“You’re right.” I tried to smile at Holly to reassure her, but I couldn’t make my mouth cooperate. I was not in a smiley kind of place. “I’m sorry for what you’ve been through today, and I know it must be scary. But I need you to be patient. And as openminded as you can possibly manage.”
Holly only nodded, splitting her focus between me and Michael.
“We’re not in any kind of mob or gang, though I can understand how it might look like that, from the outside.” I took a deep breath, uncomfortably aware that I was about to intentionally break one of our three most important laws. “We’re shape-shifters. Specifically, feline. We’re werecats. All of us.”
Holly blinked. Then she blinked again. Her mouth opened, then snapped shut. Then she turned to Michael, brows raised in question. “I’m seriously traumatized here, and she’s making jokes. This isn’t funny. Tell me what the hell is going on, or I’m out of here. For good, Michael.”
“She’s not joking. I know it sounds impossible. Crazy—” he began, but she cut him off.
“You think! I hope the men in those cars had a year’s supply of straitjackets and Thorazine, because you’re all insane. All of you. I’m leaving…” She tried to stand, and my hand closed over her wrist. Michael stood with her, moving smoothly between his wife and the front door.
“Let go of me!” She snatched her arm from my grip, and I let her go. Everyone was watching Holly now, except for Jace, who watched me expectantly.
“Michael…” I warned, hoping he could calm her without…extreme measures.
“Holly, you can’t go. It’s not safe—”
“The hell I can’t.” She tried to step around him, and he took her by both arms, pleading with her silently to cooperate.
I stood. “Look, I’d show you myself, but in case you haven’t noticed, I’m not exactly at my best tonight.” And Dr. Carver had forbidden Shifting until morning, at least.
Jace stood and dropped his cards on the table. “I’ll show her.”
“No.” I wasn’t going to put anyone else at risk.
Jace rolled his eyes. “Cal wants me dead, anyway. What’s he gonna do, kill me twice?” He flashed another grin at having thrown my own words back at me, and I could only scowl. “Besides, you already told her. She’s fully disclosed. I’m just offering a demonstration.”
I thought for a moment, then finally nodded.
Jace stepped into the middle of the living room, already pulling his shirt over his head. His arms bulged in the light from the dusty fixture overhead.
“What is he doing?” Holly demanded, and she actually took a step back when he unbuttoned his pants. “Why is he taking off his clothes?” She glanced at Kaci, then at Michael, silently demanding that he put a stop to what must have seemed like absolute insanity, for the sake of the child, if for nothing else.
Kaci cleared her throat, drawing Holly’s attention as Jace stepped out of his jeans and underwear and dropped onto his hands and knees. “It’s weird at first. Especially all the nudity. I know, ’cause I used to be like you. But Shifting with clothes on just doesn’t make any sense. I tried it once. My shirt tore and I got all tangled up in my jeans.”
Holly only gaped at her until Michael took his wife’s hand. When she turned back to him, he gestured to where Jace was now on the floor on all fours, in the first phase of his Shift. His skin began to ripple, and Holly gasped. Her hands shook, the tremors so violent she nearly dropped her empty glass. When his wrists and ankles lengthened, she took a step back, ripping her hand from Michael’s grip. “No. No, this isn’t real. You…you put something in that drink. What did you do to me?”
Michael faced his wife and took her chin gently in both hands, forcing her to look at him. He leaned down so that their foreheads met and whispered to her, crooning almost like he would to a child. “It’s real, Holly. It’s all real. I’m sorry I never told you, and I’m even sorrier that I have to now. But you need to see this. This is who I am. This is who we all are, and if you can’t live with that after you truly understand it, then you can go. No one will stop you.”
Though that was up for debate. We couldn’t risk her telling anyone else, and frankly, that hadn’t truly seemed like a credible threat until that very moment.
“But first you have to see,” Michael finished. Then he stepped to the side, revealing Jace again.
Jace’s hands and feet had become paws, his digits already plumping into toe pads. His fingernails lengthened and hardened into claws, even as his head began to bulge and shift with the formation of his new muzzle.
