Justus

They’re going to convict.

Eavesdropping probably wasn’t what Victor Di Carlo had in mind when he’d told me to practice using my heightened shifter senses—just one of the challenges for any newly-infected stray. And, of course, I hadn’t expected to overhear my own fate when I’d loitered at the top of the staircase that afternoon, frozen in place by the whispered mention of my own name.

We don’t have the votes.

Though he’d said them hours ago, Vic’s words still echoed in my mind with the impact of a judge’s gavel. Not that there would be a judge at my trial. Or a jury. There would only be a tribunal made up of three Alphas chosen by the venerable short straw method to determine whether I would be found innocent or guilty.

Whether I would live or die.

With that truth weighing on me, I knelt in the tiny second-floor laundry room of the guest house and set my backpack in the bottom of an empty laundry basket, then I piled my dirty clothes on top of it.

Until tonight, I’d been naive enough to assume I’d at least get to testify before the votes were cast, but through the shifter grapevine—a backchannel of high-level conversations overheard by and recounted to enforcers across the country—I’d learned that the Alphas had already made their decision, though a date for the trial had yet to be officially set.

I was screwed. As good as dead.

Joining the South-Central Territory was supposed to guarantee me a fair trial, rather than the simple order of execution most strays would have gotten, but it did not guarantee me a favorable verdict. Or even, evidently, the chance to explain my actions before the votes were counted.

The “civilization” of the US territories had turned out to be a facade—a smiling mask worn over the snarling muzzle of a beast hell-bent on devouring me for the sin of being born human. Well, for that, and for the crimes I’d been manipulated into committing as a terrified, disoriented, newly infected stray.

But I would not stick around to be devoured.

I stood with my laundry basket and took several deep breaths, because if I went downstairs in a panic, the guys would know something was wrong. They’d hear my racing pulse without even consciously listening for it. They’d smell fear in the scent of my sweat.

Vic had taken me under his wing over the past four months, but all I’d really learned was how to flee the ranch, right under his nose. Guilt hovered at the edge of my mind at the thought of betraying him, but I shoved it back. I’d rather live with smudged honor than die with my integrity intact.

My pulse under control, I headed downstairs.

“Kaci’s back.” Brian Taylor paused his video game, freezing the car race on the sixty-four-inch screen, and stared out the front window of the guest house.

I stopped on the lower landing and listened, my laundry basket clasped under one arm. After a second of concentration, I heard what he’d detected: the soft rumble of an engine all the way at the front of the property.

“You want me to check it out?” Brian asked, and Vic looked up from his seat at the bar, where he was rapidly demolishing a twelve-inch meatball sub and an entire party-sized bag of Doritos.

“I got it.” I dropped my laundry by the door. It would be my distinct pleasure to run off Kaci’s latest boyfriend. She’d been just as good to me as the guys had, and chasing off the human loser would give me a chance to say goodbye—even if she didn’t know that’s what I was doing. “They’re probably in the barn?”

Vic glanced at his cell as it began to vibrate on the counter. “Don’t worry about it. Marc says he’s on it.”

“Awesome.” Brian went back to his game, and his on-screen car leapt into motion again, barreling over a bridge onto a highway below, where he swerved to avoid a firetruck screeching as its red lights flashed.

“I don’t get it.” The only duty any of the enforcers ever seemed to shirk was making sure Kaci’s dates left the property in a timely fashion. “What’s so hard about scaring off one human asshole?”

“The date’s not the problem.” Brian leaned to the right as he turned his car, as if he were actually in the vehicle he was controlling. “Kaci creeps me out.”

“Taylor,” Vic warned, dropping his sandwich onto its wrapper.

I frowned at Brian. “What am I not getting?” According to my brother, tabbies were rare and coveted. They were supposed to have their pick of any tomcat in the country, and most enforcers were desperate to catch their attention. Which was why the council had lost its collective shit when Robyn had decided she’d rather live with Titus in the untamed free zone than even consider any of the “natural-born” tomcats in the US territories.

Titus had told me to stay away from Kaci for exactly that reason—because the council would not be happy if another of their few eligible women fell for a stray. Especially, a stray charged with two capital offenses.

Yet most of the South-Central enforcers treated Kaci like she had the plague.

Brian shrugged. “She’s a man-eater.”

Vic stood, and his barstool fell onto the tile floor. “Faythe fired the last guy who said that. Should I tell her to start writing another want-ad?”

