Kate Allenton (9 page)

Edward stood and moved to her side. He cupped her shoulders, and the concern in his eyes
shined through and briefly touched her heart. “Please…don’t do this.”

       
“I’d like to be alone. Please leave.” Cathy dropped her gaze to the floor, and her shoulders
sagged. She couldn’t do this, not now. She couldn’t handle being responsible for one more person.

       
“Come find me if you want to talk or need anything.” Edward kissed her forehead and walked
out.

       
Cathy shut the door and pulled out her disposable phone. She dialed Gracie and waited for her
to answer. There was no answer,
so she left a message. “I know Jonah sent the
alert for DEFCON
5, but if you get this while you’re in the Eagle’s Nest, I really need you to call me back. I really need
you.”

       
A tear trickled down Cathy’s face as she hung up and dialed Tara’s number. Tara answered on
the first ring. “Hello.”

       
Cathy swallowed around the lump in her throat.

       
“Hello.”

       
“Tara…” Cathy choked out before the tears stared streaming down her face.

       
“Oh my god, Cathy, are you okay?”

       
Cathy spent the next thirty minutes explaining everything that had happened since leaving
Tara’s room that fateful day. When she got to the point about the warning Jonah had sent, Tara
stopped her.

       
“We were never warned. Are you telling me that we’re all surrounded by Black’s men?”

Cathy let her head fall back on the couch and closed her eyes. “What do you mean he didn’t
send the warning? I watched him fiddle with his watch, and he told me he’d sent it.”

       
Tara took a deep breath. “I’ll warn the others, and we’ll mobilize. Thank god you called me.”

    
Cathy could hear a shuffle on the phone before Tara put the phone back to her ear. “Is this the
number I can reach you on?”

    
“Yeah.”

    
“It’s all going to be okay, Cathy. We’ll figure
this
out.”

    
“Tara…if I don’t agree to what Black wants,
then he’s
going to attack. I can’t let him do that.”

    
“No...No...No…You better have more faith
in us
than that. Don’t do anything stupid until you
hear back from me. Do you understand?”

    
A tear slipped down Cathy’s cheek as she choked
out
a yes.

    
“I’m so sorry, Cathy. I never meant to hurt
you.”

    
“I know, Tara. I’ve got to go.”

    
“Let me get everyone mobilized, then I’ll call
you
back and we’ll figure out a plan to take this
SOB down.”

    
Cathy shook her head as if Tara could see her. “Okay.”

    
The phone disconnected. Cathy’s heart pounded,
not
only with regret about putting her friends
in danger but because Jonah had lied to her. He
hadn’t
warned the others, and the more she thought
about it, the madder she got. It took her almost
two hours
to straighten and clean the room, righting
everything that Jonah had
wronged. She was afraid to leave the vials anywhere
in the room, so she
kept them on her. She’d never told them the truth, that she still had them. She never told them the
truth, that the second vial contained a killing agent. The less people that knew, the safer she’d be.
She patted the vials in her pocket, picked up the gun, and walked out of the room with one person
on her mind.

                                                
Chapter 5

     
Cathy opened her senses to the powers on
the lower
level. She never could pick up on Ethan’s,
so she concentrated on Edward’s. It was faint, but
she
found it. She followed the source out of the
lobby and down the hall, where it continued past
a closed
door. She pulled it open and stopped.
There were stairs leading down into a basement.
The
iridescent lights flickered, showing the way.
She gingerly stepped down the stairs, gripping the
gun
tightly. The only thing she could hear was
grunts coming from whatever was down below.

     
Ethan’s voice stopped her. “She trusted you.
We all
did.”

     
Grunt.

     
“I should kill you.” Edward’s
menacing tone matched the growl that
followed.

     
“Black will kill you both if anything happens to me.”

     
Cathy moved off the last step and rounded the corner into the room. Jonah was chained to the
wall, his hands above his head, blood dripping down his lip. One of his eyes was already black and
blue and on the way to being swollen shut. The guys were doing a good job on him, and if Cathy
didn’t know the truth, she would have stopped them. But not now. No, he deserved that and so
much more.

     
The guys stopped talking as she approached. Their gaze on her never wavered as she

approached Jonah. The muscle in Ethan’s jaw ticked as Edward cupped his bloody knuckles. She
stopped mere inches from Jonah’s face and unhooked his watch.

“What are you doing?” Jonah asked while spitting blood out of his mouth. “You can’t have
that.”

     
Cathy shook her head. “I know the truth. You never sent the warning. It’s been you all along,
hasn’t it?”

     
She stepped back and lifted the gun. “You’re the mole. You’re the reason he’s always been one
step ahead of us. You’re the reason both Gracie and Tara were almost killed. It’s all because of you.”

    
She cocked the trigger as a tear slid down her cheek.

    
“Say something, damn it!” She shot once above his head, imbedding the bullet into the
concrete.

    
“He made me do it.”

    
“Tell me the truth, or the next one is in
your head.”

    
Cathy tossed the watch to Edward. “Destroy
it.”

