That did it.
Kaci sank onto the bed next to me and pushed up her left sleeve. Dr. Carver sat on her other side and ripped open an alcohol wipe from his left pocket. The tabby jumped in surprise when the cold cloth touched the crook of her elbow, then laughed nervously and looked at me instead. “Why don’t the Alphas believe my parents are human?”
“Because you aren’t human. You should be whatever your parents are, yet you’re not. You’re one of us.”
“You’re going to feel a little pinch…” Dr. Carver said.
She closed her eyes, steeling herself for it, and flinched when the needle slid into her skin. Then Kaci relaxed visibly and her eyes opened to look into mine. “So, how come I’m like you if my parents aren’t?”
I smiled at her refusal to watch her blood being drawn. I didn’t know many squeamish werecats. “Well, that’s where it gets interesting. The only way you could have become one of us is by being infected by another werecat, which would make you a stray. But we’ve never found another female stray, and the council wants proof before they’re willing to believe you are one. So Dr. Carver’s going to take your blood to Dr. Eames to have it analyzed for that proof.”
“A stray, huh?” Kaci asked, and I nodded, watching blood bubble into the vial. “That makes it sound like no one wants me. Like a stray dog.”
“I assure you, that’s not the case.” At least for her. Unfortunately, regarding most strays, she had it just about right.
“How does a stray get infected?”
Dr. Carver removed the first vial from the needle cap and set it in his lap, then inserted the second vial.
“By a scratch or a bite from another werecat,” I said. “But that won’t work on just anybody. In order to actually be infected, instead of just getting really sick, you have to be born with a certain recessive gene inherited from a werecat ancestor. Dr. Eames’s research proved that just a few months ago.” And in the process, he’d stirred up one of the biggest controversies the Territorial Council had ever survived. Even bigger than…well, me.
It had taken half a dozen easy-to-understand lectures on genetic testing and several hundred dollars’ worth of full-color graphic displays to bring the older Alphas to a functional understanding of a science they’d considered a bunch of mumbo jumbo only weeks before. Change did not come easily to a culture as old and secretive as ours. But eventually understanding did seep through the age-old cracks in tradition. Regarding werecat genetics, at least.
They were still decades behind the times on gender equality.
“If you don’t have the gene, you’ll just…well, you won’t catch it.” You’d die of infection instead, but I couldn’t say that to Kaci. Not knowing what I knew about her family. And not with her looking at me as if her whole world had shrunk to include nothing but me and the protection I could offer her. In theory.
“But I wasn’t scratched.” She glanced at the doc, then back at me. “Or bitten.”
Dr. Carver’s gaze rose to meet mine as he thumped the second vial to get the blood flowing again. I knew what he was thinking, but I wasn’t bothered by Kaci’s statement. Very few strays had any memory of their attack.
“You probably just don’t remember.” I brushed a strand of chestnut waves from her thin face. “A newly infected stray gets pretty sick for a while. High fever, rabid hunger, delirium. It’s a miracle you came through it okay with no one to take care of you.”
“But…Faythe, I wasn’t sick,” she insisted. I nodded, humoring her, but she continued, even more vehement in her protests. “I was the first werecat I ever saw. No one scratched or bit me, and I never got sick.”
Dr. Carver pulled the second vial loose and reached for the cotton ball he had ready, watching me the whole time.
“Honey, you just don’t remember it.” Hell, she’d probably blocked the whole horrible attack from her memory, to save her own sanity. My hand found hers, and I squeezed it. “You had to become one of us somehow, Kaci, and that’s the only possible way.” Unless someone else managed to infect her in human form, as I’d infected Andrew. But even if that were possible, it wouldn’t explain why she didn’t remember being sick.
Her eyes narrowed in doubt, but she didn’t argue further.
Dr. Carver left as soon as he had his samples. He was obviously eager to study Kaci’s blood, and frankly, I was just as eager for the results. I was sure they would prove my theory and earn me a little respect.
