Chapter 24

Kitty.

I wished I could wear my new prop vest to the meeting with my father, but I understood why that would be a bad idea.

I love my dad. He taught me things. He held me when I had nightmares, but instead of coddling me, he talked me through how to slay whatever had scared me. I’m not certain he even knows how much he empowered me, but he did.

He also did things to steal my power from me, but I understand much of that was basic ambush protocol — created over generations, designed to keep the women home and pregnant while the men ran our little hidden mini-society.

I walked into the Chattanooga coterie mansion flanked by the Amakhosi and Squatch. Not touching either. Squatch is bigger than the King of the Lions, but we all knew who was the most powerful. I saw my dad sniff towards the door, but he didn’t ask why one of my bodyguards was a wolf.

Inside, I was shaking, but I walked tall, with my head held high, and I channeled as much of the cat as I could while remaining upright.

Once we were in the living room, both men stepped to the side of the wide door, as if guarding it, and I walked another dozen feet into the room, a mere six feet away from my father.

I’d considered my first words to him. I refused to apologize for my actions, and yet, I knew my opening words couldn’t be antagonistic. Today’s goal was some kind of reconciliation. We weren’t trying to make things worse with this meeting.

“I’ve missed you, Daddy. I wish I hadn’t had to hurt you in order to gain my freedom.”

His eyes went hard and his mouth twisted. “Your freedom? I gave you everything you wanted, Val, and you threw it in my face. I gave you a good life.”

I tried to keep my face pleasant despite the fact my stomach turned over and my knees didn’t want to hold me up. I was strong. I could do this.

“Material things, father, but you could never give me what I truly wanted, could you? College, a car, the freedom to come and go as I pleased, the ability to meet a man and fall in love organically. Freedom to decide whether or not to have kids, who to have them with, and then the freedom to raise my own children.”

“You’re in college now?”

I shook my head. “I had to get a job.”

“Yes. Taking your clothes off for men. Squirming on their laps, and no telling what else.” He spat the words out as if they were distasteful, clearly disgusted by what I’d become, and it pissed me off.

“You did make sure I was well qualified to be a whore, didn’t you, father dearest?”

He took two steps forward and raised his hand to slap me, and then suddenly went still as a statue, frozen in time, his face a grotesque mask of anger, his hand in the air, on the way to my face.

“Move out of the way of the hand, please,” the Amakhosi said from behind me.

I did, and turned to look at him. His Majesty was clearly angry, and I realized he’d frozen my father in place to keep him from hitting me.

“Baiting him isn’t helpful, Kitty,” Squatch didn’t move from his position. Neither his voice nor his gaze was judgmental. Just a statement of fact.

The Amakhosi walked to my father, grabbed his wrist, and motioned me to his side. Once His Majesty had his arm around me, pulled out of the strike zone so my father wouldn’t hit me, he released whatever stasis he’d put my father into.

And Daddy’s arm was held in the air, stopped by the strength of our King. Daddy was clearly startled. I’d never seen him look so unsure of himself before.

From his point of view, he’d been in mid-slap, and the Amakhosi had moved from the door to us in a split second, stopped him, and moved me out of the way.

He hadn’t been aware of what had happened while he was frozen.

I’d known the King of the Lions had dominion over all cats in North America, but I’d had no idea he had this much power over us. My father is a strong tiger and a fearless warrior. Normal tiger society doesn’t have official leaders, but my father is the Commandant of our ambush, which basically means he’s our leader. He’ll tell you it’s like being mayor or governor, and I’ll tell you that’s bull. He’s a totalitarian leader. His word is law, and if you break it, he’s also the judge. Not the executioner though, because we need every tiger — and because there are worse things than death.

My father isn’t used to being told what to do. In fact, I couldn’t remember anyone ever telling him what to do and not being punished for it.

But my father lowered his gaze and didn’t challenge the Amakhosi.

“Did your daughter speak the truth, Vincenzo?”

Daddy glared at me and didn’t answer.

The Amakhosi’s voice went sharper, though his face showed no emotion. “Answer the question unless you wish for me to have you put through the same training you subjected your teenaged daughter to.”

“Yes.” He said it so softly, I barely heard it.

“Louder.”

“Yes.” He said the word through clenched teeth. I scented his pain, but the Amakhosi was only holding his wrist. Even if he were squeezing it and breaking bones, I couldn’t imagine my father’s scent broadcasting so much pain.

The Amakhosi finally let go of my father’s wrist and took a step back, drawing me back with him.

“You will not strike your daughter merely because she speaks truth and angers you.” He placed me six feet from my father again, and walked back to his post by the door.

“Why don’t we have a seat, Daddy.”

