Cipher Page 17

  Julio filed out after them, and Anna followed suit. Patrick paused to squeeze Kat’s shoulder. “Chin up, Katherine. You did good.”

  “Thanks, Patrick.” To someone who didn’t know her, the smile might have looked real. Patrick seemed to buy it, and he nodded to Andrew before slipping out of the room.

  As soon as the door closed behind him, Kat tried to pull Andrew’s mouth down to hers. He stayed rigid and wrapped his hands around her wrists. “Not so fast, sweetheart. We need to talk.”

  “You could have died out there. I could have died out there.” Her fingernails scraped against his neck. “I didn’t kiss you last time, and I regretted it for a year.”

  “Kiss me all you want. After I make sure you’re not still spinning.”

  “I’m always spinning, Andrew. I don’t know how to stop.” She tugged against his grip, trying to slide her hands toward the back of his neck. “You could make me stop. I wouldn’t be able to spin if you had control.”

  Responsibility was one thing, but she was talking about the kind of control he’d never wanted. “That’s never been my thing. I didn’t know it was yours.”

  She laughed shakily as her eyes fluttered shut. “You’re my thing. Wanting you is the only thing in my life that hasn’t changed.”

  The cracks in her composure grew with every breath, and Andrew eased her away. “Kat, it’s been a shitty night. Just…sleep on it, and we’ll talk tomorrow.”

  “No.” She took a step back, just one, then braced her feet. “I can’t do this anymore. I can’t heal a little and then rip off more of the scab. I can’t live with all this shit hanging over my head.”

  The words sliced at him. “I’m sorry about what happened tonight. I’m sorry you had to do it again.”

  “Not tonight,” she grated out. “Fourteen months ago. You’re a wolf because I lost control. Because I was scared, and I panicked, and I made those bastards attacking us panic.”

  “No.” The denial escaped without thought, but with more than a little panic. “You did what you had to do.”

  “Later. Later, I did what I had to do.” Her fingers curled toward her palms. “At first, I was weak and scared and out of control. I screwed up. And if you won’t be mad at me for it, we’re never going to be anything but two people who lie about the worst day of their life.”

  He couldn’t hear what she was saying. She had to stop and, for a heart-stopping second, he wanted to scream at her. So he shut it down and answered calmly. “What happened wasn’t your fault.”

  “Stop being a damn coward, Andrew. Be mad at me. Hate me.” Her blue eyes were ice as she glared at him. “And if you can’t do either of those, just ’fess up and admit that you think I’m a stupid kid who shouldn’t be held responsible for anything she does.”

  His careful, hard-won control didn’t snap. It split—right down the middle, like his heart. Like his life. “You want me to be mad? To hate you? Fine, I hate you.”

  Her face split too. Relief, and pain, and when she spoke, her voice was tight with what could have been rage or tears. “I ruined your life. And then I ruined mine. Some days I don’t know which of us I hate more.”

  “How could you not know?” The question had eaten him up inside, and it spilled out now. “Being around Alec and Derek, knowing how close to the edge they get sometimes… How could you not know that flipping your shit on a bunch of wolves was going to make them crazy?”

  “I wasn’t thinking. He said—” Her jaw clenched. “It doesn’t matter. I didn’t make a choice. I lost control, and I’m sorry.”

  His anger faded as suddenly as it had formed, exhausted by her pain, leaving him tired and ashamed. “Are we finished taking care of what you need, Kat? What makes you feel better? Because I feel like ass.”

  “Why?” Her voice broke. It broke, and she broke with it, shattering before his eyes. “Because I’m not like you and Anna and all the other badasses? Because I can’t take it if you treat me like an adult?”

  The truth was far simpler—and a hell of a lot more damning. “Because all hating you will do is cost me everything else. Whatever I didn’t lose that night.” You.

  She choked on something lost between a laugh and a sob. “We lost each other anyway. And I can’t—” She lifted her hands and scrubbed at her eyes. “If this is what I needed, what do you need?”

  It was impossible, literally. “I need for it not to have happened.”