Holly’s pulse raced. Each breath came faster than the last. She was hyperventilating, and based on her physiological signs of stress, she could have been the one Shifting.
“It’s okay…” Michael whispered, his arms around her waist for comfort, his chin resting on her shoulder. I’d rarely seen him like that, as the gentle, concerned husband, and even though she was clearly near total breakdown, she didn’t push him away. He could still comfort her, even when he was part of what she feared. It was achingly sweet, in the most surreal way imaginable.
In the middle of the floor, Jace looked like a giant, bald cat. His spine was a knobby ridge trailing over his back, ending in a long, flesh-colored tail. And as I watched, thick black fur began to sprout at his spine, spreading rapidly to cover his entire body.
Holly gasped again, but she now looked more awed than anything, though there were still clear lines of fear and disbelief around her eyes. Seconds later, the show was over. Jace stood tall on four legs, arching his spine dramatically as he stretched to get comfortable in his new form, like a giant Halloween cat. Then he stuck his rump in the air and waved his tail in greeting.
Fortunately, he refrained from showing off either his sharp new teeth or his wickedly curved, retractable claws. Either of which might have been too much for Holly, at least this early in the game.
Jace stepped toward her, and Holly yelped and nearly backed over her husband.
Kaci laughed, and her genuine amusement sounded strange to my ears—I hadn’t heard it in such a long time. She crossed the floor toward Jace boldly and sank to her knees in front of him, running one hand over his head to scratch behind his ears.
“Karli, don’t!” Holly breathed, but Kaci only laughed again.
“It’s okay. I can do that, too. Wanna see?”
But though she looked fascinated, Holly clearly did not want to see any more Shifting just yet.
Jace purred and rubbed his cheek against Kaci’s, marking her with his scent, reassuring her that they were still good friends—a typical cat greeting. Kaci trailed her hand over his back, as far as she could reach without getting up. Then she looked up at Holly, and the calm I saw on her face—some small bit of peace, in spite of so much recent trauma—eased part of the guilt weighing so heavily on my heart and mind. Kaci was okay. Somehow, in spite of all she’d been through with us and before she’d found us, Kaci was going to be just fine. And if anyone could help Holly adjust, it was our own little human-born tabby.
“You wanna pet him?” Kaci asked, encouraging Holly with her unspoken display of trust. Her comfort with the huge cat did more to convince Holly than anything we could have said to her. “He’ll let you. If I ask him to,” Kaci added as an afterthought, and I smiled at her small, instinctive attempt to establish her rank in the Pride—over Holly. That meant that she considered herself to have come first, but also that she recognized Holly as one of us. Part of the family, finally. For better or for worse.
“Um, I don’t…” Holly started, and Michael rubbed her arm.
“Go ahead. It’s okay. He’s still Jace. In fact, he’s almost more Jace now than he was in human form.”
Holly frowned at that, but when Michael tugged her forward, she let him.
She wouldn’t kneel next to the giant cat—proving that humans aren’t completely devoid of a self-preservation instinct—but she did bend over and tentatively touch the fur on his back, once Jace had give
n her permission with a soft purr.
The moment she touched him, she believed. I saw the difference in her face. It was one thing to see—we truly could have spiked her drink, or she could have been dreaming. But she couldn’t deny the physical reality beneath her hand.
Holly’s eyes widened, and she stroked Jace’s back again. “It’s soft, but kind of coarse…” she whispered, as if speaking out loud might anger the cat and get her eaten. “Not like a house cat.”
“We’re not house cats,” Michael said softly, and Holly stood to look at him.
“You can…? You can do this?”
He nodded, studying her reaction carefully. “I have to do this at least every few weeks, or I get sick. But I usually do it a lot more often than that. It’s part of who I am.”
“That’s where you go…” Holly was studying her husband now. “That’s why you’re always on the ranch. So you can do this. So you can be this.”
I shrugged. “Well, that, and because we’ve kind of had a bad patch lately, politically speaking.”
