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Rising to her feet and collecting the empty cups, Cat turned and carried them to the sink. When she turned back to the other girl, Ashley was merely watching her, studying her.
“He has made many friends while he has been here,” Ashley pointed out. “Friends who would stand against even Jonas, as much as we would hate that. Or his mate, as much as he would hate that. Don’t make enemies of the small group who have ensured his safety. We would not appreciate that.”
Cat wanted to laugh but she was terribly afraid it would sound more like a sob.
“Why don’t you leave, Ashley,” she suggested softly. “This has been amusing, but I have things to do.”
Graeme had been here a year, she had known Ashley for nearly five years, yet it was Cat receiving the warning rather than Graeme.
How ironic was that?
“You are very stubborn,” Ashley observed then, her gaze once again compassionate.
“I’m stubborn?” She had to laugh at that one. “Maybe I’m not stubborn enough, because for years I’ve let myself care about people who couldn’t give a damn about me either way, it seems.”
She hated the ache that burned deep inside her chest, filled her senses and weakened the strength she was fighting so hard to find.
“We care for you, Cat, or I would not be here.” Ashley sighed.
“You’ve known him a year.” Her fists clenched at her sides, anger pouring through her. “A year, Ashley, but you stand here and tell me how displeased you would be if he were brought to his knees? How raw do you think my knees are because of him?”
She had cried for him.
For years, even after she’d been given Claire’s identity, in those years when she should have been allowing someone else to face the world while she hid. Still, she’d awakened while Claire slept, just to cry. To sob into a pillow that wasn’t hers, in a bed that wasn’t hers, in a life that wasn’t hers, for a Bengal who had turned his back on her.
“You think he has drawn such loyalty from only a year, Cat?” Ashley stared back at her in surprise. “When we first came to this desert, a crazed Bengal saved my and Emma’s lives when a sniper would have buried his bullets in our heads. He brought us the sniper’s rifle, snapped in two like a twig, and threw it at us. The stripes on his face were like scars of rage as he snarled at us in fury and ordered us back to the safe zone around Window Rock. We ran back like frightened pups. Not fear of the sniper, but the instinctive fear of a guardian’s reprisal. Not six months later he saved our alpha, who we adore more than others adore a father or brother. He has saved friends, and done so without a price.”
How little they knew that crazed Bengal. Like Jonas, nothing was free.
“He just hasn’t informed you of that price yet,” Cat snapped painfully. “Give him time.”
“And we would gladly pay it, many times over.” Ashley rose slowly to her feet. “You are a friend, Cat, and I do like you very much. But we owe him our lives and the lives of those we love. I, for one, would be very upset should Jonas learn who he was because his mate was not loyal to him.”
Not loyal to him?
How little they knew her as well.
“He left me to die when I was twelve years old,” she cried out furiously, the anger she kept locked inside her burning through her senses. “He left me alone when I knew nothing but his protection. Depended on nothing or no one but him,” she sneered. “I was fucking twelve, and he was my world. So don’t stand here and lecture me on the lives he’s saved, because he destroyed my life. He destroyed me.”
The bitterness, the years of loss and fear ravaged her now. Everything she’d kept locked inside her soul burst through the walls she’d placed around it.
“Cat . . .” The compassion in Ashley’s gaze, in her voice, infuriated her.
Graeme had made certain Ashley had known he’d taken out the sniper, but Cat had never told the Breed female who had sliced the throats of two Council soldiers stalking them more than a year ago. She’d never told anyone the countless times she’d maneuvered their enemies into sight, ensuring they were revealed. Or ensuring they disappeared.
“Forget it. I don’t need your pity.” She was shaking, the strain of too many years of living a life of solitude and aching fear rising inside her.
And why had she done it? Why had she lived as someone she wasn’t? Not for her own damned protection, that was for sure. She’d done it for him. Because she knew to the last reaches of her soul if she was taken then he would come for her. And that when he did, the chances of his destruction, of his death, were too high.
“Pity isn’t a bad thing.” Ashley sighed. “To feel compassion for one who sees only her own anger . . .”
“Give me a fucking break,” Cat cried out, amazed fury pulsing through her. “You’re damned right I only see my own anger, and you’re not helping it in the least. You don’t know what you’re talking about, Ashley, or who you’re talking to, so don’t presume you do. And don’t make the mistake of coming back here to insult me again with your precious advice, because I don’t need it.”
“You will need more than advice if you are the cause of Jonas learning who he is,” Ashley snapped. “You will need a miracle to remain living should that happen.”
Cat flinched, but not from what Ashley said or how she said it. Pain sliced across her senses, raged through her soul. Because she would give her own life to protect him from Jonas or anyone else.
“Sorry, Ashley, but there’s really not enough of me left to give a damn.” The bitterness was like a corrosive eating through her soul. “I gave my life for him thirteen years ago. Every breath I drew, every beat of my heart, every particle of my being was sacrificed for him when I remained as Claire Martinez rather than escaping the hell I found myself in here. There hasn’t been anything left of me in a long time. And I don’t think you or anyone else, especially Graeme Parker, has the right to ask anything more of me.”
