The Panther's Rival

by Emilia Hartley

  “Ratty… I really don’t –”

  But her words were cut short by the violent grab of his hand around her throat. He then lifted her, gagging, and choking, from the sofa and into the air. She swiped at his hands, batting at them, trying to get them off of her as she gasped pathetically for air, only able to get small sips in to keep herself from choking and passing out. Ratty held her in midair, staring at her, his eyes a glowing yellow with dilated dark pupils.

  “Where is he?!” Ratty growled.

  Kara tried to form words but couldn’t. Ratty’s grip to her throat was closing off all the air. After a few more minutes, Kara kicking and swiping some more, he dropped her back down onto the sofa. Kara crashed down hard on the piece of furniture, gasping for air, her chest moving up and down rapidly, trying to take in as much as she could, the absence having been almost deadly. She peered up at him, angry, but aware of her position. The Pack of Fairweathers had her surrounded and their leader was way past enraged.

  “Merk!” he growled again. “What has he done to my boy?!”

  “Merk hasn’t done anything to RJ,” she answered defiantly.

  “He shifted,” he answered.

  “Yeah…” she coughed. “Something (cough) happened at practice and – and it caused him to shift – it had (cough) nothing to do with Merk,”

  Ratty eyed her curiously. She wasn’t afraid of Ratty. Never had been. She met his gaze.

  “Your fuckin’ boyfriend!”

  “Merk saved him – is saving him!”

  Ratty’s face changed. She had never seen him shift before but something was happening behind his face, she could see it. His skin was moving some, pulling back against itself, flickering like a light and his eyes were getting darker. His back hunched some, causing his chest to protrude out in rippling muscles that were seen pressed against his clothing, but as his shoulders widened and rounded, the seams of his shirt began to burst around the shoulder blades. He was breathing hard. He was trying to contain the shift.

  “Fuck you!” he spat, and she could see canines now in his mouth, crowding his teeth, pushing them forward.

  Ratty then turned to his brothers. It was a fierce and frightful stance, the kind seen in movies when the monster was ready to go after its escaped prey and claim its next victim.

  “Go! Find them. Pick up the scent. I don’t care who sees you – go find that fuckin’ bastard and my son!”

  On command, the two brothers hurried out of the door. Once outside a loud rip and the sound of bones cracking and popping and skin stretching could be heard, it was a violent and harsh sound that was followed by a howl. The brothers had changed in the hallway and were off to find RJ and Merk.

  Ratty looked from Kara to Principal Lightwood and then back again. There was nothing about Ratty that desired her anymore. It was pure anger and hate. She knew that there was nothing inside of her that would stop him from killing her right now. Except… She tried to affect him, summoning everything inside of her, but she felt different. She felt empty. Ratty leaned down to her level. He moved his face close to hers, like a dog sniffing uncomfortably close.

  “I will deal with you when I get back…” his voice was low and painful.

  He stood back up to his feet. He looked back at Principal Lightwood, giving him a look. And then he went to the door, a hard gait, one that frightened Kara because she knew he was going after Merk. What would he try to do if he found him? Kill him.

  Chapter Nine

  She stayed in her place. Kind of. Almost. The rest of the day was spent at the school and dealing with the aftermath of what had happened. To the least, the town was in an uproar. Some people stayed at the school, townspeople, asking questions, fearful to leave the school walls because the wolf and Merk were out there somewhere and they didn’t know if there would be another attack. But Kara knew better. Merk was out there with the wolf, RJ, and she knew that he would handle things. She just knew.

  Kara’s concern was Ratty and his two brothers. They were on the hunt. Ratty somehow blamed Merk for this and she knew that once he got into the state – tunnel vision took over. What he believed was gospel and he would see it through to the end - the very end. That was what she was afraid of and most concerned about.

