Her sigh was long-suffering. “Yeah, okay. I’m home. You don’t have to bring anything, I’ve got a frozen pizza I can heat up.”
“Great. I’m leaving right now, I’ll be there in half an hour.” I grabbed my bag and left.
Cheryl lived la vida suburbia south of Denver, in Highlands Ranch. As I pulled into her driveway, I thought as I often did, this would have been my life if not for the lycanthropy. Some days, that made me sad. Some days, I felt like I’d escaped something.
Today, I was mostly worried about Cheryl. My big sister Cheryl. Growing up, she’d been bossy and rebellious, and could do absolutely no wrong in my eyes. She wore ripped T-shirts and denim jackets and spiked her hair and stayed out too late going to all-ages shows downtown, and every time she got in trouble felt to me like a blow for freedom. I was enough younger that she never took me along on her adventures, and was always a little cowed by her and her crazy friends. And now she was the one with the house and the two kids and golden retriever in the backyard, and I was the crazy one.
She must have been watching for me, because she opened the door as soon as I walked up. I met her over the threshold, and we hugged.
Her house was still, silent—except for the golden retriever yodeling in the backyard. Dog and I didn’t get along too well—I was a threat to the household, being what I was. Not that I really was, but the thing couldn’t tell the difference, and I couldn’t reason with it. So he stayed in the backyard when I came to visit. This way, I would never have to explain to my niece and nephew why I beat up their dog.
Cheryl herself was in transition. She’d stayed home when the kids came along. Now that they were older and had started school, she had decisions to make about what to do next. Go back to work, and if so, doing what? Her IT credentials were eight years out of date. I didn’t envy her position.
We settled in the kitchen, where I smelled pepperoni pizza baking. I wasn’t hungry.
She paced, kneading a damp tissue in her fist. Her footsteps padded on the linoleum.
“Kids in school?” I said. Nicky was eight, and five-year-old Jeffy was in preschool.
“For a couple more weeks.”
“Plans for the summer?”
“No idea,” she said.
The timer on the oven dinged, and she fussed over it, getting out plates and so on.
“So,” I said, growing impatient, my foot tapping on the linoleum. “What about this party you want to do?”
“You don’t really have to help if you don’t want to. I just thought it would be nice for you to be involved.”
“I want to help. Seriously.”
“Don’t say it if you don’t mean it.”
Now I was getting angry. “Cheryl, what has gotten into you?”
She slammed a cupboard door, then stopped herself, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath. “Ever since Grandma’s funeral … I just keep thinking about what would happen if Mom got sick again.”
“Well, she’s not sick. Don’t worry about it until it happens.”
“That’s real responsible of you—”
“What is this, I have to help you plan a party to prove I’m responsible?” I flushed. I didn’t want to be fighting like this.
“What would you do, if Mom got sick?”
I was out of my depth. She was right—I hadn’t thought about it because I didn’t want to think about it. I shouldn’t have to think about it, not until it actually happened. “I don’t know. I’ll do whatever I need to, just like last time.” Like last time, when I’d returned to a territory I’d been banished from on pain of death, that was how far I’d go. Cheryl didn’t know about that part.
She continued, glaring at me with a challenge that Wolf couldn’t help but respond to, hackles rising.
“They’re getting older. They need us—”
“I’m not arguing with that,” I said. “But why are we talking about this now, like this?” I felt like I was twelve years old again and getting lectured by my oh-so-older and smugger sister.
Keeping her voice steady she said, “They’ll need us to be there for them—”
“And we will be—”
Her patience finally vanished. “But you’re never here! You’re always off on some weird trip or celebrity adventure. Tell me, how can you help if you’re not here? You never help—”
“You never ask!”
“I shouldn’t have to!”
Something inside me extended claws and growled. I felt a tension, like a leash stretching, then breaking. Snapping, with a satisfying whip crack. And I felt free. So free, all my limbs stretching outward. A prickling, bristling sensation sprouting just under my skin—
I had to go. I had to get out of here.
