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  Xany came to the door a few seconds later. She was wearing a pair of black spandex shorts with a tiny apron and top to match that had the letters “D D “ right on her breasts. She apparently just got home from work. Vanessa’s eyes went right to the double Ds. I smirked, avoiding looking in the same direction.

  “Nice shirt,” I said, swallowing the lump in my throat.

  “Thanks, just got home.” She smiled at me before directing her gaze at Vanessa. “You brought the redhead?”

  Vanessa’s hands slid to her hips as she quirked an eyebrow at Xany. Xany seemed unfazed by the gesture. I smirked over the interaction between the two of them.

  “This is my friend, Vanessa. At least she is for the moment, until she does something unbecoming. We came to talk a bit about umm…some stuff.”

  I put my hand on the small of Vanessa’s back to urge her to remain calm. She was about to enter an apartment where two werewolves were currently residing, and the last thing I needed was for her to charge in demanding things.

  “We’ve met.” Xany grinned before waving us inside. “Caden is here, but Mal ran to the store because they eat too much, and I have no food left. It’s a good thing you showed up today, they were planning to leave soon.”

  We followed her to the living room. Vanessa silently scanned the room. I was about to ask how they met when Caden interrupted.

  “Yes, Caden is here.” He emerged from the kitchen, and his gaze went immediately to Vanessa, then to me. “You know a hell of a lot more than you let on, don’t you?” He smiled before extending his hand to me in greeting.

  This time I shook it with less hesitation. I forgot to breathe when Caden and Vanessa made eye contact. There was a tense moment of silence. Werewolves and werecats don’t get along in the general sense of the word, but they have been known to join forces when faced with a common foe. Vanessa was a weretiger, which were the fiercest of the werecat species. They were known for their intense fighting style and for being way too aggressive. Many werecats chose a more solitary lifestyle and didn’t really get along well with others, though some live in groups called Prides. Werecats didn’t blend in as easily as werewolves, due to their risky behaviors and quirky natures. And their indiscriminant sexuality.

  “What does he mean you know a lot more?” Xany interrupted the awkward silence. At the same time, I pulled my gaze away from them, and Vanessa put her arm around my waist.

  “Vanessa is—”

  “A cat,” Caden said as he cut me off.

  He broke the gaze and allowed Vanessa to win the standoff. It wasn’t territory she was claiming. The arm that she put around me clearly indicated to him that she possessed me. When Caden looked away, he acknowledged her assertion that he would allow me to be hers and was clearly not intending to challenge her on that. She was satisfied, and her body relaxed against my hand.

  “That explains it.” Xany crossed her arms.

  “She’s protecting, nothing more,” Caden said.

  Vanessa remained silent, as she often did in mixed company. Xany nodded in understanding. Caden seemed relaxed like usual and sat down on the sofa. He was probably one of the calmest dominants I’d ever met. Maybe I was wrong about his position. Xany sat on the adjacent loveseat, keeping her eyes on Vanessa. I joined them, and Vanessa perched herself beside me on the arm of the loveseat.

  “Caden, you might have to tell Mal before he…” Xany hesitated.

  “I’ll tell him when he gets closer; he’s somewhat out of range. I wouldn’t let him walk in to meeting a cat unknowingly.” Caden grinned at Xany. “Though it might be entertaining.”

  “Caden!” Xany giggled at the idea. “It would, wouldn’t it?”

  “Shawnee, you said you wanted to talk about ‘some stuff.’” Caden slouched in his chair.

  Vanessa slid to the floor, settling beside me with her chin resting on my knee, quietly purring as the tension in the room began to lift. Xany watched her while listening to the conversation.

  “Oh…yeah, I did.” I forgot that, like Vanessa, Caden’s hearing would be superior. I reminded myself not to trust my reactions around him yet. “I was just…curious, I guess. You know how you all thought I was a Lost One?” I hesitated. I was about to tell a dominant wolf that his plan could suck. Good thing I had a bodyguard with me. Caden nodded for me to continue. “Well…what if I was a Lost One… What would you have done? I mean other than tell me what I was. What if I couldn’t handle it or was too afraid to exist?”

