Whether sheknewit or not.
The knowledge settled over him, shifting his world once more and making his insides fall into their new place like he’d just gotten out of surgery.But it wasn’t as painful as he might have expected.
Claiming Kitty as his own was unexpected…but not unpleasant.
It would just take some readjusting, that was all.It would just mean—
“I’m not going with you,” she said, her voice shaky but firm.
He stared at her.Tracker gaped.
She shook her head.“I’m sorry.I-I…” She glanced toward the slums they’d left behind and then back toward King.“I thank you f-for what you did, but…but you don’t understand.I can’t leave them behind.”
Pieces began to fall into place.Like a puzzle, they sorted themselves into a portion of a picture.“Them who?”
“My family,” she breathed.“Please.I-I did all this to save them.But now…because of this…”
Because of him.Because of what he’d done.That was what she meant.
Her eyes welled with tears.
“Fucking hell,” he mutttered.But a second later, he was barking orders.“Tracker, go get Beast.Tell him to bring his best men.”
“Yes, sir.”
Kitty’s brows were drawn together in confusion.
“Where are they?This family you need to protect?”
She blinked rapidly, no less than ten times, before her gaze focused and she turned to Tracker, rattling off a street name and instructions to her home.Tracker nodded, tipped his cap, and set off into the night.
Kitty’s breathing was loud in the silent night, her breath a plume in front of her.
She was a mess with her tear-stained cheeks and her mussed hair from where the man had tugged it loose from its simple coif.
But she was still beautiful.Painfully so.Heart achingly so, especially when she turned those big eyes up to him, filled with questions she didn’t need to say aloud.
“We will get your family and bring them with us,” he said.“I will keep them safe.”
Her lips moved like she was going to ask a question but then she froze, seeming to think better of it.“Thank you.”
He grunted, nodding in the direction they’d come.“Lead the way.Beast won’t be far behind.”
She nodded, and then she was off, alarmingly quick for such a little lass.In the same direction from which they came, but she darted down even narrower alleys, past desperate hovels.Dogs barked and babies cried as he chased her down one alley and then another.When she finally came to a stop, she was panting, and he…
He couldn’t stop staring at her.She looked no less beautiful now than she ever had, but this was a different side of her.There was a determination that sharpened her features and made her eyes glint not just with sweet innocence, but…intelligence.A keen look that made his chest hollow and expand like his lungs had swelled too fast and too far.
She didn’t spare him a glance as she panted beside him.“Let me.You’ll…you’ll scare them.”
Them.Them who?
She threw open the door and after a sharp exclamation he heard voices.Welcoming voices.
Youngvoices.
He followed a moment later and in the dingy, dank, depressing little shed she called home, he found a handful of urchins.
There was one boy who looked not much younger than Kitty, but he was gangly and frail.He wore no shirt, but he was covered in bandages and bruises.Two smaller children clung to Kitty’s legs.She clucked and fussed over them, and in the short span that passed before the children noticed him, he watched.