Stray

  The vast majority of strays are created by other strays, then abandoned before the attacker knows his victim will not only survive but become a werecat. These attackers are perpetuating a cycle that began when they were abandoned in the same fashion, before they had a chance to learn about the werecat way of life.

  Many werecat victims don’t survive their initial attack, and others die soon afterward. And while some strays do live and learn to survive on their own, many of them never learn to hide their existence from humans or to control their feline impulses, which makes it very important for us to get to them before their actions expose us all to humanity. Unfortunately, by the time we find them, few strays are happy to see us. They blame us for the destruction of their lives, and they have no interest in being “ruled” by an Alpha they don’t know from Adam. It doesn’t help that instincts they can’t possibly understand yet tell them to be wary of and hostile toward strange cats.

  As recently as a century ago, an enforcer’s job consisted mainly of defending territorial borders, not from humans, who don’t yet know we exist, but from other Prides intent on expanding their own boundaries. But recent history has seen an important shift. Just as the various Prides learned to get along—for the most part—in the interest of secrecy, the population of strays exploded. Pride enforcers are now mostly used to deal with these new members of our society.

  My father’s men track newly infected werecats as they come to our attention and administer a crash-course on werecat history, biology and law. They also monitor and control those strays who become violent and volatile. But an ever-increasing amount of their time is spent trying to keep strays out of our territory, cleaning up after them, and dealing out justice as necessary for those who refuse to follow the rules.

  Even those few strays we manage to form a cordial relationship with typically have no interest in joining a Pride. Which is just as well, because most council members have no interest in letting them in. For them, it’s an issue of class. Strays are considered second-class citizens. In fact, my father dealt with a lot of criticism for taking Marc in, but he never once faltered in his decision, even though the beginning was really hard on all of us, particularly Marc.

  Watching him, I remembered how confused he’d been and how much he’d missed his mother. Why would Daddy send him to investigate a case like that? I thought, furious with my father all over again.

  “I wanted to go,” Marc said.

  “Stop reading my mind,” I snapped, pulling my feet out from under me to sit cross-legged at the edge of the area rug.

  “I’m reading your expression.” His lips curled up into a tight, smug smile. “It’s not my fault you can’t keep every fleeting thought from showing on your face.” He made it sound so easy, so logical, but it was just another reminder that he knew me better than anyone else in the world. Whether I liked it or not.

  Marc plucked the queen from my palm, returning her to her rightful place at her husband’s side. Most of the chess pieces had landed on the rug, which kept them from breaking. But not the queen. She’d taken the full impact of her fall on the hardwood, yet remained stubbornly whole and unscathed. She was one tough bitch. My kind of gal.

  I glanced at her and thought I saw the tiniest hint of a smirk among the vague features of her face. The queen was my favorite chess piece. Unlike the women I knew in real life, she was powerful. Her job was to defend her husband at all costs, because while he was weak and practically defenseless—only allowed to move one square at a time—she was the strongest player on the board, hindered by no restrictions at all.

  If real life were a game of chess, I’d be calling the shots, dragging Marc’s helpless ass home for his own protection.

  Marc frowned at me, as if to let me know he’d read that thought on my face too. I cleared my throat and leaned back against the love seat, determined to bring the discussion back on track. “I assume Dr. Carver could smell the bastard on her body?”

  “Yeah.”

  When he volunteered no more information, I asked the obvious question. “Well? Did he recognize the scent?”

  Marc shook his head, and I wasn’t really surprised. If they’d identified the killer, he would already have told me. “But Danny said it was definitely a stray. We’ve had two other reports of a stray from Oklahoma in the last week and a half. My guess is that they were all the same cat.”

  I frowned. Both wildcats and strays were forbidden to enter our territory without permission for a very good reason: they were usually unpredictable, uncontrollable and often violent. There were no exceptions to that rule, even for Ryan, in self-imposed exile.

