Read Online Prey by Rachel Vincent - Free Book Online

Painter asked, one arm hanging out his car window.
    Marc scowled. “Do you think you can resist announcing our whereabouts to any future opponents we may encounter?”
    “Dude, I told you that was an accident. I had no idea some asshole was gonna round up the posse and come out guns a-blazin’. What do you want, a formal apology?”
    “A little silence would suffice,” Marc snapped, stomping around the car. He jerked open the door and slid onto the seat, just as Vic emerged from the convenience store. Marc waved to him, then turned to Dan. “Let’s get out of here before someone gets a whiff of you. No one gave you permission to leave the free zone.”
    With that, Dan stomped on the gas and they roared out of the parking lot and back onto the highway.
    The rest of the drive was much less pleasant, but peacefully dull. And if not for several crying spells from Des, I might have made up for the sleep I’d missed the night before. But when the Atlanta skyline cameinto view, Manx began to fidget. Her foot bounced on the floorboard. Her nails tapped on the armrest. She stared out her window and didn’t seem to hear Des when he began to fuss, waving tiny red fists in the air.
    “Manx, you okay?” I leaned over the bench seat with my chin resting on my folded arms.
    She never looked away from the window. “That is Atlanta?”
    “Yeah. See that big round building? That’s a hotel. I stayed there once with Sara. Her mom took us for a weekend downtown after she graduated from high—” I fell silent when I noticed Vic watching me in the rearview mirror, his eyes brimming with pain and full of nostalgia.
    Sara Di Carlo, his only sister, had been raped and murdered seven months earlier by the jungle stray Ryan had fallen in with. Days later, his younger brother, Anthony, died during our attempt to capture Sara’s killers.
    The Di Carlo family’s wounds were still fresh, and the tragedy didn’t end there. With no tabby to bear its next generation, their family line would die along with Vic and his brothers, and with no descendants, they would eventually lose control of their territory.
    Which was why my father hoped that, if all parties were amenable—and if she survived her trial—Manx might join the southeast Pride. She could never replace Sara, of course. But she could help the Di Carlos hold on to their territory. Help them reclaim their future. If she were willing.
    But at the moment, Manx didn’t look very happy to be in Georgia.
    “So, we are close?” she asked, and I thought I saw her chin quiver.
    Manx was one of the toughest tabbies I’d ever met in my life. Tougher than my mother, who’d once kept the Alphas in line single-handedly, and who’d saved my life only months earlier. Tougher than me, by far. And maybe even tougher than Kaci, who had to live every day of her life knowing what she’d accidentally done to her family. Manx had survived abduction, brutal beatings, the loss of her tail, serial rape, and the murder of two infant sons. Somehow, she’d come out of a living hell stronger than ever, and determined to hunt down the bastard who’d both sired and murdered her children.
    But now Luiz was dead, and she was on trial for multiple counts of murder. If she was convicted and sentenced to death, the son she’d fought to save would never even know his mother.
    After years of torture and months of running and fighting, now Manx was scared. And it almost broke my heart.
    “About forty more miles.” Vic flexed his injured arm stiffly, his free hand still on the wheel. “Mom has the guest room all fixed up for you and Des. She even dug up Sara’s old crib. It’s ancient, and I think it’s pink, but it’ll give him somewhere comfortable to nap.”
    The sun had just dipped beneath the horizon when we pulled into the Di Carlos’ long, arched driveway,beyond which their beautiful, old Italianate house was lit by several strategically placed floodlights.
    Vic’s family lived outside of Canton,