  “You mean other than informing you of what you were and the dangers out there?” he asked. Relief filled me over the fact his voice remained calm.

  “Yeah, I mean, what if the Lost One didn’t feel safe anymore and didn’t want to be alone in the world of monsters she suddenly learned about?” I avoided his gaze and stared at his nose instead.

  “Good question.” He looked at Xany. “What exactly was our plan? Did we have one?”

  “That I would keep her safe,” she declared with a nod.

  “Keep me safe?”

  “Uh-huh. You live right by me anyway. You would know that I was a Breeder, too, and we could keep each other safe.” Xany smiled brightly. I returned her smile, allowing a tad of affection to seep through.

  “But what about the other Lost Ones that don’t have Xany right down the hall and are all alone?” I dropped the bomb.

  “I didn’t think that far ahead. You would have been our first Lost One.” Caden scratched his chin.

  “I thought you said it was your job to inform the Lost Ones!” I frowned. Vanessa leaned up when she heard me raise my voice.

  “That’s still true, of course. It is my job. I just hired myself recently so give me a break, will ya?” He grinned, then addressed me with seriousness. “Regardless, you raise a valid point.”

  “You can’t just leave them to their own devices, Caden. It might do more harm than good.” I glanced down at Vanessa for reassurance. She lifted her chin to me and purred louder. I guessed that was the equivalent to a pat on the back.

  “She’s right, Caden. That was a really stupid plan to just walk into their lives and say ‘hey, guess what—you can make werewolf babies and, oh yeah, everything in the movies is real and there is a potential you could be raped or killed because of it. Well! Nice talking to you.’ That’s not very well thought out.” Xany tried to suppress her giggle but ended up snickering regardless.

  “Well, unlike the pope, I am fallible. I’m up for suggestions.”

  “My daddy would say if you found a Lost Cub, that cub was yours to raise and teach the ways. Why shouldn’t it be the same for Breeders?” Xany suggested.

  The same was true in my Pack-family tradition. Lost Cubs were Changers that were either abandoned by their parents, born to unknowing Breeders, or human parents who carried some Breeder genes, or whose parents were killed in battle. If they were found by the pack, they became the responsibility of the pack and were adopted into willing homes. Lost Breeders were more difficult to come by. Lost Cubs were often exposed when they had their First Change or what was often referred to as a Firsting.

  “I agree with Xany,” I spoke up.

  “That would require a pack,” Caden said.

  “Then make one,” Vanessa interjected. “Lone dogs are annoying.”

  I swatted her for the insult and cringed; werewolves hated to be called dogs. Caden handled it better than me though. He seemed to let the rudeness roll right over him while I prepared to duck.

  “Yeah, Caden! Why not make your own pack? That way you and Mal don’t have to listen to the stupid rules of other packs and neither do I.” Xany grinned at him, her expression hopeful.

  “Despite the slur, Vanessa, thank you for the suggestion. That’s a lot to take on, don’t you think?” Caden glanced at me as if he were asking what I thought about it. I hesitated. Was I really about to suggest to a dominant wolf, who’s habits I knew nothing about, that he create a pack of his own?

  “I um…if your intentions are as chiv
alrous as they seem, why not? You would have a safe place to take the Lost Ones and protect them from harm at the same time. Eventually, they would know enough to decide whether they wanted to stay in a pack or live independently,” I said, adding the ending clause so that Caden knew I was pro-free will. No one should be forced to do anything against their will.

  Caden watched me as he raised his eyes thoughtfully. “I’ll see what Mal thinks. By the way, he’s nearly here.”

  Right on cue, Mal walked through the front door carrying at least a dozen grocery bags effortlessly on one arm with car keys hanging out of his mouth. He gave the entire room a nod of acknowledgement before he put the bags down and spit out the keys. “Sorry. Not enough hands,” he said and walked over to us. He paused beside the sofa when he saw Vanessa lazily sitting on the floor next to me. After a moment, Mal glanced at Caden and made a gesture with his hands that said “what the hell?” I guess Caden prepped him for some sort of encounter. Caden laughed and shook his head. Vanessa lifted her gaze and frowned at him, narrowing her eyes in a “try me” manner. She hissed and put her hand on my stomach.