“Kitty—” Cheryl said, her tone demanding, as I turned and walked out. “Kitty, don’t go ignoring me, you can’t just walk away from this.”
A hand landed on my arm, and I turned, bared my teeth, made a noise— My sister stumbled away from me. I couldn’t guess what she saw.
I had to leave. I went out the front of the house, left the door open behind me, heard my sister call, “Kitty!”
But I didn’t hear, not really. I ran, past my car and down the sidewalk.
Wolf was trapped; we had to run, it was the only thing for it. Run, and run. But concrete and asphalt stretched all around us. Rows of houses, a concentrated mass of civilization hemmed us in worse than any chain or bars of a cage. We could run, but where could we go? We tipped our nose to the air and smelled, searching for the wide open spaces and natural shelter that would mean our release, our only release.
Too many people here. Too much prey. Wrong kind of prey. I couldn’t stop running, to try to get away from it. To run until exhaustion took me. I’d be running all day.
Then, we found green. A swathe of prairie had been preserved in the middle of this modern suburb, a creek-cut ravine covered with dry grass and cottonwoods. A dry, washed-out, hemmed-in version of nature. But it was open. It smelled clean. I ran, pulling my shirt over my head, dropping it, not caring, and steered toward a stand of cottonwoods. Wanted to hide. Wanted to run.
Wanted to be free, and Wolf slashed my skin with her claws and tore her way out. I hardly cared.
* * *
DOESN’T THINK of much of anything but the movement of her body, claws digging into hard earth, wind in her nose. This isn’t where she wants to be, but she’s trapped on all sides by steel. She will run in circles.
The prey here smells different, wrong, of oil and trash. Prey living trapped by concrete. She is angry, starved for blood. Blood will staunch the anger, so she hunts. So many trails to follow—raccoon, rabbit, fox, even coyote. But the musky, feline scent catches her attention because it is different.
Her target is fast, agile—a challenge. Makes her more fierce. Her blood thunders, her mouth waters, she bares her teeth to the sky. And pounces. It lets out a high-pitched yowl, but only briefly. She devours it, ripping through skin, picking past dense fur. The meat is stringy, there isn’t much of it. She finishes it in moments, cracking bones and gnawing them until nothing remains but a smear of blood, fur, and viscera on the ground.
She licks her lips and paws, cleaning herself, then looks at the sky again and howls. No one answers. How lost is she?
Only thing to do is run, her sides heaving and skin quivering.
She runs until exhausted, as the sun drops across the sky. In a hollow under a stand of cottonwoods, she finds shelter, an inadequate den where she lies, panting. Too unhappy, too insecure to sleep.
After minutes or hours or some other vague length of time, a scent crosses her awareness—of home and safety. At the same time, she hears a call.
“Kitty.” A low, steady sound. Calming.
She pricks her ears, raises her head high.
“Kitty,” the voice says again.
Her mate, his sharp and welcome smell cutting through the noise, stinging in her nose. Without thinking, she stands and runs to him.
He is on two legs, which doesn’t seem right. Lowering her head, she paces, uncertain. They should be hunting together. She loops a wide circle around him, waiting for him to join her. But he waits, standing calmly, his gaze turned, his body relaxed.
She is not hunting, she is fleeing. But he smells safe. Maybe she meant to flee toward him. The thought calms her. Her tail and head droop.
“You okay?” he says, and she doesn’t know what the words mean. She keeps moving, pacing step by step, waiting for him to react. He only watches.
“We should get home, Kitty. You ready to sleep it off?”
The familiar gentleness of his voice keeps her from fleeing again. But she isn’t ready to come to him.
He walks to a stunted scrub oak and sits, propping his back against it. The urge to curl up against him is strong. But so is the urge to keep running.
Finally, with daylight fading, with the air cooling, she rests, curling up on the prairie ground, tucking in her paws.
