Lane roared his fury and his body began to flow slowly into his beast. “If I am selfish and homicidal, how will your girl feel when she’s seen you kill another human being, son?” he asked, nodding toward me. “Will she still run to you? When she changes in two more days, will she still love you? Will you still love her?”
“Yes,” Xavier said simply.
“Are you sure?”
I shuddered under the weight of Lane's bitter words. His insightful attack had touched on every concern I'd had from the moment he’d clawed me. It became clear how deliberate every piece of his plan had been. He’d done everything, from attacking Xavier, to killing girls who looked like me, to clawing me with the single, focused goal of inflicting the maximum amount of pain he could on Xavier and Dorothy.
Lane’s body flowed into his panther at the same time Xavier transformed. Lane and Xavier charged each other, but at the last moment, Lane's beast side-stepped and he came for me. I screamed and clung to the door frame. I knew, Xavier couldn’t turn quickly enough to stop the other cat from reaching me and the only escape I had was the kitchen where Elise and Claude would be as helpless as I was. Christian tried to step in front of me, but I clung to the doorway and wouldn't allow him to take the hit I expected. I wasn’t going to let Lane hurt anyone else, and so I stood my ground.
I closed my eyes, whispered a prayer that we would all survive and a word of love for Xavier. I waited for the end of my life with Xavier's name upon my lips. When the hit came, pain bloomed in my chest before I was weightless and flying. The kitchen counter caught me across my lower back, forcing all the air from my lungs and leaving me struggling for breath on the kitchen floor. When I caught my breath, pulling a shuddering gasp of air into my lungs, I forced myself to open my eyes and see what damage had been done.
Mathias crouched protectively over me. The low growl that slipped from between his lips raised gooseflesh on my arms and I trembled. Here was the beast my whole family feared when Mairin was with Mathias. This was the killer who had taken lives in order to sustain his own for a century. I backpedalled until I was pressed against the cabinets. My movement caught Mathias' attention. The deep black orbs he turned toward me did nothing to ease my fear of him.
"Kerry, are you injured?" he asked. His rough voice was yet another reason to fear the monster who looked like my sister's boyfriend.
"Kerry? I must know if you are injured."
I shook my head and Mathis nodded once before resuming his protective stance over me. My heart thundered in my chest as the battle sounds from the living room echoed in the kitchen. I could see Elise holding Claude in the farthest corner of the kitchen, but Mathias refused to let me see past him. I could only listen to the roars of the pride and Lane and pray that when the silence came it would bring peace with it and not pain.
When the cats fell silent in the living room, I waited for Xavier’s voice, but it didn’t come. Fear that I had lost Xavier overrode my fear of Mathias and I shoved at him until he turned to face me again.
“Mathias, you have to let me up,” I pleaded. "They need my healing in there." And I had to know if Xavier's silence was permanent.
Mathias turned slowly and backed away from me. His eyes were wide and he appeared to be holding his breath. I smelled the heavy copper scent of blood, a lot of blood, and knew Mathias needed to get out of the house immediately. He’d been on his way to feed when Lane had attacked. The battle and the blood were too much for my sister’s normally civilized vampire and I could see the hunger riding him hard.
“Go,” I said. “We can do this.”
He nodded and slipped out the door quickly. I stood and walked blindly into my future.
The carnage in the living room was something out of one of my sister’s night terrors from when we were kids. Three panthers lay panting and bloody on the living room floor. Blood dripped and pooled everywhere I looked. The carpet, the walls, the ruined furniture. Blood soaked into them all. I wondered idly how Elise was going to get the blood out of everything. There was only so much soap and water would do.
Lane’s body lay against the wall under the shattered window, twisted, broken, and still. I watched for the rise and fall of breath on his chest, but nothing moved. The man who had wrought such destruction on so many was dead.
Of the three panthers who lay wounded on the floor, I only recognized Xavier. I knew his markings well, but had only seen the other members of the pride either in their human or cat forms. Until the fur flowed back to flesh, I wouldn't know who was who.
I assessed the damage and knew Xavier needed my help before the others. Long claws had torn gaping holes in his side and the blood pool beneath him continued to grow. I dropped to my knees beside Xavier who growled at me. “No attitude from you, buster,” I said as I lay my hands against his side and felt the heat roll up my back. The same forceful rush of energy I'd felt when I healed Claude slammed into me, through me, and into Xavier. The cat beneath my hands roared and the fur became a flow of flawless flesh beneath my hands. Tears slipped down my cheeks as I realized that no matter how well I could heal his body, I could do nothing for Xavier's soul. Instinctively, I knew he had struck the killing blow. The death of the man who had made his life possible was a wound I couldn't heal.
