Cassie hadn’t thought of that. Whitney had said it was best to think of her kind of like a cross between a vampire and werewolf, but Cassie figured she was kidding.
“So you really drink blood, like human blood?” Cassie finally went back to the original question.
Whitney cringed.
“Yeah, it’s kind of required,” Whitney replied, trying to shrug it off.
“Required?”
“All night humans need day human blood to live. It’s part of being a night human. Some breeds of night humans only need blood once a year; some need it once a day. There are even a few groups that prefer flesh over blood. They are the ones we try to keep an eye on.”
Cassie took another bite of her food. Whitney had been answering her questions all afternoon, but it was still strange. Actually, it was all weird. Cassie had felt like she woke up in a horror movie ever since she fell asleep at the campfire.
“There isn’t the possibility that this is all a dream?” She wanted it to be true. Whitney sadly shook her head. “Or maybe an elaborate joke?” Cassie was grasping at straws. The great big secret she wanted to know all her life was turning into a nightmare.
“You wanted in on this world, so let me be the first to say, welcome to the world of night humans.” Whitney gave Cassie a small smile as she looked behind her at the window. “I’d love to stay and talk more, but I have a feeling you’d be a bit scared as soon as the moon hits the sky.”
“Do you change every night?”
“On the full moon, we all change. That’s part of being a skinwalker. We only change on the other moons if the alpha orders it,” Whitney explained as she stood up and began to undress.
“Is it safe for me to be left alone here?” Cassie asked.
The image of the monster from the first night was still close in her mind. Somehow she knew that monster wasn’t one she wanted to see again. Whitney was scary, but even before Cassie knew it was her, she could trust her.
Whitney stopped at the doorway as the sky darkened and the room’s only glow came from behind Cassie at the fireplace.
“It won’t be as scary tonight. It’s the full moon. Things are different at the full moon. We aren’t monsters, but we become our actual totem animal.” Whitney opened the door, and a cold blast of air slipped in, making Cassie squint at her friend as she left.
“Wait,” Cassie stood up and followed her friend to the doorway, “what is your totem?”
Whitney stopped at the tree line, blending into the darkness.
“I’m not supposed to tell anyone, but what can they do? I’m a cat,” she replied, holding a hand up to wave to her. “You’ll be safer inside. Shut the door until I return.”
Cassie shut the door as her best friend disappeared into the night. Had someone told her a week ago she’d be watching her best friend run naked alone into the woods, she would have thought they were crazy. Now she was doing just that.
She walked back to the roaring fire that was keeping the place warm. It was nice that Whitney was able to get her more than enough wood to last the night. Her super speed really came in handy. Cassie was eager to learn more about all of it. If Aunt Maria found a way out, they needed to get her home before they could force Cassie to leave. Too bad Maria had her whole life to know about it and plan a way out. Cassie had less than two weeks.
It wasn’t long before Cassie heard scratching at the door. She went to the window first to peer out, and sure enough there wasn’t a monster there like the night before, but a large cat, a tiger to be exact. The tiger looked up at the window like she could sense Cassie was staring at her. When the tiger scratched the door again, Cassie went to the door and opened it a crack. Was it even safe to let her friend in? When she was a monster the night before, Cassie hadn’t even considered it, but the furry cat at the window seemed less scary than the monster.
Cassie shook her head. A full-grown tiger seemed less scary. What had she gotten herself into? The night human world was just getting weirder and weirder by the moment.
“When you said cat, I was imagining something more like a house cat,” Cassie said to the large tiger that walked right into the room. The white, black, and orange stripes looked soft to touch, but Cassie had the feeling that petting her friend might be offensive.
The tiger huffed.
“Or maybe a bobcat,” she suggested. Cassie wasn’t expecting an animal that stood almost as tall as her on four legs, and she was on two.