  Another helpless laugh. “We’re both fucked, I guess.”

  “Yeah.” Anger bubbled up again, this time directed entirely at himself. His own selfishness was yet another thing he hadn’t been able to protect Kat from, and he really did hate her a little for making him admit it. “So what now?”

  “Now…” She shrugged. “I guess we figure out if we can forgive each other, or we give up. We can’t build anything good on hating each other and being afraid to admit it.”

  They had to be the only people anywhere, ever, who needed to despise each other, and it almost made him want to laugh. “I hate you, Kat,” he said again. “But I don’t want to, and not nearly as much as I hate myself.”

  She wet her lips. “Do you hate yourself over me?”

  He clenched his hands into helpless fists. “How could I not?”

  “It’s recursive. That’s what I keep thinking. We just… We hurt each other and we hate ourselves, and we hurt ourselves and we hate each other. One of us has to…”

  “To what?”

  She swallowed, then reached for him, stretching up to frame his face. “It broke my heart when you pushed me away. But I forgive you.”

  He caught her wrists again, but he didn’t pull her away. “Kat…”

  “I forgive myself for killing those men, because it was all I could do. And some day, I’m going to forgive myself for not being able to be cold about it.”

  “Stop.” He took a deep breath to ease the tightness in his chest. “I’m going to say it again, and you need to know that I mean it. You did what you had to do. It’s easy for me to blame you, but if you hadn’t unleashed on that strike team, I’d be dead anyway, and you’d be—” He couldn’t say it.

  So she did. “He told me he was going to make me watch you die. And if that didn’t convince me to give them access to Alec’s files, they’d torture me.”

  No matter what he wished for himself, he could never think she should have allowed that to happen. “You did the right thing.”

  “But not on purpose.” She leaned her forehead against his chin and sighed. “Tonight I did it on purpose. That’s better for everyone else. Worse for me.”

  He drew her into his arms. “You stopped him from getting the collar.”

  “I know.” Her voice sounded small. “I did what I had to do, so shouldn’t it feel like it was worth it? Justified?”

  “Some of us aren’t cut out for killing, sweetheart. No matter what.”

  “Still makes me feel weak.”

  “Because you’re not bloodthirsty?”

  “Because I want to do what the rest of you are doing. I want to make our world better, and not be the girl who’s sitting on the sidelines, or back at the office fixing the computers.”

  “You haven’t been paying attention.” He tucked her face against his neck and sat on the edge of the table. “Julio and I have been finishing work on the other lofts over at our building. Carmen and Alec have been organizing clinics. What is it exactly that you want to do?”

  “I don’t know.” She slipped her arms around his waist and sighed. “I finished my PhD…but I can’t go back, Andrew. I can’t go live in the human world and get a job and be normal. I don’t fit there.”

  “Kicking ass isn’t the only way to fit in my world, either.”

  “I know.” Easing back, she finally met his eyes. She looked old and tired and oddly amused. “No one ever really feels like they fit anywhere, anyway. I know that. You’d think it’d make it easier to feel so lost.”

  “You’re not lost, Kat,” he whispe
red. “It’s just…a rough spot. If you weren’t going to pull through it, you’d know by now. But you are.”

  A nod. Perched on the table, he wasn’t that much taller than her, and she took advantage of it by leaning in to kiss his cheek, lips soft and tentative. “This is it. This is us facing the worst we’ve been. And I am spinning, but that won’t stop until I start fighting for what I want instead of obsessing over what I can’t change.”

  He didn’t argue. “One step at a time.” It was all either of them could ask.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Dixie John didn’t serve breakfast to the public, but he had a habit of opening his doors when enough supernaturals wanted an early meal—especially if Sera smiled hopefully and promised to help out in the kitchen.

  Her friend slipped into the back as Kat settled at one of the hastily pushed together tables in the center of the room. No one looked like they’d slept much, except for Patrick, who followed Sera and came back with a pot of coffee. “There’s more coming.”