Okay, maybe not actual respect. I’d settle for a “Good job, Faythe.” Though in truth, I was even less likely to get that.
“So, my blood will tell him that my parents were human?” Kaci scooted across the empty bed to lean with her back against the window, though the glass must have been cold through her blouse.
“Sort of.” I tucked my feet beneath me on the bed, yoga style. “It’ll tell him for sure whether or not you were born a werecat. If you were, then your parents were werecats, too. If you weren’t, then they weren’t either, and you must have been infected at some point, even if you don’t remember it.”For several minutes she picked at the edges of the square Band-Aid in the crook of her elbow, evidently trying to absorb what I’d said.
I stared out the window over her head until a glint from the late-afternoon sun reminded me of the passage of time, and my own approaching deadline. You need to ask her the important questions. But I really didn’t want to, even if it would prove my worth to the tribunal.
My finger traced a pattern in the comforter beneath me, and I steeled myself to hear things I wouldn’t like. “Kaci, what do you remember about the day your mom and sister died?”
Her head snapped up so quickly I thought I heard her neck pop. “How did you know about that?”
“My brother found several news stories online.” Her frown morphed into a mask of fright, and I did my best to relax her. “Kaci, we had to know who you are. Thirteen-year-old tabby cats don’t just wander out of the woods—or into a bruin’s backyard—on a daily basis. We had to know who’s looking for you. Not to mention where you came from, and where you belong.”
“I don’t belong anywhere.” She stood with her back to me and began folding the clothes still covering the other bed. “I can’t go back to Cranbrook. Not after what happened.”
She’d get no argument from me there. We could no more send her back to a human father than we could purge the infection from her body. “Are you ready to talk about it? About what happened to your mom and sister? And to you?”
She shook her head slowly and picked up her new coat on her way to the closet. “No, I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t remember much of it anyway.” Suddenly Kaci’s arms were empty, and something thunked into the wall. I turned just in time to see her new coat slide down the dark wood paneling, and by the time my gaze returned to where she’d been standing, she was gone.
Damn, she moves like she was born a werecat! But that wasn’t possible. She was just a fast learner, and her learning curve was no doubt sharpened by more than two months spent exclusively in cat form.
Kaci paced the length of the room in long, furious strides, glancing at the window every few steps, as if the world outside was calling to her. It probably was. She’d spent the past ten weeks sleeping on a mattress of earth, under a canopy of tree limbs and stars, and now she’d been cooped up in a single room for nearly twenty-four hours. I could see cabin fever raging in her eyes. I smelled impatience and desperation in the fresh sweat beaded above her upper lip and along her hairline.
If I couldn’t calm her down, she’d make a break for it, and at least half a dozen toms would chase her, making a bad situation several times worse.
“Kaci…” I stood, unsure how to approach her, but she turned on me, a mixture of fear and fury battling for control of her expression.
“No! I can’t change what happened, so what’s the point in thinking about it? Huh? Why are you trying to make me crazy? Don’t you think I’m close enough now?”
Surprise numbed my tongue and stole my voice. Or at least my ability to use it with anything resembling skill or finesse. “I’m not trying to make you do anything.” Lie. “I know exactly how you feel.” Lie. “I need to know what happened so we can find the bastard who did this to you. We just want to help you.” Lie. That wasn’t all we wanted. The council wanted her womb, and Malone evidently thought this new tabby was the key to ridding himself of my entire family.
Kaci sniffled, and wiped one arm across her eyes. “No one did this to me. No one scratched me, no one bit me, and no one ever asked me if I wanted to be like this. Like you.” She’d stopped pacing now and stared at me in so much pain I could barely stand to look at her. “If you want to help me, tell me how to make it stop. All of it. I don’t want to hear people talking through the walls. I don’t want to be able to smell the guy in the hall through a closed door. I don’t want to know that you spent some serious time with that Marc guy earlier today. But I do know, because you smelled like him when you came in this afternoon. You still smell like him.”