I felt Kaci stiffen at my side, and my temper flared on her behalf. “This child is the only one here who knows where to find the missing hiker’s body, and she can’t tell us how to get there because she doesn’t know how she got here.” My gaze centered on Malone, and I struggled not to let contempt leak into my voice. Or to squeeze the poor tabby’s hand off. “If you want the woman found anytime soon, Kaci is your best bet.”
Malone glanced at Blackwell for support, but the old man only shrugged, clutching his cane like a security blanket. Malone scowled, and I knew that if I survived the hearing, he’d find a way to make me pay for forcing his hand not once, but three times in the last few days. Alphas don’t like having their actions dictated to them. They like having their balls handed to them even less. But once again, he had no choice.
My father held his tongue and dared a small smile, obviously having come to the same conclusion.
“Fine. Take her out and find the body, but you’re not going alone.”
Honestly, I wouldn’t have dreamed of it, mostly because I had no intention of carrying the corpse back by myself, and something told me Kaci wouldn’t be much help in that department. But Malone faltered, glancing around the room to see who was left to accompany us. Other than Michael, who was currently playing nursemaid for Brett, he found only Marc and Jace. Marc had been officially dismissed, and Malone wouldn’t trust Jace to clean his toilet, much less keep an eye on the tabbies he hoped would someday bear his grandchildren—whether they wanted to or not.
Watching Calvin Malone, I suddenly understood why in-laws the world over were so often maligned.
Finally Malone’s gaze settled on the tom who’d been guarding Kaci’s door, and he frowned, then rolled his eyes. Obviously the tom in question was not high on his list, which made me like the poor guy just a little bit. But before his stepfather could make the assignment official, Jace turned toward the front window with an exaggerated sweeping gesture. “Looks like the cavalry has arrived.”
I followed his gaze and saw only darkness, but then the distant rumble of a car engine set my ears on alert. Seconds later headlights bobbed in the driveway.
“Who’s that?” Kaci asked, and I glanced at her in surprise. I’d almost forgotten she was there, in spite of her death grip on my arm.
In the driveway, the engine choked into silence and the driver’s-side door opened. The interior light blinked into life, outlining four different heads, one of which I would have recognized anywhere, under any lighting conditions. Ethan.
“More of the good guys.” I pulled Kaci forward as we followed the small crowd into the living room. My brother Ethan and Parker Pierce—one of my father’s long-time enforcers—came through the front door moments later. On their heels were two more of Malone’s enforcers, including one more of Jace’s half brothers, whom I’d only met once. I think his name was Alex.
“Wow.” Ethan stopped cold in the middle of the floor, and Parker had to nudge him aside to get past. “You must be Kaci.” My brother’s bright green eyes settled on the young tabby an instant before a huge smile took over his face.
At my side, Kaci nodded silently, but made no move to duck behind me. She already seemed to liked Ethan as much as she liked Jace, which didn’t surprise me in the least. Women of all ages were defenseless against the Wonder Twins’ charm. Including my mother, who let them get away with more than I ever had.
Ethan let his bag slide to the floor, then dropped to his knees in front of Kaci, staring up into her face as if she were the only person in the room. “You are something special, aren’t you?”
Kaci’s cheeks flushed bright red, and she stared at her feet, but she kept sneaking glances at him after that, when she thought no one was looking. I couldn’t help smiling. Ethan was way too old for her under any circumstances, but at that point I wasn’t willing to rule out anything that could possibly pull the poor girl out of her shell.
Including a crush on my stupid-cupid youngest-older brother.
While Malone’s men unpacked in the room they’d be sharing, and Ethan and Parker took their stuff to our cabin, Malone and my father argued from opposite sides of the kitchen table over who should accompany us in the woods. If asked, my dad would have said they were having a “heated discussion,” but I knew an argument when I saw one, and they were definitely arguing.
Daddy wanted Marc included—even though he was technically no longer a Pride cat—because he would fight the hardest to protect me if that proved necessary. But Malone refused to relent on that one. In the end, my uncle brought them to a compromise. Since my father’s first choice was out of the question—everyone else sided with Malone on the Marc issue—my father would get to send two of his men along with one of Malone’s.
