Justus

“Kaci. Can we talk about this?” I whispered, as close to her as I could get without looking like a psycho stalker as we got off the plane and walked down the narrow, enclosed jetway toward the airport gate.

She only swung her backpack onto her shoulder as she walked, forcing me back a step to keep from getting hit.

“Kaci!” I hissed as we stepped into the airport, where hundreds of impatient passengers were waiting to board the plane we’d just disembarked. And now that we were free of the jetway, she took off at a jog, dodging passengers waiting in line for coffee and soft pretzels, business men and women hauling suitcases and talking on their phones, and a couple of small children turning in circles in the middle of the broad aisle between gates, their eyes closed, oblivious to life going on around them.

“Wait,” I called as I caught up to her, hoping the rest of the world saw a couple running late for their connecting flight, rather than a young woman fleeing a guy chasing her. “Let me explain!”

She stopped so fast I nearly crashed into her, then she turned on me, eyes flashing with fury. “A vacation,” she snapped. “You said this was a vacation. You said you were coming back to stand trial.” Her voice dropped into a whisper on the last two words, and suddenly we were having a very quietly obvious argument in a very public place. “But what you were actually doing was using me to aid your escape.”

“That is not what happened,” I whispered. “You blackmailed me into bringing you.”

Kaci’s hazel eyes widened. Then she frowned. “Okay, that is not the point. The point is that I thought you were coming back. That this was just a trip. But this is—”

“This is me running for my life,” I said in as firm and as soft a voice as I could manage. “You’re on vacation, but I’m fleeing certain death at the declaration of a bunch of men I’ve never even met. I didn’t mean to drag you into this. I didn’t want to drag you into it. But I had to go, and you gave me no choice but to bring you.”

Her frown deepened as she studied my face, conflict written clearly on hers. Then she glanced around the airport, as if she were just then realizing where we were. “Why the hell would you escape to Las Vegas? This isn’t even the free zone. If you think Paul Blackwell won’t find you here you’re crazy.”

“This is only the first part of the plan.” I hardly dared to breathe with the admission, for fear of pissing her off again. I wasn’t sure how far into the airport I could chase her before security decided I was a threat.

“What’s the rest of it?”

“Can we talk about that some place less public?” I glanced pointedly around at all the people who shouldn’t overhear anything about shifters, and murder, and escape.

Kaci exhaled slowly. “It’s not like I have a choice. Where are we going?”

“To Caesar’s Palace.”

A flicker of her earlier excitement flashed over her face. “I’m so mad at you I almost forgot we were in Las Vegas.” Her gaze wandered over a long row of slot machines stretching down the aisle between gates. “I should drag you back onto a plane to Houston without even leaving the airport. But I really want to go see a show…”

I opened my mouth to tell her that wasn’t exactly on my list of escape plan bullet points. “Yes. We can do whatever you want.”

Son of a bitch. Where the hell had that come from?

I told myself that keeping her happy was a newly necessary part of my plan—if she told anyone where I was before I had what I’d come for, Marc would show up and drag me to my trial in handcuffs.

But then she smiled at me again, and I spared a moment to thank the universe that Kaci Dillon wasn’t a con artist or a gold digger, because in that moment, I would have given her everything I owned to keep that smile on her face. To keep her looking at me like that. As if I—the guy who’d snuck her out of her territory under kind-of false pretenses—were somehow the only light shining in her world.

* * *

“Holy crap,” Kaci breathed as she stepped into the hotel room.

I laughed. She’d said the same thing about the fountains outside, the statues in the lobby, and the ornate main floor, as we’d passed it when I gave her a brief tour. Unfortunately, even if she’d had a fake ID, no one would have believed she was twenty-one. Which put a definite cramp in my plans, unless I was willing to leave her in our room or abandon her at a show while I hit the poker tables.

And so far, I’d hardly been able to drag myself from her side long enough to check us in.

She dropped her backpack on the long gray sofa and wandered into the bathroom. “Holy crap!” Her voice echoed out at me. “This place is huge. This tub is huge. This shower is huge. This sink… Well, the sink’s pretty normal sized, but there are two of them!”

I leaned against the bathroom doorjamb, watching her as if I were seeing it all for the first time with her.

