“Move over.” Titus tugged me away from the stairs as a tall, fair, shirtless man came down backward, carrying the lower half of an unconscious guy by the ankles. As he twisted to spot the next step, a loose strand of dark blond hair brushed his left shoulder blade from a rapidly unraveling man bun. His chin and upper lip were covered by a neatly trimmed full beard and mustache a shade darker than his hair.
Higher on the stairs, the unconscious stray’s shoulders were carried by a man in greenish scrubs, with warm brown skin and eyes glowing a rosy hue of amber in the clean white light falling from the ceiling of the stairwell.
“We’re ready for him in here,” Drew called, as he set a freshly cased pillow on the twin bed in the far cell.
“Spence, can you tell how long ago he was infected?” Jace asked as he pulled a forehead touch thermometer from a drawer in the kitchenette.
“He’d been there for hours when my shift started. His temp was 102 in the ER, so I’d say it’s been at least a day since he was infected,” the man in scrubs—clearly Spencer—said. “Which would mean…Thursday night, maybe? But I don’t think he’s shifted yet.”
“Where’s the wound?” Titus followed them into the cell as the other men laid the stray on the bed. The patient’s face was pale , and his clothes were soaked with sweat.
“Did I look like that?” I whispered.
Abby nodded, her eyes wide.
Spencer carefully lifted the man’s T-shirt to reveal a bloodstained bandage wrapping around his lower ribs toward his back. “He told the ER doc a cougar attacked him in the woods. Animal control issued an alert and they’re sending people out to look for it at first light.”
“What was the diagnosis?” Titus asked.
“The doc thinks the fever is from an infection,” Spencer said. “She gave him IV antibiotics and ibuprofen, but those weren’t working, so I had to talk him into checking out before they ordered blood tests.”
“How did you do it?” I asked, and when Spencer turned, seeming to notice me for the first time, I realized I’d wandered to within feet of the cage where the new stray now lay on the twin mattress. “How did you get him to check out?”
“Who…?” Spencer aimed a questioning frown at his Alpha.
“Spence, Loch, this is Robyn Sheffield. She’ll be with us for the next two weeks. Treat her like you treat Abby.”
“Only better,” Abby said with a grin.
Spencer gave her a friendly wink, then turned to me. He inhaled deeply, and I tried not to be offended or weirded out, but I still couldn’t get used to the way cats sniff each other all the time. Even if the human-form version was much more polite than a house cat’s butt sniffing.
I braced myself for his reaction. For the subtle staring and less-than-subtle excuses to touch me. But Spencer only shrugged and held out his hand to be shaken. “Hey. I’m Spencer Cole.”
“Lochlan Hayes.” The tall, blond tom stuck out his hand, peering at me through light hazel eyes, and I could only stare at them both. Though I caught their Alpha looking every time I turned around, they seemed totally unaffected by the presence of the only female stray known to exist in the US.
Spencer laughed and lowered his hand, when I failed to reply to his introduction. “Nice to meet you anyway. And to answer your question, I told him I knew a specialist who was familiar with this particular infection. Then I offered to treat him for free. No need to file anything with his insurance. That last part usually seals the deal.”
“Do we have a name?” Titus asked.
Lochlan pulled a worn leather wallet from the pocket of his gray jogging pants and handed it to his Alpha. “Corey Morris. Looks like he’s a freshman at Ole Miss.”
“Any idea why he’d go to the hospital in Jackson?” Jace asked. “That’s a two-hour drive south of Oxford.”
“Maybe the way you drive,” Abby said. “It’d take me two and a half.”
Drew shrugged. “Poor kid’s just eighteen years old.”
“His life isn’t over.” Titus stared at the unconscious new stray, while Spencer pulled an IV bag full of clear liquid from one of the upper cabinets on the other side of the basement. “It’s just a lot harder now.”
My chest began to ache as his words dug into me like the claws that had simultaneously shredded my skin and ruined my life. I couldn’t think of a truer statement in the world. My life wasn’t over either, but since I’d been scratched by a dying stray in a cage more than four months ago, everything had gotten infinitely, immeasurably harder.
