Pride

by Rachel Vincent

  My nose twitched in the undergrowth, taking in as much of the prey-smell as possible. I wasn’t trying to pinpoint its location; cats don’t track by scent. I was just whetting my appetite. And hoping to scare the little morsel into making some noise, because cats do hunt with our incredibly well-tuned sense of hearing. And our eyesight.

  My pause in the game did not go unnoticed. Jace whined at me in question, and I purred in response, telling the guys there was something I wanted in the bushes. I rested my muzzle on my forepaws and stuck my rump in the air, wiggling it back and forth to signal that I wanted to pounce.

  I wasn’t really going to pounce, of course. But just in case, Marc swatted my flank, then nosed me out of the way, which was feline-ese for “Scoot over and I’ll catch your dinner.” It was downright gallant of him, considering.

  Marc bounded into the undergrowth, and the rabbit shot out the other side, bouncing off toward the west. Marc went after it, and both predator and prey disappeared around a dense clump of brush.

  Jace stayed with me, and we experienced the hunt vicariously though a series of deep feline grunts, high-pitched squeals of terror and shaking foliage. Two minutes later, Marc slunk back into sight, a rust-colored rabbit pinched between his jaws. The damn thing was still twitching, trying in vain to get away. It was a miracle it hadn’t had a heart attack.

  I purred loudly in thanks, and Jace edged closer to get a good whiff of my dinner. He rubbed his cheek against my shoulder, begging politely for a taste, but I shrugged him off. There was nothing wrong with his stomach. He could go hunt his own dinner.

  Marc dropped the rabbit at my feet, and the poor thing tried to hop away. It didn’t get very far, in part because its left rear leg was broken. But also because I lunged for it, hoping to capture at least the feel of catching my own meal, even if I’d had to forgo the actual hunt.

  Marc growled at my sudden movement, but I ignored him as my teeth sank into the fuzzy rabbit, his rapid heartbeat emptying its lifeblood into my mouth to dribble over my chin and onto the ground. I shook my prey until it was dead, then pinned it to the ground with one paw while I ripped its stomach open with my teeth.

  Such a small creature was little more than a snack to a cat my size, but the meal was just as much symbolic as practical. The Territorial Council had figuratively clipped my wings, robbing me not only of my job as an enforcer, but of my inherent right to run with my fellow werecats. To taste speed and freedom a human could never understand or enjoy. And to my relief and surprise, half an hour in the woods and a fresh snack were enough to restore part of what I’d lost. Namely, my pride.

  By the time I finished eating, which Marc watched with the satisfaction of a true provider, and Jace watched with more than a little envy, it was time to go back. Probably past time, in fact, but even so, I spared a couple of minutes to clean my fur. Fresh meat is messy, and even injured, a girl has her standards, right?

  When Marc thought I was clean enough, he swatted my rump and nudged me in the direction of the cabin. I went willingly, my mood bolstered by the taste of freedom. And rabbit.

  At the cabin, my father scolded us for being late, but there was no real anger in his tone. He’d probably been listening to us from the front porch the entire time.

  I Shifted back in my bedroom, with Dr. Carver observing, and to my relief, my second transformation was easier and less painful than the first. And faster. We were both pleased to discover that the lacerations in my stomach were now fresh pink puckered scars, and though they still ached when I twisted from side to side, that weird flesh-ripping sensation was gone, along with most of the pain.

  As I made my way down the hall toward the bathroom, tying my robe around my waist, Dr. Carver called after me from the living room, where the guys were sprawled across the furniture watching a DVD they’d borrowed from Lucas and passing around two bags of Doritos in lieu of a real dinner. “Brett’s been asking to talk to you. If you want, I’ll take you over after your shower.”

  “We’ll all go.” My father stepped into the hall from the kitchen. “We need to report to the tribunal anyway. And get something more substantial to eat than corn chips.”

  While I showered, Daddy sent Jace ahead to tell everyone we were coming, and to put four frozen lasagnas in the oven. Dr. Carver went with him because after what happened to Brett, no one was allowed out alone until the strays were found and dealt with. We’d always worked in pairs, and now that we were officially on alert, we’d do everything in groups of two or more.

