Pride

by Rachel Vincent

  One more step forward, and I could see her. She lay curled up in the corner, every muscle tense, her head high and alert. Her ears swiveled in my direction, to best catch the sounds of my approach. With each breath, her chest rose and fell, ribs standing out in the glare from the light overhead.

  I squatted slowly, to put myself on her level, and big greenish eyes followed my movement. “My name is Faythe, and I’d really like to help you. Can I get you anything? Something to eat?” She had to be hungry.

  Though her eyes never left my face, the tabby stopped growling, and I took that as a sign she understood me. Love, my ass. The international language is food.

  Encouraged by the fact that she hadn’t yet tried to kill me, I took another step forward—then froze in place when her growl rumbled back to life.

  Okaaaayy, we’ll take it very slooowly.

  “You know, this would be much easier if you would Shift. That way you could actually tell me what you want to eat. Or your name. Or exactly how far you’d like me to shove this olive branch up my ass.”

  The tabby snorted. She was laughing! “Aaaah, you do understand me.” I smiled, and pride bubbled up inside me. I bet Dr. Carver didn’t get her to laugh. Or even listen. “So what do you say about Shifting? If you’re worried about your clothes, I’m sure I have something you can wear for now.”

  The tabby’s eyes narrowed, an oddly human gesture, but perfectly understandable, especially once she cocked her head to one side. “You don’t understand me?” I paused, as another possibility occurred to me. “Or you don’t like what I’m saying… Is it the clothes? You don’t want to wear my clothes?”

  That made sense. Werecats have very sensitive noses, even in human form, and she’d be surrounded by my scent if she wore my clothes, even if they came right out of the dryer. I wouldn’t want to walk around smelling like anyone else. Except maybe Marc…

  “I can send someone out for new clothes, if you want. And you can wear a sheet or a towel in the meantime. Would that work?”

  She tilted her head again, and I frowned. Maybe she really didn’t understand me…

  “I need a sign that you know what I’m saying. How ’bout a head nod? Nod your head if you understand me.” Of course, if she didn’t want to do that either, I’d never know whether we were having a communication problem, or she was just stubborn.

  The tabby nodded hesitantly.

  “Good. Wonderful.” Now we’re getting somewhere. “Okay, are my clothes the problem? You don’t want to wear my clothes? Nod for yes, shake your head for no.”

  This time she just stared at me, not moving her head in either direction. Hmm. Maybe my questions weren’t very clear. She’d responded to the mention of food earlier…

  “Are you hungry?” I asked, and the tabby nodded in slow, exaggerated motions. Awesome. “Can I send someone to the kitchen for food?”

  Instead of nodding, she glanced at the door. In cat form, she could probably hear them breathing, whereas I only heard feet shuffle on carpet as they listened to our one-sided conversation.

  “So, no food? Or no guys? You want me to get it myself?” I backed toward the door, and the tabby swung her head back and forth vehemently, rising to sit on her haunches. “No? You want me to stay?”

  Her head bobbed again, and a smile stole over my face. She liked me. Or she at least preferred me to a group of strange men. Either way, it was a good start.

  “How ’bout lasagna? I think there’s some left from supper.” The tabby shook her head, so I tried again. “Chicken? We had fried chicken last night.”

  She nodded again, and the tips of my fingers tingled in excitement. Accepting food from me meant she was starting to trust me. Either that, or she was starving, and the clear view of every one of her ribs told me which answer was more likely. “Okay, I’ll be right back. I’m just going to give your order to the waiter. Okay?”

  After a moment’s hesitation, she nodded reluctantly, and I slipped into the hall before she could change her mind.

  “What happened?” Carver asked the minute the door closed behind me. He and Lucas stood across from the door, eyeing me eagerly. Marc stood to the left, syringe in one fist, ready to burst in, should I need him. But I was pretty sure I wouldn’t now.

  “She’s hungry.” I stuck my hands in my pockets and glanced up at Lucas. “Could you stick some of that leftover chicken in the microwave?”

  “Sure. Potatoes too?”

