His eyes went wide. “They betrayed you? All of them?”
Kat reached for another slice of pizza even as she eyed the other two boxes they hadn’t touched yet. Even with Connor’s werewolf appetite, that was more than they could eat at one time.
“I guess I can’t honestly blame them,” she said. “After hearing how Marko had wiped out my coven, who would be dumb enough to stand against him? Why risk angering him when it’s easier to simply look the other way?”
“I guess,” he said, popping the top on another can of soda and filling both their glasses before grabbing another slice of pizza for himself. “Still sucks, though.”
“True,” she agreed. “But at least I was able to get away. I was also able to figure out exactly what I was up against. I truly realized that I was on my own and that anyone who even thought about helping me or even loosely connected to me would be in terrible danger. From that point, I kept to myself, even when I was in my human form. I disappeared off the grid and lived in any homeless camps I could find. I can’t even come close to explaining what it’s like to live like that, feeling as if you’re always alone, even when there’s other people around. I couldn’t trust anyone.”
Connor stopped eating and stared at her sharply. “What about your family? They’re magic users, too, right? Couldn’t they protect themselves?”
“Magic doesn’t always work that way,” she told him. “The ability to perceive and channel magic can sometimes skip a generation, which is what it did in my family. While my grandma was a witch, my mom isn’t.”
He considered that. “Huh. How does your mom feel about that?”
Kat was a little surprised at how precise he was in his assessment of the family dynamic that had so greatly affected her life growing up.
“Mom has always been a little hurt by the fact that I’m a witch and she isn’t, especially since Grandma spent so much time teaching me magic that it kind of took away from the time that my mom and I spent together. But that’s how it is with witches and warlocks. The older generation teaches the younger. I mean, it isn’t like we can go to college for this stuff.”
Kat would be lying if she said she hadn’t loved spending so much time with her grandma. The long walks in the woods near their home, staying up late reading the family books on magic, even simply baking cupcakes and brownies.
“Even as a kid, I noticed Mom and Grandma weren’t close,” she continued quietly. “I could never understand the distance between them. Between Mom and me, as well, to be honest. I tried to play peacemaker because I wanted everyone to be happy, but ultimately, it didn’t work. At the end of the day, there was always a separation there, no matter what I did, simply because I could do magic and my mom couldn’t.”
“Any brothers and sisters?” Connor asked.
She smiled. “Yup. The twins, Jarrett and Rebecca, are ten years younger than me. Sometimes, I think Mom had them as a replacement for me, so she could have kids that were really hers, instead of half hers and half Grandma’s. I love them like crazy even though the distance between Mom and me ended up creating a gulf between the twins and me, too, no matter what I did. Mom never told them I’m a witch, so they both simply assume I’m a little odd.”
Connor chuckled at that, and Kat realized it was the first time she’d heard him laugh since she’d turned into a human. “So the twins don’t know you’re a witch, but what about your dad? I assume you couldn’t hide it from him, right?”
She looked down at her pizza again. “Dad knew.”
“I’m sorry,” Connor said quickly. “I didn’t realize…”
Kat shook her head. “Dad’s fine. My whole family is okay. At least, I hope they are.”
“What do you mean?”
She sighed. “Once I realized the lengths Marko was going to, I knew that sooner or later, he’d track down my family to use them as leverage against me. So after figuring out that I was never going to get help from any of the other covens in that part of the country, I went home to do whatever I had to in order to protect them.”
“What did you do?” he asked, taking another big bite of pizza.
She hadn’t been counting, but while they’d been talking, he’d opened the second box and already inhaled three slices.
“I didn’t genuinely consider how difficult it would be to warn them in my feline form until I got home,” she admitted. “Since I couldn’t talk to them and explain the situation, I finally had to use a glamour and spells to make them forget about me and convince them to leave Washington. It took a while since my ability to use magic is severely constrained when I’m a cat, but when I was done, my entire family had forgotten about me and moved away. I don’t know where they went, and I don’t want to know in case Marko ever catches me. He’d use them against me even after he’d won out of pure spite.”
Connor let out a breath, shaking his head. “That’s tough. I’m sorry you had to go through that.”
She gave him a small, sad smile. “Me, too. But it’s worth the pain to keep them safe.”
“What did you do after that?”
“For starters, I knew I had to get out of the Pacific Northwest,” she said. “I crisscrossed the whole country and up into Canada. I went anywhere I could get by train or hitching a ride with someone. You’d be amazed how nice people can be to a cute kitty if you play your cards right. They’ll feed you, give you a warm place to sleep, and take you wherever they’re going. On the flip side, there are some nasty a-holes out there, too, but they’re easy to recognize and avoid.”
“So you were constantly on the go and never able to completely trust anyone for four years?”
“Pretty much,” she said softly. “I did my best to never spend more than a few days in any one place because I was afraid that if I did, Marko would find me. I never stopped moving until I met you. It’s a horrible way to live, and at times, it felt like I had completely lost my humanity. But all I could do was keep going.”
Connor regarded her thoughtfully. “That’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you. Whydidyou stay when you got here to Dallas? What made you take the risk when you’d never stopped before?”
