Wild Cat (24 page)

Cassidy wore sweats that Eric had thoughtfully brought for her. Her dress must still be at Diego’s. The mate bond kept squeezing her and humming happily. Diego had come for her. He’d known where to find her, and he’d come.

She reached over and rested her hand on Diego’s arm. Just touching him made her feel better. Diego glanced at her, his eyes full of warmth.

Cassidy wrapped her hand more firmly around his arm and sank her head into his shoulder. The hunt, the fight, had only stirred his warmth, she felt. Diego wanted sex; she could sense it and scent it. He’d wait until they were finished with this business, until he was certain Cassidy was safe. And then…

The mate bond was helping to keep down other things inside her. Rage, grief, the need for vengeance. They swooped at her, one after the other, but the mate bond kept them from driving her into a killing frenzy. She closed her eyes and breathed Diego’s scent. Comforting. Warm.

At the Warden house, they unloaded the unconscious Reid, not without drawing attention. Shifters had no concept of minding their own business. They came out of houses and stood watching curiously as Diego and Xav carried Reid into the house.

Nell came over from the porch next door. “That him?” she asked Cassidy.

Eric had gone inside closely after Diego and Xav. The trackers on their bikes and Shane in his truck were just pulling in.

Cassidy couldn’t speak, emotions now overwhelming her. Nell, understanding, pulled her into a hug, her arms strong. “I know, honey. I know. Want me in there with you?”

Cassidy wiped tears from her eyes. “No. Thanks. I have to do this.”

Nell gave her a quick squeeze. “All right, but if you want me, you just yell. I’m good at getting men to confess their sins. I’ve had all that practice with Shane and Brody.”

Cassidy smiled but at the same time blinked back more tears. “I’ll be fine.”

But would she?

Cassidy went inside to find that they’d tied up Reid on the floor, in a space cleared in the living room. Xavier sat backward on a wooden chair to watch him, both a Taser and a regular pistol in his hands. Eric waited on the other side of the room, Jace beside him. Diego stood above Reid, the tranquilizer rifle resting easily in his arms.

Cassidy halted at Reid’s feet, her emotions churning. She wanted to kill him, at the same time she wanted to pound on him until he begged her to stop.

Diego reached over to the dining room table, grabbed a glass of water that had been resting there, and poured the water over Reid’s face.

Reid coughed, and his eyes fluttered open.

Diego cocked the tranquilizer rifle and pressed it into Reid’s stomach. “First question. Who are you, really?”

Reid’s eyes were glassy as he stared up at Diego. He blinked, trying to focus. “You know me. Stuart Reid. I’m
dokk alfar.
”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“That’s what he said to me,” Cassidy said. “In the cave. He said his people were the
dokk alfar
. He called the Fae the… something that sounded German.”

“
Hoch alfar,
” Jace said, breaking in. “It’s of Scandinavian derivation. It means, literally,
high elf.
Dokk alfar
can be translated as
dark elf
.”

“There’s elves now?” Xavier asked. “What is this—
Lord of the Rings
? Pointy ears, long hair, bows and arrows?”

“Goddess, you’re ignorant,” Reid sneered.

Cassidy scented it, Reid’s body heating into the flare that built right before he vanished. “Diego.”

Diego dug the rifle into Reid’s stomach. “I can tranq you before you can fire up. Just stay here and answer, or you’re going to have one hell of a hangover.”

Jace came to them, still interested in Reid’s revelation. “Where do you think Tolkien got his ideas for his elves? From the legends of the Fae—from Celtic, Norse, and Anglo-Saxon stories. I’ve never seen a dark Fae, never knew they existed.”

“They exist,” Reid said. “
I
exist.”

“So, you’re not half Fae,” Eric said.

“No.” He shot Cassidy a derisive look. “I am pure.”

Cassidy had had enough. She advanced on him, ready to shift, ready to gut him.