  “Nah. I think she wants meat.” He nodded and took off down the hall, and I turned to Marc and the doctor, who was practically humming with excited energy. “She’s still in the corner, but she’s trying to communicate.”

  “She ready to Shift yet?” Marc asked, clearly less than pleased with my progress.

  “We haven’t gotten that far.” I ran my finger down a groove in the rough wall paneling. “But she’s answering yes or no questions.”

  “She’s not violent?”

  “Of course not!” I scowled at Marc until he nodded pointedly toward Dr. Carver’s arm, and I had to concede his point. Damn it. “She hasn’t lifted a paw against me. She’s just scared and hungry, but I’m sure I can get her to open up.” I was also sure she was listening to every word we said.

  “Well, hurry up then,” Marc snapped, crossing his arms over his chest. “It’d be nice to have something concrete to show your father when he’s trying to decide whether or not to skin us alive for this.”

  He was right, so I slipped back into the bedroom, pleased to see the tabby still sitting on her haunches, watching the door for my return. “Your chicken’s coming.” I headed for the nearest bed, and her eyes followed my progress. When she voiced no objection to my approach, I settled onto the mattress and tucked my feet beneath me. We were now separated only by several feet of empty floor space.

  “Are you cold?” I asked, remembering how frigid the floorboards were against my bare feet.

  She nodded, and curled her tail around her body.

  I started to tug the blanket from the bed beneath me, but stopped when the tabby started growling. Again. “Sorry.” You must not be too cold.

  “You know, I like to talk as much as the next girl, but conversation really is a two-player game. I’d love it if you could Shift back and talk to me. Maybe tell me your name? You do have a name?”

  She nodded again.

  “Good. I’d love to hear it. So, you feel like Shifting back?” I leaned forward in anticipation of an answer.

  The tabby’s head tilted to one side again, and my fingernails bit into my palms in frustration. What didn’t she understand? These were not hard questions!

  “Okay, let’s see if we can figure out where we’re going wrong. ’Kay?” She nodded, so I continued, twisting one corner of the blanket between my fingers. “You have a name. Do you want to tell me your name?”

  Another nod.

  Good. She was still trying to cooperate. “You’re gonna have to Shift to tell me your name, because I’m really no good at charades. And honestly, I’d much rather hear your voice. So…do you want to Shift?”

  Again she cocked her head to one side, this time following the familiar gesture with a whine of frustration. I knew exactly how she felt.

  Hmm. She looks confused when I mention Shifting. Maybe her Pride called it something different. That was pretty unlikely, if she was born in North America. But then, if she were a North American cat, I’d probably already know who she was.

  “Do you know what I mean by ‘Shift’? Do you know what I’m asking you to do?” We were close to a breakthrough; I could feel it.

  She shook her head firmly from side to side, sitting straighter, as if eager for my explanation.

  I didn’t even know I was holding my breath until it burst from my throat. Now we’re getting somewhere. The problem lay with the terminology. “I’m talking about your transformation. Changing yourself from cat form to human form. We call it Shifting. I want you to Shift into your human form so we can talk like people, with
out all this nodding and whining. Does that help?”

  The tabby shook her head again, and my own fell into my palms with the dull slap of flesh against flesh. “I don’t know how else to say it. I need you to Shift. Just…turn yourself back into a human.” My hands flailed in the air, in search of a gesture to get my meaning across. “You know…hands, semi-opposable thumbs, articulate tongue, the whole thing. Now. Please.”

  Instead of answering, the tabby lowered her head to the floor and curled into a ball. She wasn’t even looking at me anymore. I’d been dismissed. Damn it.

  What’s the big deal? I demanded silently, barely able to hold the words inside. It’s just Shifting. Even if she was only fourteen—though that was waaaaaay too young to be out on her own—she’d probably already done it dozens of times. Though she’d likely never Shifted in a strange place, with some strange woman watching her. I, of all people, should have been able to sympathize with those circumstances. Especially if she had some kind of stage fright, like Abby’d had in Miguel’s basement…

  Of course. She’s too upset or scared to Shift. Just like Abby.

