Seven Days (8 page)

I laughed and then groaned, clutching my chest. “Don’t make me laugh,” I begged. The image of my mother swooping into the hospital and demanding information she wouldn’t understand was funny until I realized how deep the lack of understanding would eventually become when it came to my health and what I could and could not tell my mother.

“We should head back to Gram’s place,” Xavier said. “We need to figure out who this guy is and then make a plan to take care of him. I’m thinking it’s got to be the same guy who has been killing the girls in Highland Home and East Hampton. I can’t believe there are two rogue panthers in the area with a taste for brown-haired girls.”

I grimaced. I hadn’t realized that in the chaos of my attack, Xavier’s injuries, and the worry over whether or not I was infected with the were virus, I hadn’t told Xavier it had been Lane who had attacked me. I didn’t want to tell Xavier that his own father had attacked me, had intentionally attempted to either kill or infect me, at least not here, in public, where Xavier’s temper might get the better of him.

“Maire, did you tell Mom I got hurt?” I asked to divert the discussion away from my attacker.

Mairin shook her head. “I told her we’d come to the hospital to check on Xavier, but I didn’t say anything about the attack. I should have...”

“No, it’s better that you didn’t,” I said. “That way we can go to Elise’s now. If Mom and Tawnya knew, they’d insist on putting me to bed like I was five.”

Mairin, who had spent two months bound to our house, and very nearly tied to her bed when she refused to stay in it, after the incident in England nodded. “That was why I didn’t say anything. Dr. Coffman said the cuts weren’t that bad and the other...well he said we wouldn’t know if you were infected and even when we do know the outcome of the tests, there won’t be anything Mom and Tawnya can do about it.”

Xavier and Mathias both groaned. I saw Mathias pull on Mairin’s arm, only to release her when she turned to glare at him. Leave it to my plain-spoken sister to say what everyone else was dancing around. Her lack of tact in these situations was one of the reasons I adored my big sister. I could always count on her to give me the straight truth when others were trying to protect me.

“She’s right, you know,” I said. “We’re going to have to deal with my probable infection eventually. Just because no one else will say the words, ‘Kerry’s probably going to turn furry once a month,’ doesn’t mean it won’t happen.”

“Doc said possible, not probable,” Xavier said. I glared at him.

“I try to live in the real world whenever possible, Xavier, you know that.”

He nodded and I saw his jaw clench. I knew he wanted to say something else, but was trying to control his temper while we were still surrounded by strangers. Rather than fight with me over my future, Xavier looked at Mathias. “Please tell me you brought something other than that sports car.”

“I had Alfred bring the SUV so we could take Kerry home without trying to fold her in half to fit in my car,” Mathias said, smiling at me. “Let us get to Elise’s home so we can begin planning how to take care of this rogue panther.”

“Wait, Mathias,” Xavier said. “I just need you to give us a ride to Gram’s place. This is panther business. The vamps aren’t involved.”

“Xavier, this man is a killer. He has proven that he is indiscriminate in his kills, taking whomever he feels is close enough to fulfill whatever sick instinct has him hunting for Kerry or women like her. Why would the pride wish to face down this kind of killer without help? I believe in using the strengths you have at your disposal. You have more than twenty vampires available to you right now. Why would you not wish to use that advantage?”

“Because it’s none of your damned business how we handle pride issues,” Xavier growled.

“I agree, Xavier,” Mathias said, maintaining a reasonable tone and putting space between himself and an obviously agitated Xavier. “But the panthers have come to our aid when it was requested or required. I wish to return the favor.”

“He’s right,” I said. “Xavier, you’re going to want to let the vampires help you.” I knew who the killer was. I couldn’t let Xavier go into this hunt when I knew his prey was the man who had fathered him. I knew what kind of damage a hunt like that would do to the man I loved and I knew I couldn’t ask Xavier to plot to kill his own father, but the vampires would be willing to kill Lane for him. If I could save Xavier from some of the agony in this situation, I would.

Xavier looked at me as though I’d grown horns. “Kerry, this has nothing to do with the vamps,” he said.

