“How do you know?”
“I know because in the very darkest part of my post-infection period, I wanted to kill the people responsible—the need was so strong I could hardly think about anything else—but I never went outside naked, unless I was on four paws. I might have been on the edge of sanity, but I wasn’t crazy. And neither is Corey Morris. In fact, he seemed pretty coherent a couple of hours ago.”
“Okay.” I tried not to sound too impressed by her empathy and understanding. “So he’s probably covered in fur. Where would he go?”
“That depends on why he left. He could have been hungry, especially so soon after shifting. Maybe he went out to hunt.”
“But there’s more meat in the fridge. I told him to help himself.”
“Yes.” She stood and glanced across the basement at the kitchenette. “But if he can’t control his shifts yet and got stuck in cat form, he may not have been able to open the refrigerator.”
“Well, if he went into the woods, we’ll find him eventually.”
“Or he’ll wander out of the forest on the other side and be spotted by motorists. Or hunters.” She frowned as she rounded the table, her gaze narrowed on something behind one of the chairs. “Was Corey wearing a coat when he got here?” She squatted, then stood with a dark green quilted jacket.
The shredded remains of one, anyway.
“No, that’s mine.” Damn it. And it was my favorite.
Robyn held the scraps of material to her face. “It’s covered in both your scent and his. Why would Corey tear up your jacket?”
“I have no idea.” But that did not bode well for my attempts to bond with the new stray.
“When was he last seen?” Robyn asked.
“I saw him a couple of hours ago. I don’t think anyone else was down here after me, until Spencer brought his dinner.”
“And the doors were unlocked?”
“Of course. We don’t lock up new strays unless they’re dangerous, in more than a reactionary sense.”
“Meaning…?”
“Meaning new strays will often snap at or strike out at people who get too close, but if they’re not aggressive when given their own space, locking them up only makes things worse,” I explained. She seemed both relieved and frustrated by the answer. “We’ve never lost one before,” I added. “Most new strays seem comforted by the scents of their peers and wary of striking off on their own, at least at first.”
“Well, Corey doesn’t seem to have been comforted by your scent.” She held my ruined jacket up for emphasis. “But even if he wasn’t locked in, the doors were still closed, right?”
“Yes, but you may have noticed that all of the doorknobs are actually levers.” I gestured at the one at the top of the stairs for emphasis. “After I was infected, I had the knobs all replaced so I could get in and out without thumbs.”
“So he had a bad reaction to your jacket, and he let himself out sometime in the past two hours.” Robyn looked up at me. “I assume he’s never been on or near your property before?”
I nodded. “Not that I know of. We’ve certainly never caught his scent around here.”
She exhaled heavily, a rare glimpse of defeat shadowing her blue eyes. “I think it might be time to get your property grids. How much land do you have here, anyway?”
“Twenty acres, all unfenced. Half of it wooded.” I followed Robyn up the stairs and through the guesthouse, my gaze focused on the jacket she still held, while I tried not to notice the sway of her hips. Or think about her hand, warm in mine in the dish water.
Why would Morris shred my jacket?
In the main house, I headed for my office, then turned to ask Robyn a question, but she was gone. She was getting really good at stealth. “Robyn?”
“In here!”
I followed the sound of her voice to the utility room, where I found her standing over an overturned basket of unwashed clothes. “Did you stop for an emergency rinse cycle?”
Robyn knelt and lifted a gray workout shirt by its collar. I could see the far wall through the huge rips in the material. “I assume this is yours? And this?” In her spare hand, she pulled the matching pair of equally shredded running shorts from the basket.
“Yeah. You think he came in the house just to tear up more of my clothes?”
“That’s what it looks like.” She stood, my shredded clothing still dangling from her grip. “Why would he do that, Titus?”
“I don’t know.” I took the clothes from her and dropped them onto the pile, then tugged her up by one hand, glad for a legitimate excuse to touch her. “But he’s angry, and he may still be in the house. I want you to stay here while I search—”
Her eyes widened. “I think I know where he is!” She stepped past me and took off down the hall, and I had to jog to catch up with her.
