Читать книгу Prey - Rachel Vincent - Страница 11

“What?” I said, as Marc sat up and clicked on the lamp on the nightstand.

I’d expected to hear that Kaci had Shifted, or that Jace and Ethan had arrived home safely with the bodies. Or even that they’d been pulled over on the way home and arrested on some weird murder and illegal-corpse-disposal charge. But I didn’t quite know how to react to the news that my middle—and least favorite—brother, Ryan, had pulled a Houdini. “How?”

“I honestly don’t know. I was up tending the incinerator, and went down to the basement for spare flashlight batteries, and he was just gone. The cage door was standing wide open, and the lock was missing.”

Damn. But why would he take the lock?

Ryan had spent the past six and a half months locked up in our basement prison cell, as punishment for playing the role of spy and jailer in a scheme to kidnap several U.S. tabbies—including me—to be sold to Alphas in the Amazon. When we’d caught him, he was thin and weak. But he’d grown healthier in captivity, eating my mother’s cooking, despite the lack of sunshine, fresh air and exercise.

But that did not explain how he’d escaped. The cage was built to stand up to toms in the prime of life, fueled by rage and fear. He should not have been able to break the lock on his own, and he had access to nothing with which to pound it off.

“Any idea how long he’s been gone?” I asked, rubbing my forehead in frustration.

“Owen took his dinner down at seven, and everything was normal. So it could have been anytime in the past ten hours.” The weariness in his voice spoke volumes, and had little to do with the early hour or lack of sleep. With my father’s position on the Territorial Council so tenuous at the moment, Ryan’s escape was a blow he really couldn’t afford. Malone would use that as just one more piece of evidence that my father was an incompetent Alpha. Which was not true.

“Did he leave a trail?” Marc ran one hand through short curls he’d probably forgotten he’d sheared.

My father sighed over the line. “Yes, but it did little good. Owen tracked him for about a mile and a half, then lost the trail shortly after he found his clothes. It looks like Ryan Shifted and took to the trees.”

Cats can’t track animals like dogs can, and the same holds true for werecats. We use our keen sense of smell to scavenge and to identify one another, and our eyes and ears to find prey during an active chase. However, we lack the necessary instinct to follow a cold trail on scent alone, and once Ryan was in the trees—no doubt walking the limbs like a splintered forest path—he was beyond our immediate grasp. Which probably infuriated Owen, my third brother.

“So what do you want us to do?” I sipped from the cup of lukewarm water Marc handed me from the nightstand.

“There isn’t much you can do.” My father’s desk chair squealed in my ear, and I could easily picture him sitting in his office in his blue striped robe, glaring at the empty room. “Just ask Marc to keep his eyes and ears open. I’m pretty sure Ryan’s headed your way.”

Because Mississippi was the closest free territory to the ranch, thus the easiest for Ryan to reach. In theory. Unfortunately, we now knew there was an exceptionally large band of very angry strays roaming near the border, and one whiff of Ryan’s Pride-cat scent would likely set them off again.

My idiot brother had jumped out of the frying pan and into the fucking volcano, and I had a sudden bleak certainty that the next body we buried might break my mother’s heart.

Marc exhaled heavily and scowled. He and Ryan hadn’t exchanged two civil words since June, and Marc no longer officially worked for my father. But he would never say no to my dad. “I’ll be looking for him,” he said, well aware his former Alpha could hear him, even several feet from the phone.

“Thanks.” My father ordered us to get some sleep. Then he hung up.

We didn’t sleep.

After the ambush, injuries, and Ryan’s escape, sleeping seemed like a waste of time, especially considering that Marc and I only had a matter of hours left together. So we made other, better use of the predawn hours.

When the first direct rays of daylight glinted through the gap in the faded motel curtains, I squeezed my eyes shut, hoping that if I didn’t see it, it didn’t exist. But morning would not be ignored.

Marc sighed and kissed my jaw, just below my ear. “You hungry?”

I shook my head on the pillow, but he only laughed and tossed the covers back. Werecats were always hungry. “Why don’t you Shift while I grab some breakfast. Then I’ll take another look at your leg.”

“Oh, fine.” I sat up naked in bed, hoping to tempt him into putting off the food run. No such luck. His eyes lingered, but the rest of him did not. Ten minutes later he was showered, dressed and headed toward the IHOP across the street.

Alone, I knelt on the floor to Shift.

The usual pain of the transformation was intensified in my leg, especially the flesh over my thigh, which burned and throbbed with an acute agony. The skin pulled and stretched, and for a couple of minutes I worried that the stitches would pop. But when the Shift was complete, my leg felt much better. Still tender, but fully functional.

