Pride (18 page)

Dr. Carver frowned. “I’m afraid that won’t make her very easy to care for. Or very willing to cooperate.”

“That’s better than having anyone else injured.” Uncle Rick leaned against the kitchen door frame. “We need all the able-bodied toms we can get right now, so no one goes into the tabby’s room alone. Understood?”

We all nodded, but Dr. Carver looked just as frustrated as I felt. And something told me the tabby wouldn’t take the news any better.

“F
aythe!” A cold hand touched my arm as a whispered breath brushed my ear. “Faythe, wake up.”

My eyes opened, then closed when they met only darkness. The sun wasn’t up yet, and neither was I. Instead of answering, I snuggled closer to the warm body pressed against my chest, stomach, and legs, too tired to care who I’d curled up next to, since I was still fully clothed.

“Faythe, come on!” the voice whispered again, begging that time.

I sucked in a deep breath to give the rest-stealer a piece of my mind, but froze instead when the scent of the body in front of me penetrated my exhausted, medicated brain.

Jace?
I’d slept in
Jace’s
bed? Or had he slept in mine?

Either way, this was very, very bad. My father was going to have
kittens
when he found out, which wouldn’t be long, considering someone had just discovered us together. If I was going to screw everything up by sleeping with Jace, I should at
least
have some really hot memories to balance out my father’s fury. Not to mention Marc’s…

Wait. If I’d spent the night with Jace, why was I still
dressed? And why couldn’t I remember what we’d done? More important, would I get away with blaming this on the pain pills?

“Faythe…”

“I’m up,” I mumbled, rubbing sleep from my eyes. I rolled onto my back carefully, then went still again as a warm, heavy arm draped across my ribs. From my
other
side.

Who the hell is
that?

One whiff gave me the answer.
Marc.
I was in bed with Marc
and
Jace?
I should sure as
hell
have some memory of that!

Wait… Whose bed were we in? And more important, what the
hell
was I thinking?

Moving slowly this time, I completed my rollover and my cousin Lucas’s red curls came into focus, backlit with light from the living room. As soon as I saw him, the requisite memories slid into place, along with a pang of mild disappointment.

Nothing bad had happened with Marc and Jace—nothing good either, for that matter—and we were in Nate’s bed. Nate and his roommate were on the nightshift in the woods, still searching for the strays and the missing humans.

The young tabby had still been unconscious when my father was ready to retire for the evening, so I’d asked to stay in the lodge. I wanted to be there when she woke up because she would no doubt be frightened by the strange surroundings and the gaggle of unknown toms ready to hold her down and sedate her.

My father let me stay at the lodge because Marc and Jace said they’d stay with me, and Nate and his roommate offered us their room. And because Dr. Carver had removed my stitches an hour earlier, proclaiming my recovery to be right on schedule. But since the guys wouldn’t sleep in the same bed, and neither were willing to let the other sleep in
my
bed, we wound up snuggled together on the two twin mattresses, pushed together to form one big bed. Another potential catastrophe averted by a werecat’s affinity for lying around in big piles.

Naturally, I got stuck on the crack in the middle.

“What’s wrong?” I whispered, blinking sleep from my eyes as I removed Marc’s arm carefully to keep from waking him.

“Dr. Carver’s asking for you. The tabby woke up again.”

Sleep fog drained from my body, leaving me alert and cold. I was up in an instant, using my werecat’s balance and stealth to crawl from the bed without disturbing either of the toms sandwiching me. Or reopening my own half-healed wounds.

Standing, I straightened my shirt and tugged my jeans into place, staring in regret at the bed I’d just left. It wasn’t every day I got to sleep between two such yummy morsels of masculinity, and part of me wanted to crawl right back between them. But the rest of me was too curious about the strange young tabby to give up the chance to see her while everyone else was sleeping.

I trailed Lucas into the living room, then detoured into the bathroom before following him upstairs, where Dr. Carver waited in the hall outside her bedroom. “When did she wake up?”

The doc rubbed the bandage on his arm absently. “I heard her moving around about half an hour ago, but I just listened for a while, because she was pacing.” A pacing werecat is either nervous or upset—or both—and
not
to be approached. “When she settled down, I opened the door a crack. She was curled up in one corner, and she started hissing at me. I told her who I am, and that I wasn’t going to hurt her. But when I tried to open the door farther, she started hissing and growling.”