“Why Donovan? Why
him
?” The last word robbed her of breath. Grief, rage, sorrow, confusion took hold of her. “And don’t you
dare
say he was only Shifter.”

To her amazement, Reid looked ashamed. “He wasn’t supposed to die,” he said. “I’m sorry. Those hunters killed him before I could stop them.”

C
assidy advanced again, unable to stop herself, the bare floor cool on her feet. “What are you talking about? You told me you needed his blood. And my blood. Nothing
personal
, you said.”

“Shifter blood, yes.” Reid’s face was pasty, his breathing shallow. “I was going to take an un-Collared Shifter. These hunters had bagged un-Collareds before, and I paid them to do so again. I told them to keep the Shifter alive. But when I got there… when I got there…” A shudder went through him. “They’d shot him and pulled off his Collar. Stupid. Stupid. And then, when I knew that I’d have used his blood anyway, if the police hadn’t come too soon… I knew then… what I’d become. What they’d made me become…”

Anguish flooded his voice as much as it flooded Cassidy’s. The man moaned, his head dropping back to the floor.

Cassidy could scent his fear, his despair, and over that, his vast shame. It wrenched at her heart; at the same time, she could find no forgiveness. Donovan was dead. That was all.

Eric and Jace twitched with the heightened emotion in the room, but Diego was coolness itself. He stuck to essentials.

“What who had made you become?” Diego asked.

“The
hoch alfar
,” Reid said. “The fucking
hoch alfar
, who do you think? They took me because I was a danger to them. They killed my family and put me in this place. This
human
place.”

Diego prodded Reid with the rifle. “A little bit more. If you’re one of these dark elves, how did you join the police force? How do you have a name, a home, a social security number?”

“I’ve been here a long time. So long. Fifty human years. They exiled me. And for what? So that my
dokk alfar
, who lived in the land the
hoch alfar
warrior wanted, wouldn’t get in his way. I fought him. I’m very strong, a damn better warrior than any of
them
. I led my people against them. But in the end, there were too many. They killed my family and friends most loyal to me. They took me—the one who dared rise against them—and they shoved me here. To die, they thought. Stupid
hoch alfar
, think
dokk alfar
can’t take iron. Hell, we
invented
iron.”

“So you found yourself here,” Diego said, still calm. “What did you do then?”

Reid shrugged, as much as he could while bound hand and foot. “The humans didn’t notice any difference in me from themselves. They don’t believe anything until it’s shoved under their noses. I blended in. I became Stuart Reid. Paperwork was easier to fake fifty years ago. I’ve been Stuart Reid for a long time, moving before people caught on that I age more slowly than humans do.”

“And you tried to go back?” Diego asked.

“I tried, I tried, and I couldn’t. It doesn’t work for me to go to the weak places on the ley lines—the stone circles and whatever—which is how the
hoch alfar
cross. It doesn’t always work for the
dokk alfar.
The magic is different. So I searched for humans who knew Fae lore, as I told you. The ritual I found in that grimoire used the blood of a Shifter, in a spell performed at the spring equinox. It’s supposed to open the gate.”

“Great,” Jace said softly.

“I’d already been a police officer for a while,” Reid said. “I was good at it. In my world, I was a warrior and an enforcer. I easily passed the tests to get into the police. Once I found the spell that used Shifters, I got myself transferred into Shifter Division. I figured it was just a matter of time before I found an un-Collared Shifter that I could use. When the hunting law changed, I saw a way to speed up the process. I found some hunters experienced in tracking down un-Collared Shifters and paid them to help me. Except, they were hot to kill any Shifter, Collared or otherwise. They shot Donovan Grady before I could stop them, then pulled off his Collar to try to fool the cops…”

The speech, delivered rapid-fire, faded.

In the silence that followed, Cassidy could hear Nell talking to Shane and Brody outside. Warm, family conversation, so different from the anger and fear in this room.

“Are you telling me you would have let Donovan live once they’d captured him?” Cassidy asked. “As desperate as you were?”

