Kat
“I should’ve left you back at the lair,” Arik said for the third time as I followed him along the snow-dusted, darkened streets.
“You could’ve tried.” We both knew locks wouldn’t keep me in any longer. Of course, it didn’t hurt that I’d threatened to cut his balls off with a rusty knife if he left me at home. Apparently in the aftermath of the spectacular emotional breakdown I’d had in my bathroom, a new Kat had risen. One who was tired of taking everyone else’s crap. If my fate was going to be decided, I was going to be there. No one would make decisions for me anymore.
I’d spent my life being handed from one person to another, being passed off because I was too much of a burden, too unlovable. My own mother had committed suicide, not even bothering to make arrangements for her preschool child before leaving me to the cold, brutal world alone. I was done. No more. Would I go with Sun? I didn’t know. But if anyone was going to decide, it would be me—not Arik, not Sun, and not anyone else. I’d blast them all to hell if I had to.
“Don’t forget, stay behind me at all times.”
I rolled my eyes at his back. “Yes, Master. What’s next? Strip me down, change form, and pee on me before we go in?” I bet lions marked their territory every bit as thoroughly as a tomcat did.
Arik sent a concerned look over his shoulder. “Do you think I need to?”
I stumbled at the question. Arik cracked up. It was the first sign of levity I’d seen since he came home to the total devastation of my bathroom and the multitude of shallow scratches in my skin. Still, I was in no mood for it. His laughter turned abruptly to a snarl when I used a small push of power to shove him away from me.
“Watch it, Kitty Kat.”
“I am.” He was lucky I hadn’t used far more power. He ought to know that; he’d seen my job on the mirror. At least with no threats, walking on a quiet street on the way to meet Sun, the lack of danger allowed me some control.
At least when I didn’t think about where we were headed. I tried hard to focus on putting one foot in front of the other and breathing, but the truth was, beneath the sarcasm my gut churned, determination and fear vying for supremacy. Sun would be there. Would Grim come? Who else? I knew Sun wouldn’t be alone, and the thought of meeting other Archai for the first time scared me spitless. Would Sun bring any females, and were they anything like me? The questions jumbled and twisted and flipped in my mind until hyperventilating seemed like a great option. Except I wouldn’t give Arik the satisfaction of seeing that I was afraid.
The sudden lock of Arik’s fingers around my wrist, soft but secure enough that I couldn’t jerk away, forced me to halt—body and mind. Looking up into Arik’s eyes, I quirked a brow.
He didn’t respond in kind. Instead a hand came up, chilly in the cold air, to stroke along my cheek. His thumb traced a long, shallow cut slashing across my jaw. It was the first time he’d touched me intimately since the kiss in the office, and even knowing I shouldn’t respond, I soaked it in. Soaked him in.
It was too dark—and Arik was too good at closing himself off—to read his expression, but inch by inch, he bent to place his lips on mine. I could get away, turn my head to the side, anything but wait.
I didn’t move. His tongue parted my lips and swirled against mine, soothed me, gentled me to his leading. Would this be the last time he kissed me, the last time I felt his body against mine? I literally felt my heart fracturing at just the thought. What would it be like when it actually happened?
God, what was I doing? It took a moment, firming my will, but finally, reluctantly I pulled away.
Arik didn’t speak for a moment, just stared down at me with that indiscernible look on his shadowed face. Then, “You have nothing to prove, Kat. You’re a miracle in their eyes, not a castoff.”
Archai females were rare compared to males, Arik had said. Valuable. I didn’t fool myself that females are valuable meant Kat is valuable. I didn’t want to be valuable because I’d been born with all the requisite rare parts; I wanted to be loved for myself. Arik had proved that wasn’t possible.
I didn’t say any of that. I couldn’t bare another piece of my soul to him; at this rate I wouldn’t have any pieces left. And I didn’t want sympathy, not from him. Not from anyone. “Let’s go.”
One edge of Arik’s full mouth quirked into a cocky grin. “Okay, Kitty Kat.”