  Merk had barely escaped with his life before. She wasn’t sure if he could do it again, not by himself against Ratty’s pack of Wolf Shifters. She was sure that Ratty would bring in the family, cousins to hunt Merk down. Reece would be the only one that wouldn’t join in. He was the youngest brother and was just different from all of them. Maybe she should talk to him? Maybe he could talk some sense into Ratty and the rest? No. No one could. She knew that.

  Kara roamed the halls of the school alone. She had already gone back to the gymnasium to check on things but they had finally cleared everyone out. She wondered how Ferdinando was doing… She wondered how she had done what she did to possibly save him…Both questions needed to be answered but that was for another time. She made her way to the classroom. She had grading to do. That’s what she told herself. But really she just needed a place, a moment to catch her breath, some place familiar where she could pull herself together; she hated to admit it, but she was shaken some by everything that had happened, but also by Ratty. He didn’t scare her but she knew what he was capable of and how Ratty had already been the catalyst for her losing two people she had loved, Will and Greg, and she desperately didn’t want Merk to be the next.

  She opened the door to her room. Memories of her and Merk’s last time in there flooded her. How he had her on the desk. She stared absently at the wooded desktop, seeing them, envisioning them together, her on top of him. A sinking feeling came over her. She wondered if she would ever see him again… Would they ever be together like that again? Her heart ached thinking about losing that – forever.

  “No,” she said out loud, standing in the doorway, her eyes bent towards the desk in a glare.

  “No to what?” a voice from behind asked.

  The voice startled her. But it was a familiar voice. It was Coach Winston. She suddenly realized that she hadn’t seen him since they all had been in the office. Some how they all had lost each other. Expected though. Everything had been so chaotic.

  “Oh… Hey,” she replied.

  Kara drifted into her room. She moved closer to the desk, still thinking about Merk, trying to recover her memories.

  “They’re meeting in the auditorium… People are. Some faculty, some people, kind of a town hall I guess.”

  Kara heard him but didn’t respond. She reached out for the desk. She just wanted to touch it. To feel it. It was crazy to think but she needed something to touch – it wasn’t Merk but it was the only thing that she had that connected her to him at the moment. Desperation. Despair. It prompted some of the craziest actions and things. Her fingers pressed hard against the wooded top. Merk, she thought. Oh, Merk…

  “Kara? You okay?” Coach Winston asked.

  No. That’s what she wanted to say. But she needed to save face. She didn’t want to show her worry or any kind of weakness. There was very little to be gained from that facade but she wanted to be strong for herself, at least in front of people. Alone. Maybe she could break down. That’s what coming to her room had been about. But she couldn’t even get that. There was no point and there was no time. She turned around to face him, leaning her lower back against the edge of the desk as she did.

  “I’m fine. Let’s go to this – this town hall,” she shot back. “Let’s see what everyone is talking about.”

  Kara pushed herself off the desk and marched passed Coach Winston and out of her room. It was an abrupt move, hasty, but she had to keep moving. It was the only way to keep herself from worrying about Merk.

  ***

  Surprisingly, the auditorium was packed from wall to wall with all of the people, standing. Principal Lightwood was on stage, a lone chair behind him and off to the side some, as he stood in front of a microphone. He was in the middle of a response w
hen Kara walked in.

  “I am not sure. But we – we will be looking into it – yea, definitely looking into it,” he voice quivered as he spoke.

  Kara hated him in that moment. Seeing him. He was the portrait of weakness. Hearing him. Cowardly. How he had stood behind Ratty and his brothers and watched as Ratty assaulted her. She would never forget or forgive his cowardice. And now, for him to have the gall, the audacity, to stand in front of people as if he was some kind of sage or leader… It made her sick. Disgusted, Kara started to turn and leave, but Coach Winston, standing next to her, stopped her.

  “Don’t,” he said, placing his hand on her arm. “You need to be here. Please.”

  She stared at him. She didn’t know how to respond. She needed to be here? Why? She needed to be wherever Merk was – not here. Merk needed her. She knew that. She could feel that. Listening to the wonderings and musings of the townspeople wouldn’t help anything, it wouldn’t help Merk, and that was the only thing that she was concerned about at the moment. Kara removed his hand from her arm and leaned in.

