Prey (10 page)

My father shrugged. “At this point it’s a simple
request, and I’m within my rights to refuse. But they’ll come back with a formal demand, and our response at that time will have to be much more…civil.”

Ha! I’d show them
civil.
I would tell the council exactly where it could shove its “civil” requests. Which my badass Alpha had just done.

“Daddy, I’m
this
close to talking Kaci into Shifting.” I held my thumb and forefinger less than an inch apart. “I think I could get her to do it today, if I had the time. But she’s
never
going to Shift for someone she doesn’t know and trust, and she hates Calvin Malone almost as much as she hates her own cat form.” Which was partly my fault. She’d heard everything Jace and I had to say about his abusive, narrow-minded, ass-wipe of a stepfather and now the tabby was firmly aligned with our Pride against him.

“I know.” My father sighed and suddenly looked very tired. “I won’t let this happen.”

The last time he’d said that, he’d been talking about my possible execution, and he’d been as good as his word. Unfortunately, to take the death penalty off the table, he’d had to exile Marc.

I couldn’t help but wonder what we’d have to give up to keep Kaci.

“So, what’s the plan?” I fingered a figurine on the end table on my left—a pewter cat reared to pounce. Then I forced my hands into my lap when I realized I was betraying my extreme impatience.

“
You’re
going to find Marc. I can handle Kaci, and I don’t want you worrying about this until he’s back and
healthy. There’s nothing you can do about it, anyway. This is
my
battle, Faythe. I may not be young anymore, but there’s a fight or two left in me still. Don’t count your father out just yet.”

“I haven’t, Daddy.” And I never would. But Kaci was as much my responsibility now as I ever was his. We’d
both
fight for her.

Just as soon as I was sure Marc was okay.

“I’m calling in reinforcements from the rest of the Pride, so we’ll have some extra bodies on patrol.” He went to the desk and pulled open the top drawer and removed a bulging three-ring binder, which he dropped on the blotter with a thunk. “With all that stray activity going on so close to the border, we need to know immediately if they try to cross over.”

“Good.” With Michael, Brian and Vic still in Georgia, and me and Parker off looking for Marc, my father would need all three of his remaining enforcers to protect the home and hearth. But he could hardly ignore the threat posed by our suddenly aggressive neighbors.

I hated that we were so crippled by circumstance, but incredibly grateful that we had resources to call on in our time of need. The other members of our Pride would be called into active duty, a possibility they’d agreed to upon joining the south-central Pride. And if I knew my father, he’d pair the less experienced toms with those who’d once served as enforcers.

They’d take sick days, vacation days, unpaid workdays, or whatever it took to get off work when they
were called. And in a matter of hours the Mississippi border would be crawling with south-central cats. They would patrol in human form until dusk, then on four paws once darkness descended to blend with their fur.

“With any luck, by the time you get there, several toms will be within an hour’s drive should you need them,” my father continued. “Do not hesitate to call them in. There are no bonus points for bravery on this one, Faythe. The only way to win is to get Marc back then get all three of you home in one piece. Understand?”

“Of course, Daddy.” I didn’t even roll my eyes, because for once I was pretty sure he wasn’t being overprotective just because I was a girl. He was being regular-protective, because I was one of his enforcers, and that felt good. Really good. Almost as good as him letting me go in the first place.

F
our and a half hours later, Parker and I turned onto a long, tree-lined gravel driveway beside a house I knew without a doubt to be Marc’s, though I’d never been there or seen any pictures. And though Painter’s directions had been about as clear as swamp water.

The setting sun shone on a large lot, open in front and wooded in the back. The house was isolated; Marc’s nearest neighbor was two and a half miles down a dirt road—and a good six miles from Rosetta proper. And if the Homochitto National Forest didn’t actually adjoin the property, it came damn close.

The only detraction I could see was the house itself, which had to be at least eighty years old and had definitely seen better days. But in my opinion, and no doubt in Marc’s, the benefits far outweighed any material discomfort caused by outdated wiring, insufficient insulation, or peeling paint and crooked shutters.

