Wild Cat

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Diego went still, and she scented his pheromones sharp on the air.

“Mi ja, why do you tell me things like that?” he asked.

Cassidy loved his voice. She lifted herself over him. “To make you want me.”

“How could you think I don’t want you? But there’s not much room in this car. I say we go home. Fast.”

“Can’t.” Cassidy kissed his face, her unfettered breasts pressing his shoulder and chest. “I need you right now. I’m going insane.”

She reached around for her zipper and squirmed out of the top half of her dress. Diego’s eyes went dark, and he kissed her skin with warm lips.

Somehow he got them into the small backseat. Cassidy yanked open Diego’s pants while he laughed, then she scooted up her skirt to prove she really was commando.

“Damn, woman.” Diego wrapped his arms around her hips and brought her down to him. “Oh, yeah, there you go. I love how tight you always are.”

Cassidy wanted to shout out how good he felt sliding in. “I love how you fill me up,” she whispered.

She clenched her fists. She wanted to savor every moment, but her body kept thrusting against his, needing to soothe the burn.

He clenched his fists. “Slow down, sweetheart,” he said. “I want this to last.”

“I can’t.” Cassidy pushed herself down on him again. Diego ran his hands over her back, making calming sounds.

Not so much lovemaking, she thought, as frenzied, burning need. He was pressing up inside her, stretching her so wide. He claimed she was tight, but it was him, so big. He reached her secret places and filled them.

Diego murmured to her in his wine-dark voice, hands calming. Diego was her perfect counterpart-matching her wild Shifter frenzy with soothing warmth. A safe harbor for a woman who’d been tossing about in misery.

She loved him.

“Diego.”

Cassidy got her mouth on his neck and suckled, hard. Diego groaned. She nipped and licked, sucked and pulled. Diego thrust into her, his touch no longer soothing. He caught her fire, and they both burned.

“Damn you, Cass.”

More hot thrusts, and then his release. Cassidy rode him awhile longer, searching for the peak, finding it when he rubbed his thumb over her very wet opening. She screamed out loud, and then she was falling, falling, landing on Diego’s strength. He pulled her close and held her, keeping her safe.

Cassidy found Eric the next morning sitting at the kitchen table contemplating six Collars laid out across the dark wood.

Diego had dropped her off last night, saying he wanted to check up on Xavier, who’d gone back to Mamita’s. Cassidy kissed him good night, thinking it was just as well. Diego’s scent alone was enough to trigger her frenzy, and she feared burning him out. So much complication, falling in love with a human.

Cassidy helped herself to a heaping pile of eggs and bacon that Jace had left on the stove and sat down opposite Eric. “Hey,” she said. “You all right?”

Eric leaned his arms on the table, his gaze fixed on the Collars. “I hate this.”

One of the Shiftertown leader’s duties-assigned by the humans-was to find any un-Collared Shifters in his territory and bring them in. Once Eric had Collared them, they’d be turned over to the humans to be registered and assigned to whatever Shiftertown the human government thought they should go.

“Are you going to report them?” Cassidy asked.

She ate heartily, her brother’s distress touching her but unable to dent her mate-frenzied appetite.

“No.” Eric lifted his gaze, jade green and empty. “I’ll have Neal futz the database and make it look like they’ve always been here. I don’t want those women sent to the ends of the earth, maybe separated from their cubs. They’ve been through too much already.”

Neal Ingram, their Guardian, could access a computer network the Guardians had set up amongst themselves, unknown to humans. They had all kinds of information in their database, sharing across all Shiftertowns. Most Guardians had learned to be expert hackers as well. If anyone could slide the females into the humans’ information undetected, it would be Neal.

Eric returned to staring glumly at the Collars.

Cassidy finished her eggs and scraped the plate. Jace had added green chile salsa to the scrambled eggs, the way she liked them.

Eric sighed and pushed the Collars away. “I can’t do this, Cass. They thought they’d be safe forever from taking Collars and moving into Shiftertowns. If Miguel had been a better leader, they wouldn’t have been wrong.”

“Then don’t make them wear them.”