  “Are you scared? Is that the problem?” Without waiting for her response, I rose from the mattress and sank onto my knees fewer than five feet from the tabby.

  Her ears perked up when the bedsprings creaked, but she didn’t look up. She was ignoring me like a damn toddler.

  “Hey. I’m trying to help you. I have a cousin about your age.” At least, I hoped she was as old as Abby. “Several months ago, she and I found ourselves in a very scary situation. We…” I hesitated, unsure how much to tell her. I didn’t want to frighten her further. But then I realized she was watching me, actively listening again, so I continued. “We thought we were going to die. We needed to Shift into cat form to protect ourselves, but Abby was too scared to Shift, and just thinking about that made it worse.” I paused, meeting the tabby’s eyes with what I hoped was frank concern on my part. “Is that what’s happening here? Are you scared?”

  Sitting up now, the tabby nodded, but before I could get my hopes up, she shook her head in the negative, just as firmly.

  Yes and no? Or did that mean she wasn’t sure? Wait, I’d just asked two questions at once. The poor thing was trying to answer them both. “I’m sorry. One question at a time. Are you scared?”

  A single, short nod. So far, so good.

  “Is that why you can’t Shift?”

  She shook her head.

  Damn it. I was running out of yes-or-no questions.

  “Okay, you’re scared, but that’s not why you’re not Shifting.” I ticked that morsel of knowledge off on my index finger, then moved on to my middle finger. “And you know what Shifting is, so…”

  Movement caught the corner of my eye and I looked up to see the tabby shaking her head back and forth so hard I thought she’d fall over.

  “Wait, you don’t know what Shifting is? Didn’t we just cover this? Shifting is what we call the transformation from one form to another. Maybe your Pride calls it something else.” Shit. Was her Pride even called a Pride? Was it possible we were speaking two completely different languages?

  Encouraged by the curiosity obvious in her eyes, I edged forward cautiously. “Do you have a Pride?” She shook her head again, so I forged on. “Okay, they probably call it something different. But you live with a group of other werecats, right? Your dad’s the boss—the Alpha—and your mom’s the dam? And you probably have several big brothers? I only have four, but most tabbies have five or six…” My voice faded into silence. She’d been shaking her head steadily through my last few questions.

  A weird, antsy feeling sizzled in my stomach, surging upward like acid reflux as I watched the tabby stare at me steadily. She didn’t live with a Pride? How was that possible? Surely I was misunderstanding…something.

  “You…” I wasn’t even sure how to approach the swarm of questions swirling in my head. There were too many to grasp. “Your father’s not an Alpha?” She shook her head again, once, and I exhaled slowly. That was rare, but by no means unheard of. Jace’s father wasn’t an Alpha; he was dead. And I’d once heard about an Alpha who was deposed for failure to act in the best interest of his Pride, which was basically what Malone was accusing my father of. Though that charge was completely unfounded.

  Okay, so her father wasn’t an Alpha. “Your mother’s a dam, though, right?” There was really no way around that one—once a tabby had children, she was a dam by definition. Yet the tabby shook her head, again, and I steeled myself to ask what was possibly the most difficult question I’d ever had to pose to anyone. “Did your mother die?”

  The tabby blinked at me slowly and lowered her chin to rest on one paw. After a moment, she lifted her head and nodded, then set it back down.

  Damn. She was an orphan. The only other orphaned tabby I’d ever met was Manx—who was fully grown—and thinking about Manx made me wonder if this tabby’s mother had died in whatever incident removed her father from their Pride. Still, orphan or not, she was born into a Pride somewhere, and no Pride would give up its tabby, even if they’d lost—or over-thrown—her parents.

  She’s a runaway. I should have realized it earlier. I’d done enough running myself to recognize the signs, and she had obviously been on her own for quite some time. But the immediate question, at least as I saw it, was whether we had any right to turn her over to a Pride she clearly wanted no part of.