I took the blanket Elise offered me and laid it over Xavier before turning to work on the other pride members who had sustained injuries during the fight. Andre and Randal had broken bones and slashing wounds, but the increased power of my healing made short work of their injuries. It seemed only minutes later that the two boys huddled under blankets, stuffing their mouths with the food Elise brought from the kitchen. When Andre and Randal could rise, Elise led them and the rest of the pride into the kitchen. Mairin came out of the back of the house, pulling at Ronnie's grip on her arm.
"Kerry, are you okay?" she asked. "This brute wouldn't let me out of Elise's bedroom."
"I'm fine, not a scratch."
Mairin glanced at Xavier, but said nothing. Her sad eyes were enough.
"I promise I'm fine, sis," I said. "Elise could probably use help in the kitchen, though."
Mairin hugged me, whispering, "I'm here if you need me."
"I know," I said. I let my sister hold on just a little longer, taking strength from her, before pushing her gently toward the kitchen.
She went, reluctantly, and I was finally alone with Xavier.
Xavier pulled his knees up to his chest and wrapped his arms around them. He stared, eyes wide and shining, at Lane's body, refusing to look at or talk to anyone else.
"Christian?" I called. He appeared in the doorway to the kitchen, nodding when I pointed to Lane's body. Andre and Randal helped Christian lift Lane's body and carry it away from the house. I heard them make their way toward the back of the house, but blocked out the sound when I heard the wet tearing of flesh. I didn't want to know what they were doing to make Lane's presence disappear from the lives of the pride members.
When the body was gone, Xavier made his way to the couch, the only piece of furniture to have survived the battle in one piece. He sat down and laid his head in his hands.
“It was all because Mom loves my dad,” he whispered when I curled against him on the couch. “Because Lane couldn’t accept that my mom didn’t want him, he destroyed all those lives, killed all those people, for my mother.”
“You can’t think of it that way, Xavier,” I said, winding my arm around his waist. “Lane had very deep-seated issues with rejection that had to have begun long before your mother. He used her as the reason to justify what he knew was evil, but the truth is he was just a sick man who acted out of pain.”
“He used you as an excuse, too,” he said. Xavier kissed me gently. “He saw us that night in Florida. He saw that you loved my panther as much as you loved me as a man and he hated us for that. He envied me and wanted me to hurt the way he did. He went for you because you love me. He went after the pride when he couldn't reach you. He did everything he could to hurt those I love.”
“I do love you,” I said. “No matter what.”
Xavier shook his head. I could see him wrestling with the need to tell me something he knew I didn't want to hear. My heart thundered in my chest and I suddenly understood the look on Mairin’s face when she'd realized Mathias planned to leave her after the problem in England. I could see it in his eyes. Xavier wanted to leave me to keep me safe. I was not going to let that happen. I would fight for him, even if it meant fighting against him.
Xavier reached for me, cupping my face in his palm. “You could have died because you love me. I’m not worth that,” he said.
I sat up and took Xavier’s face between my hands, forcing him to look me in the eyes. “Never say that again,” I said. “You can’t protect me from every evil thing that comes into our lives. I could easily argue that you’re in more danger from monsters because of me than the other way around since my family seems to be the magnet for monsters in this equation. No matter what, you can’t keep the monsters away. But never, for one moment, doubt that you are worth more than I can ever give you in return.”
“Kerry, by the night after tomorrow you could be a...you could be like me and if you are, it will be my fault,” he said, turning his face in my hands and kissing each of my palms. The pain in his eyes tore at my heart. He’d hidden his worry from me very well, but now, when he was vulnerable, I finally saw the terror in which he’d lived the past several days. He was angry and afraid. He worried what would happen if I changed, and what would happen if I didn't. I ached to realize he had been going through the same cycle of despair and anguish I had been, but he'd done it alone while I'd had him to keep me strong.
“You didn’t attack me, Xavier,” I said. “You didn’t make Lane the sick, broken man he was. You didn’t put me in the parking lot with Lane. You did nothing wrong and I will not let you blame yourself for what happened to me.” I kissed him. “And no matter what happens when the full moon rises, I love you.”
Xavier bowed his head and laid it against my chest. “I killed Lane, my own blood, not because of what he’d done to those girls in the alleys, or even to Christian or Claude, but because of what he’d done to you.” He hitched in a breath. “I let my beast take my heart and control my body and I killed him with your name on my tongue. I hated a man enough to kill him because he hurt you. What does that say about me? How can you love me after that?”
