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My father had rented cabin number four, a quarter-mile walk from the main lodge. On the way, as I stomped through dry brown grass, sandwiched by Tweedledee and Tweedledum, I nursed serious resentment toward both the Alphas, who’d made me stay behind, and my fellow enforcers, who’d gone on without me. I hadn’t done anything more exciting than brush my own teeth for more than two months, since I’d been suspended from active duty as an enforcer in September. And now I was missing an opportunity that might never come again: the chance to take a run through bruin territory. To sniff out scents foreign to East Texas. To the entire southern and eastern sections of the country, for that matter.
From the woods to the north came the sounds of tomcats making their way through the forest—twigs breaking, leaves swishing, and entirely too much gallivanting to be productive. The racket—probably barely audible to the human ear—had to come from the enforcers walking on two feet, because when a cat stalks on four paws, he makes no sound. Not if he knows what he’s doing, anyway.
I knew what I was doing. But I was not doing what I wanted.
Stifling a frustrated sigh, I wedged my novel into the crook of my left arm and opened the squirt cap on my water with my teeth. “Why don’t we blow off this whole ‘house arrest’ thing in favor of a rousing game of touch football.” I gulped from the bottle, then wiped my mouth on my sleeve. “You guys look like you could use the exercise.”
I was kidding, of course. Brett was slim but well toned, and Colin looked like a towheaded Rambo. Or that Russian boxer from Rocky IV. He scowled down at me from at least six inches over my head. “If you’re looking to get tackled, I’m sure we can work something out.”
My temper flared, but then Brett made a strangling sound, and I glanced at him, expecting to see him choking back a laugh. To my surprise, he looked nervous rather than amused, his focus shifting back and forth between me and Colin, as if he expected me to explode any second, raining blood and guts all over them both.
I turned back to the Nordic giant. “You even try to tackle me and I’ll hang your favorite parts from my rearview mirror in place of my fuzzy black dice.” Okay, I didn’t actually have a car—or a pair of fuzzy dice—but Colin didn’t need to know that.
He laughed, and a snarl rumbled its way from my throat.
“You think I’m kidding? Try me.” When he didn’t answer, I jogged up the steps of cabin four and shoved the door open. I dropped my armload on the coffee table, then plopped onto the couch, where I stared out the front window at the beautiful fall afternoon wasting away without my participation.
Brett dropped onto the armchair to my right, and Colin headed straight to the kitchen to forage.
For several minutes, Brett and I sat in silence, listening to cabinets slam and pots clang in the kitchen. Twice his lips parted, as if he might say something. But each time, a single glance at my expression—a carefully crafted scowl—changed his mind.
Finally, around the time sizzling sounds floated in from the kitchen, along with the aroma of melted butter, Brett worked up the courage to speak. “You wanna play cards?”
“No.” Instead, I stared out at the line of trees two hundred feet from the cabin’s front door.
Ten minutes later, Colin lowered himself onto the cushion next to me, holding a paper plate piled high with western scrambled eggs. Brett sat straighter, his nose twitching. “Got enough to share?”
Colin shook his head, and several strands of straight, whiteblond hair fell over his pale blue eyes. “You’re on your own,” he said, barely sparing his fellow tom a glance. Then he favored me with a satisfied smile, set his plate on the woodplank coffee table, and slid one arm across the back of the couch behind my head. He held a forkful of eggs inches from my lips. “You, I’ll share with.”
Clearly my reputation had yet to spread to Canada.
“If you want to keep those fingers, I suggest you pull them back. By about five feet.”
Colin laughed, under the mistaken impression that I was joking. I snatched the fork from his hand and hurled it end over end across the room. Chunks of egg and vegetable dropped to the ratty carpet. Stainless-steel tines sank into the fake oak paneling. The handle was still vibrating from the impact, Colin’s wide-eyed gaze glued to it, when I twisted his entire arm with a grip on his first two fingers.
“Ow, shit!” he shouted, leaning toward me to ease the pressure on his shoulder.
“You come within two feet of me again, and I’ll break the damn things off. Understood?”