“What does that mean?” Holly asked, and Michael promised to explain it later, insisting that she’d probably heard enough for the moment. Half an hour later, they retired to their room, and I could hear Michael whispering to her, explaining about territories, and Prides, and the council, in spite of his proclamation that sleep ought to come before further trauma.
I liked Holly even more for her persistence.
While we waited for the other toms to return, Dr. Carver gave me another once-over on the couch. My eyes were dilating properly by then and I had no more dizziness or nausea, though I still looked like I’d fallen face-first into a meat grinder. And felt like it, too.
The doc said that if nothing went wrong in the night—a possibility which evidently included a stroke from a blood clot in my brain—I would be clear to start Shifting to heal in the morning. But for the moment, he insisted I take several Tylenol and go to sleep.
I tried. I really did. But I couldn’t find a comfortable position on the couch—I still hurt all over and could hardly see out of my left eye—and I wasn’t willing to oust my mother from the only bed. And every time I closed my eyes, Dean was waiting behind my eyelids to kick me in the head, or to cut me again, or to slice my clothes open. After about an hour, Jace curled up on the floor in front of the couch, and I let one hand trail over his fur. He purred, and that sound and his scent made me feel safe enough to fall asleep, in spite of myriad pains Tylenol couldn’t touch, and I didn’t wake up until the other toms returned with our supplies.
When my mother heard them unloading the cars, she came out of the bedroom to help and insisted I get in the bed. Jace tried to follow me, but Marc snarled, and as I took off my jeans and climbed beneath the covers, I heard his footsteps clomp down the hall after us. “Hell, no. This is still my house, and you’re not going in my bedroom. Not with her. Not even in cat form.”
Jace growled, but Marc must have held his ground, because Dr. Carver stepped in then and said he’d watch me for a while. Which was good, because I honestly didn’t have the energy to break up another fight at the moment.
I fell asleep again and, that time, I didn’t wake up for twelve straight hours.
Twenty-six
When I woke up, the room was bright with natural light, and Marc’s alarm clock read 1:44. Thursday afternoon. Shit. I sat up too fast and gasped over the pain in my…everything, as the room seemed to swim around me.
“Whoa, slow down,” Marc said from the desk chair, and I jumped, then flinched at the second flare of pain. I hadn’t smelled him because the entire room already smelled like him. The chair creaked as he stood, then the bed squealed as he sat next to me. “How do you feel?”
“Like I should have Shifted five hours ago. Why did you let me sleep so long? I need to call my uncle.” I threw back the covers and was surprised to discover that I was still wearing the shirt I’d fought in the day before, still stiff with my own dried blood. I stood—and almost screamed when my left foot hit the floor. My sore hip had stiffened while I slept, and a test movement from my left arm revealed that the same had happened with my shoulder.
“He already called. I told him you were still recuperating, and he’s expecting a call from you this afternoon.”
“Marc, you have to tell me when one of our allies calls! We have a lot to do, and we need their help. I’m the Alpha now!”
“You’re going to be a dead Alpha if you don’t take time to rest and heal.”
“Consider me rested. And healing’s on the agenda for today, too. But first I need to talk to Uncle Rick. Where’s my phone?” When my heart stopped trying to pound its way out of my chest, I headed for my suitcase, in spite of the sharp pain in my side and my left hip.
“It’s on the charger in the living room. What’s the plan?”
“I’m going to talk to my uncle, then I’m going to Shift until I’m healed. Didn’t I just say that?”
Marc huffed. “I was talking long-term. Yesterday you said you had an idea.”
“Oh.” I rummaged through the bag on Marc’s dresser for a pair of exercise shorts and a T-shirt, since I wouldn’t shower until after I’d Shifted enough to be presentable in human society. “Yeah. We’re going to fight, and we’re going to do it the right way. With the element of surprise on our side, and all our allies and men in place. Including the thunderbirds. Malone and his men can’t defend against them any better than we could. The birds are going to be the determining factor in his war. We’re gonna take back the ranch and the Pride. Permanently.”
“So…road trip?” Jace asked from the doorway, and I nodded.