The tiger tapped the door with her paw to indicate for her to shut it. She obliged, and without the draft, the heat from the fire began to warm the room again. Cassie sat back down and wrapped herself in her blanket. In a normal life, she would never be calm with a full grown tiger in the room. The cat was huge. Cassie had never seen tigers up-close beyond the zoo, but even then, this one had to be twice the size of a normal tiger.
“So you stay like this all night?” she asked.
Her friend nodded.
“This is strange. If this dream gets any stranger, I might not want to go back to reality,” Cassie teased.
The tiger tilted her head, as if to question Cassie.
“Yeah, yeah, I know. This isn’t a dream. But you do have to cut me some slack. It isn’t every day I find out my best friend turned into a cat, and then moments later sit in a rundown cabin with her as she stares back at me through tiger eyes.”
The cat almost smiled.
“And you understand everything I say,” Cassie assumed. The tiger nodded.
“This is going to be a long night. You have much more explaining to do for me. One night you are a monster and the next a cute, furry kitty.”
The tiger growled.
“Sorry. Ferociously cute kitty,” Cassie corrected. Her friend seemed to accept that description. “This whole night human world is confusing. I wish someone had let me in on the secret years ago.”
Tiger Whitney walked closer to Cassie and sat down next to her. Cassie gazed into her bright blue eyes. The humanity behind them shone clearly. Even though she looked like a cat, Whitney was still inside the animal. The tiger nudged her head under Cassie’s hand, surprising her.
“You want me to pet you?” she asked. The tiger picked up her head, and Cassie’s hand went down from her head to her neck; the tiger bowed down and made Cassie pet her again.
Cassie laughed.
“Don’t think being cute will get me to forgive you easily. You still owe me. You spent years not telling me anything about this. You should have told me. We’re best friends. Friends don’t keep secrets, at least not like this.”
Tiger Whitney nodded.
Cassie continued to pet the head of her friend. The fur was much softer than she expected.
“What are we going to do?” Cassie finally began talking again when the silence began to get to be too much. “If they won’t let Aunt Maria come home then my choice is bond to someone I don’t want to be bonded to, or leave.”
The tiger’s head shot up at the words of leaving and nipped playfully at her hand.
“You know I can’t stay here. If we don’t find a way out of this, I can’t stay. I don’t want to be forced to be with someone, no matter what that magical mojo decided. I get to decide who I’m going to marry, bond with, or whatever. No one gets to make that choice for me. Right now I just want to go home and sleep in my own bed without having to worry that someone is going to come to my uncle’s house and force me away. You wouldn’t have believed how nice he was before I left. I’m completely telling the truth. Now I won’t get time to just be with him in a good mood for a change.”
The tiger peered at her as she spoke.
“This would be so much easier if I could mind read, or if you could speak. I mean, come on. You change into a fully grown tiger at night. Why can’t you be a speaking tiger?”
The tiger snorted, and Cassie laughed. It was almost as if they were laughing together. Cassie missed those moments when Whitney was gone. There had been sleepovers, but there were times
that Cassie needed a friend to give her strength when dealing with John. Whitney had missed lots of those moments over the year. Now she understood why. There was no way Whitney would be around to answer a phone on a full moon.
“Do you ever wish things were different?” Cassie asked the tiger, even though it could obviously not respond. “I do. I wish I knew my mother. I wish people would have talked more about her. I wish I had been included in this weird world rather than have it forced upon me. I wish I had a choice in all of this and could just be me. Why do I have to decide on everything right now? I’m just a kid. Why can’t I be worried about a prom date like everyone else, instead of a guy I don’t know forcing me to marry him? Why can’t I just be normal?”
The tiger Whitney stood and rubbed her face against Cassie. The tiger licked her cheek with her rough tongue, and Cassie squealed. Cat affection at its best.
“I know, I’ve never been normal. I just wish I was. I mean, I don’t even hate Nate all the time. You know how I told you he used to be friends with Owen and me? That’s the Nate I still had a crush on last year, but that Nate is gone. The new one sucks big time, and there’s no way I’m doing anything to bind my life to his. Who just claims a girl without explaining anything? We haven’t even had a date, and I’m expected to essentially marry him. This night human world is way too messed up.”
