“Oi, my tea is excellent!”
She snickers. “Except that it’s ninety per cent milk with a tiny bit of tea.”
“I like milk.”
Ivy turns to Bethany, who’s in the corner of the bench, reading a magazine. “Are they always like that?”
She nods absentmindedly. “All the time. Their bickering gets a little boring when you live with them.”
“I don’t think this can get boring,” Four grins. “It’s like a comedy show.”
“You’ve never been to a show,” her sister says with an eyebrow wiggle.
“Yeah, but I’m sure this is what it’s like.”
I slide onto the bench next to Ryker. He grins at me and puts a hand on my thigh as if that’s the most natural thing. He looks entirely like himself again. His yellow eyes sparkle with life and he’s no longer pale. It’s hard to believe that he was dead last night.
“Sleep well?” he asks innocently.
“Very.”
Gryphon laughs. “We could hear that. Your snoring is adorable.”
“Not that again. I don’t snore. And I’m not adorable. I take great offence at that.”
The guys exchange a look. “So adorable,” Ryker confirms.
I sigh. They’re going to drive me crazy. One is bad enough, but now I’m stuck with three. My sanity is hanging by a thread and they’re going to enjoy cutting it.
Lily puts a plate of scrambled eggs in front of me. Not sure they were supposed to be scrambled, but at least they look edible. She throws two slices of toast on top.
I start shovelling the food into me, realising how hungry I really am. I’d planned to eat something when we returned last night, but fell asleep before I ever got the chance.
“Where’s Lennox?” I ask in between bites.
“Gone to meet his employer,” Gryphon replies while watching me with an amused smile. “Said it had something to do with the wolves you encountered.”
Oh. Last time we talked about Lennox’s job, he said he’d taken some time off. Will he have to return to work already? I hope not. I like having him around. Maybe, once I’ve got M.E.O.W. running again, I can convince him to work for me. I’ve got the cash to pay him at least as much as his current employer. Our last case came with a nice bonus. Then I remember that I’m going to have to buy a new house first. Alright, maybe not a big salary after all. But free accommodation and food should be a convincing argument. There may even be catnip cookies.
I push my plate away. “Is there dessert?”
“Glutton,” Lily snickers but gets up to get a little chocolate pudding from the fridge. “High milk content. Just the way you like it.”
I sigh in contentment as I take the first mouthful. Dark chocolate and milk, the best combination ever.
Now that I’m no longer as hungry, my brain is starting to work again. So much happened last night, so much we need to talk about.
“Where’s K2?” I ask once I’ve finished my pudding.
“Sedated,” Bethany mutters without looking up from her magazine. “We thought that was safest while Gryphon was sleeping. She’s with Benjamin, and yes, he’s still sick.”
“Maybe he’ll pass on his bug to her,” Four says gleefully. “That should make her weaker and easier to handle.”
I exchange a look with Gryphon. “Did you tell them that she talked to me last night?”
“Briefly, but we were all tired. We should have a chat about everything that happened. Maybe it’s best to wait until Lennox is back though. But first, show me your arm.”
My arm? Ah. Yes. I almost forgot about it, mostly because it no longer hurts.
He carefully unwraps the bandage that I put on after the shower last night. I flinch when he removes the final bit, revealing the wound. It doesn’t look pretty. It’s closed, but it’s not healed as much overnight as it should have. I think this is going to leave a thick scar. Whatever that poison was inhibited my shifter healing. Thank goodness for Ivy’s licking ability to at least stop it from bleeding.
I give her a small smile. “Thanks for licking me.”
“No problem.” She grimaces. “It tasted awful though. Please don’t get poisoned again; I can still taste it even now.”
“Not planning on it. Bethany, did they tell you about the poison? Show you the antidote?”
She finally puts her magazine aside. “Yes, but it’s nothing I’ve seen before. It seems to be a synthetic substance.” She purses her lips as if personally offended by the idea of using poison that’s not made from natural plants and minerals. “I’m going to try and produce more of the antidote, just in case. And once K2 is awake, we might want to try and take a sample of her claws.”
