Cat's Lair (48 page)

She rarely wore panties at home, especially when she knew they’d be shifting. It was just one more item of clothing to get rid of, slowing her down. A thong or boy shorts could cost her precious seconds, just as a bra could. She made a mental note to consult with Emma about what she did when it came to clothing.

She left her hair down to dry, brushed her teeth thoroughly and made her way to the kitchen to begin cooking. Of course Eli was outside on the porch. Dawn was breaking. He loved to watch the light streaking through the dark. She made the dough for the beignets before she made her own coffee. Eli had grown fond of the warm treat with his coffee after breakfast and she always made them fresh.

She took her time making her coffee, looking around her kitchen. Eli had told her she could do anything she wanted with it and she had. He’d bought her the stove and pots and pans, the rest was her design and the touches that made life easier for her when she was working. The touches that made her feel as if the kitchen truly belonged to her.

Eli had given her that as well. Love welled up. Overwhelmed her. She needed him. Needed to be close to him. More and more she found herself drawn to him. Just like this. Her breasts ached and she found it was a wonderful sensation because the thought of Eli put that there. Her feminine core pounded with heat, and again, she loved the soreness that came from Eli’s thick cock, stretching and burning her. She was glad that with every step she took, she could feel him.

Pushing open the screen door, she stepped outside. It was still dark, the light barely filtering through, but mostly that was because of the black clouds churning in the sky overhead.

The scent of blood hit her just as her gaze swept the porch. On the far side of the porch, away from the door, something heavy hung from chains. Swaying. Her heart stopped for a moment and then began to pound. She wanted to run to the swaying body – and it was a body – she could see that now. Not just any body, but Eli.

20

C
ATARINA
FROZE
. She forced every muscle to lock in place. There was no way to take her horrified gaze from Eli’s golden one. His face was swollen. Blood streaked not only his face and head, but his chest as well. Clearly, while she’d been showering, daydreaming, Eli had been tortured.

Eli’s eyes had closed after that one brief acknowledgement of her presence, but she had the feeling he was alert. Ready. Coiled to strike. She didn’t know how that could be possible, and maybe it was only because she was so terrified and needed to believe it, but she did. That gave her the added confidence to look around her.

She knew he would be there. She had thought he would come alone, but he hadn’t. His three top lieutenants, all leopard, were with him. They stood on the ground, just past Eli’s body. One held cables in his hands, another the hose. She felt her leopard rise. Fury shook her, replacing terror. But she didn’t move a muscle. Only her eyes moved.

He was there somewhere, waiting in silence, wanting her terror to mount. She could feel his anger. The weight of it crushing her, just as it had crushed her when she’d been a helpless child seeking love and approval in his home. She couldn’t afford to be crushed by him. Not now. Not when Eli hung from chains and the three leopard lieutenants had obviously been given carte blanche to torture him. She lifted her chin, inhaled, and knew immediately where he was. She turned away from Eli, hating to lose sight of him, but she had to face Rafe.

The moment her gaze found him, at the opposite end of the porch, standing upright in the shadows, he took a step toward her. He was a big man. Built strong and powerful. His features were cut from the same powerful cloth. His cold stare could stop a grown man in full battle mode from moving an inch toward him – even if they had a gun in their hand. She’d seen it happen more than once. Rafe Cordeau had that kind of power. He was handsome. She’d never really noticed that before. And he had charisma. She had noticed that.

“So you found me again,” she greeted softly.

“I told you I would always find you, Catarina,” he answered, his voice equally as soft.

The tone made her shiver. He never sounded angry. Not like Eli. Rafe didn’t give away emotion. His expression was blank, his eyes cold and his tone low and carrying, but with no inflection one way or the other.

“Rafe, I hope you believe me when I tell you that if you hurt him any more – if you kill him – if you do anything at all to him, I will kill myself. You will never have me. Never have any part of me. I’m done with you ruling my life by hurting others.”

“He touched you. He’s been inside of you. No man lives if he’s been inside of you,” Rafe said.

“Then I won’t live either.” She didn’t raise her voice, or lose control. This was too important. If Rafe had spent all this time and money hunting her down, it was to dispose of her himself, or to take her back. If he wanted her, she had to make him believe he couldn’t keep her alive if he killed another person she cared about. “I can’t live like that. I couldn’t live with you knowing what you’d done to April.”

“I didn’t do that to April, you did. You’ve always known the consequences of running, and you did it anyway.”

She shook her head. “I was a child, Rafe. You made me take that responsibility and guilt but it wasn’t mine to take. That was you. You chose to hurt her. You took pleasure in hurting her. You knew she was my friend and you killed her in front of me. Did you think I would want to stay with you after that?”

He took another step toward her, glided fluidly, like the leopard he was. She saw his leopard now in his eyes. The need to dominate because she was arguing, defying him. His eyes glittered, focused on her like he would on prey.

“It doesn’t matter what you want, Catarina. You belong to me. You always have. The moment I knew that bitch of a woman had something so precious, I knew I would take you from her and protect you.” Again there was no inflection in his voice.

The sound of water and then Eli crying out had her spinning around. They were shocking him, running electricity through his wet body. She forced herself to remain still. Lifting one hand she shifted only her arm and hand, a difficult feat that had taken weeks of practice to accomplish. A paw formed where her fingers had been, long, curved razor-sharp claws springing out of them.

She didn’t hesitate, bringing the claw to the artery in her neck. Blood trickled. Rafe leapt toward her, covering the distance between them in the blink of an eye, yanking her arm down and away from her jugular.

“You won’t be able to stop me, Rafe. They hurt him, I’ll do it. I’ll kill myself. I’ll find a way. That’s the deal.”