Cassie pulled the blanket around herself tighter. The more she talked; the more she felt the urgency for finding her aunt. She didn’t want to leave her friends, and it wasn’t fair that she was going to have to if she couldn’t find a way out. This was the only life she knew. She didn’t know where she could go. Aunt Maria was the key.
“I wish for once I had a normal life. A life where a guy actually felt like he had to be a gentleman and ask you out, not just kiss you and claim you. I want a prince, not an ass.” Whitney had to agree on that; she was the one that had been saying it for years.
The tiger stood and came over to Cassie. She snorted before gently pushing the blanket off Cassie.
“Hey. We’re not all blessed being that warm,” Cassie grumbled at her friend. The tiger stood close enough Cassie could feel the heat radiating off the large creature. “No wonder you weren’t cold. If I had a fur coat like that, I wouldn’t be cold either.”
The tiger stepped on the blanket as she wrapped herself around Cassie by lying down. Cassie was cautious at first with the large claws that she got a glimpse of as the tiger stretched, but once the warmth hit, she couldn’t help it. It was more than warm and cozy to be wrapped in the tiger fur. Before long, Cassie let the warmth of the fire and her friend lull her to sleep. She laid her head on the nice furry pillow that was Whitney.
“I like this version much better than the red-eyed monster that came the other night.” She yawned as the tiger’s bright blue eyes stared intently at her. Cuddling into the soft fur, she patted the side of her friend a bit.
“I always wanted a kitty growing up,” she joked as she closed her eyes.
Cassie woke the next morning to Whitney clanging cans together. Her back was to Cassie, and she was in the clothing Cassie had loaned her. She was standing at the fire, cooking away.
“Hey. Some of us were sleeping here,” Cassie complained, pulling the blanket over her head.
“Yeah, well, some of us are in really big trouble for not bringing you back to town last night,” Whitney retorted.
“But I thought you don’t have to listen to them,” Cassie replied, confused. Whitney made it seem like no big deal the day before.
“Do what they say? No. I don’t have to like everyone else, but they can yell at me and make my life difficult if I don’t do what they ask,” Whitney answered, turning to Cassie from the fire and handing her another can of whatever John packed.
“So you’re giving me back?” Cassie asked, saddened by her friend giving up.
“Giving you back? Hell no. Returning you to town with a plan. Would I ever do anything but cover my best friend’s back?” Whitney winked at her.
“Then what’s the plan?” Cassie asked, digging into her SpaghettiOs. Tomato pasta for breakfast wouldn’t be missed. Cassie only hoped they would let her stay at home with her uncle when they went back.
“The library has a lot of books that only the coven can use. I think maybe we can use those books to find Maria,” Whitney suggested. She stunk at spells, but Whitney was quite good at sneaking around.
“Why can’t I just call her?” Cassie took another bite of the obnoxious breakfast. She would have to pretend she was eating her uncle’s famous bacon omelets to get through another canned meal.
“They kept her phone from her. She didn’t even get John’s call. I told you; they’re doing their best to keep her busy and away from here for the next week and a half. So we have to find a way to call her home,” Whitney replied. “And I know exactly which books we need to look in. I saw one there the other day about traveling. I’ve seen my mother use locator calls before, too. I’m sure she got the spell from one of those books. We find the spell to get Maria, and we find your ticket to joining the clan without a bonding.”
Cassie stared at her friend. She had a feeling it wasn’t going to be that easy, but she was more than willing to try. She hated the idea of starting over. She didn’t really have anywhere to go, but she would if they were still intent on forcing her into an arranged marriage.
“Let’s get going soon. I could use a real meal,” Whitney said as she stood and threw the empty can into the fire. Real food? She had already finished her canned breakfast before Cassie even got five bites of hers in.