“You think her claws produce the poison? I assumed she’d smeared it on them.”
Bethany shrugs. “No idea. I no longer assume anything. The Pack scientists are doing things I never thought possible, so it’s best to keep an open mind. For all I know, they’ve made poison drip from her claws, produced by her own body.”
I shudder at the thought. As if K2 isn’t damaged enough. “When is she going to wake up?”
“Hopefully the sedation is going to last a few more hours. Gryphon was exhausted; he needs a break from having to control her.”
She gives me an accusing stare, as if that was my fault. Well, in a way, it was. I’ve dragged the guys into this. They may never have got mixed up in the Pack mess if they hadn’t met me.
Gryphon gets up and returns moments later with a little jar. He puts the fruity-smelling salve on my scar, dabbing it so gently he’s almost not touching it at all.
“I’ll take another look at it later. Depending on what supplies Bethany has, I might be able to make something more effective to reduce the scarring as much as possible.”
He expertly wraps the bandage back around the wound, hiding it from sight. Thank goodness. I hate being broken on the outside.
A scent hits my nose and I jump up. Wolves. I reach for my knives and realise I’m not wearing any. Fuck.
The door opens and Lennox strides in, followed by two unfamiliar men. Both wolves.
He grins, but it seems a little forced.
“Hi guys, I’ve brought some friends.”
Chapter Fourteen
The taller of the men is in his late fifties, with grey streaks running through his black hair and wild beard that covers most of his face. His eyes are like glimmering coals, full of repressed power and authority. He’s wearing a long leather coat that’s frayed in places; it’s clearly seen many battles. He’s not carrying any obvious weapons, although I bet there’s a knife or two hidden in his tall black boots.
The other guy is younger, maybe early thirties, and very broad. He reminds me of a barrel; short and thick. His eyes are a striking azure, the only colour in his otherwise bland attire. Thin scars line his face and neck like a spider’s web. Curious. Shifters don’t scar easily, so if they do, it’s usually big scars that didn’t heal well. Like the one on my arm. His scars are tiny, barely visible, making me wonder what caused them.
The older man extends a hand. “I’m Mr Moon, Lennox’s employer.”
I take it, not wanting to show my hesitation. I grew up surrounded by wolf shifters, which is why I’m not a fan of them. Lennox excluded, obviously. “Kat Feln, owner of M.E.O.W. Pleased to meet you.”
I’m amazed at my manners. This is Business-Kat, the persona I put on when I meet clients to discuss the assassinations they want to commission. I don’t usually behave like this out of my office. The only problem is that I’m in nothing but a t-shirt and panties, with no trousers or even a bra. Not exactly professional, but Mr Moon hasn’t even looked at my nakedness at all.
His grip is firm but not threatening. I wait for the other man to introduce himself, but he stays quiet. Alright then. A bodyguard, maybe?
“Apologies for interrupting your breakfast, but this cannot wait.”
I nod. He should be sorry. “No worries, we were just finished.” I wish I s
till had my office. I’d be a lot more comfortable talking to him there rather than in a messy living room slash kitchen in an old wagon. It doesn’t feel very professional. Now that the final lab has been destroyed, I need to start looking for a new home for us. This place is starting to make me feel claustrophobic already.
“Let’s go outside to talk,” I say, but Lily gets up and nudges Bethany to do the same.
“We were just leaving, you can take our seats,” she says pleasantly. At least she doesn’t offer them tea. I don’t want them to stay for long. We have a lot still to discuss, especially now that Lennox is back.
“Ivy, Four, come with me, I’ve got something to show you.”
Mr Moon smiles at her and folds his large frame to fit onto the bench. The younger man joins him without a word. The two of them look totally out of place here.
The four girls leave, making the wagon feel slightly less cramped.
Lennox puts a hand on my lower back. “Morning,” he whispers. “Sorry about this.”
