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“And you were what? Hiding in his trunk?”

But before I could answer, Jace stirred on my right, gingerly rubbing his head. “Faythe? What the hell are you doing here?”

Great
. There went my half-assed cover story.

“Rescuing you,” I hissed, shivering in the draft from the open back door.

Alex laughed and gestured with the hammer. “And doing a fine job of it. Now, if you’ll sit pretty while I call my dad, I promise we won’t hurt you. My father’s going to be almost as happy to see you as I am.”

I raised one brow. “Why don’t
you
sit down and shut up, and I’ll promise not to kick your face in on my way out the door?”

Alex’s gaze flicked to my left. I turned as a blur of motion raced toward me from an open doorway. I barely had time to gasp. Pain gripped my neck, squeezing. My body slammed into the wall. Fresh pain shot down my spine and whipped around my head. Air exploded from my lungs in one violent rush.

I couldn’t breathe past the hand tightening around my throat, pinning me to the wall. My feet dangled above the floor. My head spun. The blurred face in front of me wouldn’t come into focus. Without air, I couldn’t identify my attacker’s scent.

I clawed at the hand, raking it with my nails. My mouth sucked uselessly at the air. I kicked aimlessly, my boots slamming into his legs over and over, to no avail. My blurry vision darkened. My throat felt thick and useless. My ears rang. The pressure in my head made it feel huge.

“Hey, Faythe, good to see you again.” The voice was vaguely familiar, and the sour mental aftertaste called forth unfocused memories of pain and anger. I rolled my eyes upward and forced them to focus on the towhead whose huge hand squeezed my throat.

I knew him.
How
did I know him? Without more oxygen, I couldn’t place his face or remember his name.

“Damn it, Dean, let her breathe,” Alex swore. “That’s my future wife you’re choking.”

The hand around my throat loosened, and I sucked in several short, sharp breaths. But I still dangled above the floor from his grip on my neck. I still clawed at his fingers, trying to pry them from my throat. “She’s not yours yet….” Dean leered down at me, and his gaze landed south of my neck. He could see right down my shirt.

“Not. Ever,” I gasped, struggling to open my mouth in spite of the pressure his grip put on my jaw.

“Anyway, I think this particular puss is more than you can handle,” Dean continued, still looking me in the chest. “She throws a hell of a left hook.”

And suddenly I remembered. Tall goon with white-blond hair and more muscles than brains.
Colin Dean
. The idiot Canadian import I’d knocked out in order to save Brett Malone in Montana during my trial.

“Put her down,” Alex growled. Dean shrugged, then lowered me to the floor, his hand still around my neck. Still pinning me to the wall, though my fingers pried at his.

I threw my right knee up, but he blocked it easily with his free hand. “You’re going to make me get rough, aren’t you?” The gleam in his eyes said that’s exactly what he wanted.

“You. Work. For. Malone?” I gasped.

Dean grinned. “For about a month now.”

Malone was recruiting from outside the country. The bastard was drawing neutral parties into our civil war. That could
not
end well.

“Let her go,” Jace ordered from the floor where he’d fallen, on the lower edge of my vision. His eyes were clear; he was back with us, thank goodness. But where the hell was Marc?

Dean laughed without turning, and Jace growled until Alex kicked him in the ribs. Jace grunted and tried to curl around his new injury, but with his limbs bound, the best he could do was pull his knees up as far as they’d go.

I tried to yell for him to leave Jace alone, but my effort ended in strangled coughing. I wasn’t pulling in enough air to shout.

“Let the poor girl breathe,” Alex ordered, and Dean’s grip loosened a little more. His blood was sticky beneath my nails, the scent fragrant, now that I could inhale properly.

But I only had eyes for Alex. “You touch him again, and I’ll kill you,” I swore, still trying to dislodge Dean’s grip.