Every decision seemed complicated by a whole list of consequences and considerations I’d never had as a human. Each breath brought with it a banquet of scents my sluggish brain struggled to identify and classify. Every beat of my heart pumped blood-borne instincts and cravings I fought to resist. Every square foot of earth belonged to some Alpha who would only let me stand on it if I promised something in return. Loyalty. Obedience. Marriage.
Corey Morris would wake up in a world he no longer recognized or truly belonged to.
I knew exactly how that felt.
Spencer crossed the cell and hung the IV bag from a hook on the wall above the twin bed. While he opened a packet of sterile IV tubing and supplies, Titus knelt next to the bed until his nose was inches from the bloody bandage. Then he inhaled deeply. “He definitely hasn’t shifted yet. I can’t smell his infector’s scent in his blood.”
“What does that mean?” I whispered to Abby.
“The way my dad puts it, sampling someone’s scent is like tasting wine,” she whispered, while we watched from the other side of the cell. “You know how when you smell a person, you get the primary scent, but also subtle layers of other things? Fear. Health. Pregnancy, if that applies.”
I nodded. It had taken my human-born nose a while to learn how to find and interpret those things, and the truth was that I was still learning what each scent meant.
“With a stray, you also get a trace of the cat who infected him. But that doesn’t kick in until after the first shift, when the infection has thoroughly permeated the bloodstream.”
“So, in a few hours, we’ll be able to tell who infected him, just from smelling him?”
“If the scent belongs to someone we know.” Abby shrugged. “But that’s not likely. Titus’s goal is to identify and reach out to all the strays in his territory, but the reality is that that’s quite an undertaking. Most of them aren’t volunteering to be counted in the census.”
“So, what’s with the IV?” I asked, as Spencer carefully slid a needle into Corey Morris’s arm. “They’re medicating him?”
“No.” Titus leaned against the bars to my left, to get out of Loch’s way. “Hydrating him. The fever leads to dehydration, and IV fluids help fend off the worst of the sickness.”
Abby gave me a sad look. “I didn’t know that when you were infected. Sorry.”
I linked my arm with hers. “You did what you could. Without you, I’d probably be dead by now.”
And without Titus and his friends, Corey Morris might die too. Or he might live, then infect someone else.
The sick stray’s free arm twitched on the bed.
“He’s waking up,” I said.
“Damn,” Spencer swore, still holding the needle in the stray’s other arm. “Someone hold him still.”
Titus and Jace stepped forward and carefully held the patient steady by his shoulders and calves, while Drew stabilized Corey’s arms.
Spencer finished the IV with speed and skill that hinted at years of experience. He was throwing away the medical waste when his patient’s eyes fluttered open.
Everyone stepped away from the new stray as one, as if their movements had been choreographed.
Everyone except Titus.
“What’s going on?” I whispered, as Abby tugged me out of the cell.
“Titus needs to take the lead, to establish his authority from the beginning,” she whispered.
“Where am I?” Corey blinked several times, strug
gling to bring his vision into focus, and suddenly I felt like I was right there with him. Blinking at Abby from that filthy couch, in that cabin deep in the woods. I hadn’t been able to bring her into focus, but I’d known she was there, even when she wasn’t talking.
Somehow, I could smell her. And I’d known I wasn’t alone.
“Is this a hospital?” Corey lifted his arm, frowning at the needle secured to the inside of his elbow with medical tape. Then his gaze wandered farther into the room, and his eyes widened. “Am I in jail?”
“No. You’re in my basement. We use it as a makeshift infirmary,” Titus said. “You’re very sick, Corey, and that’s going to get worse over the next few hours. But then you’ll start to get better. You’re going to be fine. But you’re going to be different.”
“Who’re you?” The patient’s words were slurred, his face bright red with fever.
“My name is Titus Alexander. I’m your Alpha.”
SIX
Titus
“You should get some sleep.” Jace sank into the chair across the small table from me, and he looked as tired as I felt. “I’ll take a shift.”
