by K. N. Banet
“I have a large amount of self-control over my feelings, and even then, you can still smell me,” he explained. “There’s no way to turn off the body’s functions that produce scent. I’m alive, therefore, I smell. My emotions, however, can remain private if I can control myself.”
I jerked my head up.
He’s alive.
“No. Oh, shit, I’m so stupid,” I hissed into his head, making the same sound for his ears. “Alive! Everything alive had a scent, Heath.”
“Yes?”
“But have you ever caught the scent of a vampire?” I asked, growling. “Probably not, because they’re frozen. Their bodies don’t function the ways ours do. They don’t produce a scent! That was Hasan's first lesson on vampires! Fuck me! We might have vampires in the fucking mountains!”
“I never noticed that,” he said softly as if he was cursing himself the same as I was pissed off for not remembering that lesson sooner. “The only time I see them is in company. I always assumed they smelled like humans.”
“No…” I groaned mentally. “Oh fuck, it makes sense in terms of the murders.”
“Explain.”
“Hasan told me that vampires rarely want to deal with a werecat because we’re strong. Werewolves are slightly easier targets, but vampires generally stay in their nests and hunt their food source, humans, down without getting into anyone’s way.”
“It’s easy to ignore them as long as they aren’t killing people. I know it’s an addictive rush for them when they do.”
“Yeah, so we ignore them, and they want to be ignored. Do you know what creature on Earth has the best chance of pointing out a vampire in the crowd? Humans. They innately sense something is off with the thing wearing their face.”
“Then how did they hide from Gaia and Titan?”
“They didn’t. I’ve never personally felt it, but Hasan once told me vampires are hard to pinpoint once they’re in your territory. They’re slippery, elusive, there one minute and gone the next. He said he thought it was because of their closeness to humanity and the blood they drink.”
“And their shadow magics could help if they’re powerful enough to use them,” Heath added. “I’m making a wild guess here, but they must have confused the werecats, and slipped in when their defenses were down.”
“I think we’re right. I don’t remember shit about their magics if Hasan taught it to me. I never really gave them any thought because he made it sound like they would just…never be a problem. A vampire isn’t strong enough to kill us in this form, me or you, not alone, but they can easily kill us in our human form. They normally aren’t stupid enough to.”
“They can…” Heath stood up, then sat back on his haunches. “So, what do we do? We’re stuck in this house until daybreak if that’s the case.”
“Good thing we decided to hunker down. We would be easy prey if we were trying to fix our rental right now.”
“Very good thing, but they can break in. Those old human legends about doors and crosses aren’t true.”
“I don’t have all the answers,” I snapped. “I’m trying.”
“No, you this much remembering is great. It gives us something to work with, at least. If anything, we stay in these forms and hold out. If one attacks, we’re able to fight.” I watched him sigh, looking around the room we were in. “You know, if it is a vampire or a few of them, that means those humans, or at least one of them, is helping them.”
“Yeah…because they’re the only answer we have when it comes to who cut the fuel line on the ATV.” I figured that much. There was no other option if there were vampires roaming the night on these mountains. “Which one do you think it is?”
“You know.”
“Haley.”
His big wolf head nodded.
I laid down, and he walked closer.
“Get some sleep,” he ordered in that Alpha way he tried on me sometimes.
“Bite me.”
Gentle teeth nipped my shoulder, and I growled.
“You asked. Get some sleep, Jacky. I’ll keep watch.”
I yawned and tried to sleep, hoping we were wrong. Vampires were out of my depth, and these were smart enough to catch two, maybe three, older and stronger werecats off their guard. I almost didn’t want to go to sleep. If Gaia and Titan couldn’t protect themselves, if Jabari went missing, and four werewolves vanished into thin air, what chance did Heath and I have?
Too bad my own exhaustion caught up with me, and the rain starting up was like a lullaby. Sleep hit quickly.
