“We’re on our way to Boston now.”
She swallowed. “Kat told you where we are? You talked to her?”
“She called Nick’s father, and he gave us the details.” He sounded exhausted. “We’re headed there. Alec and Nick and I.”
“I’m so sorry, Jackson.” Mackenzie closed her eyes and tried to swallow around the guilt. “Poor Mahalia.”
“She went to New York with Nick’s sister. I think she’s going to stay there for tonight, see what the wolves plan on doing about tracking Talbot down.”
Mackenzie turned to look at Marcus again. “You heard all that?”
He didn’t turn over, just said quietly, “I heard.”
“Do you want me to ask them anything?”
It took him a moment to answer. “What did they do to Eddie?”
She lifted the phone again. “Marcus wants to know what happened to Eddie. He’s the shapeshifter.”
“Peyton took him back to New York. He’ll have to stand before the Conclave. They’ll decide what to do with him, I guess.”
Marcus’s shoulders tensed. “They might execute him.” It wasn’t a question.
Part of her—not a small part—thought Eddie deserved to stand trial for the things he’d done. Another part of her remembered the haunted way he’d looked at her, how he’d been just as trapped as she. “He could have stopped us, but he let us go, Jackson. He let us get away, and Charles could have killed him for it.”
“He almost did,” Jackson admitted. “The Conclave isn’t going to do anything rash, though. There’ll be time to give them the details of what happened.”
She asked because Marcus would want to know and wouldn’t ask himself. “Is Eddie okay?”
“He’s fine. Talbot knocked him into a wall, but he’s not hurt.” The phone beeped, and Jackson swore. “I have to go. My cell is dying. Stay in the hotel room, and don’t let anyone in. We’ll be there soon.”
“Okay. Be safe, Jackson. I’ll see you soon.”
“Yeah, Kenzie. You will.” The phone beeped again and clicked.
Mackenzie listened to the silence for a few tense seconds before dropping the receiver back in its cradle. She pulled her legs up on the bed and stared at Marcus’s back. “You heard him. Jackson said they’ll give Eddie a chance.”
“Yes.” Marcus glanced back over his shoulder and smiled weakly. “Thanks for asking after him.”
“You can talk to Nick when she gets here,” Mackenzie offered, struggling against the instinctive need to bridge the space between them, to comfort him. “She can help you. With her dad, I mean. She’s really nice.”
His expression didn’t change. “Yes, I’m sure she is.” There was no hint of sarcasm in his words. “But I have no claim on her assistance.”
She couldn’t take it anymore. His pain found an answering echo inside her, and she slipped off the bed and crossed the short distance to his. Energy prickled along her skin as she reached out and curled her fingers around his. “The way I figure, our fucked-up family history makes you the closest thing I’m ever going to have to a brother. So I’ll make claims for both of us, if you can help me deal with this whole turning-into-a-giant-cat thing.”
He squeezed her hand. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” She dropped to the edge of the bed and bumped him with her elbow. “Scoot over. I’m too jittery to sleep, and I’m pretty sure it’s my right and duty as a bratty little sister to make you suffer with me.”
Marcus laughed as he complied. “Good luck explaining this to your boyfriend.”
Mackenzie stretched out next to him. “After all the leaps of faith I’ve made for him over the past week, I think he owes me one.” Her fingers tightened around Marcus’s hand. “Besides. I got the impression there aren’t a whole lot of us left. I still don’t understand it, Marcus. I mean, my instincts aren’t telling me to have your babies, but there’s this whole other…person. Creature. Something inside me, and she trusts you.”
“There aren’t many of us left,” he confirmed. “Perhaps no more than twenty in the country, now.”
She closed her eyes and asked the last question she wanted to hear the answer to. “You don’t want this plan, do you? I mean, do you think it’s your duty to have magical kids with me?”
She thought he might not answer. Finally, he sighed and pulled her closer with an arm around her shoulders. “No, I never really wanted it. I mean, you’re lovely, and I want to have children someday. I’m just not certain I want them to have the responsibility of saving the cougars.” He gave her a wry look. “It hasn’t worked out so well for us, after all, has it?”
“It’s a lot to put on a kid,” she agreed quietly. “It was a lot to put on you. Too much. Maybe I’m lacking perspective because I’m so new to this, but… Well, it would be sad if the cougars disappeared, but is it somehow going to be better if the ones who are left half-kill themselves trying to stop it?”
“I don’t have any answers.” He lifted one shoulder in a tiny shrug. “If Charles could start over at this point, I think he would. But he’d have to find new parents, cast the necessary spells during pregnancy, and then wait for those children to grow up like us. He just doesn’t have time.”
She shivered. “I think you should go to New York. Go check on Eddie. Talk to the Conclave, tell them what you know. And…let us deal with the rest of it.” Let us kill the only man who’s ever been a father to you. It was the only way they’d be safe. She had no sympathy in her for Charles and his insanity, not after what he’d done to her parents, to Marcus’s parents, to Steven—
“If they’d allow me to speak, I’d like to.”
“We’ll find a way. When it’s all over, maybe you could help me learn how to deal with this stuff. How to understand what I’m feeling.”
“I can try.” He smiled again, and there was less pain in the expression. “It’s not like I have a lot of other things on my plate right now.”
“Sure you do. You get to decide what you want to do with your life. All those things you didn’t get to think about when you were responsible for the legacy of an entire race.”
“Funny,” he murmured, his eyes drifting shut. “This way seems a lot scarier.”
She stroked his cheek lightly and brushed a strand of dark hair away from his forehead, protective tenderness rising in her. “Yeah, I’m familiar with that feeling. But my friends are good people, Marcus. They’ll understand.” At least, she hoped they would. “They’ll help us both. We may be weirdly orphaned, big shapeshifting cats, but we’re not alone.”
He opened his eyes again, but didn’t look at her. “You’re not, anyway.”
Mackenzie considered saying something sympathetic. She considered trying to reassure him.
Instead she frowned and dug her elbow into his side. “Hey, I said you had me, and I meant it. If I can forgive you for chasing me through five cities and pretty much destroying my life, you can man up and forgive yourself. So stop whining and get ready to get your ass to New York so you can get your…friend back.” Or whatever the hell Eddie is to you.
He grunted. “Okay.” After a second, he rubbed his side. “That hurt.”
She choked on a laugh. “I guess I’m super strong now. It’s your fault for not teaching me how to avoid hurting people with it.”
“We can work on that too.”
“Mmm.” She closed her eyes to keep from checking the clock again. “Later. Go back to sleep, Marcus. I’m sure we’re not going to have a lot of time to sleep once they get here.”
Chapter 22
She must have dozed off. She remembered staring at the wall and fighting the urge to check the clock a dozen times, but at some point she fell asleep, because she jerked awake when she heard the quiet knock at the door.
Marcus woke a second later, but she’d already tumbled off the bed, her attention focused on the door, on the familiar scent outside it and the soft sound of Nick’s voice as she mumbled something.