My face flamed, in both anger and embarrassment. What the hell was he doing?

Marc turned on Jace, already pissed over the innuendo. His hands bunched into fists, and his jaw worked as if he was either going to yell or break every one of his own teeth. But he didn’t make a sound. And I understood in that moment that there was very little he could say without directing more attention toward Jace, which was the last thing he wanted to do.

Technically, Jace had done nothing wrong. He had to undress to Shift, and on the surface, he’d paid me a compliment on both of their behalf. But Marc wasn’t stupid. He may not know how far things had gone between me and Jace, but he knew Jace was openly flirting and inviting me to look. And that bold of an invitation could not be blamed on any of our recent tragedies.

“Watch it.…” Marc growled at last. Jace only grinned harder and tossed his clothes onto the backseat, heedless of my silent, wide-eyed pleading over Marc’s shoulder.

Pissed now, I slammed the door, and Jace had to jerk his hand away to keep from getting it caught. I tugged Marc toward the trees as he resettled his backpack on his shoulder. “We’re heading south, right?” I asked Jace as he scowled after us. He nodded and dropped to his knees. I led the way into the woods with Marc at my side, the sounds of Jace’s Shift almost inaudible over my own footsteps. “Catch up with us when you’ve Shifted.”

Twenty

Jace caught up with us eight minutes later, and his posture said “anger” just as clearly as his claws and canines said “approach at your own risk.”

“What the hell is his problem?” Marc grumbled as Jace sprinted past, leaving us to follow the sounds of his progress.

“Just ignore him.” I considered explaining that Jace’s post-Ethan transformation went beyond a die-hard determination to see Malone pay. But that skirted too close to the truth, and I wasn’t willing to flat out lie to Marc. I was only lying by omission because I had yet to find an appropriate moment to tell him what I’d done. A moment when Jace was several hundred miles away—to keep Marc from killing him—and when no one else’s life depended on our ability to focus on the job at hand.

Such moments were rare lately. And hiding the truth made me feel like I’d swallowed a slow-working poison that was gradually rotting away my insides. Beginning with my heart.

Jace let us catch up with him a quarter mile later, and after that, the hike was blissfully uneventful, if tedious. Even though Marc and I had both Shifted our eyes, it was rough going. I tripped several times—my human body is much less graceful and coordinated than my cat form—and each time Marc caught me before I could even throw out an arm to catch myself. And I was too tired, cold, and worried about further injuring my arm to be anything other than grateful for his help.