“I don’t know.”

“Why did you try to kill
me
? Not just any Shifter, but me in particular?”

Reid met her gaze with eyes like the black of space. “I knew you were his mate. I learned all about you and your family. I became an expert on you. I know that Shifters perform a ritual on the one-year anniversary of a death, and I knew you’d come out there again, right at the equinox. I told myself that you were so unhappy that it wouldn’t matter if the spell killed you. I justified it like that. But when I shot at you, I missed, and you ran. I chased you, so obsessed about doing the damn spell that I didn’t care about anything else. I realized, right then, that the
hoch alfar
had broken me. They’d made me become a
dakhlar
who’d sacrifice an innocent being for my own benefit. I’d grab you, use the spell, and deal with my guilt later.”

Cassidy put her bare foot on his thigh. “Why did you keep hunting me after I eluded you the first time? I went back to finish my ritual, but I brought plenty of guards, and we were alert for you. We almost got you that night. There must have been easier targets.”

Reid shook his head. “I told myself it had to be you, and you alone. To put you out of your misery, I reasoned. I thought you’d be happy to die.”

Cassidy rolled her foot on his thigh, increasing the pressure a little. He looked so pathetic, wrists and ankles bound with plastic ties, Diego with the barrel of the rifle in his stomach, Xavier watching with double weapons. Here was the man responsible for her mate’s death, at her feet, and now her victory tasted hollow.

Jace spoke behind her. “You’re talking as though the Fae have qualms about killing Shifters.”

Reid lifted himself halfway up. “No, no, the
hoch alfar
don’t care about killing Shifters. They’ll kill anything that gets in their way—they’ll do it for amusement. I know that, because I watched them do it to my mate and my children.”

Cassidy took her foot from him. “Diego, let him go.”

Diego shot her a surprised look. “He’ll vanish. We might never find him again.”

“Let him. I want him gone. I don’t want to look at him anymore.”

Eric’s voice rumbled. “He caused Donovan’s death, Cass. No matter how he tries to spin it, he’s guilty of that. It’s your right to do what you will with him.”

“I know.” Cassidy looked back at Eric, her heart bleak. “And I’m exercising my right.”

She’d wanted Reid to be gloating, rubbing his hands like a villain, so she’d feel triumph when she ripped out his throat. Instead she found a creature of shame, anger, and emptiness.

Diego held her gaze. “There’s nothing to say he won’t try to kill another Shifter if we let him go.”

“He won’t,” Cassidy said. “We’ll make sure of that.”

Diego’s eyes held compassion. Only last night, he’d dispatched one of his old enemies, one he’d grown to pity. Diego understood.

Cassidy and Diego looked at each other a moment longer, then Cassidy turned and walked out of the house. She didn’t bother with shoes; she walked barefoot outside to the swath of grass and brush down the common. She walked past houses of her friends and extended family, and Donovan’s friends and family. She walked all the way to the eight-foot-high cinderblock wall that marked the end of Shiftertown. Why humans had built the wall, she never understood—nothing but scorching desert lay beyond it.

Cassidy leaned on this wall, soaking the cool of it into her bones.

Donovan’s killer. Hers to kill, quickly or slowly. Her right as the mate whose mate bond had been broken by murder. Even Donovan’s mother didn’t have the bond that Cassidy had shared with Donovan. The vengeance kill belonged to the mate.

Cassidy knew that more lay behind her sudden despair besides Reid not being the evil killer she’d wanted him to be. Reid was responsible, but his finger hadn’t pulled the trigger. Those human hunters were still at large, still fair game, still hers.

She knew damn well that part of her grief was for the severing of one mate bond and the beginning of another.

How could this happen so quickly? Eric had lost his mate, Kirsten, when Jace had been born, and Eric had never shown any inclination to mate again. Having offspring lessened the mating instinct, that was true, but though Eric occasionally had casual relationships with females, he hadn’t made another mate-claim, hadn’t even voiced the inclination to.