“No, man.” Brian paused his game again. “I mean no disrespect. I don’t hang out with her or anything, so for all I know, she turned out perfectly nice. And psychologically sound. But…it’s true.” He turned back to me. “She literally ate a human being. If anyone else had done that, they’d have been executed. Cannibalism is unnatural, and it’s fucking creepy as hell.”

“Brian…” Vic warned.

“Don’t get me wrong,” Taylor continued, hands held in front of him in a defensive gesture. “I wish I didn’t know what I know about Kaci, because someone’s gotta make a mom out of her. But it would take me a while to get past the thought of her eating human flesh in order to…rise to the occasion. Even if she is hot enough to make a man sweat.”

“Fortunately, no one’s asking you to rise to shit, so get over it, or get out.” Vic wiped his mouth with a paper napkin, then wadded it up and dropped it on the counter. “She was a starving, traumatized kid who had no idea what she was doing. And she’s more of a survivor than you’ll ever be, so if I hear one more word from you about Kaci, I’ll kick your ass myself.”

“Sorry, man.” Brian turned back to his game.

“And turn that shit down.” Vic picked up his bar stool as I pulled a carton of laundry detergent from beneath the kitchen cabinet. “Where are you going?”

“Will’s using the washer,” I told him. “Faythe said I could use the one in the main house.”

“Don’t forget to clean out the lint filter, or she’ll take your head right off.” He sank onto his stool again and took another bite of his sub.

“Thanks, man.” I clapped one hand on his shoulder. “I really appreciate that.”

Vic gave me a strange look, and I pretended not to notice as I dropped the detergent on top of my laundry and picked up the basket. He had no way of knowing my gratitude was for more than just the lint filter advice. Or that I would be gone for much longer than the duration of a spin cycle.

“Okay. I’ll be back,” I said as I opened the door, half-convinced someone would see through my lie and try to stop me.

But neither Brian nor Vic looked up.

I crossed the lawn and headed into the main house through the back door, to see who was still awake and might catch me sneaking off. And maybe to run into Kaci one last time.

Former cannibal or not, she’d never been anything but nice to me. And she was the only girl I’d ever met who liked The Twilight Zone. As in, the original black and white episodes.

The door to the nursery was closed, but that didn’t mean much. Little Greg was usually a sound sleeper, but babies were unpredictable, and either of my new Alphas could be found plodding between the nursery and the master suite at any time of the day or night.

Faythe’s mom was in her sixties and suffered from occasional bouts insomnia, and Kaci hadn’t gone to sleep before midnight once in the four months I’d been on the ranch.

Not that I was stalking her. The light from her bedroom was visible through the front window of the guest house, where I slept on the couch. How could I not notice when it was on?

Still focusing to control my pulse, I headed into the utility room. My plan was to hang out and pretend to do laundry until I was sure no one in the main house was awake to hear the car engine when I left.

As I listened for voices from the house around me, I removed an armful of baby…things from the dryer and set them on the counter for folding, then I transferred a load of wet towels into the dryer, hoping that helping with the laundry might somehow karmically balance out the escape I was planning. Though my real hope was that if I actually started a load of my clothes, when they discovered me missing they might think I’d just gone for a walk on the property to pass the time until the cycle finished. Maybe that would at least delay the discovery of the missing car.

Marc’s distinctive footsteps crossed the hall into his bedroom as I pulled my backpack from the basket and dumped my laundry into the washer. While I set the cycle on the machine, I mentally catalogued all the other sounds from the main house.

Karen was snoring from her room.

Faythe and Kaci were talking in the office, but the door was closed, so I couldn’t tell what they were saying. With any luck, I could sneak right past. As soon as I—

Shit. Too late, I realized I’d hidden the keys in the basket—then dumped them in with my clothes.

Grumbling beneath my breath, I dug into the washer, trying to keep the keys from falling against the metal drum, which would be like ringing a gong for the rest of the house to hear.

It had taken me forever to find a set of unattended keys, and if I wasn’t long gone before Chris noticed that he’d left them in his jeans pocket, I would lose my chance. And I’d never get another one, once they knew I was a flight risk.

Hell, they’d probably lock me in one of the jail cells in the basement.

Finally, my fingers grazed something hard and jagged. I pulled the keys out, and with them, the pair of pants they’d snagged on. As I was disentangling the lock fob from the belt loop of my jeans, the door behind me squeaked softly open. The key ring finally released my pants, which fell back into the washer, and I turned, keys in hand, to find Kaci Dillon staring right at me.

