“Honey…” Damn, I wish I knew her name! “I’m not going to let anyone hurt you. We won’t send you anywhere you don’t want to go. I swear on my own life. You’re safe here. Do you understand?”
She lifted her head long enough to nod one more time.
“Good. Do you want—” A knock on the door preceded the aroma of fried chicken, and my mouth watered instantly. The tabby wasn’t the only hungry girl in the room. “That’s your food,” I said, already headed for the door.
As I let Lucas in, I kept one hand on the doorknob, prepared to shut it quickly if the tabby freaked out at the sight of another tom. But she made no sound as the door creaked open and didn’t even growl when Lucas stepped past me into the room, a huge plateful of chicken pieces in one hand. Evidently hunger superseded any residual fear and misgivings.
“She still hasn’t Shifted?” A frown marred Lucas’s curiosity as he brushed a red ringlet from his forehead. He’d probably been hoping for the first glimpse of our guest in human form.
I followed his gaze to the tabby, who sat watching us alertly, her eyes on the food in his hands. “Yeah, there seems to be a bit of confusion on that point. I don’t think she understands what I want her to do.”He handed me the plate. “Like, she doesn’t know how to Shift? How is that possible?”
“It’s not. She can’t possibly—” I froze, the plate hot in my hand. “Son of a bitch!”
The problem wasn’t that she didn’t know what I wanted her to do, but that she didn’t know how to do what I wanted.
Somehow, as impossible as the concept seemed to me, the tabby didn’t know how to Shift.
Fifteen
Eager to explore my new theory, I ushered Lucas from the room much more quickly than he wanted to go, without updating Marc or the doc. I closed the door on them all and turned back to the tabby, the platter of chicken cradled in both hands. “Do you mind if I join you?”
She made no response, which I took as consent. Honestly, though, by that point, I would have taken anything short of an outright attack as consent.
I made my way to the tabby slowly, giving her time to warn me if she got cold paws. But her eyes didn’t leave the plate until I set it on the bare floor between us.
The tabby glanced from the chicken to me, asking permission to eat. In a hunt, the highest-ranking werecat eats first, like the male in a pride of lions. But something told me that wasn’t what she had in mind. She was using plain old human manners, taught by someone who cared about not only her physical well-being but her upbringing.
How had she gone from that to this? From loving parents who taught her manners, to eating leftover fried chicken in cat form on the floor of a rented lodge with a perfect stranger?
I nodded toward the food as I sat cross-legged on the floor, across the plate from her. For several minutes, we ate in silence. In the time it took me to eat a single breast, she polished off a breast and two drumsticks, skin and all, licking the last of the flesh from the second leg bone with one end of it pinned to the floor by her front paw.
She definitely ate like a werecat, even if she seemed to know nothing about us.
Three wings and a thigh later, when the tabby started to slow, I drew my knees to my chest and wrapped my arms around them. “I have some more questions, if you’re up to it.” I rocked back and forth slowly as she licked her right front paw, then used it to clean her muzzle. “Is that okay?”
She nodded, and a small bud of satisfaction blossomed in my chest—pride in myself for earning her trust, and a little edge of confidence. Or maybe that was heartburn from the chicken…
Inhaling slowly, I crossed my mental fingers, hoping I’d truly hit upon the problem with our method of communication. “Do you know how to Shift?” The tabby’s head swiveled back and forth firmly, and I exhaled. “Do you know what Shifting is?”
This time the tabby nodded, but very slowly. Hesitantly. Just as I’d expected. She let her paw fall to the floor, abandoning her grooming efforts altogether. I had her full attention now that the food was gone.
“Did you know what Shifting was before tonight? Before I came in here to talk to you?”
She shook her head, and I dared a small smile. I was starting to get a clearer picture, though I couldn’t for my life understand how she could have Shifted into werecat form without knowing what Shifting was. Maybe she’d been alone and starving so long she’d contracted some sort of Shifter amnesia. Weirder things have happened, right?
Okay, maybe not.