Fury rushed in to cover the pain on his face, and for a moment it looked as if he’d make trouble. I twisted harder.
“Fuck! Yes, I got it! Let go!”
I released his hand, and Colin launched his bulky frame off the couch with a werecat’s peculiar grace and flexibility. On my right, Brett laughed. He’d seen the show once before, years earlier.
“You could have warned me,” Colin grumbled. He snatched his fork from the wall, then sank into the only other chair in the room and reclaimed his meal.
Brett huffed, and shot me a blatant look of approval, which I hadn’t expected. “She’s on trial for murder. I figured that was explanation enough.”
Colin focused on his eggs, steadily whittling away the yellow mountain, glaring at me like a spoiled child the whole time. Brett stared out the window in silence, because the television didn’t get cable and we hadn’t brought any movies. I ignored them both and picked up my novel.
When he finished his meal, Colin stood to take his empty dish into the kitchen. I glanced up to see him balance the paper plate on top of the full trash bin, rather than emptying it. I started to berate him for being lazy, but stopped when I realized he’d just given me the perfect excuse to go outside. Not for long, granted, but it would be worth playing nice for even a few minutes of fresh air and privacy.
“That needs to go out, before it starts stinking up the cabin,” I said, careful not to voice my offer too soon.
“It can wait.” He pulled open the fridge and snagged one of Marc’s Cokes from the top shelf. Normally I would have warned him not to do that, but I was trying not to piss him off at the moment. Plus, I kind of wanted to be there when Marc found out.
“No it cannot wait. That’s disgusting. You filled it up, you take it out.”
Colin glared at me over the top of Marc’s Coke. “I’m not taking out your trash. If you want it out, take it yourself.”
And just like that, Tweedledum had told me to do what I wanted to do in the first place. Idiot.
“Lazy tom…” I muttered, stomping past him as if in aggravation. I was three feet from the back door, garbage bag in hand, when he caught on.
“Stop. Nice try, but the council doesn’t want you out alone. Brett, you take it.”
Damn it.
Brett started to complain, but Colin was bigger and stronger, which meant he called the shots, in the absence of a higher-ranking enforcer or an Alpha. Grumbling beneath his breath, Brett plodded into the kitchen and took the bag from me. He headed into the backyard, and I returned to the couch and my novel, fuming silently.
A minute later, something heavy thumped at the rear of the cabin. Probably the trash bag hitting the bottom of the metal can. But then I heard another thump, and a wave of alarm surged through me. I looked up from my book and froze, listening. There were no more thumps, but I picked up a muted whispering sound, too soft for a human to have heard.
I jumped up from the couch and bolted into the kitchen to peer through the window over the sink. At first I saw nothing, but by the time Colin joined me, leaning much closer to me than necessary, the source of the sound had come into view. Sort of.
It was a tail, solid black and twitching in nervous excitement. I smiled. One of the guys had returned from the hunt and was obviously trying to cheer me up with a game of stalk-and-pounce. It wasn’t Marc or Jace; I knew that even at a glance. Maybe my cousin Lucas?
But as the hindquarters wriggled farther into sight, I realized they didn’t belong to anyone I knew.
“Who’s that?” Colin asked, and as I took in the confused look on his face, my apprehension deepened. My pulse pounded. An instant later, the cat came into full view, and I gasped, startled into inaction for a moment longer than I should have been. He was no one I knew. But he was dragging someone I knew: Brett, unconscious and bleeding from his stomach, the starched collar of his shirt clamped between the cat’s sharp front teeth.
“Shit!”
The cat started at the sound of my voice. He dropped Brett’s collar and met my stare through the window. His fur stood on end. He hissed, baring two-inch canines, white whiskers standing out against the black fur on his face.
“Who the fuck is that?” Colin demanded, louder that time.
I glanced around the kitchen, searching frantically for something to use as a weapon. “It’s one of the strays, genius. Who else could it be?” My focus settled on a block of knives near the stove, and I pulled the butcher knife free, hefting it in one hand to test its weight. Not bad.
“What are you doing?” Colin stared at me like I’d lost my mind.
