“I understand the Laws,” the wolf replied politely. “I will not have you get into any trouble for doing your sworn Duty, cat, unless you overstep them, like getting involved with the war itself. Don’t forget your immunity only goes so far.” He sounded severe, but sighed. “I agree with your terms, but they could take some time. Are you sure this is the course you wish to set yourself upon?”
I glanced at the little girl on my couch. “I’m positive.”
“Okay. Please stay in touch with me. I will let you know if we catch any hunting packs leaving Dallas-Fort Worth that may be of concern to any felines in the state. Your phone number isn’t even a Texas number. Did you know that?”
I grinned. “Of course I did. Do you think I’m an idiot?” I got the cellphone in Georgia, actually. He could trace me, certainly, but he also knew that coming after me would lead to dead wolves and a war. Or at least I hoped he knew that. “Don’t track me.” I figured the warning was necessary.
“We haven’t been. I don’t know if you keep up with the current Laws as they are applied to modern times, but once a feline on Duty declares they want privacy for their charge, using modern technology is considered just as criminal as using our noses.” He was tired now and obviously a little shocked I didn’t know that.
“Consider me paranoid.” I had known, but it was always worth putting out the warning in my mind. No one could play the fool if the line was drawn early. “Goodbye.”
I hung up before he said anything else. I didn’t owe them anything more than that courtesy call, and that was all they were going to get. I looked around my apartment and decided it would be a fine time to get some work done. Carey was still asleep, and I left her on the couch so I could see her. I ducked into my office to grab my books and laptop, using the rest of the night to make sure my personal life wouldn’t go to hell while I did this.
Chapter Four
I don’t know exactly when I fell asleep, but I know when I woke up. Something touched my shoulder and made me jump clean out of my chair. I grabbed the broom near my dining room table, whirling around to find the threat, and stopped.
Carey giggled wildly, covering her face. She still looked worn and tired, with dark rings under her eyes, and in desperate need of a shower or bath or whatever eleven-year-olds did.
“Sorry. I’ve been awake for like an hour and I was getting hungry. And your phone was going off.” She pointed to it on the table near my books. I sighed, rubbing my face as she continued to watch me like I was the most fascinating thing she’d ever seen. “My dad says that werewolves are a lot like real wolves. Are werecats like that?”
“I guess,” I said, shrugging, trying to play it off. She had made me jump like people often did to their house cats and posted on the internet. I leaned the broom back against the wall and grabbed my phone, trying to act naturally. I called to the magic and it answered, telling me there were no threats on my territory. Good. That meant she wasn’t followed, at least not yet. I had no doubt that a wolf or two would eventually show up, but as long as it wasn’t a hunting pack, I could handle it. “What do you know about me?”
“He said you moved down here like five years ago. You own the bar below and you don’t go anywhere or talk to anyone. He thought you had secrets, but as a werecat, those aren’t my business or his.” She shrugged. “I was busy learning about my family. He said I would learn more about things like you and the vampires when I was older.”
“He’s right. They aren’t. I’ll fill in some general things for you since we’re going to be spending some time together.” I considered what I should start with and went with the basics. “Werecats are very solitary by nature. We don’t play nicely with others. We don’t fit in with wolves because we don’t play dominance games. We think we’re the top predator and that makes us a challenge for werewolf Alphas. We can defeat them, but we don’t want to rule because we don’t want the community. It leads to chaos, and no one wants chaos.” I yawned now, checking my screen.
There were a few texts and the most important were from my lawyer and Harrison, or so the text said. Each contained similar documents, and I sent the documents to my printer so that I could carry them. They were legal proof that Carey was in my care. I opened a browser and checked the news, letting out a long sigh of relief that the news was now reporting that Carey was in safe custody and removed from the danger in the cities.
“What else can you tell me? I’ve never met anything other than werewolves… and one witch. Well, kind of.” She sat down and I eyed her for a moment. There was still a fear in her scent that wouldn’t go away, which meant she was very good at hiding it. I wondered if it was because she grew up around monsters, predators. While they might have seen her as a member of their pack, she was still human. Her father, this oh-so-intelligent Alpha, must have taught her to never show that fear and she’d learned well.