Chapter 13
I’D HAD a very bad dream. Funny, because I didn’t remember going to sleep. I remembered—not very much, as it turned out. But the evidence around me filled in some of the blanks. I was naked. A bed of dry grass pressed into my skin, crunching under me when I breathed. Ben sat nearby, not touching me, his scent and body heat projecting toward me. He was fully dressed, fully human. I could smell his clothing, hear the rustle of his shirt when he moved. We hadn’t been hunting together. Which meant I had Changed and run on my own. My stomach rumbled, my nerves quaked. An awful, tinny taste coated my mouth, a thin film of blood remained on my teeth. I’d caught something, who knew what, but that wasn’t what bothered me. The anxiety and fear did.
“Hey,” Ben said softly.
“Ben?” I murmured, my voice scratching. As if I couldn’t believe he was here, or that I was.
“I’m here.”
I opened my eyes. The sky was dark, the glow of the city lighting the horizon. The air was cool, sending a chill of gooseflesh across my back. I hugged myself.
Ben was sitting just out of reach, back against a tree trunk, one knee propped up, an arm resting across it. He’d been watching me, but glanced away when I looked up. A calming gesture.
“I’m not sure what happened,” I said finally.
“Not surprised. You must have run off in a hurry.”
“How did you know to come after me?” I said, after wetting my lips. I needed a drink of water.
“Cheryl called. Said you looked really upset. I knew it had to be bad, so I checked a map, found the park nearest to her house, came over, and started walking. I knew you wouldn’t have gone too far.”
“I tried.”
“I know.”
I imagined how angry I must have been, that Ben had left me alone, that Wolf hadn’t curled up next to him, leaning against him so he could brush fingers through her fur. That he had waited rather than reach out to us. Tears stung in my eyes, thinking about it. I propped myself up, stretching awkward kinks out of my muscles, and scooted toward him. He put his arms around me and gathered me close. His embrace was like a blanket, and I flushed at his touch. I could stay here all night.
“You okay?” he murmured after a moment, and I rubbed my eyes dry.
“Cheryl must be really pissed off,” I said.
“I think she’s worried,” he said. “She’s not sure what happened.”
How could she even guess? The memories came back: the argument, the way everything crashed in my mind at once—too many demands, too many accusations. I had to acknowledge a seed of anger still there, burning.
“I’m sorry,” I murmured. Couldn’t think of anything else to say. Of course, I’d have to call Cheryl and say the same thing.
“Ready to go home?”
“Yeah.”
He moved, revealing a pile of clothes. “Found your clothes. And this.” He held up the chain I wore my wedding band on. The gold ring turned, shining silver even in the dark—white gold, Ben’s idea of a joke. After almost losing my engagement ring in an unexpected, uncontrolled shape-shifting incident, I wore my wedding ring around my neck so I could take it off in a hurry. It must have fallen to the side with my clothes when I pulled my shirt off. I took it from him and squeezed it in my hand before sliding the chain over my neck. The ring rested on my sternum, right next to my heart. Cheesy, but its weight felt like the pieces of the world coming back into their rightful places.
“Thanks,” I said, simply, and he brushed back a lock of my hair.
“I don’t know how useful these are actually going to be.” He held up my jeans, which had a big rip in the waistband. The shirt had parted along one seam. They were both probably, technically wearable. But I was glad when he also held up his overcoat.
“So,” I said. “How many times now have I ended up half-naked in torn-up clothes wearing your overcoat?” I slipped on the shirt—more of a blouse than a pullover now—and started on the jeans.
He grinned. “I think it kinda turns me on.”
How could I resist a come-on like that? The flush rolling through my gut helped push away some of my anxiety. I grabbed his collar, pulled myself toward him, and kissed him. His mouth opened to mine, and I leaned in to wrap his warmth around me. There went a little more anxiety.
Pulling away, he donned a thoughtful, puckered expression. He seemed to be licking his lips. “What on earth did you eat?”