  “Merk needs me. Not them.”

  “People are scared, Kara, and Mr. Lightwood, he’s not going to help them – he can’t! He is just like me – we are followers – we follow them! Ratty and the family. You don’t. You broke free. Do you think he’s going to tell those people the truth? That – That Ratty’s son is a fuckin’ Wolf Shifter? Sure, you think people saw it all happen, maybe, but they don’t know what they really saw… No. He – He’s gonna spin it somehow… You need to tell them.”

  Kara knew that Coach Winston was right. She looked out over the auditorium. More and more questions were being thrown out. Principal Lightwood fielded them and with each answer, he shied away from the truth. But what else was he supposed to do? The truth was stranger than fiction. And how many people had really seen RJ changed? Maybe a handful. Ferdinando maybe?

  His injuries were so severe that he had have been to be close to RJ. But who actually saw the shift? Where was the proof? No. There was nothing that could be done. Nothing that she could say. There was one rule in this town that should never been forgotten: that Ratty and the Fairweathers were the only rule.

  “I’m sorry,” she finally said to Winston.

  And then she walked out of the auditorium.

  ***

  Kara wasn’t sure where to start first. She had to find Merk and preferably before Ratty and them did. The day had passed and it was now dusk. There was a good chance that they had already found Merk and had… Kara pushed the thought from her mind. No. Merk was okay. He had to be. She decided to start with the simplest place: his house. If he was hurt or if he was just laying low, that’s where he would go.

  The drive over to Merk’s was eerie. The town was empty it seemed and silent. Almost no one was out, no walkers and no cars, a ghost town. She waited for some tumbleweed to roll by her, kicked up by the wind, the town was so void and vacated of life. Kara noticed that she had been driving without the radio on. She hurriedly turned the knob. Anything to end the drowning muteness. The music blared. Rock. Good, she thought. Something upbeat, up tempo. Kara moved in her seat some, a slight dance, although forced; she was trying to be positive, to bring back some normalcy of life. But it all just felt icky and wrong. Just before she reached Merk’s house, she turned the radio back off.

  Kara pulled into the driveway. But she didn’t get out. She sat there, staring at the house. It was dark outside and the house was dark. It pained her to even think about getting out of the car, going inside, and finding out that Merk wasn’t there. But what else could she do? Where else could she start? She had to. Kara opened the door of her car and climbed out.

  There was a spare key under the potted plant next to the door on the porch. Merk had told her about it, their relationship hadn’t reached the point of either one of them getting their own key to each other’s place yet, but they were together enough to know the other’s key whereabouts and some other pertinent information, matters that only someone important in your life knew; Merk had become that for her and she was that for him. Kara put the key into the lock and turned.

  It was pitch black inside. Her hand went to the switch effortlessly. The lights flicked on and from the obvious silence she knew that no one was home. Her heart sank and her mind began to race with thoughts… Still, she called out for him.

  “Merk? Babe… Merk!”

  She could hear the desperation in her own voice. It felt like she was hanging on by a string. The longer Merk was missing the more likely it was that something bad had happened to him, Ratty had gotten to him or maybe even something had happened with RJ. Had Merk ever dealt with a new Wolf Shifter before? Anything could have gone wrong. There was no set plan – there couldn’t have been – not with all that had happened.

  Roaming through the house, Kara found herself upstairs and in Merk’s bedroom. The bed was still unmade from earlier. Nostalgia found her quickly. She and Merk had been in that bed, together, making love for the very first time, not even twenty-four hours ago. It had been the sweetest, most sensual experience she had ever had. She still remembered being with Will and Greg, but this was different; there was something different about being with Merk. Was it because he was a shifter? No. That wasn’t it. Ratty was different but not in that way – it was very animalistic, the feel, the smell, the taste – but Merk wasn’t just that, although there was some of that there too. Merk felt like home. Yes. He felt safe and not in the I need saving kind of way, but like something aboriginal, old and primordial even, Eden-like. Even thinking about it brought back the feeling of peace and happiness. Those feelings were immediately contrasted with the emptiness of the bed. Kara touched it. The coldness of it in the absence of human bodies.

