Dan closed his eyes and gritted his teeth. “I wasn’t there. I knew they were going to implant him, but I couldn’t help, or he’d know I was in on it. I didn’t know the guys they sent, and I didn’t even know when they were going to do it. I never touched him.”

“Yet he’s going to die because of you! What did Marc ever do to you? Other than teach you to fight and welcome you into his home?”

“Enough.” Kevin slapped me again, and this time when he picked me up, I spit blood in his face, knowing it would hurt his broken nose to wipe it off. He dabbed at his nose gingerly with the towel Pete had stuffed into my mouth, then dropped it on the floor, fury glowing crimson in his cheeks. “I’m going to give you one chance to answer, then I’ll let Pete go to work on you. How peacefully you die is up to you.”

I rolled my eyes again, then met his gaze to let him see the derision swimming in mine. “I may be a girl, but I bet my rear claws I have bigger balls than either of you assholes. Not that that’s saying much.” Yarnell growled on my right, but I continued as if I hadn’t heard him. “I’m not going to answer your questions, no matter what you do to me. So why don’t you just save us all the trouble and kill me now?”

Not that I expected them to actually do that. In fact, I was kind of counting on their refusal. And hoping that the madder they got, the more careless they’d get. If I could stall them long enough for one of the toms to come out of their drugged sleep—and Marc was the most likely to wake up, since he’d been put under first—we might have a chance to make it out alive.

Kevin squatted to watch me from eye level, as if whatever he had to say was too important to be spoken at any real distance. “If you won’t cooperate, and we can’t beat the information out of you, we’ll just bring one of your boys in here and let you watch us beat him until you answer. How ‘bout that?”

I refused to answer, my jaws clenched shut so hard I thought I heard the bones creak. Taking my own beating was one thing, but I couldn’t watch the guys suffer in my stead. No more than I could have watched Abby raped, or Kaci kidnapped. And Kevin clearly knew it.

“Should we start with Marc? I’m assuming he’s the one you’d most want to protect. But I don’t know…” His voice rose on the end, and he glanced up at Yarnell as if for an opinion. “Jace and the doc have nothing to do with any of this. They’re innocent bystanders, of a sort. And I’m guessing you don’t want to see them suffer, either. Maybe we should flip a coin….”

“Good idea, dumbass!” I knew smarting off was a bad idea, but I just couldn’t help myself. My mouth was the only weapon I had left. “You have a three-sided coin?”

Kevin bitch-slapped me again, and this time my lower lip split wide open, and blood spilled over my chin. “Go get Marc. He should be coming out of it soon anyway. I have a feeling there’s nothing she won’t do to spare him pain. Except marry him.”

Twenty-Eight

Yarnell clomped off down the hall, and I wiped blood from my chin onto my shoulder, then stared at Dan, begging him silently to look at me. “Dan, don’t let them do this! Marc never did anything but help you!”

Dan turned away from me, but his leg began to bounce, his foot rapidly tapping the thick carpet. I was getting to him.

“How can you sit there and watch them beat him for no reason?” Yes, Marc had often pounded information out of hostile trespassers, but Kevin didn’t want information out of him. He wanted it from me, and we’d never hosted a pounding by proxy. That was a line my Pride would never cross. “You can stop this, Dan. You can do the right thing. Hell, you fought with us in the ambush. Was that part of your act?”

He shrugged, still avoiding my eyes. “I’m not close personal friends with every stray out there. Besides, I didn’t kill anyone. And it’s not like I could stand there and watch you all get slaughtered.”

“But you can now?”

And finally he met my desperate, imploring gaze, silently begging me to understand. “Now, it’s him or me, Faythe.” His voice was empty. Hollow. Detached. That was the only way he could remain sane, because inside, I knew Dan Painter was a good person. He’d fought alongside us because he and Marc were friends. I was sure of that, because Marc was a wonderful judge of character.

But Kevin had preyed on his worst fears and his biggest dreams, convincing Dan that his only shot for acceptance by and protection from his fellow werecats lay in giving them Marc.

“If I help you, they’ll kill me.” He tossed his head at Kevin, who nodded smugly. “And even if they don’t, your dad will. Every cat in your Pride will be after me within the hour, and you know it. I’m sorry, but it’s too late. I gotta think about me.”

Fresh tears formed in my eyes, and this time the pain had nothing to do with my bruises. Dan was breaking my heart. Killing some relentlessly optimistic part of me that had truly believed Pinocchio would listen to Jiminy Cricket in the end. That good would triumph over evil, as trite as that sounded.

“That’s the difference between you and him,” I said, as Yarnell backed into the living room hauling Marc with an arm under each shoulder, his feet dragging the carpet. “He’d die for you, or for me, or for anyone he cares about. And you’re just gonna watch him do it.”

Dan’s jaw went tight, and he stood silently, then walked into the kitchen without another glance in my direction. Though I could have sworn I saw moisture glinting in the corner of his eye.