Pride (16 page)

Of course, like “be good,” “mind your own business,” and “play nice with the boys,” “light exercise” was open to interpretation. Right?

S
tretchy red boyshorts slid down my legs to land inside my pajama pants, already pooled on the ground around my feet. Tempering my eagerness with a slow breath of caution, I stretched my arms over my head, pulling my pajama top along for the ride. It landed with my other clothes, and I shivered as the frigid breeze brushed my goose-pimply skin. It wasn’t every evening I stood naked in the mountains.

On either side of me, Marc and Jace were well into their respective transformations, writhing on all fours among dead leaves and cold dirt.

Teeth chattering, I glanced over my shoulder at our cabin, easily visible through gaps in the bare branches. We’d stopped a few feet into the woods so that if anything went wrong, the doc wouldn’t have to go far for help. In fact, he’d only have to shout, because my father’s silhouette was clearly outlined in the front window, holding a mug-shaped shadow.

“Ready?” Dr. Carver asked, and I turned to face both him and the Shift that was starting to make me nervous, in spite of my earlier bravado and enthusiasm. I nodded, and he smiled supportively. “Now remember, if it hurts too badly, you can always reverse the Shift and wait another day. Or even a few
hours. And if you feel any unusual ripping or popping sensations in your stomach, stop Shifting immediately and let me take a look.”

I nodded again, too nervous to speak. After more than a decade of Shifting on a mostly regular basis, I knew what was normal for my body and what wasn’t. “If anything goes wrong, you’ll be the first to know.”

“Good.” He made a sweeping gesture at the ground. “Have at it.”

Marc had fully Shifted by then, and he sat on his haunches next to the doctor, where they could both watch me carefully. Jace was entering the final stages of his own transformation, so I lowered myself carefully onto my knees next to him, distracting myself from the painful tugging sensation in my gut by breathing deeply to take in the recognizable yet different scents of an unfamiliar forest.

As I put weight onto first one hand, then the other, I mentally cataloged the scents of pine needles, which we had in East Texas, bear dander, which we
didn’t
have in East Texas, and some kind of sweet, winter-blooming vine I
wish
we had in our private slice of nature.

Something crackled through a pile of leaves on my right, and my nose twitched, easily identifying a mouse fleeing from my scent even as I discovered his.
If I had paws, you’d make a good snack, little mouse.
As if the thought triggered my Shift, the first surge of pain rippled across my back and down my limbs, convulsing my major muscle systems in a graceless dance of agony.

I gave myself over to the pain, letting the Shift choose its own path through my body, as I’d learned to do more than a decade earlier. If I tried to force it in one direction or another, I’d pay the price with more and prolonged pain.

For several minutes, as my body ripped apart and restructured itself, the sharp bolts of pain in my bones and joints
overshadowed the throbbing in my stomach. My spine bowed. My hips and shoulders popped in and out of their sockets. My elbows and knees made hollow cracking sounds, accompanied by vicious spears of agony.

Dry grass pricked the palms of my hands and the soles of my feet as they swelled into paw pads. My nails thickened into hard, sharp claws. I let my mouth go slack when the Shift reached my head, distorting my face in a stream of excruciating bulges and new hollows. A moan escaped my disfigured throat as my jawbone rippled with the transformation of my human teeth into long, sharply curved points. My tongue tingled when several hundred tiny barbs sprouted from it, arcing toward my throat.

My skin began to itch as fur rippled across my back, surging to cover my extremities before flowing rapidly over my face. And last of all, just when I was starting to think Shifting with an injury wasn’t so bad, the irregular line of fur surged down my sides toward my stomach.

My body had saved the worst part for last, when it was too late for me to turn back.

I screamed as my torn flesh stretched, burning unbearably as new hair follicles opened and sprouted fur. My stomach throbbed, muscles bunching and expanding to support my restructured physiology.

Then, finally, it was over.

I lay panting on the ground as if I’d just run several miles. The sharp pulse of pain in my stomach had dulled to a mild ache, a reminder of what I’d been through, as well as a promise that things would get better. Soon.