“Whether this is pride business or not, Mathias is right. There’s strength in numbers. There are fewer than twenty panthers in the pride. With the vampires on our side, the pride doubles its numbers. The pride hasn’t found this rogue on its own yet, why not let Mathias and the other vampires help?”

Xavier threw his hands up. “Fine. But I’m going to remind you all that I was against this when it goes balls up with vampires and panthers scrapping with each other again. I’ll call Gram to let her know we’re on our way. How many vamps will there be?”

“I will contact Alfred. He will leave Gino in charge of the vampires at the house and come to help with the strategy and planning,” Mathias said. “I am well aware of your grandmother’s feelings regarding vampires in her home, so we will keep the numbers to a minimum at the house.”

“Maire, can you call Mom and let her know we’re going to Elise’s?” I asked. She nodded and followed Mathias out of the cubicle. The nurse came in and helped me pull a t-shirt over the bandages. Xavier sat in the chair in the corner, his head in his hands.

“I should have made you stay at Gram’s place tonight,” he said as he helped
me out to the parking lot.

“I wouldn’t have stayed, and you know it,” I said. “We have to move forward, Xavier. We can’t second guess what can’t be changed.”

Xavier wrapped his arm around my shoulders and held me close as we rode back to Elise’s house. I could feel the tension in him and it broke my heart to know what I had to tell him was going to make things worse.

Elise waited for us on the porch as we pulled into the driveway. The dim bulb in the fixture behind her cast shadows, but none so deep as those cast by her frown.

“I told you to stay with him,” she said when Xavier lifted me carefully out of the SUV and carried me up the porch steps.

“They frown on girls on the football field, Gram,” Xavier said.

Elise nodded once, her lips pinched into a disapproving line, and went into the house. I giggled against Xavier’s chest.

“Girls on the field?” I whispered.

“Seemed like the most appropriate response that wouldn’t get me grounded for a year,” he said, laughing.

It wasn't until I heard his laughter that I realized how heavy I had felt since my arrival at the hospital. Xavier had been hurt and silent. The nurses and doctors in the emergency room had averted their eyes when they were with me. Even Mathias refused to get close to me, as though his iron will might break, when the truth was, everyone was waiting for me to break. Xavier's laughter lifted some of the weight from my body. It was good to feel lighter, even close to happy, not matter how fleeting the feeling might be.

Elise's living room was filled to the brim with high energy and loud voices. The boys I had become so comfortable with over the last year, the pride, crowded around us. They wanted to know if he was okay. If I was going to be one of them. Several members of the pride sniffed along my skin, raising gooseflesh on my arms. The sadness in their eyes told me what they thought my fate was. If they could smell panther in my blood, why should I wait for Doctor Coffman's tests?

Xavier pushed several members of the pride back as they stepped too close in their effort to see if I was going to be one of them in seven days.

"Enough, guys. Doc Coffman said we had to wait for the blood tests to come back. Until then, everything--even our sense of smell--is just conjecture."

My world closed down to the pinpoints of contact between my body and Xavier's. Our. He'd said "our" sense of smell. He could smell panther in my blood. My body jerked as the tension reawakened the pain in my chest.

"You can smell it, can't you?" I whispered.

Xavier wouldn't meet my eyes. That tiny refusal meant more than anything else that had happened since Lane had attacked me. Xavier was convinced, but trying to give me hope.

"Tell me," I begged.

Xavier carefully lowered me onto Elise's couch before kneeling in front of it. His hands captured mine, his strength making it impossible for me to take them back.

"I smell the panther who changed me, Kerry. I can smell him on your skin and in your wounds. That doesn't mean I smell it in your blood."

I shook my head. "You're lying."

A single tear slipped down his cheek to splash onto our joined hands. "I'm not lying, Kerr. I'm telling you what I know without a doubt. Please trust me, and Doc Coffman. There's still hope." Xavier rose and went to the kitchen where Elise waited--probably to chew him out for letting me get hurt.