Eric shook his head, skimming his hand through his short hair. “What happens if someone finds one of the females running around without a Collar? She’d be arrested, interrogated, and the Collar slapped on her anyway. And then they’d come here for the others.”

“Then put the Collar on them,” Cassidy said.

Eric gave her an aggrieved look. “You’re a lot of help, Cass.”

“I’m only trying to point out that you don’t have much choice. If the females don’t take the Collars, they’ll have to hide the rest of their lives-or pretend they’re human, and I don’t think they’ll be able to. Peigi’s taller than I am, and everything about her screams Shifter. She’d be arrested in a heartbeat. Or hunted down. Do you want that?”

Eric shook his head. “But how do I make them understand why they need to take the pain? Why they should be restricted and monitored?”

Cassidy laid her fork across her empty plate. “Eric, Shifters agreed to take the Collars because we knew that capitulating to the humans was our only chance at survival, remember? The Collars were the price we paid to band together and grow stronger, and besides, they keep us from killing each other. That’s all you need to tell them.”

“Obviously they didn’t buy that argument twenty years ago.”

“Maybe not, but look what happened to them. Eric, you know that if those women aren’t accepted into a clan or pride or pack soon, they might go feral. Two of them pretty much are already. You didn’t do this to them. Miguel did.”

Eric clenched his fists on the table, hardening the muscles on his arms. “It’s a hell of a thing, Cassidy, to be leader. I hope you never have to do it.”

“Stay healthy, brother, and I won’t. Besides, if you go, I might have to battle it out with Nell to take over, and even then Shifters might not accept a female leader.”

“They’d accept you.”

Cassidy warmed at Eric’s certainty, but she was skeptical. Shifters were pretty old-fashioned at heart. Females sometimes did take over prides in the wild, but only when necessary, and only until she could find another male to protect her and give her more cubs.

Diego, on the other hand, was good for so much more than protection. He made her laugh, true laughter. He’d made Cassidy think and feel, had torn her out of the numb state in which she’d existed since the night Donovan had slammed out of the house, never to return.

Cassidy left Eric still staring at the Collars and went next door. One of the females, Peigi, was in the backyard, staring listlessly across the green. Peigi turned when she heard Cassidy.

“Stuart told me about the ritual he needs to do to return to Faerie,” Peigi said without greeting. “For it, he needs the lifeblood of a Shifter. I told him he could have mine.”

No one could talk Peigi out of her decision. Not Cassidy, not Eric-who in theory had authority over her-not Reid himself, and not Diego.

Diego arrived with Xavier that evening to find Peigi and Reid at Eric’s, Eric and Cassidy trying to dissuade Peigi from offering her life. Diego took one look at Peigi and realized that their arguments weren’t penetrating. Peigi’s eyes were lifeless.

He knew that look. He’d seen it often enough on junkies so hooked they knew only death would release them. On men and women stuck in terrible situations who had given up hope.

But he realized Peigi’s choices weren’t great. She’d had to struggle to remain alive with Miguel, and now that she was free of him, she was told she had to put on a Collar and live in captivity the rest of her life.

The other Shifter women seemed resigned, used to doing what they were told. Peigi had a little more spirit. She wanted to act, and she’d decided this would be her act.

“I’ll stop you,” Reid said, staring her down. “By not doing it. The spell only works at the spring equinox anyway.”

“Around the equinox, you told me,” Peigi said. “It’s only a few days past. If you don’t try it, you’ll be stuck here.”

Cassidy broke in. “Not necessarily. Maybe we can find a way to send Reid back without the blood spell. That can’t be the only one that will work.”

Reid shook his head. “I’ve searched for nearly fifty years, Cassidy. I’ve never found another. The hoch alfar have locked me out.”

“I’ve been talking to a Fae,” Eric said. “Or at least Marlo flew Jace out after breakfast to talk to him, and Jace is keeping me informed.”

Diego looked at him in surprise, but Cassidy didn’t seem startled. Eric liked to play things close to his chest.

Reid’s reaction was electric. “A hoch alfar? You’ve betrayed me to a hoch alfar?” He went for where his gun would be if he were wearing it.

