Des was born on the last day of 2008, which would have given Manx an extra tax deduction for the year—if she were a U.S. citizen or a legal immigrant. But she was neither, which also meant she couldn’t board a plane. Which is how Vic, Ethan, and I wound up driving her from our ranch in eastern Texas to the outskirts of Atlanta, where Vic’s dad—and my father’s newest ally—was hosting Manx’s hearing.
I’d volunteered for the transport—normally a very dull assignment—because we had to drive through the free territory to get to Atlanta. Marc was in the free territory.
And in minutes, he’d be in my arms.
“Manx, wake up!” Leaning over the armrest, I shoved the bottom of the center bench seat hard enough to jostle the tabby, but careful not to brush her leg. She didn’t like to be touched. Considering the abuse she’d suffered, I couldn’t blame her.
Her eyes fluttered open, and in a single blink she banished the sleep stupor from her expression, replacing it with an instant alertness I envied. Followed by an initial, panicked search for her child, as if someone had stolen him while she slept. And that’s exactly what she was afraid of.
When she was still pregnant, we’d all heard her scream at night, crying in her sleep. The first few times, my mother had tried to wake her, but my father insisted she stop before she got a broken nose for her efforts. Fortunately, the dreams had ended when the baby came, and Manx insisted he stay in the bed with her. She said he slept better like that, but I couldn’t help thinking she was the one who really benefited. As did the rest of us, from the peaceful silence.
Manx relaxed when her eyes found Des, still asleep in his car seat. She pushed hair back from her face and looked up. “This is Mississippi?”
“Yup.” Vic flicked the right blinker on and veered onto the off-ramp as I settled back into my seat. I ignored the restaurants we passed, focusing on the Conoco station at the end of a strip of convenience stores.
By all accounts, Marc had settled into his new life as well as could be expected. He’d found a job and an isolated rental house, and was slowly carving out an existence for himself in the human world—a world that no longer included me. At least in person. But we spoke on the phone almost daily, and I’d even talked him through a partial Shift a month earlier. Though I’d only been ordered to teach my fellow Pride cats the partial shift, I was proud to say that Marc Ramos, my favorite stray, was the first tom to accomplish it.
Evidently he held more than enough suppressed anger to trigger the facial transformation. Not a surprise.
My eyes scanned the crowded lot. We’d scheduled a rest stop at Natchez, just beyond the Mississippi border, where Marc was supposed to join us and escort us across the entire free territory, including an overnight stay in the middle of Mississippi. But I didn’t see his car. Disappointed, I clenched my hands in my lap until my fingers ached.
Vic turned right into the parking lot, then pulled into an empty space at the rear. I started to get out and look for Marc inside the store, but Vic laid one hand on my arm as soon as I got the door open. “Can you stay with them for a minute? I have to pee.”
I glanced at Vic, then back at Ethan. Normally, my youngest brother would have been enough security for one postpartum tabby and an infant. But the free zone was unregulated, and Manx was skittish at best, even when she wasn’t about to be tried for murder, so we were trying to give her double coverage at all times. “Yeah, I’ll stay. But hurry up.” He smiled in thanks as I closed my door, then shut his own and made his way to the front of the building.Des made a mewling noise behind me, and I twisted in my seat to see Manx bring the baby up to one exposed breast, where he latched on eagerly. The mewling became a soft sucking sound as he began to nurse. Again. Did that kid ever do anything but eat? Even with his androgynous baby face, I could tell the little monster was a boy by his appetite alone.
Still, I couldn’t help but smile as I turned to scan the parking lot out the driver-side window. The little guy was a true survivor. Just like his mother.
“Looking for me?” Something tapped on the glass behind me, and I jumped, then whirled fast enough to hit my head on the sun visor. Marc stood outside the window, looking warm and welcoming in a worn brown leather jacket and an old pair of jeans. His smile widened as I fumbled for the door handle. But in my excitement I couldn’t find it, so he opened it for me, nearly ripping the door from its hinges.
My feet never hit the ground. One moment I was in the front seat, the next I was in his arms, my legs wrapped around his waist, his mouth soft but insistent beneath mine. People stared—I saw them over Marc’s shoulder— but then they smiled and went about their business, except for a few kids, who giggled at our display.