  Kat accepted the first mug. She needed it, since alcohol combined with a mere four hours of sleep had her blinking groggily at the world. Andrew, Julio and Miguel, on the other hand, mostly looked hungry.

  At least Anna didn’t seem to be faring much better. Kat pushed the second cup of coffee toward her. “Did you get any sleep at all?”

  “Some.” She sniffed the brew and took a tentative sip. “Too much whiskey last night.”

  It would take a lot of whiskey to leave a wolf that hung over. Kat’s celebration had been tinged with the knowledge that more enemies could be out there. Two beers had seemed like plenty, even spaced across the hours before Andrew drove her home. She didn’t think he’d rested any more soundly than she had, but at least they’d been together. Awkward and uncertain, but together, in all their celibate glory.

  It was a start.

  But an uneasy tension lay heavily in the room, belying the congenial atmosphere, and this time it wasn’t just her and Andrew. The others smiled and joked, but beneath the surface a thousand tiny gestures painted a complex and curious picture.

  Callum had been the one to insist she pay attention. Empathy had made her lazy when it came to people. Leaky shields and pushy emotions meant she always knew what people were feeling. Callum had told her to watch, too, to understand body language. She could almost hear his voice, crisply enunciated and perpetually serious. Not everyone has a Rosetta Stone for the human soul, Katherine. It’s a strength. Use it.

  So she did, watching the people around her as small talk washed over her. Anna had claimed a seat as far away from Patrick as she could get, and Kat would have bet her next paycheck it was deliberate, though she wasn’t sure why until she noticed the way Patrick kept trying to catch Anna’s eye. On the rare occasions he succeeded, the look Anna shot back was more fuck you than good morning.

  Sera, by contrast, wasn’t a mystery at all. She brought out toast and sausage and managed to take everyone’s requests without actually looking at Julio once. Her studious disregard had passed casual a few months ago, but Julio remained oblivious to the way Sera avoided him.

  He was less oblivious to her ass, which he seemed plenty willing to appreciate, and that was one emotion Kat was heartily glad she wasn’t being forced to share.

  Next to Julio, Miguel just looked tense. Since his telepathy was every bit as strong as her empathy, she didn’t blame him. Kat caught his gaze and lifted her eyebrows, a quiet question they’d asked one another a thousand times. Too much noise?

  His lips pressed together in a line, an expression that almost managed to look like a smile even though it wasn’t. Then he nodded and dropped his gaze to the table.

  “Are you headed out of town soon, Patrick?” Andrew asked.

  “After I eat, probably.” Patrick leaned his elbows on the table, and Kat found herself staring at the way his tattoos moved when his forearms flexed. “Alec called me after he talked to you. The Conclave’s moving a little slow in agreeing to officially hire me, but Alec asked me to get started anyway.”

  Andrew gestured across the table with his mostly empty juice glass. “You should take Anna with you. She was planning on running down a few leads.”

  “Oh, I don’t know about that,” Anna interjected. “He works alone. Don’t you, Patrick?”

  His jaw clenched. “Not always. Two heads can think smarter than one, right?”

  “That depends on the heads.”

  Julio looked up, one eyebrow arched. “Did I miss something?”

  “No,” Anna said quickly. Then she shrugged. “It’s fine. The job’s important. We can pool our resources, get it done.”

  No one disagreed, and the conversation shifted, turned to discussion of plans and tactics. Julio and Andrew had responsibilities in New Orleans—responsibilities she’d already kept them from. Psychics weren’t a wolf concern, not when the bulk of the threat had been neutralized. Patrick and Anna chased down crazy supernaturals professionally.

  In the hour before dawn, Kat had stared at the ceiling and wondered if resolution was important enough to press the issue. To insist that Patrick let her go with him. But Andrew would follow. Even in sleep, his arm had curled around her, hand splayed possessively across her hip. They’d barely moved past kissing in the days since she’d removed him from her shields, but the physical seemed inconsequential in the quiet moments. When none of the pain mattered, because he looked at her like she was the person who made him glad he was alive.