“Wait! Where are you going?”
“He’s destroying things that smell like you. He’s probably in your room.”
“Shit.” I overtook her on the stairs and raced past half a dozen doors to my suite at the end of the hall, on the right. But then I stood in front of the double doors for a minute, listening.
I heard nothing. No scratching. No growling. If Morris was in there, he wasn’t actively damaging anything.
As Robyn stopped at my side, I inhaled deeply through my nose, but with the doors closed, all I could smell was her, and I found her scent very distracting, in the best—and worst—way.
“Step away,” I whispered. But Robyn didn’t move, and I was starting to understand that she wouldn’t move unless I moved her.
Instead, I opened the door.
Corey Morris sat on the floor at the end of my bed, naked and wet, and dripping on the hardwood. He smelled like my shampoo and fresh water, and he held one of my shirts in his lap. His eyes were shiny with tears, but his jaw was clenched in anger.
The door to my bathroom stood open, and a series of wet footprints showed his path across the room to where he sat.
What the hell…?
“Corey?” Robyn spoke softly, like one might speak to a spooked horse, but she didn’t try to enter the room. “Are you okay? What’s going on?”
Morris’s focus locked on me, as if he hadn’t even heard her. “Why would you bring me here? Why pretend to help me?”
“I’m not pretending.” As I watched, a drop of water fell from his hair onto his arm, then rolled onto the floor. “I truly want to help you. We all do.”
“You’re lying!” Morris shouted, and Robyn flinched. I stepped in front of her, instinctively shielding her.
Traumatized or not, Corey Morris needed a reality check. “I don’t know why you would say that, and I don’t know why you’re in my room right now.” Or why he’d obviously showered in my bathroom. I took one firm step over the threshold. “We need to get you back to bed, so Spencer can examine you. It sounds like your fever’s back.” I could think of no other explanation for his certainty that though we’d treated his illness and I’d talked him through his first shift, I was only pretending to care about him.
“You’re everywhere.” Morris didn’t seem to notice that I’d entered the room. He lifted my shirt to his face and inhaled, then threw it across the floor. “No matter where I go, I smell you. You’re all over me, and I can’t wash you off!”
On the edge of my vision, Robyn turned to me, and though I couldn’t see her expression, I was sure it reflected my own horror. I’d never touched Corey Morris, yet he seemed to believe he was somehow covered in my scent. As if he’d been wearing my clothes or rolling around in my bed.
His strange delusion made my skin crawl.
“It could be transference,” Robyn whispered as she stepped up to my side. “Like, a misapplication of emotion or aggression. There was some discussion after my trial theorizing that I had ‘transferred’ my hostility toward the cat who accidentally infected me onto the human men I killed. That was total bullshit. My hostility toward those murdering bastards was aimed right where it b
elonged. But it could be a legitimate problem here.”
“Why?” I studied Morris, trying to understand. “How?”
“Maybe you did your job too well? I know you were trying to bond with him, but if he smelled too much of your scent too early and began to associate it with the pain of shifting—or with his fever—he could be subconsciously blaming you for what happened to him.”
I shook my head slowly. “Nothing like that has ever happened before. And this doesn’t look very subconscious.” In fact, it looked bizarrely, inappropriately conscious.
“Corey?” Robyn turned to the stray. “What happened to you wasn’t Titus’s fault. He’s trying to help you. He’s your Alpha now, and that’s what they do.”
I glanced at her in surprise. Her previous statements about Alphas hadn’t been anywhere near as flattering.
Robyn sank onto her knees and sat on her heels, putting herself at the same height as Morris. “We all want to help you. We’ve all been where you are. Do you remember me telling you about how I was infected?”
Morris nodded, and more water fell from his hair. “You killed the men responsible.”
