Chapter Sixty-Two--I Can't Take It!

Chapter Sixty-Two--I Can't Take It!
They argued. They bitched. I trembled in Kalvyn’s lap. Neither of us had said anything for fifteen minutes.

Bianca and Sadie had been released from their home-imprisonment at my request. We’d need all the bodies we had at our disposal.

Sadie sat at my feet. I had no idea what to make of it. Bianca gawked.

“How can you sit there with her, after what she’s done to us?” Bianca kicked a coffee table aside.

“We tried to kill her,” Sadie whispered, demure, regretful. I didn’t believe her for a second. She wanted out of her cage. Sucking up to me could get her that. “Law of the jungle.”

“Does this look like a jungle to you? That bitch betrayed all of us.”

Kalvyn shifted under me. “Enough.” She shut up, and not of her own violation. “Beautiful, what do you want to do?”

I met Lola’s gaze. “We get Carmen back, no matter what it takes.”

“Are you sure you can handle that?” She said.

“I’ll have to. How long have we been here, Lola? Have any of them, except certain individuals, hurt us? Carmen befriended both of us, right off the bat. She has been good to us. That woman who wears my mom’s face is a monster, and she brought the fight to Kalvyn’s people. She drew first blood. Am I supposed to stand in their way, risking more injuries, or maybe death for a woman who hasn’t cared about me in sixteen years?”

Dorian pushed off the doorway, a sea of hard sinew and malice. “Then let’s do this. Every second that passes, risk’s Carmen’s life more. Quinn is hanging on by a thread in that bedroom. If we tell him Carmen expired, he very well could to.”

“Have they bonded?” I whispered.

“No,” Kalvyn replied. “Not yet.”

I nodded. “Lola, can you watch over Quinn? He’s healing remarkably fast since Syber removed the bullets, but I don’t want to leave him alone. Not like this.”

I held my breath, praying she agreed to stay behind.

“You know it, Kat. Consider it done.” She clutched a shotgun she didn’t have the faintest idea how to use.

The same I’d carried the night of the full moon. I’d been out voted with removing it from her. Their argument was sound. If the hunters came, she wasn’t completely defenseless.

But what if she blew her own leg off?

I climbed to my feet, a million years old in body, mind and soul. My cat fully merged with my mind, comforting me, promising me more than was her right. We would do what we had to, in protecting our back.

“You’re staying here,” Kalvyn said without infliction.

“I don’t think so,” I snapped. He moved to argue, and I clapped a hand over his mouth. “Go Alpha on me at your own peril. No matter what you do, I will be there.”

His eyes glittered. “I’ll cage you.”

He would too. But, if I backed down now, he’d walk all over me for life. He’s been obeyed by everyone around him way too long.

“Do it. I dare you, Kalvyn. And I will make you wish you had spent you life impotent.”

The silence was deafening.

I stalked from the room, and down the hall. Accustomed to him trailing me, I wasn’t surprised to be pushed against the wall.

“You can’t fight.”

My brow rose. “You’d be surprised what I can do, buddy.” He jerked as if I’d slapped him. “You’re going after my mom, and guess what? That gives me more of a right to go than you do.” Not really, but let’s run with that, shall we?

“If you die, I’m done. You know that?”

“And if you do? Huh? Answer me that.”

He shoved his face into mine. Our noses smashed together. “I can’t die.”

“What if I can’t either? I’m Alpha and Royal, so fuck you with your ‘Katrina must be protected every second of every day because she might break a nail.’ It’s getting real old. Either I’m as strong as you want me to believe, or I’m not. It’s confession time, Kalvyn. Have you been boosting my ego to see if I can shift, but don’t really believe I’m capable of being your mate?”

“Of course you are.”

“Then start actually treating me like it. Is that too much to ask?”

“I don’t want you to get hurt.”

“Tough shit. How many times have I fallen from a tree in the last week? Oh, yeah, don’t forget I stubbed my toe on the couch yesterday. Maybe you should kill it for daring to bruise me! Do you think you’re doing me any favors with the clan?”

“It doesn’t matter what they think.”

“Of course it does! They all act like I’m spun glass, because you do. I’m the only girl around here, other than Lola, who is led around in bubble wrap. I’m sick of it. One of our own is in who knows what condition by maniac humans with a power trip, about something they don’t even understand, or care to,” I screamed. And there it was. The moment I’d separated myself from the human race.

He growled, hands clamping on my cheeks. “You mean everything.”

Didn’t he listen, ever?

“Why, Kalvyn?” I said quietly, deadly. “Because you care about me, or because if the off chance something happens to me, it’s you who will continue on suffering. Who are you trying to protect? Me, or you?”

He stumbled away from me and collided with the opposite wall. Took every ounce of feeble maturity I had not to stomp as I darted down the hallway. x