“Stand down,” Diego said sternly to him. “Eric, what are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about a Fae warrior called Fionn Cillian. I met him a few weeks ago, when he came through a ley line in Austin. He visits there sometimes. I sent Jace to talk to him.” Eric looked at Reid. “Have you heard of him?”

“There are many clans of hoch alfar. Dokk alfar pay them no mind. Why is he visiting Shifters?”

Eric didn’t answer the question. “Jace tells me that Cillian says that ley lines don’t always work for dokk alfar because it’s high Fae magic, which is completely different from dokk alfar magic. Like the difference between electricity and water. Both have force, but in very different ways, and it’s tricky to put them together.”

“Can’t this Fae open a door for Stuart?” Cassidy asked. “If he’s a friend?”

“I wouldn’t say he was a friend. Cillian’s kind of a pain in the ass, and he doesn’t have much good to say about the dokk alfar. But he did say that a strong enough spell on our side near a gate weak enough might work.”

Cassidy leaned forward, interested. “Did you ask him about the teleportation? Why it works here but won’t get him back?”

“Jace did, but Cillian didn’t know,” Eric said. “He said that sometimes weaker Fae have latent talent but for various reasons those talents might not manifest inside Faerie. Magic is thinner in the human world, he says, so it’s easier for weak Fae to be stronger here. Or something like that.”

“Weak Fae?” Reid said with derision.

“His words, not mine,” Eric said.

Reid’s face was pinched. “Small help he is.”

“What was so special about that rock cave?” Diego asked him. “You kept going back there.”

“It’s on a ley line, and I think there’s a gate there.”

“Then we should start there,” Diego said, getting up. “Maybe we’ll find something that you missed.”

Cassidy and Diego rode alone up to the mountain roads that would take them to Reid’s rock cave. Cassidy was unusually silent-no laughter, no teasing. Was she that worried about Reid?

The red lights of Xavier’s pickup glided solidly in front of Diego’s car. Eric’s car, containing Peigi and Reid with Eric, rode in front of his. Xavier’s front seat was taken up with the bulk of Shane.

“Eric needs to be careful,” Diego said. “If he gets caught having Marlo fly your family around everywhere, life will get bad for all of you.”

“Eric knows what he’s doing.”

Cassidy sounded distracted, almost uninterested.

“What’s up, mi ja? Something worrying you?”

Cassidy turned from the window and looked at him. “Diego Escobar, I reject your mate-claim.”

Diego’s hands jerked on the steering wheel, then he quickly righted the car. “What?”

“I reject the mate-claim. I’ll make it public when we’re finished here tonight.”

“What the hell are you talking about? I thought you said you didn’t want to reject it.”

“I didn’t. But that was me being selfish.” Cassidy folded her arms, closing herself off. “I want you so much, Diego. I love the way you talk and how you move, and the way you don’t back down from any Shifter, not even Eric. I love the way you protect your mom and your brother. I want you with every piece of my heart.” She stopped, eyes soft. “But you’re not Shifter. It’s not fair to you.”

His chest felt tight. “Does it matter that I don’t give a damn?”

“No. The female’s decision is final.”

“Well, too bad. I’m not ready to accept that decision as final.”

Cassidy gave him an exasperated look. “Diego, humans who pair with Shifters are rejected by human society. I’ve seen it happen; I’ve lived a long time, and it’s always the same. The humans have to live with the Shifters, and they become neither one thing nor the other. Not accepted by humans and not truly accepted by Shifters.”

Diego clutched the wheel as Xavier took a hairpin turn in the dark. “You want to let me worry about that?”

“I’m trying to explain that it will be hard on you. Very few humans stay with Shifters, for a good reason.”

Diego sucked in a breath as Xavier swung around another corner, revealing a vast dark abyss beyond the road. No lights up here, and no guardrails.

Diego started to sweat. “Can we talk about this later?”

“I wanted to prepare you before I announced it.”

“Do me a favor and keep it to yourself awhile. Give me time to convince you to change your mind.”

