At the edge of the trees, I sank my teeth into my neat pile of clothes, managing to get everything but my panties. I hesitated, uncomfortable with leaving my underwear exposed on the lawn, but abandoned it in the end because I didn’t have any hands and was too pissed off to try Shifting immediately.
Luckily, I didn’t need hands to open the back door, because it was equipped with an oblong handle, easily depressed by cat paws. As long as someone was home, we never locked the doors, because a cat has no place to carry keys. Also, we figured that anyone stupid enough to trespass deserved to be eaten and probably wouldn’t be missed.
I’m kidding, of course. Mostly.
Pawing open the screen-door latch, I trudged into the back hall. The tiles felt cold and smooth against my paws, and the air-conditioning ruffled my sensitive facial whiskers. The only sound other than the whistle of air through the vents was the hum of the refrigerator. It sounded oddly mechanical to my cat ears.
I padded into my room through the open doorway and dropped my clothes on the carpet. Still fuming, I jumped onto the bed and curled up with my tail wrapped around my body. I was hungry and thirsty, and too mad to Shift. Great.
And it only got better when Jace leaned around the door frame, waving my panties from one finger like a white flag. I growled at him, but he only laughed. He knew I wouldn’t hurt him in human form, because that wouldn’t be playing fair. But then, neither was waving my underwear around for the whole world to see.
“You want them back?” he asked. I bobbed my head, and he laughed again at my approximation of a very human gesture. “Come and get them.”
He stepped into the doorway, wearing nothing but a pair of black bikini briefs, and I was suddenly glad to still be a cat. Anyone else might have looked ridiculous in so little material, but Jace was temptation personified. If I’d been human, he couldn’t have mistaken the look in my eyes for anything less than lust. But as a cat, while I had a healthy appreciation for what lay, rather obviously, beneath that tiny triangle of cloth, I was distanced from it by the boundary of species. Jace was much less a possibility than he would have been had I not been sporting fur and claws.
“Come on, if you want them,” he repeated, and I cocked my head, trying to look curious since I couldn’t just ask why he wouldn’t bring them to me. It worked. “Marc said he’d use me as a scratching post if I ever went into your room unchaperoned again.”
Aah. Yes, that sounded like Marc, though he would never have said it in front of me.
Jace grinned, eyes glinting suggestively. “He didn’t say anything about you coming into my room.”
I snorted air through my nose at him and thumped to the floor, landing more delicately on four feet than I ever could have on two. He held out my panties, and I padded over to him, taking the waistband between my teeth. I blinked up at him.
“You’re welcome,” he said. “You really did some damage to his leg, you know.”
I bobbed my head again. I did know. I’d meant to.
“Your father’s going to be pissed. Marc was supposed to make a run up to Oklahoma tomorrow to check out a report we got yesterday about a stray.”
I blinked again and yawned, dropping the underwear on the floor. So Owen would go instead. Or Parker. I didn’t really care about my father’s plans to patrol the territory, unless they meant taking prying eyes away from me. Of course, by injuring Marc, I’d inadvertently guaranteed that he’d be around to watch me for a while. Great job, Faythe. That was me, always careful to plan ahead.
“Shift back,” Jace said, smiling down at me. “I’ll get you something to eat.” He closed the door without waiting for my response. Not that I could have said no. But it would have been pretty satisfying to nudge the door closed in his face.
The Shift back to human was harder than it should have been, and took longer than normal because I couldn’t help thinking about Marc and dwelling on my own anger. I could still taste his blood, which made me simultaneously hungry and furious, a decidedly bizarre combination.
Jace’s last comment ran through my head as I Shifted. He’d said a stray had been reported in Oklahoma, well within the boundaries of our territory. That made at least two such reports, that I knew of, in the last two days. What was going on?
Strays are humans who became werecats after being scratched or bitten by one of us in cat form. Not every bite or scratch produces a werecat, but in spite of centuries spent observing the process, no one seems to know for sure why. Or why not. But there are plenty of theories.