“Um.” I didn’t really know what she wanted to hear. There was a lot I wasn’t allowed to say, and she could definitely take back werecat secrets to the werewolves. I wasn’t foolish. I didn’t think she was spying, but I wasn’t going to give her secrets to hold that weren’t hers. “Nothing really. There’s a lot of similarities between us and the wolves. Full moon makes shifting easier, and many can’t resist the Change that night. New moons make it harder and some can’t Change at all. You know, why don’t you go take a long shower and I’ll make us some lunch?” I checked the time. It was eleven in the morning. “Then we can figure out how this is going to work while you’re here.”
“Here?” She frowned at me and I frowned back.
“Yes. Here.”
“You aren’t going to go and save my daddy?” The tears were back. “I thought you were supposed to…”
“Protect you. Which means we stay right here. I take care of you. I stop others from taking you. Your father is on a difficult road. He’s an Alpha of a werewolf pack. I can’t go save him. It’s against the Law for my kind to interfere in that way.” I knew the reality for her was harsh, but she needed to have it. There was nothing I could do against a wolf that wasn’t a direct threat to her. If her father was fighting for his life, it was his fight. Not mine or his daughter’s.
“That’s not fair…”
“It’s been the Law for a long time and it keeps a lot of people safe,” I said gently, reaching for her.
She jerked away and stomped towards my bathroom. When the door slammed and I heard the water running, I had a feeling this was going to be a lot more aggravating than it really had the right to be. If this was the attitude I had just signed my life to, I was in for a long ride.
I sat back down and went back to my books, realizing that I had actually finished the night before. That was at least something. I checked my bank accounts from my phone and waited, yawning again as I stretched my legs under the table. I needed to shower and change after her.
When she came out, she was in the same dirty clothes. They weren’t terrible, but they weren’t good either.
“No changes?” I asked as kindly as I could. “We can run out and grab you something fresher.”
“I have money,” she said quickly, running for her bag near the couch. She pulled out the wallet and held it out to me. I took it and flipped it open, my eyebrows trying to crawl off the top of my forehead and leave. She had some serious cash and lines of business cards, all with important phone numbers all over the country.
“Whose wallet is this?” I asked softly, holding it up. I really hope she didn’t steal it from another werewolf. There could be tracking in it.
“Mine. Dad and my brothers kept a bag made for me in case anything ever happened…like this. They put that in it with the money and the other stuff so that I had some ways to get ahold of people and find help.” She took her phone out of the bag next and I snatched it, making sure it was off. I exhaled again when I realized it was. She grabbed it back, glaring at me. “What was that for?”
“I wanted to make sure no one was going to be able to GPS it,” I answered, rubbing my face.
“I’m eleven. I’m not an idiot,” she said with a prideful indignation that made me smile for the first time all morning.
“Fine. Good job. I’m going to shower. If you try to leave, I will come out, naked, and drag you in there to watch me. Clear?”
“Crystal,” she muttered, rolling her eyes. “Like I would leave. You’re all I’ve got.”
“Yeah.” I sighed again, walking away from her and heading to my bedroom in the apartment first. I grabbed a clean set of clothes and two extra towels, knowing she must have used the ones I kept in the bathroom. As I walked into the bathroom, I caught a glimpse of her making herself some cereal and let that ease me. She wouldn’t run—hopefully. I didn’t know why I was suspicious of it. It would be the stupidest thing she could do, but she was eleven, so stupid to me probably didn’t seem so stupid to her. She was obviously angry that I wasn’t going to go out and save her father and brothers, and that was a concern. Her father should have also explained that point when it came to werecats and their Duty to the other supernatural species and the humans of the world. The Law tied my hands, and it was for good reason.
I showered quickly, not giving myself the time to just enjoy the hot water pouring over me. I kept an ear open for her moving around in the apartment but no one was below and she never tried to leave, which was good.
When I stepped out, I was greeted by my reflection and it reminded me why I was doing this. My gold feline eyes were still there, the only marker that I was anything but human. Here I was, thirty-six, looking twenty-six, a werecat and beholden to rules and a lifestyle I didn’t have any say in.
When I was human, I hated my brown curls because they were so normal. Now I loved them for that. I had a soft face which many took as me being a soft girl, but they couldn’t be further from the truth. My body told a similar story. It wasn’t cut or lean, but it didn’t carry much excess fat either. It refused to put on any more weight, and I ate a lot to keep my calories up. As I kept staring at myself, my pupils constricted into the feline slits seemingly on their own, but it was probably my own anxiety over what I’d just gotten pulled into. I would need to wear sunglasses to make sure no one saw that outside, since I hadn’t been able to convince them to go back to my hazel.