I turned and walked to the sliding door and extended my hand. At the end of the palm was a golden-furred paw/finger, human shaped, but bigger, knobbier, with a retractable claw at the tip. My index finger found the button that made the door rise. It whirred up and I walked under it and into the night. It closed behind me. I made it to my bike. Pulled my sleeve down over my aching inner elbow. Straddled Bitsa. On the third try, my fingers folded around the handlebars, mostly human-shaped again. I managed to kick-start her. And I rode away.
Tears flew from my eyes, snaking with the wind across my face, into my hairline. I wasn’t wearing my helmet. My loose hair blew out behind me as if the wind ran fingers through it, unbraiding and tangling. I could still feel Leo’s fangs at my throat. Katie’s against my arm. Still feel my own fangs in my mouth, sharp against my tongue, and knew my jaw and lower face were still misshapen. If a cop stopped me for riding without a helmet, I’d scare the crap outta him.
I sobbed with misery and what might have been despairing laughter. I had been delusional, thinking I could work for vamps and not get bitten, not be forced to drink from them. Delusional and stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
I dropped the bike on the far side of the Mississippi. Just pulled off the narrow, unmarked road into nowhere, into the brush beside the road, and propped her against a tree. I stripped off my shirt, the stench of vamp and my own blood strong in my nose. So much had happened in the converted warehouse. I had learned so much. And lost so much.
Have you used the bones? Sabina knew what I was. She knew I was a skinwalker.
“What is she?” Katie had asked Leo. He had replied, “Unknown.” I hadn’t realized it at that time, but he had scented of the truth. So Sabina hadn’t told the Master of the City about me. Why not?
I stepped away from the bike into the woods. Briars tore at me. As I walked, I dropped my clothes and boots, leaving them where they fell.
I had clawed Katie. My face had transformed. They knew I was something. Something cat. Leo and Sabina had talked into my brain, something gained from the magic ceremony, the taking of my blood, and force feeding. Compulsion that bound me to Leo. Even here, out of the city, miles away, I could feel him inside me like a ghost crouching in the corner of my brain, like a demon’s dark shadow, waiting to command me.
Something splashed my legs, wet and cool. I stopped. I had walked a long way into the woods. Yet I knew where I was, at Beast’s hunting grounds, the swampy water where deer and other prey came to drink, where gators slept in the heat and hunted in the night. Something splashed nearby, landing heavily in the water. Mosquitoes buzzed me, biting. Sweat was slick on my body. The water moved slowly, stirred from beneath, the moonlight rippling on the surface. I touched my neck, the tissue swollen and tacky with half-dried blood. Time seemed to bend around me, a languorous pain.
I sobbed into the night, the sound raucous, ripping from me like a scream of torture. I had been . . . dominated. Controlled. Beaten. I wrapped my misshapen hands around my aching throat, the gold necklace I always wore now crusted with my blood, and let the tears fall. Ten minutes, I thought. I’d allow myself to grieve for ten minutes. The tears fell, scalding across my cheeks, through my pelt and dripping onto my hands. I had been prey. Bruiser had betrayed me. Another sob ripped from my injured throat, the sound spreading out over the water, settling into the swampy ground. Ten minutes. Then I’d get on with living.
Beast rose, fast, powerful, and demanded, Shift. Now! Beast is not beaten. Beast is not prey!
I let my half-human-shaped hands fall away from my throat, closed my eyes on the moonlit water. Pain, physical pain swatted me down. I fell forward, toward the water. Cutting, burning, slicing pain. Gray light filled with black motes of energy shot into the darkness. I screamed.
I leaped onto the shore. Shook swamp water from my pelt. Screamed into the night. I am Beast! This is my land. My territory. I hunt. I am not beaten! In the water, something long and dark moved. Alligators. Worthy prey. But not in water. Would hunt gator someday, on land. I screamed challenge again. Things in swamp sank into deeps and water went still. Moon and stars were caught in water, trapped.
I shook again, flinging stinky water. Walked into the night. Inside mind, I found Jane. She still grieved, her mind curled tight, sleeping like kit. Near her in mind was dark thing, like mist and marshmallows, like shadow and sponge. From the dark thing a chain ran, to curl around Jane’s neck. I pushed on dark thing with paw. It moved. It stank of Leo.
I studied it, thinking, thinking like Jane.
This chain was a new thing. It had not been here in mind before, and now it was here. It stretched to Jane like leash. I understood. Dark thing was the creation of alpha vampire, magic of Leo. His ownership was like collar of metal, spikes poking Jane’s neck. Was like cage, holding Jane. Dark thing was binding of Leo. I growled. Put claws on binding, testing. Cutting down with sharp claw edges. Binding was not tight. Not strong. Could shift and shift and shift, maybe only five times, and poking collar of binding would be gone. Jane was not human to be bound. Beast was better than Jane alone and better than big-cat alone. Jane should not grieve. Leo hurt her, but did not defeat her. We would still be free.
I walked through woods, night like a gift of hiding. Black panther, black leopard, black big-cats liked night best, but Beast was good hunter by day or night. Could hunt in tall grass under sun, or at night under no moon. I tracked by smell moving on air, going to place Jane needed to see. Following stink of old meat, spoiled long ago under hot summer sky. I sat at edge of killing place, looking, seeing many bones. Many more than five deer had been killed here, stolen from Beast. Winter food, killed by thieves of meat, by pack hunter. Deer bones mostly gone now. Bones scattered. Wolves had taken food in bloodlust. In killing spree. Jane needed to see. To understand.
She stirred, eyes still leaking. Sad for being prey. Sad for Bruiser who was not Bruiser tonight. She did not understand that Bruiser would grieve too. Beast? she called. I huffed. She stared out at night through Beast eyes. Night was sharp with greens and blues and silver tones, everything bright and clear. Bones stood out in grasses and on top of pine needles. Bones? she asked.
Deer bones. Killed by wolves, by pack. Stolen from Beast. Thieves of meat, like in Hunger Times. Pack thinks like strongest, like alpha. Pack thinks like pack. Not like one. Not like two. Like pack.
Jane sighed, breath in mind tired and sad. Not understanding. Yeah, yeah. Got that. Sorry, but . . . I don’t get why we came here.
I growled, sound vibrating into night. Beast lost much here. Beast lost winter food. Beast lost meat. Hissed thought, Lost to pack. Tonight Jane lost to pack. Bruiser lost to pack. But Jane is not pack. Bruiser is not pack. Jane is Jane and Bruiser is Bruiser. I batted a rib bone hard with paw. It spun into dark and landed in brush. There is no shame in losing to pack with strong alpha. Shame is from not fighting again when pack is smaller, when pack-alpha is not expecting attack. Only shame is giving up.
Jane made strange sound, air and laughter like bubbles in mind. But when she thought, anger and joy thrummed in words. Like taking a pair of brass knuckles to a half-awake werewolf and knocking his butt into never-never land. Like sitting on a nice tree limb and dropping down on unwary prey. Patience. Yeah. Okay. I can wait to get Leo back for this. Her tears began to dry.