by Holley Trent
“You don’t get to call me that.”
“Is it making you want to leave?”
Nothing would make her leave until she knew he was fine—that he’d come back whole and with his senses intact. The same Patrick—the man she wanted to take home.
“I never stop until I’ve solved my case, Paddy. I’m not done.”
They stared at each other for a long while, then he nodded. “Lock the doors.”
“Probably not necessary. Cats don’t have thumbs.”
He grinned, and she could see his teeth had elongated—his canines forming sharp points that looked vicious enough to pierce a car tire. “Humor me.”
Her turn to nod.
And he was gone, groaning as he descended the stairs and padded barefooted toward the woods.
She watched until his pale skin disappeared into the dense trees, perhaps five minutes, and let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. She worried for him. He was going to be just like she had been when all her changes started. Alone with no concept of what was happening and when it’d end. But, he had one thing she hadn’t—someone to comfort him when he dragged himself home. If he did.
Sarah arrived half an hour later bearing a large portfolio and her usual duffel bag full of firearms.
Dana wanted to tell her she probably didn’t need them, but what did she know? For all she knew, an entire pack of man-sized catamounts could show up at the door, scratching to get in like zombies on the stalk for fresh brains.
She shuddered at the thought.
“You all right?” Sarah asked, unzipping the large, flat case on top of Patrick’s coffee table and giving her boss a raised eyebrow.
“I’m fine. It’s been a crazy day.”
“I bet. Why’s your hair all messed up?”
“Huh?” Dana put a hand up to her hair and her eyes went wide when she realized what it must have looked like. She’d put her clothes and holster back on, but had forgotten to check her reflection. Between what she and Patrick had gotten into on the sofa and continued on the bed, it stuck up at odd angles on the sides and had matted a bit in the back.
She cleared her throat and quickly swatted it together, coiling it into a loose braid. “I had a little nap.”
“Mm-hmm,” Sarah hummed, her face a blank. The same kind of blank Dana was so masterful at. It must have been a shrew trait.
“What?”
“You don’t get involved with clients.”
“And I didn’t this time, either.”
Sarah’s jaw ground left to right, and still she stared.
“You don’t believe me?”
“No. You’re too damn honest, so when you lie, I know it. Don’t try to lie to me. It’s always going to be a mistake, boss lady. Ask anyone.”
“I’m not lying. He’s not a client. Not anymore, anyway.”
Sarah nodded, and pushed her lips into a smug little smirk. “Don’t worry. You know I don’t spread news. If you want to get yourself a little mountain man action, I won’t say anything to the folks back at home. You deserve a little R&R. Hell, we all do.”
Dana couldn’t dispute that last part, but she took offense to the “action” bit. That made it sound as if she hadn’t been careful. That she’d fallen for just anyone. Patrick O’Dwyer wasn’t just anyone. He was the man who didn’t even try to tame the shrew. He was the man who liked her in spite of her being one. Sarah didn’t know that, though. Didn’t know Patrick, so Dana held her tongue on that matter. Besides, she didn’t know what would happen when they all got home to Durham. Perhaps Patrick would change his mind and go about business as usual and she’d decide she wasn’t ready to open up to someone again.
She pulled out one of the kitchen chairs and sat, studying the scads of photographs and maps Sarah had compiled. “Tell me what you found out.”
Sarah opened her mouth to start, but the sound of a large cat screaming in the distance made them both pause. Sarah’s skin, usually a dark honey color, paled on her face, but she quickly recovered.
Dana’s recovery wasn’t so quick. Was that Patrick? Some other beast?
“Jesus. I can’t get over the fact shit like this exists in real life. Comic book stuff, you know?” Sarah said.
Dana lifted her shoulders in a shrug. “The X-Men have nothing on us.”
“You’ve got that right. Anyway, I found out the were-cat group here is spread across three counties. It’s somewhat small, but apparently has a strong gene pool. They do have to bring in outsiders to mate with, though. Most people in it have two were-cat parents. Others had been infected.”