I held him and let him cry silently against my neck. I wanted to take away his pain the way I had taken away his injuries, but my power
only worked on flesh. I had no healing for his soul. I could only hope to make him understand that no matter what he thought his own motivations were, Lane had meant for one of them to die that night. Xavier might believe he killed Lane because of what Lane had done to me, but I knew he had saved himself and taken the life of the man who would have killed him if Xavier had not been the victor.
I stood up when Xavier's tears had dried and he turned his agony filled eyes back to me. He took my hand and allowed me to lead him to his bedroom where I crawled into the bed and pulled him down with me.
“Lane would have killed you if you hadn’t beaten him. He came here intending that one of you would die. No matter what you think about your motivations, you know Lane would have continued to kill if you had allowed him to live. It wasn't as though you could have called the police and had him arrested. Doing so would have placed the pride under too much scrutiny. You did what you had to do and you are going to have to let go eventually."
“If it had been pride business, I could let it go. You’ve seen me do that before. This was personal...more than personal. This was you, Kerry.”
“Fine, it was about me,” I said. “You love me. I can live with that. What I need to know is if you can live with that.” My heart thumped heavily in my chest as I considered the possibility that Lane’s death might be enough to separate me from Xavier. If he couldn't release his guilt and forgive himself for killing Lane because Lane had attacked me, I knew Xavier would eventually come to hate me. He'd be lost to me then. I knew there was no way I could ever make up for that kind of guilt if he wasn't willing to release it himself.
“Can I live with loving you?” he asked. “That’s what you want to know? I can’t live without loving you, Kerry. I told you last night that I want to marry you. I haven’t changed my mind about that or anything else to do with you.”
“I just don’t want you to blame me...”
“Kerry, I killed him, not you.”
“But you did it for me...because of me. What if there comes a day when that’s too much. What if you some day realize that I’m not worth that kind of guilt.”
Xavier held me, kissing me gently and then not so gently. I let him show me with his lips and hands what he couldn’t seem to put into words. We let our bodies speak to each other on a level that was beyond words, beyond the physical world. I felt our souls touch in those moments and I wanted to stay in that place with him for all of eternity.
Xavier leaned over me, kissing my forehead, eyelids, and finally lips. I felt his body relax and heard him sigh heavily before he lay beside me and pulled me to lie against his chest.
“Do you know that real panthers live alone? That even mated pairs stay together only long enough to mate before they separate?” Xavier's hand trailed down my arm, eliciting a sigh from me. He smiled and kissed me again.
“I used to wonder why the pride here in East Hampton seemed to want to band together when so many other wereanimals live more like their normal counterparts. I finally figured out that it’s the human part of each of the pride members that draws them to each other, that makes them choose the ones they love and seek to spend time together. You are the strongest link I have to my humanity, Kerry. There isn’t anything in this world worth more to me than that.”
I shuddered under the weight of his words. I didn’t know if I could handle the responsibility Xavier’s words implied. I wasn’t sure my humanity was going to be with me for much longer and once it was gone, would he feel the same way about me?
“But what if...” I swallowed over the lump in my throat. “What if I’m not human anymore?”
Xavier kissed me and held me tighter. “Before you, there was only one other girl I ever spent time with. I was devastated when she left and I spent a lot of time roaming as my cat and shunning my human side. When I saw you in your mother’s shop the day I took Gram to meet your sister, I knew you were the missing piece of me, of my humanity. I knew I wanted you and more.” Xavier caressed my face, trailing his fingers along my forehead and cheeks. He leaned in and kissed me softly. “I knew I needed you.”
“But what if...”
“It won’t matter,” he said firmly. “You are the love of my life and the link to my humanity. You don’t feel any different to me now than you ever have so no matter what happens in twenty four hours, you’ll always be my girl.”
I kissed him and threw my leg over his hips so I could lie along his body. With only a thin blanket between us, the intimacy of our position made my head spin and Xavier growled.
“I love you,” I said.
“I love you, too.”
“I’m so scared,” I admitted. “I’m afraid of changing. I’m afraid of not changing. I’m afraid that one day you’ll hate me for what happened today. I’m afraid
someday you’ll figure out I’m just some girl and you’ll love someone else.”
Xavier wrapped his arms around me and turned us so we lay beside each other. “I’m here to stay, no matter what, Kerry. And whenever you’re afraid, you just come to me and we’ll take care of the fear. There is one thing in this world stronger than fear,” he said. “It’s love.”