Oath Sworn

by Kristen Banet

  I sighed, ignoring the woman at the bar waiting on a beer while I listened. God damn. There was a human girl involved. By the Law, she was exempt from all supernatural politics. No werewolf was allowed to hurt her, no matter who her father was. I hoped that her brothers had taken her to safety and someone who could care for her, since their father was most likely dead.

  “Jacky, I want my beer. Worry about your packmates later,” the woman said, snappy.

  I worked hard to keep my mouth closed and not bare my teeth at her. “Sorry, I’m not a werewolf—therefore they aren’t my packmates. It’s just interesting. I hope everyone is going to be okay up there.” I grabbed a beer from the ice behind the bar. I wanted to be mad, as I finally got the human woman her drink. Mad that a child was out there, in the middle of the mess, but I couldn’t. I knew the score. She was probably safe, no matter what side had her. Even the reckless wolves took that sort of thing seriously. Children were precious, and humans were supposed to be safe. End of story.

  My grip on my rag tightened. It wasn’t like this wasn’t normal. It was just too close.

  “How does a werewolf even have a human daughter? Did he adopt her?” The woman didn’t leave, and I finally looked over to see who it was.

  “Kelly, it’s public knowledge that werewolves and humans can breed. Their children can be either. Some are born werewolves, some are born human. They’ve done DNA tests before to prove it.” The same could be said of werecats.

  “Who would ever want to breed with a dog?” She was laughing as she walked away.

  I wanted to whack her on the side of her pretty blonde head. Werewolves weren’t dogs and it wasn’t illegal, though some states and countries were trying to make it. In my mind, as long as whatever was going down happened in human bodies, I didn’t care. Werewolves were out and they had always been more lax about their secrets than werecats. They never had the rule to not fornicate with humans, and it was something that’d been going on for hundreds of years, if I remembered my history lessons from Hasan right.

  It was near midnight and Kick Shot was as packed as it would ever be. I had nearly forty people in the bar, and the music was turned up louder than the TV now, much to my chagrin. It was still giving updates on the situation in Dallas-Fort Worth, updates I desperately needed.

  There was a faint knocking for a moment and I frowned. I had better hearing than any other supernatural race, and that included the weird cousins I had in werewolves. Their sense of smell was a touch better than mine, but my hearing outclassed theirs by miles.

  So the faint knocking I heard coming from the back of my building stood out to me like a siren. I tensed up, wondering what could possibly be making the noise. It wasn’t something I had ever heard in my little bar. Ignoring my patrons, I started walking.

  “Hey, I need a drink!” someone called out.

  “Hold on!” I snapped. “If you reach for a freebie, I’ll take the hand. Clear?” I turned and pointed at the guy who yelled for me. “Two minutes. You can wait two minutes.”

  “Yes ma’am,” the man said, settling into his seat. Normally I would never leave the bar during the busiest time of night, definitely not on a Friday, but the knocking was still going, and it wasn’t just getting louder because I was getting closer. Whatever it was, it was hitting harder.

  I swung the door open to my staircase and found nothing, so I looked at my back door. Someone was knocking on it. That someone now seemed desperate. I closed the door to the stairwell and opened the back door. I didn’t see anything for a moment until my eyes trailed down to the eye level of my visitor.

  “Oh for fuck’s sake,” I muttered.

  I knew the face the moment I saw it. I felt the nearly undeniable urge to close the door immediately and without regret, but resisted it. I waited in silence, hoping I didn’t hear the words I knew I was going to hear.

  She searched through a backpack, the little human missing thanks to the turmoil in the big city. She couldn’t be more than ten. I watched her pull out a wallet, obviously not hers—or maybe it was. I had no idea. Maybe it was a go-bag. I couldn’t tell, but it was her size and that was troublesome for some reason. She pulled a business card out of the wallet and looked back up to me, big grey-blue eyes looking terrified.

  “I am…I’m Carey Everson.” Her voice trembled and shook, but she had to say it all. She had to. It was the only way she was going to be able to drag me into a small war I wanted no part in. There were questions I needed answered once those words were said, but she had to first get through the ritual. If I acted without the ritual, a war would start, one much bigger than the one her father was probably dead to. “I’m a human. Uh…I am eleven years old…”

  “Just get to the important parts,” I whispered softly. There was no reason to give me her life story yet. “I know you’re human.” I could smell it. There was a faint scent of werewolves on her, but she was human. There was no doubt in my mind about that.

  “I need protection from the super…supernatural community. I am at risk of losing…” Tears began to spill from her eyes. “My life through…no fault of my own. I am requesting protection from fang and claw from another with fang and claw. I am requesting that the werecats uphold their duties to the supernatural…community and protect me from all threats inhuman.” Her jaw was shaking, but her words were stronger at the end. Her large, lost grey-blue eyes were hidden by her limp, ash-brown hair. I figured that hair was normally a rich oak color, but running for your life had the tendency to wash the color out of someone. She looked up at me again, slowly and shaking. “Please. They probably killed Daddy. They want to kill me too.”