Her gaze settled on the keys and her eyes widened. Then she snatched them before I’d even truly processed the fact that I was no longer alone.

Busted.

* * *

Kaci closed her bedroom door and leaned against it, glaring at me through beautiful hazel eyes. “What the hell are you doing?” she demanded in a fierce whisper.

Stalling for time to come up with an acceptable answer, I let my backpack slide off my arm onto the floor while I studied her room. It was messier than I’d expected, though I’m not sure what I’d expected, considering I’d only ever seen the outside of her window and her door.

Again, I was not stalking her.

Dirty clothes lay scattered over the floor, a couple of books stood open on her desk, and her unmade bed looked like she’d tried to wrestle her covers into submission.

With a fleeting and unexpected bolt of jealousy, I realized she might have had help destroying the bed. But then a quick sniff confirmed that she’d probably never had a guy in her room in her entire life.

Until now.

The thought that I might be the first guy ever admitted into her personal space triggered a satisfied rumble deep in my throat, but I swallowed it before the sound could escape.

“What are you looking at?” she demanded.

“Nothing.” She’d mistaken my curiosity for a critique of her housekeeping skills. But it wasn’t like I could criticize. The only reason my apartment in Jackson hadn’t been condemned by the city was the bi-weekly cleaning service my brother had paid for.

My gaze landed on the iPad open on her desk, and I ran one finger across it. The screen woke up, showing a movie app paused in the middle of a black and white scene I recognized. “You’re watching The Twilight Zone without me?” Not that I would be around to watch with her anymore.

Kaci snatched the tablet and flipped the cover closed. “Don’t change the subject.” She dropped it on the bed, then glared at me with her left hand propped on her hip, Chris’s keys dangling from her right index finger. “What the hell are you doing with these?”

“Would you believe me if I said I found them?” Phrased in the form of a question, my answer wasn’t technically a lie…

“I’d believe that you found them after a deliberate and unauthorized search. Where are you going? Your trial is— Oh!” She slapped her spare hand over her mouth, muffling her next words. “You’re running. You can’t run!”

“I’m not running.” I felt even guiltier about lying to her than about lying to Vic. “I’m taking a vacation.”

“Right. Because everyone who’s about to be tried for murder and infection decides to go hang out at the beach for a few days.”

“Not the beach. Las Vegas.” She opened her mouth to start yelling at me, and that time I covered her mouth with my hand. “Wait. I can prove it. Are you going to be quiet?”

She shoved my hand away from her face. “Like you could do anything about it if I say no.”

“Okay, look.” I slid my cell phone from my pocket and opened my email, then showed her the electronic boarding pass. “See? My flight to Vegas leaves in less than three hours. I’m just going to chill for a few days, before they decide to lock me up. Or execute me. One last hurrah, you know?”

“You’re serious? This is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. What are you going to do in Las Vegas? You’re not old enough to gamble. Or to drink.”

“I am according to this.” I pulled my wallet from my back pocket and showed her my fake ID. Everything on it was true except my date of birth, which had been adjusted by two years. “Come on. They’re probably going to execute me. I just want to have a little fun before I die, Kaci,” I whispered. “Are you really going to deny a dying man his last wish?”

“First of all, you’re not going to die.” But she didn’t seem to believe her own words. She may not have heard what Vic had said, but she knew even better than I did how steeply the odds were stacked against me. “Second, your last wish is Las Vegas? Aren’t you, like, a billionaire? You’ve probably been there a million times.”

“My brother’s the billionaire. I’m not going to live long enough to actually access my trust fund.”

“Then how’d you buy the ticket?”

“Airline miles. I have a ton of them.” I shrugged as I stuffed my wallet back into my pocket. “Titus sent me all over the world during school breaks the past few years, evidently to keep me from coming home.” From figuring out that he was no longer human, and that his house was full of shifter enforcers. He’d had no way of knowing how soon—or how traumatically—I’d discover all of that for myself. “And I charged the hotel room with virtually the last available credit on my one card. So see? I’m not running. I can’t afford to run. I’m just trying to have a little fun, one last time.” I gave her my best pitiful look, well aware that my future now depended upon how much sympathy Kaci felt for a doomed murderer she had no reason to help. “Are you going to turn me in?”

“No.” Her sexy pout grew into a smoldering grin, and I caught my breath, suddenly bowled over by the urge to kiss her. After all, there’s no exit like a dramatic exit, and frankly, I was running out of chances. “I’m coming with you.”