The mansion smelled of vampires, though none were on this floor at the moment. Kendra had offered the use of the coterie house as a neutral meeting place, but she’d been clear that any damage would be paid for by the Amakhosi. This room had furniture from some previous century. King Louis the somethingth. The Commandant of my mother’s ambush decorated his house in a similar style, but I can’t remember which Louis.

My father sat in a high-backed overly decorative chair, and I chose a settee.

“As far back as anyone can remember,” my father told me, “young tigresses have been taught the ways of how to pleasure men before they were sent to their chosen mate. You were taught the same as any other female. No more, no less.”

Kirsten had told me the Amakhosi had put a stop to the practice in all ambushes.

“At least one good thing has come from my choices and actions, because I’m told it won’t happen anymore.”

He just looked at me, but the sulfuric scent of his anger permeated the room like a dark fog, pressing in on me and making it hard to breathe. Claws were in the fog, in my lungs. Sharp and angry. I breathed slowly, trying to pretend his rage wasn’t affecting me.

Pissing him off wasn’t the goal. I breathed out with control and tried to find another way to talk to him.

“Life in the ambush wasn’t working for me, Daddy. I love you, and I always will, but I can’t live under your thumb anymore. I need to be my own tiger, making my own decisions.”

“I’ve purchased a house in Charleston,” he said, and I got the idea he was being as careful as me now — trying to find a way around outright war with his daughter. “I’m willing to pay tuition for you at the College of Charleston, and pay your living expenses while you get your degree. You’ll be within driving distance of the ambush property, and we’d like you to come for Saturday dinner, but otherwise, your life will be your own.”

“So long as I get pregnant, right? And since I won’t be raising the babies, it won’t interfere with my education.”

He shook his head. “We will pay fifty thousand dollars for every egg you allow us to harvest. We need at least ten, so you’ll get a minimum of a half-million dollars. Ideally, we’ll get fifteen to twenty. You’ll sign away your rights to the eggs as well as any children. Other than a few days of testing and then a half-day for the procedure, you will not be affected.”

“I love you, Daddy. If you’d given me this offer before I escaped, I’d have taken it in a heartbeat, but now that I’ve been out on my own, I don’t know if I can. I’m proud of the fact I can support myself. Yes, I’ve had help, but that’s in large part because I’ve made friends. Birmingham is my home now.”

He glanced at the door, at the two men standing guard, and looked back to me. “Tell me about the wolf.”

I shook my head and worked hard to control my emotions. “It is my hope that I can someday come to Saturday dinner at the ambush, but I think it’s too soon. I’m not turning your offer of harvesting my eggs down. I can tell you I’ll never sign over all of my maternal rights, but I can see myself allowing specific people to surrogate and then parent a child from...” I sighed. “Bessie, for instance.”

The ambush kills babies born with a cleft lip or palate, and after her baby was murdered shortly after birth, Bessie hadn’t been able to get pregnant again. I knew Bessie would make a great mom, and that she’d love the child more than anything. She’d been sent to a half-dozen men after her child with Nehemiah was born defective. Crap, I was back to using ambush terminology. The baby had been born with birth defects.

“What I’m contemplating,” I told him, “is going through a medical center unknown to you. I’ll arrange for removal of the eggs and then fertilization. You’ll have to provide the sperm, of course. I will decide who gets them. I will be a favorite aunt to the child. I’ll be in his or her life, but I won’t be the parent. There are three women in our ambush I’d be pleased to work out this arrangement with.”

He sat back and contemplated my offer. “So we’d be paying you for fertilized eggs instead of harvested eggs. What is your price?”

“Whatever expenses are involved, and then a sizeable trust fund for each child, enough for six years of college and basic living expenses, whether they be male or female. Also, the freedom to move away from the ambush at eighteen, if they so desire, and a guarantee that they can choose their own mate or mates, even if it’s someone outside the ambush. I do not wish to be personally remunerated with money, but I have a request.”

He looked to the door and back to me. “Why does the Amakhosi smell annoyed?”

“I didn’t talk to him about my plan. He’s hearing it at the same time as you.” I looked to the door and breathed in. “He smells both annoyed and pleased, to me. You haven’t asked what my personal request is.”

“I’m not certain I wish to hear it. I assume that by calling it a request, you aren’t making it a make-it-or-break-it stipulation.”

“Probably not. I don’t believe it’s something that can be demanded or even negotiated for, only asked for. You don’t even have to give me an answer today — if you can promise me it isn’t out of the question, that there’s a possibility you’ll be able to do as I ask, I’ll take it as a positive sign.”

He didn’t say anything, and I looked at my lap.

“I would like to hear the request,” the Amakhosi said from his spot by the door.

Since His Majesty asked, I answered him. “If I should get pregnant by a shapeshifter who is not a tiger, then I wish for my father to accept my children as his grandchildren.”

