“Forget it. I don’t need your pity.” She was shaking, the strain of too many years of living a life of solitude and aching fear rising inside her.
And why had she done it? Why had she lived as someone she wasn’t? Not for her own damned protection, that was for sure. She’d done it for him. Because she knew to the last reaches of her soul if she was taken then he would come for her. And that when he did, the chances of his destruction, of his death, were too high.
“Pity isn’t a bad thing.” Ashley sighed. “To feel compassion for one who sees only her own anger . . .”
“Give me a fucking break,” Cat cried out, amazed fury pulsing through her. “You’re damned right I only see my own anger, and you’re not helping it in the least. You don’t know what you’re talking about, Ashley, or who you’re talking to, so don’t presume you do. And don’t make the mistake of coming back here to insult me again with your precious advice, because I don’t need it.”
“You will need more than advice if you are the cause of Jonas learning who he is,” Ashley snapped. “You will need a miracle to remain living should that happen.”
Cat flinched, but not from what Ashley said or how she said it. Pain sliced across her senses, raged through her soul. Because she would give her own life to protect him from Jonas or anyone else.
“Sorry, Ashley, but there’s really not enough of me left to give a damn.” The bitterness was like a corrosive eating through her soul. “I gave my life for him thirteen years ago. Every breath I drew, every beat of my heart, every particle of my being was sacrificed for him when I remained as Claire Martinez rather than escaping the hell I found myself in here. There hasn’t been anything left of me in a long time. And I don’t think you or anyone else, especially Graeme Parker, has the right to ask anything more of me.”
Yet they continued to ask for more and nothing, not even friendship or loyalty, was offered in return and the isolation facing her only enraged her.
“You blame Graeme for what saved you?” Ashley questioned her in disbelief. The conclusion the Breed female drew from the agony lancing through Cat’s soul shouldn’t have been a surprise.
It wasn’t a surprise, she assured herself.
Lifting her hand to rub at her temple and the headache brewing there, she tried to tell herself it didn’t matter. The Martinez household had been far better than the research center, but then, homelessness would have been better than that hell.
She’d stayed, though, because she knew Raymond would carry out the threat to contact the Genetics Council and tell them exactly where she was and who she was. If she’d been taken, then Honor and Judd would have been found and captured as well. Gideon would have come for her. And the Council would have been waiting for him. She couldn’t bear the thought of it.
“I blame Graeme for a lot of things, Ashley,” she admitted painfully. “Things that are none of your business. Don’t worry—unfortunately for me, I’m just as stupid as the rest of you, it seems, because I’d protect his identity with my last breath. But I don’t have to like it, and I don’t have to deal with his friends while I’m doing it.”
Turning, she all but ran from the kitchen. She didn’t care if Ashley stayed or if she left. It didn’t matter. Years of searching for him, of waiting for him, of silently spilling blood to save those who would turn on her now gouged another jagged scar on her soul.
And here, she hadn’t thought there was room for more scars. Or more pain. She’d believed she’d hurt as much as she could ever hurt for the losses she’d suffered.
She was wrong. And she realized she was more alone than she’d ever imagined she could be.
? CHAPTER 12 ?
Intuition. The mating bond.
Graeme wasn’t sure what had caused the sudden certainty that Cat needed him. It was strong enough, though, to make him abruptly leave the meeting with Jonas and Lobo and race to her. He arrived just in time to hear, to feel, the blinding pain and betrayal ripping through her as she informed Ashley of the life she’d lived to protect him.
Stepping silently into the kitchen as she raced from it, he faced Ashley and the regret that filled her. A regret she hadn’t allowed to stand in her way.
This little Coyote female was about as easy to predict as Cat, because he hadn’t anticipated whatever had happened here.
She turned slowly to face him as he stood in the arched entrance to the dining room. Crossing his arms, he leaned against the door frame, watching her silently, forcing back the furious growls that threatened to rumble from his chest.
Brushing back the multihued strands of blond hair that escaped her braid, she sighed heavily, her gaze resigned as she faced him.
“She’s upset with me now.” That was a bit of an understatement.