I whimpered as my will seeped away beneath his touch. He was a master at sex and he knew it, using every flicker of sensation, every nuance of emotion to exact the response he desired. I hung, helpless, in his arms, battered by the onslaught of his tongue and teeth and lips and breath, by his hands and the rough press of his body against mine. Arik sucked at my tongue, nibbled my lip, rubbed the heavy length of his erection against my belly until I panted, trembling, the door he’d pushed me against the only thing to support me.
And then, in an instant, he turned away.
All I could do was watch. With every step he took, impotent fury pounded in my temples, powerlessness battered me relentlessly. Pain tightened my belly until I thought I’d throw up. I closed my eyes to the sight of his muscled shoulders squared against me as he entered the hall, shoulders I’d scratched and clawed as he gave me the ultimate pleasure, right there on the leather couch. The memory took the last of my strength, and I slid down to sit at the base of the door. What I wouldn’t give for my gift to be fully fledged, to be able to use it against him the way he was using his strength against me. But I didn’t dare; the memory of those tree stumps was too clear. Even to escape, I couldn’t hit Arik directly with my power.
Although I really, really wished my morals were weaker.
“That would wipe away your smug smile, wouldn’t it? Bastard.”
Arik’s footsteps came to an abrupt halt. When I lifted my head, his cold eyes were turned in my direction.
“What did you call me?”
The threat lacing his words sent a surge of adrenaline through my veins. I was faintly surprised I had any adrenaline left. “You heard me.”
Arik stalked toward me, his eyes starting that eerie amber glow, his expression more menacing with every step. “You called me a bastard.”
“Maybe you’d prefer prick? Asshole? Motherfucker?”
What the hell was I doing?
Arik’s growl held a threat I knew I couldn’t escape. The blood in my face drained away. I scrambled to gain my feet, to get away, but I blinked and he was there in front of me. His long, hard fingers tightened around my upper arm, dragging me roughly off the ground to stumble against his hard chest.
“Don’t—” I pulled back against his grip, which dug in even harder. “You’re hurting me!”
Arik’s shrug sent a shaft of ice through my body. “So? You’re not human anymore, remember?”
“What?”
“You’re not human anymore. It doesn’t really matter how hard I grab you or shove you or even punch you. It won’t have any true lasting effects.”
“How can— I didn’t— Are you threatening me?” Full-blown panic had me throwing a punch straight at his heart. He caught it easily, but not in time to protect his knee from my follow-up roundhouse. He didn’t even flinch, just dragged me harder against him. “You certainly scratch like a cat.”
Arrogance and anger shone from the eyes inches from my own. The amber glow flashed a warning as his teeth elongated, a hiss escaping his curled-back lips. My heartbeat hit the heart-attack range.
This was so far from the male I’d known. My recklessness had pushed him way too far. There was no control here, none of the discipline I’d come to expect from Arik. This was the animal, pure and simple, and he wasn’t in the mood to take my crap.
My gaze dropped on instinct as he stared me down, but Arik was having none of it. His claws dug deep into my arm as his free hand rose to grip my chin, yanking my head back up.
“Scared? Take a good, long look, babe.” He slid one foot forward, right between mine, shoving our hips into intimate contact. “Take a good look. I may have fucked you, but I’m not human. I don’t really give a shit if you like me or not, if you want to leave, hell, even if you think I’m a sick motherfucker. I. Don’t. Care. My animal doesn’t care.” The words came out a growl, proving the griffin was just under the surface. “I’ll do whatever I have to do to make sure Maddox pays for the lives he’s ruined. If that means hurting you, then so be it. Whatever it takes, I’m gonna make him pay. And I’ll make you pay if you don’t cooperate.”
Opening his mouth as if to kiss me again, he caught my lower lip with a fang, slicing a shallow cut across the sensitive center. I gasped at the sting of pain. And I got the message; hurting me was nothing. Tears welled, but I refused to let them fall.
Whether Arik saw them or not, I didn’t know. I hoped not. I couldn’t bear to reveal more weakness before him.
He leaned in one final time, a single swipe of his tongue stealing the drop of blood from my lip. “Whatever it takes,” he whispered, mouth to mouth, before leaning back. I wondered if he could see how much I hated having him this close, how badly I wanted to stop the contact between us. Maybe he could, because his gaze dropped to my shirt, the deep V allowing him to strip even more of my dignity. But he wasn’t done. Placing a claw there, he ripped, opening my shirt farther.
My hands trembled so badly I almost couldn’t close my grip around the material, but I managed it somehow. Arik smirked down at me, his eyes frigid steel. “I’ve seen it before, remember?”
My voice came out low and thready, but I was proud of the anger in it. “You might have seen it before; you might have seen all of me before. But I’ll decide if you live to see it again. My power might not be controlled”—I managed a shrug, the action rubbing my breast against his heavy chest, pulling at the claws still embedded in my biceps—“but it would just do more damage that way. Remember that.”
“You don’t want me playing hardball, Kat.”
“No, I don’t. But this is off limits. Rape makes you just as bad as he is.”
A dismissive glance fell on the spot where my hands clutched my shirt. “Really? You think it would be rape? I doubt you could resist that far, but even if it was, I could never be as evil as that bastard.” He shook his head. “This is about more than you or me, Kat.”
“Right. It’s about an old grudge I had no part of and certainly don’t intend to help you settle.”
“What do you intend to do?”
“Absolutely nothing.”
Arik pressed against me until the door at my back bruised my shoulder blades. “Do you know how many shifters—no, how many females, women just like you, with a life and freedom and dreams and desires—will die if you refuse?”
How could I be that important? There were thousands of shifters, all of them bigger and more muscular and more capable of fighting than me, and he wanted me to believe lives hung in the balance if I didn’t get myself killed avenging him? Arik didn’t care about those lives or mine; all he cared about was retribution. “This is not my war.”
Arik’s eyes narrowed to snakelike slits, and for a moment I thought he might put me out of his misery and kill me right there. “Not your war, huh? Is that what you believe, even after your triggering, after Sun and Grim healed you, after living here, in the home of an Archai, for weeks?”
No, it wasn’t how I felt, but I couldn’t give him a foothold. I had to protect myself first before I could help anyone else. I had to control some small part of this twisted fate I’d been forced into. And if I was totally honest, I wanted to get back at him for what he was doing to me—what he’d done. So I gave him a blank look and unconcerned shrug.
Arik’s face reddened all the way up to his short-shaven hair, giving me exactly what I’d thought I wanted. Angry veins popped up at his temples. I jerked fruitlessly in his hold.
“So this isn’t your war, Kat.” A thick coat of cruelty painted his words. “Fine. Let’s see what you think about the enemy’s response to that.”