She turned to me, hazel eyes wide. “You don’t look impressed. I assume you’ve been here before?”

“Not this specific room, but one like it.”

“It’s so expensive!” She edged past me into the main room and sank onto the couch, then twisted to look out the window. “I saw you pay in cash. If you’re broke without your trust fund, where did that money come from?”

“I have a credit card. Titus pays the bill. Yesterday I took out a cash advance.”

“So, I have him to thank for this little not-vacation?”

“No. He’s the executor of my inheritance. He pays my bills out of that.”

“It’s messed up that you’re fully grown, yet can’t access your own money.”

I’d turned twenty in April, and my new Pride had thrown me a small birthday party. Cake. Music. A bunch of shifter-specific gag gifts, like the catnip mouse Kaci had given me. It was a simple event compared to the international birthday trips Titus had taken me on nearly every year since our parents had died, but they’d made me feel like family.

Unfortunately, twenty was still five years too young for the first lump sum from my inheritance.

“Ironically, that’s to keep me from blowing it all on something…well, exactly like this, while I’m still young and stupid,” I explained.

Kaci’s smile faded. She tugged me onto the couch next to her. “It’s not too late. We could still stay the night and have some fun, then go home and face the music. This could still just be a vacation.”

“If the tribunal isn’t going to play by its own rules, why should I? They’re going to execute me, Kaci. I can’t go back.”

She sighed. Then she nodded. “Okay. Tell me what we’re doing here.”

“I will. But first…” I leaned in and kissed her, and what I expected to be a short, soft reminder that she actually might like me, in spite of the lie I’d told, became a long, deep, hungry connection I could hardly stand to break.

When she finally pulled away, her focus was glazed with the same need building inside me. “What was that for?”

I shrugged and rubbed my thumb over her bottom lip, still damp and swollen from our kiss. “One last taste, in case you won’t let me do that again after you hear my plan.”

“Well let’s hear it then. And please tell me it’s a little more sophisticated than ‘win a bunch of money downstairs and flee the country.’”

“Okay, it’s pretty much exactly that, but it’s much more realistic than it sounds.”

“Oh good!” Her brows rose in mock excitement. “For a second, I was worried you were one of those delusional assholes who think they can step into a casino for the first time in their lives, slap down a twenty dollar bill and walk out with a million dollars. One of those delusional underage assholes,” she amended, crossing her arms over her chest. “Seriously, Justus, tell me there’s a plan B.”

“This isn’t my first time in a casino, and I’m prepared to slap down much more than a twenty,” I assured her.

“And would that be more magical money from your credit card?”

“From the cash advance, yes. Titus pays it off every month, which means I have excellent credit. Earlier tonight, I hitched a ride into town with Vic, and while he was in a sandwich shop, I hit up an ATM for some cash.”

Her gaze narrowed suspiciously. “How much cash?”

“My full limit of fifty-thousand dollars.”

Kaci’s hazel eyes widened dramatically. She shoved me in the chest. “You’re walking around with fifty-thousand dollars in cash?”

“Forty-nine thousand, after the cab ride and the hotel, which I paid for up front, so I wouldn’t have to charge it.”

“Because the police can track you through your credit card?”

I laughed. I couldn’t help it. “Yes, gambling underage is a crime, but I’m much more worried about evading Alphas than the cops right now. Titus is authorized on my credit card, and the first thing he would have done when he found out we were missing is check the recent charges. Which is why I took out cash in eastern Texas, rather than at the airport in Houston or here. And why I’m not charging the hotel. He may guess that we’re here eventually, but he won’t know that for sure unless we give him proof that I’m not already lounging on a beach in Cancun or staying in a castle in Scotland. Either of which I could do with a passport and a pocket full of cash.”

“So then, why aren’t you in Cancun or Scotland?”

“Because that withdrawal was the only one I’m going to get. I’m at my cash limit, and even if Titus pays it off, I can’t draw again without showing him where I am.”

“What makes you think he’d tell the council? Faythe said he’d do anything to keep you safe.”

“He probably would. But I’m not the only stray he has to protect, and the council is never going to recognize his territory if they think he’s aiding and abetting a criminal. I have to keep him on their side in this. By cutting him out of it.”

“So, your plan is to go downstairs and win a fortune at a game of chance? Playing what, craps? I’m not even sure what that is. Blackjack?”