“Yes, and Titus and his men are going to find the shifter who did this to you. He will be dealt with.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Morris’s frown looked almost coherent. As if Robyn were the one not making sense. “Is this some kind of sick game? Why would you people bring me here? To him?” His tortured focus found me again, and it felt accusatory.
Robyn turned to me, her brows drawn low. “He seems to be blaming you for all of this. We need to get him back to bed, and maybe give him a sedative.”
I nodded. I wasn’t sure a sedative would cure Morris’s delusion, but at least it would give us time to figure out what had gone wrong with his adjustment.
“Let’s get you something to wear.” Robyn started to stand, then turned to me instead. “He probably shouldn’t wear something that smells like you. Ideas?”
“There’s a clean robe hanging on my bathroom door,” I told her. “I haven’t worn it yet.”
Morris’s gaze followed Robyn nervously as she walked past him into the bathroom. A second later, she brought out the robe, and even from my position in the doorway, I could smell the fabric softener used on it. “Okay, Corey.” She sank onto her knees and draped the robe over his shoulders. “We’re going to take you to the basement and Titus is going to call Spencer to come take a look at you. Okay?”
“As long as he stays back.” Morris’s anger was like a knife to my gut. I’d helped at least a dozen strays acclimate to their new lives in the past year, and none of the others had blamed me for what happened to them. I’d had varying levels of success in the bonding department, but my efforts had never backfired before.
How could I be an effective Alpha to a man who hated the very sight—and scent—of me?
“Fine.” I stepped away from my own bedroom door. “You can deal with Robyn and Spencer for now.”
Robyn gave me a relieved smile as she helped Morris slide his arms into the robe sleeves, and I realized how lucky the new stray and I both were to have her around at that moment. She genuinely wanted to help him, and he seemed willing to let her. She was just as good at this as I was.
Maybe better.
“Let me help you up.” Robyn looped one of her arms around his and started to stand. Then she froze, her face inches from the stray’s bare neck. “He smells different.” Her wide-eyed gaze caught mine. “I’ve never met a stray before his scent changed before. This is fascinating! He smells like—” The light in her eyes died beneath a confused frown. She backed slowly away from the stray and rose to her feet with a cat’s effortless grace. “Titus, he smells like you.”
“I know. He’s been all over my clothes and he showered with my shampoo.” I gestured one-handed toward the wet footprints leading from the bathroom. “Can you get him to stand up?”
“No.” Gravity echoed in her voice as Robyn’s gaze narrowed on me. “He doesn’t smell like your clothes or your shampoo. He smells like you. That ribbon of his infector’s scent braided through his is you, Titus.”
ELEVEN
Robyn
“What?” Titus crossed the floor toward us as if shock had obliterated any trace of the Alpha’s typical caution.
Corey Morris scooted away from him frantically, but Titus dropped into a squat at his side. He inhaled deeply, and his bearing changed in an instant. Tension tightened his entire body until I worried that his muscles would snap, like cords under too much pressure. “That’s not possible.”
“So you didn’t infect him? Then why does he smell like you?” I inhaled again, to verify what my nose was already sure of. “Why is he tearing up your clothes and showering to try to scrub your scent off himself?”
Titus moved slowly away from Corey, and I could see no sign that he’d even heard me. His eyes were wide and uncomprehending, his forehead furrowed, as if his features couldn’t decide whether to look shocked or confused.
“Titus?” I reached for him, but he stepped back. “What’s going on? Did you do this to him?”
His phone buzzed from his pocket and he blinked as he pulled it out, as if he’d just woken up from a long nap. “Drew and Knox are heading home. I need you to take Morris to the basement while I clean this up.” His gaze followed the trail of footprints.
“Titus, what’s happening?” I whispered, while Corey watched us warily from several feet away.
“Get him to the basement,” he repeated, and his expression was suddenly as featureless as a concrete wall. He’d thrown a shield over his thoughts and shut me out. “Now.” Then he disappeared into the bathroom and closed the door.