My dad chose Jace and Ethan, even though Parker was older and more experienced, because they’d been best friends since childhood and work partners for the last seven years. They worked very well as a team.
Malone chose a tom named Reid Something-or-other—or maybe Something-or-other Reid—probably to avoid shoving another of his own sons into the danger zone. Reid was a senior enforcer in his early thirties, whose typically muscular body and nondescript face were crowned by a completely bald head. Shiny bald. In fact, I was already calling him Cue Ball in my mind.
We headed out minutes after the escorts were chosen, with Jace in the lead because he was the only one who knew how to get to Elias Keller’s cabin, which was where we’d decided to start, since Kaci remembered being there. Jace carried an LED flashlight, and my uncle’s handheld GPS unit because none of the rest of us were confident enough in his human-form memory to risk wandering for hours in the woods.
Bundled against the cold in her new coat, Kaci walked several steps behind Jace, and Ethan and I followed her, chatting as we picked our way up the side of the dark mountain through fall foliage and sometimes thick undergrowth. The exercise kept us relatively warm in spite of the near-freezing temperature, and I was oddly at ease, considering our mission, because of the folding knife in my jeans pocket, already warm from my body heat. This one was Michael’s, and I’d promised not to lose it.
Cue Ball brought up the rear, armed with a backpack full of bottled water and snack bars, and a second flashlight.
“Cute kid,” Ethan whispered, ducking beneath a low-hanging branch. Kaci heard him; I could tell from her suddenly tense, self-conscious gait, but like most men, my brother was completely clueless. “A little thin, but definitely a looker.” Yet he sounded worried, rather than pleased or surprised. “Have they decided what to do with her yet?”
“Not officially. Though Malone apparently has several ideas…” I left the thought hanging in the air between us, and Ethan’s scowl said he knew exactly what I was getting at.
“How old is she?”
“Thirteen.”
His scowl deepened. “Damn. How is that even possible?” I opened my mouth, but he cut me off. “Don’t say it. We all know what you think.”
Evidently my female-stray theory had traveled beyond the Rockies via the miracle of cell-phone technology. Or maybe e-mail. There was no telling what Michael had told everyone at the ranch.
“None of the other ideas makes sense,” I said for at least the thousandth time, grabbing a thick branch overhead for balance as I followed Kaci around a sharp curve in the barely visible path ahead.
“Neither does this one,” Ethan retorted, but before I could argue otherwise, Kaci slipped going up a steep incline and Ethan lunged to catch her. He lifted her easily and set her on level ground then scurried up after her.
I followed him, then shoved my brother playfully. “Thanks for the help, ass wipe.”
“You didn’t need any.” He shoved me back and was already dancing away from my slightly-less-teasing blow when Reid hissed sharply behind us.
I turned to ask what was wrong, but he shook his head curtly and made a show of sniffing the air to his right—north of our current position.
Adrenaline s
piked through me and my body went on instant alert. I grabbed Ethan’s arm and he froze, glancing at me with both brows raised in question. I nodded at Cue Ball, now standing on my right, between two huge, moss-covered tree roots.
Ethan jogged on to stop Jace and Kaci without making any obvious noise while I sniffed the air in the direction Reid was facing. At first I smelled nothing but the normal medley of woodland scents. But then the wind shifted and I caught something else. Something out of place and so close that I should have noticed it earlier and probably would have if I hadn’t been playing around with Ethan.
Stray. And blood. Lots and lots of blood.
Anticipation made my heart race, and my hands curled into fists in my jacket pockets. Nervous sweat broke out on my forehead and I shoved loose strands of hair back from my face, my eyes scanning the surrounding trees for any sign of the cat we smelled.
Somewhere nearby was a stray, likely standing over a recent kill. I’d already faced two stray werecats while in human form, and I had no urge to do it again, even armed, and with three toms at my side.
