Feral Claws (The Midnight Panther Chronicles Book 1)

by Brooke Saylor

  He stepped closer, tipping the blade towards me. As he circled behind me, he reached around and grazed the knife against my breastplate. I held my breath, waiting for the pain to pierce me. It never did. Instead, he cut the binds on my hands.

  I pulled my hands in front of me, touching the soreness where the tape had rubbed my wrists raw.

  I tried to stand, but instead the man’s hand dug into my hair, pulling me in the air. I screamed in pain before he threw me to the floor, knocking my knees against the hard concrete.

  He was on top of me then, touching me all over with one hand as the other pushed the blade into my back. I was on my stomach, pressed tightly to the dirt-caked floor. Dust flooded into my nostrils, causing me to cough and retch.

  “River will find your body ravaged and beaten to death. You will not have an easy passing.” he hissed.

  His breath was damp on my ear, and I tried to push him off me. My efforts were fruitless though, and the blade bit into my back harder. Fear clawed through me, sending me into crippling panic.

  He was trying to rape me.

  I couldn’t let that happen. The beast inside of me awakened, clawing its way to the surface of my mind. As my panther instincts fought for control, my captor began undoing his pants. I cried out in pain as the blade sliced through the skin on my back. If I was going to die, I would not be used first. I decided quickly.

  As my nails lengthened and my teeth sharpened, I pushed up with all my strength. He was straddling me with the knife in one hand, which gave me an advantage. He wasn’t balanced. He fell off of me, but the blade scraped across my back. The smell of blood filled the air, but my anger overcame my pain. I jumped on top of the rogue, slicing his chest and forearm. He held the knife up to shield his face, and then thrust it upward, nicking my cheek with the blade and punching me with the blunt edge.

  He stunned me, and I fell backward. Instead of finishing me off, he pulled himself up and scattered up the stairs. The door slammed closed. I heard the jingle of chains and the click of a padlock being fastened.

  I rolled over on the floor and stared up at the cobweb ridden ceiling. My back was still bleeding, and I was almost certain I would die.

  River. River. River.

  River

  Where the hell could she be?

  Max was scouring the neighborhood, but I knew she wouldn’t be that close by.

  After coming home to discover the nightmare that I now lived, I had a minor breakdown. I had used half of the living room furniture as a punching bag, and a few pillows lay in heaps of stuffing on the floor.

  The window was busted, the stray’s scent was all over the house, and Juniper was gone.

  How had this happened?

  It was all my fucking fault, of course. I should never have left her here alone to begin with. Juniper didn’t even know how to use the gun I equipped her with. For all I knew, she could be laying dead in a field- put down with my own weapon.

  My fist connected with the wall again. If- no, when I got Juni back, she would be pissed with all the damage to the house. I laughed, sounding more manic than normal.

  The bar had been a miss, and the only person there to have met the stray was a man named Leo. He had met the man eleven years ago. I now knew his name.

  Sam Loren.

  A shiver ran down my spine. Now I was certain that all of this was my fault. The memories repeatedly relived in my mind, I couldn’t shut them out like normal.

  “Dad, I can’t do this.”

  The blade glistened in the light from the fluorescent bulb above. I wanted to drop it onto the ground and wipe my hands free of the guilt, but doing that would get me in trouble.

  My father held his cigarette up to his lips and took a deep draw, blowing the smoke into my face. My father must hate my guts. That was the only explanation for why he was asking me to do this.

  “You’re fifteen now, son! It’s time you learned what being a werecat is all about. You aren’t a fluffy ball of fur meant to skip around in a wildflower field your whole life.” He lowered his face so our eyes were only inches apart. “You’re a natural-born killer. A predator. These people,” he pointed towards his office door, where the couple waited bound in the empty warehouse. “They crossed your markings, broke your rules. They’re a threat.”

  I lowered my gaze.

  “What if I refuse?”

