“How much room do I have for my stuff? I have a few bags that are absolutely necessary, and a couple with clothes,” Chantal was saying as she walked into her living room where I was filling Knox in about the boot prints and Mammoth and Bomber being on top of the search outside. She stopped and I watched as fear washed over her face, draining it of color as she glanced at something over my shoulder. I turned to see the mantel, which had some pictures and keepsakes on it.
“What is it?” I asked as she slowly moved to stand before an empty spot.
“There used to be a picture here.” She swiped her hand across the empty area. “Me and my sisters when we were little girls,” she whispered. I didn’t have to tell her how important that was. It meant that whoever was behind her abduction knew she was a triplet. It meant that they either already knew exactly who and what she was, or that they were now after her sisters as a result of that picture. “Did I accidentally paint a target on my sisters’ backs?”
“No, babe,” I told her as I pulled her into my arms. “You didn’t do that. We don’t know why these guys even caught on to who and what you are. It could have been the other way around. Could just be a coincidence too. We don’t know, and I don’t want you going around with that image stuck in your head. We’ll discuss options when we get back to the clubhouse.”
She nodded her head into my shoulder. “About my stuff?”
“There’s plenty of room in the vehicle the prospect drove up here. You’ll still be on the back of my bike for the ride back.” As I mentioned that, there was a scuffle out front. We all took off running, except for Wooly and the prospect who stayed behind to guard Chantal.
Bomber had a cat pinned beneath him, fighting like mad to try to get free. The cat was a pure black panther that was snapping his teeth, trying to get hold of Bomber as he attempted to subdue the creature. It didn’t take long to do it with all of us pitching in. As soon as we had him tied up we quickly moved him into the condo to avoid eyes on us as we questioned the bastard.
“Who the fuck do we have here?” Knox asked the pissed off panther.
“Oh my God, that’s him!” Chantal cried out. “That’s the one who grabbed me.”
“Are you sure? I thought you didn’t see him,” Knox questioned.
“I didn’t. I smelled him.” My woman crinkled up her cute little nose in distaste. “Trust me, that’s the same one.”
“I’m pretty sure my woman just told us that you stink, fucker!” I taunted him. He wasted no time in changing to his human form then.
“She’s not your woman!” He snarled. “She’s meant for Raven.”
“Well, your little buddies tried to take her pelt in an alley in Kalamazoo, so apparently she was never going to make it to this Raven anyway.”
“No!” He hissed as the color drained from his face. “They said she escaped. I came looking for her. We were supposed to be protecting her.”
“If you meant to protect her, you shouldn’t have left her alone with two assholes who obviously knew exactly what she was.”
The man hung his head then. Then he sniffed the air and glared up at me. “You took her for your own?” His question was more accusation than anything.
“No, she chose me because she needed someone to save her from the mess you left her in.”
“Fuck!” he yelled. “I have to go. I have to let them know what happened. She was promised to Raven. They will not be happy about this.”
“Who the fuck are ‘they’ that you keep talking about?” Knox spat out at him.
“The council,” he hissed back. “Raven sits at the head, and you just fucked up,” he added while glaring at me.
“The council?” Mammoth asked.
“I think you fucked up and left her with some fuckers that couldn’t be trusted. One of them wasn’t even feline. He was a fucking vulture.”
The man’s head snapped back. “I did no such thing. I left her with Ward, a leopard.”
“She was with a leopard and a vulture when I got there. Either he was working the bird, you both were, or your man was taken out by the bird. Considering what was done to her was a two person job, and she told us there was a leopard and a vulture attempting to skin her pelt from her body, I’m guessing your cat sold you up river. This failure will fall on your shoulders, right?” I ventured the guess. I knew I was right the moment he mentioned the council though. There was a Council of Cats that met to discuss issues pertaining to feline shifters world-wide. They were to meet soon to discuss, once again, the possibility of coming out to the humans as a separate race. Many of our kind were tired of hiding who we were and what we could do.
“Why would this Raven want me?”
“You are one of the three,” the panther stated.
“My sisters?” she asked. The panther nodded. “You have my sisters?”
He shook his head then. “We had one, she is in hiding now after an attempt on her life. We were trying to avoid that with you when I came for you.”
“The other?” I asked after the third.
“We are still trying to locate her. I really must contact the council. They will not be happy to note that others have become involved.” He glanced wearily at Bomber, Wooly, and Mammoth. “How can you degrade your kind by working so closely with the likes of them?”
Let’s just say that in some circles, there was an elite, racist quality to the way things were conducted.