As always after a Shift, my new body felt awkward—stiff, like I’d just woken up and needed a good stretch to settle everything into place. To ease the bad-weather ache in my joints, I stretched my front paws toward Jace, who now sat on his haunches beside Marc, both of them watching me for any sign
of a problem. I sank my claws into the winter-cool earth and stretched my belly carefully, hindquarters in the air, tail waving slowly toward the mostly bare branches overhead.

I felt a sharp twinge in my stomach, and the tug of the stitches, which seemed to have survived my Shift pretty well, so I eased out of my new-body stretch and into a sitting position, very pleased to note that the pang faded immediately.

A hand landed gently on my head, scratching behind both my ears at once, and I arched into the touch as Dr. Carver’s scent washed over me. “Turn over and let me take a look at your stomach, please,” he said, scratching his way down my neck to that hard-to-reach spot between my shoulder blades.

Happy to oblige, I lowered myself to the ground and rolled onto my right side, my tail swishing among the fallen leaves, a purr rumbling softly from my throat as Marc rubbed his cheek against mine, and Jace did the same with my exposed left flank. Dr. Carver knelt beside me, shining a flashlight on my underbelly. He combed his fingers carefully through my thick black fur, and I huffed, the cat version of soft laughter. I hadn’t realized I was ticklish in cat form, probably because no one had ever touched my stomach so softly before. It was nice, in a cozy, reassuring way.

So different from the touch that had necessitated the stitches.

“Well, the stitches survived, which is good. These new, thicker sutures make it so much easier to Shift while injured…” His voice trailed into silence as he peered closer at his handiwork, parting my fur with a single cold finger. “The skin has mostly mended everywhere but this one deep cut, and hopefully that one will seal itself when you Shift back. But the muscle beneath will take longer.” Dr. Carver rocked back on his heels, then stood, which I took as my signal to roll onto my feet.

“Remember what your father said. No climbing, no tackling—” he glanced at Marc and Jace on that one “—and
no long-distance pouncing. Give yourself a chance to heal.” We all nodded obediently, which Carver surely knew to disregard completely, as he glanced at his watch. “You have thirty minutes. Make it count.”

He could pretty much put money on that one.

As Dr. Carver picked his way through the thin strip of trees and into the yard, I headed in the opposite direction, tempering my ingrained need for speed with fresh memories of pain and ripping flesh. If I overdid it now, it could be weeks before I saw the woods again through cat eyes.

Marc and Jace walked alongside me at first, giving me very little space, as if they might lose me forever if I wandered more than three feet away. But the truth was that there was very little trouble to be found so close to the cabin complex, where our combined Pride-cat scents surely worked as stray repellent. Especially considering that the last stranger who’d wandered near had gotten his brains bashed in with my meat mallet. The scent of his blood—now soaked into our front yard—was pretty good advertising for an ass kicking.

After several minutes, I began to test my limitations, and the guys stepped back to give me more room. Jace played alongside me, swiping at pinecones for me to bat away and sniffing out field mice for me to pounce on—carefully, of course. But Marc stayed on my far side, keeping me between himself and the cabin to stop me from wandering too far as I grew more bold and more confident in my healing body.

Unfortunately, as my father clearly knew, half an hour wasn’t enough time to do anything too adventurous. It was just long enough to realize what I’d been missing over the last two weeks—namely, fresh game. Well, the thrill of the hunt was what I really craved, but since such strenuous exercise was off-limits, I’d settle for a little fresh meat.

And when I caught the scent of a rabbit as I nosed through a pile of dead foliage in search of a pinecone Jace had swatted,
I made up my mind. I was
not
leaving the woods without a bite to eat. Period.

My nose twitched in the undergrowth, taking in as much of the prey-smell as possible. I wasn’t trying to pinpoint its location; cats don’t track by scent. I was just whetting my appetite. And hoping to scare the little morsel into making some noise, because cats
do
hunt with our incredibly well-tuned sense of hearing. And our eyesight.

My pause in the game did not go unnoticed. Jace whined at me in question, and I purred in response, telling the guys there was something I wanted in the bushes. I rested my muzzle on my forepaws and stuck my rump in the air, wiggling it back and forth to signal that I wanted to pounce.

I wasn’t really going to pounce, of course. But just in case, Marc swatted my flank, then nosed me out of the way, which was feline-ese for “Scoot over and I’ll catch your dinner.” It was downright gallant of him, considering.

