Chapter Eight
Dame had to bring her the damn food.
He’d tried to throw away the stuffed salmon dinner three times now, but here he stood, with the fifty-dollar meal dangling over the trash bin at his house, and he couldn’t get his dang fingers to release the plastic bag.
He tried as hard as he could, but his fingers wouldn’t open.
He growled a curse and walked it into his house for the third time. He would try again in an hour.
Only when he tried to set it on the counter, his legs took him toward the front door and straight out to his truck, all the while with him yelling, “Stop, stop, stop, stop!”
He didn’t even have his keys, so he didn’t know what the tiger’s plan was with all of this. Piss him off even more?
He’d bought it for Misty, and meant to set it on her porch, but his resolve was hella shaky right now. He’d convinced Marsden to park her car and walked a few blocks to meet him in a tire shop parking lot so he didn’t get too close to Misty’s apartment.
And then he’d forced himself to drive home, sat in his truck for a damn hour trying to convince himself not to turn around and take care of her, and now here he was, standing at his truck door again with the lukewarm food dangling from his freaking claw.
He would try reasoning with the beast.
“Look, we had to take five showers and her smell still clings to us. Stellan will kill her—we will kill Stellan,” he said in a deeper voice on accident.
“No!” he reasoned with the monster. “We will not kill our own brother. We will stay separate from Misty, and everyone can live in peace—don’t want peace, want Rabbit.”
“Fffff,” he said in a strangled voice as he looked up at the clouds above, praying for patience.
“Look, the way everyone lives is if we make the sacrifice—No—Yes, because it’s the right thing to do—Don’t want to be right, want to be evil—No!
Evil is bad—Stellan gets to be evil—Stellan has a moral compass problem—Stellan is annoying anyway—Stellan is our brother!
—Stellan eats steak sauce on his meat—Why would that have anything to do with what we are talking about? —I don’t know but it’s weird.”
His voice was getting scratchy from the growly words of his tiger. He cleared it and pinched the bridge of his nose. Maybe if he just hit himself over the head with a frying pan and knocked himself out, he could have some peace.
I want to be with her. The Tiger’s scratchy voice made him cough.
“We can’t,” he said tiredly. “It puts her in danger. You know how bad Stellan hurt our body yesterday? That could be her.”
The tiger went quiet inside of him.
He could feel the animal withdraw. Good. He could pout all he wanted to. Dame didn’t like it either, but he understood the logic of this decision. The animal just wanted instant gratification and didn’t care about consequences. He never had.
In a few days, when she was good and hurt by the way he’d left her, when she hated him, and had moved on, Dame was going to reactivate his account and message her a convincing note on why she needed to leave town if she wanted to stay alive.
And she would move away out of Stellan’s reach, and everything would be okay.
It was a good plan.
Inside the house, he heard his phone ding with a text. He sighed and headed in, and when he checked the message from Marsden, his stomach dropped.
Stellan is waiting outside the hospital where the Rabbit works.
Shit.
I’ll be right there. Send.
Furious, Dame ran to the bathroom and doused himself in cologne. He was going to have a raging headache from it in about two minutes but screw it. He had to mask Misty’s scent.
Dame drove like a bat out of hell to that hospital, barely pausing for stop signs. Twice he ran red lights.
He’d expected the tiger to be pacing in the shadows, but when he got there, he was shocked to see Marsden’s truck parked on the curb closest to the tree line, and Stellan sitting at a picnic table, his eyes trained on the hospital. He was in his human form.
What the hell?
Dame parked behind Mars and made his way to the open passengers side window. “How did you know he was here?” Dame asked.
Mars had such hatred in his eyes as he glared at Stellan. “I just had a feeling.”
Dame frowned. “What does it matter to you?”
“I don’t want her to die, asshole. Get away from my truck. My shift is over. You’re on the clock.” Marsden hit the gas and sped away the second Dame took his hands from the open window frame.
Dame stared after him completely confused. He was always on the clock.
Shaking his head, Dame made his way toward the picnic table that sat right on the edge of the trees.
There was acreage beside the hospital, and this table had probably seen a million tears from people who were losing their loved ones in that building and needed a serene place to have a minute to themselves.
Now, it housed a monster.
“She’s not here,” Dame said.
“Do you know when she will be back?” his brother asked.
Dame didn’t answer.
Stellan ripped his gaze away from the hospital for just a moment to look at Dame and then went back to staring. “Why did you do that?” he gritted out.
“Do what?” Dame asked, stopping several yards away.
A growl rattled Stellan’s throat, and he clenched his jaw so hard, a muscle twitched there. “Lead me to her?”
