I was being watched. Some subconscious cat part of me had picked up a subtle scent or sound and raised a red flag for my conscious human half.
My heart hammered hard enough to bruise me from the inside out, and I could barely hear over it. I turned slowly, and at first saw nothing but more trees and bushes. But then there was a small flash of light in the dark. No, not a flash. Two flashes of white light in the deep night shadows. Moonlight reflecting off cat eyes.
I slid my right hand slowly into my back pocket and pulled out the folding knife, my finger on the button and ready to press. But I kept it behind my back, out of sight. A surge of adrenaline raced through me, and my free hand curled into a fist. Those were not Jace’s eyes. They were a pale, earthy greenish-brown, with no hint of blue. My pulse rang in my ears.
The stray had found me first.
Seven
The cat blinked, and I shuffled backward. Dead leaves crunched underfoot, and I winced at the sound, as if it might give away my position. But I’d already been found by one tom, and needed to be found by two more. Maybe I should start shouting…
No.
Foliage rustled as he stepped out of the bushes, tail swishing slowly, head high, ears pricked and on alert. I studied him, memorizing his form for possible identification later—one of the first things I’d learned as an enforcer. I inhaled, learning his scent, too, which told me without a doubt that he was male. And that he had not infected the stray I’d killed with the meat mallet. But just because he hadn’t scratched that stray didn’t mean he hadn’t infected another. Or done something worse.
He carried no stench of disease or infection, and he walked without a limp, both of which indicated good health. He looked young—I was guessing early thirties—and was smaller than Marc. Unfortunately, for werecats, size wasn’t the only determining factor for danger; I was proof enough of that.
But the bottom line was that he was a stray tom, and I was a tabby. He was drawn to me by curiosity, and by an instinct he hadn’t been born with and probably didn’t yet understand. To walk away unscathed, I’d have to satisfy his interest and keep him calm until Marc and Jace arrived.
“Good kitty, kitty,” I murmured, unwilling to release the blade on my knife until or unless he looked openly hostile. Wielding my weapon too soon would almost surely provoke that hostility.
Marc, where the hell are you?
The stray took another step toward me, his ears folded back, tail held low and stiff. He was still more curious than aggressive, which was no big surprise. I was typically the first tabby most strays had ever seen, and they generally had no idea there was anything to fear from me until it was too late. Of course, I was usually in cat form too, and I was never unaccompanied…
Okay, there has to be some kind of protocol for this. Still eyeing the cat, I searched my memory, running through everything I’d learned since becoming an enforcer. What did the guys do when they were stuck in human form, barely armed, facing a stray with full use of his claws and canines?
The answer did nothing to reassure me: They fought, or they died.
Fighting was a last resort, and dying wasn’t an option. So, what are you good at?
Talking. According to Marc, I could talk the color off a crayon. Of course, that usually got me into trouble, rather than out of it. But it was worth a shot.
I got as far as, “Hi,” then I was stuck. I couldn’t decide between, “What’s your sign?” and “Please don’t eat me.”
The cat ignored my greeting, and his nose twitched as he took in my scent. He hadn’t seen my weapon, and if he’d smelled the metal, he didn’t seem bothered by it. He edged closer and I backed up, but after one step my foot landed unevenly on a mound of dirt, and my right hand—still clutching the knife at my back—scraped a tree trunk. There was nowhere else to go, unless I was willing to run from the cat. But that would be suicide. Even if he didn’t plan to attack, if I ran, he’d chase me out of instinct.
“Do you live around here?” I asked after a moment’s hesitation.
To my surprise, the stray cocked his head to one side, as if in question. Or confusion.
“Here.” I raised my left arm to take in the immediate surroundings, and the cat jerked. No sudden moves, Faythe. He’s already jumpy. “Do you live in these woods? On this mountain?”
That time he bobbed his head once, then tossed his muzzle toward the north.
