11. Chapter Eleven

"You have to get up, feline."

I didn't want to. Everything hurt. I felt weak and sluggish. I didn't want to get up. Where was I, anyway? Why wasn't I at home in my bar? Who was talking to me? It wasn't Hasan. It wasn't even Joey, the damn human.

"Jacky, please. I did all I could to get the silver out of your system, but I can't force you to rise."

Silver? Why had there been silver in my system? I didn't get into trouble that normally had silver involved. I didn't get into trouble. I actively avoided any sort of anything, really.

"They shot me and my son, Eamon. Nothing fatal. Just some warnings that they were willing to kill us if we didn't hand over Carey. I'm sorry, but I had my wife to think about and my boys. I'm sorry."

Carey…

I took a sharp breath, my eyes flying open. The breath made my chest tighten and hurt beyond imagining. It took me a few moments to be able to breathe again, whimpering a little as I tried.

Carey.

"There you are. You had my wife and I worried. You were dead for a little while, cat." My eyes found the man talking. Brin, the fae owner of the motel. He had a human wife and two…no, three half-fae sons. "Rian showed up after making sure the one in the gas station was well and truly dead. He also called the fae Kings and told them what happened. This is considered private property and there's going to be repercussions for them if the wolves don't handle their own."

"Carey…they have Carey?" My heart sank as that revelation settled in.

"They have Carey," he confirmed softly. "I'm sorry. I couldn't risk my family."

"It's okay," I said hoarsely. "I knew that when I jumped in, but I had to try. I-I…"

"I know. We tried to say she was now fae property, but they weren't buying it. They weren't going to allow me to keep her and when they shot me, I was fine, but then they shot Eamon…" He reached out and patted my shoulder, ever so gently. "You're on the mend, but it won't be fast this time. There was too much…too much damage, too deep. Internal organs and such."

"Yeah…Thank you." I was able to get one arm to move and put my hand over his. "Really. I'm in your debt for trying. You must have slowed them down just enough for me to get there." My lungs hurt, but I didn't let that stop me from saying what needed to be said. I owed him for so much.

"We tried. I think some of them were hoping you wouldn't get there before they could sneak off with her. They showed up the moment you entered the gas station and had her before I was even able to cross the parking lot. It was like they were waiting for the right moment to get her in hand without needing to go through you." He seemed concerned, worried. "They must have been watching us. I only own and have my own claim on this side of the highway. They could have been hiding in the woods across the way and I would have never known. I'm sorry."

"Heh. I still killed a few of them," I managed to say, even as the pain and regret filled me. I lost her. She's gone. I failed.

"They also managed to kill you for nearly two minutes," he snapped, glaring now. "And I have six dead werewolves to deal with."

"Call…Call the Alpha Council. They'll clean up. I've already used them." I coughed now, my body rejecting how much I wanted to use it just to speak. The problem was, I couldn't stay down. They took Carey. With that thought, I sat up slowly, trying to work my stiff muscles and ignore the pain. "How long have I been down?"

"Ten hours," he answered, his voice going gentle again. "You can't be thinking…" Realization dawned in his eyes. "You're going to go after them? Are you mad?"

"I swore an oath to protect her."

"And you failed. I'm sorry, but you did. At least you're alive. Let the wolves deal with their own now."

"Is that really what's expected of me?" I couldn't believe it. "Is that really what you think I should do?" I tried to move so that my legs would fall off the edge of the bed. I had a few things I needed to do now that I was awake.

"It's what everyone would tell you to do. To get involved now puts you directly in the line of meddling in the politics and affairs of the werewolves, which is a very bad place to be for a werecat. They won't let it stand."

"I swore an oath to her!" I growled, louder than anything I had been able to say before. "She's mine!"

"You lost her. I'm sorry." Brin stood up and stepped away, heading for the exit. He looked back once and sighed. "Let it go, Jacky. No one would fault you for walking away right now, not after the beating you took."

No. I stayed silent until he left. No. I'd promised, and I wasn't going to back out of it now. My Duty was to keep her safe as if she were my own child until I could put her back into the hands of those who have the longer claim, her family or legal guardians. Neither of which were the ones who took her, which meant I wasn't done.

I was slow to get up—which was to be expected, since it was only ten hours after I had been shot four times and died for two minutes. I stumbled to the doors, checking each. One was a closet, one was to the hallway, and just my luck, the very last was the bathroom I needed. I caught a look at myself when I sat down to do my business, seeing the dark circles under my eyes and the pain in the gold. I wondered if I was ever going to feel in control enough to get my hazel back. Someone had washed the blood off me, cleaning me up quite nicely, which was one small blessing.

There were bruises, too. One on my jaw and another on the opposite cheek. My neck had hand prints. The smaller injuries would be gone before the end of the week, but the more pressing ones, the gun shots? I would be nursing those for a while, and they would become a myriad of new scars I would have to live with.