We kept walking. The drive into town hadn’t taken that long, but Arik had insisted on approaching the meetup on foot. The better to use his shifter senses, he said. The icy winter air froze my lungs with each breath in, and by the time we reached the meeting place, I was shaking with cold. The moon was obscured by the clouds, giving the area a spooky feel as we approached. How was it I’d never noticed so many abandoned warehouses, storefronts, barns—heck, any kind of building— in and around Nashville before? Did they have an Archai registry or something, a realtor that kept them rolling in likely lair and meeting locations? This time it was an old Western clothing store that looked like it had spent the last twenty years empty, hidden away from the main roads by a couple of high-rise, low-income apartment buildings. The dark wood siding was broken and littered along the weed-infested parking lot, adding to the ghost-town air the empty building held. Light wisps of snow blowing in the wind resembled fog, making me feel like I was waiting for an Old West shootout to begin at midnight.
Wait, that might actually happen.
“Arik…”
“I promise not to draw a revolver if you’ll promise to stay quiet and behind me,” he answered before I could ask. This was the second time he’d read my thoughts. I seemed to be spilling far too much along the connection I wasn’t certain had completely closed between us.
The knowledge sharpened my tongue all over again. “This isn’t the Archai equivalent of the speak-only-when-spoken-to housewife, is it?” I had no idea what the rules were.
“I think that’s children, Kitty Kat. Housewives are supposed to be barefoot and pregnant, remember?”
My eyes shot up to his, wide enough they ached. Arik appeared equally startled, but the moment was lost as a massive male stepped around the corner of the building.
“They’re waiting,” the male said, his voice containing a faint hiss that sounded odd to my ears.
Arik inclined his head toward the Archai. “Thank you, Basile. Please lead the way.”
“You know him?” I whispered, forgetting all about telepathy as we followed the hulking shoulders clearing a way through the dark.
“We’ve met,” Basile said, then turned into an alcove at the back of the building that protected the rear entry. He opened a heavy steel door that definitely didn’t fit the neglected air of the property, and gestured for us to enter.
Arik walked inside. I followed, sandwiched between the two males as we made our way through an empty storage room into what looked like the ruins of the main selling floor. Thick, black-painted plywood covered the windows, caulk around the edges keeping all light in and darkness out. The wide room, though brightly lit, felt tiny from the sheer bulk of the shifters taking up the space. I reached out a shaking hand, feeling like a coward as I gripped a belt loop near Arik’s hip, but I needed the connection to drag me forward when my feet would have frozen to the floor.
They all stared…at me.
Every Archai fell silent when Arik and I entered the room, more than a half dozen males and one female turning their undivided, uncomfortable attention on me. It would’ve been too much for anyone, all that aggression and intense concentration, but for me it was paralyzing. “What the hell are they looking at?” I asked Arik, voice shaking even in my head.
Arik reached back and tugged my hand off his fatigues, securing it in his grip. Every pair of eyes dropped to our clasped hands. I was beginning to sweat when Sun appeared from another hallway.
The relief was so intense my muscles wilted. I focused on the only familiar shifter in the room and prayed he at least would act normal. “Sun.”
Arik stiffened in front of me.
Sun rounded a square of long tables in the center of the space and hurried toward us. His broad shoulders cut off the view of everyone else, thank God. “Kat!” He took the last few steps, boots thumping on the concrete floor, to stop a couple of feet before Arik, a relieved smile on his face, arms wide open. I started to circle Arik.
He stepped to the side, blocking me.
Not his decision to make. My free hand on his side, I gave him a subtle push with my power and darted around him, though still well within reach. Sun gathered me quickly into a bear hug, nearly squeezing me to death before he finally eased back.
“You look better than the last time I saw you,” he said, swirling eyes taking in every detail of my appearance—the bruises, the shallow cuts that still hadn’t fully healed. At least my winter clothes hid the damage to my body. Considering the last time he’d seen me, I’d blacked out after making my apartment explode, I probably did look better, but despite his words, his expression was tight with concern.