“You live that way?” I asked, and he nodded again. Suspicion sent a vine of doubt twisting through me. Keller hadn’t mentioned any werecats living near his territory—only loud, obnoxious invaders.
I glanced toward the north, as if I might be able to see his home through all the trees and brush—not to mention the mountainside—and thus verify his claim. And when I turned to face him again, the stray stood less than five feet away, still watching me. He’d distracted me, then snuck up on me, and I’d fallen for it, thrown off by his apparent cooperation.
“Clever kitty.” Unlike the last stray, this one was neither sick nor confused, so I saw no reason not to gut him if he pounced.
The cat’s nose twitched again, and his whiskers arced forward. He froze, and his ears swiveled one hundred and eighty degrees, listening to something outside the range of my regrettably human ears.
Marc and Jace? Please let it be them.
Eyes still on me, the stray began to swish his tail slowly. His ears returned to their normal position. I had his full attention now, and could practically see eagerness in his very feline expression.
He was preparing to make a move. Either Marc and Jace were too far away to worry about, or they were close enough to rush him into action. I was betting on the former, since I could neither hear nor smell them.
I swallowed thickly and inched another step to the right, my spine still pressed against the tree, the knuckles of my right fist scraping against bark. “What do you…?” Damn it, yes-or-no questions, Faythe. “Do you want something from me?”
The stray bobbed his head again, and a soft, low-pitched bleating sound rumbled up to me. He was purring, now less than a foot away. His gaze was glued to my face, his mouth open, teeth exposed.
Unfortunately, I was pretty sure I knew what he wanted, and “companionship” didn’t quite cover it. That was the problem with being one of very few tabby cats in existence. The supply doesn’t meet the demand, so those demanding often got a little…eager.
The cat closed the distance between us. My heart thudded in my throat. He nudged my left hand with his head, and I tried not to flinch. I consider uninvited physical contact grounds to bite off some part of the offender’s body.
My dull human teeth would only piss him off. But even with it behind my back, my knife was inches from his throat. I could end our little standoff with the press of a button and one quick slash.
But he hadn’t actually hurt me, or even really threatened me, so killing him seemed a little…rash.
Dread settled into my stomach like sour milk at the realization that unless I was willing to kill him, I had no real recourse, other than cooperation. I spread my free hand, hoping to pacify him—though the very thought of playing along struck discordant notes of fury and disgust in me. He rubbed one cheek against my palm, much as Jace had done minutes earlier. He was replacing Jace’s scent with his own, effectively claiming me.
My skin crawled with revulsion. Casual physical contact among littermates or Pride members was both accepted and expected. But between strangers, it was an insult. A threat. A social faux pas about the size of the Grand Canyon.
I told myself the stray probably didn’t know that; he hadn’t grown up in our society. But I had, and I couldn’t help feeling disrespected. The best I could do was cringe quietly, knowing any resistance I gave could get one of us hurt, if not killed. And since survival trumped pride any day of the week, I was more than willing to play along. Just not happily.
I was just getting a handle on my own revulsion, when a feline snarl ripped through the forest from a dis
tance, shredding our pretense of friendly petting as well as the eerie hush around us.
The stray froze beneath my hand. My fingers went still and my eyes closed in silent prayer. The snarl hadn’t come from Jace, but I had no doubt it involved both him and Marc, and that it was the reason they had yet to arrive.
Leaves crunched at my feet, and suddenly my hand was empty. Something tugged on my jacket sleeve and I opened my eyes to find my left cuff pinched between the cat’s front teeth.
“Hey, let go!” I demanded, summoning anger to replace the fear curdling the contents of my stomach. Fear cripples you, but anger helps you fight, and I now knew without a doubt that I would soon be fighting. “You do not want to know what happened to the last cat who pissed me off.”
Okay, technically all I’d done was scratch the end of his nose with my partially Shifted teeth, but the cat before that…He’d gotten his brains splattered all over both me and several square feet of dry brown grass.