Just like the night I left the apartment with Carey, I knew I didn't have weeks to get back to my best. I had to act, and quickly, so I began to formulate my plan as I washed my hands, then my face. I gingerly tested my body, bending over and wincing in pain as scabs tore and my muscles screamed in revolt at my movement.

When I went back into the bedroom, I found clothing set out on top of the dresser and got dressed. That took longer than anything I did in the bathroom.

Plan. Take Carey back and protect her to the best of my ability, which admittedly hadn't been too great so far.

How? I really had no idea. Brin was right. If I showed up in Dallas-Fort Worth, I would have to get involved with the mess going on there. I figured the wolves attacking me were working against her father, which meant if I took them all out on their own turf, I was giving Heath the upper hand in his fight, if he was still fighting. It was everything a werecat shouldn't do. We were supposed to be impartial protectors, guardians for humanity when the supernatural ruined their lives.

I curled a fist as I sat back down on the bed. It was a defensive role. I was tired of defensive, and in the end, I had failed at it. The only course of action I had now was to be on the offensive.

I had sworn an oath. Carey was mine and they took her from me. My throat tightened as I thought about everything that had happened. Tears flooded my eyes, even as I battled with a deep, unsettling rage growing in my chest. I killed people. A lot of people. I tore a man's throat out with my bare hands after I blinded him.

Ten years ago, I was just an EMT. I had saved people.

Now I was killing them.

I'm a monster.

And the other monsters had taken something that belonged to me.

Hasan once told me there would come a moment when I had to embrace what a werecat truly was. That I would have to accept the beast instead of just living with it. He'd said there was nothing wrong with violence in our lives, because we weren't human. We were built to be the top predators of whatever region we claimed, and it was in our nature to defend that claim to the last breath.

He probably never thought it would be over a human. He had probably just wanted me to stop feeling bad for knocking around other werecats when they accidentally or purposefully walked into my territory. It had always felt like needless violence to me.

Fighting for Carey didn't feel needless, though.

"She's mine," I growled, continuing to feel the instinctual pull to protect and care for her, accepting it and holding on to it with everything I could. And I'm going to defend that claim to my last breath.

I found the energy to stand up again and walked out of the bedroom, staggering only once and using the wall as my support. I found the fae-human family in their dining room.

"I need to go back to my room and get my things," I said softly, grabbing their attention. Brin was the one who sighed. I saw the young men around their human mother, who wore such an expression of worry that I nearly opened my mouth again to comfort her. I decided against it as Brin closed the distance and pointed to another door.

"Follow me," he ordered.

We walked out of the little house and down a trail that led to the gas station. We were silent until we reached the far side of the motel's parking lot and he stopped.

"This is where we scraped your body from the asphalt," he whispered, pointing down. I could still see the dark stain of my blood there, and it gave me chills. "This is what they're willing to do to capture a little human girl. Are you sure you want to do this?"

"I'm going to show them what I'm willing to do to save a little human girl," I answered.

"And you know what that means? You are going to break so many Laws—"

"They started it," I hissed. "They came into my home to take her and I killed them. They came here and I killed as many as I could. They took something that belongs to me, and yes, I know what it means. I have people I can call and warn. Maybe, just maybe, I'll get some backup. I don't need you questioning me, fae. This has nothing to do with you once I drive away."

"Of course." He inclined his head. "I'll charge you for everything."

"I have the money," I told him, walking past my bloodstain on the asphalt. The money wasn't a problem. The card was limitless. Hasan would never let me go out into the world poor, and I stopped arguing with him about money years ago.

I wasted no time in throwing all of my things back into their suitcases. Then I got Carey's, growling as I saw that the wolves took nothing of hers. She had nothing but the clothes on her back again.

It took me less than twenty minutes to load up my hatchback, my body aching in protest. Brin never stopped watching me, shaking his head in obvious equal parts disappointment and dismay. I was about to get into the hatchback when he grabbed me.

"You could start a war against your kind, Jacky. Please. Remember that there will be other humans who need you one day."

"I am," I whispered harshly. "I am thinking about them. They took Carey from me, and let this be a warning to whoever tries to take something from me again. Next time, they'll need to make sure I'm dead. Let the world get angry. I'm going to put fear in their fucking hearts before I rip them out of their fucking chests." I slid in, wincing because of the pain and slammed the door shut before he could say any more.

Duty was defensive. I wasn't going to let it stop there, though. I turned the engine on and screamed out of the parking lot, hitting the gas harder when I was on the highway. I pulled out my phone and punched in a random spot in Dallas as my destination. I didn't care if wolves were going to track me anymore.

I hope they know I'm coming for them. I wonder what they're going to think when they realize I'm not dead and I'm coming for their mangy asses. There better not be a hair out of place on Carey's head.