“I take it she hasn’t Shifted yet?”

“No. I asked her to, but I can’t even tell if she understands me. She just stares at me and swishes her tail.” He paused, and tucked his injured arm behind his back, as if out of sight really meant out of mind. “Anyway, I thought the scent of another tabby might help calm her down…”

My pulse spiked in excitement. “You want me to go in with
you guys?” I’d never expected to get more than another peek at her until the Alphas had pronounced her safe to approach.

“No.”

I twisted to find Marc on the top step, Lucas towering over him from behind, though he was one tread lower.

Marc marched toward us, censure heavy in each step. “Faythe’s still recovering from a serious injury, and she is
not
going to get another one on my watch.”

Irritated, I propped both hands on my hips. “I can speak for myself.”

He nodded. “So long as you say something sensible.”

Before I could start yelling, Dr. Carver cleared his throat to get our attention. “Marc…” His fingers picked uneasily at the edge of his bandage. “We need to know who the tabby is, and I don’t think she’ll talk to any of the toms. But more important, she needs food and medical treatment, and I doubt she’ll take either until she feels safe. I can’t even get her to Shift. Faythe is probably the only one of us she’ll trust, at least at first.”

“Then go get Greg’s permission.” Marc stopped three feet from the doctor, clearly prepared to stand his ground. “He’ll see your point, and probably go in there with you both.”

Carver sighed, and suddenly looked very tired. “I’m afraid she won’t cooperate—even with Faythe—with the rest of us standing around ready to knock her out the first time she twitches. She needs to feel safe, not threatened.”

My blood raced, my skin tingling in excitement. He wanted me to go in alone!

“Absolutely
not
.” Marc’s eyes went hard. “He’d never let Faythe confront a feral cat alone while she’s still injured from her last adventure.”

The doc closed his eyes briefly, then opened them to meet Marc’s. “Exactly.”

“And if
I
let her, he’ll have my head.” Since Marc was the senior ranking enforcer present, in theory, if he gave me an
order, I’d have to follow it. Of course, in practice that didn’t always work out very well—for
him
. “And there’s no telling what the rest of the council would do. I value
both
of our lives too much to risk finding out.”

“What about
her
life?” Dr. Carver tossed his head toward the closed bedroom door. “That tabby’s emaciated and dangerously dehydrated. She has a concussion and an infected laceration on one paw. She needs food, water and medical attention. Immediately. If you wake Greg up, he’ll say no out of an understandable but overprotective need to keep his daughter safe. But the tabby’s the one who will suffer.”

“So you’re willing to risk Faythe’s life to help some cat you don’t even know?”

I gaped at Marc, surprised by how callous he sounded. “She’s not just
some cat
. She’s practically a child. A sick, scared child who probably has no idea where she is or how she got here.” Not to mention the fact that she was a tabby. Some Alpha’s
daughter
. And whoever her father was, he would
not
be pleased to know we let her suffer, especially out of cowardice.

When Marc appeared unmoved by my argument, Dr. Carver stepped in again, the dim light from the hall fixture shining on his short brown beard. “Faythe won’t be in any real danger, Marc. We’ll be right here with tranquilizers, and if anything goes wrong, we can sedate the tabby and get Faythe out immediately.”

“Why don’t you just shoot her up now and force her Shift?” Marc asked.

“Because I need her responsive to properly treat her. I don’t have the supplies for an IV with me, so she’ll need to take liquids and medication orally. If I
have
to knock her out again, I will, but I’m leaving that as a last resort.”

Finally, I saw conflict in Marc’s eyes. It wasn’t that he didn’t care about the tabby, but that he cared too much about
me to let me risk injury—even to help a scared young woman. But I couldn’t leave her alone and suffering, even long enough for the Alphas to argue their way to a decision. My mind kept returning to the memory of my cousin Abby, alone and scared in a basement prison, and I just couldn’t do it.

I turned my back on Marc to face the doc. “What do you need me to do? Get her to Shift?”

Dr. Carver nodded. “For starters. Then talk her into letting me treat her. And her name would come in handy too.”

“Got it.”