“So, wolves, for example?” my father asked.

I shrugged. “Wolves, bears, humans, or little golden tigers. Any children I give birth to will be your grandchildren. Blood of your blood. I’ve never understood why the ambush didn’t use this method to solve the bottleneck problem.”

“I am angry with you, Valentina Olivia Aurelio. I know tonight is supposed to be about us finding common ground, but I don’t see how we can just pretend everything is okay when I’m so hurt and so angry by your desertion.”

“And I am angry with you for holding me captive, for treating me as a thing instead of a person, for thinking you could own me like property. I’m angry with you for sending me to the training center three days a week where I was completely at Mike’s mercy. I still love you. I don’t know how we get past this. I wish I hadn’t had to hurt you in order to gain my freedom.”

He looked out the window, towards the darkness, and took a moment to rein his anger in again before saying, “It is my hope that we can get past it enough so I can one day be happy for you if you have my grandchildren.”

And that was probably the best I could hope for from my father on this day. I was going to call it a win.

Apparently, the Amakhosi felt the same, because he stepped forward and said, “I believe our time is up for this meeting, Vincenzo. We’ll take Val with us, and your driver is waiting outside for you.”

A werewolf who smelled strongly of vampire was seated in the back of the room. We’d all known she was there, quietly watching over us. I assumed she had orders to keep us in this room, to be certain we didn’t explore the rest of the house. She stood when I did, and looked to my father.

“I’m under orders to keep the coterie safe, and to give you safe passage while you are a guest of the coterie. If my master had not ordered safe passage, Vincenzo Aurelio, I would tear you limb from limb.”

“Queenie.” The Amakhosi did not sound pleased.

“Safe passage on this day, Your Majesty, but a father who kept his daughter imprisoned, and who had her trained in the ways of sex, should not be so easily forgiven.”

He looked sad instead of angry. “You know I’ll have to report this to Gavin.”

“And you know I’ll be talking to Kendra about it. I feel certain she will feel as I do.”

“I like Kendra,” I told the werewolf. “She’s been kind to me. You should know it was a gilded cage, and I was horribly spoiled. I had a great childhood. Magical. He taught me so much, and he made sure others were in place to teach me everything I needed to know. Things didn’t go completely to shit until I turned sixteen, and yes, I hold that against him, but I can’t hate him for it. He was following tradition. I get it. I’m also happy my escape means those traditions have been stopped.”

The Amakhosi stepped between me and my father, strategically placed so I could walk to the door with my father at my back, knowing His Majesty would protect me.

The Lion King met my gaze. “We should take our leave now, Val.”

I walked to the door, followed Squatch out, and was flanked by wolves, a lion, and a dragon as I walked to the Amakhosi’s SUV that looked like something the military should be driving. When I’d asked him what it was, he’d said it’s a Knight XV. I’d looked it up on my cellphone, and these things cost over three hundred thousand dollars. They’re bulletproof, but the review I read talked more about the fancy wool carpet than it did the fact it can repel freaking bullets.

His Majesty waited until we’d pulled out of the neighborhood before saying, “Why didn’t you run your plan by me on the way here, Val?”

Squatch sat in the backseat with me, and I turned to look at him. Before I could answer, Squatch gave me a displeased look and said, “Don’t feel bad, Your Majesty. She didn’t talk to me about it, either.”

“I slept good last night. Really, really good.” I looked at the rearview mirror, into the Amakhosi’s human eyes. “Better than I’ve slept since I was last in Squatch’s bed. I woke up with Bess and Nehemiah on my mind, and the idea that there had to be a way to make everyone happy. From there, the idea just kind of formed. I know women who’ll make excellent mothers, and who will value the babies handed to them to raise because they’ve known the loss of a child.” I sighed. “The ambush aborts babies when birth defects show up while the mom is still pregnant, but there was no reason to think Bess and Nehemiah’s child might have problems, so those tests weren’t done before birth. Their family lines have traditionally been healthy. Most of the other couples didn’t have to see their baby before it was killed, at least. Bess needs to be a mom. I want to do this for her, and if I do it for her, I can do it for others, but only the ones I approve. I need to have that control.”

I leaned into Squatch and closed my eyes. “I’ll sign over the right to be primary parent, but not full parental rights. There will be stipulations. I’ll need help from an attorney to get the wording right, but the women and the couples I’m considering won’t want to take away the connection to me. They’ll want me in the child’s life.” I looked at His Majesty in the rearview mirror again. “It was still the edge of an idea when we were riding here. I wasn’t certain of it until I was talking to my father.” It felt like I should change the subject, so I asked, “What was the deal with the werewolf who smelled of vampires?”