I turned on the Bluetooth between my hatchback's system and my phone.

"Call last number," I ordered.

It rang twice.

"Jacqueline—"

"They took her from me. I'll be in Dallas." I hung up right after that. I didn't need to have a long conversation with Hasan, but I felt he deserved to know that much. He tried calling back and I hit reject on the touch screen on my dashboard. Then I flicked through to another number and hit it.

"Jacky Leon. I heard some news, and I was worried something happened."

"Something did happen, Harrison. At least a dozen wolves showed up where I was hiding with Carey. Ten or so hours ago. I was shot four times with silver bullets and they took her. There's six dead wolves at the place. You'll get a call from the owner soon. He's called Brin. Get a clean-up crew out there for those guys."

"And what are you going to do? With Carey back in the hands of the wolves, I guess this is the last call—"

"I'm going to get her. You're going to stay out of my way. Before you ask, damn right I know what Laws I'm breaking. You should ask a more important question than that when you speak next."

"And what question would that be?" he asked softly. He was tense, and I couldn't blame him. I was about to say something stupid, and do something even stupider.

"Do I care?"

I hung up on him too.

I rejected another phone call from Hasan once the line was dead and called Lani.

"Jacky. I hope everything is okay." She sounded normal. I nearly felt bad for what I was about to drop on her head.

"What exactly does the Law cover when it comes to a werecat's Duty?" I knew the Laws as they were written but I had never sat down and really considered the nuances of them. I knew for a fact that I was about to break the Law, but the wolves had first and I was still, in my opinion, under the oath of Duty. If there was ever a dangerous grey area, I had found it.

"You are required to protect the human from all harm until the conditions are met. I take it, you promised Carey to take her back to her family or another keeper when things settled down, so that's two conditions."

"Exactly. That I knew, but…what does it mean for me?"

"In what case? Jacky, what happened?"

"Wolves took her from me and left me full of silver. I'll be fine, though. I'm still under oath, right? The problems in Dallas-Fort Worth haven't been resolved and I didn't give her into the care of someone I knew she was safe with. She was taken."

"Yes, but if you go to there…if you go after them, you're going to have to choose a side. That's…you can"t do that!" Lani must have figured out what I planned. I knew it wouldn't take too long.

"What's more important to the werecats? Our Duty, the thing that keeps us useful and safe in the world since the war with the werewolves, or the Law that binds our hands and leaves us lonely?" I demanded. "What's more important? Do I abandon Carey and walk away? That would be breaking my oath, Lani. I can't do that. Or do I break the Law and go get her and do what I'm supposed to, do what's right? There's a loophole, a conflict here. I need to know that something, anything, is going to back me up in my case on this." Because if I lived through it, I would be going before the Tribunal for a crime the likes of which I had never heard of. They would probably decide to kill me then and there.

"You can argue that you were only fulfilling the terms of your Duty. It's stupid and risky."

"I promised to treat her as one of my own, as if she were my child. Now, I don't have kids. I…wanted to, though, a long time ago. I would never let someone carry any child of mine away and give up on them."

"So you're going to Dallas," Lani said softly. "I can't promise it will help, but when they ever get around to putting you in front of the Tribunal, I'll be there to defend your choice. And they will. Jacky, if you live through this, they will come after you. Probably immediately. You might not leave Dallas."

"I know," I whispered. "I'm driving. I'm going to let you go."

"I've got your back, cub. You young ones always know how to keep things interesting." She hung up first, and I focused on the road, staring down the long highway.

Eventually, I passed through Jacksonville again, and then my bar. As I passed, I was able to see that the dirt bike was no longer in my parking lot, a good sign that the cleanup was either under way or finished. Not like I had the chance to really worry about it, but it was interesting to note.

An hour out of Dallas, I considered my game plan. I had to find a werewolf and hopefully use him or her to help me find Carey. They could be anywhere, but I figured it wouldn't be hard to look up some basic information once I was in the city. It wouldn't be hard to look up Heath Everson, Alpha of the cities, and find out where he worked or maybe even lived. For once, I was kicking myself for not having any connections to begin with. I should have been more active in the supernatural world. I should have known Carey might run to me if there was trouble.

Even Lani, who was reclusive as well, at least met the werewolf Alphas near her, even if it was to shake hands and show respect both ways. Me? I just dropped into East Texas and proceeded to ignore the world until Lani showed up and started to build up a tentative, if distant, friendship.

Which brought other questions to mind. How did the werewolves track me? Where did they get their information from? Was it my phone or Carey's? Was it my credit cards, even though I was using ones under a fake name? Did they know all the aliases I used? If so, how?

Nothing makes any sense and I'm way out of my depth here.

I winced as I adjusted in my seat. Out of my depth and wounded. Couldn't forget that second part if I wanted to live through whatever wasp nest I was about to kick.