“Do you remember Shifting into your current form?” I asked. She cocked her head again, punctuating her confusion with a soft whine. Hmm. “Do you remember being a human? A girl, like me?”
The tabby nodded, slowly at first, then more enthusiastically, as if she’d just discovered the very memories I spoke of.
I sat straighter as an exciting possibility pinged through me, making my skin tingle and my heart beat faster.
“Good. Now…do you remember being scratched or bitten by a big black cat?” She shook her head, but I pushed on because even if she had been infected by another werecat, she probably wouldn’t remember the actual attack, or much of what happened next, including scratch fever and her initial Shift.
Her memory loss, while frustrating, was pretty common for newly infected strays and did not, in itself, rule out the possibility that she was one.
But tabbies are girls, and though the existence of a female stray hadn’t technically been ruled out, it had never been proven either.
In all of werecat history, the only mention I’d ever heard of a female stray came from Manx, who claimed to have seen one in South America, where they’d both been imprisoned by Miguel and his band of tabby-nappers. But the Territorial Council was no more willing to believe Manx’s unsubstantiated claim of a scratch fevered tabby than they were willing to believe mine about the partial Shift.
But they were wrong about the partial Shift. Maybe they were wrong about female strays too…
“I’d like to try something, if you’re feeling up to it.” And even if you’re not… “When my cousin Abby and I were…locked up that time, and needed to Shift for our own safety? Do you remember me mentioning that?”
She nodded.
“Well, she was nervous and had trouble Shifting, so I tried to help her.” No need to mention the fact that my help didn’t actually work. “I can try to help you the same way, if you want.”
The tabby hesitated, and I could practically track her thoughts as her gaze flitted from me, to the plate of mostly eaten food, to the soft, warm bed, back to my very human-shaped clothes. The temptation was there. Now to sweeten the pot…
“How long has it been since you walked upright?” I asked, knowing she couldn’t answer with a wag of her head. “Don’t you want to talk? Take a shower, and wash your hair? Maybe play some video games? Do you like PlayStation?”
She nodded, less hesitantly this time, and I wondered if she was a Rock Band player, or more the God of War kind of gal.
“If you Shift back, we can get you some clothes, and you can eat your next meal at an actual table. Where you can sit on a chair, and still reach the floor with your feet. How ’bout some shoes? Whatever you want, we can get it. You say the word and I’ll send Lucas into town.” Her eyes were glued to my face, and I could see longing in her still-feline features. “You interested?”
This time she nodded her head firmly. Eagerly. Good girl.
“Great. Let’s get started.” I set the empty plate on the nearest bed and stood, facing the cat, who still sat on her haunches. “Now, I know you don’t remember Shifting into cat form this last time, but do you remember Shifting at all?” Might as well cover all the bases, just in case.The tabby shook her head. I’d expected that. She truly had no idea what she was supposed to do, or what it was going to feel like. Poor girl. “Well, I have to warn you that this is gonna hurt. But I promise it’s worth it. The pain is temporary, and it’s nothing compared to regaining the use of your fingers and your voice box. You still up for this?”
She nodded, and while she definitely looked scared, she also looked eager. She was ready to Shift. Probably even overdue.
“Okay, the first thing I need you to do is stand up.” I dropped onto my hands and knees to demonstrate, reminding myself not to go through the transformation myself, as I’d done when I tried to help Abby. If I wound up as a cat while she Shifted into a human…well, she probably wouldn’t like being defenseless and at my mercy.
The tabby stood two feet away facing me, and I realized with a jolt of alarm that she could now kill me easily with the swipe of one paw. If she wanted to.
She won’t do it. I had little doubt about that, because if she killed me, I couldn’t teach her how to Shift, and her eagerness to reassume human form was obvious. So I shoved my own fear to the back of my mind so I could concentrate on hers.
“Good. Now, the rest of this is mental. Whether you realize it or not, your body knows how to do this, and all you have to do is relax and let it take over.” After all, she hadn’t been born in cat form, so she’d clearly Shifted at some point in the recent past, whether she remembered it or not. The details were buried in her brain somewhere. They had to be.