“Hurry, before he gets to the woods.” I was halfway to the door when my gaze caught an ice pick lying on the counter by the refrigerator. I grabbed the pick and dropped the knife in its place, sparing time for another glance out the window. The cat and his prey were now a third of the way to the tree line.
Colin hesitated, then his head bobbed in reluctant concession. “Just give me a minute.” He bent to take off his shoes. Then he unbuttoned his pants.
“What the hell are you doing?You don’t have time to Shift.” Werecats have very powerful jaws and legs. I’d once seen a tom haul an entire deer into the branches of a tree to protect it from scavengers. Once he got into the forest, the stray could drag Brett anywhere he wanted and we’d never catch him.
“We can’t go out there like this. He’ll shred us. Unless you can use that partial Shift trick to come up with a quick set of claws…” The bastard actually smirked at me, like we had all afternoon to trade insults.
“That’s not how it w—” I stopped, sucking in a deep breath. There was no time to argue, much less to defend my partial Shift claims. “Get your ass out there and help me, or I swear I’ll tell the entire council that you’re a spineless, dickless fur-ball whose dam should have eaten him at birth.”
Colin’s smirk faded into cocky sneer. “Like anyone listens to you.”
Disgusted, I turned my back on him and caught sight of the meat mallet stuck upright in the dish drainer. It was bulky, with a sharply textured, two-sided aluminum head, a one-and-a-half-pound monster, which I could attest to, having taken out my frustration on a couple of sirloins the night before. Dropping the ice pick into the sink, I snatched the mallet and ran for the back door. My left fist closed over the doorknob as Colin grabbed my right arm, halting my progress and nearly pulling my shoulder out of its socket.
I whirled on him, fury and fear battling for control of my expression. The left hook flew out of habit; I’d been practicing with my southpaw during my recent period of unemployment. The practice paid off.
My fist hit Colin’s chin. His head snapped to the side with a grunt of pain and surprise. He stumbled backward several steps, then tripped over his own foot. Colin’s skull hit the countertop, then his back hit the linoleum. His eyes fluttered, then closed. He was out cold.
Shit! I needed his help. Good going, Faythe!
Flustered and out of time, I waited a second to make sure he was breathing, then shoved my way through the back door before I had a chance to consider my odds and chicken out. I raced across the grass toward the cat, now less than twenty feet from the tree line. A shriek of fury split my skull as I ran, and it took me a moment to realize it was coming from me.
When I reached Brett’s feet, the stray dropped his prey and bared his canines at me. His fur stood on end, gleaming in the midafternoon sun. His tail swished back and forth in equal parts fear and aggression. He was going to attack.
So was I.
I planted one foot on the ground and knelt as I swung the mallet. The stray hunched, preparing to pounce. My scream became a cry of triumph even before the hammer made contact. And it did make contact.
The mallet slammed into the left side of his skull.
A sickening thud-crunch raised goose bumps all over my skin. Blood and fur flew from the point of contact. The impact traveled up the handle to vibrate in my arm. The cat fell over sideways. Then there was silence. And stillness. Nothing moved, other than the rise and fall of my chest on the bottom edge of my vision as I sucked in air and spit it back out, over and over again.
Sound came back slowly, and the first thing I heard was my own rasping breath. The cat didn’t breathe. I knew he was dead without checking for a pulse. I’d caved in his skull. Ripped flesh and fur from bone. Whoever the bastard was, he’d never bother Elias Keller again. Or anyone else.
After several seconds of shock, my senses came back enough that I knew I should check on Brett. At first I couldn’t bring myself to touch him. Blood had soaked through his shirt, drenching his torso and crotch so badly that I couldn’t find the wound. I saw no movement from him at all. No breathing. No pulse jiggling in his throat.
Then, suddenly, he seemed to be moving everywhere all at once. Shaking.
No, wait. He wasn’t shaking. I was shaking. I was shivering all over.
I dropped to the ground on my knees, and my left hand landed on Brett’s chest. And that’s when I realized he was moving after all. Breathing shallowly, but steadily. Thank goodness.
My fingers uncurled, and the mallet fell onto the grass. I explored his stomach with both hands, and found several deep gashes across his abdomen. They were bad, and he’d bled a lot, but he was still alive. And so was I.
