Silent Cravings (31 page)

Freddy was wondering what the hell was going to happen to them now. He doubted he’d be sent back to Pennsylvania without so much as a mention of this. But a mention of this to his current guardians was going to cause, as Analie would say, “a kerfluffle”. Not so much on his behalf—he was a shifter. But meeting with another cub in cub-hide? Ouch.

Plus, getting home wouldn’t be easy. If he was brave enough to go out on his own, he would have to contend with White Hats. The girl had to have seen them in the coffee shop, and no doubt she’d used that laptop to send out a call for backup to come as quickly as possible. It had been a fluke that she’d happened to be there at the very same time Royce went in, but no less dangerous for all of that.

Analie was bound and determined that Freddy was
not
going to stay here. He was not brave, and this house could cause his already frayed nerves to snap. Stripes were creeping around the sides of his neck, though he’d tugged his hoodie up to hide them. Some shifters turned when stressed. There was a video floating around online of a politician answering questions when he suddenly imploded into a sparrow.

She’d given it five stars.

Now it didn’t seem that funny at all. She turned to Royce, hoping he wasn’t too peeved with her to deny her request.

“I know it’s lame of me to ask, but Freddy needs to get back. Can you help him with that?” She glanced at Freddy. He was standing still, stiff as a board. Yes, he was stressed. She turned back to Royce. “Hopefully sort of soonish?”

“Of course,” Royce replied, a touch of cat-that-got-the-canary edging into his expression. He nudged Jessica a bit to one side so he could get to his phone, tugging it out of his pocket and texting John to either call a cab or get someone who could drive to Pennsylvania on short notice.

Now Analie and Freddy both were indebted to him. Things had turned in his favor, and had gone better than expected. He’d be sure to use it—all of it—to his advantage. The thought was endlessly pleasing, since it meant that he was once again in charge of the situation and had leverage over all around him.

Life was good.

Chapter Thirteen

A
few days later, Analie was bouncing off the walls in Mouse’s living room. Literally, she was running in circles and doing handsprings that she only landed half the time. Every five minutes or so, she’d run to her bedroom and text Freddy.

WHERE R U?!

To which Freddy would reply with a street name that meant nothing to Analie, who only knew the area by its landmarks.

So she’d run back out to the living room and dash around again. At one point she
did
settle down enough to make sandwiches and some instant lemonade, but that calm lasted less than ten minutes. She was the epitome of a Goliath not idling well.

While Analie rushed around, Mouse was attempting to show Sebastian some of the finer points of using a curved blade like a scimitar over the various types of schlager blades he was used to. It was slow going because they had to be careful of Analie, and Mouse could not verbally explain her points, having to write everything down or get reference books to answer Sebastian’s finer questions. That didn’t temper his enthusiasm, particularly as he was getting to learn
real
instead of
simulated
combat.

He’d left Ashi and Christoph to their own devices upstairs. Thad had left for work a couple hours ago, and Sebastian was bored out of his mind without his brother around. He’d been grateful when Mouse had offered to teach him swordplay and took advantage every opportunity he had—basically, whenever Thad was out of the house and Mouse was home.

Ashi felt a vein throbbing on his forehead as he went through his martial arts forms. Normally his daily ritual channeled his energy toward a Zen-like focus.

He was currently finding it very hard to achieve that state because of Christoph. Normally he could tune out his surroundings and just feel the flow of the movements, one into the other. There were moments during these times when Ashi felt that if he chose to strike
just right then
he might split open the space-time continuum and see past the universe into Nirvana itself.

Christoph was cutting right through that.

With one comment.

“It lacks ‘oomph’ without your skirt.”

“
It’s not a skirt!
” Ashi bellowed, completely breaking form and turning toward Christoph.

The shopping trip had not included pants he could work out in, so he was back to wearing his old, ragged sweats. The “skirt” Christoph was referring to was Ashi’s pair of Hakama pants, which were very wide-legged pants first worn by samurai, and they did indeed look like a pleated, ankle-length skirt. He didn’t wear them very often since the styles of martial arts he taught didn’t call for them. Usually he wore them when sparring, or when someone could convince him to show off a little Kendo, which meant Ashi going after the least-progressed student with a wooden sword.

“You should get a skirt like that and wear it for Ken. I’m sure he’d love the slits at the top.”

“IT’S NOT A—oh,
fuck
you.”

