“Alex!” she was shouting.
That was his name. She was calling his name. Suddenly everything else she was saying became clear to him. “Come back to me, Alex. Hurry, before someone sees us!”
He was Alex McClellan. He wasn’t a tiger but a human with the ability to transform into a tiger. And this woman was Karabi Minstry. His coworker, lover and friend. She was pinned underneath him, naked and shivering from both the cold and her fear. Alex immediately shifted back to a human and took her into his arms.
“I’m here, I’m here,” he said. “I’m so sorry.”
“I know. It’s okay, I’m all right,” she said. “We have to get out of here, fast! I’m going to shift back to Cat. Do the same, and follow me.”
They both shifted and Alex followed her as she raced down the beachfront path. Because she was trying to avoid being seen, the path wasn’t a straight one and involved a lot of zigzagging. It was then Alex realized just how fast a cheetah could run, and it took everything in him to keep up with her.
Once they reached the parking lot they slowed down and went into sneak mode, carefully weaving around the parked cars until they got to Karabi’s. Then they turned back human and quickly got into the car. Once inside, Karabi turned on the engine and cranked up the heat. Then she reached into the backseat and grabbed the clothing she had sitting there, tossing Alex the clothes he didn’t even fully remember shedding earlier before she started putting on her own.
“You’re good at finding my clothes,” Alex said.
“Not as good as you are at losing them, apparently.”
He snorted and got dressed. “Are we heading back to the zoo?”
She shook her head. “I don’t think you’re in any condition to try to work again anytime soon, Alex. Good thing it’s Friday.”
Alex fell back against his seat in despair. Yeah it was Friday but it wasn’t even 10 a.m. yet. He was going to have to call yet another day off. This whole Cat business was really ruining his professional reputation. “This isn’t how it’s supposed to be, is it?”
She lowered her eyes sadly. “No. How are you feeling right now?”
“Dizzy,” he said. “Like, I’d really rather be the Cat right now than the man. I think I really need help. More than you can give me!”
“I know. Something’s wrong. And I’ve been too out of touch with my Cat for far too long to give you the kind of help you need, apparently.”
“So what do we do?”
Karabi sighed heavily. “The Pride’s retreat this quarter is happening here in Illinois, right now, just an hour and a half away. There are plenty of Werecats there who are better equipped to figure out what’s going on with you.”
“And I can just show up there and ask for help?”
“I’m going with you. I’ll take you there today,” she said. “First we’ll need to stop by both of our places to pack up some things we’ll need, since we’ll likely have to spend the night.”
“Whoa,” Alex said. He knew this would be a big deal for her, showing up at the Pride after so long of an absence. “You’ll do that for me?”
She smirked at his banter but when she looked over at him, the pained expression on his face was genuine. “I should have done it two weeks ago, right after I found you in that alley,” she said.
The fact that she was feeling guilty for not taking him to their kind that day told Alex one thing.
He was in serious trouble.
* * * * *
From the roof of the building across the street, Rao looked up through his binoculars into Karabi’s apartment. He’d been driving in the area when he saw Karabi’s car head down the street to her place, and she hadn’t been alone. Rao wanted to see if she was with that tall guy from the zoo again—the one who he’d noticed had been staying over almost every night for the past couple of weeks. If she was ducking out of work in the middle of the day to have nookie with this new guy, Rao knew that he would be done with her once and for all. Karabi would have never ditched her animals just get all cuddly with him.
So Rao had parked his car and found the perfect spot to spy on Karabi’s place from across the street. A couple of people came out onto the roof and gave him funny looks before turning back around and leaving but he ignored them. This could give him the closure he desperately needed. He peeped through the binoculars, waiting to see that Alex guy in her apartment.
But instead he saw a tiger walking around. Rao jumped in alarm. She was bringing her work home now? Maybe she wasn’t ditching work after all. He looked through his binoculars again to study the cat. It seemed to match the description of the one reported missing from the zoo. But then, why would Karabi have it in her apartment? What the hell was going on?
Oh well, it wasn’t exactly his business anyway. He was about to put the binoculars away when the tiger’s body started to do something very frightening. It was changing! Rao stared hard as the thing transformed into a human right before his eyes. A tall, well-built man in the naked flesh. It was Alex! He was some kind of monster! Like, a werewolf maybe, but one that turned into a tiger instead of a wolf?
Did Karabi know this? She had to know it, right? Alex didn’t exactly seem as though he was trying to hide it. Unless he was threatening her somehow and she was in some kind of danger.
Ex-girlfriend-who-pissed-him-off or not, Rao had to do something to protect her. What to do?
He put away the binoculars and took his smartphone out of his pocket and put in a web search for “Tiger Werewolves”. He found a website calling for help looking for a dangerous big cat on the loose that attacked men in an alley, severely injuring one. A picture came up of the tiger that escaped from the zoo. It looked a lot like the same one that was in Karabi’s apartment, now posing as a man!
He knew what he had to do. Rao dialed the number.
“Hello?”
“Hi, I saw the page on your website that says you are looking for information about that escaped tiger.”
“Yes?”
“What do you plan on doing with this creature once you find it?”
