Stray

However, even with civilized customs in place and a support system of enforcers, the Alpha had to be a strong leader in order to keep the respect and loyalty of his Pride. A weak Alpha wasn’t Alpha for long, even in the modern world. By contrast, like my father, Marc would have been a great Alpha.

Marc-in-the-picture looked so young, so happy. He was a triple threat: strong, charismatic and beautiful. Helen’s face may have launched a thousand ships, but Marc’s had sunk at least as many hearts, one of them mine.

When I’d asked him to choose, he’d picked the Pride over me. He wouldn’t get a chance to do it twice.

As he’d pointed out, I’d left, and just because he’d dragged me home didn’t mean I would stay there.

I turned from the photograph to the live version, for the first time noticing tiny age lines in the outside corners of his eyes. “I’m sorry, Marc,” I said, suddenly compelled to apologize, in spite of refusing to do so earlier. “I’m sorry about the way I left. And I’m sorry about your leg. But nothing’s changed, so please don’t make this any harder by refusing to believe me.”

He stared at me for almost a minute, as if waiting for me to break down and admit I was lying. Then, finally, he nodded, his face hardening with resolve. “Fine.” His eyes glazed over with the unreadable expression he wore at work, the one that reflected my own feelings but revealed none of his own. He’d cast me out and put up his defenses.

It was about time.

Marc pushed my chair back up to the desk. “You’ve always been stubborn, and I don’t know why I thought that might have changed.”

I smiled, more comfortable on familiar terrain. “I don’t know either.”

“Let’s just try to be civil to each other.”

“I’ve never been less than civil to you, Marc.”

He snorted, pulling his hands from his pockets in feigned exasperation. “What do you call slapping away my hand when I tried to comfort you?”

“Bad judgment?” I admitted, flushing with embarrassment.

“Damn right.” He didn’t smile, but the line of his jaw softened just a little; it wasn’t often I admitted to being wrong. “Let’s go eat.” He opened the door and gestured for me to go in front of him.

“You go ahead.” I picked at the edge of my comforter. “I’m not hungry anymore.”

“Yes, you are. Stop pouting. You’re hungry, so go eat.”

“You gonna make me?” I asked, trying to make it sound like a joke.

“If I have to.” Marc limped toward me with a determined edge to his lopsided gait. He reached for my arm again, but this time I dodged his grip. I was learning too.

“Okay, okay. I’m going.”

I smiled as I marched down the hall, convinced I was going of my own volition, in spite of the large tomcat walking at my back. Like I said, I find comfort in the familiar.

Eight

I polished off two burgers in spite of the tension. It takes a lot to get in the way of a cat’s appetite, and even Jace couldn’t screw up a hamburger. When the food was gone, we flipped a quarter to see who had to clean up. Owen lost a coin toss to Jace and got stuck doing the dishes. Ethan lost to Parker and wound up wiping down the cabinets and cleaning the stove. Marc was excused because of his injury.

No one asked me to lift a finger. I think they were afraid of losing a foot to my temper. It was kind of nice to be feared for once. Almost as nice as being respected. From what I can imagine, anyway.

I left the guys in the kitchen and wandered into my father’s office. In spite of our strained relationship, I was more comfortable in his sanctuary than anywhere else on the ranch. It was dark and kept just a little cooler than the rest of the house, and always made me think of evenings spent playing Candy Land or reading the Sunday-morning funny pages from my father’s lap.

As a little girl, I’d known of no more comfortable place to sleep than on Daddy’s love seat, and that was where I found myself, curled up with my knees touching my chest and my head resting against the cool leather cushion. The scent of leather conditioner brought to mind countless times I’d sat there in years past, listening in as my father conducted council business over the phone. I’d dripped jelly from my biscuit onto the cushion once when I was seven, and he hung up on the Alpha of the midplains territory to help me clean it up. I remember being awed by how important he’d made me feel.

But that was years ago, and a lot had changed since then.

I was almost asleep when the soft click of the door latch brought me instantly alert. My eyes flew open, frantically searching the dark room as my heart raced. Still lying on my side, I arched one arm over my head, fumbling on the glass end table for the lamp switch. My fingertips brushed over a notepad and a small, heavy statuette of a cat reared to pounce. But I couldn’t find the lamp.

Wood creaked beneath someone’s bare feet, but my human eyes couldn’t make out more than a man’s vague silhouette against the dim moonlight spilling in from the foyer.

Still feeling around on the table, I twisted silently onto my stomach, hoping for a better reach. Instead of the lamp, my fingers swept a path across my father’s marble-and-jade chess set, knocking off most of the hand-carved playing pieces.

“Shit,” I muttered, still stretching for the lamp as the last figures clattered to the floor. I held my breath, trying to determine from the sound whether any of them had broken. I couldn’t tell.

