11. Chapter Eleven

We were at Heath's home in less than thirty minutes. He met us at the front door, opening it before I could knock. He gestured for us to quickly come in. Landon was nearby, waiting at the bottom of the stairs. I ignored him and stared at Heath as the Alpha closed the door.

"What's going on?"

"The BSA visited me yesterday, and it had nothing to do with you and Carey. They've been watching me. They know I'm a supernatural."

It was Landon who started whistling, low and persistent, probably in shock. Heath growled in his direction, and I turned to see the younger werewolf lift his hands.

"Sorry. Just not what I was expecting to hear this morning. Why are you here?" His final question was for Dirk.

"I'm her new…head of security," Dirk answered, clearly unsure of the terminology, or maybe because he was talking to Landon. Landon's eyes went wide.

"Do you have training in that?"

"He's the best I got," I said, cutting in as Heath reached out and grabbed one of my hands. "He was raised by my brother, so he knows a few things. He was able to get the fucking cameras out of my trees."

"Okay, let's go to my office. Now." Heath started walking, and when I didn't move, he nearly pulled me to take a step, which was unlike him. "All of us. Let's go. Jacky, you'll explain everything when we get in there."

Once we were all in his office, he closed the door and sat down, running a hand through his perfect hair, messing it up in a way I was all too familiar with.

"How?" he asked. "Are you okay? I wouldn't be."

"I'm fine. Let me explain…" I explained every aching detail and watched as Heath grew more and more guilty. He slumped back in his chair when I got to the end.

"It was us," he said plainly.

"It was us," I agreed. "I…overstepped the bounds, doing what I have been, and now I'm paying for it." I pulled out my phone and flipped it around in my hand. "I wouldn't change it, any of it, I just wish it didn't play out like this. Heath, Hasan threatened to take me home if I screwed this up anymore, and…these photos are from the last full moon." I held out my phone. I had put the pictures and video on it for future reference the night before. "Which means they probably caught you coming and going, too."

"Oh no," he whispered, taking my phone. I watched him scroll, and when he stopped scrolling, I knew he was on the video. "So, you talked to your family already? You made a game plan with them? Because I can't…guide you through this. I'm a werewolf, and sticking my nose about you going public or working with the US government is…way out of line. There's no way either of us could justify it. I helped the werewolves go public, and I could maybe tell you about those meetings, but beyond that…" He seemed a little lost. I knew Heath Everson liked having a plan. Plans were good. He could control plans, but this time, he had to be on the sidelines. For both our sakes, he had to stay out of this one.

"Yeah, we've already talked, and it went as well as you can expect, but I need something from you," I said softly, sitting down across from him. "Dirk and I need to shore up my security problems. I was hoping you and Landon could help him with that."

"Good work on getting the cameras," Heath said, looking over me. "I can help contain your property, fencing, and maybe a few of your own cameras hooked up to your office at the bar or in your home. Jacky…I could turn your house into a fortress in under a month if that's what you need."

"I'll pay you," I said quickly, swallowing. "Or you can just give Dirk some names and—"

"Are you sure you want that?" Heath shook his head. "Jacky, you love living in nature and seeing your trees. I'm talking about putting up a wall and a gate."

"Whatever you have to do," I said, suddenly frantic when he put my phone down on the desk between us. I looked down to see it paused on a scene from my house and remembered that sick feeling again, making my stomach twist. "Whatever I have to do. I'm about to be the United States and werecat liaison or something. Heath, this is big now. This isn't me going off and getting into a fight. They're coming to me. They know my name! They put up cameras pointed at my house! They have video of me!" I began to shake as tears filled my eyes. "PUT UP FUCKING WALLS!"

For the first time since I saw the video, the sense of being violated hit me fully, like a battering ram on my emotions and my self-control. I had been holding on, trying to address the problem, making my emotions wait, but nothing could burn out the feeling I had the moment I saw myself on camera. I remembered how they blurred my body, but they had seen me. I was accustomed to nudity in front of the people I chose to be nude around and for practicality among werecats. That was something I accepted.

These were strangers who recorded me, saved it, watched it, and learned my darkest secret, then had the audacity to think blurring my tits meant anything. Somewhere out there, someone was probably still replaying the unaltered version, not seeing a damn thing wrong with it. Someone who didn't know how much they had fucking hurt me—or maybe they did and just didn't care. They saw my scars and the sick way my bones shifted under my skin.