On my left, Jace stood protectively in front of Kaci, and Ethan was working his way quietly back to my side. Reid lowered his backpack silently to the forest floor, his eyes alert for movement. He took the lead, drawing a pocket knife from a pouch on the side of his pants and flipping it open in one sharp, practiced motion.
The leaf-shaped serrated blade was barely two inches long and would only be good up close, but the same was true of werecat claws, not to mention canines. Of course, werecats came equipped with eight front claws and four canines, to Cue Ball’s one little blade. Still, his knife was badass compared to the one I’d borrowed from Michael, and I was kind of hoping to see it in action.
Ethan and I followed Reid, and Jace came behind us. I glanced back to find Kaci clinging to his arm, her eyes wide with terror, her hairline damp with sweat in spite of the cold. She’d survived on her own in cat form for more than ten weeks, but in human form, she looked small, scared, and defenseless, all of which were probably accurate.
Reid led us around a broad, tall clump of evergreen shrubs. He stopped in a small, pine-carpeted clearing, going still as he sniffed and glanced around. I did the same. We couldn’t pinpoint a prey’s location by scent, but we could tell whether the scent was growing or fading. And this particular scent was growing stronger with each step I took. So strong, in fact, that we should have been right on top of the stray, threatening his possession of his meal and setting off his every violent, protective instinct. Yet I saw no sign of him or his prey.
Where the hell is that stray?
Frustrated, I turned to look at Ethan, and a warm, wet drop hit my forehead. Rain? But there wasn’t a cloud in the sky, as evidenced by generous pools of moonlight aiding the flashlights.
I wiped the drop from my face and my finger came away smeared with something dark and sticky. And fragrant.
Blood.
Dread tightening my stomach, I looked up slowly, and my fists clenched around air, my nails cutting into my palms. My breath caught in my throat and made a soft strangling sound. Ethan followed my gaze, and Reid followed his. I couldn’t see Jace, but when Kaci gasped, I knew that they’d seen it too.
Our mystery stray was enjoying a leisurely, treetop dinner—but neither predator nor prey had fur.
Twenty-Eight
“Oh, fuck…” Jace whispered, and I could not have agreed more. In my entire twenty-three years, I’d never seen anything as gruesome or completely fucked up as the tom staring down at us from his elevated perch, possessive instinct clear in his posture, insanity shining in his eyes.
On a broad, bare branch about eight feet off the ground, a stray perched in the sturdy nook where the limb met the trunk. He was nude and in human form, his face and hands so completely coated in blood that at first glance I thought he wore a pair of skintight formal gloves—until I noticed them glistening dark and wet in the soft glow from above.
Wedged into a fork in the thick branch he sat on was another tomcat—based on his smell—also naked and covered in blood. But this tom stared at the moonlit trees with unblinking eyes, his arms hanging limply, his stomach ripped wide open. As I watched, frozen in shock and desperate denial, a thick, blood-slick loop of intestines slid from his gaping abdomen to dangle at least a foot below his body.
My hand slid slowly into my pocket and wrapped around Michael’s knife.
Behind me Kaci gagged, then staggered into sight on my left to vomit at the base of another tree. Jace was at her side immediately, holding her hair up and rubbing her back. But his eyes never left the sight that had made her sick.
Overhead, the stray hissed, and my eyes found him again. His lips parted, blunt, human teeth gleamed wetly in the available moonlight, and a thin line of blood-tinted drool dripped from his stained chin, disappearing into the shadows long before it hit the ground. But I staggered back just in case, scrubbing the smear of blood from my forehead with the palm of my free hand. I had to forcibly swallow back bile as it rose to burn deep in my throat.
“Faythe, you okay?” Ethan whispered. He hadn’t moved since discovering the grisly stray, and neither had Reid, though the fingers gripping his knife were now white with tension.
“Fine,” I whispered back, though that was far from the truth.
Wood creaked overhead, and the startled stray leaned forward. The limb bobbed beneath his shifting weight. He thumped to the ground in front of us, knees bent, gory arms out for balance.