  “We should go find him,” a voice said from behind her.

  Kara whirled around to see Coach Winston. He looked odd standing in the doorway of Merk’s bedroom, odd in general, being in Merk’s home. Kara knew better, but she almost felt like it belonged to her, that only she should be able to share it with Merk, to be the only one to even occupy the space other than Merk.

  “Let’s go find him. Now. Before they do – or if Ratty and them have then at least we might be able to help him.”

  She didn’t know if she could trust him. She didn’t know why she all of sudden felt that way, but she did. Winston hadn’t been the most reliable of people when it came to the Fairweathers, even before Merk. There was some clear bias. Kara had made it a point to steer clear of him as much as she could, knowing and understanding how much of a sympathizer he was. But here he was now, standing in front of her, telling her that they needed to go find Merk. It didn’t’ seem right. He didn’t seem right. This was the second time that he had just shown up – once at her school when she went to her classroom and now here at Merk’s. Doubt plagued her about who Coach Winston really was and what he was really after.

  Still, he was the only person standing in front of her right now. The only person that seemed remotely interested in Merk’s welfare or whereabouts. Did his reasons or motives really matter? Kara decided it didn’t. She didn’t want to be alone. Not on this, not in trying to find Merk. She moved toward him.

  “Okay, she said. “Let’s go find him.”

  ***

  They had driven around town twice over and still there was no sign of Merk or RJ. There had also been no sign of Ratty or any of his brothers. Kara thought about calling Reece, but didn’t want to bring him into the latest of Fairweather troubles. He had done a good job of staying clear of most his family’s mess and she didn’t want to be the one to change that; he would do it for her, she knew that. He was a good soul and he and her had always been on good terms despite the rarity in which they interacted, even when she was dating Ratty.

  Kara pulled the car over. They were out past the town center. She didn’t know why she had stopped, not for sure. She had been driving, just circling through again, waiting for anything to happen or pop up, hoping for something that
suggested where Merk might be, when the skyline past the shopping mall caught her attention. Tall trees towered over the shopping center buildings to the back.

  “What – What is it? Why are you stopping here?” Winston asked, his voiced seemed shaky all of sudden.

  “I – I don’t know… Those trees back there… What – What’s back there? Behind the mall?”

  “Nothing. It’s all undeveloped. Trees. Forest. That’s it,” he answered.

  But that wasn’t it. Something was telling her that there was more. Intuition? Kara felt a pulling towards the trees and the more she looked at them stronger the feeling became. She dared to say it because she didn’t have any explanation or rationale to back her, but Merk was over there – somewhere – and she had to go to him.

  “I’m going…” she said plainly as if it was the most common thing in the world to say.

  Kara opened her door and hurriedly climbed out.

  “What –? Wait…” Winston shouted at her as she got the car, he did the same.

  Kara was already walking the parking lot. She didn’t care if she was leaving him, she had to move fast, Merk was somewhere out there. It would be a crazy notion to anyone who wasn’t her or like her, but she was a succubus and her range of power when it came to emotions and feelings and those things becoming palpable extensions of themselves was something real.

  She had heard stories from others like her, the few that she had met, that told of links and bonds that were formed between a succubus and her mate that on a physiological level allowed them to feel each other like a kind of telepathy. The emotions and lust and love that the succubus developed for that person and them towards the succubus would bond them in that way. Kara prayed that that was the case here – that she was literally feeling Merk. It had to be. I’m coming, baby, she said to herself.

  “Hey…” Coach Winston had caught up with her. “What – What’s going on? Why – Why are you going this way?