“Poker,” I told her. “It’s a game of skill, not a game of chance.”

“You’re not even old enough to legally gamble, so how would you have acquired that skill? Was there some kind of backroom poker game on the Millsaps campus?” She kept drilling me with questions too fast for me to answer. “Even if you’re a college-level expert, what on earth makes you think you have enough experience to win serious money in Las Vegas? Isn’t this where all the experts come to play? Like, professional gamblers?”

I took her hand, and she finally stopped talking. “Yes. And I’m good, but I’m not delusional. I’ll be playing against tourists, not professionals.”

She rolled her eyes. “And they’re going to be wearing name tags that tell you they’re ready lose their life savings to a guy who could buy and sell them a hundred times over? How convenient for you.”

“They won’t have name tags.” Though the thought made me smile. “But tourists will look and act like tourists. And I didn’t learn to play at school, Kaci.” I intertwined my fingers with hers, because touching her seemed to make everything better. I learned to play overseas. In most of Europe, the legal gambling age is eighteen.”

“Oh.” She looked a little chagrined as she stood and headed for the dresser. “I didn’t know that.”

“Remember all those airline miles? Titus and I used to travel together a lot, but a couple of years ago, he stopped coming with me. As it turned out, he couldn’t go to any place where there was a local Alpha with an anti-stray policy.” I shrugged. “If he had come, I probably would have spent my time in museums and restaurants—which is where I told him I was going—instead of casinos. As it is, I can’t tell a Monet from a Renoir, but I know when to fold and when to raise.”

Kaci grabbed a bottle of water from a tray of snacks and cracked it open. “So, you’re just going to go downstairs with your fake ID and turn forty-nine thousand dollars into, what? Half a million?” She took a sip from her bottle. “How much do you need, in order to live the rest of your life on the run?”

“I only have to tide myself over until I’m twenty-five and I get the first lump sum from my trust fund. It was set up in Switzerland, and Titus can’t stop me from getting it. And he’s not legally entitled to know anything about its release—including when or where it will happen.”

“So, you want to win enough cash here to get you through the next five years—”

“Four years and ten months.”

“—at which point you’ll inherit enough money to let you tell the whole world to fuck off?”

“Yes. I’ll retire to an island nation where there are no other shifters—turns out that’s most of them—and…I don’t know. Carve things out of driftwood for neighborhood children until I die a happy old man. Leaving all my money to local orphans, of course.”

“Of course.” She actually smiled as she screwed the lid on her water. “Funny and generous. How much money are we talking about?”

“Um…about two hundred million in liquid assets. And a stake in my dad’s company that’s worth several times that, but I won’t be able to collect on the shares without contacting Titus. So, it’s basically just the cash.”

“Basically just the…” Kaci sank onto the tile on her knees, as if her legs would no longer hold her up. Her water bottle hit the floor and fell onto its side. “Basically just the two hundred million in cash?”

“Well, a third of that when I’m twenty-five. Another third when I turn thirty. And the last of it when I turn thirty-five.” I reached down and tugged her up onto the couch with me.

“Okay, I know that’s a lot of money. It’s so much money,” she said. “But is it worth giving up all your family and friends over?”

“They’re going to lose me whether I run or I’m executed.”

“Justus, you heard a rumor, not a fact. You don’t know that they’ll vote to convict,” Kaci insisted.

“I know what the enforcers overheard from their alphas, and I know I’d be stupid to show up for the trial on the odd chance that they misunderstood whatever they heard. And as for giving up my family, Titus is the only family I have, and I’m doing this in part to protect him. My friends…” I shrugged. “We drifted apart after high school. Different colleges and everything.”

“College friends?” she asked.

“There were a few. But none who truly questioned me dropping out in the middle of the semester. Or who even tried to come see me out in Texas. I had a girlfriend, but…”

“That’s right. She died.” Kaci covered her mouth with both hands. “I’m so sorry.”

“Yeah. That’s what I feel really bad about.” Drew deserved what he got, but I hadn’t meant to hurt Ivy. I hadn’t even fully understood that I was a shifter at the time, much less that scratching her would infect her with the shifter virus. Or that women almost never survive the infection.

“I heard she was—” Kaci’s mouth snapped shut.