    
“No!” Jonah screamed. “It’s connected to my
gift.
You can’t destroy it.”

    
Cathy tilted her head and held out her hand.
Edward
handed her the watch back. “He gave it to
you, didn’t he?”

    
Jonah let his head fall forward. “Yes.”

    
She tossed the watch to the ground and aimed.”

    
He screamed. “No!”

    
She ignored him and pulled the trigger causing
the
watch to burst into a million pieces before
the sound of gunfire died away. It was done; it was
over,
it was how she was going to make him pay.

    
His shoulders sagged, and his head fell forward. “That was all I had. Now I’m nothing.”

    
“You’re right about that but not because your precious watch is gone. We were all your friends.
We would have protected
you. We would have found a way to save you and
help you. Now you’ve
lost us too, and you have no one but yourself to blame. Not him, not us, only yourself.”

    
Cathy turned around and walked back up the steps.

    
“You can’t leave me here, Cathy; please help me.”

    
She ignored his pleas. There was nothing left she could do for him. Tears fell down her cheeks.
He was another person she’d trusted who had betrayed her. He’d been her friend.

    
She reached the top of the stairs and walked out into the hallway, only to be stopped from
behind. Ethan pulled her into his arms, and she sagged into his embrace when her tears turned into
sobs. Her whole body shook as she cried into his shirt, soaking the soft cotton.

    
All at once, everything finally registered. She’d been left by the man who was supposed to love
her all her life; she’d been kidnapped; she was the only one who could stop the mad man; all of her
friends and the Phantoms were in danger, and Jonah’s betrayal cut to the bone. She sobbed more,
louder, unable to stop.

Ethan lifted her off her feet. She didn’t have the energy to fight him, and she didn’t want to.
She leaned into his warmth and closed her eyes as she continued to sob. She’d had no one since he’d
left her, no one to lean on, and just for a minute, she wanted him to hold her, to comfort her.

    
Cathy buried her head in his chest and let all of the remaining adrenaline leave her body. She
was safe in his arms, no matter how much she hated the thought. She needed him, at least for now.

    
Her body sank into the mattress when he laid her down. He didn’t move to get in the bed with
her; he just pulled the covers over her and kissed
her
forehead. “I’ve got you. Just rest.”

    
She closed her eyes, not having the energy
for a verbal
sparring match. It could wait. It would
have to wait. She’d need her strength for that fight. Mentally drained, she could no longer hold her
eyes open. She didn’t want to. She let the darkness
suck
her under and, with her last thought, wished
for everything to go back to the way it had been,
a naïve
world with no Black, no wolves, and no
wrongs to be righted.

                                                    
****

    
Ethan caressed Cathy’s face with his gaze. The normally porcelain surface was red and splotchy,
and it had almost killed him when she’d broken
down in
his arms. He’d never meant to hurt her. He
would have given his life to keep her happy and
safe. He
was failing miserably. He was the worst
mate ever in the history of mates. Intending on
keeping
her safe, he’d put her in harm’s way. Worse
than that, he’d put her in his father’s sights. His
heart
ached, and his head hurt. This shouldn’t be
happening. He’d done everything right. When he’d
found
her, he refrained from sleeping with her,
even though his wolf was
demanding and hard to hold back. He wanted, no, he
craved, the feel of
her lips on his, to taste his mate’s sweet nectar. He’d be a lost cause if that happened. He wouldn’t
have ever been able to let her go, and that’s what he’d needed to do. He needed her as far away from
him and Black as possible.

    
Black was notorious for finding ways to manipulate people. Until now, Ethan had nothing the
old man could use. Until now, Ethan had been happily pissing the old man off every chance he got,
foiling his plans, and ruining his feeble attempts to control everyone around him. The thought of
even calling the man father sent a shiver down Ethan’s spine. Black was only the man who’d housed
him when his parents had died. That was all. Ethan hadn’t been brought up in an environment filled
with love and understanding. He wasn’t sure if he even knew what those words meant, much less
how to provide Cathy with what she deserved and craved.

    
Two hours went by, and Cathy was resting peacefully. Ethan had used the downtime to think.
He needed to make arrangements and implement a new plan that didn’t include Cathy seeing Black
again.

    
A knock on the door pulled him from his thoughts. Ethan walked over to the door and pulled it
open. Edward. He ran a hand through his hair before squeezing his neck. He wasn’t his calm, cool,

collected self. He looked worried; he looked as if Black had set his sights on
his
mate and not

Ethan’s.

     
Edward barged into the room pushing past Ethan, like he owned the place. “Why didn’t you
send her away? Why did you send me to bring her
here?
You know how close we are to that insane
bastard. You did more harm than good, Ethan,
and now she’s
the one who’s going to pay the price.”

     
Ethan stalked up to Edward and narrowed
his eyes.
“I wasn’t the one who let Black get
anywhere near her. If I’d known you were so scared
of
him or that you were going to give him direct
access, I never would have asked you to do anything. And, on top of that, you did this for him, not
for me. It was just a coincidence we both wanted
the
same thing.”