Some werecats believe the size or severity of the wound is directly proportionate to the chances of “infection,” if that’s even the right term. Others, mostly the older generation, believe that transmission is more likely to occur under certain phases of the moon. I’d even met one sweet old dam years earlier who believed that fate determined who would join our ranks and who would not—that those meant to Shift would, and those who were not meant to would not.
According to her theory, human women were not meant to be werecats. Ever. In my entire life, I’d never heard of a female stray. Naturally, nearly everyone had a theory explaining the transformation’s apparent gender bias, and the reasons were just as ridiculous as the prevailing theories about conduction in general. The most popular of these was the conjecture by an elderly former Alpha that women—as the weaker sex—weren’t strong enough to survive the initial Shift.
I thought that particular old man was full of shit. My personal theory was that something in a woman’s physiology, maybe in her immune system, kept the werecat “virus” from getting a grip on her body. But until I could prove it, which wasn’t likely to happen anytime soon, no one gave a damn what I thought. As usual.
Either way, the only thing we know with any certainty about contamination is that humans can only be infected by one of us in cat form, just like with werewolves in the movies. Hollywood got the transmission part right but missed the species altogether. By a long shot.
As a child, I once saw two thunderbirds, flying in tandem across a brilliant blue sky too large to hint at their actual size and strength. And we’d all heard my father recount his infamous run-in with a bruin—a werebear, if you will. But to my knowledge, werewolves are pure fiction. Stray cats, however, are undeniably real, and they posed a constant problem for the rest of us.
Since they were not born into any Pride, most strays could claim no territory of their own and had no system of support. Along with wildcats, who either left their birth Prides or were kicked out, strays lived their lives in seclusion from the rest of us, wandering within the free territories, struggling to either accept or end a life they never asked for or even imagined.
From all accounts, strays lived a miserable existence, so it was no wonder they sometimes crossed the border into our land looking for companionship, and sometimes for answers. When that happened, our enforcers were glad to fill in the many blanks—as the strays were escorted back to the border. Unfortunately, most strays who crossed our boundaries were looking for something else entirely: revenge, or even a slice out of the territorial pie. As a result, the territorial council had long since passed laws forbidding strays from crossing Pride borderlines. Marc was the exception. But then, Marc was exceptional, so that was really no surprise to anyone who knew him.
And now I’m back to thinking about Marc…Damn it.
By the time I stepped back into my pants, I could smell beef cooking. Hamburgers. It had to be, because Jace’s culinary skills were limited to burgers and spaghetti, and I didn’t smell tomato sauce. Oh well, a girl can never have too many burgers, right?
I padded down the hall on bare feet, my steps silent as I passed several closed doors on the way to the kitchen. Jace’s off-key whistling met my ears, accompanied by the sizzle of meat on the stove. I paused in the doorway, glad to see that he’d donned a pair of jeans, if nothing else.
A smile slid into place as I watched him. Jace was comically out of place in front of any household appliance, parti
cularly my mother’s six-burner, stainless-steel behemoth of a stove. He subscribed to the Jackson Pollock theory of cooking, which had somehow led to the creation of an abstract masterpiece out of the formerly spotless, white-tiled kitchen.
As I watched, he turned from the stove toward the peninsula, dripping grease in an arc across the floor from a plastic spatula gripped loosely in one hand. He dropped the spatula on the countertop—without the benefit of a spoon holder—and began slicing tomatoes with a six-inch smooth-bladed butcher knife. I covered my mouth to stifle a giggle as tiny seeds and red juice spurted across the countertop tiles, mingling with a tangle of discarded onion skins and outer lettuce leaves.
“Shit,” he mumbled under his breath, still oblivious to my presence. Grinning, I slipped silently into a chair at the breakfast table. I inhaled deeply, tempted by the aroma of beef and onions. Beneath those were the usual kitchen smells: disinfectant, most notably, mingled with the faintly lingering scents of lemon and rosemary, my mother’s favorite ingredients.