“Queenie. She doesn’t live here anymore, and she’s only here for a visit, thank goodness. She isn’t a fan of abusive parents, or of anyone who abuses children. If she still lived here, I’d have to take steps to keep her away from your father. South Carolina and Chattanooga are close enough for a quick day trip to torture the fuck out of him. Thankfully, she’ll be headed back to Alaska soon.”

“I thought the vampires controlled their daytime servants?” Squatch asked from beside me.

“They do, but Gavin has loosened the leash on Queenie in this one area. Whether it’s to help her heal from her own childhood, or whether it gives him pleasure to see her take revenge, I do not know. She’ll likely be severely punished for disobeying, but I believe it’ll be worth it to her.”

“Thank you for your help, Your Majesty.” I didn’t know what else to say. Without his help, none of this would’ve been possible.

“Thank you for bringing the ambush to my attention. Mostly, I police the lions and let the other cats police themselves. I step in when it’s needed, but tigers are usually solitary. It appears I need to look in on all groups who are sequestering themselves from society, though. I feel I should apologize to you for not addressing this sooner.”

“I wouldn’t want your job for all the money in the world, Your Majesty. I mean, sure, the thing where you can turn someone into a statue is cool, but it comes with a steep price.”

“Typically, I do that when there are only cats in the room, and then I freeze all cats. I left you conscious because I couldn’t freeze Squatch, and I didn’t want to order him to keep it a secret from you.” He met my gaze in the mirror and looked back to the road. “Secrets in a relationship can kill it. I trust the two of you won’t share my ability with anyone else. Consider it a secret that isn’t yours to tell.”

“You let us both see, so one of us wouldn’t have to keep a secret from the other?” I asked.

Instead of answering, he changed the subject. “I’ll try to push for the official negotiations to happen within forty-eight hours.”

He kept his eyes on the road and I knew I wasn’t going to like whatever came next.

“Traditionally, when an unattached young female is being bargained for, she’s in a cage either in the room or just outside the room, and under guard while negotiations happen. In this case, you’d be caged in the room while someone negotiated on your behalf — probably Brooke.” He blew out a breath. “You put yourself into a position of power today, though. In your father’s mind, the ambush could still kidnap you, hide you away, and turn you into a babymaker, but you’ve given them a route that’s possibly better, now that outsiders are involved. You made yourself a proficient negotiator by obliging him to parley with you. He had to acknowledge that you aren’t powerless. It gives you options.”

“She isn’t unattached,” Squatch said from beside me.

“I understand what you’re saying, but they don’t know about you.”

“Maybe they should,” said Squatch.

“I believe negotiations will be easier if they don’t know she’s fallen in love with a wolf. In the interest of finding a workable solution today, I blocked her father from sensing your scent on her. I can keep all the cats from picking up on it in the official negotiation.”

I leaned into Squatch with a little more weight. “In my father’s eyes, I might still come back. A year or two on my own, and he thinks I’ll tire of the outside world and come crawling home.”

“Right, and if I were another cat,” Squatch said, “it might be different, but wolves mate for life. He’ll know he’s stuck with me.”

My heart fell into my feet. “For life? You mean, like swans and eagles?”

The look of surprise on his face told me all I needed to know.

“So, if your mate dies, you live alone?” Or if your mate leaves you, but I couldn’t say that part without bursting into tears.

“I know of two wolves who found another mate more than a decade after their first mate was killed, but it’s rare.”

My heart beat somewhere down in my stomach and my chest felt empty. I’d have never let him get so close if I’d known.

“It appears there are some holes in my education. Anything else really important about wolves I should know?” I’d leaned back enough to look up at him, and now I put my forehead to the top of his arm. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know. Fuck, Squatch. I didn’t know.” Last night with the belt wasn’t enough. Nothing could ever be enough.

His arm wrapped back around me and he pulled me into the safety of his embrace. I unfastened my seatbelt and climbed onto his lap, facing him, my arms around his neck, my cheek pressed to his. “Can you forgive me for leaving? I didn’t know.”

His huge hand rubbed my back. “You acknowledge you’re my mate?” He asked.

“I do, and I have the vest to prove it.”

“How is it you know about swans and eagles, but not wolves?” he asked.

I could only shake my head. I had no idea.

The Lion King answered from the front seat. “I might know this one. Instead of contracting with Drake Security, the ambush negotiated with their neighborly eagles for protection. The deal was that anyone sent to guard the property was mated, and I’m sure she heard the details at some point. She was invited to the Swan castle a time or two, so I assume she learned about them during one of the balls.” He didn’t sigh, but it felt like he did in his head, without breathing it. “Vincenzo didn’t dare hire anyone professional to come looking for her. He knew word would get back to me, and I now understand he was trying to stay under my radar. This is why he sent Val’s brothers and cousins out looking. It’s why it took so long to find her.”