  “Honey…” Damn, I wish I knew her name! “I’m not going to let anyone hurt you. We won’t send you anywhere you don’t want to go. I swear on my own life. You’re safe here. Do you understand?”

  She lifted her head long enough to nod one more time.

  “Good. Do you want—” A knock on the door preceded the aroma of fried chicken, and my mouth watered instantly. The tabby wasn’t the only hungry girl in the room. “That’s your food,” I said, already headed for the door.

  As I let Lucas in, I kept one hand on the doorknob, prepared to shut it quickly if the tabby freaked out at the sight of another tom. But she made no sound as the door creaked open and didn’t even growl when Lucas stepped past me into the room, a huge plateful of chicken pieces in one hand. Evidently hunger superseded any residual fear and misgivings.

  “She still hasn’t Shifted?” A frown marred Lucas’s curiosity as he brushed a red ringlet from his forehead. He’d probably been hoping for the first glimpse of our guest in human form.

  I followed his gaze to the tabby, who sat watching us alertly, her eyes on the food in his hands. “Yeah, there seems to be a bit of confusion on that point. I don’t think she understands what I want her to do.”

  He handed me the plate. “Like, she doesn’t know how to Shift? How is that possible?”

  “It’s not. She can’t possibly—” I froze, the plate hot in my hand. “Son of a bitch!”

  The problem wasn’t that she didn’t know what I wanted her to do, but that she didn’t know how to do what I wanted.

  Somehow, as impossible as the concept seemed to me, the tabby didn’t know how to Shift.

  Fifteen

  Eager to explore my new theory, I ushered Lucas from the room much more quickly than he wanted to go, without updating Marc or the doc. I closed the door on them all and turned back to the tabby, the platter of chicken cradled in both hands. “Do you mind if I join you?”

  She made no response, which I took as consent. Honestly, though, by that point, I would have taken anything short of an outright attack as consent.

  I made my way to the tabby slowly, giving her time to warn me if she got cold paws. But her eyes didn’t leave the plate until I set it on the bare floor between us.

  The tabby glanced from the chicken to me, asking permission to eat. In a hunt, the highest-ranking werecat eats first, like the male in a pride of lions. But something told me that wasn’t what she had in mind. She was using plain old human manners, taught by someone who cared about not only her physical well-being but her upbringing.

>   How had she gone from that to this? From loving parents who taught her manners, to eating leftover fried chicken in cat form on the floor of a rented lodge with a perfect stranger?

  I nodded toward the food as I sat cross-legged on the floor, across the plate from her. For several minutes, we ate in silence. In the time it took me to eat a single breast, she polished off a breast and two drumsticks, skin and all, licking the last of the flesh from the second leg bone with one end of it pinned to the floor by her front paw.

  She definitely ate like a werecat, even if she seemed to know nothing about us.

  Three wings and a thigh later, when the tabby started to slow, I drew my knees to my chest and wrapped my arms around them. “I have some more questions, if you’re up to it.” I rocked back and forth slowly as she licked her right front paw, then used it to clean her muzzle. “Is that okay?”

  She nodded, and a small bud of satisfaction blossomed in my chest—pride in myself for earning her trust, and a little edge of confidence. Or maybe that was heartburn from the chicken…

  Inhaling slowly, I crossed my mental fingers, hoping I’d truly hit upon the problem with our method of communication. “Do you know how to Shift?” The tabby’s head swiveled back and forth firmly, and I exhaled. “Do you know what Shifting is?”

  This time the tabby nodded, but very slowly. Hesitantly. Just as I’d expected. She let her paw fall to the floor, abandoning her grooming efforts altogether. I had her full attention now that the food was gone.

  “Did you know what Shifting was before tonight? Before I came in here to talk to you?”

  She shook her head, and I dared a small smile. I was starting to get a clearer picture, though I couldn’t for my life understand how she could have Shifted into werecat form without knowing what Shifting was. Maybe she’d been alone and starving so long she’d contracted some sort of Shifter amnesia. Weirder things have happened, right?

  Okay, maybe not.