Chapter 19

"Is it done?" my father asked as I finished cleaning my weapon for the third time before putting it away.

"Almost." I looked at the wooden box that sat on a table on my father's front porch. It was spelled against the stench of decomposing body parts and contained a hand, a foot and the charred skull. It was something Nathania had given to me to transport the proof back to the Demon Realms discreetly. I wasn't complaining, though it seemed too nice a box to waste on the ugly contents.

"Did I do the right thing?" I asked him softly, my gaze on my clean, bare feet. I spent half an hour scrubbing away imaginary blood from my skin and still didn't feel entirely clean.

"Are you asking me as your father, as a man, or as a by-proxy victim?" I shrugged and he sat beside me on the porch swing with a small exhale. "How do you feel about it?"

"I think she probably deserved much worse, based on what I've been told. I think everyone will be better off with her dead if even half of that is true." I scrubbed my face roughly and realized how exhausted I felt. "But most of all, I know she would never have left us alone if she'd lived."

"You didn't answer the question, Ramirez," he reminded me gently. "How do you feel about abducting and maiming a person before releasing them to be torn apart by merciless animals?"

The silence grew as I thought about what I felt. "To be honest," another sigh, "I don't. I don't feel bad or disgusted or ashamed. I don't really even feel relieved, though I'm glad to have one less thing to worry about. I just keep wondering where my conscience is. My morals. Am I just in shock or do I not have any?"

He sat forward, his muscled forearms resting on his knees and his eyes on his work-roughened hands. "You've spent too much time among humans," he told me. "I have no doubt that you have morals and a conscience, but you are not human and they aren't the same as a human's. The animal nature is simplistic: food, shelter, mate, defend. That's the basis for every creature, especially for predators.

"But predators are also capable of seeking vengeance, especially where a mate or their young are concerned. And that's what this was: vengeance." Sitting back, he looked at me sharply. "I don't remember you acting like this after your capture this past summer."

"Yeah, but that was a heat-of-the-moment, kill-or-be-killed situation. This was cold-blooded murder. Shouldn't I feel bad about it? Shouldn't I feel something?" I shook my head, frustrated with myself and my inability to explain it properly.

"That's the real issue, isn't it? The act itself doesn't bother you, it's your lack of remorse." His voice held a touch of wonder as he aptly caught my problem. I felt awkward and embarrassed when he scoffed. "You said it yourself - she needed killing. If not by you, then by whom? I know the people involved with the attacks early last year deserved what they got. Baby, these people led horrible lives, committing atrocious acts of violence on random people - they don't deserve remorse or forgiveness. The animal in you will not regret such kills and neither should you." He let the quiet of the morning override our conversation. Listening to the few year-round birds and the wind in the evergreen trees was soothing; it was one of the reasons I lived outside the city. Well, that and privacy.

"Marcus told me something similar," I said after a while. "The night before we went to rescue Talon, actually. It kept bothering me that I felt nothing but satisfaction from killing those people and I was beating myself up over it. He pointed out that I hadn't developed random homicidal tendencies, so I wasn't necessarily a psychopath." My father laughed and I smiled a little. "But he also said I wasn't a harmless little creature, like a bunny, either, and that panthers are predators meant to protect what is theirs, even against other predators."

"He is wise." He nodded and pushed the swing into motion. I started to relax, content that the two men I admired most both agreed that what I'd done and the lack of emotional impact were perfectly fine. "How's Talon doing?"

I winced. Trust my father to stab at all my wounds today. "He's fully recovered physically, though he has a couple of new scars." I didn't mind. Scars just helped keep track of your life, a useful thing when you may see anywhere from a few centuries to a few millennia. "As for the rest of him?" I shrugged half-heartedly. "Something's bothering him. When I was recovering, he stayed almost oppressively close." I hadn't minded; I'd been afraid he'd be taken from me again if he left my sight. "But he still won't re-open our bond and I feel like he's avoiding me, if not physically, than emotionally. I don't know what to do," I finished in a painful whisper. It hurt to be shut out originally, but this was worse. He was where he was supposed to be, except for in my head. The ache was still in my chest and it got worse when he was physically present, like the bond was trying to heal and bridge the divide he'd created but he was somehow keeping the wound open.

"He won't talk to me or Marcus, he hardly eats, he's gone a lot and rarely spends more than a half hour in my company. We haven't even..." I stopped and choked back a sob, my eyes squeezed tightly shut and my arms wrapped painfully tight around my abdomen as if I could physically hold myself together. I couldn't help but wonder if this was all somehow my fault, if I'd done something to cause him to pull away. I knew that wasn't true but I didn't have any other explanation.

"Shh." My father's warm hand on my back undid me and I spent the next ten minutes sobbing. I've cried a lot recently and mostly over Talon. I kept hoping it would help but it never did. I cried myself to sleep almost every night. I cried when I would leave his house because he could no longer bear my company. I cried hardest when people told me everything would be all right and things would return to the way they were before his brother and that bitch tore up our lives. I couldn't bring myself to believe them, not when I held one end of an achingly empty soul mate bond.

It all pointed to one painful truth: my mate no longer wanted me.

"I'll call Marcus later and see what I can do."

I shook my head, blowing my nose on his handkerchief but letting the tears continue to fall. "No, Daddy, no. I don't know what's wrong but adding pressure won't help."