Chapter Ten
“It can’t be true.”
The words were muffled and echoed through Mars’s head.
He winced at the excruciating headache that was pounding behind his eyes.
He tried to open his eyes, but the instant light hit his pupils, the headache turned agonizing.
“How much did you give him?” Was that Dame’s voice?
“I don’t know. I don’t know how to dose those. He’s a fucking Cat. Metabolize it.” That was for-sure his least favorite brother’s voice.
“Stellan,” Mars gritted out.
“Oh, good, you lived,” Stellan said sarcastically. He didn’t sound happy about it at all.
“What’s your problem,” Mars choked out in a hoarse voice as he rolled to his side and propped up on an elbow. There was concrete under him, and the smells of Dame’s barn were starting to hit his senses.
He eased his eyes open to see if his instincts were right. Yep. He was in the cage.
“What the fuck are you doing?” he ground out to Stellan. “You drugged me and drove me here? And put me in the cage?”
“You found your Rabbit.” He held up Mars’s phone. “Nice lock screen.”
It was a selfie of him and Ren from the wedding.
“Did you fuck your Rabbit?” Stellan demanded.
“Dude. I don’t think you can ask him that,” Dame said, arms crossed as he leaned against the farthest wall from Mars.
Mars crawled to the cot and struggled up onto it. He was so disoriented, and nauseous from whatever drug Stellan had tried to murder him with. “Did you know about this?” Mars asked Dame.
“Did I know about the drugging and kidnapping and locking you in the cage? Or are you asking me if I knew about you zeroing on a Rabbit? No! Because neither one of you fucking rodents will answer my calls!” Oh, he sounded mad-mad.
Mars rubbed his face. “Can I have some water? I need to get Stellan’s murder-juice out of my body.”
A clang sounded from where Dame threw a bottle of water against the bars as hard as he could. The plastic bottle exploded and sprayed water all over Mars.
With a snarl, he stood and slammed into the bars of the cage. The entire cage shook with his force. “Give me a fucking water and treat me like I’m your brother you’ve known since birth, you prick.”
Dame yanked a water out of the opened case on the table and strode for him, his eyes bright gold. “You don’t tell me anything.”
“I don’t have anything to tell,” Mars ground out, holding his hand out for the water.
Dame slammed it against his palm. “But you have all these secrets to tell Stellan.”
“Are you seriously jealous of me asking the most fucked up of all three of us advice on being fucked up? Take it as a compliment that I didn’t want to tell you! I’m not trying to disappoint you!”
“But you don’t mind disappointing me?” Stellan demanded.
“No! You can’t judge anyone.”
“What does that mean?” Stellan asked, his pupils shrinking to pinpoints as he stalked closer.
“You chose a human Rabbit.”
“And? I didn’t kill her!”
“Technically because we stopped you,” Dame said quietly.
“Stay out of it!” Mars and Stellan barked at the same time.
Dame threw his hands up into the air and made his way toward the fridge in the corner. “I’m too sober for this.”
Mars was chugging the bottle of water like his life depended on it. He wiped a drip from his chin and threw the empty plastic bottle at Stellan. “Give me my phone. I need to text Ren.”
“Ren,” Dame asked, standing. “That’s your Rabbit’s name?”
“Yes, but again, I was just asking for advice on a Rabbit.”
“Have you tried to kill her yet?” Dame asked.
“No. Not yet.”
He frowned and looked to Stellan and back to Mars. “Like…you haven’t even tried to kill her one time?”
“No,” he grumbled, sinking down onto the cot again and resting the heels of his hands against his throbbing eye sockets. “What the hell did you give me, man?” he asked Stellan.
“A chill pill.”
“How long was I out?” And realization hit him. Ren was probably so worried. They were supposed to fly together today. “Shit,” he uttered, sitting up straight. “What time is it?”
Stellan checked Mars’s phone screen. “Four fifteen p.m.”
“Give me the phone! Fuck.” Mars paced the cage, mind racing. The flight left hours ago. She’d probably messaged him and left the airport when he hadn’t met her there.
“I already messaged her,” Stellan mumbled, typing something onto Mars’s phone.
