I sat at the small round table, my chair positioned as far to the right as possible. From there, I could see the bruin, who took up most of the ugly beige sofa all on his own. I could also see my father, in the armchair nearest the couch, and Malone, opposite him in a matching chair.
“…can we do for you, Mr. Keller?” My father asked, his hands templed beneath his chin, fingertips brushing a slight shadow of stubble.
Across from him, Malone faced mostly away from me, so that I saw only a slice of his profile. But that was enough for me to recognize the scowl dominating his expression. He was clearly irritated with my father for taking charge, which sent a petty surge of glee through me. Did Malone think chairing the tribunal sitting in judgment of me gave him enough power to displace Greg Sanders as the head of the entire Territorial Council? If so, he was sorely mistaken, and at that moment I wanted nothing more out of life than to be present when my father made that fact clear.
And maybe a full pardon. That would be nice, too.
Jace slid into the seat on my right, setting his own mug on the table in front of him. I mouthed, “Thanks,” and held up my cup before sipping from it, my attention already focused on the Alphas and the bruin.
“What can you do for me?” Keller ran one broad, thick-fingered hand along his scraggly beard, tugging it as he stared down at my father. “Keep your cats off my mountain.”
Bruins, like the bears they Shifted into, lived almost exclusively in the northern rocky districts—mostly Alberta, British Columbia and Alaska. Very few lived in the continental U.S., and those who did stuck to isolated regions of the Northwest—including the werecat free zone in Montana, where we’d come for my hearing.
“Our cats?” My father glanced at his fellow Alphas, but none seemed to have any idea what our ursine guest was talking about.
“Well, they certainly aren’t my cats,” Keller scoffed. He lifted his mug—which looked like a toy cup in his tennis racket-size hand—and drained the contents in one long swallow. Then he set the empty cup on the coffee table and eyed my father steadily.
“What are these cats doing, exactly?” Calvin Malone asked.
“They’re carrying on like a pack of rabid dogs, not five miles from my place.” Keller shifted in his seat, and the couch groaned with his movement. “Hunting and fighting in the daytime. Making all kinds of racket. It’s a bad time for such ruckus, what with humans crawling all over the mountain looking for those missing hikers. Damn fools. Those cats of yours are either gonna make trouble, or be trouble, and I want no part of it either way.”
Missing hikers?
On my left, the kitchen door creaked open, and I turned to see Marc step inside. His gaze found me instantly, the gold specks glittering in his brown eyes. He looked away first, as had become his habit since we’d broken up ten weeks earlier. Ten weeks and four days, to be exact. And approximately ten hours.
But who was counting?
A familiar ache settled into my chest, and I tried to drown it with coffee.
“Are you sure they’re Shifters, and not natural cats? Cougars, maybe?” Uncle Rick asked from the living room. I tried to concentrate on what was being said, but I couldn’t seem to drag my gaze from Marc.
“What’s going on?” he whispered to Jace, avoiding my eyes as he sniffed in the direction of the living room. “And what’s that smell?”
“Of course I’m sure,” Keller rumbled from the other room, and Marc froze at the sound of the strange voice.
“Is that what I think it is?” Marc murmured, crossing the kitchen to stand behind us, where he could see into the living room. “A bruin?”
Jace nodded, a grin practically splitting his face in half. Bruins were rarer than thunderbirds. Rarer even than tabby cats, at least in the U.S. My father said they’d be gone for good someday. Maybe during my lifetime. I’d never expected to see one in person.
“They’re bigger than cougars, and jet-black, every one,” Keller continued. “Smarter ’n cougars, too. But they lack the common sense to be frightened when they ought.”
Definitely tomcats, then, I thought. And probably teenagers.
“I expect you boys to round ’em up, and soon,” the bruin said, glancing from one Alpha to another. “I’ve already buried one—figured you’d wanna know why he didn’t come back—and I don’t mind diggin’ more holes, if need be. Seems only fair to warn you first, though.”