As I thought about what Xavier had said about hope, I realized there was one other person in the room who could give me what I wanted. Mathias would be able to smell my blood like none other. But would he tell me the truth if he smelled panther in it?

I scanned the room, looking for Mathias and my sister. As I caught Mathias' gaze, he quickly slipped his cell phone from his pocket and stepped out to the porch.

"I will have food sent to feed the cats,” he said when he caught my questioning expression.

"But..." I knew Mathias was avoiding me and my questions.

“Pizza!” Andre shouted. Only one of the Vaughn brothers to be so rude as to dictate what free food he’d get. The panthers were almost always hungry. Not one of them would turn down food, even if it was given to them by a vampire.

“As you wish,” Mathias said. He broke his gaze from mine and disappeared into the shadows on the porch.

Mairin followed Mathias outside and stayed with him for a few minutes. I leaned back on the couch to try to find some comfortable position that didn't pull at the stitches in my chest. I was almost certain Mairin knew what I wanted from Mathias. The question was would she let him tell me or would she strive to protect me until the outcome of tonight's attack was fully revealed by the blood test or by my own body's change with the full moon? She could be irritatingly over-protective, though always with good intentions.

"Kerry, are you sure you don't want me to take you home?" she asked, taking a seat on the floor next to my legs.

"I don't want to try to explain any of this to Mom or Tawnya right now." I groaned a little as I shifted to be able to see my sister better. "What is Mathias really doing out there?"

Mairin shrugged, her eyes straying to the screen door where Mathias was barely visible in the darkness.

“He doesn’t want to make Elise uncomfortable,” she whispered. “When Alfred gets here, they’ll come in.” "And that's it?" I asked. "He doesn't have any other reason to avoid being here...where I am?"

Mairin had to good grace to blush and duck her head. "Kerry, please let the doctor's tests be your confirmation. I don't care how good anyone's nose might be. I want to hear it from the doctor that your life is going to change."

"So he can smell it," I said. Tears burned my eyes and the lump in my throat that had been shrinking since I'd left the hospital became nearly large enough to stop my breath.

"He smells something different in your blood," she said. She leaned against my leg and reached for my hand. "But even he isn't certain what he smells."

Mairin glanced back to the door. I knew she disliked being away from Mathias as much as I hated being away from Xavier. It dawned on me as I watched her that she was in pain over my possible future. She blamed herself for letting me go on my own and for not protecting me.

"You know this isn't your fault, Maire," I said.

"No, I don't know that." I cringed from the bitterness in her voice. "How many times can I forgive the fact that my weird magnet puts you in danger?"

"I have my own magnet, sis."

She shook her head. "I know you love him, Kerry, but if I hadn't needed Elise's tutoring on my aura reading, you might never have met Xavier. If I hadn't wanted Mathias in my life, the panthers would have stayed in East Hampton and not interfered with our lives." She sighed. "You would have been safer if I weren't so selfish."

"Would you rather take Xavier's love from my life than let my journey be what it is meant to be?" I asked.

"If it meant you were safe. If it meant you could be a teenaged girl without the worries of vampires and demons and demigods and wereanimals, yes. I'd give almost anything to be able to give you that kind of life."

"But I don't want that kind of life if it means Xavier isn't in it." I gripped Mairin's hand, pulling at it until she looked up at me. "Have you ever thought that maybe our magnets work the way they do because we need the strength that comes from the pride and the vampires? Have you ever thought that maybe you needed Elise's help when you did because I needed Xavier in my life?"

"I want to believe that, Kerry," she said. "I want to believe there's a reason for all the danger and all the help that is something deeper than just my propensity to draw the biggest and the baddest monsters into my life, but it's hard for me to do that when I see what my choices have done to you."

"I'll be fine, Maire. Even if I turn furry once a month."

"Furry doesn't matter to me, Kerry. It would mean you were safer, stronger. But I can't ever see you lying on the ground with the blood of your life turning black on the pavement beneath you." I heard the catch in her voice and realized my sister, the invincible and incredibly strong woman who loved me almost more than our own mother did, was on the verge of tears.