Alex’s brows shot up. “You’d kill me over
Jace
?” He stepped closer to me, and Jace growled again. Alex glanced from me to him, then back to me, and when I flushed, his eyes narrowed in sudden understanding. He knelt and jerked his brother’s head back with a handful of hair, then leaned down to stage-whisper in his ear. “Are you
fucking
my future wife?”

Jace’s jaws bulged with fury, but he could only writhe uselessly without the use of his hands or feet. I struggled harder against Dean, kicking and clawing, but kept my mouth shut for fear of incriminating myself. Marc was probably right outside, waiting for the best time to lunge through the open door.

Alex glanced up at me. “I don’t think this is what they mean by ‘all in the family.’” He turned back to Jace. “You know I’d kill your bastard kitten while it’s still bloody, right? Just like my dad should have killed you. Guess the honor’s all mine now…” Alex pulled the hammer over his head with both hands.

“No!” I let go of Dean’s hand and slammed my left fist into his ribs. He grunted and blinked, then pinned my arm to the wall over my head with his free hand. “Alex, no! Please,” I begged, blinking desperate tears from my eyes so I could focus on him.

Alex glanced at me. Something moved at his feet. I looked down to see Jace’s right hand whip out from behind his back. He grabbed his brother’s ankle and pulled.

Alex hit the floor hard, stunned. Jace rolled onto his knees and leaned over Lance, who still lay on his left. He straightened an instant later with a folded pocketknife in his hand. Alex swung up with the hammer. Jace blocked his brother’s forearm. The hammer thudded to the floor.

Metal clicked. Jace twisted around behind his brother, still squatting. He pressed the knife to Alex’s throat, and Alex froze. “Get up slowly,” he whispered, and they stood in tandem.

Jace’s left hand was now a fur-covered paw. He’d cut through the duct tape with his dew claw, a technique I’d discovered just two weeks earlier.

Alex stood with his hands loose at his sides, eyes wide and angry. One flick of Jace’s knife and he’d be dead. Jace pulled his brother to the side, and we could all see one another.

“Let her go or I’ll kill him,” Jace said, and my pulse thumped against the hand at my throat. He’d do it. I could see that in his eyes.

“Let
him
go,” Dean countered. “Or I’ll kill
her
.” He could break my neck with one squeeze of his huge fist.

“You kill her and Cal will hang your bones from the porch for a wind chime. If Alex doesn’t do it first.”

“Cut her,” Alex ordered, and I wasn’t sure I’d heard him right at first. But Dean didn’t hesitate. Without losing his grip on my neck, he dropped my arm and snatched Gary’s knife from the counter where I’d dropped it.

I threw another punch he barely noticed. An instant later the tip of the knife pressed against my left cheek, just in front of my ear. Panic flooded me, and I froze. “Let him go, or I swear I’ll slice her up.” Dean stared down at me, eyes gleaming in anticipation.

“You guys need her. You not going to cut her,” Jace insisted, but I knew better. In Montana, I’d bested Dean physically, then proved him a coward and a liar. He’d been sent home in shame, and he was eager for payback.

“Do it,” Alex said, and my heart tried to break free of my chest. “It’s not her face I need.”

Dean grinned down at me. My blood rushed so fast I felt light-headed. I couldn’t breathe, though my airway was clear. “Remember that left hook?” He pressed down, and the blade sank through my skin.

“A
sk me to stop,” Dean whispered, the point of the knife piercing my cheek. “
Beg
me, and I’ll stop.”

My hands fisted at my sides. I wanted to scream. I wanted to hit him. I wanted to claw his eyes out with my bare fingers. But I was afraid to move for fear of pushing the blade deeper.

And I would not beg. For my life? Maybe. For someone else’s life? Definitely. But not to avoid a little discomfort and an ugly scar. Not to indulge some vengeful psychopath’s thirst for power.

So Dean dragged the blade through my skin. I held my breath and fought not to close my eyes. Not to look weak. He cut slowly, tracing the line of my cheekbone, and I stood frozen, screaming on the inside. The pain was minor compared to the jagged gash in my arm, but my eyes watered immediately. Tears stung my new wound, thinning the blood running down my face, dripping from my chin. I could smell it. I could see it, a haze of dark red on the lower left edge of my vision.