Arik cleared his throat behind me. Sun’s focus shifted over my shoulder to Arik before glancing to the side, and his eyes went molten.
I turned my head in that direction, meeting the gaze of a tall blond warrior as it bored into me. Uncertain, I looked back at Sun, only to find anger darkening the prince’s rainbow-colored eyes. Without warning his arms clamped down tight around my body.
I winced. “S-Sun—”
Sun nodded sharply in the warrior’s direction.
Behind me Arik growled, low and angry. The next instant, everything shot to hell. A blur of motion, shouts and growls and hisses, Arik’s desperation shooting through my mind. I fought, heart hammering my ribs, but to no avail. In seconds Sun had me across the room, my back to his chest, his grip solid. Shock held me still as I watched four shifters securing Arik to a chair against the opposite wall.
They were taking me away from him. Taking me away from my mate.
My mate.
Arik fought, his snarls filling the air. I saw the moment he tried to surrender to the change, but Basile, the male who’d escorted us in, grasped his chin and snarled right back. “Don’t,” he warned. His strangely reptilian gaze shot to me, and whether it was a threat or not, Arik seemed to take it as such. He subsided, shaking, expression nearly feral as he stared at the shifter nose to nose with him.
“Sun, no!” I jerked fruitlessly against the prince’s unbreakable grip. The bruises and cuts on my body stung, but I ignored the pain, ignored everything but the compulsion to get free and get to Arik.
Sun’s hold remained firm, but he didn’t harm me. His voice boomed across the room, clear enough to be heard by every shifter present. “Arik Rand, son of the honored male Rivalen, kidnapped a female Archai, taking her from the safety of the clan and the care of our healer. Threatening the life of a female is a crime punishable by death.”
A wave of pain and terror engulfed me. I was drowning, dying. “No,” I gasped. “Arik!”
Sun continued without a pause. “The female Katherine Lane will be returned to the clan. Azrael, come. Take her.”
The warrior who’d stared me down earlier stepped forward. Fisted hands. Cut jaw. Chilling black eyes. It all registered in the split second it took for Sun to push me toward the male; then he was there, his long fingers biting into my arms. I kicked out, terrified at the idea of going anywhere with this shifter, of being taken to a place where I knew no one and nothing. Among strangers, without my mate.
“My mate.” That voice, the one from the last time I and Arik had made love, growled in my mind. Roared. Mixed with my anguish and panic. The combination churned into a volatile weapon. Without thinking, I forced my hands up, laying them against the warrior’s heavy chest, and half cried, half screamed my command. “Stop!”
The shifter flew backward. The disruption provided the cover I needed to get across the room without being stopped. Only the quick rise of four weapons, all aimed directly at Arik’s blond head, halted my progress.
“Stand down!” I heard Sun yell. “Back away.”
I thought the command was directed at me until the four warriors lowered their weapons and moved, two to each side, backing up step by step. Unable to focus on anything but Arik, I hastened forward. Grasping the chains buckled around his chest, I tugged futilely, tears pouring from my eyes. Arik’s hands settled over mine, cupping them to his chest, stilling their trembling efforts to free him. His lowered head tucked next to mine, his clasping knees at my hips, surrounding me as best he could.
Nerves and fear and confusion spilled over. I could hear shouting and noise, people and things moving somewhere behind me, but Arik was my sole concern. This close I could feel the violent rage gripping him, trembling through his body—his animal just beneath his skin. He lifted his head and stared over my shoulder, a promise of death in his glowing eyes. “Open it, Kat,” he demanded without looking at me.
The words were harsh, but his touch on my body was gentle, helping me calm enough to do as he asked. I placed my hands on the chains and focused, drawing my skill from my core down to my palms, and spoke one word: “Open.”
The chains fell away, and I found myself in Arik’s arms, being swept across the room in an instant.
Sun blocked the way out the door.