"I think I once said something similar to you," I said.

"You did and I've been as careful as I can be, but I failed tonight in the worst possible way. I let my guard down for one moment and you were nearly taken from me. I can't...I won't let that happen again."

"Maire, I...." I didn't know what to say. I knew my sister loved me, but she'd never before come so close to saying that she would die to protect me.

She stood and kissed my forehead. "I love you, Kerry. Nothing else matters."

She was gone before I could say anything else. I saw her reach into the shadows on the porch and Mathias materialized to hold her. I sighed and groaned again. Whatever pain medication the doctor had given me at the hospital was beginning to wear off and while the lines of stitches in my chest might throb in time to my heartbeat, the pain in my heart was deeper and sharper than any claws would be.

I knew I had to be the one to tell Xavier who had attacked me. And I knew that at some point he would feel it was his duty to fight the man who had given him life. Tyler Meyers was the father Xavier claimed, but what kind of damage would Xavier do to his soul if he had to kill Lane?

Xavier returned from the kitchen and I let him pull me into his side on the couch. I turned and carefully twisted until I found a comfortable position and then waited. I glanced toward the kitchen and saw Elise watching me. She nodded ever so slightly, sending a jolt of understanding through my body. She knew who had attacked me, who had attacked Xavier when he'd been seven. She knew what I was going to have to tell Xavier and she knew what it was going to cost us all. And yet she was telling me to do what needed to be done. I wanted to talk to her, to hear Elise's thoughts on how best to tell Xavier that his own flesh and blood had not only changed the course of his own life, but likely that of mine as well. But Elise kept her distance, remaining in the kitchen while the pride members gathered around.

“Ok, so the first thing we need to do is figure out who this rogue is and then decide how to catch and kill him. He’s broken our laws and the human laws. We don’t have any choice.” Xavier’s voice rang with the timbre of the leader of the pride and
goose bumps rose on my arms.

“Christian, did you get a good look at him?” Xavier asked.

“Not really,” Christian said. “I was across the parking lot when I saw the guy pulling on Kerry’s arm and Mathias trying to stop him.”

“Kerry,” Xavier said, turning to look at me. “Why did you go with this guy in the first place?”

I took a deep breath. The last thing I wanted to do was bring any more pain to Xavier and the pride after what had happened over the past few weeks, but I knew keeping Lane's identity to myself might mean more girls would die. Lane had already proven himself to be a killer. I had to believe that no matter how much it would hurt Xavier, knowing who the killer was would mean the end of the parade of death and destruction Lane had brought to East Hampton and Highland Home.

“I knew him, Xavier,” I said softly.

“What?”

“It was...” I sighed. There was no gentle way to say the next three words. Delay wouldn't help. Only the truth would mean an end to the attacks. “It was Lane.”

“Who is Lane?” Mathias asked. I glanced away from Xavier's face long enough to see Mathias and Alfred standing together just inside the door from the porch. “I did not recognize the man who attacked Kerry as someone from either Highland Home or East Hampton.”

My gaze returned to Xavier. His throat worked as though he were attempting to swallow over a boulder caught in his throat. His heart thundered against my body where we touched. Energy vibrated off his skin like an electrical current. I didn't have to be able to see his eyes to know they would be dark with his panther. Whether he was angry or hurting didn't matter. Xavier was on the verge of exploding and I had to calm him before he did something he might later regret.

“Xavier?” I said softly, reaching for his face, pulling it toward me so I could see his eyes.

“Lane,” he whispered. I nodded. “And you didn’t tell me before now because...”

“Because I wanted you to be among family and away from strangers in case you lost your temper,” I said.

He nodded and carefully moved me so he could stand up and pace the length of the living room. He kept whispering, “Lane,” as he walked. Anger and pain pulsed in waves off his body. I could almost see a shimmer of his panther over the form of his body as he walked and I knew that no matter what he was feeling now, waiting to tell him about Lane until he was with the pride and away from strangers had been the right decision.