My father frowned, and I knew exactly what he was thinking. What they all must have been thinking. We weren’t missing any cats. Though he didn’t seem to know it, Keller was talking about strays. Reckless, likely suicidal strays. He had to be.
“We’ll take care of the problem.” My father tapped his index fingers together beneath his chin. Then, as if he’d read my mind, “Can you describe the scent of these werecats? They were male, I assume?”
Keller nodded. “No doubt about that. Not with ’em pissin’ on every tree and rock for ten square miles.”
My father cleared his throat to disguise a smile, but Jace wasn’t so fortunate. He choked on a gulp of coffee, spewing it across the table and down the front of his shirt. I bit my lip to keep from laughing, and Marc grabbed a pile of paper napkins from the counter behind him, dropping them over the mess on the table.
“Could you tell anything else from their scents?” Uncle Rick asked, while my father glared at us from the living room. I shrugged at him in apology, while Jace tossed the soggy napkins across the room into the trash can. “Were they Pride or stray?”
Keller stroked his beard again. “Can’t say as I know the difference.”
My father nodded, as if he’d expected that very reply. “A stray is a werecat who was born human, then infected by being scratched or bitten by one of us in cat form.”
I squirmed in my seat, uncomfortably aware that nearly every eye in the living room had just focused on me. Always in the past when the topic of strays came up, Marc became the unwilling center of attention. But that was no longer the case. I was now infamous for having created a stray. In fact, I was the only Pride cat in living history to admit to such a thing. No one else was that crazy. Or stupid.
But things were different for bruins, as Elias Keller had just reminded us. His species wanted nothing to do with the human population. Or with each other, for the most part. Unlike werecats, bruins lived alone, typically in rough cabins in isolated mountainous regions virtually untouched by civilization. They were the “mountain men” of legend, reclusive giants in huge flannel shirts, fur hats and colossal boots, stomping through the forest with an ax over one shoulder and a dead deer over the other. They were likely the source of the Paul Bunyan stories. Hell, in one form or another, they were probably also Bigfoot, almost never seen, because there were very few of them to be seen.
Bruins weren’t rare only because they bred slowly, though that was certainly part of it. The rest of the problem was that like thunderbirds, they could only be born, not made. Being mauled by a bruin would not turn a human into a “werebear.” It would kill him or her. Period. Which was why the concept of a stray was completely lost on Keller.
“And there’s a difference between the smell of a stray and a…Pride cat?”
Malone nodded. “We’re all Pride cats. This cat you…buried? Did it smell like us?”
Keller sniffed the air dramatically, and his entire beard twitched with the motion. It might have been funny, if he didn’t look so very serious. “Yes. You’re all cats. They were all cats. You all smell like cats to me.”
“He needs to smell a stray,” Paul Blackwell said, and dread settled into my stomach. I knew what was coming. I just didn’t know who’d be dumb enough to do it.
But I should have known.
“Where’s Marc Ramos?” Malone demanded, glancing around at his fellow Alphas, as if he expected Marc to suddenly appear in their midst. “He’s a stray. Someone bring Marc in here.”
I dared a peek at Marc and found him standing behind Jace, fists clenched around the b
ack of the chair, face scarlet. He growled, very low and deep, and I ached to put a sympathetic hand over his.
“Marc?” Malone called again from the living room. He twisted in his chair, glancing down the hall first, then toward the kitchen, where he found us all frozen in place—Marc in anger, me in dread, and Jace in what could only be humiliation. I hadn’t noticed his reaction earlier, because Marc was clearly about to blow his top. But when I looked at Jace, I saw that his jaws were clenched, muscles bulging in his cheeks, and that he stared at Malone in nothing short of rage. Pure, murderous rage.
“Ramos, front-n-center!” Malone shouted, apparently oblivious to the fact that he was insulting my father’s top enforcer—the tomcat who got paid to bust heads in defense of our territory.