Marc bounded into the undergrowth, and the rabbit shot out the other side, bouncing off toward the west. Marc went after it, and both predator and prey disappeared around a dense clump of brush.

Jace stayed with me, and we experienced the hunt vicariously though a series of deep feline grunts, high-pitched squeals of terror and shaking foliage. Two minutes later, Marc slunk back into sight, a rust-colored rabbit pinched between his jaws. The damn thing was still twitching, trying in vain to get away. It was a miracle it hadn’t had a heart attack.

I purred loudly in thanks, and Jace edged closer to get a good whiff of my dinner. He rubbed his cheek against my shoulder, begging politely for a taste, but I shrugged him off. There was nothing wrong with his stomach. He could go hunt his own dinner.

Marc dropped the rabbit at my feet, and the poor thing tried to hop away. It didn’t get very far, in part because its left rear
leg was broken. But also because I lunged for it, hoping to capture at least the
feel
of catching my own meal, even if I’d had to forgo the actual hunt.

Marc growled at my sudden movement, but I ignored him as my teeth sank into the fuzzy rabbit, his rapid heartbeat emptying its lifeblood into my mouth to dribble over my chin and onto the ground. I shook my prey until it was dead, then pinned it to the ground with one paw while I ripped its stomach open with my teeth.

Such a small creature was little more than a snack to a cat my size, but the meal was just as much symbolic as practical. The Territorial Council had figuratively clipped my wings, robbing me not only of my job as an enforcer, but of my inherent right to run with my fellow werecats. To taste speed and freedom a human could never understand or enjoy. And to my relief and surprise, half an hour in the woods and a fresh snack were enough to restore part of what I’d lost. Namely, my pride.

By the time I finished eating, which Marc watched with the satisfaction of a true provider, and Jace watched with more than a little envy, it was time to go back. Probably past time, in fact, but even so, I spared a couple of minutes to clean my fur. Fresh meat is messy, and even injured, a girl has her standards, right?

When Marc thought I was clean enough, he swatted my rump and nudged me in the direction of the cabin. I went willingly, my mood bolstered by the taste of freedom. And rabbit.

At the cabin, my father scolded us for being late, but there was no real anger in his tone. He’d probably been listening to us from the front porch the entire time.

I Shifted back in my bedroom, with Dr. Carver observing, and to my relief, my second transformation was easier and less painful than the first. And faster. We were both pleased to discover that the lacerations in my stomach were now fresh pink puckered scars, and though they still ached when I
twisted from side to side, that weird flesh-ripping sensation was gone, along with most of the pain.

As I made my way down the hall toward the bathroom, tying my robe around my waist, Dr. Carver called after me from the living room, where the guys were sprawled across the furniture watching a DVD they’d borrowed from Lucas and passing around two bags of Doritos in lieu of a real dinner. “Brett’s been asking to talk to you. If you want, I’ll take you over after your shower.”

“We’ll all go.” My father stepped into the hall from the kitchen. “We need to report to the tribunal anyway. And get something more substantial to eat than corn chips.”

While I showered, Daddy sent Jace ahead to tell everyone we were coming, and to put four frozen lasagnas in the oven. Dr. Carver went with him because after what happened to Brett, no one was allowed out alone until the strays were found and dealt with. We’d always
worked
in pairs, and now that we were officially on alert, we’d do everything in groups of two or more.

Twenty minutes later, freshly showered and dressed in jeans and a snug, long-sleeved green T-shirt, I knocked on Brett’s bedroom door. Behind me, the aromas of cheese, garlic and tomato sauce were just starting to flood the spacious living room from the kitchen, where Nate Blackwell and Jace were chopping vegetables for a huge salad.

“Yeah?” Brett called from inside his room, and I pushed the door open, stomping down a thread of anxiety winding its way up my spine. Dr. Carver had said Brett wanted to thank me, not threaten me. Even if he
was
Malone’s son, Brett shared a mother with Jace, so he couldn’t be
all
bad. Right?

“Faythe.” Brett lay on the right-hand bed, blankets pulled up to his chest. Blue eyes almost as bright as Jace’s met mine. His voice held pain and relief, and I could empathize with both.