  My father yanked the knife from my hand and turned it on me. My breath caught in my throat as he let the edge of the blade graze over my cheek. My father’s eyes glimmered in excitement.

  “Then you’ll be joining the male to the Forshee.”

  I flinched as his words pierced my heart. He wouldn’t, would he? I was too young, they would use me like a woman before tossing me into the river to drown. If I was lucky, they would force me to run drugs or even kill for them.

  I closed my eyes, and when I finally opened them again, my mind was resolved. I had no choice, so I snatched the knife from my father’s hand.

  “I can’t find her. I thought I might have caught her scent, but I’m not sure.” Max said.

  “Why aren’t you sure?” I asked.

  My voice shook. I wasn’t sure what to do anymore. My life partner, my mate, had been taken from me. I was supposed to be there to protect her, always. Now she was in danger because of my actions.

  “The scent of the rogue dampened Juniper’s. I got an idea of where they were headed, but like normal the scent vanished.” Max huffed.

  My fist balled. When I found Sam he would die by my hand.

  The only thing that made little sense to me was why I hadn’t recognized his scent. I had heard of them changing with a move across the country, but they always kept their base elements. Sam smelled completely different from when I had met him. Could it have been his mate’s mark, or something that changed his whole biological makeup? Could madness do that to a man? I guess I would find out soon if I didn’t get Juni back.

  “I’m going to shift. Maybe I can get a better whiff of them.” I replied.

  I turned around without another glance at Max. I needed to be alone to think. I was so grateful he was here to help me with this whole mess, but I didn’t do well with company when I was in this mindset. I was inches from diving over the deep end. I could see now how Sam had felt all those years ago when I killed his mate. Maybe he was delivering a sort of justice to me.

  Juni was innocent, though. She wouldn’t suffer from my mistakes if I had anything to say about it. I entered the bedroom we both shared. Her scent lingered everywhere, consuming my nostrils with the tender smell of her shampoo.

  Glass was strewn all over the floor, and I could still see the dark soot footprints leading to the bed. I couldn’t imagine what Juniper had gone through. The fear she must be feeling now.

  I crumpled onto the bed. The blankets were tossed onto the floor, and I could almost picture how everything happened. I tried to push the images out of my head to focus, but they flooded back in, no matter how hard I tried.

  It surprised me to feel wetness sliding down my cheeks. If my father had seen me now, he would have beaten me with the nearest object for being such a coward. And I was a coward. I was so scared of what would happen next.

  Knock, Knock.

  “Hey, man. Have you shifted yet? I think I have an idea.”

  I pounced to the door faster than I thought possible on two legs and pulled it open wide.

  “What?” I asked.

  I remembered the tears and swiped a hand across my cheeks. Being a wimp in front of Max wasn’t top on my list of concerns, but the look he gave me made me squirm. He pitied me. No one likes pity parties.

  “If you shift, I think you might be able to track your own scent better than Juni’s. You marked her, and I know she smelled more of you than herself yesterday. You’re more susceptible at tracking your own scent than anyone else.” Max said.

  It was true. All werecats could smell their own markings more distinctly than another cat. It was a biological ski
ll used to help us replace even the faintest of markings. If a werecat had marked a kill a year ago, the bones would still give off the faintest of scents to them, even if another cat couldn’t smell it.

  It was worth a shot.

  “Just give me a moment to shift and we’ll go.” I replied.

  I closed the door in his face, more focused on my task at hand than anything else. There were two problems I had to overcome in order to track Juniper. First, I would actually have to shift. My body was so tense that it would take at least a solid twenty minutes of calming techniques to get me through the change. Without being relaxed, I wouldn’t be able to do anything.

  The second problem was avoiding animal control. If I was going to run around as a cat outdoors, I had to be sneaky. People tend to notice a black panther outside of their home. Living in the city had many drawbacks. I wasn’t able to run freely in my backyard. For any real play, we always had to go to the mountain preserve. Though for me Nashville was perfectly balanced;We had the city to enjoy normal integration with society, and then we had all the national parks at our disposal to run wild in.

