“But then?” Liam prompted gently, his hand closing over her shoulder, rubbing in light circles, lending her his support.
“Beth met someone… a man,” Naomi clarified. “At college. I don’t remember his name, but Beth really liked him…. I meanreallyliked him… and they started dating. We kept it a secret. No way did we want our mom to know, or our other sisters. And God forbid, not Beatrice! She was always the worst of them. Mom and my sisters were mean, but Beatrice…” she shivered at the memories that were being dredged up. “God. She was terrifying.
Liam felt the hair gently raise on the back of his neck. This could not be good. “And then?”
Naomi gulped, her fingers groping for his, clinging tight. “She didn’t come home one night, not until dawn. She came in covered in blood. Sobbing, in so much grief, so much agony. They’d had sex… made love, she told me. She said it had been wonderful. They fell asleep together, and when she woke up, he was laying there beside her, dead. Torn to pieces. Beth was devastated. She loved him, they had talked about marriage, she said.”
Liam was frowning. “You mean, she doesn’t remember attacking him?”
“No. Just falling asleep beside him, then waking up covered in his blood. But there was no one else who could have done it. He lived alone, and there was no one else there. So it had to be Beth.”
“This makes no sense,” he said. “I know we’ve had to throw out most of what we thought we knew about Rogues, but the one thing that has remained consistent throughout has been that they relish the kill. They stalk their victim, they take delight in torturing, in the kill. Theyanticipatethe kill.”
“Right, the whole psychopath thing,” Naomi nodded. “That was always clear in the others, especially Beatrice… but not Beth! She wasn’t any of those things you read about when you look up psychopaths or sociopaths. Nothing like the rest of them. She was sweet, and caring. It wasn’t fake either… not like, she was just manipulating me to see what she wanted me to see. She was my twin! We could sense things about each other, she could never have hidden that from me, if she was bad like them. And yet…
Liam nodded his understanding. “And yet, she still killed the man she loved.”
Naomi dropped her gaze to the floor as tears overflowed, streaming down her cheeks. “That’s why I ultimately made the decision to go into the zoo. It’s why I have such a hard time believing I won’t turn Rogue. If it could happen to Beth, it could happen to me.”
“Ah, Naomi.” Liam pulled her into a tight embrace. “You’re not going to. You have to believe that. Hell, even Angus swears you’re not capable of that, and you know how powerful his magic is, even if we don’t know preciselywhathe is.”
“She wasgood, Liam,” she insisted. “I bet even Angus would have said that Beth would never go Rogue, if he met her.”
“Do you want to come with me to the Sanctuary, and talk to her?” he asked gently, reaching for a tissue from the box on the table and patting her cheeks dry.
Naomi recoiled at the thought, drawing back from him. “No!” she denied vehemently, her head shaking back and forth. “Even if I could face my fear of seeing Mom and Beatrice, I couldn’t bear to see Beth like that… caged, and collared into her Changed form.”
“Okay, okay,” he soothed. “It was just a suggestion. But you know, Beth isn’t collared. None of them are, except Beatrice, who is totally lost to her leopard. Beth is in her cat form by choice. That’s one of the reasons they want me to go up there, to see if I can’t get her to Change, and find out from her what’s really going on there.”
He paused, thinking for a minute. Beside him, Naomi reached for another tissue, and blew her nose. He turned to her.
“Still, how about you come with me as a kind of weekend get-away? While I’m at the Sanctuary, you can find some used book stores to browse. Then we’ll find someplace nice to go for dinner, make an evening of it.”
Plus, he thought privately, she’d be nearby, in case she regretted her decision not to see Beth after time for reflection. Naomi jerked upright, diverted at the suggestion of book stores, her tears forgotten.
“Oh! And you have all that space in the back of the jeep! If I take some flattened file boxes, I could stock up and pack the books in those to bring home.”
Liam’s imagination boggled at the idea of carrying unknown quantities of file boxes, filled with heavy books, up to the second floor of the inn. But Naomi’s tears had been replaced with eager smiles, so he decided to let it go, and hope for the best. There was always the elevator.
“The plan I came up with is to leave at dawn-ish, and get there in the early afternoon. Maroulla’s arranging for a hotel room for the night, and we’ll come back Sunday afternoon. That leaves me enough time to follow up with Beth on Sunday morning if I need to. And we’ll have plenty of time together Saturday evening to have dinner, go to a movie, whatever you want.”
She beamed at him. “I’d love that.”
Chapter19
Liam wincedwhen he got his first look at the small leopard lying in the dirt behind a cluster of rocks. She looked in worse shape than Naomi had been in. Her fur was dull and mangy looking, and her ribs showed beneath the thinned fur. She also showed signs of having been in battle, with bloody wounds and old scars. Liam frowned at the guard, a tall, burly shifter named Hector. Guards here at the Sanctuary shared the unpleasant duties of prison guard and zookeeper. Liam didn’t envy them at all.
“What’s with all the injuries?”
“The others attack her,” Hector reported. “I don’t know much about Rogues, never saw any before these were brought in, but seems to me like the others gang up on her, take their aggressions out on her. Not just the cats, but the mink, too, even though I’m told that’s her mother. I know the Council thought they were doing the right thing, keeping them together as a family, but it hasn’t been right for Beth. The others seem to hate her. They don’t fight amongst themselves, they just go at her. I’ve never seen her defend herself, either. She hides back here in the rocks, mostly, but there’s really no place for her to get away.”
Liam made his decision on the spot. “Let’s get her out of here,” he ordered. “Find a vacant enclosure we can put her in, all by herself, as far as possible from this one. We want to get her out of telepathic range of her family, as well.”
“Yes, Sir.”
Hector hurried off to make the arrangements, and Liam called after him. “Could you bring a gurney to transport her?”
A wave of Hector’s hand indicated that he’d heard. Liam looked back at Beth’s small, limp form, and hoped this didn’t come back on him. It wasn’t his place to be making changes to the arrangements in the Sanctuary. Still, Maroulla had trusted him enough to ask him to come, with Beth’s welfare in mind, so he was pretty sure she’d back him up in his decision.