  “Yours, I get it. She’s yours.” Mal sat down beside Caden and his gaze left Vanessa’s as he looked to me.

  Very cautiously I met his gaze, flinching when I heard the echo of a screeching eagle in my head again. I blinked a few times and took a deep breath. Even with all the other scents in the room, I could smell Mal the strongest. He smelled like the woods.

  “It’s good to see you again, Shawnee,” he said softly.

  I nodded to him, then looked down at Vanessa’s hair and decided to play with it to distract myself. Please don’t freak out, I begged myself. I got the feeling that Xany was paying careful attention to the interaction between Mal and me.

  “A weretiger, you say?” Mal asked Caden.

  “She almost bit my head off before, dude, seriously,” Caden joked.

  Mal looked confused and glanced between Xany and Caden. Xany nodded matter-of-factly, trying not to giggle.

  “You should have seen it, Mal. It was nearly a blood bath.”

  Vanessa snickered, hearing them tease him. I couldn’t help but smile as well.

  “You’re all shitting me. See what I get for being the brave hunter and killing all those poor helpless potatoes to make your chips.” Mal sighed in mock defeat.

  Everyone laughed together at that, and the climate in the room seemed shift.

  “You got chips!” Xany hopped up and rushed to the grocery bags, grabbed out a few bags, and then passed them out on her way back.

  “So what’s with the ‘not-so-random powwow’ this time?” Mal stole my phraseology with a smirk.

  “Shawnee and I think you and Caden should form a pack to take in the Lost Ones that you find instead of letting them run around scared of everything,” Xany summed up, crunching on a chip right after.

  Vanessa reached over and snatched a chip from Xany’s bag without making a sound until she bit down on it. I whispered “thief” in her ear.

  Mal leaned back against the sofa, glancing at Caden. The two of them sat in silence; however, they gestured as if they were talking aloud and made facial expressions to match.

  “Excuse me!” Xany shouted, and of course everyone looked at her. “Would you two wolves refrain from the mind talking when in the presence of the rest of us? Thank you very much. Have a nice day.”

  The guys laughed.

  “Mind talking?” I asked.

  Vanessa perked up, hearing the new phrase.

  “Mhmm. They do it all the time. My darling brother has a gift that can make him talk in your head when he wants to. And to leave me out!” Xany threw a chip at Mal who caught it and ate it.

  Vanessa snickered and eyed Mal with sudden curiosity. Werecreatures often had various gifts that allowed them to have certain abilities. It’s all about the magics. The same magics that help them shift. Breeders can have certain gifts as well, but Breeder gifts are different than Changer ones. Changer gifts are there to support them in battle, and Breeder gifts are in place to support the Changers that do battle. It’s Earth Mother’s way of keeping the balance and affirming that we should cherish Breeders and Changers in the same light because one is reliant on the other.

  Caden grinned at Xany and finally spoke out loud, “Mal and I will consider what you’ve suggested. I have a friend in Utah that leads his own small sept. We will visit him tomorrow to discuss the situation and see if it’s suitable for us to form a pack.”

  I nodded as I listened to him. Regardless of the result, I was glad that he at least considered the suggestion of protecting the Breeders rather than dropping a bomb on them and leaving them alone to dig out of the rubble.

  “Isn’t he cute when he speaks formally?” Xany seemed smitten with Caden.

  “Yes, he’s just darling.” Mal rolled his eyes at Xany.

  I smiled, enjoying the antics of the brother and sister before speaking. “We better get going then. I have work tonight. I’m glad you heard what we had to say, Caden. Thank you.” I stood with Vanessa and took her hand.

  Caden joined us and shook my hand again. He met Vanessa’s gaze for a moment before extending his hand to her as well. She looked from Caden’s hand to his eyes, then back to his hand again, then back to his eyes, and finally lifted a brow at him. I nudged her. She hissed at me and shook Caden’s hand quickly, then wiped her hand on her dress in the same spot she wiped the cheesy puff crumbs. Mal seemed a bit surprised when Vanessa accepted the gesture and smirked when she wiped her hand. Caden laughed as I urged Vanessa out of the apartment.