I was out of the car the instant it stopped, long before
Parker actually shut down the engine, and for a moment, the below-freezing windchill—a relative rarity for the South—stole my breath from my lungs. My boots crunched across gravel briefly before landing on dead, brittle grass. Relieved to see that the ice had melted in Mississippi, I raced over the lawn—then skidded to a halt about a foot from an ominous, dark trail slicing across one corner of Marc’s front yard. The stain was dry, and no longer bright red as it must have been hours earlier, but it stood out starkly against the dull, colorless lawn.

And the scent was unmistakable.

Blood.
Marc’s
blood. He’d been dragged over the very spot where I now stood.

At my side, my hands clenched into fists so tight my fingers cramped instantly, and only when ice crystals formed on my cheeks did I realize I was crying.

My jaws clenched, I wiped frigid tears from my face and forced myself to step over the trail of Marc’s blood. Then my gaze followed it up the stairs and across the uncovered concrete stoop to where it disappeared beneath the scuffed front door.

He wasn’t there. I already knew that. But I couldn’t stop myself from racing alongside that grisly trail, careful not to actually touch it, and up one side of the steps to the porch. I turned the knob and pushed, but the door gave less than an inch before bumping against something heavy.

Dan Painter had barricaded himself inside, just as I’d instructed. In fact, through the small gap I’d created, I
could see him, standing completely still but for his nose, which twitched even as a warning rumble leaked from his throat.

“Dan, it’s me. Faythe,” I said, as Parker’s steps clomped up the steps behind me. There wasn’t room for us both to stand comfortably on the tiny stoop, so he stopped on the third step, balanced precariously to avoid stepping in Marc’s blood. “Parker and I are coming in now. We need you to go ahead and Shift back, okay?”

For a moment, Dan only blinked at me and sniffed some more, and I had to remind myself that he couldn’t see as much of me through the crack as I could see of him, and that his cat brain—especially under such stressful circumstances—probably wasn’t thinking very clearly. But then his nose verified what I’d told him and he stood down, his growl fading into silence as he sank onto his haunches near an ancient kitchen table with spindly aluminum legs.

Taking that as permission to enter, I made room for Parker on the stoop and we pushed the door open, forcing back the heavy bureau and chest of drawers Dan had braced it with. Obviously, if we could get in, so could the bad guys, but the furniture was only intended to give Dan a chance to get out before they broke through, not to keep them out entirely.

Dan didn’t begin Shifting back until we’d forced our way in, and I couldn’t really blame him, so while he writhed on the floor in the grip of his transformation, we knelt to examine the bodies growing cold and stiff on Marc’s floor.

Both were strays, and both were dead. But that’s where the similarities ended.

The first was tall and thin, with a mop of unmanageably wavy pale brown hair. He’d probably enjoyed strength and power as a werecat that he’d never had in his human life. Not that it mattered now. Death was the great equalizer.

The skinny stray’d had the side of his head bashed in, likely by the bloodstained chair leg lying two feet from his body. Across the room lay the rest of the chair, splintered where its missing limb had been detached.

The other stray was shorter and thicker, bigger than his buddy in every respect but height. He’d likely proved more of a challenge to Marc than his gangly friend, but evidently that old saying was true: the bigger they were, the harder they fell.

This particular big bastard had fallen—probably in response to a blow from Marc—and hit his head on the coffee table now smashed to bits half under him. The gash in the back of his skull was wide enough for me to put my middle finger into. Not that I tried. There were splinters of bone in the wound, and probably even more lodged in his brain.

The entire house reeked of blood. The carpet was soaked with it, and it squished beneath my boot when I stepped in part of a puddle. And, though it horrified me no end, all I could think as I stared at the dead strays was,
At least he took two of them with him.

No,
I decided, before the first thought was even fully formed.
Marc’s not dead. He sent these assholes on ahead….

Motion to my left drew my eye as Dan Painter stood, finally human and fully nude. “Hey.”