“Stop.” The fury in Jace’s voice was as bleak as Dean’s future, as dark as my own rage.

Dean paused but didn’t lift the blade from my skin. “Let Alex go and get down on your knees. The longer you wait, the longer I cut.”

“No,”
I whispered, moving nothing but my lips. If Jace let his brother go, Alex would kill him. No hesitation. No self-indulgent torture. No bad-guy monologue. Just a single, fatal blow to the head. I would lose him
and
Kaci. “No, Jace.”

Marc, where the hell
are
you?

I rolled my eyes toward Jace, and saw his features twisted in agony, as if he literally shared my pain, as well as my fury. The tip of his blade had pressed a dimple into Alex’s neck, but had yet to break the skin. He took a deep, shaky breath, but held his ground, under my order.

So Dean cut some more. Slowly.

A feline whine leaked from my throat. My fists curled tighter. I wasn’t worried about the wound; they weren’t really trying to hurt me.

I’ll admit it: I was pissed about the scar.

We can heal wounds quickly, but we can’t erase them, so whatever Dean did to my face would be permanent. The bastard was carving his mark into me, and it would be there every time I looked into the mirror or touched my cheek. For the rest of my life, every time I saw my own face I would think of Colin Dean, and of what Alex had told him to do to me. Every time Jace saw me, he would remember.

So would Marc.

When he heard me whine, Jace flinched. “Drop the knife
now
,” he growled, and my eyes rolled to the right to bring him and Alex back into focus. “Or I swear I’ll kill him.”

Dean shrugged, and the blade bit deeper as he dragged it slowly toward the corner of my mouth. “You kill him, and I get the girl. After I’ve prettied up her other cheek.”

Alex growled in protest, but no one acknowledged him.

“What do you think, puss?” Dean continued. “How about a cute little flower on that side? Ooh, or maybe my initials? That way, no matter who you spread your legs for, one look at your face and he’ll know I’ve already been there.”

“Never happen…” I whispered through clenched teeth, trying not to move my cheek. Fury raged in me, hot, heavy, and completely impotent. But there was nothing I could do without making it worse. I couldn’t Shift my teeth or my hands without him noticing. I needed an opening. Something to distract him long enough for me to make a move.

“Never say never…”

Finally, the tip of the knife reached the corner of my mouth, and Dean pulled the blade away from my face. I set my jaw firmly, trying to stop the tears from flowing. But they came, anyway, and I allowed myself one heartbroken, pissed-off sob. It was done. No matter what happened next—even if I killed him with my next breath—Dean’s mark would always be there.

“Ready to let him go?” Dean’s words were for Jace, but his psychotic leer never left me, and his knife hovered near my neck. When there was no answer, he raised the blade again and slid the cold, blood-wet steel down the scooped neckline of my T-shirt, between my breasts.

“Don’t,” I whispered, acutely aware that the knife was now inches from my heart.

“Dean…” Alex warned. “Her
face
.”

Just as Jace growled, “Cut her again and I’ll kill you. If she doesn’t do it first.”

Dean grinned. One quick downward stroke split my shirt right down the middle. The blade snagged on the front of my bra, then that gave way, too, and I was exposed from neck to navel. “Maybe your face isn’t all we should decorate. I’m thinking concentric circles….” He dragged the tip of the blade lightly over the curve of my left breast without breaking the skin.

My pulse pounded, and rage scalded me like the heat from a bonfire. I was ready for help now. I glanced at Jace again and blinked, begging him silently to do something.
Anything
to keep Dean from carving up my chest. Anything short of letting Alex go.

“What’s wrong, Jace?” Dean taunted, and my skin crawled when he pushed the left half of my shirt aside with his pinkie. “Not gonna want her after our little makeover?”