  “Bye, Xany.”

  Xany was laughing hard when she waved, entertained by the awkward interactions between the “cats and dogs.”

  On the way back to my apartment, Vanessa huffed. “Now I smell like wet dog.”

  “Correction… You now smell like a cheesy, wet dog.” I grinned and hurried inside, just out of reach of the swat Vanessa attempted at me.

  Chapter Eight

  I spent another night alone in the lab. Doctor Reynolds had left me a note to tell me he would be out of the office for the next few days, attending a conference in Cheyenne. For the first time in a while, I found it hard to concentrate on work. My mind kept wandering to the conversation I had with Caden. My Breeder side was something I’d managed to keep under wraps for years. Vanessa was right when she said terrible things had happened to me on the reservation, and when I left, I’d vowed to never look back at the pack lifestyle.

  There were plenty of people in the world who went around unaware of the mystical, magical, and dangerous creatures around them. So what if I carried the werewolf gene? That didn’t mean I had to live among them. I made the choice to live in the human world and deny anything and everything that I once was, even if my closest friend in the human world was a weretiger. I could easily pretend that her chronic purring was a random breathing condition like sleep apnea. Humans had those things. Normal things. I wanted to be normal. A normal doctor living a normal, ordinary life. The blinders I wore helped me get through school and work.

  And be alone.

  I rolled off the annoying thoughts and decided to change tasks.

  I had about an hour left to my shift so I decided to head up to the ER to see if there was anything interesting going on. When I arrived, I was greeted by the attending physician.

  “I’m surprised to see you in here, Dr. T,” said the forty-something-year-old Doctor Snyder who was walking toward the nurses’ station where I was flipping through charts.

  “Hmm…boring night in the lab. Anything interesting here?”

  “Nothing as interesting as your skinless kid. We had a woman who snuck out from the Behavioral Health Unit wearing a nightgown and white lipstick. She stood at the front door with her arms spread out saying she was waiting for the Second Coming. But other than that, nothing too exciting.”

  I shook my head at him. “Did you ask if you could wait with her?”

  “Huh? Why w
ould I do that?” he asked, trying to hide the distaste in his voice.

  “Because she’s sick and maybe would have appreciated the company. Eloise may not be able to communicate in the same way as you and I, but she still has a lot to say if you make the effort to listen.” I glanced at him and dropped the charts back in the bin.

  Dr. Snyder remained silent as he watched me.

  “Her son was planning to visit her this weekend and stood her up. Eloise’s waiting for the Second Coming was her way of telling you that.”

  “Well…sounds like you pay attention.” I could tell that he didn’t appreciate my mild lecture on empathy.

  “It doesn’t take much to sense when another human being is sad, regardless if they are in a state of psychosis. Good night, Doctor Snyder,” I said dismissively. I felt his eyes follow me down the hall as I walked away.

  I thought about Eloise on my way home. I’d visited with her on the many occasions she’d come in through the emergency room. Schizophrenia isn’t a gentle disease. Sometimes the patients in the psychiatric unit reminded me of myself. Especially the ones that came in having panic attacks that they thought were heart attacks. I couldn’t dwell on those thoughts though, because Breeders didn’t have mental health issues, the same way they didn’t have physical ailments.

  There wasn’t as much frost on the ground tonight; spring was just around the corner. I began the ascent up the hill toward my apartment building just as a black SUV with its blinding headlights drove down. There was a sudden break in the beams of light when a shadowed figure bolted across the road. I gasped when the driver slammed on the horn and the brakes at the same time. There was no impact. The driver got out of his car and looked around. When he found nothing he got back in and drove away. I rolled my shoulders, trying to contain the unease that crept across my skin and prickled the hairs on the back of my neck. The street, eerily silent, had an ominous vibe as I continued walking up it. I hated when eerie and nighttime were paired together. Why couldn’t it be an eerily quiet day instead?