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“The cat’s out of the bag, literally,” she reminded him, the overwhelming sadness that she could no longer pretend to be the person they loved weighing at her heart. “I can’t pretend anymore. I can’t put my head down and be nice and quiet and sweet while raging inside. My maturing genetics just won’t allow it.”
The frown at his brow grew heavier. “We didn’t demand that you take Claire’s personality as well as her identity when the ritual failed.”
The ritual. That otherworldly episode that had given her so much of who and what Claire Martinez was. Lying amid the steam and the scents of earth, dampened herbs and life itself, she’d felt the spirit of the dying girl whisper through her, determined to protect her with her own identity, with everything she was. Cat had felt herself drift then, into a sleep so deep, so dark, she’d immediately railed against it.
When she’d awakened from that sleep it was to find that spirit still there, watching over her, protecting her when other Breeds were there by effectively hiding any scent or realization to Breed senses of her true identity. For years Claire Martinez had protected her. Until Gideon’s return. Now the awareness of the spirit that had watched over her was gone.
“Claire’s gone. The change was too sudden.” Frustration ate at her now, rising from a well of painful realizations that refused to be hidden. “I lost too much too fast and now I have to figure out where to go from here. I won’t endanger the rest of you while I do that.”
She wasn’t Claire.
Her genetics would begin adapting now that the maturation of her Bengal genetics was beginning. The tigress that had merely lurked within her, only coming out when she called it, was now beginning to merge with her human genetics in a way she may not be able to hide for much longer.
“So you’ll face it alone?” The scent of his anger began to fill the air. “And you expect us to simply accept that?”
She swallowed tightly, her fists clenching in the clothes she’d retrieved from the bed as she turned to him.
“I’m not Claire,” she reminded him, desperate to hear him say it di
dn’t matter. “I don’t have the right to ask any more than that of you.”
His lips thinned. Something bleak and filled with rage flashed in his gaze before it
was gone as though it had never existed.
Rather than speaking the words she needed to hear, he shook his head, pushed his fingers through his graying black hair then turned and headed back to the front of the house.
Cat clapped her hand over her lips to hold back a cry, a shattered sound of disillusionment. She’d been so certain he’d tell her it didn’t matter that she wasn’t really Claire. That she was family anyway. She’d been his acknowledged niece for thirteen years, he’d been part of her protection for just as long. But he couldn’t tell her it didn’t matter.
Because it did matter.
She’d always known when push came to shove, that it did matter.
Shoving the pain to that place where she’d shoved the other broken promises and disillusioned realizations, she fought back her tears and finished packing. Three suitcases contained her life. Twenty-five years and so very little to show for it.
A small collection of knives she’d found each year on her birthday for the past years. Just as many small crystal dragons. They were her only keepsakes. Presents over the years had included gift cards and clothes. Terran had given her his older-model pickup when the one she’d bought last year had been repossessed within weeks of her losing her job as a receptionist at the tribal headquarters.
Raymond had ensured it was repossessed, she’d known that.
Lifting the largest suitcase in one hand, she slung the strap of the overnight bag on her opposite shoulder and picked up the smaller case.
Over the years she’d acquired a few things herself. Weapons she’d hidden, cash she could access. It wasn’t much, but it was enough that she didn’t have to worry about the fact that no one would hire her since she’d moved from Raymond’s house.
Either employers were put off because of the charges brought against her supposed father or, if that wasn’t it, they weren’t hiring her because Raymond had specifically asked them not to. For whatever reason, the position she was left in was precarious at best.
She did seem to have a place to live, though.
Surprisingly, the voice text that had come through from Lobo Reever just after she left the meeting was an offer of a rental house he owned just outside his huge estate in the desert. A nice little place with a pool, adobe walls surrounding nearly an acre of property. It was private, easy to secure and, she hoped, safe.
She was certain Lobo hadn’t been behind the offer alone, though. Graeme was quite good at getting the very influential Wolf Breed to do his bidding. She just hadn’t figured out how he’d managed it yet.
She wasn’t going to look a gift wolf in the mouth, though. It was a place to live. She didn’t have to force herself on the Martinez family any longer, nor feel as though she were some orphan relation to the Breeds.
Jonas may pretend to want to be her new best friend but in the few seconds that her sense of smell had been at its peak, she’d scented the truth.
Contempt, distaste, arrogant superiority. They’d all filled him. He didn’t see her as human nor as Breed but as some inferior in-between without worth.
Which didn’t bode well for the daughter she knew he adored.