  I gently placed my clothes on the dresser and sat down beside the bed, where the glass hadn’t reached. The memory of running free with Juni in the mountains was meditative. I focused on those thoughts and nothing else.

  We had once chased a deer through the woods, but at the end of the hunt, Juni had stopped me from finishing the animal off. I was upset with her until she led me to the fawn hiding under the brush. She was so gentle and kind that it made my heart hurt. Without her I wouldn’t be anything. She was the anchor that kept me away from the dark thoughts that haunt me.

  My body had relaxed, and I felt the beginning pops of my spine elongating. A groan escaped my lips as my fingers grew claws and shortened into thick paws. My next groan came out as a roar as my nose lengthened. The pain hurt so badly that it was refreshing, focusing my mind on the task at hand, finding Juniper. Hair sprouted over my body as the final aches from the shift ebbed.

  I arched my back to stretch my new form and twitched my tail in the air. As gracefully as possible, I leapt to the door and patted my paw against it. Max must have been standing right behind it, because he opened on the first knock.

  He gave me a scratch on the head.

  “You ready?”

  I roared back at him. I was more than ready.

  Juni, I’m coming for you.

  “Daddy, why does Mommy go out into the woods at night?” I asked.

  The sun had gone down an hour ago, and my mother had left shortly after. She didn’t leave in her car. Instead, she walked straight into the woods outside. I had asked her before what she did out there, but she always gave vague answers.

  Once I had tried to follow her. Daddy fell asleep on the couch shortly after she left, so I equipped myself with a small flashlight and went out the back door. I had only taken a few steps past the treeline when I saw the heap of clothes hung over a fallen tree.

  The darkness was so dense in those woods. I felt eyes watching me with every step I took. After finding the clothes, I dashed back to the house as quickly as possible. I never went back out at night after that.

  “Mom likes nature. It’s sort of like a hobby for her.” my dad replied. He was sipping coffee from a mug, even though it was nighttime. My daddy always drank coffee like it was water. The taste of it made me gag.

  I sat back on the couch and turned the cartoons back on. Mom didn’t like when I watched TV before bed, but she wasn’t here.

  I knew I had to get up. My head felt fuzzy, and I was fading in and out, but I knew I had to act before it was too late. I had to shift before he came back. If I shifted, I wouldn’t be as defenseless.

  I was lying on my back on the dirty floor, and the smells of rotting wood filled my nostrils. By the looks of the room I was being held in, I was in a basement. I did not know where I was or if I was even still in Nashville. I lifted my arm under my body and started to push myself up, but the pain was so horrible that I fell back down with a gasp. I was so fucked.

  With the tiny amount of strength that I had, I searched the room. Surely something could be useful to get me out of this mess.

  In the corner there was a shovel, a rake, and a few old bags of cement. Empty wooden shelves lined the walls with dust and cobwebs covering their surfaces. On the other side of the room, an old towel and two thermal button ups hung on the wall beside a stack of flowerpots.

  If I could make it to those shirts, I could wrap my wound. If I wrapped it loose enough, it would stay put during my shift and hopefully keep me from bleeding to death.

  I rolled onto my stomach so that when I began my trek to the other end of the room, I wouldn’t be putting pressure on the slice across my back. The cut on my face still burned, but it was nothing compared to the flaming pain in my back. This whole situation would be easier with a bottle of tequila.

  I snaked ever so slowly to the edge of the room. Once I reached the wall, I pulled myself up with a grunt, just high enough to grab one shirt.

  Success!

  I quickly tightened it around my waist and let my body fall limp again. It was imperative for me to shift now; I wasn’t sure how much time I would have before he came back down again.

  I closed my eyes and tried to drift into the darkness. I fought the urge to pass out again and instead focused my mind to River. River, with his warm smile and his eyes that curled at the edges when he was happy. I had to pull through for him.