Jace swallowed and glanced at the blade, the point of which trailed lightly toward my left nipple. He was afraid of making it worse. Afraid that any movement on his part would make Dean cut me again. Leave his mark elsewhere.

I was scared of the same thing. Terrified to take a deep breath for fear of pushing the blade through my own skin. But I would
not
be this monster’s fucking pincushion!

“You bastard,” I whispered. I sucked in a shallow breath through my still half-constricted throat. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

“That’s what I was going to ask you,” Dean purred, dragging the back of the blade around the curve of my breast. “Why would you give it up for the token stray
and
Malone’s disposable stepson, but I get a big fat ‘never’? Sounds like I’m the only one you’re not wrapping your legs around these days.”

Jace’s growl rumbled through the room in a rapid crescendo. He pulled his own knife back and shoved Alex forward with his knee. Alex grunted in surprise, and Dean turned toward the sound, pulling the blade about an inch from my skin in the process, giving me the best shot I was going to get.

I grabbed Dean’s fist—still clutching the knife—and twisted with all the strength of my rage. I shoved his hand away from me. Hard. The blade slid into his chest, low on his left side. It slid between his last two ribs, meeting no resistance from bone.

Dean’s eyes went wide. His mouth dropped open. His left hand fell from my neck to clutch at the knife. Blood soaked his shirt, dripping toward his belt.

I sucked in a deep breath, then pushed him with both hands. Dean stumbled backward and tripped over Lance’s leg. He landed on his rump, still holding the knife handle. He stared at me in shock, obviously afraid to pull the blade out.

“Do something with him.” I flinched at the pain tugging at my cheek when I spoke, then nodded toward Alex as I pulled one half of my ruined shirt over the other, then tucked them both into my jeans to hold them closed. Mostly.

“Suggestions?” Jace gripped his half brother by the neck with his now human left hand and spun him so that they faced each other, the blade again pressed to Alex’s throat. “I should kill him. He was going to finish me, then…” His glance strayed to the remains of my shirt, and fury flashed in his bright blue eyes.

“He was gonna
try
.” I grabbed a three-inch-thick phone book from the end of the bar, then stomped across the floor, my footsteps shaking the whole building. I swung with both hands in spite of the pain in my arm. The book slammed into Alex’s head. Jace let him go, and Alex’s legs folded beneath him. He was dazed but not unconscious, so I squatted beside him and grabbed his chin, forcing him to look at me while Jace stood over him with the knife, just in case.

“I will never marry you. I will
never
have sex with you voluntarily. And the day you touch me without permission will be the day you swallow your own testicles whole. Do you understand?”

Alex gritted his teeth and glared at me. But he made no reply.

“Stupid, stubborn son of a bitch. If you keep following your father’s lead, you’re going to die just like him. I should probably kill you now, to save me the trouble of kicking your ass later.” But I couldn’t kill someone who wasn’t actively threatening someone else’s life. I was the
good
guy, and it was hard enough to remember that sometimes without making gray-area kills. So I stood and kicked him in the head, softening the blow at the last second to make sure he’d survive it.

His eyes fell shut, his head rolled to the side, and his jaw went slack. But he was still breathing.
Good
.

Now that the moment was over and I’d survived—mostly intact—my aches and pains were starting to surface. My right wrist ached sharply, and my face burned like I’d been flayed alive, thanks to the knife I’d brought to the party and the salt from my own tears.

I snatched a half-used roll of duct tape from the top of a narrow entertainment center and tossed it to Jace. “Tape them up?”

In the kitchen, I pulled the last paper towel from the roll on the counter and bent to peer at my face in the dented, grease-splattered toaster. I bit back a groan and blinked away more tears. The cut was long and straight, and blood stained everything below it, including my neck and the collar of my useless shirt. I wet the paper towel at the sink and carefully wiped away most of the blood, glad to see that it had stopped flowing. Then I knelt to glance under the sink for another roll—they’d come in handy on the road. Instead, I found a small, lidless box holding several pre-filled tranquilizer syringes.