Infected? Dana felt like her heart had stopped. How exactly was the were-infection transmitted? She and Patrick had kissed. Bitten, though no skin was broken. Made love, though protected. Was she at risk?
“What’s that face for, boss lady?”
Dana pushed back her seat and walked to the kitchen with Sarah on her heels. She opened the refrigerator and wrapped her fingers around a water bottle first. She changed her mind and plucked out two of Patrick’s gross beers, instead.
Sarah accepted hers gleefully. “I love this shit!” As they strode back into the main room, she pulled her keys from her pants pocket and used the bottle opener she kept on the ring to pop the cap. “It’s hard to find, though. Glad I came.” She took a long sip and her eyes rolled back into her head. “Anyway, from what I’ve learned, you’ve got to be a victim of a pretty bad attack to get infected, and it’s far more likely if two or more carriers attack you at once. It’s like getting a cold, you know? You may be able to fight off one strain from the coworker that works in the cubicle next to you, but not the strain from the coworker on the other side. Double-bombardment.”
Dana breathed out a breath of relief.
Sarah didn’t notice. She continued. “They’re mostly self-policing. Try to stay out of public, and generally are on the right side of the law. When people like Patrick get attacked, and it’s usually by some dumb kids in, like, a robbery gone wrong, they take care of it. They don’t change folks against their will.”
Dana took a tiny sip of the dark beer and hardly tasted the bitterness given how nervous she was. “Who’d you find this out from?”
“Little old lady were-cat at a gas station down in the foothills.”
Dana ogled her.
“What?” Sarah shrugged. “I’ll tell you about it when we’re back in Durham. My last tests came back weird. I seem to have spawned the ability to make people run their mouths.”
I ought to give that girl a raise.
“You’ve probably got some unidentified psychic shit going on, too. Call Doc.”
Maybe she did. It’d explain a lot of things, such as how Patrick read her like an open book. He may have been an observant pub-keeper, but nobody read people that good. If she was transmitting everything in her brain on an every open frequency…well, that’d do it.
Dana shuffled through the papers and gleaned all she could about Patrick’s condition and what the politics of the were-group were. “Sarah, are there other were-groups?”
Sarah thumped her chest and suppressed a beer burp as it traveled up. “My sources said yes, but I didn’t stick around to see just what flavor.”
“Okay, and if these groups are self-policing, what with the arsenal?” Dana bobbed her head toward the duffel bag.
“Not all of them are. Just the cats. Hopefully, Mr. O’Dwyer will stumble into one of those tonight and not some outside group. Might get nasty.”
Dana’s fingers went to her holster before she realized what she was doing. It was Sarah’s gaze on her hand that made her stop.
“I’m not going to let you go out there. I can tell you like him. He must be some kind of man, but I wouldn’t be doing my job very well if you went out into those woods thinking you’re doing him a favor. Getting yourself all clawed up isn’t worth it. You may have supernatural vision, and better-than-average reflexes, but you don’t have their speed.”
“You’re
fired,” Dana mumbled. She crossed her arms over her chest and stared at Sarah’s notes in front of her. Group of 67. 70% female composition between ages of 18 and 30. New males are often fought over by unattached women.
“Great. I needed a vacation.” Sarah said cheerfully. She drained the remnants of her beer and set the bottle on the table. “Is there any more of that? Think he’d mind?”
Dana picked her bottle up and finished it. “Get me one, too. No, get the case. It’ll take that many.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Patrick leaned against a sturdy pine and breathed heavily with his human-sized lungs again. He was exhausted. So fucking exhausted. And he only had bits and pieces of memory about what had happened overnight. There was a lot of running and he’d taken down some animal…a deer?
He dragged his naked forearm across his mouth and licked his lips.
God. No wonder cat breath always smells so foul.
A large hand wrapped around his bicep and he turned to face his would-be attacker with a hiss. He should have heard someone come up, shouldn’t he?
