“No,” I say plainly.
“Look at what you’re doing, Clarissa. Take a good, hard look.”
“Out of my head. Now.”
She charges past me, but my hand wraps around her wrist. I slam her back into the wall, and she whimpers. The sound breaks my heart. I’ve hurt her. The one thing I promised I would never do.
Never cause her. But she’s out of control, and I can’t let her do something I know she will regret.
I watch her eyes flicker as her claws retract. She slides down the rock wall, her body dropping to the ground. I fall to my knees and gather her in my arms, holding her as she morphs slowly back into her human form.
I can feel blood trickling from the back of her head, and it makes me sick.
“Oh, my gosh,” Clarissa says breathlessly. “What have I done?”
“Nothing. You did nothing,” I say.
“I’m a monster.”
“No, you're not.”
“What did I tell you about being in my head?”
“Not this time. I won’t allow you to believe something like that about yourself.”
I pull her body closer to mine as the two of us stand up. No more blood is trickling down her neck, but a nasty crack resonates from behind me. I press Clarissa’s face into my chest and stroke her hair as I turn my head, and all I can see is Toshi holding a lifeless Merti in his arms.
What the hell has that Cat done now?
I can feel Clarissa shivering in my arms. With every stroke my fingers fan through her hair, she pushes herself closer to me. I know I’m leveraging her feelings. Taking advantage of the bond I forced on her by licking her wounds clean. But the electricity I can feel coursing through her body is settling her raging mind down.
She’s no longer screaming at herself.
She wraps her arms around me, and I turn us toward Toshi. He’s eyeing us curiously, watching my movements carefully. I couldn’t give a shit less what that mangy fur ball thought. He’s the one holding our only lead dead in his hands. He drops Merti to the floor, and it kicks up a wind. A wind that flutters the picture on the floor over to my feet.
I drop my hands from Clarissa and hear her whimper as I pick it up from the floor.
It’s a picture of her and Kyle. From their wedding ceremony.
Clarissa is wearing her beautiful white dress, and she is staring lovingly into the eyes of Kyle. A pang of hurt rushes through my heart. I’d come to somehow accept the presence of a feeble human in my life. He was a good one. A trustworthy one. One I’d vowed to keep safe from the world Clarissa had been thrust into.
But it’s the look in her eyes I can’t shake.
The look of pure love. The look only one true mate could give another.
A look she would never give me.
“Where did you get this picture from?” I ask.
Clarissa’s eyes are volleying between Toshi and Merti.
“What happened?” she asks.
“Clarissa, pay attention. Where did you get this?”
I thrust the picture into her view and watch the anger boil behind her eyes again.
“There’s a side room off the main corridor. Hiro’s still in there,” she says.