In response to my blatant but evidently unbelievable threat, the stray rolled his eyes—an oddly human gesture for a cat—and tugged urgently on my sleeve.
What he wanted was clear. It was also not going to happen.
“Uh-uh!” I shook my head. “No way in hell am I going to wander off through the woods with the first tom who rubs up against me.”
The stray growled fiercely, and my pulse thundered in my ears. My nose picked up a sudden surge of the stray’s scent in the air. He was pissed, and likely scared, and his body was releasing extra pheromones to warn everyone near him. Which would be me. Only me. All by myself.
However, even if he was trying to help me, I couldn’t leave Marc and Jace behind, especially when one or both of them might be injured.
He pulled my sleeve again, hard this time. “You can’t just grab strange girls and start dragging—”
But apparently I was wrong, because he planted his rear feet firmly in the ground and gave my jacket a mighty yank. I had to brace a hand on his shoulder, curling my fingers in thick, unfamiliar fur to remain standing. The next tug moved us several feet, me hunched over and tripping in the meager moonlight, him stepping quickly and confidently, even moving backward.
“Stop it!” I shouted on purpose this time, hoping Marc and Jace were close enough to hear me. But my words gave the stray no pause. The time had come for more offensive measures. Damn it.
I drew the knife from behind my back, slamming one finger down on the button. The blade popped out with a satisfying metallic thunk. “You’re not giving me many options here,” I warned as his eyes lit on the blade, gleaming in a stray beam of moonlight.
He growled again, and for a moment, neither of us moved. Then he braced his front paws on the ground and jerked me to his right by my arm. I stumbled, off balance, and only remembered to swing the knife up at the last second. But that was a second too late.
His left paw arced toward me and slapped at my hand. Even with his claws retracted, the powerful shot knocked the knife from my fist and left my whole arm numb and tingling.
The knife flew off to my right and clattered against a tree trunk, then disappeared, buried within a pile of leaves. Now I was alone with an unknown stray, in the dark, in unfamiliar woods—and completely unarmed. If I remained stuck in human form much longer, I was clearly going to need some serious training with a blade.
Until then, all I had was anger and instinct, now singeing every nerve ending in my body. I was one big live wire, buzzing with fear and indignation. But my indecision was gone. “Let me go!” My arm flew along with my last word, and my fist slammed into the side of his skull before the cry had faded from my mouth.
Stunned for a moment, the stray swayed on his feet—all four of them. He blinked, then his mouth opened, and I was free.
I raced down the dark hillside in the direction I’d come from. Hopefully. At my back, the stray roared in fury, and thundered after me. “Marc!” I yelled as the running pant closed in on me from behind. “Jace!”
“Faythe!”
My head whipped around in search of Marc’s voice. He was at least okay enough to yell, and he wasn’t too far away now. I veered toward him, confident he would never have revealed his location if the cat who’d snarled was still a threat.
From behind me came a harsh crunch-sliding sound and the pant of labored breathing as the stray made a sharp turn to follow me. His next huff was too close for comfort—too close for survival—so I shot forward to gain a little distance, then skidded to a halt, spinning on a bed of leaves before I’d even stopped sliding. I grabbed a bare branch overhead with both hands. The stray lunged for me. Grunting, I swung myself forward. Bark cut into my palms. My legs arced into a beam of moonlight, knees bent.
I didn’t make it into the tree—a world-class gymnast I am not—but my legs swung high enough that the stray passed right under me. By the time he skidded to a halt, I was racing in the opposite direction, away from both friends and foe.
I couldn’t outrun the cat, much less outclimb him, and I could only avoid him until he tired of the chase. Or until I grew too exhausted to continue—which would be any moment. Already my lungs burned, and my side felt like it was being ripped open with each deep breath.
Out of options now, I slowed to first a jog, then a walk, one hand pressed to my left side. Then I stopped entirely. Behind me, the cat’s steps slowed too, which I took as further proof he was trying to catch me, not kill me. Unfortunately, that knowledge wasn’t very reassuring. If he got close enough, he could knock me out with the swipe of one sheathed claw, then drag me anywhere he wanted.
