Second Nature (39 page)

"We're already gone," Rhonda said. Shuffling steps told Griffin that she was trying to drag Leigh to the van.

"Stop. Wait a minute," the other saru said.

Griffin held her breath. Had he become suspicious?

Footsteps came closer.

"Have you seen a human woman?" the saru asked. "She's about five foot seven, with Asian features and black hair."

"Another woman?" Rhonda giggled as if she, too, had gotten a whiff of the catnip. "I can hardly handle one, what would I want with another?"

Their steps came closer and circled the van.

Griffin squeezed her eyes shut in helpless frustration.

If they glanced through the single window in the cargo area of the van...

"Hey!" a loud shout came from outside.

Patrick!
Griffin realized.
What is he doing here? Is this his van?

"Help, help!" Patrick yelled. "A woman just stole my car!"

"Shit," one of the saru said. "That's gotta be her. She got away!" Cursing, the two saru ran off.

Griffin loosened her grip on Jorie. She rolled onto her back and stared at the van's ceiling.
That was close. Much too close.

*  *  *

Her shock was wearing off. It was a double-edged sword. While it allowed Jorie to think more clearly, it also made her aware of all the burning scrapes and throbbing bruises on her body. Testing how much freedom of movement her hurting body and Griffin would allow, she rolled to her knees.

Griffin made no move to stop her, so Jorie looked around.

Outside, the lights of Detroit were flashing by. They were driving as fast as the speed limit allowed.

Where are they taking me?
The street signs provided no answers, so Jorie focused on the conversation between her kidnappers — or at least between two of them.

The woman sprawled in the passenger seat was still purring. One of her arms was draped over her smaller companion's lap. She snuggled up to her, one of her hands pressing rhythmically against the leg of the woman in the driver's seat as if she were a small, harmless kitten and not a six-foot woman.

Jorie stared, fascinated and scared in equal parts. She had Quinn, the tiger-shifter in her novel, do the same thing while she had kissed her partner for the first time. Jorie's head was spinning. It was as if the shifters from her novel had come to life or as if she were trapped in one of her bizarre dreams.

The painful pounding of her arm, where Griffin had grabbed her, told her it wasn't a dream.
If this were a scene from my novel, one good-looking shifter would declare her never-ending love for me and serve me breakfast in bed, not try to kill me and eat me for breakfast.

Fewer and fewer neon lights flickered outside.
They're taking me out of the city.
Her knees started to shake. Jorie sat back down.

The woman in the passenger seat sat up. Dazed, she stared out the window for a few moments, then rubbed her face. "What happened?" she asked groggily.

"Let's just say that you spent the last few minutes as one happy cat," Griffin said with a slight smirk.

"Griffin used catnip on you," the smaller woman said.

"I thought you'd like it better than me trying to stop you with a bullet," Griffin said.

The cat woman pounded her fist against the dashboard.

Jorie's eyes widened when she saw the fist-sized dent.

"Damn you." The woman snarled at Griffin. "You didn't need to stop me at all. We're not here on Saru orders."

Saru? Is that what the shape-shifters are called?

"Shut up," Griffin ordered. "Not in front of her." She jerked her thumb at Jorie.

Jorie had enough. Enough of being talked about as if she were a child or as if she were not even present. Enough of being betrayed, threatened, almost killed, kidnapped, and dragged around. Enough of not knowing why this was happening to her. "Stop the car!"

"What?" Even the woman in the driver's seat looked away from the road for a moment to stare at Jorie.

"Stop the car," Jorie said. "I'm not going anywhere until I know what's going on."

The former catnip victim laughed sarcastically. "Not like you have a choice, human."

"Shut up, Leigh," Griffin said again.

Leigh? She's Griffin's sister?
Instead of getting some answers, more questions rushed through Jorie's mind. "At least tell me where we're going," she pleaded, trying to appeal to any decency or feelings of guilt Griffin might have.

"We need a place where we can hide for a while until we've sorted this whole mess out," Griffin said. She glanced at the woman in the driver's seat. "I was thinking your place might be the perfect hideaway, Rhonda."

