Holly’s pulse raced. Each breath came faster than the last. She was hyperventilating, and based on her physiological signs of stress, she could have been the one Shifting.
“It’s okay…” Michael whispered, his arms around her waist for comfort, his chin resting on her shoulder. I’d rarely seen him like that, as the gentle, concerned husband, and even though she was clearly near total breakdown, she didn’t push him away. He could still comfort her, even when he was part of what she feared. It was achingly sweet, in the most surreal way imaginable.
In the middle of the floor, Jace looked like a giant, bald cat. His spine was a knobby ridge trailing over his back, ending in a long, flesh-colored tail. And as I watched, thick black fur began to sprout at his spine, spreading rapidly to cover his entire body.
Holly gasped again, but she now looked more awed than anything, though there were still clear lines of fear and disbelief around her eyes. Seconds later, the show was over. Jace stood tall on four legs, arching his spine dramatically as he stretched to get comfortable in his new form, like a giant Halloween cat. Then he stuck his rump in the air and waved his tail in greeting.
Fortunately, he refrained from showing off either his sharp new teeth or his wickedly curved, retractable claws. Either of which might have been too much for Holly, at least this early in the game.
Jace stepped toward her, and Holly yelped and nearly backed over her husband.
Kaci laughed, and her genuine amusement sounded strange to my ears—I hadn’t heard it in such a long time. She crossed the floor toward Jace boldly and sank to her knees in front of him, running one hand over his head to scratch behind his ears.
“Karli, don’t!” Holly breathed, but Kaci only laughed again.
“It’s okay. I can do that, too. Wanna see?”
But though she looked fascinated, Holly clearly did not want to see any more Shifting just yet.
Jace purred and rubbed his cheek against Kaci’s, marking her with his scent, reassuring her that they were still good friends—a typical cat greeting. Kaci trailed her hand over his back, as far as she could reach without getting up. Then she looked up at Holly, and the calm I saw on her face—some small bit of peace, in spite of so much recent trauma—eased part of the guilt weighing so heavily on my heart and mind. Kaci was okay. Somehow, in spite of all she’d been through with us and before she’d found us, Kaci was going to be just fine. And if anyone could help Holly adjust, it was our own little human-born tabby.
“You wanna pet him?” Kaci asked, encouraging Holly with her unspoken display of trust. Her comfort with the huge cat did more to convince Holly than anything we could have said to her. “He’ll let you. If I ask him to,” Kaci added as an afterthought, and I smiled at her small, instinctive attempt to establish her rank in the Pride—over Holly. That meant that she considered herself to have come first, but also that she recognized Holly as one of us. Part of the family, finally. For better or for worse.
“Um, I don’t…” Holly started, and Michael rubbed her arm.
“Go ahead. It’s okay. He’s still Jace. In fact, he’s almost more Jace now than he was in human form.”
Holly frowned at that, but when Michael tugged her forward, she let him.
She wouldn’t kneel next to the giant cat—proving that humans aren’t completely devoid of a self-preservation instinct—but she did bend over and tentatively touch the fur on his back, once Jace had given her permission with a soft purr.
The moment she touched him, she believed. I saw the difference in her face. It was one thing to see—we truly could have spiked her drink, or she could have been dreaming. But she couldn’t deny the physical reality beneath her hand.
Holly’s eyes widened, and she stroked Jace’s back again. “It’s soft, but kind of coarse…” she whispered, as if speaking out loud might anger the cat and get her eaten. “Not like a house cat.”
“We’re not house cats,” Michael said softly, and Holly stood to look at him.
“You can…? You can do this?”
He nodded, studying her reaction carefully. “I have to do this at least every few weeks, or I get sick. But I usually do it a lot more often than that. It’s part of who I am.”
“That’s where you go…” Holly was studying her husband now. “That’s why you’re always on the ranch. So you can do this. So you can be this.”
I shrugged. “Well, that, and because we’ve kind of had a bad patch lately, politically speaking.”