Jace turned back to the stove, still whistling as he piled seasoned beef patties on a plate lined with paper towels. Then he spun gracefully on one foot, the plate balanced on the fingertips of one hand, and stopped in midstep, his eyes wide with surprise to find me watching him. Laughter bubbled from my throat; I couldn’t stop it. The look on his face was almost enough to cure my bad mood.
“I’m glad you’re pleased with yourself,” he said, his voice full of self-deprecating amusement. He set the plate on the table in front of me and went back to the counter to finish butchering the tomatoes. “Why were you spying on me, anyway?”
“Goldfish syndrome,” I said, pinching a chunk from the nearest beef patty.
Jace paused in midslice to glance at me quizzically.
“You guys have been watching my every move for years, and I couldn’t resist the novelty of being the observer for once, rather than the observed.”
“Oh.” He resumed hacking apart vegetables with the butcher knife. “I wouldn’t say we watched your every move…”
“Oh, please.” I rolled my eyes at him. “I’m surprised my father didn’t commission a big glass bowl for me to move into.”
He laughed, scooping a double handful of smooshed tomato slices onto a clean plate.
“Speaking of which, where are my mighty sire and dam hiding out tonight?” I asked, my voice thick with sarcasm. “Have I already scared them into submission?”
“Hardly. It’s late for old folks. They went to bed an hour ago, with orders for us to keep an eye on you.”
“Oh.” Of course they had. And wouldn’t my father love to hear himself described as old.
In the silence that followed, Jace’s ham-fisted sawing captured my attention, and my eyes narrowed in suspicion. He was slicing way too many tomatoes. I glanced from the plate of condiments on the counter to the huge stack of burgers in front of me, my smile fading quickly. “You can’t fatten me up in a single meal, Jace.”
“I’m not trying to.” Finished with the tomatoes, he began fishing pickle slices from an economy-size jar. The combined scents of dill, garlic, and vinegar made my mouth water. Jace turned, a pickle slice halfway to his mouth. “You’re going to have to share and play nice.” He popped the slice into his mouth and crunched into it.
I gripped the tabletop in irritation as his meaning sank in. “The guys aren’t invited.” I wouldn’t have minded eating with Parker and my brothers, but they’d bring Marc, and I didn’t care if I didn’t see him again for another five years.
Jace shot me a stern look, catching me off guard. It was my father’s expression. “They’re giving you time to cool off, but they’re hungry too, and you ruined the hunt. So, we’re all going to sit down like civilized adults and enjoy a meal together. Fresh deer would have been nice—” he glared at me pointedly “—but burgers will have to do.”
I scowled, but he turned around to keep from seeing it. I hadn’t ruined the hunt. Marc had, but it would do no good to explain that to Jace, so I kept my mouth shut. When the battle lines were drawn, the guys would stick together, and I’d be left with only my thick skin to protect me from testosterone-laced barbs and daggers. Unfortunately, the nearest tabby other than my mother was several hundred miles away.
No, wait. Sara was missing, which was the reason for my unscheduled trip home.
Tense laughter and the shuffling of bare feet on tile preceded the guys as they filed into the kitchen, in varying degrees of undress. As usual, Owen was the only one who did justice to the phrase “fully clothed.”
Marc limped in last, his hair damp and smelling of shampoo. I glanced at his left ankle but couldn’t see the wound because his foot was wrapped in a clean white gauze bandage, extending beneath the cuff of his jeans. He crossed his arms over his bare chest and leaned against the wall, staring past me with flushed cheeks. He was either embarrassed or mad, and probably both.
So what? Screw him. He’d brought it on himself.
The other three stood clustered around him, avoiding my eyes. “Grab a plate, guys,” Jace said, ignoring the obvious tension. He set a stack of my mother’s everyday plates on the table, but I made no move to take one. The guys came forward one by one, beginning with Ethan, who had half of his first burger eaten before he settled into the chair next to me.