Dame shoved his hands into his pockets and looked around. He hadn’t noticed this green space last night. It was pretty here. “I don’t know why I came to her. I was hurt. My mind wasn’t working right.”
“You ruined everything,” Stellan said low.
Dame was confused. “I thought you would be happy to find your Rabbit.”
“Are you fucking serious?” Stellan demanded, his eyes flashing gold as he glared at Dame.
“You think I want to do this? You think I want this hunt? She’s an innocent.
She’s a woman. She could have a family, man.
Kids. Parents. A husband. Fuck, I don’t know.
You dragged me right to her with your goddamn blood trail, and for what?
” Stellan stood and held his hands out, palm up, beseeching Dame. “Why?”
There was no use lying to a Cat. Dame hated the words as each spilled from his mouth though. “I like her.”
“What the hell, man?” Stellan barked. “Take it back.” He shook his head and paced away. “Say anything else.”
“I think parts of me have liked her since you attacked her. Since I saw her for the first time five years ago. Since she didn’t go to the police about what happened.
Since she protected you in that way.” He scratched his nose.
“I knew she was a nurse. I needed help. You and Mars hurt me bad. I probably wouldn’t be standing here with you if I hadn’t come to her. ”
Stellan shook his head and for the first time since before he’d been Turned, Dame could see fear in his eyes. “I can’t call the animal off her. I don’t even have access to him. I try.”
“You do?” Dame asked, surprised. This was news to him.
“He’s bigger than me, man. He always has been. He can reach me. He can control me if he tries hard enough. Look at me. I’m here in my human form, waiting for her. I can’t reach him though. I can’t control him. You’re going to have to put me down.”
“Stellan—”
“We’ve talked about it before—”
“Stellan—”
“We rode this as long as we could—”
“Stellan, stop!”
Stellan blurred to him and grabbed him by the shoulders. “I can’t stop what’s coming for her.”
Dame wasn’t scared because he could take Stellan.
Yesterday had been a fluke where he’d been trying to break up a savage fight between Stellan and Marsden’s tigers, and they had both turned on him.
He’d been put at a disadvantage so fast with both of them on him.
He wasn’t mad. It was how it was with Cats.
He’d fought Stellan a hundred times, and a hundred times he’d won.
And that was why he didn’t believe him when he said he had no control over the tiger. Every time, he’d kept the tiger from fighting full force. Every time, Dame could feel him holding back.
He wasn’t a mindless killer. Just mostly mindless.
Plus, Dame wasn’t his Rabbit. Cats hunted their Rabbits differently.
They hunted them until they killed them, even if it took them their entire lifetime.
It was ingrained. It was unavoidable. It was the big hunt to end all hunts and satisfy something deep within them.
It was unpredictable which prey each tiger would choose for a Rabbit.
It was awful, terrible, disastrous luck that Stellan’s animal had chosen Misty.
Stellan inhaled, his nostrils flaring, and his pupils constricted to pinpoints. He released Dame in a rush as anger filtered through his glowing gold eyes. “I smell her on you.” His voice was different now—grittier, deeper, scratchier.
Dame closed his eyes in frustration. Even with five showers with strong bodywash, and dousing himself in cologne, Stellan could smell her.
“Where is she?” Stellan demanded in that demon’s voice of his.
“I can’t tell you. You know I can’t tell you.”
“Where is she!” he roared in Dame’s face.
“Gone.”
“Lie. Try again.”
“Gone,” Dame enunciated. “You would have to torture me for that information, and I would die before I tell you.” There was some truth for him.
Rage flitted across Stellan’s face. Rage and desperation. Mars had left too soon. He was missing the show.
“Let’s do this in the woods,” Dame told him somberly. “We both know what’s going to happen.”
“You’re still hurt. We don’t have to fight.
You could just tell me where she is,” Stellan negotiated.
“You don’t have to die for her.” The terrifying part was Dame had never heard his animal speaking through him.
Marsden and Dame? It was pretty routine, but up until now, they’d thought Stellan’s human side was completely separate from the animal inside of him.
This was really bad.
He had a moment walking into those woods beside his brother that he wanted to place the blame on something. On his upbringing, on the betrayal of a family member, on Stellan or his tiger. He wished he could blame himself, or Mars.
But really, the blame fell on Fate.
They’d been born onto this path where one of them was going to fall for the other’s Rabbit. Somewhere out there, the Fates were laughing. They’d orchestrated this so seamlessly.
So, if he could point the blame anywhere at all…it had to be that.
This moment had been set up so perfectly.
He believed it.
This moment had always been destined to happen.