"Are you crazy?" Leigh and Jorie shouted at the same time.

They looked at each other. A frown made Leigh's face appear even grimmer. "You want us to hide her? I say we hand her over to the Saru."

"No," Griffin said with finality.

"You're risking your life for a human. You should at least try to get away, not head back into disaster," Leigh said. "Every Wrasa in the UP is looking for you. Osgrove and all the towns in the vicinity are crawling with saru, and if they find you..."

Shivers raced up and down Jorie's spine. Whoever the Saru were, they wanted her dead. They were hunting her with everything they had. Jorie still didn't understand why this was happening.

"Going back to the UP is the safest option," Griffin said. "By the time we make it back, they'll have finished searching the area and will focus on Detroit. No one will expect us to double back. We can hide with the pride for a while."

The pride?
Griffin expected her to willingly leave the city and surround herself with more of the shape-shifting predators? At least here in the city, she had a chance to escape and hide in the anonymity. She could survive on her own. In the more rural area surrounding Osgrove, Griffin had the upper hand. Jorie would have to depend on her to keep her safe. After everything that had happened, she wasn't ready to place that much trust in Griffin. "Do you really think I'll follow you willingly into the lion's den?"

"And do you really think the 'lions' would willingly take a human and a rogue saru into their den?" Leigh asked, talking only to Griffin and ignoring Jorie.

Jorie forced down a fresh wave of fear and tried to think clearly and observe everything she could.
So they really are lions... or did she just repeat what I said?

"Jorie, listen." Griffin turned and touched Jorie's arm, then withdrew her hand when Jorie flinched. "I know you're scared. I know you don't trust me and don't want to put your life into my hands. But this is our only chance. You might think you're safer in the city, but you're not. You'll never make it on your own. By now, they have cut off all the escape routes — airports, bus terminals, train stations, and car rental companies. Once the two saru call it in and report that they think you're in Detroit, they will watch all the major routes out of the city. They'll show your photo around in motels and gas stations. It's only a matter of time until they find you here."

Hopelessness washed through Jorie. She wasn't safe anywhere. "They?" she repeated. "You act as if you're not a part of that 'they.'" She didn't bother to hide the silent accusation in her words.

Silence filled the van.

Jorie was used to silence. She normally liked silence, but now she felt as if the walls of the van were closing in on her.

"I'm risking a lot by trying to save your life," Griffin said.

"Yes," Leigh said. "You're risking our fathers' careers and the safety of the whole pride. I shouldn't let you do that."

Griffin leaned forward to make eye contact with her sister. "Rhonda said you're here because my fathers were worried about me," she said. "Now they can prove how much they care about my well-being. I never asked anything of them, never wanted anything — now I'm asking for a little help."

The sudden silence in the van told Jorie how unusual Griffin asking for help was.
Is she really seen as a rogue now because she failed to kill me? Is she really trying to help me? Or is this all just a trick?
Jorie wasn't sure. Since she had woken with Griffin bent over her, ready to kill her, she wasn't sure about anything anymore.

*  *  *

Griffin's hand remained wrapped around Jorie's upper arm as she helped her out of the van. She felt the slight trembling under her hand. Outwardly, Jorie appeared calm, resigned to her fate, but Griffin knew that was far from the truth. "Take her inside," she ordered. "Make sure no one comes near her." Her last sentence was directed at Rhonda because she wasn't sure whether Leigh would lift a paw to help protect a human.

"What? No. Where are you going?" Jorie asked. The scent of her agitation brushed Griffin's nose.

She's worried at being left alone with Leigh and Rhonda.
Griffin studied her.
Does she trust me to protect her, despite what happened, or is it just that she prefers the enemy she knows to the enemy she doesn't know?
"I'll be right back," she promised, hoping it wouldn't turn out to be a lie. Her fathers might very well decide that she wasn't welcome in their territory and call the Saru without giving her a chance to explain.

She wasn't looking forward to the conversation, but she knew she had to talk to them. Even under the best of circumstances, they wouldn't let her get away with entering their territory without permission — and even hidden in Rhonda's small house at the edge of town, the presence of a human wouldn't go undetected for long. If she hoped to protect Jorie, she would need her fathers' help.