The man—a white-haired gentleman with a paunch and florid complexion put his hands up in a peacemaking gesture.
Patrick sniffed the air. A cat. No wonder he hadn’t heard him.
“Been tryin’ to track you all night, boy, but you was movin’ too fast. I’m Billy. I try to keep the peace in these parts.”
Patrick looked down at the man’s hand. No rings. Just wrinkles.
“I know what you’re thinkin’,” Billy said. He reached around his neck and adjusted a grimy string he was wearing to pull his wedding band around to front. “Would always lose it when I shifted. Old lady made me tie it on.”
Patrick extended a hand. “Patrick.”
“Oh! Accent says ain’t from around here.”
“No.”
“Well, that’s probably good. Last thing we need is for the gals to go all hot and bothered over fresh meat. I hope you’re hooked up already, because I don’t want to be dealing with no feuds again. My grandgirl still got bite marks on her neck from the last one.”
Patrick raised a brow. “I don’t plan on sticking around. I’m going home after I’m sure I’m…done for the month.”
“Well, that’ll be tomorrow, then. What do you remember?” Billy leaned against a nearby tree and crossed his arms over his chest, completely unabashed in his inglorious nakedness.
“Not much. Just running and…eating something.”
“That’s normal. After a few shifts, you get better control of your animal. Just takes some time for them parts of the brain to fuse together. Shit, I dunno. I ain’t no scientist, and ain’t nobody studyin’ this stuff.”
Patrick rolled his on his neck, and listened to the pops as he worked out the kinks. “Maybe someone should.”
“Not riskin’ goin’ public over it. Listen, we normally meet up night after the full moon to debrief. I know you ain’t sticking around, but it’d be a good way for you to know everyone, at least by face, and point out the punks who did it to you. We’ll take care of whoever it was.”
Patrick shifted his weight and studied the old man’s face. He seemed guileless enough. His scent hadn’t changed during the whole conversation. He was fearless, though good-natured. Probably made him a good leader. He could respect that, so he nodded.
“Good deal.” Billy pointed east toward a clearing Patrick had passed through. “We meet out there about an hour before true dark. We usually don’t get forced to shift until a few hours after moonrise, but we like to play it safe.”
“Okay.”
Billy turned his back to walk away, but Patrick remembered something. “Billy?”
“Yep?”
“Am I…am I ever going to be able to be around people during the full moon?”
Billy looked at his feet and Patrick had his answer. “You’ll be able to control your actions, for the most part, but you’ll still shift. You won’t be able to be in a house, you know? You’re gonna need to run.”
“So, I’ll always have to come back here?”
Billy shrugged. “Probably be safer. Folks in the city would probably shoot at the first big furry thing that crossed their paths.”
Well, that was going to require some creative tinkering to his calendar. And what about his pub? He couldn’t exactly abandon it once per month to flee to the mountains, but what choice did he have?
And what must Dana have been thinking? Was she even still there? Did she stay?
He padded through the leaves, appreciative of his new sense of direction, because without it, every tree in the woods would have been identical to him. Ten minutes later, he came to the end of the forest and looked up the incline to see, besides his SUV parked beside the cabin, Dana’s car, and an unfamiliar yellow pick-up truck.
He climbed up the path, onto the porch, and pulled on the door handle. Locked.
He knocked. He had told her to lock it, and was glad for it.
Footsteps sounded within, and in seconds, the inner door swung in and a woman, who was not Dana, put her head in the gap.
She eyed him from head to toe, then back up to his head again.
He crossed his arms over his chest, then realized that perhaps what he should have been covering was much lower. “You must be Dana’s employee,” he said, trying for casual, but probably sounding perturbed.
“I am.”
“This is my house. May I come in, please?”
She eased back, pulled the door in, and cast her gaze toward the ceiling.