“Cheating on me?” My snort sounded more bitter than I meant for it to. “Actually, she was cheating on this other guy with me, though I didn’t know it at the time. His name was Leland Blum.”

I’d followed Ivy and Leland into the woods to confront them, not to hurt them, but stress and anger got the better of me in the terrifying, vulnerable period right after I was infected, and my body had shifted into cat form without permission from the rest of me.

I’d only scratched Ivy and Leland in self defense. Because they were understandably terrified of the huge black cat I’d become. Still, her death and his infection were my fault, and they were among the things the tribunal had already decided to make me pay for with my life.

“It turns out Ivy and Leland had been together since high school. But I didn’t know that until after it all went down. Until after Drew…was dead, and Titus and Robyn explained everything to me.”

“Damn.”

“Yeah. And as if finding out I was the other guy wasn’t bad enough, the fact that Ivy was cheating on Leland with me makes it sound like I had a reason for what I did to them. A motive for murder. But that’s not true. I mean, yes, I was mad, but I wasn’t trying to hurt anyone, and I didn’t understand what would happen.”

“I get it,” Kaci said, and when I looked into her eyes, I got caught there.

Since I’d been accepted into the South-Central Pride, I’d seen exactly two kinds of expressions when natural-born cats looked at me. Sympathy, from those who’d heard my story and thought to look beyond the outcome to the cause. And aversion, from those who hadn’t. It wasn’t revulsion, exactly, but rather a cold distance from people who found it easier to avoid thinking about strays like me—people who’d been thrown into the deep end of shifter existence without a lifejacket—rather than deal with us.

But the look in Kaci’s eyes was different than both of those. In her, I found…empathy. The kind of visceral understanding I’d thought could only come from a fellow stray, infected through traumatic violence.

What we had in common wasn’t how we’d become shifters, but how we’d reacted to that change.

“So, I accidentally killed my mother and my sister, and you accidentally killed your girlfriend.”

“Fucked up, aren’t we?” I said.

Kaci blinked at me. Then she threw her head back and laughed. “I’m sorry! It’s not funny. It’s just that it’s somehow so damn funny. I know that doesn’t make any sense.”

“It makes perfect sense.” I slid my hand behind her neck and kissed her again, slowly this time. Letting the connection linger. Because that’s what I’d found. Somehow, in my attempt to flee the country—the entirety of shifter society—I’d stumbled upon the only person in the world who made me want to stay.

But if I stayed, they’d execute me. Which left only one solution.

“Come with me, Kaci.” I pulled just far enough away that I could focus on her face. So I could watch her thoughts flicker as she processed my invitation.

“With you?”

“To Cancun. Or Scotland. Or one of the island nations where there are no shifters. I know that’s asking a lot, and you’d be leaving behind family and friends. But I’m mentally kicking myself for spending four months at the ranch wallowing in my own self-pity instead of talking to you. And kissing you. If you come with me, we can spend every day for the rest of our lives talking and kissing on the beach somewhere. Surfing, and eating seafood, and learning to make our own alcohol from coconuts, or sugarcane, or whatever grows locally wherever we wind up.”

Kaci smiled, but it was a sad smile. A face-reality, Justus smile.

I held up one hand in the universal signal for STOP. “Don’t say no—”

“I’m not saying no. I’d just like to propose an alternative.” She took a deep breath and set her water bottle on the coffee table. “You stay here with me.”

“Kaci, I can’t—”

“We’ll tell Faythe and Marc what you overheard. They’ll never let you sit through a trial that’s been decided before it even begins.”

I rolled my eyes. “It’s not like the tribunal members are going to admit they’ve already—”

“Justus.” She seized both of my hands in an iron grip. “Titus sent you here for a fair trial, and there has to be a way to make sure you get one. Faythe and Marc will know what to do. Now, I know Texas isn’t as glamorous as some tropical island, and you have to be twenty-one to do anything really fun, but…I can’t leave Faythe and Marc without even saying goodbye. They’re practically my parents.”

“Yes, but you’re grown,” I pointed out. “Birds are supposed to leave the nest.”

“Birds.” She shuddered. “Sorry. Flashback. There was a thing with thunderbirds a few years ago. I got kidnapped and—”

“You got kidnapped by thunderbirds?”