Evidently reunion s look much the same in any species.
“Your hair grew,” Marc whispered, and the warmth of his breath against my ear gave me chills that had nothing to do with the ice half coating the parking lot.
“You cut yours.” I ran my hand through cold, short curls.
He put me down, but still held me close. “Yeah, I figured with the new life, why not try a new look? What do you think?”
Grinning, I stepped back for a better look. “Not bad.” Marc would look good in an orange clown wig, if he decided to wear one. Still, though he’d only lost two inches, I couldn’t help missing the rest of his hair. But nowhere near as badly as I’d missed him.
I was threading my arm through his when a familiar scent caught my attention. A stray scent, and—oddly enough—one I knew.
Daniel Painter.
I froze, and my grip tightened around Marc’s arm as my pulse raced. I scanned the parking lot for the stray who’d ratted Manx out in exchange for a chance to join our Pride. If he could keep his nose clean in the free zone for a year.
Keeping his nose clean did not include picking a fight with a delegation of Pride cats as soon as we crossed the border. And there was no way in hell that his presence in that particular parking lot was a coincidence…
Two
“What’s wrong?” Marc’s gold-flecked brown eyes darkened as he frowned, glancing around in search of whatever had set me on edge.
“Dan Painter’s here.” My fingers brushed his leather-clad arm as I turned, trying to glance around the parking lot inconspicuously.
A flicker of annoyance flashed across Marc’s expression. “I know. I can’t shake him.”
I felt my eyes go wide and gave up the search for Painter to stare at Marc. “He’s tailing you?”
“Sort of.” Marc flushed, and I knew there was more to the story than he wanted to tell me.
“And you’re just…letting him?”
He sighed and rolled his eyes. “He’s not actually causing any trouble, so I don’t feel justified pounding on him. He just hangs around and asks questions about the Pride, and the way we—you guys—do things. Where we come from, how we control bloodlust, why there are so few tabbies, why there aren’t any strays in the Pride. Well, not anymore, anyway.”
Marc was a stray—a werecat born human, and later infected through a bite or scratch from a werecat in feline form—and he remained the only stray ever admitted into a Pride. Even if he was no longer officially a part of that Pride.
“The guy never shuts up. Seriously, he talks all day long.”
I smiled. Kaci had a very similar habit, and as much as I liked her, I’d started to value long-distance assignments simply for the peace and quiet. Surely his job provided the same relief. “At least he can’t bug you at work, right?”
Marc’s flush deepened. “He joined my crew last month. We frame houses together now. Every day.”
I couldn’t help laughing. “That’s so cute! You have a sidekick. A little mini-me.” Though if memory served, Painter wasn’t much smaller than Marc.
“Whatever. Forget about Painter.” His gaze flicked behind me to the back passenger-side door, which my brother had just opened and stepped through. “Hey, Ethan, how’s monogamy treating you?”
For the first time in his life, the family Casanova had been dating the same girl for four straight months. Our mother was thrilled, and for once she was fantasizing about a wedding that wouldn’t involve me in a veil.
“It’s like eating white rice for every meal,” Ethan said, right on cue.
Marc grinned. “Hey, if you’re eating every day, I’d say you’re a lucky man.” His words were for Ethan, but his eyes were on me. Apparently he missed my…rice.
Ethan shrugged, unmoved. “I guess. How’s the construction business treating you?”
Marc scruffed one hand through his newly shorn curls. “It’s like swinging a hammer eight hours a day for minimum wage.” And just like that, they were all caught up.
Still in the SUV, the baby hiccuped, and I glanced over my brother’s shoulder to see Manx buttoning her blouse. Then she climbed out of the car and lifted Des from his seat, wrapping him gently in a blue knit blanket.
“How are you, Manx?” Marc stuffed his hands into his pockets to show the tabby he had no intention of touching her. We’d discovered that approach—especially coming from the toms—kept her fairly relaxed.
“Good, thank you.” Her exotic accent—she was Venezuelan by birth—made her statement sound striking, rather than common. She beamed a brilliant smile at him and held the baby slightly away from her body, wordlessly inviting him to peek.