“Yeah. Once I’m healed enough to be seen in public.” I started to pull my arms from the bloody turtleneck, but stopped when the pain in my side shot through my entire torso.
“Here, let me.” Marc was at my side before I could answer, and I could hear Jace’s teeth grind together from across the room as Marc ran his hands lightly up my sides beneath my shirt, holding it up so I could pull my arms free. He even stretched out the neck so it wouldn’t brush my broken nose when he lifted it over my head. Jace stomped out of the room when Marc helped me into the shorts and clean T-shirt, still careful with my damaged face, but I hurt too badly to care whose feelings were bruised and who’d just used me to assert his dominance. Again.
Dressed, I limped into the front of the house for my phone.
The living room looked like a sleepaway camp. Someone had propped the air mattresses against one wall, but there wasn’t enough furniture for everyone to have a seat, so most of the guys sat on the floor, playing cards in the middle of the living room. Manx was nursing Des on the couch, and Owen sat next to her, reassuring her softly that everything would be okay. They wouldn’t be homeless for long. That I’d find a way to get us back home, or to start a new home. That she and the baby would be safe.
My mother was rattling around the kitchen, clanging pans, openly lamenting Marc’s utter lack of a twenty-quart stockpot.
Kaci sat at the card table with Holly and Michael, playing the Shifters home version of Fact or Fiction. “So…what about allergies?” Holly asked, as I stepped around a pillow someone had left on the floor and narrowly missed an open suitcase. “Is anyone ever allergic to you guys? Because of cat dander?”
I rolled my eyes, glad she seemed to be adjusting, and Kaci laughed. Michael chuckled softly. “I think our dander is mostly human.”
“Hey, how do you feel?” my mother asked, as I pulled my phone free of its cord on the kitchen counter. “You don’t look much better.”
“Thanks.” I forced a smile. She was right. The bruises around my eyes were darker than they’d been the day before, the side of my head was swollen and horrifically tender to the touch, and my rib felt like it was being recracked with every step I took. But my poor nose…The bridge was very puffy and discolored, and the only bright side I could find, after an extensive search, was that thanks to Dr. Carver, it wouldn’t heal crook
ed. “I feel like I got trampled by a bruin stampede, but I’ll be better after I’ve had a chance to Shift and shower.”
My mother opened her mouth, probably to tell me to be careful. But then she only closed her mouth and gave me a sad smile, and I could see in it everything she’d left unsaid—every consuming fear for me—and I loved her for both her concern and her restraint.
“I’ll be careful,” I said, and her smile developed, like one of those old Polaroids, suddenly brighter, where it had been gray before.
I dialed on the way back to the bedroom, waving a silent greeting to Kaci. She called my name, but before I could answer, my uncle was speaking into my ear. “Faythe?” I gave Kaci a one-minute finger, then ducked into the bedroom and closed the door on Marc and Jace before I realized they’d followed me down the hall.
“Did you get some rest?” Uncle Rick asked, as I sank gingerly into the desk chair and pressed the power button on Marc’s computer.
“More than I wanted. But I’m up and running now. I’m leaving tomorrow to recruit the thunderbirds, and I was thinking we could hit Kenton and his little toy soldiers on Monday morning. Before dawn, when they’re least expecting it. If you’re still with me.”
“I’m in. And so are Bert Di Carlo and Aaron Taylor. They’re standing by, waiting for word.”
“Awesome.”
“But, Faythe, Marc made it sound like you’d need a while to recuperate. Aren’t you moving a little too fast?”
“We’re running short on time and long on enemies, Uncle Rick,” I said, then glanced up when the bedroom door opened. “I’ll be fine by Monday.” Marc stepped in with a steaming mug of coffee, flavoring the air with French vanilla creamer. Jace was right behind him, carrying several turkey sandwiches on a paper plate.
My uncle sighed into my ear. “Okay. But we need to know for sure that Malone and the bulk of his men are still on the ranch before we move in. Otherwise, even if we remove Kenton from the picture, what’s to stop Malone from setting someone else up in his place?”