18
Chapter Eighteen
I woke up to the sound of a branch snap. I wasn’t normally a light sleeper, but it seemed so loud, my eyes flew open, staring into the darkness I could see perfectly well in. Heath sat patiently on the couch, his head up, watching me. When he tilted his head, I knew he realized I was awake.
“Did you hear that?” I asked softly.
“No. I’ve only heard the rain. It’s too quiet out there.”
“A branch snapped,” I explained, standing up to stretch out. If I were human at the time, I would have winced at the creak from the floor. It was even louder than the branch, and Heath was right. The rain was the only sound from outside, way too quiet for a world that should have felt alive. I didn’t take a step, standing perfectly still as I listened to the world outside. When I heard nothing else except the soft rain, I laid back down.
“I hate this.”
“I do, too, but do you really want to roam the woods at night trying to get back to a possibly broken car?”
“No. That sounds like the stupid shit a human would do in a horror movie.” He huffed, which could have meant anything—exasperation, laughter, or just play annoyance. He could have been agreeing for all I knew.
“Want to sit quietly and play more questions?”
“Do you have any more questions?” The wolf practically knew my life story. I mean, not really, but there wasn’t anything that came to mind he could go after that might matter to him.
“I’ve thought of a few while you’ve been asleep. Did you know that you have a somewhat naïve sense of morality?”
“I guess.” I gave my best feline shrug. “I know the world isn’t black and white, but…I think doing the right thing is more important than doing the proper thing. It doesn’t matter if it gets me hurt or killed. I’ll go down, knowing I tried, and maybe someone else out there is happier for it.”
“Was that how you approached being an EMT?”
“No. As an EMT, I had strict rules I had to follow, and I did because screwing up in those situations could kill someone who needed my help. No, my attitude got me in more trouble in high school and college.” I snorted as I remembered some of the downright dumb things I did with the idea I was helping other people because they needed me, and I could be there for them.
“What got you in the most trouble?”
I grumbled. “Getting kicked out of college. I caught some mother fucker doing a procedure completely wrong on a real fucking patient. I took everything away from him, called him out, and started to do the procedure myself. We both got kicked out. He tried to shove me away to let him finish the way he wanted to do it. I punched him, and he wasn’t expecting it. He hit the ground. I finished the procedure. The patient called the cops. One expulsion later…”
“And you were an EMT while your twin went on to be a heart surgeon.”
“Yup.” I flexed my paws, looking down at my razor-sharp claws. “Now, I’m in this world, you know? Here, doing that is everyone’s first instinct. I never thought of myself as violent. I wanted to heal and help people. To save them. Looking back…I guess I was kind of violent. I was willing to get physical with anyone who stopped me doing what I needed to do for someone and…that just carried over to this life.”
“And in this life, you aren’t going to get arrested,” he pointed out. “Well...never mind. You still got arrested, didn’t you?” He laid his big wolf head down, staring at me with eyes th
at seemed to capture everything an iceberg was—cool ice-blue with a hidden depth to them like something was beneath the surface.
“Yup!” I probably sounded much too cheery in his head. “Doesn’t matter. I did what I went out to do that day. Now, this. I was called out for not cleaning up my shit, and it had repercussions on others I never considered, so here I am. Trying to do better. Trying to help, no matter what the hell happens.”
“You’re a good person, Jacky. Don’t ever let someone make you feel guilty for that.” Heath slid off the couch and trotted over to me. Plopping down in front of me, our noses nearly touched. It was the closest I had been to the man in several months. “Without you, who knows what would have happened to the people you’ve helped.”
“Thanks.”
We sat quietly, and I felt comfortable with his proximity. He knew what to say and when to say it. He’d said he wanted to get to know me, and I was opening up for him, just like I promised. It didn’t feel as bad as I thought it would. Instead, it was nice to talk to someone who was willing to listen and understand. It was something I had been sorely lacking in my life for a very long time. The last person who tried to understand me was…Shane. I blinked as the realization came. Hasan tried his best, but he had expectations, whether he admitted them or not. My siblings were more blatant that they didn’t understand me and wanted me to be more like them.