“Okay.” My heart pounded, not from exertion, but in sympathy and synchronicity with the stress Titus was emitting like radiation from a cracked reactor.
As if he were my Alpha.
Despite the evidence, Titus seemed to have no idea why Corey Morris carried an unmistakable, if faint trace of his scent.
“Come on, Corey, let’s get you to bed.” I gave him my hand and was relieved when he let me help him up.
“What’s going on, Robyn?” he asked as I looped my arm through his and guided him toward the hall.
“I’m not sure. But I am sure that this isn’t what it looks like.” It couldn’t be. Titus was completely shocked by Corey’s post-shift scent.
I escorted Corey down the stairs, through the kitchen and into the guesthouse, inhaling deeply through my nose, hoping with each breath to discover that I’d been mistaken. That he wasn’t really carrying Titus’s scent.
But he was. He couldn’t escape it, and neither could I.
I got Corey to rest on the bed in his cell, and while I was pouring him a glass of water from the pitcher in the fridge, the front door squealed open upstairs. Boots clomped on the steps, and I was surprised to realize I could already recognize the cadence of Titus’s footsteps.
“I need you to go get Drew from the main house,” Titus whispered. “Just Drew. Do you understand?”
I nodded, though I understood little of what was happening.
I found Drew in the kitchen with Knox, Spencer, and Brandt, brewing a pot of coffee. I tossed my head toward the door I’d just come through without breaking eye contact, and Drew followed me out onto the patio.
“Titus needs to see you. But only you,” I whispered, when Brandt’s focus followed us through the kitchen window.
Drew took off down the tiled walkway leading around the pool, leaving me to follow.
In the basement of the guest house, Drew followed his Alpha’s focus to Corey Morris, who sat on his bed, his wary gaze trained on Titus. “What—”
“It’s his scent.” Titus no longer looked confused. His voice was low and steady. He sounded…resigned to some inevitability I couldn’t yet understand.
Drew stepped into the cage and approached the new stray carefully. He inhaled deeply through his nose, then he coughed, practically
choking on the scent in shock. “Titus…” he turned to face his Alpha, eyes wide. “What the hell happened? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“It’s not what it looks like. Er…what it smells like,” I said, and Drew turned to me with one brow raised. “Titus didn’t do this.”
“It’s exactly what it looks like.” The Alpha sank into a chair at the table and poured whiskey into his coffee mug from a half-full bottle he’d evidently found while I’d fetched Drew. “I have a decision to make, and I need your advice.”
“Wait, what are you talking about?” I asked as Drew sat next to Titus at the table, but neither of them seemed to hear me.
“The council will find out, and they’ll never recognize our Pride with me as Alpha. Not now.” Titus tried to screw the lid on the whiskey, but Drew took it from him and gulped straight from the bottle. “We need to do some serious damage control.”
“This doesn’t even make sense.” I slid into a chair across the table from him. “Cory was infected on Thursday night. Where were you on Thursday?” Maybe his alibi would at least contradict the evidence.
“I took a patrol. Alone. I needed time to think before the meeting in Atlanta.”
Okay, no luck there. “But I saw your face when you caught Corey’s scent. You were shocked. What’s going on, Titus?”
Finally, Drew looked at me. Then he turned to his Alpha. “What’s she talking about?”
“Nothing.” Titus leveled a serious gaze at me. “I’m not going to ask you to leave, because the others would try to interrogate you about this meeting. But this is none of your business, Robyn.” His tone was polite, but firm.
I had clench my jaw against an argument. Because he was right. Still…
“Maybe if we explain the circumstances,” Drew said, already back on topic. “It was self-defense, right? Or an accident? We all know you’d never infect someone on purpose. The Pride will stand behind you.”
I stared at Drew, puzzled by their DEFCON 1 reaction. I knew better than most how strong the council’s responses could be, but they wouldn’t act without a trial. Titus would get a chance to tell his side of the story.