“We will deal with it as humanely as possible.”
“Why? It should be put down,” said Rao. “It’s not a normal animal, it’s some kind of monster or some other anomaly. It can pretend to be a man, and it’s got my girlfriend fooled.”
“Who is this?”
“I’m a concerned citizen,” Rao said. “I can tell you where to find this tiger.”
Chapter Eleven
Sitting in the car as a human during the ninety-mile drive to Starved Rock Park, where the Pride was currently in the tail end of their quarterly retreat, was uncomfortable for Alex. He found himself fidgeting constantly in the seat. Alex normally enjoyed long car rides but his condition these days, physical and mental, was anything but normal.
Before they left Chicago they’d grabbed all of the books and manuals Karabi had at her place on the Pride and Weres in general. The activity of reading while learning more about his kind seemed to help keep him grounded and from wilding out into crazy Cat, so he energetically thumbed through pages while Karabi drove.
“Did you know there was a Werecat-owned community near almost every large city in the country?” Alex asked, looking up from the page over at Karabi.
She nodded slowly. “I did.”
“Apparently Forest Gardens, the townhouse where I live in out in Evanston, is one. How crazy is it that I would just happen to end up moving there, of all places?”
“I know,” Karabi said. “I grew up there. Remember? We had this conversation.”
The vague memory of their car ride to her place the day he escaped from the zoo came flooding back. They’d been discussing where he lived, just before he lost consciousness due to the Werewolf bite flaring up. “Wait—so I didn’t imagine you telling me that your parents owned Forest Gardens?”
“Nope. You didn’t imagine it.”
“I guess I should have suspected it all along, though,” Alex said. “After all, he
r last name is the same as yours.”
“Whose is?”
“The pretty old lady who owned the place. She’s the one who told me about the open financial consultant position at the zoo. No wonder she always seemed so genuinely interested whenever she asked me about how things were going at work. Hey, careful,” Alex said as the car swerved into the other lane.
Karabi veered back properly between the lines, exhaling loudly through her mouth. “She recommended you apply at the zoo, huh,” she said dryly. Then she chuckled, shaking her head. “Really, Mother.”
Only then did it become clear to Alex why they never met up at his place, just hers. Soon after that the full gravity of the situation struck him like a bucking horse. “So wait a minute… You live just barely more than a half an hour from your parents? But you haven’t seen or spoken to them at allin years? That’s crazy!”
“I already told you why we don’t get along.”
“So? My aunt Rochelle hates me, yet even she manages to call me every few months demanding help with her computer or her car. You on the other hand are pretending as if the parents who loved and raised you don’t practically live down the street.”
“Hey, it’s not all on me,” she scoffed. “It’s not as if either of them has put forth much effort to try to contact me, either.”
Alex hunched his shoulders. “Then all three of you are something else,” he said. “Good god, you’re all as stubborn as…as stubborn as—”
“Cats?” Karabi completed the sentence for him.
He snorted and shook his head before returning to the book. After reading for another ten minutes or so he paused and looked up again. “When did the Pride retreat at Starved Rock start?” he asked.
“On Monday,” Karabi answered. “The first quarter retreat is only a week long, so it ends in a couple of days.”
“How long are we staying?”
“However long it takes to find out what you need. Hopefully that means only tonight.”
“I’d like to stay for the rest of the retreat,” he said, thinking out loud. “Get to know some more Werecats. Meet some other Late Bloomers, if there are any. Find out if other males go through the stuff I’ve been going through. Learn how to really master separating the man from the Cat.”
“You won’t be able to stay if you’re not a member,” Karabi told him. “I’m not even completely sure they will help us Strays.”
“What does it take to become a member?”
“Well, most Werecats are born into the Pride. Like I was. Both of my parents are members. But you have to stay active in order to remain in. I haven’t participated in anything related to the Pride in over a decade, so I’ve been booted. Although every quarter I still get an invitation to the retreats.”
“You can rejoin if you wanted to?”
“I suppose I could, but why would I want to?”
“Suppose I want to?” Alex asked.
Karabi threw a doubtful look his way. “Then you’d have to attend your first retreat, where the members can meet you. As a healthy, young-to-middle-aged adult, you’d be expected to fully participate in all the Pride’s events. Including the Mating Ritual they have every night, for everyone of child-bearing and rearing age. As a young, single, heterosexual male, you’d be expected to have sex in their orgy every day with the intent of knocking someone up.”
“Sounds like a damn good time to me,” he said, clapping his hands.
She scowled at him. “I know you’re a horny devil, but I didn’t think you were the type who’d find impregnating random women ‘fun’.”
Alex raised his brows. “It has to be random? I mean, can’t I do it with you?”
She laughed aloud at that. “You’d be expected to mate with any of the female members who choose you. And only them. Which would exclude me because I’m not rejoining the Pride.”
“Not even for me?” he asked. The fragility in his own voice startled even him.
Karabi was quiet for a moment. When she answered, the tone of her voice was less confident than before. “As a fertile female, I’d be expected to have sex with more than one partner at the same time.”