  I took a deep breath and reached out, pulling her to me slowly. I had to give her an answer. If I rejected, it would start a war, but I would never reject her. No, children were precious, no matter the species. There was only one correct way this could go down, even if I didn’t want it. I had a duty, no matter how much I wanted to ignore it. This human girl had no reason to be in such fear.

  “I, Jacqueline Leon of the werecats, hereby do swear to protect you from all threats supernatural until which time I feel you are in safe hands of family or friends that mean you no harm. I hereby do swear that your life is now in my hands and can be trusted there. I shall treasure your humanity and treat you as one of my own. You, from this moment until which time I know you are safe and no longer need me, are my child of this earth. You will be given all things in accordance to this. Carey Everson, you are hereby under the protection of the werecats.”

  The words were soft and broken by tears. “Thank you.”

  I was officially called to Duty. I moved to East Texas to get away from all the trouble of the supernatural community and it found its way to my bar.

  Of course.

  3

  Chapter Three

  My world changed in that instant and I knew it. I held her to my chest, comforting even while I began to do my Duty. My magic roared in answer to my call, telling me every living thing that dared walk on this night. For the moment, there were no other supernatural predators to worry about. The moment any dared to come into my territory, I would know, and I only had one way to properly respond while protecting humanity from the threat of my cousins.

  I would have to kill them. Brutally and without mercy.

  “Come inside,” I whispered. “Come in. I have an apartment on the second floor. I want you to go up the stairs and into my apartment. Get comfortable. I’ll be there as soon as possible.”

  She only nodded, still curled into my chest, holding me like her life depended on it. It did, really. I removed myself, though. If her life was really in danger, and she was behaving like it was, then we couldn’t stand outside the bar all night.

  Once I was able to untangle from her, she ran up the stairs. I took a deep breath, locking my back door the moment I knew she was up and waiting on me. I turned back for the bar and walked in, knowing I probably didn’t look like happy-go-lucky Jacky Leon anymore. I went straight
for the radio, ignoring everyone talking to me, trying to stop me and find out what was wrong. It took ten long strides and I hit the power button with force, breaking the machine.

  “We’re closing early!” I roared. “I need everyone to leave now!”

  Silence greeted me.

  “NOW!” I didn’t have time for this, and thankfully, my patrons realized. They started pulling out their wallets and I shook my head. “If you have an open tab, it’s on the house tonight. I have a family emergency and I need all of you to leave so that I can go deal with it.”

  “Jacky…” Joey was the only one who dared come within five feet of me now. “Um…”

  When he came closer, I could see it. I cursed, covering my face, rubbing my eyes. I could see the gold glow that had been reflected back at me. I should have realized that was going to happen.

  “I’m not a werewolf,” I whispered to him, looking back up at his face, hoping he knew to drop the topic and drop it now. “Please, Joey. Get everyone out of here.”

  This was a mess and there was no way I was going to be able to clean it up. I had better control than this, but the stress was already weighing on me and my feline was clawing and spitting to get out and defend its new charge, the crying human girl that I could hear in the apartment. Hopefully they only saw the gold and not the cat pupils that normally came with it.

  “Let’s go everyone! Jacky’s got family problems and we need to let her handle them.”

  I watched them leave. I watched the glances over their shoulders, curiosity in their eyes. Most were harmless. Some were suspicious, wondering what monster was hiding in their community. It was a mess I couldn’t clean up yet. Protecting humanity was higher on my to-do list than keeping the Secret. It had to be, especially if a little girl’s life was possibly on the line. I locked the door behind the humans and watched their cars leave. All the while, I kept in touch with my land and my magic, hoping nothing crossed my borders.

  “God damn it,” I whispered, closing the blinds next. I turned off the TV and the lights as I walked out, heading for the back staircase that led to my apartment and office. I hauled myself up in record time, taking several steps at a time. The girl was still crying, and that drove me faster.

  Werecats were protective to the point of insanity. Being solitary creatures, when we made a claim, no matter how temporary, we defended that claim to the death. It was part of what led us to the role we now played in the supernatural community.

  I didn’t burst into my apartment. I had more sense than that, even if the tears had me wanting to go in and destroy my own furniture for offending my charge. I walked in quietly, searching my dark apartment for her. My night vision was perfect. It wasn’t in color, but it was perfect. I knew from the glow around my eyes that I hadn’t been able to go back to my human eyes. There was probably going to be very little that made me feel safe enough now to calm down.

  “Carey?” I called gently. “We need to talk.” I knew she was on my couch, but I wanted her to know I was coming. I wanted her to feel safe enough to tell me where she was. I had never been called to Duty before, but I knew instinctively how to handle it. Kind of.

  “I’m here,” she answered, her voice gentle and broken. Scared. She was so scared. Her fear filled the air in my apartment, soaking everything with it. It would be weeks before I lost all traces of the fear she felt.

  “Hi,” I whispered, rounding the couch and sitting on the other end. She was a scared little doe and I couldn’t invade her space without risk of her losing her ability to trust me. “We’re safe right now, but we need to talk about a few things.”