Yes.

Wait, what? “No. I can’t—”

“Take me with you, or you’re not going anywhere.” She shoved Chris’s keys into her pocket to punctuate her threat, and my gaze snagged there, on the front of her jeans. “I’ve never been to Las Vegas. I’ve never been anywhere, Justus.”

I dragged my focus up her body, forcing myself to find her face. To push past the hypnotizing thought of running off with Kaci and focus on the madness she was actually proposing. “Kaci, this isn’t a…” …vacation. Except that was exactly what I’d told her it was. “I can’t take you.”

“Why not?”

“Because if I’ve learned anything from what my brother just went through with Robyn, it’s that taking a tabby out of her territory without permission is considered an act of war against the Territorial Council. I’m in enough trouble already.”

Kaci crossed her arms beneath her breasts, and I had to drag my gaze back up to her face. Again. “I know you’re new at this, but you are so clueless. I’m giving you permission. And no one’s going to start a war over me. First of all, I’m not defecting, like Abby and Robyn did—I’m just taking a vacation. Second, I’m not going into the free zone. Nevada’s in the Southwest Territory, so the worst we’re really going to have to worry about is Paul Blackwell getting pissed that we didn’t ask permission to cross the border. But you’re already up on murder charges, so how much more damage can a trespassing charge actually do?”

Fair point, especially considering that I had no intention of actually sticking around for my trial.

“And besides all that…I’m not one of the tabbies they fuss over around here, in case you haven’t noticed.” Her expression suddenly felt like armor, but there was something fragile in her voice.

“I have noticed,” I admitted. “But I don’t really understand why.” The fact that her childhood trauma scared all the other guys away said more about them than it said about her, in my opinion.

“Think fast, rich boy. Are we staying or going?” She glanced at her wrist, as if she were wearing a watch. “Time’s running out if you want to catch that flight.”

If she turned me in, I wouldn’t make it off the ranch again until my trial, which I might never come back from.

“June’s a terrible time to go to Nevada,” I told her. “It’s hot. You’re going to hate it.”

Kaci blinked at me in incomprehension. Then her eyes lit up. She smiled, and for the first time since I’d met her, she looked truly happy.

And utterly gorgeous.

This isn’t a date, Justus. This is a crime.

“So, can I have the keys now?”

“No way. I’m driving,” she insisted. “And we’re not leaving until you buy my ticket.”

I rolled my eyes. Clearly she didn’t trust me—with good reason. “Fine. Throw some things into a bag, and make it fast.”

While she packed, I pulled up the airline website on my phone. “Hey,” I whispered from the bathroom doorway while she dropped her toothpaste into the bag. “I don’t know how to spell your name.”

She motioned for my phone, and when I handed it over, she typed her information into the online form. Two seconds later, her phone dinged. She checked the text and found her boarding pass.

“Now can I have the keys?” I asked.

“No. I’m still driving.” But she was grinning from ear to ear as she threw her backpack over one shoulder. “Let me make sure Faythe’s office door is closed, then we’ll go for it. Walk straight down the hall, but not too fast, because if it sounds like we’re in a hurry, they’ll come out. The front door doesn’t squeak, and Chris parks facing away from the house, so that’s already one stroke of luck.”

“I assume we’ll leave the headlights off until we get to the road?” Suddenly I was excited by the idea of this escape, though before, I’d just been determined.

Kaci shook her head. “Rookie mistake. They’ll hear the engine and assume Chris is going out. But if there are no headlights, they’ll know something’s wrong.

“Good point.” I was a little frightened by how good she was at this.

No, I was a little impressed.

“Ready?” Her eyes lit up, and seeing her so excited made me want to pull her close and steal some of her joy and hope, and pretend this really was just a vacation with a beautiful girl, rather than a last-ditch effort to save my own life.

Instead, I returned her smile and grabbed my bag. “Let’s do it.”

Kaci turned and opened the door, then sucked in a little gasp of surprise. Her spine stiffened. She slowly let her bag slide off her shoulder, then she set it on the floor next to the door, hidden from the hallway by the wall.

“Change of plans.” She opened the door wider, and little Greg toddled inside, rubbing his eyes with both chubby fists. “First I have to do something about this.”

“I’m ‘posed to be sleepin’.” Greg dropped his hands and looked up at me in confusion. Even the toddler knew I wasn’t supposed to be in Kaci’s bedroom. If his father caught me there…

He turned to look up at Kaci. “Sing.”