I stretched with my forepaws extended, rump in the air, tail waving lazily. Then I sat up and groomed the fur over my left shoulder until it lay properly. After that I explored my surroundings. I’d never been in a hotel room in cat form, and everything looked and smelled very different with my feline senses. Which was not necessarily a good thing.

As a human, I’d been blissfully unaware of the traces of whoever’d had the room before us, but as a cat, I couldn’t ignore the lingering stench of strangers’ sweat, stale coffee, old takeout, and seafood-scented vomit in one corner of the bathroom. I was afraid to get too close to the bed, for fear of what I’d smell there.

After a mere five minutes in cat form, I’d had enough. I Shifted back and stepped into the shower, glad I’d brought along my own shampoo—a familiar scent to help wash the others from my memory.

I was drying my hair when a cold draft around my ankles announced Marc’s return. The scents of bacon, eggs, syrup and fruit told me he’d ordered nearly the entire IHOP menu. I was halfway through my first pancake when his cell rang out.

Marc dug in his right pocket and pulled out his cell phone—one I hadn’t seen before. New job, new house, and a new phone, since my father no longer picked up the cellular bill. Everything had changed.

“It’s your dad,” he said after a glance at the display, then flipped his phone open. “Hey, Greg, what can I do for you?” As if he were still on the clock.

“I spoke to Bert Di Carlo this morning and reported last night’s ambush. With both Vic and Faythe injured—” Ethan and Jace had obviously reported my condition “—Bert and I would feel much better about this trip if you’d accompany the delegation for a bit longer than we’d planned. You have permission to go as far as Birmingham. If you’re interested.”

Marc grinned and glanced at me. “Of course I’m interested.”

“Good.” I pictured my father nodding, signaling the end of the discussion. “Put Faythe on the line, please.”

Marc handed me his phone, still smiling as he speared a link of sausage with a plastic fork. I was grinning like an idiot, too, thrilled by the prospect of a couple of extra hours with Marc, even if we’d be stuck in Vic’s car along with the rest of the delegation.

“Hi, Daddy.” I dipped a slice of bacon in a puddle of syrup and bit into it, covering the mouthpiece to keep from crunching into his ear.

“How’s your leg?”

“It’s fine. Just three slashes above my right knee, and bite marks around my ankle. I Shifted this morning, and the wounds have closed nicely. I’m not even limping.”

“Ethan said you handled yourself very well. I’m paraphrasing, of course.”

I grinned and speared a tangle of hash browns, more pleased by the compliment than I would have admitted. “So did he. The boy swings a mean ax.”

My father chuckled. “Call me when you get to Bert’s place.”

“I will.”

My dad said goodbye and hung up, and I handed the phone back to Marc, still smiling.

Twenty minutes later we were on the road. Vic drove, and Brian took the passenger seat, with Manx and the baby in the middle row. Marc and I sat in the back, his arm around my waist, my head on his shoulder. His scent and warmth, along with the rhythmic jostle of the van around us, lulled me into a peaceful trance, and I was almost asleep when Vic spoke up from the front, eyeing us in the rearview mirror.

“Hey, Marc, isn’t that Painter’s car behind us?”

Marc twisted, and I turned to look with him. Sure enough, there it was—a grimy white Dodge Daytona, with a fist-size dent in the front bumper.

Marc scowled. “I told you he wouldn’t be that easy to lose.”

“What should I do?”

“Nothing. Let him follow us.” Marc’s jaws bulged in irritation. “I’ll need a ride back from Birmingham anyway.”

The rest of the trip was blessedly uneventful. Even with several bathroom and breast-feeding breaks, the winter sun was just past its zenith when we pulled into a Shell station off the highway, a couple of miles south of Birmingham. While Vic pumped gas, I made myself say goodbye to Marc.

We’d planned for him to drive me back across the free zone—the guys would stay with Manx for the duration of the trial—but after the previous day’s ambush my father wouldn’t hear of another trip through Mississippi. So I’d be flying back.

“It’s not forever,” Marc insisted softly. But it may as well have been.

My hand lingered on his chest, his on my waist, and only when Dan Painter pulled up behind us in his sick-sounding car did Marc let our foreheads touch. He whispered goodbye and kissed me. Then he pulled open Vic’s passenger-side door, pushed me gently onto the seat and closed the door again.

I rolled the window down and stole one more kiss, then he smiled and turned away.

