I stroked her hair one more time and suddenly realized her chest was no longer rising. She wasn’t breathing. I pulled my hand away as panic flooded me. She’d gone stiff, her legs straight beneath the thin blanket, knuckles white where they gripped the hem. Oh, shit! Was she having some kind of seizure?
Then a small, quick movement drew my attention back to her face. Her eyes were open. She wasn’t seizing; she was waking up.
Fear crept into those huge hazel eyes, but still she didn’t move. She’d frozen in place, like I couldn’t see her if she didn’t move.
“Kaci?” I tried to project calm concern, to keep from setting her off, but it didn’t work. She jerked into motion at the sound of my voice, backing away from me until she sat with her spine pressed into the corner, growling deep in her throat and glaring at me as if the fierceness of her expression should have scared me away.
Maybe it would have, if she’d been in cat form.
Damn, she doesn’t remember. The realization hit me with a jolt of amazement. She’d just woken up in a strange place, after weeks spent in cat form. She had no idea where she was, likely didn’t remember who I was, and probably had yet to realize she wasn’t furry.
“It’s me. Faythe.” I reached for the bed behind me without taking my eyes from hers. My hand found soft, fuzzy material, and I pulled the sweater slowly into view. “I brought you some clothes.”
Her gaze shifted to take in the sweater, and she must have caught sight of her arm, or some other obviously human part of her body, which ushered in memories from earlier in the day.
Kaci’s head whipped up, her eyes studying me with a bit of cautious recognition now. Then suddenly they narrowed, and her forehead wrinkled in a frown. “Where were you? You said you’d be right back, but you were gone for hours! You lied.”
“I didn’t mean to. I’m sorry. I…got in trouble.” May as well tell her the truth. Part of it, anyway.
“I know. I heard them yelling at you.” Her face relaxed a little, and she tugged the sheet up to her neck. “What did you do?”
I shoved hair back from my forehead and leaned against the mattress, wondering how much she’d already overheard. “I wasn’t supposed to come talk to you without asking first.”
“Asking who?”
“My dad, or one of the other Alphas.”
Her brows dipped low in confusion, reaffirming my theory that she hadn’t the slightest idea what I was talking about. But while I was dying to find out what she did know, I tucked my questions away for the moment. I would ask them once she was dressed and warm, and comfortable with me again.
“Um, I brought you some clothes.” I held the sweater out toward her. “Why don’t you put them on and we’ll talk.”
Kaci looked curious in spite of the distance she’d put between us. She peered at the bed over my shoulder, and I smiled as I pulled the rest of the clothing into my lap. She dismissed the black cotton pj’s at a glance, but her eyes lingered on the cream-colored angora.
Smiling, I carried the whole bundle closer, expecting with each step that she would tell me to stop, or warn me off with another growl, but her attention never left the sweater. When I was close enough, she reached out and ran her fingers slowly across the material, clearly savoring the feel. Fear faded from her face and was replaced by…eagerness?
She wanted that sweater, and I’d gladly give it to her. If my two-hundred-dollar angora sweater was the price for whatever secrets had turned her out in the world alone, I was willing to pay. My mother had bought the damn thing anyway.
“Go ahead. Try it on,” I urged, turning to face the door to give her privacy.
A minute later, she cleared her throat. “Okay. You can look now.”
I turned to see her and couldn’t believe the difference. She was still too thin, collarbones showing clearly above the neck of the sweater, and her hair was still matted with dirt and cockleburs. But donning clothes had changed her every bit as dramatically as Shifting had earlier. Maybe more.
Where before she’d been shy and scared, except during brief moments of fierce self-defense, now she seemed…content.
“You look beautiful. That looks like it was made for you.” And it did, even though it was several sizes too large. Unfortunately, the pants were also too big. “Here. Let me help you tighten the drawstring.”
A frown creased her forehead, and Kaci glanced at her tiny waist. I knelt in front of her and she held the black top and sweater out of the way while I showed her how to adjust the waistband.
“There.” The pants still pooled around her feet, but they’d stay in place now.