Her expression melted and she bent to lift him onto her hip. “Okay, baby.” She patted his back, and as he laid his head on her shoulder, she began to hum a soft tune. His eyes closed immediately.

A second later, his breathing slowed. The kid was passed out right there on her chest. And I had to admit, that looked like a great place to be.

“Holy shit,” I breathed. “You’re, like, the baby whisperer.”

She smiled. “It’s this new routine we have, since baby Ethan arrived. Little Greg’s feeling kind of…displaced.”

“Well, he looks like a lucky kid from where I’m standing.”

Kaci’s focus snapped up to my eyes and her cheeks flushed. Her heart began to beat a little harder. Something in her scent changed, and I had to shove my hands into my pockets to keep from reaching for her.

She cleared her throat and regrouped. “Okay, I’m going to take this little guy back to bed, then we’re going to make a break for it. Got it?”

“Just give me my cue.”

“I’m not leaving you for good, buddy,” she whispered into the sleeping kid’s ear as she headed down the hall. “I’ll be back before you know it…”

I mentally followed her footsteps as Kaci took Greg back to the nursery. A minute later, she opened her bedroom door and grabbed her bag. But the true brilliance of her plan didn’t shine through until I heard music playing from the nursery and realized that whatever device was projecting stars across Greg’s room and filling it with a lullaby would also help cover our footsteps.

I followed Kaci past the closed office door, out of the house, and down the front steps, where she unlocked Chris’s car with a very conspicuous-sounding thump. She dropped her backpack onto the rear seat next to mine, but instead of sliding behind the wheel, she stared at the front of the house.

For a second, I thought she was saying a mental goodbye. Or having second thoughts. Then I followed her gaze through the window of Faythe’s office, which was still lit up at nearly one in the morning.

Our Alphas were making out on the desk, Faythe’s legs wrapped around Marc’s waist, as if they weren’t married with two kids and a whole territory to run. As if there were nothing more important in the world at that moment than touching each other.

Kaci sighed, drawing my attention from over the car roof. She looked transfixed, not in a creepy peeping tom way, but in a wistful one. As if she were watching a fairytale play out in real life. Looking in from the outside at something she seemed convinced she’d never have.

Man-eater.

Suddenly I had the urge to delay my escape just long enough to go punch Brian Taylor in the face. It was his fault she thought she could never have that—his, and all the other asshole enforcers who treated her like a freak.

“You okay?” I whispered, and Kaci actually jumped. Her cheeks flushed again and she practically threw herself into the car.

“Yeah. Get in.” She shifted into drive as I settled into my seat, then she pulled away from the house as if it were nothing. As if she escaped from the ranch every day.

I didn’t exhale until she pulled Chris’s car out of the driveway and onto the road. “You’ve done that before,” I accused as I stared through the rearview mirror, half-expecting another car to come after us.

“A couple of times.” The speedometer edged toward seventy, but she drove as if she’d been born with a steering wheel in her hands. “But never with both Faythe and Marc at home.”

“How much trouble did you get into?”

“For leaving without permission? Hardcore grounding. But probably nothing compared to the trouble this will bring. Even now that I’m technically grown.”

“We can still go back,” I told her. We should go back. I should take her home and keep her out of this.

“Ha!” She dropped her phone in my lap. “It’s unlocked. Disable tracking, will you? I need to be someone else for a couple of days. Anyone but the—”

Man-eater.

I heard it, even though she didn’t say it.

“Anyone but me,” she finished.

“I guess that means you’re serious?” I navigated through her phone settings to disable her location services, and when I looked up, I found her staring at the road with an ironclad determination, her eyes shining in the glow from passing streetlights. She looked fierce and stunning. “You’re really going to do this?”

“We’re really going to do this, Justus.”

The sound of my name on her tongue made me want to hear it again, under slightly more naked circumstances.

Okay, under very naked circumstances.

Though I would have settled for a kiss. For one chance to make her look at me the way Faythe looked at Marc—as if being with me would fix everything that was wrong with her life, rather than ruining it.

She liked me. I could tell that from the way her pulse sped up every time she looked at me. But I had no right to act upon her attraction, when soon she’d have to watch me run. Or see me executed.

We only had one day. Less, really. But that should be enough time for me to show her that she’s worthy of everything she wants in life and in love—even if I can’t be the one to give it to her.