  I could feel my mind calming, and as I did the pain of my shift began. My feet and hands tingled, as if I was getting pricked with a thousand needles at once. I felt the pain move up my limbs, and soon my whole body was on fire. My wounds hurt, but hopefully my shift could help them heal.

  The pain increased, so much that I was holding back a scream, when finally I began to change. The crackle of my bones released a bit of the ache, but when my body started reforming itself the pain returned with a vengeance.

  I felt my nose and nails elongating at the same time, and a low growl slipped from my stretched lips. My spine formed my tail, and fur sprouted over my body. Soon, the last of the pains ceased, and I sat up. My back was still sore and I could still smell the fresh blood, but my makeshift tourniquet had stayed in place.

  I stretched my newly formed body, happy to finally be able to protect myself. He couldn’t open the door in cat form, so there was no way that Sam could hurt me now.

  Except for the gun.

  Oh, fuck. How could I forget the gun?

  I focused my ears to the floor above me. All was silent in the house. That meant he was gone. Should I shift and try to break out? No. If he came back while I was a cat, I would definitely be in some deep shit. I had to stay and fight in this form while avoiding the gun.

  Plus, I was looking forward to sinking my teeth into the bastard.

  My only problem was that the time never came. The house remained quiet, and I remained alone in the basement, waiting for something to happen.

  Hours ticked by. I had lost too much blood, and that along with shifting left me weak and vulnerable.

  Finally, the wood at the top of the steps creaked. I braced myself in cat form, reading to pounce. The door opened, and footsteps clamored down the stairs. I had to act fast. Faster than the bullets in the gun.

  He was almost to the last step… it was almost time to act.

  But ... wait.

  This wasn’t Sam’s scent.

  River

  “Here bud. Load up in the back and I’ll take you to where I lost her scent.” Max said.

  He was standing at the tail of my truck, motioning for me to jump in. I wasted no time and pounced up to the truck bed.

  The longer I was in my feline form, the harder it was for me to control my rage. I was extremely worried. So worried that my brain was all jumbled up, and that just fueled the fire of my hatred for Juniper’s captor.

  I’ve sent out millions of prayers, begging the gods from above to
leave her unharmed. I would have sold my own soul if it would deliver her from the evil that was Sam Loren.

  If only I had told my father to go to hell that night, none of this would have happened. Karma must be real, because she’s been after me since the moment that knife plunged into the heart of the girl from the warehouse all those years ago.

  No one knew about the things my father had made me do except Max. He had been my only friend back then; the only one I could come to with my family problems. When I met Juniper… the issues had vanished. My father was dead, and I thought I could just bury the past.

  Obviously, I was wrong.

  The past has a way of haunting you, no matter how far you’ve run.

  The truck came to a sudden stop, causing my feline form to slide across the bed of slick metal. My nails extended on impulse, leaving a long scratch ingrained in the material.

  I huffed as Max unlatched the back. Silently, I cursed his driving abilities and made a mental note to remind him of it later.

  The trip only took five minutes, and as I pounced down to the gravel, I recognized exactly where we were. The fishing pond on Laurel Lane. This was the same pond Juniper and I had visited when I taught her how to use a fishing pole instead of her claws.

  “See this?” Max was walking to the edge of the gravel parking lot, where an abandoned sedan sat.

  I could smell Juniper all over the vehicle, especially near the trunk. I whined, letting Max know I had caught the scent.

  Her scent was everywhere. All around the vehicle, and I followed the trail to the edge of the pond. Her distinct aroma was mixed with the smells of the environment. Fish, dirt, and stale water.

  “And this.” Max had followed me to the water and crouched down.

  I saw the disrupted mud. Sam’s scent mingled with the earth where his hands had scraped against it.

  “My guess is that he snatched her, drove her here, and then masked both of their scents with the mud.”