  “Couldn’t Dr. Carver be wrong?” I asked. “Couldn’t it have been one of Daddy’s cats?” As horrifying as I found the idea of there being a murderer among us, it’s always easier to fight the evil you know than the one you don’t.

  Marc shook his head. “Danny knows all the other south-central Pride cats, if not by name, then by scent. He said this one had a foreign smell to him. Central, or maybe South American.” His eyes held mine captive, waiting for his meaning to sink in.

  My heart leapt from fear bordering on terror, as I thought of the stray on campus. He’s a jungle cat. And he’s collecting tabbies, but killing humans.

  South American cats were an entirely different kind of animal. They formed no councils, acknowledged no political borders, and suffered no negotiations. With the Amazon rain forest at their disposal, the Prides in most of the southern hemisphere indulged their feline instinct at the expense of their humanity, meaning they lived more like actual jungle cats than like people, as if over the past few hundred years, the world had moved on without them. Their territorial boundaries were in a constant state of flux, swelling and shrinking with the slaughter of each Alpha and the rise of his successor.

  The only rules jungle cats submitted to were the laws of nature, namely that you claim only that which you can defend. They fought to the death on a regular basis for the two things that mattered most to them: the right to control a territory and the right to sire another generation of savage monsters. It was a violent and chaotic existence, defined by a lack of stability and a short life expectancy.

  Jungle cats were my secret fear, my version of the bogeyman in the closet. But unlike the bogeyman, they were very, very real.

  “South American?” I breathed, running my fingers nervously along the fringe at the edge of the area rug. “Really?”

  “He’s probably wrong.” Marc stared transfixed at the jade king where it sat on the far row of the chessboard. “It’s probably the same thing as always, some new stray accidentally crossed a boundary line and wound up on our land. But this time he lost control. It happens sometimes. You know that.”

  I nodded. I did know that. But I also recognized Marc’s quickly reversed theory for the bullshit it was. Dr. Carver knew the difference in scent—likely genetic in origin—between an American-born cat and a jungle cat. And new strays were known for losing control of their feline impulses, not their human behavior. They stalk and hunt as cats, killing only because they’re hungry and have temporarily lost the control needed to Shift back and go grocery shopping. They don’t attack on two legs, then Shift into cat form to rip their victims apart.

  The girl in Oklahoma was killed by a human monster, who just happened to have canines and claws at his disposal. It was the work of a jungle cat, not an American stray. And Marc knew it as well as I did.

  “I’m sure it’s nothing, Faythe.”

  “Then why tell me?” I knew him way too well to fall for that.

  He didn’t answer; he just stared at me with those deep brown eyes, shot through with specks of gold that were only visible up close. And in the moonlight.

  “You think it’s related to Sara, don’t you?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s possible, but no more possible than your theory that she ran away. I’m probably just being paranoid.”

  “That’s what Daddy pays you for.” He frowne
d, staring at his own hands. “Well, lately I don’t feel like he’s getting his money’s worth.”

  “You’re a great enforcer, Marc.” I glanced away, because I couldn’t stand to look at him as I said the next part, even though it was true. Precisely because it was true. “You’re great at everything.”

  “Not quite everything,” he said.

  I breathed deeply, in and out, wishing once again that I’d slept through the entire conversation. When I looked up, Marc was gone.

  Nine

  I woke up in my own room for the first time in more than two years, groaning as highlights from the day before played in my mind like a silent film in fast-forward. Burying my head beneath my pillows, I willed the morning away, but it refused to go. Instead, it greeted my ill-humored grunt with bright, irritatingly cheerful sunlight and the incessant trilling of a bird from the branches of the stunted blackjack oak outside my window.

  “I haven’t had breakfast yet, you know,” I grumbled in the general direction of the racket. You’d think birds would know better than to irritate a sleep-deprived cat.

  Resigned to rising at last, I sat up in bed. My eyes roamed the walls, settling on the mirror over my dresser, where several photographs were wedged between the glass and the oak frame, climbing the edge of the reflective surface like a vine of memories. I glanced over them, experiencing my life as a series of moments frozen in time, neat and orderly in their full-color, glossy splendor.