Ashi stormed out of the apartment, heading for the stairwell. He’d ask Analie to get Christoph to shut up. The ape seemed to listen to her, sort of.

Analie squealed and bounded to the door as Freddy’s text informed her of his arrival.

Ashi stepped into the first floor hallway in time to see Analie burst out of her apartment and make a beeline for the front door. He jogged to catch up with her.

Analie threw open the front door and yanked Freddy, who was holding a large box, inside with a shout of, “I’ve been waiting since forever—I’m so glad you’re here—I have sandwiches and lemonade—I’m so glad you’re here!”

Freddy grinned and set the box down, hugging Analie tightly. “Missed you, too. I brought the Amberguard artifacts.”

“I wanna see! C’mon, let’s go to my room.”

Analie picked up the box and grinned at Freddy, whose smile was quickly fading. He was staring at something over her shoulder, his expression suggesting he was watching Death himself approach.

No, something worse than Death.

Ashi stared at Freddy, then pointed at him and said, “
You
. What are
you
doing here?”

The shift was almost instantaneous. Analie caught a glimpse of hair sprouting, of his muzzle pushing outward, his clothes splitting, and then suddenly—
kitty
.

“Holy crap!” Ashi screamed.

“Aourgh!” Freddy yelped, several hundred pounds of tiger scrambling backwards on four paws, leaving gouges in the polished hardwood as his claws scored it in his haste to get away from Ashi.

Ashi backpedaled faster than his center of gravity could keep up with and fell on his ass. Still screaming, he butt-scooted backwards down the hallway. Analie dropped the box (a little voice in the back of her mind shrieked that the contents were probably fragile) and grabbed a double-handful of Freddy’s scruff, hauling him along with her. She bolted out of the foyer, into the apartment, to her bedroom door. She spun around and faced Mouse and Sebastian, holding her arms out to bar them from hacking Freddy to tiny, stripy pieces.

“
He’s having a stress reaction and is completely harmless!
”

She shouted louder than was necessary, trembling. Probably because she was trying to convince two shadows with swords not to kill her best friend.

Ashi sat in the hallway at the foot of the stairs, shaking uncontrollably.

Sebastian panicked, dropping the sword and backpedalling with remarkable speed until he was fetched up against the far wall. As a fairly newly turned vampire, he wasn’t as fast as John or Mouse, but it was impressive nonetheless.

Mouse, on the other hand, had the razor-sharp sword edges of her own and Sebastian’s dropped weapons aimed at Freddy’s throat before the last word made it out of Analie’s mouth. Her eyes were blazing a feral red, fangs fully extended as she moved to protect her home.

The only thing that stopped her from decapitating the large cat right off was Analie screaming at her and throwing herself in front of it.

John poked his head out of his apartment, staring down the hall at the quivering Ashi by the stairwell.

“What the hell was that?”

Ashi opened his mouth to respond, but the only thing that came out was a thin keening sound. He shut his mouth and covered his face with his hands, still shaking.

“It’s Freddy! Mouse! It’s Freddy! He’s a shifter! Don’t kill him!” Analie screamed, still holding her hands up. This was the most terrifying experience of her life to date. Probably for Freddy, too. His muzzle was pressed against the small of her back and he was shaking harder than she was.

Mouse was battling the instinctive urge, against Analie’s reassurances, to fillet anything that came through the door. Normally, she would’ve acted regardless and dealt with the consequences and dead bodies later. The fact that he was a freaking
Siberian tiger
didn’t help matters any. He looked like a
huge
threat, in more than one sense of the word.

Sebastian managed to collect himself to a degree, though he didn’t pull away from the wall. “Mouse, it’s okay. I think. Step back.”

Mouse made an almost unheard growl-type sound in her throat, whispery soft, and slowly stepped back, withdrawing the swords in a sudden smooth movement. She held them at the ready, red irises remaining focused on Freddy, not looking away for an instant while Sebastian very slowly, very cautiously pulled away from the wall.

John cocked his head, listening to Analie’s screams. He curled his lip, unsure exactly what the girl and her friend were up to, and not entirely sure he cared. Since the screaming stopped, and there were no sounds of battle or the whir of swords cutting the air, he was sure Mouse was dealing with whatever the threat was and didn’t need him.

He turned a speculative look on Ashi, a feral grin curving his lips as he stalked forward on light feet, hunger and sadistic joy lighting his eyes. He’d been feeling a mite peckish anyway.