Another footstep whispered across the floor as the silhouette approached. I froze, sniffing the air. I identified his scent even as he spoke.

“Relax, it’s just me.”

Marc. Of course. “I’m not sure that’s any reason to relax,” I said, sagging with relief anyway. I let my head fall to rest against the arm of the love seat, my hand dangling above the chessboard. In two long steps, Marc was there, turning on the lamp.

I squinted against the sudden glare. “Why the hell were you sneaking up on me like that?” I demanded, frowning up at him. I pushed myself into a sitting position and glanced at the clock over the door. It was nearly three in the morning, and I couldn’t clearly remember why I’d come to Daddy’s office instead of just going to bed.

“I wasn’t sneaking up.”

“The hell you weren’t,” I snapped, swinging my feet onto the floor. My right foot came down on a chess piece, and I bent to pick it up. It was a jade rook, shaped like a traditional castle turret. And it was whole, thank goodness. I had no idea how to go about replacing one-of-a-kind chess pieces carved especially for my father by an associate in China. The artisan whose handiwork I’d sent crashing to the floor had died a decade before I was born.

“I need to talk to you.”

“Not now, Marc.” My voice was sleep-gruff and groggy. “I can’t deal with you anymore tonight.”

“It’s not about us.”

“Good, because there is no us.” The rook still nestled in my palm, I slid off the love seat and onto the floor to pick up the other pieces. Marc knelt across from me with the scattering of jade and marble figures between us, like slain soldiers on a miniature battlefield.

“I was supposed to go to Oklahoma tomorrow.”

“I know. Jace told me.” I set the rook on a corner square of the chessboard, next to a jade knight, a horse frozen in the act of tossing its mane.

“What did he say?”

“Just that you were supposed to check out a report about another stray.” I held a white marble bishop up to the light, looking for cracks. “Why?”

“Did he tell you who called it in?”

I shook my head slowly, suspiciously, my focus shifting from the bishop to Marc. Why should it matter who made the report?

“Danny Carver.”

I froze, my hand clenching around the cold marble, and met his eyes in dread. Dr. Carver. Shit. That means there’s a body.

Dr. Danny Carver was a tom born into one of the western Prides. When I was a kid, he worked as a part-time enforcer for my father as part of an agreement allowing him to complete his fellowship in forensic pathology at a school in our territory. He’d been a kind of last-minute backup, just for emergencies. After his fellowship, he’d taken a job as an assistant medical examiner in Oklahoma and my father had gladly accepted him as an adopted member of our Pride, just as he would later accept Jace, Vic, Parker, and several other toms now scattered across the territory.

After nearly ten years in the same office, Dr. Carver was promoted to senior assistant to the state medical examiner, which gave us a conveniently placed set of eyes and ears. We’d hoped never to have to use his position, and we’d been lucky for the most part. Until now.

“What happened?” I asked, my hand hovering over the prone form of a white pawn. I desperately didn’t want to know the answer, but I’d long since learned that ignorance was not really bliss. Not ever.

“They brought in a partially dismembered body yesterday morning,” Marc said.

I groaned, and let my hand fall into my lap, empty. I was supposed to be at school studying the classics, not at home hearing about abductions and dead bodies. This was the worst summer vacation ever.

When I realized he’d stopped talking, I glanced at Marc. He hooked one eyebrow at me like a facial question mark, and I nodded for him to continue as I picked up the pawn and set it on an empty square in the second row.

“The cops can’t figure out what happened to her, but their best guess so far is that she was attacked by some psychopath and left to die, then actually killed by a large wildcat. But it won’t take them long to measure the claw and bite marks and realize there shouldn’t be cats that big roaming wild in suburban Oklahoma. Or anywhere else in the U.S.”

My eyes were glued to his face as I waited for the rest, but nothing more came. “What happened to her?” I asked again, my hands tangled together in my lap. He was avoiding the details of the crime, probably hoping to spare me from the specifics. Far from finding that considerate, I found it annoying. If I needed to know, I’d rather get it all over with at once.

“There were finger-size bruises on her thighs and more mixed in with claw marks on her neck. Danny thinks he raped her, then Shifted to tear out her throat.” Marc glanced away, but I caught a glimpse of raw fear and outrage in his eyes before he could lower them. “Then he ripped into her stomach.”

My breath caught in my throat as I choked on my own horror. A jade pawn slipped from my fingers. Marc’s hand shot out, almost too fast to see, and the pawn fell into his palm before it could hit the floor.

That poor girl, I thought, watching as he carefully placed the piece on the chessboard in line with its comrades. I cleared my throat, drawing his eyes back to mine. “How old?”

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