“How do you eat that much and stay thin?” Cassie asked as she took a few more bites of her food. Whitney ate junk food all the time but never gained a single pound. She still turned eyes everywhere she went and ate almost as much as Owen at times.
“Night human metabolism.”
Cassie shook her head and followed her friend who had already packed everything back outside and heading home. The trek back to town was easier since Whitney carried all the supplies and had a really good sense of direction. Cassie had wandered a bit to find the cabin, but Whitney was right on target getting them back. Cassie couldn’t help but slow down as they made it to the edge of town. Was it really safe to go back?
“My car is over there.” Whitney pointed to the parking lot of the grocery store.
Cassie half wanted to turn right around and go back into the woods. The only thing keeping her from doing so was the threat of the weird monster she saw the first night. She was more than certain now that Whitney had kept it at bay the past two nights. If she turned and ran from her friend, it was possible no one would be between her and the red-eyed monster.
“Come on,” Whitney looped her arm in Cassie’s, “I won’t let them take you away.”
Famous last words is what Cassie wanted to add, but her friend was being sincere. But even Whitney seemed to have to follow orders. Whitney threw Cassie’s bag in the trunk while unlocking the car. Cassie paused a second time. Now she felt like someone was watching her. She glanced around the empty parking lot and saw no one. When she looked back to the woods, she saw a quick flash of white blur into the trees. That was enough for her to hurry up and hop in the car. She didn’t need to see the monster again to know that it wasn’t on the same side as her … whatever side she was on.
Whitney had her phone in her hand and was scrolling through missed messages. Without calling anyone back, she closed her phone.
“Don’t need to check in with the bosses?” Cassie asked.
“Nah. I told the alpha last night that I was with you and would bring you back today when he began to yell at me,” Whitney replied.
“You had your cell phone all along,” Cassie added, disappointed. She had spent a whole night with tiger Whitney having to entertain both her and herself. She could have at least been doing research online.
“No. It’s been here the whole time. Changing doesn’t exactly leave room to carry anything.”
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“Then how did you tell the alpha?” Cassie asked. There was much she needed to learn.
“You’ll be a bit creeped out,” Whitney warned.
“Try me.”
“We can talk telepathically at night time. When you’re part of the clan, you can communicate without words to the alpha,” Whitney explained, watching Cassie for a reaction.
That didn’t sound too creepy.
“So you what … talk to each other all the time?” Cassie was looking for the creep factor.
“Not exactly.” Whitney turned on the car and began the short drive back to Cassie’s place. “More like mind reading, whenever the alpha wants.”
“Wait a second; the alpha can look into your thoughts at any time?” Cassie asked, beginning to get worried.
“Yeah. Some man old enough to be my own father can look into my thoughts. Not a perk of being a skinwalker.”
“And you didn’t happen to mention that before you and I started to plan a way out of this?” Cassie was a little upset. All their planning was moot if the alpha could just look and see what they were doing.
“Give me more brains than that,” Whitney complained as she reached for the radio to turn on. Cassie just stared at her friend. Whitney wasn’t dumb at all. In fact, she was more the opposite. The only reason she was close to failing her witch classes was because it seemed like magic didn’t like her. Everything Whitney did she had to try twice as hard as everyone else to get half the results.
“So how do we get around that one?”
“Not a problem. You seem to be a glitch in all that alpha control stuff. The alpha can see into all my memories, but not when you’re in them. I found that out years ago, and he still doesn’t know that I know. He’s very tricky, and Than is learning from the best. But I know the truth, even if no one else does. You are hidden from the alpha, which gives us time and freedom to plan without anyone knowing, at least not through mind reading.” Whitney grinned.
Whitney pulled her car to a sharp stop in John’s driveway. There was already a car parked there, and Cassie half wanted to beg her friend to turn around and drive them out of town as quick as she could.
The Witchling Apprentice Page 10