  Andrew would follow her. He’d rip out those places that had been remade with an alpha’s need to protect his people, and focus all of that protection on her. He’d neglect duty, neglect himself and everyone in the world, and it might kill the man he’d become.

  He would follow her, she knew it in her bones, and that made it worth staying.

  Under the table, she reached for his hand and twined her fingers with his, the soft intimacy a thousand times more arousing than the wildest empathy-induced orgasm.

  Let Anna and Patrick chase her past. She was chasing her future.

  The paper shredder made a very satisfying sound.

  Seated on Andrew’s couch, Kat watched it turn one page at a time into tiny strips of paper with black spots that seemed entirely innocuous. There were easier ways to destroy files, of course, but she’d made Andrew stop by Jackson’s office so she could abscond with the shredder.

  It was cathartic, reducing a cult’s scheme for world domination into bits of paper spaghetti.

  Andrew eyed the growing pile of shredded paper apprehensively. “Are you sure we don’t need a copy? Some sort of list…?”

  “Ben made me a script.” She picked up the page that listed the psychics who needed to be eliminated and stared at Callum’s name for a moment. Then she fitted it into the shredder and watched it vanish. “I can use it on the corrupted files I pulled off the zip disk if I ever need to recreate the lists.”

  “So it’s better than encrypted.” Andrew nodded. “That’s smart.”

  “Ben’s smart,” she agreed. Opening the next file revealed a smiling picture of her own face, twelve or thirteen at the most. Ben’s color laser printer had recreated the vivid colors of what must have been a surprisingly high-resolution scan a decade ago. Her eyes were so blue. So young. “This is what my mother saw,” she whispered, tracing the boundary of the photo. “This is when she lost it.”

  Andrew stroked a hand over her hair. “She probably had reservations already, but that… Yeah, that would do it.”

  “This is why she told me about imprinting when I was too young to even understand it.” She moved her finger until it passed over the neat list of her uses. Controlling people. The one thing she’d never wanted to do, because she knew in her gut how horrible it could be to have someone else’s emotions guiding your choices. “My powers were out of control when I was a teenager. Puberty sucked. It wouldn’t have been so hard to break me. Remake me.”

  “Hey.” He turned her face to his with a gentle hand
on her chin. “She made sure that didn’t happen.”

  “I know.” His eyes were as green as hers were blue. The colors of an oversaturated summer day, endless skies and perfect grass. The file slipped to the floor, and she raised her hand to touch his cheek, to feel his beard under her fingertips. “She protected me, even when she was crazy. Even when she was lost.”

  “That’s right. We destroyed their experiment, and we’re going to find the rest of them too. Shut it all down, forever.”

  They were supposed to be going slowly. Taking a step back from grinding their way to orgasm, or empathy-fueled blowjobs. But his beard scratched her fingers, and every touch seemed so important, now that she was feeling them with her body instead of her mind.

  Rubbing her cheek against his palm, she let out a shaky sigh. “I feel like I shouldn’t be shy. We’ve practically had sex already.”

  He kissed her cheek and spoke, his breath blowing over her skin. “Not like this, we haven’t.”

  If her heart pounded any harder, people would hear it on the street below. “Are we about to have sex?”

  “Don’t know.” His voice deepened. “Do you want to?”

  A helpless laugh escaped her. “I’ve wanted to since about the time I discovered my sex drive. I was a late bloomer.”

  “Mm-hmm, and there’d be no harm in waiting a little longer, either. It all depends on you, Kat. What you need.”

  Kat closed her eyes. Breathed in the scent of him. “I want you to be in control this time. Just for a bit, because I’ve never—” She took another breath and imagined dragging in courage with the oxygen. “All the stuff I said to you in the hotel, about my emotions being hardwired…it’s not wrong. It was the wrong reason for what was going on, but it’s not wrong. I don’t know if I can keep everything together the first time I have sex with someone I love.”

  His breath hitched, and he dropped one hand to her shoulder. Pulled her closer. “I don’t think anyone can.” His mouth descended on hers, coaxing and desperate all at once.