Score
. I shoved all four into the pocket of my jacket.

In the living room, I found Jace standing over his newly bound brother, watching me carefully, his expression a mixture of sympathy and heart-wrenching guilt. I knew that look. He felt responsible for my cheek because he hadn’t been able to stop Dean from cutting me. I felt the same way about my cousin Abby’s rape, though I wasn’t even there when it happened. And it was even worse when I’d left Kaci with the thunderbirds, though I’d had no other choice.

“I’m fine,” I insisted before Jace could ask. He looked unconvinced but knew better than to argue.

I turned to survey the room. Alex and Lance were out cold and bound hand and foot with duct tape. Colin Dean was bleeding all over the carpet, propped against the front of the couch, his face pale from blood loss, his eyes glassy.

“Can you pull the rental around back while I find Marc?” I asked Jace. I couldn’t risk anyone from the middle building seeing me, and I was worried about Marc. If he could have helped us, he would have, especially when Dean was carving up my face.

Unless he’d heard too much.

If he knew I’d slept with Jace, would he leave us? Would he have let them kill Jace and hand me over to Malone? Would he have let Dean cut me?

No
. I shook my head, trying to shake off thoughts and questions I wasn’t ready to confront. Jace dug the car keys from his pocket, but as I turned to follow him through the open kitchen door, a small glint of light drew my focus to Dean, where he still sat with one hand around the body of the folding knife protruding from his chest. The flash had come from his other hand.
What the hell?

Squinting, I came closer, and Dean tried to slide his left hand beneath his thigh. But I’d already seen what he held: his cell phone, flipped open and ready to dial.

“Nice try.” I stomped faster than he could react and smashed three of his fingers along with the phone.

Dean howled in pain, and I held my open palm out to Jace. He tossed me the roll of tape, then headed straight for the car. I peeled off a strip of tape and slapped it over Dean’s mouth, then pushed him onto his side—ignoring his wordless moan of pain—and bound his hands at his back.

With Dean silenced and immobilized, I marched toward the kitchen—and nearly jumped out of my own skin when Marc appeared in the open doorway, wearing nothing but a pair of jeans from the backpack I’d left with him in the woods.

“Damn it, you scared the shit out of me!”

“
Chingao!
” Marc crossed the trailer in an instant, brows drawn low, gaze trained on my fresh cut. “What the hell happened to your face?” He took my chin and carefully tilted my cheek toward the light. “It’s straight and clean. Shallow, but it’s gonna scar.”

“I’m fine. What happened to you?” He was bleeding from a four inch gash on the left side of his rib cage.

“Found another one of Malone’s men in the woods. Fucker had a knife. Now I have his knife.” He patted his right pocket, where the outline of the folded blade stood out against his hip. “Your turn.” He glanced pointedly at my cheek.

I avoided his gaze. “It doesn’t matter. It’s just a stupid cut.”

“Faythe, it’s your fucking
face
. Did Alex do this?
Pinche carbon!
I’ll kill him.”

I grabbed his arm, and before he could shrug free, Dean began edging away from us on the floor, stupidly drawing Marc’s attention. “Is that…? Colin Dean?” He tugged loose from my grip and dropped into a squat beside Dean. “Did you do that? That why she stabbed you?” He thumped the handle of the blade, and Dean groaned miserably. “This was Faythe, right?”

Dean sucked air in through his nose so fast I thought he’d hyperventilate.

“You fucking
cut
her?” Marc demanded. “Why? Just to do it?”

“He marked her,” Jace said, and I glanced up to see him standing in the doorway, looking three different brands of miserable. “Left his fucking calling card on her face.”

Marc was fury given form. His fist flew before I could stop him. His first punch smashed Dean’s nose, and blood spurted everywhere. Dean sputtered and choked on it. “How the hell is he supposed to breathe now?” I demanded, trying to turn the gory Canadian on his side to keep him from choking on his own blood.