“Miss Feln, Lennox has told me about your encounter and I felt it was necessary to talk to you in person. Those wolves you met in the forest, tell me more about them.”
“I didn’t so much meet them as defend a helpless kitten from their attack,” I correct. I turn to Lennox. “How much have you told them?”
He shrugs. “As much as I knew.”
“Which is pretty much everything. I’m not sure I can add anything to that, Mr Moon.”
He flashes me a smile, his eyes glinting. “I have a theory about what they are, but to confirm that, I need to know every little detail. You must tell me everything.”
I sigh. “Why? I don’t know anything about you. All wolves I know are either with the Pack or on the run from them. You seem to be neither.”
Mr Moon looks at Lennox, pride reflecting on his bearded face. “So he’s not told you. Well done, Lennox. I knew I could trust you.” He turns back to me. “You were right about most wolves being with the Pack or on the run. I was part of them, a long time ago. I even believed in what they were doing was right.”
I tense, but he holds up a hand. “That’s in the past. I grew up in a feral pack of wolves. There was no order, no rules. It was carnage. We killed aimlessly, terrorising the local humans. Sometimes, we even killed each other. When I saw what the Pack was doing, I thought it was a better way. Controlling shifters, giving them purpose. It took me a while to realise the truth of it. That it wasn’t for the benefit of us shifters at all.”
“You know who’s really in charge,” Gryphon states.
Mr Moon nods. “I do. When I found out, I was furious. Since I was in a fairly high position in the Pack, I wasn’t collared. I was there by choice. So I left. They tried to get me back, but I wasn’t one of their cubs who went crazy being without a collar for the first time. I was a grown man who was stronger than most of them. In the end, they left me alone, and I created my own organisation. An alternative to the Pack, which provided the order and discipline needed to raise shifters, but without the collars, the experiments, the torture.”
“That sounds too good to be true,” I say honestly. “And how come I’ve never heard of you?”
“We work in the shadows. Everyone who joins us is sworn to secrecy. Breaking that oath is punishable by death. Which is why I’m very glad young Lennox hasn’t told you about us. I would have hated to have to make an example of him.”
Fuck. Now I wish I hadn’t pressured Lennox to tell me about his employer. No wonder he was so adamant about not telling me. If he had, he would have been automatically sentenced to death. He should have told me, though. I would have understood. Probably.
Mr Moon clears his throat. “Back to the issue at hand. Lennox told me that the wolves you encountered had the same scent as the mutant bears the Pack has created. Is that right?”
I nod. “Are they really bears?”
“Human DNA spliced with that of a bear shifter they captured years ago,” he confirms. “The only bear shifter I’ve ever encountered. Until then, I believed they were a myth. Well, the Pack caught him and experimented on him.”
“No surprise there,” Ryker mutters. “That’s all they seem to do.”
“You must, therefore, understand my concern,” Mr Moon continues. “If they’ve somehow mixed bear shifters with wolves, I need to do something about it. I will not see my kind being experimented on.”
“But it was fine when they did it to us cats?” I snap, suddenly angry. “You must have known about that if you were really as high up in the Pack as you say.”
He meets my eyes and slowly inclines his head. “I knew. Fragments, not the whole picture. I saw you sometimes when you grew up. I knew you were different, that you weren’t just a stray they’d caught. But there was only a tiny circle of people allowed to interact with you. All part of the experiment. Everything was monitored, every conversation with you recorded. And I had other things to worry about.”
Yeah. Sure. There’s always something more important.
“Mr Moon took me in,” Lennox says quietly. “After I escaped the Pack, I was feral for a while. I was completely out of my mind for only a few hours, but I didn’t regain full control of myself until weeks later. I wasn’t as careful as I should have been. The Pack almost caught me, but Mr Moon helped me and offered me a new home.”
“In return for working for him,” I interject, still angry at the older wolf.