  At the bottom of the mirror was a snapshot taken at the ranch the summer I was seventeen, less than two months before I left for college. It showed a group of eight girls, ranging in age from twelve to twenty, beaming bright white smiles from the front gate. That photo represented the future of the American Prides, because it showed every unmarried female cat of childbearing age in the entire country.

  Ours was one of ten territories in the continental United States, each protected and governed by a single Pride Alpha. Each Alpha was the head of that territory’s core family group, consisting of the Alpha’s mate and their children—typically several boys and the long-awaited daughter—and a group of loyal enforcers. In addition, each Pride had between twenty and forty other loyal tomcats, mostly the Alphas’ uncles, brothers, sons, and nephews, who led their own lives spread out across the territory. Unfortunately, in contrast to the surplus of tomcats, no Alpha in recent history had sired more than a single tabby to give birth to the next generation. And for that reason, we were very, very valuable.

  Our ranks had shrunk and swelled since the photo was taken, as older girls got married and younger ones entered puberty. There were eight of us again, spread out over all ten territories, but now I was the oldest—by several years. In the picture, I stood in the middle of the front row, my left arm around my cousin Abby and my right around…

  Sara.

  My stomach growled, as usual, announcing its demands first thing in the morning, and I wondered if Sara was having breakfast, wherever she was.

  With a stretch and a sigh, I threw back the covers and swung my legs over the edge of the bed into a patch of sunlight pouring through the window. Wait, that’s wrong. Sunlight shouldn’t hit that part of the room until midmorning.

  I glanced at the alarm clock. Ten twenty-four. That couldn’t be right. The last time my mother let me sleep through breakfast was the day my grandmother died. My mother hadn’t changed a bit in the last few years, so something had to be wrong.

  A search of my suitcase produced more books than clothing, but I found a pale blue stretchy tee that would work. It read It’s not the length of the word; It’s how well you use it. Daddy would love it. I pulled my nightshirt over my head and tossed it onto the bed, then donned the shirt and stepped into the jeans I’d worn the day before.

  I was tugging a brush through my nest of black tangles when the first polyphonic notes of “Criminal” rang out faintly from somewhere behind me. My phone. Where did I leave my phone? I’d been home for roughly twelve hours and had already forgotten I had a life outside of the Lazy S. That was one of the dangers of coming home. Home traps you. It swallows you whole, like a sandpit of nostalgia, sucking at you until you can neither move nor think, and you choke on your own panic.

  Or maybe I was just being paranoid.

  I tossed the contents from my suitcase, searching for the source of the music. The bottom layer of canvas stared back at me, empty, but still the music played. Grunting in frustration, I threw the bag across the room. Its plastic-reinforced corner left a dent in the wall. Great. But Fiona Apple’s sultry, alto crooning grew louder. There it was, half an inch of shiny chrome sticking out from under my bed skirt. I lunged for it, glad I’d disabled my voicemail.

  Still panting from my frantic search, I pushed the Talk button, cutting Fiona off in midsyllable. “Hello?”

  “So I woke up this morning thinking something was wrong, and it took me a moment to figure out what it was.”

  Huh? I held the phone out at arm’s length, staring at it as if it were to blame for the speaker’s lack of sense.

  The caller spoke again. “This is the part where you ask me what was wrong.”

  Ah. It was Andrew. I should have known.

  “Faythe? Are you there?”

  I put the phone back up to my ear, but a long moment passed before I could answer. Hearing his voice in my father’s house was disorienting and vaguely uncomfortable, as if two very separate halves of my life had collided, crushing me between them and making it nearly impossible for me to think, much less speak.

  “Faythe?” Concern raised Andrew’s pitch, exaggerating the stuffy sound of his voice.

  I swallowed, wincing at how dry my throat felt. “Yeah, I’m here.”

  “You okay?”