They saw my truth, and they were going to have it forever. My privacy had been ripped away from me, and there was nothing that could get it back.

I crumpled and sobbed, my shoulders shaking as it washed over me, and I felt the need to throw up.

Two strong arms wrapped around me and pulled me off the chair into a lap. Curled on the floor, I sobbed into Heath's shirt until it felt as though there was nothing left.

"I've got you," he whispered into my hair. "I'm here."

"She…she seemed fine…" Dirk was trying to say.

"Let's give them a minute," Landon said gently. I heard the door open, boots leave, then the door close once again.

"Let it out," Heath said, ignoring the conversation.

I took a ragged breath. "I…I need to get to work. I need—"

"You need to come to terms with what's happened," he said strongly, holding me in place.

I pushed away from him and off his lap, reminding both of us who was the stronger species. I fell back on my ass, hitting my tailbone on his hardwood floor when I couldn't find my feet.

"Come to terms with this?" I clutched the front of my shirt, hissing the words. "How can I ever come to terms with the fact I was filmed naked on my own porch? On my private property? And I exposed my entire fucking species!"

"I don't know," he said gently. "I don't know how, but you need to feel what you're feeling, Jacky. I'm sorry, but you need to work through it. If you keep burying it, you're only going to hurt yourself or someone else."

"I want to hurt them!" I roared, going feral as the human words turned into an animalistic sound. My body was triggering the Change. My jaw cracked and shifted as I tried to close it.

"If you don't calm down, there's a chance you'll do something you can't come back from," he said quickly. "Jacky, listen to me. When moon cursed lose control like you are right now, they don't always come back from that Change. Please."

I saw the tears in his eyes, the horror and desperation on his face as I snarled in his direction and finally heard what he was saying.

"Think of Carey," he pleaded. "Please don't lose it now."

I took a deep breath and held on. The rage and violated feeling inside of me was upsetting that primal part of me, that instinctual beast that was a corner of my brain.

He was right. If I let the Change take me right now, it could very well be my last.

Inhaling deeply again as my body shook violently, I fell forward and cried out, but I kept my human shape. He touched me gently and slowly hauled me back onto his lap.

"Please don't scare me like that again," he murmured, holding onto me. "I know what they did to you. I saw it. It's wrong, and they didn't just violate you. They violated your entire species. They violated everything you try to protect. They don't understand. They'll never understand."

I slowly stopped shaking.

"They've done it to werewolves," he continued, rubbing my back. "As much as I want them to stop, I can't make them. They try to see us as citizens, but they barely see us as humans. They don't care that you were raised like any of their daughters were, and I'm sorry they don't care. I'm so sorry."

"I'll make them understand," I said hoarsely. "Watch me."

He didn't say anything in return. When I moved to get up this time, I was steadier. He got to his feet only seconds later.

"If you make this a fight with them, it could jeopardize other werecats," he said softly, a warning coming from his good nature of wanting to see everything turn out okay.

"I won't make it about the werecats," I said softly. "I'll bring it up after everything else is figured out. They can't…they can't do that to people." I pointed at my phone. "They…they have copies somewhere, Heath. Someone is probably showing someone else right now, talking about this new freak they found."

He hugged me again and rocked gently. This was what I had wanted after my family yelled at me and each other. This was what I wanted from them, just for a moment. I was sure they didn't mean to hurt me. They were in panic mode, too, trying to figure out what to do with this new revelation.

I didn't need to ask Heath.

Heath offered it without words.

I clung to him, knowing how I fell for him, why he was such a vital piece of my life, that I was willing to risk everything to be with him. He didn't need me to ask. He only needed to be in the same space as me.

"How are you so good at this?" I asked, leaning into his chest farther, putting my weight into it, practically letting him hold me up.

"The truth or the poetry?"

"Both?" I frowned into his shirt, wondering what he meant.

"The poetry is, I love you, and my favorite place to be is with you. I'll give you anything you need, whenever you need it. The truth is, I'm an Alpha werewolf, and this is my job, to know the needs of the people who are in my life and make sure they're taken care of. Giving that to you, even though you're my lover and not my pack, is something that comes as naturally to me as breathing."

"There are bad Alphas," I reminded him, pulling back.

"There are," he agreed. "They do the same thing, though. They just do it in their own awful ways."

"Ah."