“Need a ride?” Painter asked, one arm hanging out his car window.

Marc scowled. “Do you think you can resist announcing our whereabouts to any future opponents we may encounter?”

“Dude, I told you that was an accident. I had no idea some asshole was gonna round up the posse and come out guns a-blazin’. What do you want, a formal apology?”

“A little silence would suffice,” Marc snapped, stomping around the car. He jerked open the door and slid onto the seat, just as Vic emerged from the convenience store. Marc waved to him, then turned to Dan. “Let’s get out of here before someone gets a whiff of you. No one gave you permission to leave the free zone.”

With that, Dan stomped on the gas and they roared out of the parking lot and back onto the highway.

The rest of the drive was much less pleasant, but peacefully dull. And if not for several crying spells from Des, I might have made up for the sleep I’d missed the night before. But when the Atlanta skyline came into view, Manx began to fidget. Her foot bounced on the floorboard. Her nails tapped on the armrest. She stared out her window and didn’t seem to hear Des when he began to fuss, waving tiny red fists in the air.

“Manx, you okay?” I leaned over the bench seat with my chin resting on my folded arms.

She never looked away from the window. “That is Atlanta?”

“Yeah. See that big round building? That’s a hotel. I stayed there once with Sara. Her mom took us for a weekend downtown after she graduated from high—” I fell silent when I noticed Vic watching me in the rearview mirror, his eyes brimming with pain and full of nostalgia.

Sara Di Carlo, his only sister, had been raped and murdered seven months earlier by the jungle stray Ryan had fallen in with. Days later, his younger brother, Anthony, died during our attempt to capture Sara’s killers.

The Di Carlo family’s wounds were still fresh, and the tragedy didn’t end there. With no tabby to bear its next generation, their family line would die along with Vic and his brothers, and with no descendants, they would eventually lose control of their territory.

Which was why my father hoped that, if all parties were amenable—and if she survived her trial—Manx might join the southeast Pride. She could never replace Sara, of course. But she could help the Di Carlos hold on to their territory. Help them reclaim their future. If she were willing.

But at the moment, Manx didn’t look very happy to be in Georgia.

“So, we are close?” she asked, and I thought I saw her chin quiver.

Manx was one of the toughest tabbies I’d ever met in my life. Tougher than my mother, who’d once kept the Alphas in line single-handedly, and who’d saved my life only months earlier. Tougher than me, by far. And maybe even tougher than Kaci, who had to live every day of her life knowing what she’d accidentally done to her family. Manx had survived abduction, brutal beatings, the loss of her tail, serial rape, and the murder of two infant sons. Somehow, she’d come out of a living hell stronger than ever, and determined to hunt down the bastard who’d both sired and murdered her children.

But now Luiz was dead, and she was on trial for multiple counts of murder. If she was convicted and sentenced to death, the son she’d fought to save would never even know his mother.

After years of torture and months of running and fighting, now Manx was scared. And it almost broke my heart.

“About forty more miles.” Vic flexed his injured arm stiffly, his free hand still on the wheel. “Mom has the guest room all fixed up for you and Des. She even dug up Sara’s old crib. It’s ancient, and I think it’s pink, but it’ll give him somewhere comfortable to nap.”

The sun had just dipped beneath the horizon when we pulled into the Di Carlos’ long, arched driveway, beyond which their beautiful, old Italianate house was lit by several strategically placed floodlights.

Vic’s family lived outside of Canton, Georgia, in the house they’d bought when Vic was still a toddler, and had been renovating ever since. It looked like a big white-framed box, lined in black-shuttered windows and crowned with four redbrick chimneys. As the SUV bounced over the gravel driveway, headlights illuminated an elaborate porch, complete with columns and latticed arches, lined in evergreen shrubs.

The property sat in the center of a broad, flat lawn that was green in the summer, but brown and crunchy in the middle of January.

In back of the main house stood a large detached garage, above which sat the former servants’ quarters. But the Di Carlos had long ago enclosed the garage and turned the entire building into an apartment, where their enforcers now lived.

Beyond the apartment were several acres of private woodland, a necessity for any large group of werecats. It was a place for them to run, play, and hunt, without being bothered by the surrounding human population.

Since the trial would begin the following morning, I’d expected the driveway to be full, cars parked in rows out back, even. But there were only three vehicles ahead of our van, all of which probably belonged to Vic’s family.

“Where is everyone?” I asked, pushing open the car door. The temperature had dropped when the sun went down, and I pulled my jacket tight around me, shivering in spite of the layer of leather.