“What? Why? What did you say to her?”
“I told her to meet you here and that you would pick her up from the airport.”
His mind was spinning in circles. “Her flight landed an hour ago. It’s already landed! I need to get to the airport.” Mars rattled the bars of the cage hard. “Give me the phone so I can call her!”
Stellan took a bite of a beef jerky strip and narrowed his eyes at the phone screen. “You told her you love her, and she said it back. Very Un-Rabbit of her.”
“What?” he yelled, panic making his heart race. “Give me my fucking phone!”
“Or what?”
“How did you even get into it?”
“I used your face to unlock it while you were unconscious, and then I changed the password to the one I wanted. Six nine six nine. And then I messaged your Rabbit a lot. Also, I read all your text messages. You’re even more messed up than me.
I didn’t ever try to make Misty fall in love with me before I hunted her. That’s sick, Mars.”
“Give his phone back,” Dame said so softly, Mars almost missed it. His brother was staring at Stellan with a frown. “Now.”
“Or what?” Stellan asked, standing to his full height and zeroing his attention in on Dame.
“Or I’ll fight you.” Truth.
Mars would’ve found this slightly entertaining if he wasn’t shaking with anger right now.
“Oh, but when I find my Rabbit, I’m treated like an animal,” Stellan ground out, eyes flashing a brighter gold as he squared up to Dame.
“Look, if this is some messed up way to get him back for whatever it is you are mad about? This isn’t the way,” Dame said low.
“I’m helping him.”
“Messing with his Rabbit isn’t helping and you know it.”
And Mars could tell he was thinking about it.
Stellan was considering Changing and going straight at Dame.
But that last fight they’d all had, just outside this shop, one year ago, had made them all wary of fighting.
They could absolutely take it too far and have to live with loss for the rest of their lives.
It wasn’t like their scuffles as kids, or as younger Cats. They were all monsters now.
Stellan shoved Mars’s phone into his back pocket and slid an angry glare to him. “This is for your own good.”
“I don’t know even know why you’re mad at me,” Mars said. “I called you a bunch of times. I texted you. I checked in.”
“Congratulations. You finally did a few texts and calls. Where were you when I found my Rabbit?” Stellan asked. “Where were you all the years I was hunting her? You just swooped in at the end and pretended to give a shit.” He made a click sound behind his teeth and strode for the door.
“Stellan,” Dame called after him.
“Go fuck yourself,” he barked as he disappeared around the open sliding doors.
Dame hung his head. After a three count, he looked back at Mars.
“I’m not sick,” Mars defended himself. “It wasn’t some game, me trying to make her fall in love with me. I’m asking for help, aren’t I?”
Dame rested his arms on the bars and cocked his head. “What makes you think she’s your Rabbit?”
Mars swallowed audibly. Honesty was best with Cats.
They could hear a lie. “I can’t stop thinking about her.
I feel on edge, like something big is going to happen with me when I’m around her, but I can’t make myself stay away from her.
I need to be around her. I’m agitated if I go more than a couple of hours without seeing her.
I’m agitated now. It’s…” He inhaled deeply.
“It feels like obsession. It gets bigger every time I see her.”
“Have you slept with her?”
“No!” he barked out, but Dame didn’t look like he was judging him or setting him up for an insult. He looked like he was trying to work this out. “No,” Mars said softer. “I don’t want to hurt her.”
“She’s a Cat though, right? That’s what Stellan said.”
“Yeah.”
“So, she won’t be as vulnerable as Misty was.”
“Yeah, but human or not, Ren is a lot smaller than me, and more submissive. I haven’t seen her Cat side, but I know mine.” He shook his head, hoping Dame would understand. “She’s not fragile. Not at all. But she’s not what I know is inside of me either.”
He nodded. “Okay.”
A sound brushed Mars’s sensitive ears, and he perked up. It was a car engine. Dame lived outside of the city, and no other homes were close.
His animal perked up and a long, low snarl rattled his chest.
That was Misty’s car. He would bet anything.
Relief was already washing through him. Relief and regret.
Ren was here.