“Titus?” He stopped, and his friends squinted in my direction. The humans probably couldn’t see well enough in the dark to know that I was too old to go to a college party, and I could tell from the lack of panic that they couldn’t see Robyn at all. Black fur blends well into the shadows.
Justus’s gaze slid toward her and he frowned. “What’s…going on?” His focus narrowed on Robyn, then flicked up to me, and I could see him trying to mentally connect dots that—in his mind—had nothing in common. His brother. And a big black cat.
He had no idea I wasn’t human. Whether Robyn was a shifter or an escaped zoo cat, he didn’t understand why she seemed willing to stand next to me, instead of fleeing into the foliage. Or attacking.
“You guys go on in,” I said to his friends. “Justus will be there in a minute.”
“Jus?” The one on the right squinted, trying to focus on me in the near-dark. “Who the hell is that?”
“It’s okay.” Though he sounded unsure of that. “It’s my brother. Go on. I’ll be right there.”
His friends hesitated for a second, then turned right and headed into the herpetarium. Music and beams of brightly colored light fell onto the sidewalk, then died the moment the door closed behind them, leaving nothing but the soft thump of bass to remind us that the party had started. That the path we stood on would soon be overrun with more attendees.
“Titus, what’s going on? And who the hell is that?” Justus stared at Robyn. “Is that…? Is she…?” He had no way to finish the question he didn’t even really understand. He’d probably never seen a female shifter. He’d probably never seen another shifter at all, except the one who’d infected him, and surely he hadn’t known that’s what was happening to him, at the time.
I jogged down the path toward him. “I’ve been looking for you for two days,” I said as I wrapped one arm around his shoulders, already guiding him toward the exterior fence and away from Drew. “Where—”
Robyn pushed her way between us. She growled, and I glanced down, assuming she was demanding an ill-timed introduction. But she only sniffed Justus’s thigh. Dramatically. Insistently. And finally, I understood.
I pulled him into a hug and inhaled his scent right at his neck. Where it was strongest.
He smelled like himself. Like he always had. And he smelled like me, more now than ever. And he smelled like…
Rage burned through me, unburdened by logic. I didn’t understand what my nose was telling me, but I didn’t doubt it.
“Drew!” I spun toward him, but he was gone. My best friend of nearly a decade. My college roommate. My trusted employee, even before we’d been infected.
The traitorous bastard who’d attacked my brother.
“What? Drew’s here?” Justus asked, and with a sudden stunned comprehension, I realized he didn’t know who’d infected him because as a human—even a newly infected stray—his sense of smell hadn’t been strong enough to identify the cat who’d scratched him. He hadn’t even known that was possible. And unlike Corey Morris, he hadn’t yet connected his own scent to that of his infector.
Which could only mean that he hadn’t smelled Drew since he’d shifted.
Focus, Titus. One thing at a time.
“Justus, this is Robyn. My…girlfriend.” I laid one hand on her head, fighting for patience when every muscle in my body demanded that I find Drew and make him pay. “She’s going to take you into the bushes, and you’re both going to stay there until I get back,” I said, talking over him when he tried to object. Or maybe ask a question. I turned to Robyn. “Can you still hear Drew?”
She went still, except for her ears, rotating on top of her head. Finding and categorizing sounds. Then she nodded, and her eyes narrowed. She pointed her muzzle toward the west.
“Thanks,” I whispered. Then I took off running.
TWENTY-TWO
Robyn
Justus stared after his older brother in astonishment and utter confusion as Titus’s footsteps pounded off to the west. Around a curve in the trail, several girls screamed, then burst into laughter, and I realized Titus had startled them as he raced by. They wouldn’t recover so quickly from finding me on the path.
I seized Justus’s jeans cuff between my teeth and tried to tug him toward the bushes, but he jumped back, startled, and the material ripped. His beer bottle exploded on the pavement. He blinked at me in the dark, uncomprehending, and I realized how little he’d understood of what had happened in the past minute and a half. So instead of trying to pull him again, I whined softly and turned toward the foliage, asking as clearly and politely as I could for him to follow me.