Heath was like Shane. He just wanted me to be me around him.
We were lulled into a peaceful moment, staring at each other in our animal forms, neither of us sleeping. There was no challenge in his gaze nor any in mine—just friends keeping each other company, letting words sit between us.
Then I heard another branch snap. Baring his teeth, Heath showed he heard it as well. I lifted my head and looked around the house, but there was nothing inside with us, of course.
Another branch. Then a bush getting ruffled. The particular creak of a tree branch bending.
“Could be animals,” Heath said, trying to explain away the noise. I could tell he didn’t believe his own words.
“Then where are the bird calls? The insects? No…all of those left long ago because something else is here.” I stood up slowly, the floor creaking.
A giggle echoed outside, and my fur stood up on end.
“Another kitty comes to play,” someone hissed.
There was a scratch at the front door. Heath snarled at it.
“A wolf, too,” a more masculine voice growled. “Let’s not forget the wolf.”
“Come out and fight us like we know you want,” the first voice said. I heard the thumping of something climbing over the house. “Or we can come in.”
I jumped as something scratched over the glass of a window.
“They’re playing with us,” Heath told me, backing away from the front door blocked by the couch. I felt his hip touch mine. “I know we haven’t fought together much, but do you remember Dallas?”
“Yup. I won’t bite you, promise.”
“Thanks.”
I huffed. I could understand his worry. Werecats weren’t exactly experts at working with others in a fight. There was a chance I could accidentally take a chunk out of him if I was worked up and fighting for my life.
“Scaredy cat,” someone taunted. “These are our woods now. You shouldn’t have come.”
I wished I could talk back to them, but part of me was glad I couldn’t. I didn’t know if that would be playing right into their hands or not. Maybe they wanted to rile us.
I heard something jiggle and snarled and turned toward the bedroom. It sounded like someone was trying to force the window open.
“They could break in if they wanted to,” Heath pointed out. “All we can do is fight when they finally do. They want us nervous.”
I didn’t reply, my eyes trained on the doorway to the bedroom. The mattress didn’t move.
It felt like an eternity, hearing them run over the roof and down the walls, small jests, and taunts. Laughter as if they were having fun playing this fucked up little game.
It built in me, the rage I was feeling. These were fucking monsters. They were monsters who enjoyed the smell of fear and took joy in eliciting the response they received. They were looking to have some fun. I understood what had made Gaia so furious now. They had played this game with her. Maybe they did it more than once. They were trying to make her fear them, and she never did. They only got the drop on her.
I’ll show them fun.
I snarled louder, making Heath step away. When the laughter didn’t end, I roared, making it clear I wasn’t in human form, giving out mediocre snarls to intimidate. I was ready to kill too, and they needed to think better than to break in the home I had chosen for the night.
There was no response, so I roared again, making the windows shake.
What? You don’t want to play anymore?
I began to pace around the living room, making Heath step away from me. Like a caged animal, I waited for one of them to be stupid enough to break the barriers keeping us separate.
“She’s an angry one,” one commented finally. Scurrying again up the side of the house. “Different from the wolves.”
“The werewolves got cocky, then scared. They begged for mercy,” the deep masculine voice whispered just loud enough for us to hear. Heath snapped at nothing, snarling hard enough drool began to fall from his jaws, making him look rabid. “The werecats all just get pissy. It’s okay, though. They all died the same.”
I listened for it, and once one of them scurried down the bare wall in front of me, I slammed my body into it and listened to the fucker hit the wet ground outside and seemingly roll a few feet.
“And these two put themselves in a nice little box for us,” one chittered. “How kind of them.”
Annoyance ran through me. They didn’t care at all. They would keep on until we went out to try to kill them, or they got their rocks off and came inside.