Pleased by the progress she’d already made, I sat on the nearest bed, tucking my feet beneath me yoga style. Leaning to my left, I grabbed a pillow from the head of the bed and pulled it into my lap, hoping that if I looked relaxed and comfortable, she’d follow my lead, and we could have a nice tabby-to-tabby chat.
It worked.
As she perched hesitantly at the head of the bed, leaning against the sun-warmed windowsill at her back, I pictured her doing the same thing at some point in the past. Only then she would have been surrounded by girls her own age, at a slumber party, dressed in pink-and-purple pajamas and sharing a big bowl of popcorn or ice cream.
I shook the image off, bothered more than I wanted to admit by the thought of the normal life she’d probably never have again.
“So…” Who are you and how did you get here? But that was too direct, even by my own standards. Maybe we should start with something simpler. “Are you hungry?” If no one had brought her the clothes, she probably hadn’t gotten lunch either, though it was nearly two in the afternoon.
She nodded shyly.
“I think we’re out of chicken, but I’m sure we can come up with something else. You like frozen pizza? Warmed up, of course.”
Her eyes lit up like an old-fashioned flashbulb. “I love pizza. And I haven’t had any in, like…forever.” Agitation flashed across her face as an old memory surfaced, but it was gone in an instant, likely buried by whatever inner strength had kept her going during all that time on her own. “Domino’s is my favorite, but I guess frozen will do.”Spoken like a true teenager. Which I considered a very good sign.
Unfortunately, the goob at the door was under the council’s orders not to leave his post, so I had to run downstairs and coerce Jace into warming up the pizza. I made him put it in the oven instead of the microwave to give me more time to talk to Kaci before food occupied her mouth. And because it would taste better that way.
Back in the upstairs bedroom, I shut the door behind me, cutting off the guard’s curious look before he got more than a glance at Kaci. She was not going to come out of her shell so long as everyone kept treating her like an oddity.
“Pizza’s on the way.” I leaned against the closed door. “Should be here in about twenty minutes.”
Kaci still sat at the head of the bed with her arms crossed over her chest, almost hugging herself. As I watched, unsure how to start the conversation we needed to have, Kaci’s right hand left her arm and slid into the hair at her scalp, combing it in what was obviously a habitual gesture. But she got stuck less than a quarter of the way through, mired in tangles and dirt.
Kaci frowned and tugged her fingers free from the knot, then let her hands fall into her lap as she turned to stare out the window at the tree line, and the mountain rising in the distance. “Where are we?”
“In a private cabin complex. This is the main lodge, and there are several smaller cabins on either side.” I crossed the room and settled onto the other end of the mattress.
“But where is this cabin complex?”
“Montana.”
“Montana?” She twisted to look at me, and her eyes seemed to double in size. “Are you sure?”
I couldn’t hold back a grin at her surprise. “Pretty sure. Why? You’re not local?”
She shook her head and picked up a strand of her hair to peer at, as if checking for split ends.
“Me, neither.”
Kaci plucked a cocklebur from her hair and dropped it onto the nightstand at her side. “Where are you from?”
“Texas. How ’bout you?”
She hesitated, frowning at the cocklebur for a minute before finally answering. “I’m not from anywhere anymore. I just…go wherever I can find food.”
The crack she’d put in my heart widened a little more, and I ached to tell her she could stay with us as long as she wanted. But I knew better than to assume the council would honor any promise I made her. “Hey,” I said, when her hand strayed to her hair for the third time in as many minutes. “The pizza won’t be done for a little while. Would you like to take a shower before it gets here?”
“A shower?” She frowned for a moment, as if trying to pair the concept with the word, and again I wondered how long she’d been living in the wilderness. Then her eyes lit up at the prospect of doing something so…normal. “Yeah. I’d love a shower. And I really have to pee.”
Twenty-Two
When I tried to take Kaci down the hall to the nearest bathroom, the guard at the door stepped into my path, refusing to let her out of the room. Kaci’s eyes widened in panic at his less-than-gentle announcement that he was under orders to keep her inside. I cursed myself silently for not anticipating that little complication, then I cursed him aloud for being such a stupid asshole.