  Twenty minutes later, freshly showered and dressed in jeans and a snug, long-sleeved green T-shirt, I knocked on Brett’s bedroom door. Behind me, the aromas of cheese, garlic and tomato sauce were just starting to flood the spacious living room from the kitchen, where Nate Blackwell and Jace were chopping vegetables for a huge salad.

  “Yeah?” Brett called from inside his room, and I pushed the door open, stomping down a thread of anxiety winding its way up my spine. Dr. Carver had said Brett wanted to thank me, not threaten me. Even if he was Malone’s son, Brett shared a mother with Jace, so he couldn’t be all bad. Right?

  “Faythe.” Brett lay on the right-hand bed, blankets pulled up to his chest. Blue eyes almost as bright as Jace’s met mine. His voice held pain and relief, and I could empathize with both.

  “Hey.” Tucking a strand of shower-damp hair behind my ear, I settled into the chair by his bed, which still smelled like Danny Carver. “Doc said you wanted to talk to me.”

  “Yeah. I just wanted to—” He broke off and one hand went to the blankets over his stomach as his face twisted in pain, and I was reminded how much worse his injuries were than mine. How much blood he’d lost, much of it covering me as I’d tried to stop his bleeding without further injuring him.

  Composed again, Brett turned his head on the pillow to face me more directly, springs creaking beneath him. “I wanted to thank you. Jace told me what happened. What really happened.”

  He’d spoken to Jace? Curious, I fiddled with the watch on my left wrist. “What did he say?”

  “That I owe you my life.”

  I glanced at my hands in my lap, surprised to feel my cheeks flush. “Anyone else would have done the same thing.”

  Brett shook his head. “Colin would have let me die. Blackwell let him go. He called home for a replacement, and they’re taking Colin to the airport in the morning. Shipping him straight back to Canada.”

  I didn’t bother to hide the satisfied smile blossoming across my face. Vindication felt every bit as good as I’d hoped it would. Petty, but true.

  “I want to make it up to you.”

  I shook my head. “I’m an enforcer, too—we look out for each other. That’s the way things work.”

  “No.” His voice was firm, his lips drawn into a thin line. “You went out there with no claws and no backup. That’s not the way things work, and you didn’t have to do it. I owe you. Let me owe you.”

  Before I could think up a new argument, much less voice it, a loud banging from the front room cut through the cooking noises and background chatter coming from the rest of the lodge. “Hey, Pride cats!” Elias Keller’s voice was typically loud but muffled, and I realized the banging was his fist on the front door.

  Around us, the lodge went silent.

  “Open up!” Keller called, pounding again, this time hard enough to shake the walls. “I found something of yours and thought you might want it back.”

  Several sets of footsteps clomped toward the front door, and I recognized my father’s distinctive tread among them, as well as the squeak of Malone’s shiny new loafers. I glanced at Brett to find his eyes wide and curious, as my own no doubt were. Then the squeal of hinges drew my gaze to the living room, where Marc, Jace, Nate, and Michael stood clustered in the kitchen threshold, staring at the front door, which I couldn’t see. Jace held a serrated bread knife, Nate a carrot peeler.

  “There y’are!” Keller bellowed as heavy boot soles clomped on the hardwood. “Got some
thin’ for ya.”

  “Holy shit!” Jace whispered, and I was on my feet in an instant, desperate to know what had stunned an entire roomful of werecats. What could make Jace cuss in front of at least four different Alphas? Better yet, what could keep them all from noticing?

  I rushed to the bedroom door, but hesitated there when Marc shook his head at me and showed me his open palm—a clear signal to stop.

  My gaze followed Marc’s to the center of the living room, where Keller towered over the Alphas gathered around him, staring at the limp black bundle tossed over his shoulder. What the hell? As I watched, the bundle seemed to swell, then shrink. Then it swelled and shrank again. Then again. It was breathing. The bundle was alive.

  And suddenly I understood. Keller had brought us a cat. One of the strays? Radley, maybe?

  One sniff in the bruin’s direction put that theory to rest. The cat was definitely not Zeke Radley.