  “Will we stay safe?” she asked, sitting with her legs pulled up to her chest. She seemed so small. There was probably a time in my life that I seemed that small, but those memories were gone now. Becoming a werewolf or werecat came with risks. One of those was that sometimes holes appeared in the human memories. No one knew why, and many were lucky it didn’t happen to them. I wasn’t one of the lucky ones. I didn’t remember any time of my life from six to twelve. Her age.

  “You’ll always be safe with me,” I promised. “I swore to protect you. If anyone wants you, I can and will stop the threat to you. You have to understand that a werecat takes the Duty more seriously than our own lives. We honor the Duty and nothing will ever stop me from fulfilling it. I will see you to permanent safety, Carey. Do you understand what that means?” It was hard asking a small child that. I was asking her if she knew I was going to kill anyone who came for her if they meant her harm. Not just defeat them. Not just scare them away. I would kill them, and I wouldn’t feel guilty for it because she placed herself in my care.

  From the blazing look that came into her eyes, she understood. “Yes.”

  I resisted a smirk because it was inappropriate, but I wanted to. She was the daughter of a werewolf Alpha. No amount of sheltering would ever protect her from the harsh realities of our world. It was a sad thing, but it also made her strong. She had come this far, which reminded me that she already had steel there in her spine, even if she was afraid.

  “Okay, now I need you to answer a few more questions for me. How did you even know I was here?” That was important. No one outside of the werecats knew where I was, and most of them just stumbled on me, shocked at who they found in the borders of the territory. The werewolves should have never known. I was so careful.

  “Daddy told me you were here. He gave me this.” She thrust out her arm, holding that business card I had seen her read off. I took it slowly and read it, flipped it over and read the back.

  What I read made me growl softly. Not because it was bad, only annoying. Her damn father had given her a business card with the words of Duty, which I had already guessed, but he’d also put on the Rules of Duty. She knew exactly what she was going to get out of this new…relationship we were about to have. I eyed the girl and her big eyes seemed fearful again.

  I shook my head, handing the card back. “Smart father of yours,” I said politely. “Did he think there would be trouble?”

  “A smart and wise Alpha always thinks there will be trouble, but never gets paranoid. He trusts his pack fully, but always keeps his most trusted at his back, because if he didn’t, he would be seen as arrogant. He must be strong enough to stand on his own, but know to use the strengths of the wolves around him so that he doesn’t insult them.” She recited it as if it came from a book. For all I knew, it did.

  “Who am I protecting you from?” I had a very good guess, but if she knew any names, that would be swell. Once I was done talking to her, I had to consider a game plan. I was officially her werecat and she was my human and a child. Legally, there was no one who could stop me from whisking her out of the country until I felt it was safe. I wouldn’t do that, but I had to recognize that I could. I had to keep on my toes and remember that this could go terribly wrong for someone, most likely her.

  “There were wolves. I didn’t see any of them in their human forms and I don’t know their wolf forms well enough because I’m too young to be around too many werewolves. We were having game night and they came in. My daddy wasn’t home, working late on pack business. It was just me and my brothers. Landon told me to run. I heard fighting. I don’t really know, but it sounded bad. I started running, grabbing my bag for this like my daddy taught me, and I knew I had to get here somehow. I saw on my phone that my dad was missing and my brothers, like me. That means you’re all I have.”

  “Because you don’t know which of your old guards are trustworthy,” I stated plainly. She was a damn smart kid, that was for sure.

  She only nodded and the tears came back. “Why would they do this? We were all a family! Daddy said a wolf pack is a family and family never hurts each other.”

  “Oh sweetie, it’s okay. You can cry. Come here.” I reached out for her and she half-crawled and half was hauled into my lap. I rocked her gently, my protective instincts flaring up. It wasn’t helped by the fact that I was female and she was a child. All I
could feel in that moment was the need to kill whoever made the tears come. I needed to protect this child. It was my sworn Duty and I wouldn’t stop until every single one of those wolves was dead and ash.

  While I rocked her, I began to consider my options. The best bet was to hide her in my territory and contact the werewolf government when things settled down. They would understand that I was keeping her hidden for her own protection until they cleaned up their mess. I couldn’t go to the city and fight the war to protect her. No. Caring for her was my utmost priority, and the wolves would know it.

  I grabbed my cellphone and texted Lani, telling her I was called to Duty, and knew she would text me back soon, probably offering any aid she could. I sent a second, requesting any phone number to the North American Werewolf Council that could be safely reached by supernaturals. If she didn’t have one of those, any number would do. There were codes that any supernatural could use to get onto a secure line if needed. It was already past midnight, so all of those things would need to be dealt with in the morning. Right now, I just needed to lay the groundwork. She would be safe for the night, because if any wolf dared to enter my territory before I called anyone, I could and would just kill them, no matter what faction they might be in.

  She cried herself to sleep, which was both good and bad. I laid her out on the couch and tucked her in with a blanket, hoping she didn’t get too hot. The AC in the bar wasn’t as good as the AC at the house, but it was the safer location in the end. It had the road access my home didn’t and that would come in handy if a hunting pack came for her.