Vic stepped onto the driveway, boots crunching on gravel. “The guys park around back. They’re probably in the apartment, lying low.”

Which I could easily understand. Large Alpha gatherings made me nervous, too.

“My mom and dad are both here.” Vic eyed the two cars parked closest to the house. “But I don’t recognize that one.” He nodded to the beige sedan we’d parked behind.

I bent to read the sticker on one corner of the rear windshield. “It’s a rental. Michael must already be here.” Thank goodness. I didn’t want to be the only one representing my family, even just for a few hours. As much progress as I’d made in the think-before-you-speak department, slip-ups still happened, at the worst possible times, and Alphas Gardner and Mitchell were already angry enough with the south-central Pride.

“My dad said the Alphas all took rooms in town, so they probably won’t show up until tomorrow morning,” Vic said, as if he’d read my mind. Or my expression.

“Oh.” Good.

At the back of the van, Brian was stacking luggage on the ground. I zipped up my jacket and grabbed two suitcases, then followed Vic up the sidewalk toward the house. We were halfway there when the door creaked opened and a tiny woman in creased jeans and a dark blouse appeared on the porch.

“Victor!” Donna Di Carlo raced down the steps and stood on tiptoe to hug her son, heedless of the bags he held, or the cold that must have blown instantly through her thin shirt. She looked older than when I’d last seen her, the lines on her face deeper, her hair grayer. Losing two children was likely the hardest thing she’d ever endure, but Vic’s mother was strong; she hadn’t let it kill her.

In that respect, she reminded me of Manx.

“Why does it take a tragedy to get you to visit? Just once I’d like to see you when nothing’s wrong. When you just came home to say, ‘Mom, I love you.’”

“Mom, I love you.” Vic grinned, but there was pain beneath his pleasant expression. He hadn’t seen his parents since Sara and Anthony’s funeral, and I suspected he wouldn’t see them again for quite a while. Because being home made him remember.

“That’s much better. Now go put those bags in the front hall before they freeze out here.” Vic did as he was told, and his mother turned her eagle-sharp eyes on me. “Faythe Sanders, I’d say it was nice to see you, if you didn’t look so thin. Has your mother stopped cooking?”

“No, ma’am, and I haven’t stopped eating, either.” I smiled. “But I burn a lot of energy on the job.”

“Job?” She looked confused for a moment, hands propped on hips that flared from her tiny waist. “Oh, yes. You’re enforcing for your father. Hardly a proper line of work for a young woman, but if you’re going to fight like a man, I can certainly feed you like one.” Her smile softened the sting of her censure. “Come on in. We’re about to sit down to a big pot of gumbo. You like gumbo, don’t you?”

“Yes, ma’ am.” I followed her up the porch stairs and into the long central hallway, where I dropped the bags I carried next to those Vic had abandoned before he’d disappeared.

“Bert, come on out and say hi,” she said, taking the jacket I shrugged out of.

But before Umberto Di Carlo appeared, soft footsteps clicked on the hardwood behind us, and I turned to find Manx standing in the doorway, a blanket-wrapped bundle clutched close to her chest. Her gray eyes were wide, her cheeks flushed from the cold beneath her smooth, olive complexion.

“Well, you must be Mercedes.” Mrs. Di Carlo propped her hands on her hips again and stepped forward boldly to inspect Manx, who towered over her by at least six inches. “My, aren’t you a beauty. I’ll have to warn my boys to keep their distance.”

Whether she was thinking of Manx’s fear of being touched, or her status as a serial killer, I wasn’t sure. Either way, her greeting obviously wasn’t what Manx had expected. The tabby stared at Vic’s mother and clutched the baby tighter.

“Well, come on in before you let out all the heat.” Mrs. Di Carlo ushered Manx into the entry, and Brian slipped inside carrying two more suitcases before she could close the door. “And who is this little gentleman?” Mrs. Di Carlo leaned over to peer at the baby’s face, the only exposed part of his tiny body.

“This is Desiderio Carreño.” Manx’s eyes went soft as her gaze fell on her baby. “He smiled just this morning.”

“Did he!” Mrs. Di Carlo beamed, clearly thrilled by the news, though she’d barely even met the child. “Well, this is a pleasure. We haven’t had a baby in the house in such a long time. I’ll show you to your room.”

Manx and Brian trailed our hostess up the central staircase, and they’d no sooner vanished from sight than a door opened down the hallway, admitting Umberto Di Carlo into the entry. His wide-set brown eyes brightened the moment they landed on me.