“What does that mean?” Holly asked, and Michael promised to explain it later, insisting that she’d probably heard enough for the moment. Half an hour later, they retired to their room, and I could hear Michael whispering to her, explaining about territories, and Prides, and the council, in spite of his proclamation that sleep ought to come before further trauma.I liked Holly even more for her persistence.
While we waited for the other toms to return, Dr. Carver gave me another once-over on the couch. My eyes were dilating properly by then and I had no more dizziness or nausea, though I still looked like I’d fallen face-first into a meat grinder. And felt like it, too.
The doc said that if nothing went wrong in the night—a possibility which evidently included a stroke from a blood clot in my brain—I would be clear to start Shifting to heal in the morning. But for the moment, he insisted I take several Tylenol and go to sleep.
I tried. I really did. But I couldn’t find a comfortable position on the couch—I still hurt all over and could hardly see out of my left eye—and I wasn’t willing to oust my mother from the only bed. And every time I closed my eyes, Dean was waiting behind my eyelids to kick me in the head, or to cut me again, or to slice my clothes open. After about an hour, Jace curled up on the floor in front of the couch, and I let one hand trail over his fur. He purred, and that sound and his scent made me feel safe enough to fall asleep, in spite of myriad pains Tylenol couldn’t touch, and I didn’t wake up until the other toms returned with our supplies.
When my mother heard them unloading the cars, she came out of the bedroom to help and insisted I get in the bed. Jace tried to follow me, but Marc snarled, and as I took off my jeans and climbed beneath the covers, I heard his footsteps clomp down the hall after us. “Hell, no. This is still my house, and you’re not going in my bedroom. Not with her. Not even in cat form.”
Jace growled, but Marc must have held his ground, because Dr. Carver stepped in then and said he’d watch me for a while. Which was good, because I honestly didn’t have the energy to break up another fight at the moment.
I fell asleep again and, that time, I didn’t wake up for twelve straight hours.
Twenty-six
When I woke up, the room was bright with natural light, and Marc’s alarm clock read 1:44. Thursday afternoon. Shit. I sat up too fast and gasped over the pain in my…everything, as the room seemed to swim around me.
“Whoa, slow down,” Marc said from the desk chair, and I jumped, then flinched at the second flare of pain. I hadn’t smelled him because the entire room already smelled like him. The chair creaked as he stood, then the bed squealed as he sat next to me. “How do you feel?”
“Like I should have Shifted five hours ago. Why did you let me sleep so long? I need to call my uncle.” I threw back the covers and was surprised to discover that I was still wearing the shirt I’d fought in the day before, still stiff with my own dried blood. I stood—and almost screamed when my left foot hit the floor. My sore hip had stiffened while I slept, and a test movement from my left arm revealed that the same had happened with my shoulder.
“He already called. I told him you were still recuperating, and he’s expecting a call from you this afternoon.”
“Marc, you have to tell me when one of our allies calls! We have a lot to do, and we need their help. I’m the Alpha now!”
“You’re going to be a dead Alpha if you don’t take time to rest and heal.”
“Consider me rested. And healing’s on the agenda for today, too. But first I need to talk to Uncle Rick. Where’s my phone?” When my heart stopped trying to pound its way out of my chest, I headed for my suitcase, in spite of the sharp pain in my side and my left hip.
“It’s on the charger in the living room. What’s the plan?”
“I’m going to talk to my uncle, then I’m going to Shift until I’m healed. Didn’t I just say that?”
Marc huffed. “I was talking long-term. Yesterday you said you had an idea.”
“Oh.” I rummaged through the bag on Marc’s dresser for a pair of exercise shorts and a T-shirt, since I wouldn’t shower until after I’d Shifted enough to be presentable in human society. “Yeah. We’re going to fight, and we’re going to do it the right way. With the element of surprise on our side, and all our allies and men in place. Including the thunderbirds. Malone and his men can’t defend against them any better than we could. The birds are going to be the determining factor in his war. We’re gonna take back the ranch and the Pride. Permanently.”
“So…road trip?” Jace asked from the doorway, and I nodded.
“Yeah. Once I’m healed enough to be seen in public.” I started to pull my arms from the bloody turtleneck, but stopped when the pain in my side shot through my entire torso.