When Leigh and Rhonda escorted Jorie inside, Griffin got back into the van and drove over to her fathers' house, right in the center of the little town that was inhabited exclusively by Kasari.

She had hoped that the house would be dark and she could postpone this conversation until morning, but there was still light in the living room. Like most Wrasa, the Kasari were nocturnal and didn't need a lot of sleep unless they had recently been shifting shape.

Her nostrils flared as she breathed in the air surrounding the house. The scent of a nervous Ashawe was already fading. Otherwise, only Kasari body odor tickled her nose.
Good. The Saru aren't watching the house.

Smoothing the wrinkles from her shirt, she knocked on the door.

It swung open within seconds.

Gus stood in front of her. He studied her for a few moments. "Griffin." He gave her a short nod. "Where are Leigh and Rhonda?"

"At Rhonda's," Griffin answered as calmly as she could. Deep down, it rankled her that he had asked about Leigh immediately, more worried about Leigh than about her. "Can I come in?" If she stood out here for much longer, the whole pride would know that she was here.

Gus looked over his shoulder.

Griffin knew he was waiting for Brian's reaction. It had always been that way. Brian had always been the more dominant of the Eldridge brothers, and Gus left most decisions up to him.

Finally, Gus nodded and stepped back to let her in.

Brian was stretched out on the couch. His relaxed, catlike pose was deceptive, though. One glance into his eyes let her know he was ready to pounce at her. "What's going on?" he asked without greeting. "I heard the human you were ordered to kill escaped. There are rumors that you let her escape."

Griffin didn't ask where he had heard that. There weren't a lot of things going on in his territory that Brian was not aware of. "Let her escape?" she repeated to buy herself time. "No, that's not what happened." She hadn't wanted to kill Jorie, but she hadn't wanted to let her escape either.

In one swift movement, Brian uncoiled his big body from the couch. He stepped past Gus, directly into Griffin's personal space. "Then what happened?" he asked, his voice like cutting steel.

"Killing her right now, without getting all the important answers first, would have been the wrong thing to do," Griffin told him, careful not to flinch or move back.

"Wrong thing to do?" Brian roared. "Since when do saru, soldiers, decide what's right and what's wrong? You follow orders and get the job done. You don't ponder the value of the orders you're given. You're risking your career and possibly even your life!"

Griffin didn't know what to answer. Voicing her growing doubts about the Saru and Wrasa politics wouldn't help calm her father down.

"Well, stopping before you act and thinking about the consequences and the morals of your actions can be a good thing, even for a saru," Gus said.

Both Brian and Griffin looked away from their angry standoff and stared at him. Never once had Griffin heard Gus go against his older brother, and he had never taken Griffin's side in an argument with Brian. When she had been a teenager, Gus had never gotten involved and had left any decision that had to do with her and Ky to Brian. Griffin had always thought he held a grudge against his brother's offspring and didn't see them as his.

"Griffin must get that from her mother because we both know she didn't get it from you," Gus continued.

Look at that. The little lion has some sharp teeth.

Instead of shouting or attacking his younger brother for his frank words, Brian just stared at him for a few seconds in speechless surprise, then looked away.

Slowly, Griffin understood that despite all appearances, Gus was the one who had the power over Brian, not the other way around.
Guilt is a strong weapon,
Griffin realized. Despite never having an affair with a Puwar, never fathering antapi children with the daughter of the last Puwar seer, Gus had been tarred with the same brush by Wrasa society. His career had suffered, and his coalition with Brian had almost broken up because Gus hadn't approved of his brother's affair.

And of the consequences,
Griffin silently added and couldn't help feeling hurt. Yes, Gus's surprising interruption had saved her from Brian's lecture about how she was supposed to act, but she suspected that he wasn't really taking her side. Maybe he was just taking this chance to tell his brother off. Gus clearly thought what most Wrasa did — that Brian's affair with Nella had been a big mistake. Griffin had grown up knowing no one, not even her fathers, had wanted her to be born.