Marc growled louder, and the chair back creaked beneath his hands. He watched my father instead of Malone, waiting for either a nod or a shake of his Alpha’s head to tell him what to do. But instead, my father shrugged. He was leaving the decision up to Marc, and I loved him for it. For not demanding that Marc present himself to be sniffed like a bitch in heat.
However, before Marc could make up his mind, Keller spoke again, slicing through the tension with a single, insightful statement. “I can smell you from here, son. No need to put yourself out on my account.”
Marc nodded. He didn’t smile—he was much too angry for that—but I could see respect for Keller in his eyes.
“So.” Malone dismissed Marc as casually as he’d called for him. “Did these werecats smell like us, or like him?”
I never actually heard Keller’s answer because the wood splintering under Marc’s hands drowned it out. An instant later, Marc held the detached back of Jace’s chair—a solid strip of oak attached to four thin spindles—in one hand. Jace jumped from his seat just as Marc hurled the wood through the window over the kitchen sink. Glass shattered, spraying the ground outside. Heads swiveled our way, eyes wide, mouths gaping. Then, before anyone seemed to realize what had happened, Marc was gone, and the screen door slammed shut.
Malone practically shook with fury, now standing in the middle of the living-room floor. “Jace, bring him back. Now!”
Jace’s hands curled into fists at his sides, and anger smoldered in his eyes. He ignored Malone and watched his own Alpha for a signal.
“Let him go.” My father didn’t shout. He didn’t need to.
Jace’s hands uncurled, and he sank back into his broken chair, ears flaming as he stared at the table.
Calvin Malone turned to face my father, and again I saw him in profile. “Do you let that kind of disrespect go unpunished among your men?”
“You mind your Pride, and I’ll mind mine.” His carefully blank face was the only hint at how very angry my father was. At Malone, not Marc or Jace.
Malone’s mouth twitched. He was furious, but making an obvious attempt to rein his temper in, at least until the bruin was gone. “We’ll discuss this later.”
My father nodded curtly. “We certainly will.”
“Well, I’ll get out of your fur.” Keller rose from the couch, and its springs screeched in relief. He stepped toward the door, and had to duck beneath the fan overhead.
“Mr. Keller, wait,” Uncle Rick called, and the bruin paused several feet from the door. “Where did you last see these strays?” So they were strays… “And how many are there? We’ll send some men out on patrol, and they’ll need to know where to start.”
Keller’s face relaxed. “There’s a good-size pond not six miles north of here. I scented at least two of them there this morning, and several more before that. That good enough to get you started?”
“Yes, thank you. We appreciate the warning.” My father escorted Keller to the door, step by creaking step. The bruin had to bend to fit through, and when my father turned to the rest of us, his face was all business. “Can you spare two men apiece?” he asked, glancing around the room from Alpha to Alpha.
“Of course,” Blackwell said, “More, if you need them.”
My father nodded, acknowledging the commitment.
“You’re not serious about this, Greg?” Malone demanded, looking around the room for support from his fellow Alphas. My father, the head of the Territorial Council, walked past him without responding, and it was all I could do not to laugh out loud. He’d been using that tactic on me for years, but I’d never expected to see him ignore a fellow Alpha’s question, as if it wasn’t worthy of reply. Though, for the record, I agreed with him completely.
Malone shouted after him. “We all took time away from our jobs—our lives—to come here on werecat business, not to take tea with Yogi Bear!”
My dad strolled through the living room and into the kitchen, where we all watched him pour the last of the coffee into a clean mug, as if his authority wasn’t being questioned in front of Alpha and enforcer alike.
Malone followed him, stopping on the worn linoleum. “This is free territory. Of course there are strays here. We put them here!”
Daddy poured a packet of sugar into his coffee and stirred, looking no more annoyed than he might be by a fly buzzing near his ear. Malone seethed. “You cannot seriously be asking us to set aside your daughter’s criminal behavior in favor of chasing a few stray cats up the side of a mountain.”