He stepped into the living room, rubbed his muddy feet on the mat, and looked up to see Dana standing, eyes wide and mouth ajar. He didn’t expect a woman like her to run into his arms, exactly, but he’d hoped she’d at least look happy to see him after his ordeal.
“Okay, then,” he said under his breath, and tracked past both women toward the bathroom. The door was nearly closed before a resistance from the other side impeded its catching.
Dana slipped in through a small gap and leaned against the door. She didn’t say anything. Just eyed him, and somewhat angrily, at that.
He reached over the edge of the claw foot tub and turned both faucets before wrenching the shower on. “You’re obviously pissed. Would you care to tell me why, sweetheart?” He stepped into the hot stream of water and hissed as dirt and other things loosened from fresh scratches on his skin.
“Don’t sweetheart me.”
“Shit, are we back there again? I thought we were beyond that. I call you sweetheart, and you get over it.”
“I don’t think so.”
“You want to explain to me what I did to deserve your ire?” He kept his gaze locked on hers while blindly patting the shower caddy in search of soap.
She stared at him for a moment, then relocated to the commode. She put down the lid and sat. “Run into any trouble last night?”
“I can’t say, honestly. I don’t remember much. I did get tracked by another were-cat this morning, though. There’s a meeting tonight.”
“So, you have no idea where all the gashes on your neck and shoulders came from.”
He looked down at his chest and the first thing he thought wasn’t Did I get in a fight last night? but instead, Shit, I hope those scars don’t screw up my tattoo. But of course, he didn’t understand why Dana would be annoyed either way. He shrugged and lathered his chest.
“I don’t, sweetheart. Wish I did. Guy I ran into this morning said early on it’s common not to remember things, but you gain more control.”
“Meanwhile, you have no idea what they’re from. Whether you ran into some nice girl cat and had a bit of a tumble?”
His stomach suddenly felt like a block of ice. That ice quickly melted and threatened to come back up on him. He crouched and put his head between his knees, willing the spinning of his head to stop. Oh God, not that. That’d be just my feckin’ luck.
He would have remembered that, wouldn’t he? He wouldn’t have just…screwed some woman he didn�
�t know, furry or not.
The small hairs on his back prickled at Dana’s proximity. She was closer now, and he felt her hand’s touch on his spine before it was actually there. Her voice was gentle. “I don’t have to right to be angry with you. You’re not mine, and even if you were, you can’t really tell an animal what to do.”
Carefully, he stood, reaching for the rims of the slippery tub and bracing himself beneath the water again. Not hers, she’d said. Just a dirty cat who’d dragged himself home after a roll in the mud and who-knows-what-else.
As the water pelted him, stinging his open wounds, he worried about what this meant for his future. Always having a woman distrust him because he couldn’t completely control that hungry, feral side. So what did that leave him? To only committing himself to another cat? Giving up on the most confounding, difficult, ball-busting, beautiful, intelligent, gutsy woman he’d ever met?
No. Not that.
He shifted his gaze to her and forced down a swallow before speaking. “I don’t think I did…that. I ate a deer or something. I scratched up some trees. I…” He scraped his hands through his twig-strewn hair and let his face scrunch while he struggled to recall the night. There was something dark in his memory. Large and furry, but not cat. It was…
“There was something else. I don’t remember it well. I think there was a tussle and I got hurt, but whatever it was got distracted or called away before it could do any real damage.”
Her face, which had been angry before, now went very serious. She knew something he didn’t. “I’m going with you tonight. To your meeting.”
“Hell no, are you crazy? I don’t want you exposed to that.” He scoffed as he scoured the mud from his hair. The dirt seemed to have a never-ending supply. He hoped he hadn’t picked up any bugs.
He froze at the thought. Did were-animals get fleas? Suddenly, he itched, though it had to be all in his head.
She leaned in close and wrapped her fingers over the tub’s edge. “I am. Me and Sarah. We may be small, but we can hold our own in a fight. Besides, we’ve got big guns and a lot of bullets.”