My eyes closed, and I sat still next to Brett, my hands covered in his blood. And that’s how my father and the other Alphas found us, minutes later.
Four
“Here. This will warm you up.” Something soft and heavy slid between my back and the spine of the kitchen chair, and Jace leaned over me from behind to drape the material over my shoulders.
“I’m not cold.” Yet I clutched the blanket anyway, because it was chenille, and it felt good, while I felt like shit.
Jace stepped around my seat and pulled an empty chair closer, and when he sat, his knees brushed mine. “You’re shivering.”
“No I’m n-n…” But I was. My hair was still damp from my shower. That was it.
“It’s okay.” His cobalt eyes met my yellow-green ones. “You saved his life.”
I shook my head, thinking of the Alphas gathered in the dining room to discuss my latest mishap. “They won’t believe that.”
“Screw ’em.” Jace scowled, and I knew what he really meant was, “Screw Calvin.” “They’ll figure it out. And if they don’t, Colin will tell them what happened when he wakes up.”
“Sure.” Assuming he does wake up. He’d hit the countertop pretty hard.
The Alphas had put Colin and Brett in one of the downstairs bedrooms of the main lodge so they could be cared for more easily. Neither tom had opened his eyes in the hour since, which was starting to seriously worry everyone.
And frankly, the outcome wasn’t looking good for me either—apparently being found with two unconscious guards and one dead stray did not cast a favorable light upon my innocence.
The kitchen screen door squealed open behind me. “What happened?” Marc demanded as it thumped shut.
My eyes closed, and my pulse jumped. I inhaled deeply to get a whiff of his scent, which made my blood rush even faster.
“Short version?” Jace headed for the coffeepot as Marc crossed the room toward me. “Brett got mauled by a stray. Colin wouldn’t help, so Faythe knocked him out and killed the stray. With a meat mallet.”
“You okay?” Marc knelt at my side, brow furrowed in concern.
“Fine.” I sat straighter and shrugged off the blanket to hide how shaken I really was. “He never laid a claw on me.”
“I didn’t mean physically.”
I blinked up at Marc, aching to touch him. To deserve his comfort. “I’m fine. I did what had to be done.”
“Spoken like a true enforcer,” he said, and I smiled. That was a very big compliment, coming from Marc.
Ceramic clinked against Formica, and Jace handed me a fresh mug of coffee as Marc slid into the chair on my left.
“Thanks.” I’d already had enough caffeine to kick-start Frankenstein’s monster, but I took the mug anyway, grateful that anyone was willing to speak to me—much less fix me coffee—in spite of the blood on my hands. Literally. I eyed the reddish crust dried beneath my right thumbnail. Apparently I’d missed a spot in the shower.
“How are Brett and Colin?” Marc asked.
Jace pulled out the chair on my right and sat. “They’re as comfortable as we can make them until the doc gets here.”
Dr. Carver. He was already on his way to testify about the condition of Andrew’s body when we’d brought it home for disposal, but he’d find his bedside manner more in demand than his testimony.
I stared into my mug, treasuring the warmth of my coffee even more than the scent. “What’d they do with the body?”
“It’s out back under a tarp,” Jace said. “We’ll bury him in the woods when they’re done examining him.”
“They find anything?”
Jace shrugged. “He’s newly infected. Less than a week, most likely, since his original scratches haven’t healed yet. They think he was still feverish, and that’s why he came so close to the complex. He was probably looking for food, and found Brett instead. Hell, he might’ve thought Brett was food.”
Still feverish. I sipped from my mug, thinking. Newly infected strays suffered from disorientation, high fever and intense hunger for several days after being scratched or bitten. Many strays did not survive the transitional illness—called scratch fever—and of those who did, many more died during or soon after their first Shift.
The stray in question had obviously survived both. But he hadn’t survived me. And as justified as I felt in killing the strange cat to save Brett, I couldn’t suppress a pang of sympathy for the stray, who was likely out of his mind with pain and hunger when he’d attacked.
“What can they tell about his infector?”
