“That can be arranged,” Daddy said, his expression completely indecipherable.

“In fact, it’s easier than sparing one of my men to watch you.” He wasn’t bluffing.

Wonderful. Marc it was.

Fifteen

As soon as the door closed behind my father, I snatched Marc’s shirt from the floor and threw it at him, wadded into a bal . He caught it, probably due to instinct rather than intent. While he watched me carefully, apparently expecting me to throw a fit, I grabbed a change of clothes and stomped into the bathroom, slamming the door in his face. Daddy had granted me bathroom clemency, and I was damn wel going to use it. I ran a deep, hot bath and soaked until it got cold. Then I let the water out and drew more to wash in.

At first Marc tried to talk to me. He paced back and forth in my bedroom, stopping occasional y to listen, or maybe to think of some new approach to get me out of the bathroom, short of pounding his way in and dragging me, dripping, from the tub.

“I’m sorry, Faythe,” he said, much closer to the door than I’d expected.

I tried to ignore him, wishing desperately that I’d grabbed my headphones before locking myself in.

“I didn’t plan this. I just wanted to talk to you.”

You should have knocked, I thought, clenching my jaws shut to keep the words from leaking out. He’d take even the most hostile reply on my part as encouragement to keep trying.

“I couldn’t help myself. When I saw him on top of you like that, touching you, it was al I could do to keep from smashing his head in.”

Unfortunately, I knew he wasn’t exaggerating. His possessive instinct real y ran that deep, but I was no longer wil ing to accept that as an excuse. Yeah, we were cats, and thus subject to the bizarre behavioral impulses that came with having fur and claws. But we were people too, and Marc seemed to have forgotten that. It was a good thing my father had never sent him to spy on me at school. One night of watching me and Andrew would have been more than Marc could take.

“I like Jace,” he insisted, still pacing. “You know I do. He just doesn’t know when to quit sometimes.”

Neither do you, I thought.

“I know, you probably think I don’t either, but I do.”

My fist slammed into the water, splashing rasp-berry-scented suds all over the floor. I hate it when he does that.

“I know when to quit, Faythe. I quit when my heart tells me there’s no chance of success. But it’s not tel ing me that. Not yet. Not about you.”

I let my face slip into the water, as much to escape Marc’s tenderhearted babble as to rinse my hair, and I only came up when I had to either surface for a breath or drown.

“…can ignore me for as long as you want. For the rest of the day, or for the rest of the month. For five more years if that’s what you need. But when you final y realize I’m right, I’l stil be here waiting.”

He stopped talking, but he wasn’t gone. I heard him plop down in front of the bathroom door, waiting, just like he’d said he would. Damn, that man is stubborn, I thought, not quite sure whether I should be flattered or annoyed by his persistence.

Final y tired of hiding out in my own bathroom, I stepped out of the tub onto the lavender bath mat, curling my toes in the soft, shaggy fibers. I snatched my robe from the hook on the back of the door and snuggled into it. Egyptian cotton.

Mmm. At least my mother had gotten one thing right.

In my bedroom, Marc cleared his throat, reminding me he was stil there. As if I could possibly have forgotten. Though, admittedly, I’d tried.

Using my foot, I flipped down the little chrome lever to open the drain. The bathwater swirled out of sight, leaving only the artificial scent of raspberries and my fervent wish that Calgon really had taken me away. False advertising. Figures.

I could hear Marc breathing, and somehow that was worse than listening to him talk. I needed noise. Something loud enough to block his heartbeat from my ears, so that—for a little while at least—I could forget he was there.

Tying the sash of my robe around my waist, I searched the bathroom for something loud. The toilet? No. I’d feel pretty ridiculous after the third consecutive flush. The shower? No. If I spent any more time in water, I’d come out looking like a shar-pei. My eyes settled on the tail of a cord sticking out of a closed vanity drawer.

My blow-dryer. Perfect.

I brushed my hair while I dried it, until no single strand remained damp. When I turned the dryer off nearly twenty minutes later, I expected to hear Marc talking again, or at least breathing. But I didn’t.

On bare feet, I crept to the door and pressed my ear against it. I heard nothing. Wel , nothing from Marc. A woman was crying somewhere near the front of the house. My guess would be Donna Di Carlo or my aunt Melissa. Men spoke to each other in hushed, frantic tones al over the house, but I was almost positive Marc’s voice was not among them.

Where had he gone? Surely he wouldn’t have left me alone, against Daddy’s orders.

Curious, I hung up my robe and dressed in a hurry, then had to stop and turn my shirt around because I’d put it on backward. I opened the door and scanned my bedroom. Marc was gone. Something was wrong. What now?

Dread flooded my body, settling into my feet like lead and weighing them down. I could barely lift them, and I didn’t real y want to. I didn’t want to know what was wrong, or who else had gone missing. There were only five tabbies left to choose from, unless the kidnapper had changed his pattern and gone after one of the dams, the Alphas’ wives.