I shook my head. “It needs to be me.”
“Morris won’t forget you’re his Alpha if someone else is there the next time he wakes up.”
“You don’t understand,” I said, and Jace rolled his eyes. A growl rumbled up from my throat, and I let it echo between us for a moment. “You may be tired of hearing it, but it’s the truth. We weren’t born into this. We didn’t see the appropriate behavior modeled for us in a Pride full of toms,” I told him. “Corey Morris won’t be conforming to an intrinsic set of instincts when he wakes up. He’ll be fighting to reconcile everything he ever knew and felt in his human life with a series of bizarre and terrifying new impulses. He will be at war with himself, almost literally.”
“I know,” Jace stood and pulled a mug from the cabinet. “You say this every time.”
“But you can’t truly understand it, because you’ve never felt it.”
“If you use the childbirth analogy again, I’m going to break this pot over your head.” He lifted a half-full glass carafe from beneath the coffee maker. “I don’t have to give birth myself to know that it hurts.”
“Spoken like someone without a uterus,” Abby said as she jogged down the steps, red curls bouncing around her face.
Jace took a third mug from the cabinet for her, wordlessly inviting her to sit with us.
“How’s Robyn?” I asked as I pushed a chair out for Abby with my foot.
“In bed, but not asleep.” Abby sat, then aimed her worried gaze at me. “Titus, she thinks you want to keep her here.”
I leaned back in my chair until I could reach the counter, where I snagged a box of sugar packets and avoided meeting her gaze. “Why would she think that when I agreed to personally hand her over to your father in two weeks?”
“She thinks this ‘vacation’ is some kind of audition. That if you like her, you’ll try to make her stay. For the same reason the Di Carlos want her.”
I frowned. “To study her? Why would I—”
“For a smart guy, you’re pretty stupid.” Jace set a full mug in front of Abby, then dropped into the only remaining empty chair. “She thinks you want to marry her, Titus. To use her as your dam, to start a true Pride.”
My frown became a scowl. “This is a true Pride. I don’t need her for that.”
“Not officially,” Abby said. “But traditionally, it’d be pretty hard for an Alpha to hold onto his territory if he can’t deliver a daughter, to…propagate. To insure the continuation of the species.”
“That’s ridiculous.” I stood and grabbed the carafe, then filled my own mug. “Our species isn’t dying out. There are more toms in Mississippi than I can keep up with.”
“Those are strays,” Jace pointed out. “They don’t count.”
A growl rumbled from low in my throat, and he held up both hands, palms out. “That’s not coming from me. It’s the council’s perspective. They’ll think the same thing Robyn does, if she’s not in Atlanta within two weeks. That you’re making a play for their new tabby, to cement your authority.”
“That’s such bullshit. She’s a person, not a chess piece.”
Jace laughed. “I wish you’d known Faythe in college. You might have given Marc a run for his money.”
Abby snorted. “She’d have fed you your balls in a sandwich. Robyn may still.”
“I can’t tell if you’re joking or—”
The mattress squealed behind me, and I turned in my chair to find Corey Morris trying to sit up in bed.
“How do you feel?” I set my mug on the counter and crossed into the occupied cell. “Any nausea? Do you need the bucket again?”
“No.” Morris’s voice cracked on that single syllable. “I don’t… I don’t understand.”
I picked up a half-empty bottle of water from the floor and handed it to him.
Morris pulled the top off the bottle and gulped until the water was gone, slaking a thirst that persisted in spite of his IV. “What’s going on?” He held the empty bottle out, and I set it on the floor again. “Where am I?”
“You’re at my house, about an hour north of Jackson. You went to the emergency room at Baptist Medical Center around midnight, and my friend brought you here because we’re better equipped to treat the infection you have.”
Morris blinked heavily, then ran both hands over his short, sweat-damp hair. “What do I have?”
