Tim was sweating in spite of the cold, and the scent was part fear, part adrenaline. But not enough fear. I leaned in closer, and the huff of breath from my nose blew his dark hair back. I sank my claws through his thick camo jacket and into flesh. He flinched, and when his mouth dropped open in surprise, I saw blood staining his teeth.
I sniffed while he shook in terror beneath me. The blood was Robyn’s. The bastard had
The entire world bled to red. I lunged, and the next few seconds were a series of unfocused, disconnected sensations. My teeth sank through something firm and warm. Tim jerked beneath me. I tossed my head, and flesh tore with a satisfying
Someone screamed.
I backed off the body, cleaning my muzzle out of long-term hunting habit, and looked up to find Robyn staring at me, huddled against the side of the nearest tent, shrieking uncontrollably. Her jacket lay on the ground to her left and she clutched the remains of her torn shirt to her chest, but the bloody bite mark on her right shoulder was exposed.
Without thinking, I stepped toward her, confused by my simultaneous human need to comfort her and my cat’s inclination to first clean the fresh blood from my fur.
Robyn screamed harder at my approach, going hoarse now, so I stopped, physically shaking myself to clear my head. To fend off encroaching bloodlust and cling to my ill-fitting human logic. She was bitten, but otherwise unharmed. She’d be fine, physically.
I turned away from Robyn, forcing myself to ignore that small part of me that wanted to chase her, just because she wanted to run. My roommate wasn’t prey. But the men who’d hurt her were.
Steve stood where I’d left him, his back to the fire, his white-knuckled fist still clenching a bloody knife. He watched me carefully, steadily, blade held ready, and again I saw too little fear to suit me. He’d have to be either stupid or insane to openly challenge a giant cat, and frankly, I was hoping he was both.
I growled, and for one surreal moment, I wondered if he could see the other me peeking through my greenish cat eyes. The human me, who’d once suffered what he and his friends had tried to deal out. That Abby couldn’t fight back, but this Abby could and would.
Steve’s blood whooshed rapidly through his veins. His eyes were bright and glossy with exhilaration. His arm tensed. He raised the knife for a strike, but I saw it coming.
I swatted the blade from his hand with my front paw, and my blow swung him around. He went down a foot from the campfire, but was up in an instant.
“Good kitty…,” he whispered, his voice low and steady, both hands spread in a defensive posture as I growled. He glanced over me, and a sudden scuffle at my back made my fur stand on end. I leapt to the side, but was too late to completely avoid the blow. Billy’s huge knife slashed across my front right leg, several inches from my shoulder.
I hissed, and suddenly the blood-scent on the air had a new flavor. My flavor.
Dani scooted away from Billy. I took a step forward, trying to drive the men closer together, where I could see them both, but my injured leg half collapsed beneath me. I couldn’t walk on it. Not for long anyway.
Steve noticed the limp, and I could see him assessing his chances. He had a real shot at survival now, and he knew it. He backed slowly toward the tent and hauled Robyn up by one arm. She screamed again. I limped forward, hissing, but before I could attempt another pounce, he glanced behind me, at Billy.
“We can’t bring them both,” he said. “Do her.”
“No!” Dani shouted, and her shuffling grew frantic. She understood before I did.
I whirled to see him haul Dani up by one arm. She dug her heels into the dirt, trying to pull free. I stepped toward them, and my leg folded again. Billy shoved his knife into her stomach and dragged it up through her flesh. Dani’s eyes went wide, and her mouth fell open. I roared in grief and outrage. He let go, and she collapsed onto the dirt, blood pouring from the gaping hole in her torso.
“Stay, kitty…,” Steve said, slowly pulling Robyn toward the woods. Robyn glanced from me to Dani, then to Billy, whose bloody knife glinted in the firelight. But she didn’t make a sound this time, nor did she fight his grip.
Billy circled me slowly, leaving plenty of room between us. He held his knife ready, and though I growled the whole time, I didn’t pounce again. And he didn’t expect me to. A natural-born cat—they probably thought I was a melanistic jaguar—would never chase three healthy humans into the woods on an injured leg, when there were three fresh bodies to eat right there in the clearing. And there would soon be a fourth.
Dani was still breathing, but it wouldn’t be long, and I couldn’t let her die alone. Especially since I couldn’t reasonably rescue Robyn. Not in cat form, anyway. Not when I couldn’t put weight on my injured front leg.
Steve backed into the trees, pulling a shocked-silent Robyn with him, her face streaked with tears, her shirt streaked with blood. Billy stepped slowly out of the clearing on his side of the fire, and moments later, I heard him clomping through the underbrush toward Steve and Robyn. Then they headed through the woods together.
The last thing I heard before their footsteps faded from even my sensitive cat hearing was Billy’s whispered question, and Steve’s even softer reply.
“So, we’re giving up on Abby?”
“No way. We’ll regroup at the cabin.”
I huffed softly through my nose as I limped toward Dani. There was a cabin. And they were obviously expecting me—the human me, the only one they knew—to come back to the campsite. If they were planning to come back for me, the cabin must be close. I could track them. I could get Robyn back. But not until Dani was gone. And not until I’d made a phone call.
Triple homicide in a werecat territory, involving a werecat tabby, was definitely a notify-your-local-Alpha situation.
Even mortally wounded, Dani tried to scoot away from me as I approached. She was dying, and she knew it —I could see mortality gleaming in her eyes, along with reflected flames from the campfire—but she wasn’t eager to speed up the process by being eaten alive. And she had no reason to think I wouldn’t do just that.
I dropped my head as I limped forward, whining softly, trying everything I knew to look unthreatening. To show submissiveness and concern. But she didn’t stop struggling until I dropped onto the cold ground beside her and laid my chin on her leg.
“Wha—?” she began, but lacked the strength to finish even that one word. Her heartbeat had already begun to slow, and her chest was rattling. I didn’t want to leave her, but I couldn’t afford to let Robyn get too far away. And I still had to make that call. So I licked the back of her left hand—still bound to its mate—then scooted away from her to begin my Shift. And for the first time in my life, it didn’t matter that a human was about to witness the entire process.
My injured leg bent to spare it, I stood three feet from the fire, and its warmth was my only comfort in the face of exhaustion, grief, fear, and ever-deepening rage. The last time my life had been in danger, I’d been too scared to Shift, even for my own safety. Even with Faythe there to talk me through it.
Not this time. This time, the changes came almost too quickly to bear, my Shift fueled by an intense need to save Robyn and avenge my other friends. To unleash justice on men so like the ones who’d brought a violent end to my adolescence, robbing me of peace and security, along with my virginity.
My muscles tensed, bunching and stretching as they took on new shapes. My joints popped in and out of their sockets as, in my memory, I screamed “No!” over and over, until the weight pinning me to the ground stole my breath.
My paws flexed uncontrollably, aching as they stretched and reformed. My claws retracted into the tips of my fingers as, in my head, I clutched at my clothes, at the bars, at the edge of the bare mattress, desperate to make it stop. To hold myself together as long as possible.
My muzzle began to shorten, my gums throbbing as my teeth broadened, the feline points smoothing into rounded human edges. My jaws ached, as they’d once ached from screaming, then from trying not to scream, desperate not to give him the satisfaction.
My flesh began to itch as my fur receded, and in my mind, my skin burned—scalding water from the shower. I’d scrubbed and scrubbed, but couldn’t wash them off. Couldn’t clean down to the real me. The me I’d lost. The me they’d killed in that basement, in the shadow of the bars I still saw sometimes when I closed my eyes.