I turned to face the stray, leaning against the nearest tree trunk, and immediately held my palm out in the universal signal for “stop.”
The stray threw his head back and roared, and his fury echoed throughout the trees. It was pretty impressive. But it didn’t change my mind. I was not going with him.
He started forward, determination written in each firm step, and I backed away slowly. I was trapped again, and too exhausted to run. But I was my father’s daughter, and I would not go down without a fight.
My right hand curled into a fist, and I took my “ready” stance, showing the stray my intent. Then a deep growl rumbled over me, humming in my very bones. It was aggressive and angry—a very fine threat. With a very familiar feel…
Jace.
The stray’s head flew up, his focus fixed on the branches above me. I followed his gaze—briefly—and there was Jace, hunched on a thick limb to my right, canines bared, fur gleaming in a broad beam of silver moonlight.
The stray’s tail twitched once, drawing my eye. Then he pounced.
I screamed as his huge front paws slammed into my chest. The forest pitched wildly. My back hit the ground. My head thumped against an exposed root. Massive weight drove the air from my body, cutting off my cry of terror.
The stray glared down at me, teeth inches from my neck, breath hot against my chin. Panicked, I shoved at thick, fur-covered ribs, my mouth open and gasping for air my lungs had no room to accept, thanks to the hundred-and-seventy-plus-pound cat on my chest.
Jace growled above us, wordlessly warning the stray to release me or suffer the consequences. But he couldn’t pounce on the cat without squishing me, too.
That’s when I realized I was a hostage. The stray was threatening to kill me if Jace didn’t back off. And if one of them didn’t make a decision soon, the point would be moot, because I was suffocating.
Terror clawed at my chest, scorching my throat. My arms flapped helplessly, beating ineffectively against the stray’s sides.
“What good is a dead captive? She can’t breathe!”
My vision was already going gray when Marc’s voice cut through the buzzing in my ears. It was the sound of mercy. The sound of salvation.
It was likely the last sound I’d ever hear.
But then the stray removed one paw from my chest, settling some of his weight on the ground between me and Marc, and suddenly I could breathe ag
ain. Not well, but good enough.
I swallowed air in huge mouthfuls, spitting it out as fast as I pulled it in, and only a concerted effort on my part stopped me from hyperventilating. When I could see clearly again, I turned my head, pressing my cheek into soft, cold, fragrant dirt as I peered around the stray’s leg. Marc stood fifteen feet away. He had a gash on his forehead, blood smeared across the left side of his face, and a bloody rip in the corresponding sleeve of his coat. But he was alive and upright, and everything else would come in time.
“Let her go,” Marc ordered, in near-flawless imitation of my father’s obey-or-die voice.
The stray growled and dropped his muzzle to my neck. Stiff fur brushed my skin, and I whimpered before I could stop myself.
Marc jerked into motion, snatching a long, thick branch from the ground near his feet. He swung his club up and took two steps forward.
Four shards of pain pricked my chest, above my left breast, and I screamed, more shocked than really hurt. Startled by Marc’s sudden movement, the stray had unsheathed his claws, which pierced my leather jacket, shirt, then my flesh.
The cat resheathed his claws immediately, reinforcing my theory that he didn’t want to kill me—unless he had to. And when my eyes found Marc again, I saw something flicker in the dark behind him, in the hand he held behind his thigh. A flashlight? How was that supposed to help me? Was he planning to blind the damn stray?
Marc’s hand moved again, and the light flashed brighter this time. Only it wasn’t really a light. It was more like a glint—moonlight flashing off something…metal? Had he found my knife? No, it was too thin. More like a…
Syringe. He had the tranquilizer.
Wonderful. Unfortunately, Marc would never get close enough to use it without startling the stray into killing me. But evidently he didn’t plan to.
Marc glanced up at Jace, and gave him a tiny nod—a signal for something.