  “Yeah. I just woke up.” I sank onto the bed facing the mirror, where the photographs mocked me from various points in my own past.

  “Me, too. That’s what was wrong.”

  “Huh?” My eyes settled on the photo of me and Marc at my senior prom. Try as I might to drag my gaze from it, Marc’s eyes kept pulling mine back. They seemed to follow me from the photo, glinting in amusement at my futile attempt to concentrate on what Andrew was saying. Or maybe they were just reflecting the clear Christmas lights used as prom decorations.

  “I slept through my alarm and missed my first class.”

  “Oh, no.” I turned my back on the photo, pleased at my victory over Marc’s picture-self.

  “Yeah, but it doesn’t matter. I don’t feel like learning anything today anyway. My cold’s worse, and I think I have a bit of a fever. Anyway, I’d much rather talk to you than go to class.”

  “Thanks.”

  Thanks? Okay, I’m a moron. My brain just doesn’t kick in until I get some caffeine, but even after a gallon of coffee, I wouldn’t have known what to say to Andrew. Talking to him felt awkward, like we’d been out of touch for months instead of for a single day.

  “What did your dad say about me coming to visit between summer terms?”

  “Oh. Uh…I haven’t had a chance to talk to him yet. But I will.” I punched my fancy pillow, glad he wasn’t there to see the dread on my face. I did not look forward to having that conversation with my father. Or any other conversation, come to think of it.

  “Good. I’ll be there in three weeks.”

  Yeah. Great. He’d never make it out alive.

  I was only vaguely aware that Andrew was still talking, until the lengthening silence told me it was my turn to speak. Crap. “You faded out for a second there.” I rolled my eyes at my own lie. “What did you say?”

  “I asked you how many you have.”

  “How many what?” Over the phone, I heard his sheets rustle as he moved. He really must feel bad if he’s still in bed, I thought.

  “How many brothers.”

  “Oh. Uh, four.” I saw no reason to explain about Ryan being MIA for most of the last decade. Or about anything else, for that matter.

  “Four. Wow. Your parents must have really be
en trying for a girl, huh?”

  You have no idea.

  “Faythe, is anything wrong?”

  “Yes. No.” I frowned in confusion, one hand hovering over my face to shield my eyes from the sunlight. If only it could shield me from my life too…“Everything’s fine. I’m just still half-asleep.”

  I sat up, glancing at my bedroom door as footsteps hurried past in the hall. “Hey, I was just about to get something to eat. Can I call you back later?” I sniffed the air, trying to identify the owner of the footsteps. No luck. I was too slow.

  “Sure,” Andrew said. “I was about to head out for breakfast anyway. I’m starving.”

  “Okay, go eat. And I hope you feel better,” I said, too preoccupied with the footsteps in the hall to inject any sincerity into my reply.

  “I already do, after hearing your voice.” His tone was as warm and pleasant as spring sunshine, yet for my life, I didn’t know how to respond. Maybe if he’d sounded more like moonlight…But Andrew had nothing in common with the night. Nothing at all. That had always worked in his favor before.

  “That’s sweet,” I said finally, cringing at my own dim-witted response. “I’ll call you later.”

  “Sure.” Was that a tremor of doubt in his voice? Andrew didn’t deserve doubt. Not because of me.

  I knew I should say something reassuring, or at least friendly, but again words failed me. All except for one. “Bye.”

  “Bye.”

  Faythe, you are such an idiot! I thought as I pressed the End button. Andrew was everything I wanted, in the only place I wanted to be, but I couldn’t think of a thing to say to him.

  It would be better when I went back to school. It had to be better, because it certainly couldn’t get any worse.

  Disgusted, I threw the phone at my headboard. It bounced off a pillow and onto the floor. As I bent to pick it up, another set of footsteps rushed past my door. I froze, sniffing the air, and caught just enough scent for identification. Parker. His footsteps stopped farther down the hall, replaced by the creak of hinges. Tense whispers rose over the creaking. I heard a faint click, and the whispering stopped abruptly.