“Faythe! Come in and warm up. Your brother and I were about to indulge in a predinner drink. Join us!” He turned without waiting for my reply, and I followed him through an arched doorway into a room filled with overstuffed furniture, dark woods and thick rugs. On the far side of the room, facing a cozy arrangement of couches and chairs, logs blazed in a stone fireplace, casting jumping shadows on the warm, wood-paneled walls.

Michael stood when we entered, frowning in concern the moment his eyes found mine. “Dad told me about the ambush. Are you okay?” He took my arm before I could protest and pushed my sleeve up carefully to expose the half-healed bite marks I hadn’t bothered to rebandage that morning.

“I’m fine. None of us was seriously injured, which is a miracle, considering how badly we were outnumbered.”

Michael looked half relieved and half jealous to have missed the excitement.

“Sit!” Vic’s father ordered pleasantly, after a glance at my new scars. His footsteps thundered as he crossed the room toward a small cherry bar in one corner. “What can I get you to drink?”

“Scotch?” Michael sank onto the left-hand sofa beside me, and Bert nodded in approval.

“Just like your father.” He pulled a half-empty bottle of Chivas Regal from beneath the bar and poured an inch into two short glasses, then looked up at me. “Faythe?”

“I’m fine, thanks.” I’d had enough alcohol the night before to last the rest of the month, at least.

He nodded and crossed the room to hand one glass to Michael. Then he sat on the sedate green couch opposite us, resting a thick hand on the scrolled arm. “So, how are things at the Lazy S?”

“A little tense right now,” I admitted, scuffing the toe of my boot on the red and gray rug.

Michael cleared his throat. “I can’t tell you how much my father appreciates your support, especially at a time like this.”

Di Carlo nodded gravely, and I could see that his decision to back our dad hadn’t been made lightly. “The council’s going to hell in a handbasket, Michael, and if someone doesn’t stand up to Calvin Malone, it’s only going to get worse. But I’m afraid this one won’t be won easily.”

“Nothing worthwhile ever is.” Michael frowned sagely, and I knew the conversation would turn quickly to unpleasant politics. If I didn’t deliver my message soon, I’d lose my chance.

“Mr. Di Carlo…”

“Child, call me Bert.” He grinned, and leaned toward me conspiratorially. “I saw you streak through your father’s office in the buff when you were no higher than my knee. I’d say that makes us friends.”

I flushed, but nodded. “Bert, my father has an idea he wanted me to mention to you. About Manx. Mercedes. Assuming the tribunal finds in her favor… Well, she’s lost her whole family, and you’ve lost your daughter…” I broke off, unsure how to continue. Saying it aloud made it sound like I was trying to restructure the Di Carlo family—sticking my nose in where it definitely didn’t belong.

But Bert finished the thought for me. “Your father thought we might want to keep her?”

“Well…” I wouldn’t have phrased it quite that way, but… “Yes. Assuming she gets along with everyone. And wants to stay, of course.”

Bert nodded and sipped from his glass. “I have to admit I’ve had similar thoughts. Your father assures us that her crimes were the result of severe physical and emotional trauma…”

“Of the worst sort,” Michael interjected solemnly.

“…and that she’s no longer dangerous. Do you agree with his assessment?”

I really wished he hadn’t asked me that. But sure enough, the Alpha was looking at me, rather than at my older, wiser brother, and I wasn’t going to bullshit one of my father’s few sworn allies.

“Mr. Di Carlo—Bert—Manx has survived things I can’t even imagine suffering. Horrors no one should ever have to experience. For years, she was never touched by a man who didn’t hurt her. Years. And the very thing that pulled her through—an iron-hard survivalist instinct—is what led her to kill those toms. They touched her. She thought they were going to hurt her, or her unborn baby. So she defended herself. Preemptively.”

I hesitated on the next part, then finally leaned forward to let him see how earnest I was. “Is there a possibility it could happen again? Yes. Unfortunately, I think there is. If she feels threatened, I think she would lash out in self-defense. Or baby-defense. But she’s been with us for four months now and has never raised a hand to anyone. I think if you give her a chance to get used to your family, and to the idea that no one here means her any harm, she’ll come around eventually. I think she wants a normal life, and it won’t take too much effort to convince her that you can be trusted.”

For a moment, the southeast Pride’s Alpha only stared at me, still processing my blunt speech. As was Michael. “I see,” Di Carlo said finally. Then he smiled. “Well, I suppose it’s worth a shot. Assuming the tribunal sees fit to let her live.”

And I knew from personal experience just how big an if that really was.