Reid jumped back and Ethan did the same, tugging me with him. I stood with my feet spread and pulled the knife from my pocket, pressing a button to release the blade. Ethan mirrored me in the ready-stance our father had taught us back in junior high. The stray was alone and unarmed, but he was also nude, covered in blood, and apparently full of his fellow tom’s organ meat—a definite no-no in every werecat society I’d ever heard of.
“Mine.” The stray sprayed bloody spittle across the dead leaves at our feet, and to my utter humiliation, I jerked in response. But no one was watching me. We were all watching Hannibal Lecter, whose eyes darted among us like a junkie fighting off paranoia. It took me a moment to realize what he meant, but his next words made it clear. “Go find your own.”
On my left, Kaci stood from her crouch and swiped one forearm slowly across her mouth. The stray’s agitated gaze flicked past me to land on her. “You smell good,” he purred, his expression taking on a new hunger without losing the eerie wrongness setting off every inner alarm I had.
Kaci whimpered, and both Reid and Jace moved forward to block her from view.
He’s sick. Understanding settled into place in my mind. The stray was recently infected and likely still raging with scratch fever. In daylight, we’d see the flush on his skin, though in the dark, with him covered in blood, it was hard to tell at a glance.
“He’s mad,” Ethan said, confirming my own thoughts. I nodded, and Jace murmured his assent, but Reid only motioned us back with a subtle wave of his left hand.
“We don’t want your kill,” he said, drawing the stray’s gaze from what little he could see of Kaci. “We’re looking for something else entirely.”
The stray’s fever-glazed eyes brightened, seeming to glow with their own light in the darkness. “I can help! I know where everything is. This is my territory!”
Reid’s shoulders tensed. “You own this property?”
“Yeah!” His gaze flicked back and forth between us, clearly searching for approval or acceptance. “Well, my Pride does. The Rocky Mountain Pride.” Hannibal straightened as he spoke, squaring his shoulders in obvious satisfaction.
Ethan snorted. “There is no Rocky Mountain Pride.”
Reid gestured angrily to silence my brother with the hand behind his back. “We’re here on behalf of the Territorial Council…”
On a diplomatic mission to Alderan… I thought half hysterically.
“…to greet your Alpha formally. The council would like to meet h
im. Can you tell us who he is, and where we can find him?”
“Zeke?” The stray’s eyes widened. “You want to talk to Zeke?”
I’ll be damned! Zeke Radley. A little thrill of discovery tingled up my spine, raising tiny hairs all over my body, and suddenly I had a great deal of respect for Reid. Whom I silently vowed to stop calling Cue Ball.
“Where can we find your Alpha?” I asked, following Reid’s lead.
“That’s a secret,” the stray said in a stage whisper, one hand cupped to the side of his mouth. “I can’t tell you, because Zeke doesn’t want any more men. Calls us toms. But we don’t really have anyone named Tom.”
Zeke obviously understood Pride social structure and politics to some degree, which surely indicated that he’d had contact with Pride cats before. But I was betting he had just enough knowledge to be dangerous.
But Hannibal wasn’t finished. “You and her—” his gaze flicked from me to Kaci, as his index finger swirled a pattern in the blood on his chest “—can come with me. Whoever brings her in gets to be second in command.”
What? “Wait, you know her?” I asked, unbothered when Reid shot me a shut-the-hell-up look.
The stray nodded, smearing the blood across his cheek now. “Mission impossible. Top priority.”
Oh, that’s just fucking fantastic. If I understood correctly—and that was a big if—Zeke Radley had caught a whiff of Kaci at some point and decided he needed her to complete his little farce of a Pride.
Reid shifted his weight from one foot to the other, subtly drawing attention his way. “How many toms do you have?”
The stray started to answer, then hesitated with his mouth already open. Suddenly unsure, he let his gaze travel over us all, as if he was considering his next words carefully. “Enough. Zeke says we have enough.”
“Where does your Pride live?” Reid asked, repeating my earlier question.
The stray frowned and glanced up at his kill, then back at us in silence. He grinned broadly, again flashing bloody teeth, and licked his lips.