The question recalled a memory of dense fur on a lithe, stringy body. “Um. I think I killed somebody’s cat.”
“Oh geez,” he said, and laughed.
I glared. “It’s not funny.”
“It kind of is. I know, not to whoever’s cat it is. But anybody who lets their cat out around here knows about coyotes. It’s not exactly safe.”
Some cat wasn’t coming home tonight and it was my fault. “I feel really bad.”
He put his arm around my shoulder and hugged. “That’s what makes you a good person. You know that, right?”
Time to get out of here, surely. He helped me slip on the overcoat, then gave me a hand up. He didn’t let go, and I happily leaned into the solidity of him. We started hiking across the open field. I recognized where we were—an open swathe of greenway that wound through Highlands Ranch. I was still within a mile of my sister’s house. I’d lucked out, losing it this close to a reasonable facsimile of wilderness.
“I remember when you did this for me. I completely lost it, ran off. And you were right there to call me back.”
“I should know better,” I said. “After all this time, I really ought to know better. I’m the pack alpha—what kind of example is this? I feel so … dumb.”
“You controlled it enough to stay away from people. You didn’t hurt anything, so no harm done, really.”
“Except for the cat.”
He laughed again. “I’m sorry, it’s just … you couldn’t find anything more appetizing than a cat?”
“You’re not helping, dear,” I growled.
He’d parked his car by the curb, away from the main road that wound through the neighborhood. I was happy to see it. One step closer to home.
“Oh—we’re not telling Cormac about this, right?” I said.
“We are not telling Cormac about this,” he agreed.
We’d climbed into the car when Ben’s phone rang. Ben’s, not mine, which was a nice change. I even checked, patting my jeans pocket. The thing somehow managed to stay lodged there through all that mess. The call was probably one of his clients needing to be bailed out or looking for advice—before they did something stupid rather than after, one hoped.
“Hello? Yeah … yeah. She’s right here. She wasn’t answering her phone for a while. Is something wrong?” After a moment of listening, he said, “You’d better talk to her,” then handed the phone to me.
Who is it? I mouthed at him, but the voice on the other end of the connection was already talking.
“Ms. Norville? Kitty?”
“Angelo?”
“Do what? What’s wrong?” If I didn’t know better I’d have said he was in a panic. Vampires didn’t panic.
“I need … I’m trying…” He really was gasping out the words. I clamped my mouth shut to keep quiet, to let him talk. “I need help,” he finally said.
I had to let that sink in. “What?”
“I. Need. Help.” He bit the words off.
“No, I heard you, I just didn’t believe it. You need what?” Oh, this made up for all the times he’d stood at the doorway to Rick’s lair telling me I wasn’t good enough to speak to the illustrious Master.
“Kitty. Please, I’m being serious.”
And he was. The panic was definitely there, in a brittle edge to his voice.
“What is it?” I said.
“Rick is missing.”
I turned the words over a couple of times because they didn’t make sense. “You mean he still isn’t answering calls—”
“I mean none of us have seen him for a week,” Angelo said. “He may be eccentric, but he’s never been … neglectful. I’m fielding calls from the envoy from Buenos Aires and I don’t know what to tell him. Rick needs to be here.”
If Rick hadn’t told his own lieutenants where he was, why would he have told me? I didn’t say that. I should have been flattered that Angelo even thought of calling me. How much pride had he swallowed to do that? He was obviously continuing to choke on it.
As for Rick … “Yeah, he does.”
“He talks to you—you’re his friend—”
“And you’re not?”
“I know you know where he is. Just tell me.”
The thought of tracking Rick down just now made me tired. I needed a shower. And a change of clothes. I looked down at myself, my ratty hair and torn clothes, wrapped up as well as I could be in Ben’s coat, and decided this couldn’t wait. “I’ll call you.”
“I want to be there when you talk to him—”
I hung up on him. Ben looked at me. “That’ll piss him off.”
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