The off-topic conversation took my mind off the video, off the photos, off the problem, but I knew I'd have to get back to all of those things soon.

"I see them again tomorrow," I whispered, going back to the conversation. "They gave me forty-eight hours to figure out what to say to them after I decided to throw them out."

"Better you throw them out the first meeting than attack them," he said, nodding. I felt his cheek rubbing my hair.

"I didn't want to attack them at that moment. I don't know what I wanted. To turn back time?" The hug ended naturally this time. Heath took a step back, putting his hands in his pockets as he stared at me with those stormy grey-blue eyes. "Do you really think I was about to…"

"I've seen enough werewolves do it, I know the signs, but…I know werecats do it much less frequently than we do. I don't really know, but it was too close to something I had seen before," he said as if he was admitting something painful.

"What would you have done?"

"Put a silver bullet between your eyes," he whispered, reaching out to push my hair out of my face. He meant every word, and there was no guilt. He wasn't blocking his scent from me to make it even clearer. He would do it. There wasn't another option. I'd be a danger not just to him but to Landon, Dirk, and Carey as well.

"Good." That was the correct decision. It might have seemed harsh to anyone else, but the Last Change meant becoming a monster. It was the reason movie werewolves existed and why so many people truly feared them. All rationale was gone. The ability and need to kill anything and anyone that might threaten the moon cursed was all that was left. When a moon cursed was pushed to that point, everything was a threat.

He dropped his hand and sighed. "Tomorrow—"

"Landon! I'm ready to go! Isn't Dad taking me to school today? He promised he would."

That voice was like an electric shock on my system. I wiped my eyes, wanting to see her, but I wasn't sure how I looked. I had just had a breakdown.

"She can't see me like this, can she?" I asked, looking at the door.

"You look like you're tired," he said diplomatically. "You can always see her, but she'll know you've been crying." In the background, Landon was consoling his sister about their dad not being available.

"Okay…" I took a deep breath. "I'm going to go see her, then we'll talk more."

He followed, silent, patient, and always at my back. She was standing at the end of the hall near the front door as Landon pulled on some shoes.

"Dirk, why are you here?" Carey asked innocently.

"Ah, uh…" He looked around and caught sight of me before anyone else. "Jacky and I had to stop by for something important. There she is." He pointed at me.

"Hey, Carey," I greeted with a smile, even though it felt shaky and weak at best. "Heading back to school, huh?"

"I went yesterday, too," she said, coming up to me for a one-armed hug. When she stepped back, her calculating mind worked on what was going on as she looked me over. "Why did you need Dad?"

"Werecat things," I said, shrugging. "Sorry, but it's above your pay grade."

"Oh. Well…since we didn't hang out on Monday, do you want to do something today? Or tomorrow?"

"I might need to hold on for a week. This is big, but you'll be the first to know when I have time," I promised.

Will I still be allowed, or will the BSA think I'm too supernatural for her?

Another thing I would have to clarify at the second meeting.

I wish those guys hadn't been so vague.

"Okay, cool. I got to head to school. Feel better, okay?"

"I will," I answered, giving her a thumbs up.

She didn't move, her grey-blue eyes, exact matches to her father's, studying me.

"Have a good day." She still didn't move as if she was daring me to say I would have any other kind of day.

"You, too." I didn't think Carey had ever seen me like this. I didn't normally present myself to the public, then break down into tears.

"Carey, come on. I don't want you to be late for school," Landon said. "Let's get out of their way."

"Where's my hug?" Heath demanded, finally stepping around me. Carey stuck her tongue out at him and walked out the front door, making me laugh.

"No love from that child," Heath muttered. Landon shrugged, and Heath glared at him next. "No love from any of you."

Landon walked out, giving everyone a silent wave. Dirk was the last of the "kids" in the house, awkwardly standing in the entryway near the living room.

"She just walked downstairs, ate a pop tart, and acted like everything was totally normal," he said, looking at me and Heath as though he didn't honestly know what to do.

"I've finally discovered a Dirk weakness," I declared. "Children!"

"Not funny," he grumbled. "Not many of them in our family."

"There really isn't," I agreed. Then I sobered. "Sorry about…" I pointed aimlessly over my shoulder.

"You don't need to apologize," he mumbled. "Are…are you feeling better?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I am. Let's get to work. I don't need walls, but…"

"We can do something that matches the area," Heath said patiently. "Let's talk. Let's try to fix this."