  “I found her rootin’ through my trash and thought you might want her back.” Keller heaved the bundle from his shoulder and dropped it nonchalantly onto the empty coffee table, where the long black tail dangled to the floor. “She smells a bit diff’rent with fur. But seein’ as how you don’t have many girl cats—right?—I’d think you’d wanna keep a better eye on this’ un.”

  Keller had brought us an unconscious cat. A tabby. And he thought it was me.

  Thirteen

  Surprise still tingling in the tips of my fingers, I stepped into the living room and felt all eyes turn my way. Including Keller’s. A frown took over his broad forehead as confusion filled his face. He looked from me to the near-still form on the coffee table. Then back to me.

  Keller blinked, then his eyes sought out my father’s. “No wonder she smells different. If that one’s yours—” the bruin nodded in my direction “—who’s this?” He bent to stroke the fur atop the unconscious cat’s head, as if to comfort her.

  “That’s a wonderful question, Mr. Keller.”

  Keller made a surprised noise in the back of his throat and sank onto the couch in front of the strange tabby. “You don’t know her?”

  Paul Blackwell answered, gaze zipping between the tabby and the bruin. “No. If one of our tabbies was missing, we’d know it.”

  My father nodded in agreement, but he had to ask, just in case. “Anyone recognize her?” He glanced around at the growing crowd of toms, who had begun to creep forward as one, for a better look. “Let’s give her space to breathe, shall we?”

  The guys backed up, and I rolled my eyes as they sniffed the air dramatically. Still, their curiosity was understandable. It wasn’t every day we met a new tabby. In fact, that had only happened once in my lifetime—with Manx, who’d promptly discharged her nine millimeter into Jace’s shoulder.

  But this tabby was unarmed. And obviously unconscious.

  And completely unfamiliar.

  There were only ten U.S. Prides, each of which had at most one dam and one tabby—all of whom I knew personally. But I didn’t know this tabby. Whoever she was, she wasn’t ours.

  When none of the toms or other Alphas recognized her, my father’s frown deepened. “Danny, what can you tell us about her?”

  Dr. Carver stepped forward, a forgotten bowl of Froot Loops in one hand. He set the bowl on the nearest end table and wiped his hands on his pants, then knelt next to the tabby.

  The doc started his examination by running his hands over the unconscious cat, pausing several times to part her fur and look closer. “Well, she’s young,” he said, fingers working their way from her right flank to her shoulder. “Midteens, I’m guessing, though I can’t be sure without seeing her in human form.”

  I’d had the same thought, based on her size; she was small, even for a tabby.

  “What on earth is a teenage tabby doing alone in the woods?” Calvin Malone demanded, taking up a position at my father’s side, probably to place himself within the sphere of authority. “And in free territory, at that? Not to mention bruin territory. Where is her family? Who is her family?”

  He’d said what we were surely all thinking. Tabby cats don’t grow on trees. Most dams wind up giving birth to several toms before finally conceiving the tabby necessary to continue her family line. No Pride in the world would let its tabby—the very key to its future—run around unsupervised in the free zone.

  Trust me; I’ve tried.

  “That, I don’t know,” the doc said in response to Malone’s likely rhetorical question. He peered up at Keller. “Where did you say you found her?”

  “Out behind my place, sniffin’ through the trash.”

  “And how did she get this?” Dr. Carver parted the fur on the back of the tabby’s head to reveal a large purple lump, actually throbbing with her heartbeat.

  Keller flushed beneath the thick fuzz on his weathered cheeks. “She got all riled up when I tried to get hold of her. See?” He held up his right arm, which was bleeding through several long rips in his flannel shirt. “I had to whack her on the back of the head with a piece of firewood just to get a good grip on her.”

  I wasn’t sure whether to scowl or laugh at his approach to taming the shrew. Nor was I quite sure what to think of Keller’s willingness to whack the shit out of a tabby he mistook for me.

  “I think she was lookin’ for food. I wish she’d just knocked on the door. I’d gladly ’ave given her some fresh deer meat.”