“Hey.” I rose from my crouch next to the second body. “No trouble since we spoke?”

He shook his head, pulling a pair of boxers from the seat of an ancient, wobbly kitchen chair. “It’s been quieter ‘n a graveyard.” I didn’t much like his analogy, but I had to admit it was apt. “So…what’s the plan?”

I wiped my hands on my jeans, though I hadn’t gotten any blood on them. They just felt dirty. “We find Marc.”

“What can I do?” He stepped into the shorts, then into a pair of jeans. “I want to help.”

I nodded, accepting his offer, touched by the simple honesty in his statement. “Obviously we can’t track him physically. So we’ll have to track him by other means.” Even if we’d had a scent to follow—which we didn’t, thanks to the bad guy’s car—we were back to that whole cats-don’t-hunt-or-track-with-their-noses thing, like dogs do. We have the biology but lack the instinct. Fortunately, our particular breed of cat was gifted with human logic. Most of us, anyway. “We have to ID the one who got away. When we find him, we’ll find Marc.”

Parker nodded silently, and his look of confidence in me meant more than I could have imagined. He’d been enforcing much longer than I had, and if he’d had a better place to start, he would have said so. His silence said I was getting it right. So far.

Dan clenched his cotton T-shirt in both fists and continued to watch me, waiting for his orders.

“Is the doorknob the best scent source for the guy who took Marc?” I asked him, glancing around at the ruined carpet and broken furniture. “I don’t suppose you’ve found any of his blood in this mess?”

Dan put his arms through the sleeves of his tee and paused with the material gathered in both hands, ready to go over his head. “It’s mixed with Marc’s in several places, but there’s one spot over by the window that’s just his.” He nodded his head toward the north-facing window, then pulled the shirt over his skull. “There ain’t much of it, but it might help.”

“Thanks.” I bent to get a good whiff of the doorknob, then stepped carefully toward the window, where I knelt to compare the scent of the vaguely hand-shaped carpet stain to that on the knob. They were from the same tom. “Okay, Dan, I need a box cutter, or a sharp serrated knife and a plastic sandwich bag.” Dan headed into the kitchen and I turned to Parker, who’d begun to stack pieces of the broken furniture in a pile near the door. “I’m gonna call in a report, then I’ll help with the cleanup.”

He nodded and continued cleaning as I dug my phone from my pocket and autodialed my dad.

“Faythe?” my father said into my ear.

“Yeah, it’s me. We’re here and we’re safe, at least for the moment.” His sigh of relief was brief but real; I’d put to rest his fear that we’d been ambushed again, or that we’d walked into a trap. “We’re going to clean up the worst of the mess then go talk to a few strays and see if we can identify the one who got away with Marc.”

“Faythe—”

“Dad, I know what I’m doing. We’ll be careful. I’m not going to sit here licking my fur while Marc’s out there suffering who knows what.”
At least, I hope he’s still out there,
some soft, traitorous voice whispered from deep in my mind.

But not from my heart. My heart knew he was still alive, no matter how much blood he’d lost.

Springs creaked as my dad leaned forward in his chair, two hundred fifty miles away. “Faythe, you don’t have enough experience interrogating—”

“We won’t be interrogating, we’ll be
interviewing
…” That’s like interrogating without throwing punches.

“And Dan Painter doesn’t have any.”

“But we have Parker, and he’s been with you for years. We’ll be fine.” I squatted next to the wall and dug my fingertips beneath the baseboard, heedless of the grime that lodged beneath my nails.

“No. I’m bringing Brian home on the next flight from Atlanta—”

“Brian has no more experience than
I
do!” Irritation fueled me as I jerked the board away from the wall. Wood splintered, and a two-foot length of trim broke off in my hands.

Technically Brian Taylor been enforcing for his father for a couple of years before coming to work for mine. But I was on the fast track toward Alphadom, and he hadn’t yet moved beyond working with his fists. “He’s never even
seen
an interrogation!”

