Fear tensed every muscle in my body and sharpened my vision. I could see every bead of sweat that formed on Hargrove’s forehead and every clogged pore in the crease of his nose. I could smell his terror, but that only made me wonder if Jace could smell mine. If he could, surely he’d think I was still traumatized from behind held at gunpoint.
“Where is Darren now?” Jace demanded, and my chest suddenly felt tight, as if my heart no longer fit. If Hargrove answered many questions along those lines, I wasscrewed.
“Hunting. But he’s supposed to be back tonight.”
“Where did he go?”
“I don’t know, exactly. Hunting ishisjob,” the human said. “I mostly just stuff them. And teach the other guys how to do it. Would you believe some of them used to think we could mount a human head with cat eyes? That’s what they wanted to do with you, until I told them you can’t keep any of the soft tissue. That’s why we use glass eyes. But we could keep yourteeth, if they happened to be feline when you died.”
My stomach churned, disgust and fear warring inside me. I needed Hargrove toshut up, for multiple reasons.
When my right hand began to twitch, I tucked it behind me. If Jace thought I couldn’t handle the interrogation, he’d make me wait outside, and even thoughheshouldn’t hear whatever Hargrove had to say, Ihadto hear it in order to plan my next move.
“Who’s Darren hunting?” Jace’s voice was a snarl so low Hargrove probably hardly heard it.
“He went after the other tabby so we can—” Hargrove’s sentence ended so abruptly, I could only imagine how he’d planned to finish it.
My fingers began to itch and burn at my back as the bones moved, rearranging the structure of my hand with no conscious instruction from my brain. I felt threatened on multiple levels, and my body was instinctively preparing me to fight for my life.
“So you canwhat?” Jace demanded, and I shook my head slowly. I didn’t want to hear it. I didn’t want to think about it. The slaughter. And whatever came before.
Hargrove shrugged, an awkward movement with his hands bound at his back. “We’ve never had a girl cat. Steve and the others tried with her.” He glanced at me, and Jace snarled and stepped between us again. “But she turned out to be much more…spirited than advertised.”
A stubborn bolt of pride surged through me in spite of the circumstances. They’d been told by the toms they’d tortured that tabbies were largely overprotected and defenseless, and I’d been thrilled to defy the stereotype.
“So, we thought we’d go after one with less experience,” Hargrove finished. “Darren’s on his way to get her now.”
Jace seemed to swell like a puffer fish, only he was full of pure, homicidal rage. “Darren went after my sister?” he roared, and for a second, I thought he might kill Hargrove and solve my problem for me.
But then he stepped back and took several deep breaths. I could see his internal struggle as he forced his shoulders to relax and his jaw to unclench. He was reining his temper in, as any good Alpha would, and I knew from the movement of his lips that he was counting backward silently. Probably from one thousand.
Yet he’d be ready in an instant if Hargrove moved a single muscle.
For a moment, the only sounds were Jace’s steady, controlled inhalations, the pained hitch as Hargrove breathed through a bruised gut and broken fingers, and the steady drip of his blood into a growing puddle on the floor.
Then Hargrove frowned. “She’s your sister?”
Jace stiffened, and my fear spiked along with the almost painful jump in my pulse.
Nonononono!
My world was falling apart. Every word Hargrove spoke threatened to split the ground beneath my feet and send me tumbling into an abyss I could never crawl out of. Jace would be furious. My father would be devastated. The council would want my blood, and then everything I’d worked to hide—toprotect—would be lost.
“Darren will never even get close to her,” Jace whispered. “My men will shred him before he even knows they’re there.”
Hargrove frowned, confusion warring with pain in his features. “But you’ve left her exposed! Darren probably already has her!”
Jace stepped toward him again, as claws burst from the ends of my fingers. I could see what he was thinking. He’d only brought four enforcers, including me, which leftmorethan enough at the lodge to defend Melody. Especially considering that other than defending his Alpha, an enforcer had no greater or more honorable duty than to protect a pregnant tabby.
Hell, Isaac would singlehandedly skin Darren alive to protect his fiancée and unborn child.
But neither the Alpha nor the hunter knew they were taking part in two completely different conversations. And Jace couldnotcome to that conclusion.
“We can’t figure out why, if girl cats are so rare, you’d all leave not just one”—Hargrove glanced at me—“buttwoof them totally undefended. We’ve been watching them, taking pictures, and we never saw a single one of your men. It’s almost like youwantus to—”
Terror squeezed my chest with a brutal pressure. The bones in my hand crackled as they fell into place. The room blurred around me as I lunged at him.
“Abby, no!” Jace shouted, but logic cracked and fell away from me, and the exposed fury burned like fire in every vein in my body. It snapped like static across every synapse.
