Jace parked behind Ethan’s car in the circular driveway, and the guys disappeared into the guesthouse, where my brother Owen was setting up a Rock Band tournament.
I grabbed my bag and headed for my room, not surprised when Kaci followed me. My mother had fixed up the bedroom Michael and Ryan once shared for her, but the tabby did little more than sleep there. She spent most of her time shadowing me, convinced that if she could learn to fight well enough in human form, she’d never have to Shift again. And no matter what I did or said, I couldn’t convince her otherwise.In my room, I dropped my duffel on the bed, and Kaci plopped down next to it on her stomach, her legs bent at the knee, feet dangling over the backs of her thighs. “Hey, you wanna go see a movie tonight? Parker gave me twenty bucks to vacuum the guesthouse a couple of days ago, and I’ve barely been off the ranch all week.”
Groaning, I unzipped the bag and pulled my shampoo and conditioner from an inside pocket. “Kaci, don’t clean for the guys! They’re perfectly capable of picking up their own messes, but if you act like a maid, they’ll treat you like one.”
She frowned, her feelings hurt by my reproach, and I cursed myself silently. It should not be so hard for me to talk to one little girl. But then, I’d never expected to be someone’s mentor. Hell, I’d probably never even be anyone’s aunt.
I grinned to lighten the mood and took another shot. “Besides, if you feel like vacuuming, there are plenty of perfectly good floors in the main house. Like mine, for instance.” I made a sweeping gesture at my beige Berber carpet, which could certainly use the attention.
Kaci laughed, and all was well. “So, what about the movie? You buy the tickets, and I’ll buy the popcorn.”
I walked backward toward the bathroom, hair products in hand. “It’s a school night.”
She swirled one finger along the stitches in my comforter. “I don’t go to school.”
“You could….” I left that possibility dangling and turned into my private bathroom, the only real advantage to being the sole daughter out of five children. Kaci pouted at me through the open doorway as I set the shampoo and conditioner on the edge of the tub. “You know how to make that happen.”
The original plan had been for Kaci to start eighth grade in Lufkin, at the beginning of the second semester. My father had acquired the necessary documentation—birth certificate and shot records under the name Karli Sanders—and she would be his niece, recently orphaned and left to our care. She’d picked out a new haircut and color—long, dark layers—and we were relatively sure that with those precautions taken, no one would ever connect Karli Sanders with Kaci Dillon, who’d disappeared from her home in southern British Columbia during an attack by a pack of wild animals.
Of course, it helped that Kaci’s family was no longer looking for her. She was presumed dead in the same attack that had killed her mother and sister. Her father had erected a memorial headstone for her months earlier, and by all accounts seemed to be trying to come to terms with his loss and grief.
But in the end, none of that mattered because by the time the spring semester had started a week earlier, Kaci was too weak to go. She got winded just walking to the barn, and took several naps a day. Her skin was pale and sometimes clammy, and she got constant migraines and occasional bouts of nausea.
She couldn’t go to school until she’d Shifted and regained her strength. Until then, my mother was homeschooling her in the core subjects.
Neither of them was enjoying it.
“I can’t do it.” Kaci’s frown deepened as she rolled onto her back to stare at my ceiling, rubbing her forehead to fend off another headache.
“Yes, you can. I can help.” I went back to the bag for my toiletry pouch and hair dryer, still talking as I set them on the bathroom counter. “Dr. Carver says that once you’re Shifting regularly, you’ll get better very quickly. Then you can go to school like a normal kid.”
“Normal!” She huffed and rolled her head to the side to meet my gaze. “What the hell is that?”
I groaned at her language. How the hell had she managed to pick up all of my bad habits and none of my good ones? “You know you can’t talk like that in front of the Alpha, right?”
Kaci rolled both big hazel eyes at me. “You do.”
Damn it!
From somewhere near the front of the house, my mother laughed out loud, having obviously heard the entire exchange. She’d always said she hoped I had a kid just like me, but neither of us had expected that to happen quite so soon.