Marc scowled, an impressive imitation of my father. “Faythe…”

I whirled on him, irritation sparking in my veins. “I’m going in there to help her. You can either stay here and watch my back—and you know there’s no one I trust more—or you can go tattle and get us all in trouble.”

“The shit will hit the fan anyway, once the Alphas wake up. You’re just delaying the inevitable.”

“Precisely. By the time they find out, the tabby will be eating breakfast—in human form—and ready to spill her guts. And I’ll be safe and sound. That has to count for something.”

Marc sighed, and I knew I’d won. He’d just told my father that I needed to take on more responsibility, and he wasn’t about to go tattle on me now for doing that very thing. “I’ll be right here listening, and if she takes so much as a
step
in your direction, I’m pulling you out of there, so stay clear of the door. Got it?”

I nodded. “Fine.”

“And you’re going to take something to defend yourself with. Where’s that damn meat mallet?” He glanced pointedly at Lucas, who took off immediately for the stairs.

“Stop it, Lucas.” I glared at Marc. “She’s never going to trust anyone who comes in wielding a weapon.”

Marc rubbed his forehead, as if staving off a headache. “At least take one of those damn tranquilizers.”

“Done.” I could live with that. “Where…?”

Dr. Carver pulled a red-capped syringe from the pocket of his khakis and set it in my outstretched palm. “Loaded and ready to go,” he said as I slipped the slim needle into the hip pocket of my jeans. “Be careful not to break it.”

“No problem.”

I reached for the doorknob, and the first threads of doubt wound through me, in spite of my bravado for Marc’s sake. Even the smallest, least experienced tabby cat in the world could do serious damage to an unarmed human if provoked. Dr. Carver’s arm was proof of that. Sucking in a deep breath, I wrapped my hand around the knob. “Here goes nothing.”

I turned the knob, pushed open the door, and stepped into the room, pleased to note that Dr. Carver had left the light on. No furry black blur leapt out of nowhere to maul me, so I exhaled in relief and closed the door.
So far, so good.

For a moment, I stood still and silent, taking in the two twin beds, each beneath a small window, and identical plywood nightstands. Between the beds was a bare strip of wall and an oval braided rug. Against opposite walls sat cheap matching dressers, one for each theoretical occupant. Other than that, the room looked empty. The tabby was either under one of the beds or in the closet.

As the sound of my own rushing pulse faded from my ears, it was replaced by a low-pitched rumbling sound. The tabby was growling at me.

Suddenly I wished I’d knocked before opening the door. I didn’t like it when people walked into my bedroom unannounced, so why should she?

“Um…hi,” I said, still scanning the apparently empty room. “Where are you? Under the bed?” I took a step forward, and reached to lift the blanket draping the nearest bed, but before I
could, the growling grew louder and its source moved. She wasn’t under the bed; she was between it and the right-hand wall.

One more step forward, and I could see her. She lay curled up in the corner, every muscle tense, her head high and alert. Her ears swiveled in my direction, to best catch the sounds of my approach. With each breath, her chest rose and fell, ribs standing out in the glare from the light overhead.

I squatted slowly, to put myself on her level, and big greenish eyes followed my movement. “My name is Faythe, and I’d really like to help you. Can I get you anything? Something to eat?” She
had
to be hungry.

Though her eyes never left my face, the tabby stopped growling, and I took that as a sign she understood me.
Love, my ass. The international language is
food.

Encouraged by the fact that she hadn’t yet tried to kill me, I took another step forward—then froze in place when her growl rumbled back to life.

Okaaaayy, we’ll take it very slooowly
.

“You know, this would be much easier if you would Shift. That way you could actually
tell
me what you want to eat. Or your name. Or exactly how far you’d like me to shove this olive branch up my ass.”

The tabby snorted. She was laughing! “Aaaah, you
do
understand me.” I smiled, and pride bubbled up inside me.
I bet Dr. Carver didn’t get her to laugh. Or even listen.
“So what do you say about Shifting? If you’re worried about your clothes, I’m sure I have something you can wear for now.”

The tabby’s eyes narrowed, an oddly human gesture, but perfectly understandable, especially once she cocked her head to one side. “You don’t understand me?” I paused, as another possibility occurred to me. “Or you don’t like what I’m saying… Is it the clothes? You don’t want to wear my clothes?”