I heard another player enter the sick dance at that moment. The soft, so soft, fall of paws on the soil. The vampires couldn’t hear. They had no idea.
But I knew. I anxiously looked at Heath.
“I think Jabari is coming,” I told him. His ears popped up as he turned in my direction. “I can hear him, I think.”
The slow prowl in the underbrush of the woods continued. One slow paw lowered to the ground and barely disturbed the underbrush. Not enough to be picked up by anyone who wasn’t paying attention, but I was listening for every sound since I had no idea what was going on outside.
“I think it’s time to stop playing and deal with this. We need them to stop showing up if we want to claim the mountains as our own.” An older, richer feminine voice spoke with a level of boredom I couldn’t believe. She wasn’t having as much fun as the others or was trying not to show it.
“Maybe we should send pieces back to the wolf pack or something. We’ll use these two,” the younger sounding woman suggested.
“Let’s drain them first and see,” the man said. Now, I had heard three voices, but it sounded like four were scurrying around outside.
“Heath, how many do you think?”
“Four.”
“I think the same.”
“Get ready,” he ordered.
I heard more scraping on the windows, making me edgy.
The front door was wrenched open in a split second, and I turned and braced myself for an attack. There stood a man, his blood-red eyes blazing in the darkness.
“Time to see who the real superior species is,” he said, his white fangs visible in the darkness. “You’ll regret coming out here.”
Jabari forgotten, I launched myself at him and hit. I tried to get my claws into his body and was able to sink them into one of his shoulders as we flew. In a blink, though, I was suddenly staring up at the sky and hit the mud on my back. Something tore across my side, and I swiped out blindly and connected to something. It grunted with the impact and fell off me. I rolled over, growling, and snapped the next chanc
e I had, trying to taste the dead flesh of the vampire. I didn’t have time to be glad my wild guess about being alive and scents meant it could be vampires. I just needed to kill them.
The vampire was faster, pulling away before I connected. He didn’t go far as another black blur of a body slammed into him. Growling and wrestling, the noise and two bodies went into the woods. Something jumped onto my back, and nails grabbed onto the sides of my neck. I bucked and tried to shake off the attacker. Screams, both animal and human could be heard all around me.
I thought vampires weren’t supposed to be as strong as us, but it felt like the fingers shoving into my neck were trying to twist my head. The fucker was trying to break my neck.
I dropped to my belly and rolled over, throwing all my nearly five hundred pounds onto the thing on my back. It screamed and let go, shoving me as hard as it could, able to push me off. A roar made me pause as the one next to me disappeared. Jabari. That had to be Jabari.
A pained yelp came from the woods, reminding me that thoughts of Jabari had to come later. First we had to live through the fight. I followed Heath’s scent, knowing it was him. A werecat didn’t make the same distressed, painful cry. I knocked the vampire off him and roared. I didn’t move from him to chase the vampire as it scurried into the darkness.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“Yup. He bit me, and it was a lot more painful than I thought it would be. I was surprised.” He didn’t sound worse for wear, so I backed off. “I got some strong bites into him, but he was fast. Too fast.”
“Let’s get back inside.”
“There’s another werecat here.” He stood up and started walking. We stayed close to each other, our sides brushing with each step. Keeping my ears open, all I heard that could be the vampires was them running deeper into the woods, and I had no intention of chasing them right that moment. Just getting them to run off was okay with me for now.
“It’s Jabari,” I told him. There was no other possibility unless the world really did want to throw me another damn loop.
We made it back to the house to see a truly massive werecat standing at the front door of the house. It was hard to make out at night, but I knew the cat. He had a deep oak brown base coat with black stripes and spots similar to my own. Not quite like a tiger’s stripes, but the progenitor to modern cats. His eyes were a bright amber, and his fangs were nearly eight inches. I could guess he weighed over nine hundred pounds, all of it muscle. He dwarfed me, and that made Heath look like a puppy.