He stared at me for a second, and I recognized comprehension the instant it registered in his eyes. He’d finally connected me—a cat—with his brother’s designation of me as his girlfriend. A descriptor that felt monumental, yet somehow insufficient.
And finally, as a group of six girls my age rounded the westward curve in the path, Justus stepped into the bushes with me and dropped into a squat.
“Robyn?” he whispered.
I nodded, and his eyes widened as if confirmation that I was a shifter—that I could understand and respond to him—was almost more miraculous than his mere suspicion that that was the case.
“You’re with Titus?” he asked, and I nodded again. “And you’re…like me?”
I bobbed my muzzle again, and his relieved exhalation was so deep and thorough that it broke my heart. “I hoped I wasn’t the only one. Is…is Titus…?”
I nodded, wishing for my human mouth, capable of giving him the answers he needed. How could he think he was the only one? How could he know Drew, yet not know Drew had infected him? At least he wasn’t stuck in cat form, like Leland Blum had been.
“What’s going on, Robyn? Who are you? How do you know my brother? Why are you guys here?” Tears welled in eyes the same shade of gray as Titus’s. His voice was thick with confusion. But without my human mouth, I could only rub my head against his arm, hoping he understood the comfort I was trying to communicate. “I don’t know what that means!” His voice was getting louder, and I could hear more partygoers coming up the path. “Change back so I can talk to you!” he demanded in a loud whisper. “Please!”
Finally, I nodded, though I wasn’t sure that was the wisest course of action, with so many humans nearby. But Justus needed answers, and I knew exactly how that felt. So I lay down with my legs folded beneath me and began the process.
Spurred on by his pain and the knowledge that we could be discovered any second, I managed my fastest shift ever, though it was still nowhere near what Titus could do.
“Holy shit!” Justus breathed when I finally sat up, naked and breathing heavily, covered in chill bumps from the cold. Exhausted by the process. “Is that what I look like? I’ve never seen it. It’s pretty disgusting, in the middle.”
“I know,” I whispered. “And yes, that’s what you look like.” I crossed my arms over my chest, suddenly self-conscious about my nudity, now that Titus’s little brother was staring at me. “Can you hand me that bag?” I motioned to the backpack, where Titus had hidden it behind a fern.
Justus handed me the bag. “You’re my brother’s girlfriend?”
I pulled my shirt over my head without bothering with my bra. “Yeah, I guess. It’s a new development.”
“And you’re both…?”
“Shifters. Yes. I was infected a few months ago, but your brother’s been like this for three years.” I shimmied into my underwear without fully standing, then reached for my jeans. “I’m sure he’ll tell you all about it when he gets back.”
“Infected?” Justus frowned. “You mean I caught this, like a disease?” His eyes narrowed, and I could see him connecting the dots. “When I was attacked by something in the woods. I thought it was a wolf, or something. It was a…shifter?”
“Yeah.” Please don’t ask me who it was. I shouldn’t be the one to give him that news. I wasn’t family.
Instead,
he asked for a much more difficult answer. “Scratching someone does this?”
I nodded as I stood to pull the jeans over my hips. “Or biting.”
His frown became a look of pure panic. “But I scratched people. I didn’t know.” He scrubbed both hands over his face. “Ivy.” He said the word into his palms, but I understood perfectly well. “And those guys at the cabin.” He dropped his hands. “Are they…like me now?”
Damn it.
I pulled my shirt over my head. Then I knelt next to him and reached for his hand, silently hoping I wouldn’t screw this up. That I wouldn’t screw him up. “Corey Morris—the guy you scratched in the woods—he’s a shifter now. And so is the guy from the museum last night.” Justus’s eyes widened, but he didn’t ask how I knew about Elliott. “They’re fine. They’re at Titus’s house. Friends are taking care of them.”
“What about Ivy? And that bastard she was cheating on with me?”