“Diego, I’m not telling you this for the hell of it. I’ve thought this through. I want you to have your life, not one screwed up by Shifters. I care very much for you. That’s why I’m rejecting the claim.”

Diego kept his gaze riveted to the road. “You’re damn right it’s not fair to me. How about the way I feel about you? That it’s like all the light leaves the room when you walk out of it? That I wake up every morning just happy I know you?”

Cassidy had tears in her voice. “I mean that I don’t want to look at you every day and know that I destroyed your life.”

“Destroyed my life. Right.” Diego cranked around another bend and pressed his foot to the accelerator to make it up the next hill. “Let’s see, you helped me bring down the men who killed my partner after two years of me trying to find them. It was your contacts and resources that got me down to them to finish it. Not to mention, we’ve had the best sex I’ve ever had in my life, and I’m happier than I’ve been in a good long while. How is that destroying my life?”

She gave him an anguished look. “I’m trying to get you to understand. I destroyed Donovan, which is why we’re out here tonight. I’m trying to make up for what I did to him, and I don’t want to have to do the same for you.”

Diego shook his head. “You only get so much guilt, Cass. If you’re saying that if you hadn’t become his mate, he’d still be alive, I don’t agree. You can’t know that. Those hunters might have found him anyway, no matter who he was mated to.”

“I can know that,” Cassidy said. “You don’t know the whole story of why he was up here that night. He came because we had a fight. Donovan lived for fun. Dangerous fun. He liked to tease humans, test how far he could push his boundaries. He’d go places he wasn’t supposed to, talk to people he wasn’t supposed to, see how far he could walk the edge.”

“A daredevil.”

“Exactly. He’d thought I was too, which is why we hooked up in the first place. But he started resenting me being dominant to him, resenting me asking him to be careful. He thought I was too much Eric’s second and not enough his mate, and he was probably right.”

“So that night, he basically said, Screw you, Cassidy, I’m going out alone?”

“The ban on hunting un-Collared Shifters had been lifted. Hunters were going out all excited, wanting to bag a Shifter. Eric and I told Donovan to stop going for his runs up here, that it was too dangerous. I begged him to stop, and when he wouldn’t, we commanded him, as his leaders.”

“Which I bet did not go over well.”

“No. That night, Donovan stormed out. He went out to a bar with some of his friends, and sometime later gave them the slip. I didn’t know anything about him not still being at the bar until Eric got a call from the human cops that one of our Shifters had been killed.” Cassidy dragged in a breath. “And the kicker was that the cops blamed Eric for letting Donovan run around loose.”

Stupid, stupid. Diego had read in the file that Eric had nearly been arrested, though he’d paid no attention to the incident at the time. Shifters hadn’t been his department, and he’d been wrapped up in Jobe’s death.

He understood Cassidy’s guilt, but he’d come to realize that everyone was responsible for what they did. Diego shouldn’t have led Jobe into the situation, but Jobe should have waited for backup, even if Diego died.

“You blame yourself,” he said. It was natural that she would.

“Donovan wasn’t a fool, but I treated him like one,” Cassidy said. “I’m a dominant female, which means I have the instinct to protect, even when another doesn’t want to be protected.”

“Cassidy,” Diego said, choosing his words carefully, “what he did wasn’t your fault. It was Donovan’s fault for being an idiot. I’m sorry, I know you loved him, but why the hell did he go out running around when he knew it was so dangerous? Alone? What, he was thumbing his nose at you? What an asshole.”

“Diego.”

Her tone held rage. Well, too bad that he pissed her off. Diego wished Donovan Grady was here right now so he could punch him.

“Let me tell you a story,” he said. “When I was fifteen, Xavier started running with gangs. Small stuff at first, just being a lookout, then the next thing I know, he has guns in his dresser drawers and he’s learning how to make explosives for Enrique. I lit into him, thought I could force him to get out of it by yelling at him. No, Xav keeps on, because he’s got a lot of rage about how my dad was killed, and his plan was to go up against the gang whose members shot our dad in the robbery and kill them.