“One plucked me right off the ground. I was a lot smaller then. Everything turned out okay. Faythe and Jace rescued me. But I’m not a big fan of heights anymore. Or things with feathers. Or talons.”

“Well, there are no thunderbirds in the tropics. But Kaci, if I stay here, they’ll execute me.”

“Okay, but maybe they won’t. The council is much less anti-stray now than it used to be, and even five years ago they brought charges against Faythe for killing a stray.” Her eyes widened with the enthusiasm of her pitch. “That was kind of groundbreaking, if you think about it—the council being willing to punish one of its own, rare tabbies for an act against someone they didn’t even consider a citizen.”

“My understanding is that they found her guilty of infection—which I’m up on two counts of—and innocent of murder. Which shows how little they value stray lives.”

“They found her innocent because she was innocent. She acted in self-defense.”

“But I didn’t.”

“You have extenuating circumstances,” Kaci insisted. “Drew ripped away your human life, then he used you to frame your brother. To get him removed as Alpha.”

That was all true. But… “That’s not why I killed him.”

Kaci frowned. “Then why…?”

“Okay. If you get called to testify against me, I’m screwed.” I meant it as a joke, because I had no intention of standing trial. But she looked more curious than amused. “I didn’t know how’d I’d become a shifter or who had done that to me until that night at the zoo. Drew infected me, then abandoned me. On purpose. He let me suffer through scratch fever and figure out how to shift back on my own, without any guidance or help. He didn’t teach me how to control my new instincts or fight bloodlust. Again, all on purpose, as part of his plot against my brother. He let those things rage inside me, then he sent me a picture of my girlfriend sleeping with some other guy. Less than a month after I’d been infected. Fully aware that emotional stress can trigger a new stray’s shift into cat form and that without training, new strays have little impulse control and difficulty thinking like a human in cat form.

“He treated me like a loaded gun, then he aimed me at Ivy and Leland, hoping I would lose control and hurt someone. Or infect someone. Or accidentally kill someone. Because he knew that my scent is so much like Titus’s that everyone would assume he’d committed my crimes. Especially since they had no idea I’d even been infected.

“It was Drew’s fault Ivy died. Hell, he killed Leland himself. That’s why I attacked him. Because of what he did to them. Because of what he made me do to them. Because of what he turned me into. I’m a killer because of that bastard.”

Anger on my behalf flashed in Kaci’s eyes. “Tell that to the tribunal,” she said. “Exactly like you said it just now. They can’t find you guilty if they understand the circumstances.”

“They already know the circumstances. Titus told them all of that when they tried to make him choose between me and Robyn. Armed with all of the information, at least two of the three tribunal members have decided to vote against me before the trial even starts.”

“Okay, but even if that’s true, you don’t know they’ll vote to execute. They didn’t for Robyn. Or Manx.”

“Manx and Robyn are women. The council needs them, but they don’t need me. They don’t even want me. There are more than enough strays, from the council’s perspective, and they’re already pissed off about being forced to give me a trial.”

“You don’t know—”

“Kaci.” I took both of her hands and captured her gaze, trying to make her understand. “There is no future for me in the territories. I have to go. I have to win what I can tonight, then get on an international flight in the morning. I want you to come with me. But I’ll understand if you can’t. I’ve gotten you into enough trouble as it is.”

Kaci stared at our intertwined hands. She rubbed my forefinger with her thumb. Then she took a deep breath and looked up. “I’m in.”

“You’re in?” For a second, I was sure I’d heard her wrong. I’d asked her for something crazy. Something that made no sense. I’d been prepared for the toughest rejection of my life. But… “Seriously?”

“Yes. I’m coming with you. So, let’s go downstairs and win some money.” She frowned. “How do we do that? I don’t think they’ll even let me on the floor.”

“They won’t. The bad news is that I’m going to have to gamble on my own. You can stay here and get some sleep or go grab dinner. There’s a great Asian place in the casino that’s open all night. Those are pretty much the options, though. The spa and the pools are closed.”

“Okay.” She looked disappointed, but resigned. “I’ll go get some dinner. Was there good news?”

“Oh. Yeah.” I leaned in and kissed her again. “After I win, we’re going to party. Then we’re going to book a one-way flight out of here.”