“His name was Leland Blum. He died this afternoon. But that wasn’t your fault. Someone…” I shrugged, then spat out the truth. “Someone killed him.”
“And Ivy?” he asked again, as if he hadn’t even heard what I’d said about Leland. Obviously, parts of the whole thing would take a while to sink in.
“She died from the infection a couple of days ago. I’m so sorry. Most women can’t survive it. I’m an exception.”
“She died because I scratched her?” His expression crumpled beneath an enormous burden of pain.
“No.” I squeezed his hand, drawing his focus to me. “She died because someone scratched you, then didn’t stick around to teach you anything. She died because you were infected and abandoned. It’s an epidemic out here in the free zone, which your brother is trying to fix.” But I could tell from the out-of-focus look in his eyes that he hadn’t understood most of what I was trying to tell him.
“Who infected me?” Justus demanded in a low, gravelly voice. “Ivy’s dead because of what that bastard did to me. Who is he?”
I hesitated, trying to figure out how to soothe the rage echoing in his voice and oozing from every pore on his body. But he misinterpreted my silence.
“Was it Titus? Did he do this to me? You said he’s been a shifter for years, right?”
“No!” I put one hand on his arm, but he pulled away from me. “I mean yes, Titus has been a shifter for three years, but he didn’t do this to you. It was Drew Borden. We didn’t even know it was him until we smelled you a few minutes ago and made the connection. There’s a trace of him in your scent now. And there always will be.”
“Drew…” Justus’s jaw clenched. His facial muscles began to ripple beneath his skin. “Why?”
“I don’t know.” His anger was bringing on a shift, and he didn’t know how to control it. “Justus, you can fight this. You don’t have to shift. Just calm down and listen to the sound of my voice.”
“Why?” he demanded again, and there was little humanity left in his voice.
“Really. I don’t know.” Though there was no way in hell Drew had accidentally infected his best friend’s little brother. “But Titus will find out. He’ll fix this.”
I regretted it as soon as I said it. Titus couldn’t fix this. No one could. Justus would be a shifter for the rest of his life. Ivy’s and Leland’s lives were over. And there was nothing anyone could do about any of that.
Justus fell to the ground on his side, writhing in the dirt.
“Listen to me.” I knelt next to him, whispering directly into his ear, softly stroking hair from his forehead. “Calm down. You’re in control of your body. You can tell it to stop. You can stay human. You can fight this.”
His eyes rolled up to look at me, and though his jaw was clenched tightly shut from muscles tensing as they shifted, I could see what he wanted to say clearly in his expression.
He didn’t want to stop this.
TWENTY-THREE
Titus
“Drew!” I shouted as I raced through the darkened zoo, and only when I heard my own voice echo at me did I stop to wonder whether the party-throwers had gotten rid of the entire night security staff, or only those responsible for the herpetarium-side of the zoo.
Drew had a hell of a head start. I would never catch him if he didn’t want to be caught. But he wasn’t running to get away. He’d killed Leland Blum because Blum knew what he’d done, which meant Drew had no intention of fleeing the territory. He wanted to be Alpha, permanently, and for that to happen, he’d have to get rid of everyone who knew or could figure out the truth.
Me. Robyn. Justus. And maybe Spencer.
Drew wasn’t running from me. He was running toward a position of advantage. A place to take his stand. Barreling head-first into his trap would only get me killed.
I stopped on the paved path, forcing myself to focus despite the rage pumping through my body with every beat of my heart. I detected no trace of Drew’s scent, in part because my nose was overloaded by an array and concentration of animal scents unlike any I’d ever experienced in nature. So I closed my eyes, concentrating on what I could hear instead. If Drew wanted to be found, he’d have to show me where he was.
Hooves shuffling in straw.
Birds squawking.
Monkeys howling, swinging on creaking branches from somewhere to the east.
The watery snort of something huge. A hippo?
Then I heard the familiar pounding of boots on pavement, accompanied by a breathless huffing. Drew was running.