“I went to Enrique and told him to keeps his claws off Xavier, to help me keep him from doing something stupid. Enrique’s sister had just run away, and I thought he’d understand my need to protect my brother. But Enrique, he’s happy to have Xavier work for him, because he wanted kids all fired up to kill members of other gangs. So, what does he do? Instead of just telling me no, Enrique grabs Xav and holds him hostage. The only way he’ll let Xavier go is if I let Xav stay in the gang. If I say no, Enrique will have his goons beat up Xav. These were big men. They’d have killed him.”

Cassidy listened, stricken. “What did you do?”

“I told them if they let Xavier go, I’d let Enrique’s boys beat me up instead. Enrique was all for it. He hated me. He even let me fight back. I gave pretty good, but I went down. Then they tied me to a chair, tortured me, and tried to get me to beg for my life. In the end, they let me go and Xav too, because they said I had balls. But Xavier hated me for it. He said I’d made him look weak, that I shouldn’t have interfered.”

“But you couldn’t have done nothing.”

Diego looked over at her. Her eyes glittered in the darkness.

“I know. What I’m trying to explain is those who need the most protecting are the ones who resist it the most. Xavier was stupid about it, and so was Donovan. Xav has an excuse-he was thirteen. Donovan was an adult, should have known better.”

Cassidy sat up straight. “Should have known better, should he? And who was the fully grown human male who attacked a fortress full of feral Shifters by himself?”

“I had Shane and Marlo for backup. You deliberately got yourself captured by the ferals so you could protect Xavier.”

“You’d have preferred me to stand and watch them drag him away? They’d have killed him.”

“I know that. You have the instinct to protect. So do I. If I get myself killed because of it, it has nothing to do with you.”

Cassidy glared at him. “This is your argument for why we should stay together?”

“I’m saying you can’t break up with me because you think you caused the death of your mate. You didn’t. Those hunters did by breaking the law and shooting him. You’re not responsible for absolutely every damned thing that goes on in other people’s lives.”

“I’m Eric’s second. Yes, I am.”

“Yeah? Then maybe Donovan was right. You’re too tied to being second to Eric and not enough to being first to yourself.”

Her anger was palpable. “And this is how you plan to convince me that a relationship between us will work?”

“I’m trying to convince you to give me time to convince you. Later. We’re here.”

The dirt road had narrowed. Xavier stopped his truck ahead of them, and Diego pulled in behind. Cassidy didn’t say anything or even look at him as they got out of the car.

Diego’s heart beat faster as Reid found the path and started leading them to the rock outcropping. Cassidy was pretty stubborn, but like hell Diego was going to let her win. He’d convince her they should be together if he had to argue with her until they were both too hoarse and too tired to talk. Then he’d teach her exactly how he felt about her, in all ways.

Court her, his mother would call it. Chase her ass was Xavier’s term.

Diego watched Cassidy walking a little ahead of him, her legs slim in jeans, her loose sweatshirt in no way disguising the delectable body beneath. He thought of the way she’d slid onto him in his backseat last night, wearing nothing under her tight dress.

If Cassidy thought this human would run away with his tail between his legs, she didn’t know humans. Or at least Latino cops who didn’t take shit from anyone.

After twenty minutes of climbing, they came to the clearing and the buildup of rocks within it.

“This is a magical place,” Peigi said as she looked around. Cassidy looked around as well, her arms folded hard across her chest.

“How do you know that?” Xav asked.

Peigi touched one of the boulders. “I was raised on the Scottish west coast, where the Fae presence is strong. I learned the feel of it. It’s faint here, but Fae magic has touched it.”

Diego knew it only as a place where he’d been shot at, and where he’d found Cassidy ready to be butchered by Reid.

Eric walked through the cave with his flashlight, examining walls, floor, ceiling. Shane came behind him, the big bear man sniffing. Diego trained his own light on them but found nothing unusual, only gray and darker gray limestone of the mountains and a coating of dust.

“The gate won’t open for me,” Reid said. “I’ve tried.”

“What is the ritual?” Peigi asked.

“It involves candles and a big, long knife,” Cassidy said.

“And Tasers, apparently,” Shane said. “Though I’m thinking they weren’t in the original spell.”