  Dr. Carver smiled, wordlessly reassuring the bruin that he’d done no harm. “I think she’ll be fine. I don’t think it’s fractured. She should wake up soon, but we’ll need to keep an eye on her until then.” He glanced up at my father, then over at Paul Blackwell. “Where do you want to put her?”

  Daddy shrugged at Blackwell. “It’s your lodge.”

  Blackwell nodded. “Colin, clean out your room. You’re sleeping on the couch tonight.” He glanced at my father. “He’s leaving tomorrow anyway.”

  “Paul—” Colin started from the kitchen doorway, where he was standing with an ice pack pressed to his jaw over the lump I’d given him.

  Blackwell frowned, and I was kind of impressed by how stern the old man looked, in spite of the frailness of age. “Now.” Like the rest of us, he knew that if Colin had chickened out while defending his boss, the southwest territory would be looking for a new Alpha.

  Colin stomped up the stairs to pack his bags, looking for all the world like a spoiled preschooler. A very large preschooler. I’d have gladly given up a week of my freedom to see the look on his face when his sire found out why Blackwell was sending him home.

  “Greg, could you send someone for my medical kit, please?” Dr. Carver said, circling the coffee table to examine the tabby’s underbelly. “I left it in your cabin.”

  “Of course.” My father scanned the faces still staring rapt at the tabby. “Jace?”

  Jace handed the bread knife to Nate and headed out the front door without a word, trailed by Michael, since they weren’t supposed to go out alone. Shortly after they left, a buzzer went off in the kitchen, and Nate scurried to take the lasagnas out of the oven before they burned.

  After that, Keller excused himself, and as the other Alphas shooed their men from the crowded room, I made my way slowly toward the tabby, expecting someone to stop me any minute. When no one did, I sank to my knees next to Dr. Carver and reached out hesitantly to touch her fur. My curiosity was trumped only by my sympathy for the prone tabby, who was in pretty bad shape, above and beyond the fresh lump on her head.

  Dr. Carver smiled as I stroked her side gently. “What do you think? Any guess as to her age?”

  “Young.” I frowned as my fingers skimmed ribs far too delicate and pronounced. “Too young.” In cat form, she was about the same size as my cousin Abby, which worried me more than I wanted to admit. Abby was seventeen and a half, but very petite; at a glance, she could pass for twelve.

  Surely the tabby wasn’t that young. What the hell was she doing alone in the Rockies?

  I inched closer to the ta
ble, one hand hovering over my still-tender abdomen, and my jeans whispered across the worn carpet. “She’s so thin,” I said, carefully working a cocklebur free from the fur over her left flank. “Why is she so thin?”

  Glass clinked against glass in the kitchen as someone pulled bottles from the refrigerator. Dinner was almost done, but for once I wasn’t thinking about my stomach. I was thinking about the tabby, who clearly needed food worse than I did.

  Dr. Carver’s eyes found mine again. “She’s malnourished. Half-starved. And this kind of damage doesn’t happen quickly. Either whoever’s supposed to be watching out for her is guilty of long-term neglect, or she’s been on her own for quite a while.”

  My fingers skimmed a patch of fur matted around a clump of something soft and sour smelling. “How long?”

  “A few weeks at least. See here?” The doc ran his hand backward across her fur, revealing a patch of dry, scaly skin. “She’s peeling. And look how bloated her stomach is.”

  Her belly was a little poochy, in contrast to her otherwise bony appearance. A devastating pang of sympathy rang through me, bringing tears to my eyes. But an instant later my pity was replaced by blazing anger. Whoever this tabby was, she hadn’t simply winked into existence. Some tom had sired her, and some dam had given birth to her.

  Someone, somewhere was responsible for this poor girl, and someone was going to pay for the sorry state she was in.

  I would see to that personally if I had to.

  “What happened here?” My mood sank even further as I lifted her left front paw to show him an open wound oozing a thin, clear fluid.

  “She cut it on something, probably glass from someone’s trash can, if that’s how she’s been feeding herself. It’s infected, and since she’s malnourished, it won’t heal. Not until we can get some nutrients into her, anyway.” The doc stroked her side, petting her like he might a scared kitten. “Something tells me she won’t want much to do with us once she wakes up, so I’m going to do what I can for her now. Want to help?”