“Which is why he’s coming home,” my father continued,
and I cursed myself silently for interrupting. My dad was upset, too, but he never let grief or worry impede his logic. “I’m sending you one of the wonder twins. Do you want Jace or Ethan?”

I had to think about that for a moment. They were both great fighters, and I’d trust either with my life. But Ethan had more experience with interrogation—despite what I’d told my father, I had a feeling it might come down to a few thrown punches—and while I knew Jace would do everything he could to help us find Marc, his presence in Marc’s house would be uncomfortable for both of us. For all three of us, once Marc was back.

“Ethan. But, Dad, it’ll take him hours to get here. We can’t wait that long.” Especially considering that Marc had already been missing—and bleeding—for five hours.

“You can, and you
will.
”

Fear washed over me, disguised as anger, and my arm shot out before I could stop it. The detached strip of wood flew across the room and lodged in the Sheetrock over Marc’s couch.

Oops.

My father sighed again. “Do I even want to know what that was?”

I ignored his question and twisted to put my back to Dan and Parker, who were watching me in a mixture of surprise and worry. “Do you
want
Marc to die?” I demanded, forgetting to think before I spoke as fear and frustration crested inside me.

“I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that.” My father’s voice had gone hard, but it was a brittle hardness, as if
one more word from me might shatter his composure. That rare glimpse into my Alpha’s psyche scared me, as if I were seeing something I shouldn’t. A weakness.

I made myself take a deep breath. A long one. My dad was just as worried about Marc as I was. But he had to think about the rest of us, too.

“Faythe, if he can’t hold on for a few more hours, there’s nothing we can do for him.” The weariness in his voice told me exactly what it cost him to admit that. “Clean up the mess and bury the bodies.” Because our incinerator was a couple hundred miles away and we couldn’t spare anyone to pick up the corpses. “Get me a list of the strays you want to talk to, and I’ll get you any information we have about them. By then, Ethan will be there.”

“Dad…”

“That’s final, Faythe,” he said. My hands curled into fists, but I resisted throwing anything that time.

“Fine.” The concession tasted bitter on my tongue, and I couldn’t spit it out fast enough.

The chair springs squealed again, slowly, and I knew my dad was leaning back in his chair now, probably with his free hand over his eyes. “We’ll get him back.”

“I know.” But I
didn’t
know that. Not for sure. Nor did I know how to handle the next few hours of not searching for Marc.

I said goodbye to my father and Alpha, closed my phone and slid it into my pocket. Then I looked up to take the steak knife Dan offered me, handle first. “What’s it for?” he asked, and it took me a moment to
realize he meant the knife. It takes a brave man to hand an angry werecat a knife. Especially when he doesn’t know what she plans to do with it.

“It’s for the scent sample.” I dug at the edge of the carpet, now exposed by the missing section of baseboard, and pulled it up from the floor. At first, I only got slack, but another tug pulled a large section of carpet out from under the remaining boards, so that I could roll it back like a tortilla.

I plunged the serrated blade into the raised bit of carpet and began to saw, perversely satisfied when the thick, matted weave resisted me, because that meant I could saw harder, pretending my blade sank into my enemy’s flesh with each vicious stroke.

Several minutes later I’d removed an uneven square of carpet, containing most of the hand-shaped bloodstain. Parker held the plastic bag open for me, and I dropped the sample in, then pressed the seal to close it.

“Is that for your lab?” Dan asked, vague excitement edging the fear in his eye as he stared at the morbid package balanced on my palm.

“Lab?” I stood and set the carpet sample on top of the bureau once again blocking the front door.

Dan picked up the knife and crossed the living room into the tiny, galley-style kitchen to drop it in the sink. “Marc said you guys have your own lab up in Washington State, where this doctor’s trying to figure out why you don’t have more girls.”

“Ohhh.” I knelt to pull a photo of myself from a ruined frame and dropped the mangled wood and glass
into the trash bag Painter held out. The picture was from my senior year in high school. It was definitely time to have some new ones taken. “You mean Dr. Eames.”