“A spell I won’t try to work again,” Reid said. “I don’t fit in here, but I won’t kill to get back home.” Diego heard the dead note in Reid’s voice.

Eric pressed his hands on the wall at the end of the shallow cave. “According to my Fae source, the gates on the ley lines go to different places in Faerie. You can walk through two gates right next to each other in the human world and end up thousands of miles apart in Faerie. So this gate might not lead to anywhere near Fionn’s territory.”

“It might not lead to mine either,” Reid said. “But once I knew where I was, I could get home.” He touched the wall next to Eric’s hand. “I don’t know what I’d find, though. My entire clan destroyed by the hoch alfar? Or my people restored, and at peace?”

“Moot point if you can’t get through,” Xavier said.

“He’ll get through.” Peigi also touched the rock wall. “Maybe only a little Shifter blood will open it enough to assess where it comes out, and what is on the other side. Isn’t it worth a try?”

“The spell needs the lifeblood of a Shifter, sacrificed,” Reid said. “You’re not doing that.”

“How about freely given? I sacrifice it for you?”

Reid’s face was dark with anger. “Why the hell would you do that?”

Peigi took Reid’s hand and wrapped her own around it. “Let’s just say I want to see someone get their heart’s desire.”

Cassidy went to them. “Let her try. It might work.”

Reid didn’t want to. Peigi jerked her hand from Reid’s, turned it palm up, and let her claws come out. As Cassidy had at the club when she’d vouched for Diego, Peigi slashed her own claws across her human hand.

Blood welled up on her palm, and she pressed her hand against the rock wall.

Nothing happened.

Diego kept his eye on Reid as he approached Peigi. Peigi lifted her hand, leaving blood smeared on the rock. Shane tapped the wall. Solid.

“It won’t work,” Reid said. “It needs more blood. Forget it.”

“Spells are tricky,” Eric said. “Especially Fae spells. It’s not the ingredients that matter, but what they represent. Does the blood stand for life essence? Or a Shifter death?”

His words gave Diego an idea. “If these Fae seriously want to keep you from finding your way back, they won’t make the solution one you would like. You hated Shifters, and you were perfectly willing to kill one to open the gate. So maybe spilling Shifter blood really won’t work, because you were so eager, even happy, to do it.”

“I wasn’t eager,” Reid growled. “Or happy. I don’t like killing anything. Except hoch alfar.”

Diego continued. “What I’m saying is, when you talked to me about Shifters, you despised them. You were ready to make yourself sacrifice one. So do the Fae think it would be harder for you to kill a Shifter? Or to save one?”

Diego drew his Sig and trained it on Peigi.

Reid snarled in pure rage. He threw himself at Diego, slamming them both into the wall, right over the smear of Peigi’s blood. Reid knocked Diego’s hand into the rock until the gun fell from Diego’s grip.

Diego felt the rocks behind him give. He grabbed Reid and hauled him out of the way, turning to see a gray mist forming where the rock wall had been.

The misty patch expanded until it was about ten feet high and three feet wide. A doorway.

Peigi stared, openmouthed. “What happened?”

Eric gave Diego a thoughtful look. “The sacrifice was Reid saving a hated Shifter. Not killing one. Good perception, Diego.”

“Yeah,” Shane said. “But what’s that stink?”

Wind swirled through the doorway, bringing with it cold and a stench of something rotting.

“Goddess,” Cassidy said, waving her hand in front of her nose.

“This isn’t right,” Reid said. He started forward, but Xavier and Diego grabbed his shoulders and pulled him back.

“Wait,” Diego said.

Picking up his gun, Diego moved slowly toward the misty air. As he neared the door, its outline grew more and more clear. The mists rolled back in a sudden burst of cold, to show them a man-shaped figure silhouetted in the doorframe.

The figure turned and brought up a weapon.

“Down!” Diego shouted.

Shifters and cops hit the ground. A bolt pinged a rock in the cave and fell to the dirt, and at the same time, the man fell through the opening.

Not a man. He was tall and strangely lean, like a human who’d been stretched, and he had white blond hair and pointed ears.

He was also dead.