That did it. My father brought the mug slowly to his lips. He sipped from it, eyeing Malone with all the patience in the world, and I understood in that moment why my father was the head of the council, and Calvin Malone never would be: Malone had no patience. No sense of timing. He wanted instant gratification, even on little things like getting a rise out of my father.
“No,” Daddy said. “I’m not asking you to do anything.” With that, he turned his back on Malone, showing the entire room that he had nothing to fear from his fellow Alpha. For toms like Malone, fear was synonymous with respect, and my father had just insulted him on a massive scale.
I think I was starting to rub off on him.
My father set his mug on the counter and turned to face the room. “We’ll send everyone we can spare. Jace, will you round them up, please?”
Jace was out of his chair and through the back door in less than a second.
As the first of the enforcers straggled in, I rose to refill my mug and found the pot empty. I had a fresh pot going when Marc followed the last tom in, at which point my father finished his coffee and cleared his throat for our attention. “In case anyone’s eavesdropping efforts failed—” quiet chuckling echoed across the living room “—we have agreed to investigate a matter brought to our attention by Elias Keller, the bruin we all just met. Mr. Keller says a group of strays has been making trouble near his home. You should be able to pick up their scents at a pond about six miles north of here.”
Excited murmurs rose throughout the room as anticipation of the chase swelled. I shared the guys’ eagerness, but knew without being told that I would not be participating. The council would never let me run free—even on an important assignment—while the hearing was in progress, and once it was over, the point would likely be moot. I might never run anywhere again.
That thought sent a jolt of fear through me, and the coffeepot shook in my grip, clattering against my empty mug. Marc lifted it from my hand, filling first my cup, then one for himself. I met his eyes—and he didn’t look away.
“I want you in pairs,” my father called out from the living room, drawing my attention back to the hunt I would take no part in. “One man from each team on two feet, the other on four paws. Stay ten yards apart, and head north to start. Check in with your Alpha by cell phone every hour. Got it?”
Several toms nodded, but Brett Malone—he of the unaccepted proposal—spoke up with a question, drawing a scowl from his father. “What should we do with the strays, if we find them?”
“Bring them back. Alive. Unconscious, if necessary.”
Brett frowned. “Should we use tranquilizers?”
My father’s brow rose in mild surprise, no doubt only a fraction
of what he was truly feeling. Then his mouth turned down in what I knew from experience to be extreme displeasure. “We have tranquilizers?” He glanced at his brother-in-law for confirmation, and Uncle Rick nodded.
“Yes,” Malone chimed in, a slimy smile taking over his face as he glanced pointedly at me. “We have plenty of tranquilizers.” His implication was clear. They hadn’t come expecting trouble from strays, but they’d obviously expected some from me.
Fortunately, my father knew how to roll with the punches. “Then yes. If any of the strays are in cat form, tranquilize them and bring them back. We’ll have more than a few questions for them to answer.” He looked at Marc, who nodded in acknowledgment of his role in the process. Marc was the enforcer’s enforcer. He was my father’s big gun, the one in charge of convincing unruly cats to do what they should. He was also our executioner, when the situation called for one.
Which meant that if Calvin Malone got his way, Marc’s would be the last face I ever saw.
But my dad would never let that happen. Hell, I would never let that happen. And neither would Marc.
“Any more questions?” my father asked. When no one spoke up, he waved one thick hand toward the front door. “Good. Stay in sight of your partner at all times. Use your head, as well as your nose.” One corner of his mouth quirked up in an amused smile. “And see Brett for a tranquilizer before you go.”
Brett was already on the job. He’d just come in from the hallway with a big cardboard box, from which he pulled a handful of preloaded hypodermic needles, capped in red plastic. “You’ll have to get close to use these, of course,” he said, handing the first two needles to Jace, and the next two to Blackwell’s young grandson. “But they’ll work pretty fast.”
Frowning, I settled back into my chair at the table, thinking of where I’d like to shove Malone’s hypodermics.