Lennox shrugs. “Yes, but it was my choice. I could have walked away and tried to survive on my own. I chose to stay. Without Mr Moon, I may never have lived long enough to see you again.”
I'd love to counter that argument, but I stay quiet.
"Back to the issue at hand," Mr Moon says after clearing his throat. "I need to find those wolves and whoever created them."
I have to suppress a groan. This sounds like my own feline cloning situation all over again. I'm not going to investigate wolf cloning too. I like Lennox despite him being a wolf, not because of it. Cats and dogs will never be friends on the species level. Individuals, rarely. Lennox is an exception, mostly because he behaves like a cat half the time.
"Lennox and Ryker went to see the corpses after I killed them. I only defended a little kitten from them, that's all I did. I didn't really have time to worry about strange wolves afterwards; I've been kind of busy."
That's a complete understatement. Busy doesn't even cut it.
"By the time we got there, the bodies were gone," Lennox explains. "I never got the chance to tell you."
Ah yes, that's because when they came back, I was a mess, spilling my soul to Gryphon. I'd rather not linger on that memory. I'm Business-Kat now; there's no room for emotions.
"That means there were more of them, not just the three you killed," Mr Moon says, stating the obvious.
"Or maybe it wasn't other wolves but their creators," I reply. "I would have smelled it if more shifters had been nearby. I was on high alert and fully shifted. They would have had to be very far away to escape my notice."
He nods. "That would mean that either they had some sort of way of monitoring the wolves from afar, letting them know that they'd been killed, or that non-shifters were watching you without you realising. Sirens, maybe."
I shake my head. "Unlikely. I've been around sirens often enough to be able to recognise their scent. It might be quite similar to that of humans, but it's distinctive enough for me."
"There's a difference?" he asks, seeming genuinely surprised. "I didn't think there was. No wolf has ever been able to distinguish between a human and a siren, which is why it took me so long to realise who was really running the Pack."
Curious. Back at the Pack, I knew some people smelled different from others, but I didn't think much on it. Now, in retrospective, I know that even then I could tell sirens and humans apart, just without knowing what I was doing. If what Mr Moon says is true, he might not know that there's a siren in the room with us.
I exchange a look with Gryphon, who s
eems to be thinking the same thing. Let's hope the wolf won't find out. Gryphon is the ace in my sleeve that I don't want anyone to know about.
"Could you take me to where you fought the wolves?" Mr Moon asks pleasantly.
That guy really isn't giving up.
"I'm sorry, but-"
"I can give you something in return," he interrupts me. "You may not realise but news of last night's events has already spread. Don't worry, Lennox didn't say a thing. I have eyes and ears everywhere. I know you attacked one of the Pack's labs yesterday and I presume the reason for that is finding out more about Project Indigo?"
He knows the name of the fucking experiment? I could kill Lennox right now for not introducing me to the wolf before. We could have had some more answers before now.
I keep my expression blank. "You presume correctly."
"Then you will like my proposal. You help me find the wolves and I will help you retrieve the remaining clones. The ones held in the facility you haven't found yet."
Chapter Fifteen
I clutch the mug of tea, staring into the steam rising up from it. A lead has come to my door, my fricking door. And I almost didn't let it - him - in.
Mr Moon and his silent companion have left with the promise to return at twilight. He's assembling a team to help search for the mutant wolves. I'm not sure why he needs my help if he's already got a team of expert trackers, but oh well. He's offering me information on my sisters, so I'm all too willing to lend him my aid.
The twins returned as soon as he left the wagon. Not sure if they were listening in from the outside, but if they did, they've not commented on anything that we discussed. They're sipping on their mugs of hot chocolate that Bethany has made them. She's built a strange rapport with them. I think she turned into their hero when she gave them the cocoa; their expressions were priceless.
"Sorry about that," Lennox says for the third or fourth time. "I only went to him to say that I'd be gone for a little while longer, but someone in our Pride found blood in the forest and I kind of blurted that I knew what that was all about."
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