Page 63 of A Lion's Heart
“No!” Nisa shouted and looked back at Amelia first, and then Decan. “I need to hear this.”
And she did, he thought as she slowly turned back to Mackey. She needed to know all the dark and ugly secrets so she would understand and stop looking at him with hope in her eyes. Or had that been his own reflection he’d seen each time he stared into her cat’s eyes? Had he been hoping that thecompanheirocalorthey shared would lead to a joining? Had he finally accepted that this woman, this stubborn and inquisitive warrior was the perfect mate for him?
“He ravaged her every night,” Mackey said, his thin lips turning up as if in disgust. “Right in front of us he continuously took poor Marlee because he wanted to get her pregnant with his animal spawn. Then, when given a choice, he’d watched as her limbs were cut off while he decided whether or not to give up the name of the Desert Cat.”
“Who? I’ve never heard of a Desert Cat,” Nisa said.
“I have,” Amelia added. “Years after the Unveiling, talk surfaced above ground of an elusive shifter that traveled through the desert land in the Pacific and Mountain Zones burning down the camps the humans built to contain us.”
“This one here thought he was better than all the rest of the animals we had caged up,” Mackey continued, his tirade against Decan.
This time it was Nisa who leaned in close, slapping her palms on the table in front of him.
“We’re not animals!” she yelled into his face. “And you’re going to start showing some respect or the next time, nobody will be around to keep him from ripping your throat out!”
A spurt of pride spread through Decan as he watched her. From the start of this mission she’d told him that she was in charge. He’d shot her down quickly enough and thought she’d shown exemplary training and respect for their security hierarchy by not continuing to argue over control with him. Instead, she’d continued to do her job, the one thing she knew that he could not do in place of her. She’d done it so well he hadn’t even known about the things she’d uncovered until she’d told him, Jace and Amelia when they arrived at Central Headquarters.
“All he had to do was cooperate and he refused,” Mackey continued as if Nisa hadn’t spoken at all. “Then the Desert Cat struck again.”
“Burning the New Mexico hell hole you unlawfully kept too many shifters in, to the ground, that’s what happened next,” Decan stated evenly.
“Yes, there was a fire,” he said. “And then there was the break-in at my office and the taunting of the other members of the Ruling Cabinet. You and your friends have been busy these past months breaking into our computers, and stealing from us. You gave me no choice but to hire security.”
“That’s what Lial Johansen is to you?” Amelia asked. “He’s security?”
“He’s protecting us from the Desert Cat and this little band of mercenaries that unlawfully broke into my house tonight, assaulted and kidnapped me!” he yelled.
“I should have killed you!” Decan replied and flipped the table over.
As Amelia and Nisa avoided getting hit, Decan moved quickly to Mackey, yanking him up by the front of his shirt and slamming the man’s back against the wall.
“When I watched you running from that fire in New Mexico I should have hunted you down and gutted you right then and there. And tonight—” he paused because he could feel her gaze on his back.
Mackey laughed.
“What? You can’t control this you dirty forest scum! There are people in place to pick up where I leave off, so no matter what you do to me we’re gonna get rid of all your kind. You don’t belong here and we’re gonna see to it that you get exactly what you deserve for trespassing.”
Decan growled, his teeth bared. But he had control, now. He tossed Mackey across the room until he bounced off the other wall like a discarded toy before storming out of the room.
Nisa’s mind was whirling.
She came out of the room where they had been questioning Ewen Mackey, took two steps and had to lean against the wall to keep from falling to the floor. So many voices had been slamming into her head while she stood in that room listening. So many scenes had replayed right before her eyes.
One in particular had her gasping for air now.
The walls were cinderblock, layered in four rows. The single door was made of thick iron bars, no latch or lock in sight. The cement floor was dirty and probably cold in the dark 9x9 space. Yet the smell there was sterile, clean, almost devoid of any identifying scent.
It was the same smell she’d picked up that first night at Keller’s bunker when she was looking for a way out.
The tapping grew louder and louder, the source, a long stick with a metal edge and a black handle held by a man around five-feet eleven-inches tall. The man wore black leather gloves. His shoes were shiny tie-ups that clicked as he moved across the cement floor. He wore a business suit and tie, an outfit that did not seem to fit in this surrounding. He was tapping the end of the stick to the iron bars. Over and over. Tap. Tap. Tap.
Just like Nisa recalled hearing that night at Keller’s place.
Her heart was beating wildly now, so fast and furious she lifted a hand to her neck as she tried desperately to take deeper breaths.
Finally, the iron bars lifted upward and the man stepped through the opening inside the small space. He chuckled as he looked toward one corner where a naked man’s body lay crumpled on the floor. The man moved immediately, rolling over, leaving streaks of blood on the cement as he did. He stood quickly on strong legs, standing until his head was only a few feet from the ceiling. His chest was bloody, some old blood that had dried and was now peeling, other parts oozing fresh fluid. And his face…it wasn’t distorted this time. It was the face of a man, the eyes of a lion.
Decan.