But Kaci was right, of course. I sank onto the bed with a frustrated sigh, and she rolled onto her side to look at me, her face in one hand, her elbow spearing the comforter. “Kaci, you do not want to model your life in this Pride after mine. A smart girl would learn from a few of my mistakes, instead of choosing to repeat them all just for the experience.”
She frowned and stared down at the comfortor. “My dad didn’t let me cuss, either.”
My heart jumped into my throat. Kaci hardly ever mentioned her father, or anything else from her previous existence, as if it were easier not to talk or even think about them. Though I understood that, I also knew that ignoring her problems wasn’t the healthiest way to deal with them.
But before I could encourage her to go on, she changed the subject with a sudden shake of her head. “Besides, you look like you’re doin’ okay to me.”
“But you could do better. You could do anything you want. Starting with public school.”
Kaci sighed and flopped back over to stare at the ceiling, her hands folded across her stomach. But I could see wistfulness in her eyes. She wanted to go to school, no matter what she said to the contrary. I’d been in her position—aside from the whole refusing-to-Shift thing—and knew exactly how badly it sucked to be stuck in one place, under constant, nagging supervision.
At the end of the bed again, I dug in the duffel and pulled out my bloody, ruined jeans, tied up in a white plastic Wal-Mart sack.
“What’s that smell?” Kaci rolled onto her stomach and sniffed the air with a spark of interest as I dropped the bundle on the floor. That night I would have to fire up the industrial incinerator behind the barn and toss the whole mess inside.
Hmm. I wonder if it’s still hot from the recent mass cremation….
“You’re probably smelling the stray who slashed through my jeans,” I said, glancing at the bag in irritation. “That was my favorite pair.”
“No, that’s not it.” She stuck her nose into my duffel and sniffed dramatically, and when she rose, the zipper pulled several strands of thick brown hair free from her ponytail to hang over her cheeks. “It’s Marc.” She shoved the loose strands back from her face. “Your underwear smells like Marc!”
I flushed and pulled my bag off the bed. When I was thirteen, there was no older woman around for me to ask about guys, other than my mother. And I wouldn’t have asked her about sex if the future of the species depended upon my understanding of the process.Which, according to my mother, it did.
Caught off guard by the questions I could practically feel her forming, I crossed the room to upend the rest of the duffel into my regular hamper, a purple ribbon-trimmed wicker thing my mother had put in my room when I was twelve.
I stared at the hamper critically, suddenly perplexed by its presence. What kind of enforcer’s hamper has ribbons threaded through it? I needed something else. Something utilitarian. Something big and sturdy, and not at odds with the blood- and sweat-stained clothes it would be holding.
Like, a big metal trash can. Or a barrel.
I turned toward Kaci, intending to ask her if she wanted the girlie hamper, but she was already talking before I could get the question out. “So, how long have you been with Marc?”
“Um…we were together for my last two years of high school, then we broke up for about five years. And we got back together last summer.”
“Why did you break up?”
Because I’m an idiot. I tossed my empty duffel into my closet and kicked the door shut. “It’s complicated, Kaci. Things get weird when you grow up. Enjoy being a kid while you can.”
“Whatever.” She rolled onto her back again. “Being a kid sucks. People tell you when to get up, when to go to bed, when to eat, what not to wear…”
I glanced up from my dresser, onto which I’d been emptying my jeans pockets, to see her watching me in obvious—and incredibly misplaced—envy. “Have you met my parents? In case you haven’t noticed, they still tell me what to do. All the time.”
“Yeah, well, at least you get paid for it.”
“Not this year.” Enforcers drew a small salary, in addition to free room and board. But as part of the “community service” sentence handed down to me from the tribunal in November, in addition to teaching my fellow enforcers to do the partial Shift, I had to forgo my salary for an entire year. All I had now was what little money I’d saved since college and the business credit card all my father’s enforcers had. And that could only be used for official enforcer business. Which apparently did not include a pint of New York Super Fudge Chunk. Or a trip to Starbucks.
Oops.
“You love Marc, don’t you?” In the mirror, Kaci’s reflection stared at me, one cheek pressed into the comforter.