I opened my eyes and took off after him. I ran past the carousel and the bathrooms, then across a grassy wooded patch of lawn. Drew’s footsteps led me past a small amphitheater and a closed county-fair style cafe, then the scent of leopard overwhelmed me with its eerily familiar, yet unmistakably different pheromones.
One of the leopards growled. I couldn’t see her, but she could smell me as well as I could smell her. I slowed to a jog. Drew was drawing me into the big cat area. In a zoo as small as Jackson’s, that included only two more enclosures: the tigers and the cougars.
“Is this some kind of irony?” I called as I jogged toward the tigers. But Drew didn’t answer, and I couldn’t hear him anymore.
As I approached the enclosure, I slowed to a walk, listening for footsteps. Breathing. Watching for any out-of-place movement. But my senses were muted by the proximity of caged tigers. Two of them paced in front of the glass wall that let viewers get within inches of the great beasts. They were agitated by my presence and each huffing breath they drew into their huge lungs would obscure the sounds of Drew’s breathing. And his footsteps, unless he wanted me to hear them.
“You couldn’t just go away, could you?”
I spun toward the sound of his voice as Drew stepped into the covered viewing area. Holding a pistol.
“Drew…” Pulse racing, I held my hands up, palms out, my plan to disable him with no real care for his well-being temporarily stymied by the gun. “Why don’t you calm down and tell me what this is about?”
“It’s about the Pride!” He sounded exasperated. As if I should have known all along why he would turn into a violent sociopath. “That’s all this has ever been about!”
“You infected my brother because you want to be Alpha?”
“I deserve to be Alpha.” He gestured with the gun, and my focus followed the barrel. “I am Alpha. This Pride was my idea.”
“The Pride was our idea.” I tried to keep my voice calm. Even. “We said we’d run it together, and we have been. We—”
“Bullshit!” Drew roared, and the tigers stopped pacing to watch him warily. “It was my idea. I asked you to help, and instead, you took over. There was no discussion. No vote. You just assumed everyone would be better off with you in charge.”
“Drew, I didn’t…” Well, not exactly. I hadn’t intended to take over. I hadn’t even consciously thought about taking a leadership role. It just…happened.
“Being wealthy doesn’t make you a leader,” Drew insisted. “Running your dad’s co
mpany doesn’t qualify you to be in charge of people’s lives. I was summa cum laude, and you were a B student. I worked for a living, and you practically lived on your trust fund until your parents died. The Pride was my idea, and you took it!”
“You’re right.” Though I would have conceded any point he made, while he had a gun aimed at my chest. “I didn’t mean to cut you out. I didn’t even realize you wanted to be Alpha.” And the plain truth was that someone who had to say he wanted to be the Alpha—or waited for others to ask him to take the position—didn’t stand much of a chance of actually attaining that goal.
Alphas step up because they can’t not step up. They rise to a position of leadership and authority because people follow them, no discussion needed. No permission asked.
Drew hadn’t done that. I had. And that had nothing to do with money.
“Right,” he spat. “You just assumed that because you were everyone else’s boss, that you’d be mine too.” He raised the gun. “Turn around and start walking.”
I almost refused. Then I realized that Robyn and Justus were waiting for me, just yards from a party full of unsuspecting college kids. If I didn’t cooperate, would Drew start shooting? Was he that unstable?
He’d killed Leland Blum in cold blood.
I started walking, on alert for a chance to take the gun.
“So, you framed me,” I said as we passed the leopards, headed back the way I’d come. “You infected Justus, knowing that whatever havoc he wreaked would be blamed on me, as long as no one knew he was a shifter.”
“And as long as you had no alibi,” Drew said, his shadow stretching out on the path in front of me in the glow from a security light overhead. “It took a lot of planning to get him to lose his shit while you were all alone. But I had no idea he’d keep infecting people. Cleaning up after your brother has become a real pain in the ass.”
“And now you’re done with him,” I said, trying to keep him talking. The more distracted he became, the better chance I’d have of going for the gun. “You didn’t come here for Robyn, did you? You came to kill my brother.”
Blind Tiger Page 26