“A threesome?” Alex perked up. The image of him banging Karabi from behind while some other hot chick was kissing her and fondling her breasts sounded like a naughty fantasy come true. “Not to sound like a complete perv or anything, but I don’t think I’d have any issues being with you, bringing another woman to the party.”
She sighed heavily. “You’re still not getting it,” she said. “Werecats are rare. We’re a dying breed. The purpose of the Mating Ritual is to encourage reproduction. There is no room for homosexual activity in the Pride. As a Queen, I’d be expected to mate with two different Toms.”
Alex grimaced. Sharing her with a man? No can do. Hypocritical as it might be, there was no way he could imagine himself tolerating his Karabi even kissing another male. If that was how it had to be, maybe she was right in swearing off the Pride after all. “So Werecats don’t recognize monogamous relationships? Aren’t your parents married?”
“Yes, my parents are married,” she said. “They are also collared, and too old to try for more children, so they aren’t required to participate in the retreats at all anymore. And yeah, the Pride does recognize monogamous couples, but only in the form of those that are collared and-or married.”
“Collared?”
“Collared couples are those that complete the Claiming Ceremony. Basically, it means having sex on a pedestal and putting a collar around each other’s necks while everyone in the Pride watches. They wear the collars all of the time, while human and while Cat, so everyone can see that they are claimed.”
Alex imagined himself collaring and claiming Karabi and her doing the same to him. He could picture her wobbling around, fat with his baby, and the images made him smile. “I would gladly claim you,” he said before he could stop himself.
Karabi frowned. “Are you serious?” she said. “You haven’t even met them yet, and you’re ready to conform to their silly customs?”
“Is it silly even if I wouldn’t mind being collared with you?”
“You’ve only known me for a little over a month,” Karabi said. “Would you normally tie yourself down with a woman this fast, if it wasn’t for the Pride rules?”
“I don’t know…” He laughed, embarrassed. “Never mind.” No, Alex wouldn’t have normally even thought about settling down with a woman so soon. But nothing about this relationship was “normal”. Nothing about either one of them was “normal” either. He wasn’t sure if there was anything wrong with wanting to mark his territory so soon but he knew how Karabi felt about being tied down.
So he dropped the subject and once again went back to reading. Neither one of them said much more than a few words to the other for the rest of the ride.
* * * * *
Karabi tried her best to keep her mouth from forming into a sneer as she and Alex sat in silence at a rectangular table. They were facing the five council members of the Pride, who sat at a separate table at the front of the room, writing and passing notes to each other and whispering. Karabi knew who all of them were, having met each of them at least once before, yet she didn’t really know a single one of them. It felt unsettling to be closed in a room, preparing to be judged by familiar strangers.
It had been a long time since Karabi had been at Starved Rock Park, the most beautiful natural preserve in the state. She would have much rather been out there—as her cheetah or human self—showing Alex the gorgeous waterfalls that were frozen this time of year, or how to chase an eagle, race with him in the woods.
But instead they’d been made to sit in this room for hours, waiting for the council members to finish doing whatever the hell it was they were all doing and come to this room to meet them. It was now almost nine at night and still they were stuck in one of Starved Rock Lodge’s corporate meeting rooms, staring at the handful of Werecats that had the power to determine the fate of everyone in
the Pride.
Karabi hated that. Seriously—why did anyone at all get to rule over others? Whether or not Alex would get the help he needed from them was about to boil down to if these five decided it was worth their time and effort. It made Karabi sick to her stomach.
Alex sat next to her with his hands folded in his lap. He looked extremely tired, though it was only five o’clock in the afternoon, and he’d even napped for the last twenty minutes of the car ride. Karabi figured it must be taking everything in him to remain calm and patient while fighting that wild, angry tiger inside him. What was taking these Cats so long to make up their minds? What the hell were they writing and whispering about?
They sat there waiting for so long, Karabi’s mind began to wander. She reflected back to the conversation she’d had with Alex in the car. I would gladly claim you, he’d said. Her heart did somersaults again just as it did at the time he’d said it. She imagined them together, making love on a stage in front of a hundred Werecats. She let her thoughts take her further into the future and imagined running around a gated park, chasing two little ones while Alex chased her. She and Alex were wearing matching black necklaces with lion-head pendants—a symbol that they were a claimed couple of the Pride.
Karabi coughed to clear her throat and her mind. How silly to think so seriously about a man she’d met just a little over a month ago. She’d only been there for a few hours and already her resolve was wavering. She steadied herself and vowed to stay true to her principles. If she were indeed ever going to settle down with Alex, it’d be on her own terms. Without the influence of the rushed, primitive traditions of the Pride.
Finally the hazel-eyed brunette turned to focus on Karabi and Alex and beckoned them with her hand. “Please approach our table.”
They got up and walked to the front of the room and stood before the Pride Council.
“I’m Cassandra Kennedy. This is Justin Finland, Ava Mayer, Marcus Thorton and Nadia Malaysay. You are Karabi Minstry, defected Pride member and daughter of current members Sreedhari and Rohini Minstry. I understand that you have befriended the Stray here, Alex McClellan, who is developing unusual effects from a Werewolf bite he suffered fourteen days ago? For which you are seeking our help?”
Cat on the Fence Page 11