He wasn’t ready for the answer. I knew from experience that he wouldn’t believe the truth until he could feel his first shift coming on. Until the newly feline half of him ripped its way through his human form. So instead of answering his question, I asked one of my own. “Mr. Morris, I understand you’re a student at Ole Miss. Can you tell me why you went to the hospital in Jackson, instead of in Oxford?”
Morris blinked again, trying to follow my subject change in spite of his high fever. “Um. My best friend’s girlfriend goes to Millsaps and he said I could come to a party with them in Jackson if I gave him a ride.”
“When was this party?”
“Thursday night. I was going to drive back to Oxford Friday morning. But…” He glanced around the basement again, as if seeing it for the first time. “What’s going on? What’s in there?” He moved his left arm, which tugged on the IV bag.
“You’re dehydrated from the fever, so we’re giving you intravenous fluids. There’s nothing in the bag but sterile solution.” I cleared my throat and pulled a folding chair closer to the bed, so I could sit. “Mr. Morris, you told the nurse at the ER that you’d been attacked by a large cat in the woods. Can you tell us where that happened?”
“After the party—”
“The party was on the Millsaps campus?” Jace asked, from the breakfast table where he and Abby still sat.
“Yeah.” Morris frowned at him, then his tenuous focus slid to me. “Afterward, I went with my friend Leland and his girlfriend into the woods east of the highway.”
“I55?” I asked.
Morris nodded, then closed his eyes for a second, as if he were fighting nausea from the movement. “South of the city. There’s a bunch of dirt roads and creeks out there, and Leland’s girlfriend’s family has an old hunting lodge. It was more of a shack, really. Leland and Ivy started getting hot and heavy, but I was like a third wheel, so I took a walk, you know?”
“And that’s where you saw the cat?”
“I didn’t see it. I heard something following me. Twigs snapping. Heavy breathing. The sounds started freaking me out a little, so I ran toward the shack, and the damn thing…pounced. It landed on my back and clawed up my side. I started screaming, and it ran off. Like I scared the damn cougar.”
“You’re sure it was a cougar?” Jace asked, and I resisted the urge to turn and glare at him, keeping my focus on the new stray.
Morris shrugged. “It was behind me until it ran off, and I couldn’t see it very w
ell in the dark. But it was definitely a cat, so it had to be a cougar, right? Unless something bigger escaped from the zoo.” He pushed himself up, and I could see him fighting vertigo as he clutched the mattress. “Did something escape from the fucking zoo? Should I get a lawyer?”
I gave him a small smile. “I don’t think this would be much of a lawsuit. It was a wildcat.”
“He showed no stealth and was easily scared off,” Jace said, and I looked up to see him cradling his coffee mug. “I think we’re looking for someone recently infected.”
“What does that mean?” Morris’s wide-eyed glance flicked from Jace to me. “What’s wrong with me? Did I catch rabies?”
“No.” I picked up the thermometer from an inverted bucket being used as a nightstand and swiped the sensor across his forehead. “One-oh-three. You’re still sick, Mr. Morris. Why don’t you try to get some sleep? Spencer will replace your IV bag in a couple of hours, and when you’re feeling better, I promise I’ll explain everything.”
He looked like he wanted to argue, but then he fell against his pillow, as if arguing would be too much work.
“You two go get some sleep,” I said as I sank into my chair at the small round table in the kitchenette.
“You sure?” Abby asked.
“He’s sure.” Jace stood and tugged her up. “I’m sure we can find something to do on our own.”
“What happened to getting some sleep?” She grinned as she snuggled up to him.
“I think that phrase is open to interpretation,” Jace said, one arm around her waist.
I tried not to listen to their private, largely explicit chatter as they headed up the steps, but a cat’s hearing is both a blessing and a curse. And not for the first time, I wondered if I was wasting my time petitioning for a Pride with myself as its Alpha. Jace had more experience and first-hand knowledge of the inner workings of the Territorial Council. I couldn’t help thinking that he stood a better shot of getting the Pride recognized.
Yet he and Abby swore the opposite was true. That Jace was persona non grata to most of the council, having been permanently exiled from all ten territories. For crimes he didn’t even commit.