My heart beat so hard it ached. He wasn’t supposed to be like this. Jace wasn’t supposed to be so…wonderful. Distancing myself from him wasn’t supposed to be so hard…

I was starting to think that giving him up would be like giving up air—and I already felt like I couldn’t breathe.

“Okay. Call him.”

Twenty-Two

Jace autodialed, and I stirred the water with my cast. When my father answered, I turned the faucet off with my foot. The bath wasn’t as deep as I like it, but it covered my arm, and I wanted to be able to hear both sides of the conversation.

“Hey, Greg, it’s me.”

“Jace? You have an update?”

“Yeah. We’re in a motel, about twenty minutes from…Cal’s place.” Which was once Jace’s home. “We found the feathers, so we’re all good on that front, and there’s no way the council will be able to argue with the evidence. But…we don’t think it’ll be enough to convince the thunderbirds. They can’t distinguish werecats by scent.”

My father sighed, obviously frustrated. “I’ve been having similar thoughts.” Then, more distantly, “Michael, did you hear that?”

“Yeah. Let me think for a minute. I’ll come up with something.”

“We have an idea.” Jace glanced at me and smiled reassuringly. “We want to go after Lance.”

“Go after him?” My father’s footsteps stopped, and I could easily picture his skeptical frown.

“Bring him in. Take him to the thunderbirds.”

“I see.” There was a moment of near silence, but for the water swishing around—and hopefully inside—my cast. “Put Marc on the phone.”

Jace sat on the edge of the tub, and my left hand brushed his thigh. “He went out for first-aid supplies.”

“Who’s hurt?” My dad’s voice rose, and the distant scraping of Michael’s pen against paper paused.

“It’s just a scratch, Daddy,” I said, knowing he’d hear me. “My arm went through a rotten board in the deer stand where we found the feathers.”

My father’s long sigh was more of a plea for patience. “Jace, is it just a scratch?”

Jace shrugged and mouthed a silent apology to me, then answered. “It’s really more of a gash. The length of her forearm.”

I lifted my right arm from the water to flip him off, but I’d expected no less. If he’d lied to our Alpha, I would have lost respect for him.

“Put Faythe on the phone.”

“Just a minute.” Jace covered the mouthpiece and knelt beside the tub. “Can you hold it?”

Not comfortably. But if I made Jace hold the phone, my dad would be focused on how badly I was hurt, rather than what I could accomplish once I’d healed. “Put me on speakerphone.”

Jace raised one eyebrow but complied, setting the phone on the tiny bathroom counter.

“I can hear you, Dad. Go ahead.”

“Why am I on speakerphone?”

“Because I’m in the tub. I don’t want to drop Jace’s phone in the water.” It was the truth. Just not the whole truth.