Rafe swore, the first sign of emotion he’d shown. He lifted his hand and instantly the water cut off and Eli stopped twisting and jerking.

“Please let go of me.” His touch confused her. His grip on her was gentle, not hard. He held her arm firmly but without any force. She couldn’t sustain the shift to just one body part and her leopard subsided, staying just below the surface in case Catarina needed her again.

“Promise me you won’t try to harm yourself. We’ll work out a deal.”

She nodded. “As long as you don’t kill or torture him, or harm anyone else I care about, I’ll listen to what you have to say, Rafe.”

Rafe waved his three lieutenants back, ensuring Eli’s safety for the time being. “We’ll go in the kitchen and talk,” he said, making it an order.

“I don’t trust them to stay away from Eli. Get him down from there, first.”

“Not a chance, Catarina. I’m giving you this one concession. Go into the kitchen where we can talk alone.”

She turned her body toward the screen door, allowing her gaze to sweep over Eli. His head was down as if in defeat, but his eyes had narrowed to slits. She saw the blaze of power there and it steadied her. He had a plan. So did she.

Catarina lifted her chin. “Give me your word that they won’t touch him while we’re in the house, Rafe.”

“Will you believe me?”

She lowered her lashes. “I always believed you, Rafe. You’re all I’ve ever had.”

He might say he knew she was precious and he wanted to protect her, but he had known she was a shifter long before he ever removed her from that house of drugs and pain. His home, any home would have been better for a child to be raised in. But he’d left her there until she’d had her first period. Until he feared her leopard might emerge. He hadn’t taken any chances, forcing her to live with him then.

She knew he could have taken her earlier, but he hadn’t wanted the inconvenience of a small child. He would have had to hire a nanny, someone who might suspect what he did. More – and she suspected it was the real reason – he didn’t want to risk her being attached to anyone else.

Catarina knew the soft statement
I
always
believed
you,
Rafe
had gotten to him. She saw his eyes change, the leopard backing off just a little.

“No one will harm him.” Rafe lifted his head and pinned his lieutenants with his cold, steely eyes. “I don’t want him comfortable, but do nothing more until you’re given the order.”

She hesitated. There was something in what he said that she’d missed.
How
he’d said it. She wasn’t certain what to do. She needed to comply with Rafe’s demands, make him believe she was listening to him, that there was a chance she’d go peacefully with him, but now she was afraid to leave Eli alone with Rafe’s shifter lieutenants.

She glanced again at Eli out of the corner of her eye. His nod was nearly imperceptible, meant only for her. She squared her shoulders and moved immediately to stand at the screen. Waiting. Forcing Rafe to open it for her. To acknowledge she was a grown woman and had to be treated with respect. Eli opened doors for her, Rafe needed to do the same.

She stood there nearly a minute before Rafe’s hand moved past her to yank the screen open. She swept through it like royalty.

“Would you like a coffee? I can make almost anything.”

His gaze scanned the room, landed on the dough she had ready to make the beignets with. He inhaled deeply, dragging in the scent of sex. He couldn’t fail to notice it. Fury burned across his expression, making her shiver, and then it was gone and his cool mask was back in place.

“Sit down, Catarina,” he said. It was an order, but as usual, he couched it in low, soft tones.

He wanted to build her terror. She could see it was important to him that she feared him. Most of his employees were frightened of him for good reason. If they did something he didn’t like, he took them into a room and scared the hell out of them without ever raising his voice. They did it again, they disappeared, never to be seen, and Rafe’s leopard was a very satisfied hunter.

She complied, moving to the chair at the end of the table. She should have known it wouldn’t work to try to keep a distance from him. He simply toed a chair close and straddled it, face-to-face with her, his demon eyes burning into her.

“You left again. I told you what would happen. Why did you leave me?”

“You killed April.”

“That’s it? That’s the reason?”

She pressed her lips together and then tugged her lower lip between her teeth briefly to show him she was nervous. “You didn’t like me very much, Rafe. I tried so hard and no matter what I did, you pushed me away from you. I hated what you did to April, but even after that I tried to take care of you the only way I knew how, but then you…” Deliberately she trailed off. Ducked her head. Looked at her hands, twisting her fingers together in the way she knew he didn’t like.

Rafe preferred stillness and he’d been on her all the time about learning to be absolutely still. Now, she realized he’d been preparing her for her leopard in his own way.

He reached out and gently laid his hand over hers to stop the movement of her fingers. “Be still, Catarina,” he said, in the same low tone, but his dominant male leopard retreated even a little more.

Without the leopard driving him to dominate or kill, Rafe would be easier to manipulate. She nodded her head and allowed her hands to relax under his. She remembered his hands forcing hers into the well of April’s blood and she nearly jerked away from him, the memory was so vivid. She could actually smell the blood for a moment, but she held it together.

This was for Eli. She could do this because Eli made her aware of her own strength. She had outsmarted Rafe once and she could do it again, because it didn’t matter right then that she wasn’t formally educated. It didn’t mean she wasn’t intelligent enough to turn the table on Rafe Cordeau. She knew she was.

“You left me because you think I didn’t want you?”

She swallowed hard. It was difficult to tell him, because it was the truth. She had tried so hard and felt so alone and unloved. She’d gone to try to see her stepmother, hoping the memories of her childhood were skewed and maybe the woman did love her. Then she’d lost April, and she’d retreated from everyone, horrified, ashamed and guilty. She’d needed Rafe to reassure her. To come to her and hold her. To make things right, even when intellectually she knew there was no right to what he’d done. He hadn’t. He’d left her alone with her nightmares, guilt and shame.