While the others filled their plates, all except Marc, who still scowled from the doorway, Parker knelt next to my chair, smiling up at me. “How long has it been, Faythe?” he asked. We’d already greeted each other as cats, but it was hard to catch up on lost time with a purr and a lick on the cheek. “What, two years?” His eyes twinkled at me, daring me to disagree.
“More like two months.” I swatted his shoulder fondly. “I saw you at the concert, you know. You don’t exactly fit in with the college crowd.”
He smiled and shrugged, running one hand through prematurely graying hair. “I had my orders. You know that.”
I did know. Everyone always had orders, and for some reason the guys felt honor-bound to follow theirs. I felt no such obligation. But then, I wasn’t getting a paycheck, either.
Parker stood and leaned down to give me a chaste kiss on the cheek before going to fill his plate. Marc followed him, limping past me without so much as a glance in my direction.
Looking around the room, I took in the familiar faces one at a time. It was just like old times, pigging out on junk food after my parents went to bed and arguing about who had to clean up. Even the tension between me and Marc felt familiar; we’d been one of those couples for whom one kind of passion was as good as another. We’d fought as often as we’d made love, and one often led to the other.
“So, Jace,” Owen said from his seat at the bar. “Did Burger King blow up in here, or what?”
“I didn’t see you sweatin’ over a hot stove,” Jace said around a mouthful of food.
“He was sweating?” Ethan glanced at me for confirmation.
I shrugged. “I didn’t see any sweat, but I did see some dancing.”
Parker raised an eyebrow, bemused. “There was dancing?”
“No. There was no dancing.” Jace scowled at me.
I grinned. “Not only was he dancing, he was twirling.”
Parker snickered, and Ethan laughed outright, nearly choking on the last bite of his first burger.
“Okay, I may have taken a graceful step or two,” Jace admitted, a barbecue-flavored chip halfway to his mouth. “But it’s not like I was doing Vic’s rain dance.” He crunched into the chip, and for a long moment his chewing splintered a tense silence.
It was a harmless reference to a very funny night several summers before, when Vic had danced naked in the backyard, appealing to the heavens for some much-needed rainfall. But mentioning Vic had brought to mind his sister, which reminded me forcefully of just what I was doing there, surrounded by my brothers and lifelong friends.
I was home because my parents saw a strike against one North American Pride as a strike against us al
l. They were closing ranks, circling the wagons to protect the women and children, and as insulted as I was to be included among those in need of protection, I seemed to be the only one who considered their precautions unnecessary.
Could I be wrong? I’d assumed my parents had seized upon Sara’s vanishing act as an excuse to bring their stray sheep back into the fold, where they thought I belonged. But what if they were right? What if someone had taken her?
That one thought changed everything.
All at once, the gravity of Sara’s disappearance hit me like a fist in the gut. Air whooshed from my lungs, and I gasped, trying to draw more in. Doubled over, I panted, near panic. I’d been convinced that she had run away, but what if I was wrong? What if Sean had taken her? If he was crazy enough to snatch her from her own territory, there was no guarantee he wouldn’t hurt her.
A hand settled on my shoulder, heavy and warm. I looked up, fighting back tears. Marc stood in front of me, with a plate in his other hand and concern in his eyes where there had been only anger moments earlier.
Embarrassed by my near collapse and still furious with Marc, I slapped his hand from my shoulder. The sound echoed throughout the room for much longer than I thought it should have. His eyes widened in shock as his arm dropped to hang at his side.
“Don’t touch me,” I whispered through clenched teeth, glaring at him. He had no right to try to comfort me after the stunt he’d pulled in the woods.
Marc’s cheeks flushed with humiliation as his expression hardened into anger.
The others stared openly, their food apparently forgotten.
My chair made a harsh scraping sound as I shoved it back from the table. All eyes were on me as I stood. I turned away from them, letting my hair fall to shield my face. The only thing worse than having the guys witness my little breakdown would be having to accept their comfort. I didn’t want comfort. I wanted solitude. I had to get away from them all, but especially from Marc. “Excuse me, guys,” I mumbled. “I’ve lost my appetite.”