Kitty stared down at the keys in her hand and shook her head. Walking away from the Clan and everything she'd ever known had been hard enough, but this...this was too much. She wasn't just some damn charity case Kane could sweep under the rug by offering an empty house in the neutral zone for her to live in. Her entire life to this point had been in the sheltered protection of her clan. Now they didn't want her, just like her father.
Anger boiled in her veins every time she thought of him. She tried to do the right thing when she found out about his attempt to kidnap Malcolm's child, but the Clan decided her efforts were too little too late. Her father's attempts to kill or undermine the Guardian brothers at every turn had failed. He'd been a damned fool all along. Yes, she'd remained quiet despite what she knew.
But she didn't need to stick her neck out and bring her own father's wrath down on her head.
All she'd had to do was wait for everything to blow up. And there lay the crux of her problem today. She'd had more than a pretty good idea about much of what her father was up to and had kept the information to herself. As far as she'd been concerned, it hadn't been her place to either agree with him or stand against him.
The why of most of his schemes still escaped her, so she ignored the havoc he'd created. She'd been under the mistaken impression that, somewhere deep down, her father cared about her. But then she'd discovered the child. Her father found out about Malcolm's secret offspring and had planned to do who knows what with her.
So she'd snuck the child away and out of her father's reach. Rescuing the girl had been her only saving grace with the council and meant the difference between a death sentence and this. At the last minute Kane had stood up for her and offered a compromise in the form of an extended vacation. Kitty chuffed, the sound far more animal than human.
Vacation my ass.
More like indefinite exile, and to the neutral zone no less. The only people who belonged here were the half-breeds no one knew what else to do with. Kitty curled her upper lip, pushed opened the door and exited the car packed with the few belongings she'd been allowed to keep. She headed toward the small cottage with the extended wrap-around porch. Maybe, just maybe, if she'd been offered a place like this on clan land, its pretty exterior would have charmed her. But here it was no more than a prison of four walls where she'd have to hide from the local residents. No one wanted a full blood feline hanging around. Trust would be impossible.
She had half a mind to take her chances with the humans instead.
The sun's rays trickled through the tree canopy that offered the hideout more privacy than she'd expected. Despite the chill in the late afternoon air, everything around her mocked her with its almost summer like beauty. She didn't want to notice the pretty poppies growing in a border around the left side of the yard, nor did she want to see raised garden beds at the edge of the property that beckoned for someone to fill them with fruits and vegetables.
They could dress it up and call this place whatever they wanted.
She'd essentially been kicked out with no information about when or if she could ever return. Irritated and tired, she walked up the driveway toward her banishment. As far as she knew the place had stood empty for many years. While Deals Gap, North Carolina had officially been declared a neutral zone in the tenuous treaty between the wolf and cougar clans, they'd been encouraged to keep to their own lands as much as possible. Especially her. Her father had been beyond vigilant in his preaching about keeping the bloodlines pure and not associating with other races for anything more than absolute necessity. Supposedly everything he'd done had been in some part due to his bloodline obsession. Although, considering her recent discovery of a half-sister who was half-cougar and half-witch, she'd begun to question everything.
Kitty rubbed her head and tried to push the anger and resentment from her thoughts. Her actions of the last few years had not been great either. The embarrassment of her relentless pursuit of a man who didn't give a rat's ass about her burned through her soul like acid. Unfortunately there were a lot of other things she'd done almost as humiliating as her behavior with Kane. Things she couldn't take back or change.
She'd hole up here for a few weeks until she got her head on straight and come up with a new strategy for the next several months. Her father's assets had all been confiscated, leaving her with nothing to fall back on. Her job skills were a joke and there had been no reason to hold down a nine to five with her father taking care of everything. Kitty had wasted all her time being a stuck up bitch. There, she admitted it.
Oh, how the mighty have fallen...
Stepping onto the small porch, Kitty lifted the sunglasses from her eyes. The paint looked fresh and the area around her was neat, obviously someone took care of the place. As she slid the key into the deadbolt of the door, the scrape of metal on metal screeched through her head. She pushed the door open and the air suddenly shifted around her. The hair at her nape stood on end. Tension pulled at her skull and instantly notified her she was no longer alone. Before she could react, or even turn around, the door slammed in her face and she flew backwards. Her muscles flexed and her claws burst free as she scrambled to catch herself.
The air whooshed from her lungs as her thickened nails dug into the wooden steps of the porch, barely breaking her fall. She pushed to her feet at the same time a hard kick was delivered to her ribs and another to her face.
"Don't even think about it, bitch. You've had this coming for a long damn time and I'm going to make sure you finally get what's yours."
Black spots blurred Kitty's vision from the pain of the blows. She didn't need sight to put a face to that voice. Laurel James had been gunning for her for a very long time. Competition among the feline women for the men of their kind was fierce and often violent. This wouldn't be the first time she'd fought for what she wanted.
As Kitty perched precariously on all fours, several pairs of legs crossed her line of sight. Laurel wasn't alone. Whatever they had planned, she'd brought reinforcements and this wasn't going to go well for Kitty. It didn't take a genius to realize she'd been out maneuvered and out numbered. Now her only thought turned to survival as she struggled to find a solution before they pulled her limb from limb.
"This is your idea of a fair fight? Four against one?"
