The wind buffeted me. I fought a shiver. “What’s your problem with it anyway?”
“It’s wrong and unnatural,” Ascanio said.
“And turning into a hyena is natural?”
“A cat is a predator. A rabbit is prey. It’s a rodent. They took a cat and mixed it with a rodent. It doesn’t smell right.”
I took a couple more steps. Damn, this beam was high.
“I mean, how would it feed itself?” Ascanio asked. “If it doesn’t hunt, it can’t survive on its own and it’s something that shouldn’t exist. If it does hunt, it will probably catch mice, the only thing small enough besides birds, which means it would be feeding on its relatives. It’s a cannibal rodent. It sounds like a bad movie.”
“Rodents are already cannibals. Ask Clan Rat, they’ll tell you.” The Pack consisted of seven clans, segregated by the species of the animal, and members of Clan Rat were rather pragmatic about their natural counterparts’ habits.
“What do they feed it anyway?” Ascanio asked.
“Bacon and strawberries.”
There was an outraged silence behind me.
“Bacon?” he managed finally.
“Yep.” I moved forward another six inches. Easy does it.
“Because that’s what it would catch in the wild, a boar, right? I can’t wait to see a pack of bunnycats take down a wild hog with those short tiny legs. Wouldn’t the boar be surprised?”
Everybody was a comedian.
“Maybe if I oink loud enough, it’ll leap across the beam and try to devour me.”
A gust of cold wind slammed against me, biting straight through three layers of clothes into my bones. My teeth chattered. “Ascanio . . .”
“Yes, Consort?”
“I think you misunderstand the whole nature of what it means to be an employee. We have a job to do; we are doing it. Or I’m doing it, and you’re making it more difficult.”
“I’m not an employee. I’m an intern.”
“Try to be a silent intern.”
I crouched on the beam. The bunnycat shivered less than a foot away.
“Here . . .” Bunny? Kitty? “Here, cute creature thing . . . Don’t be scared.”
The bunnycat squeezed itself into a tiny ball, looking sweet and innocent. I’d seen that look on feral cats before. That look meant they would turn into a tornado of razor claws as soon as you were within striking distance.
I scooped it up, bracing myself to be clawed bloody.
The bunnycat looked at me with its round green eyes and purred.
I rose and turned. “Got it.”
The beam collapsed under my feet and we plunged down. My stomach tried to jump out of my mouth. The rope jerked, burning my ribs, and I hung suspended over the sheer drop, the bunnycat snuggled in my arms. The beam crashed to the ground with a loud clang, gouging the crumbling pavement.
The rope rotated slightly. The bunnycat purred, oblivious. Across the ruined city, the sun was rolling toward the horizon, turning the sky orange in its wake. I was alive. How about that? Now I just had to stay that way.
“Okay, pull me up.”
The rope didn’t move.
“Ascanio?” What was it now? Did he see a butterfly and get distracted?
The rope slid up, as fast as if wound by a winch. I shot upward. What the . . . ?
I cleared the edge and found myself face to face with Curran.
Oh boy.
He held the rope up with one hand, muscles bulging on his arm under his sweatshirt. No strain showed on Curran’s face. It’s good to be the baddest shapeshifter in the city. Behind him Ascanio stood very still, pretending to be invisible.
Curran’s gray eyes laughed at me. The Beast Lord reached out and touched my nose with his finger. “Boop.”
“Very funny,” I told him. “Could you put me down?”
“What are you doing in Unicorn Lane after dark?”
“Apprehending a bunnycat. What are you doing in Unicorn Lane after dark?”
“Looking for you. I got worried when you didn’t come home for dinner. L'ooks like I found you just in time. Again.” He lowered me onto the ruined roof.
“I had it under control.”
“Mm-hm.” He leaned over the bunnycat and kissed me. He tasted just like I remembered, and the feel of his mouth on mine was like coming home out of a dark cold night to a bright warm house.
I put the bunnycat into the pet carrier and we hightailed it off the roof.
• • •
I HOPPED OVER a metal beam covered in pink slime that steamed despite freezing temperatures. The cold wind licked my back through my jacket.
Ahead of me, Curran leaped onto a concrete boulder. For a large man, he was remarkably graceful. “I parked on Fourteenth.”
Mmm, car. Warm nice car. We had come on foot, and right now the car heater sounded heavenly.
Curran stopped. I landed next to him. “What’s up?”
“Remember this?”
I looked over Unicorn Lane. In front of me an old apartment building sagged to the street, its weight too much for its magic-weakened steel bones. To the right, frost turned a twisted heap of concrete debris and wire into a labyrinth of white lattice. Looked familiar . . . Ah.
“What is it?” Ascanio asked.
I pointed at the half-crumbled apartment building, where a dark gap offered a way inside. “This is where we first met.”
I had been investigating the death of my guardian and discovered that the Pack was involved. At the time I was doing my best to lie low, which made me an unknown, so Curran invited me for a face-to-face meeting in that apartment building. He’d wanted to see if I’d brave Unicorn Lane at night. I did.
It seemed so long ago now.
Curran put his arm around me. “Here, kitty, kitty, kitty?”
“I had to say something to make you come out of the dark.”
“There?” Ascanio asked. “You met in that dark hole?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Why would anyone want to meet in Unicorn Lane? Something bad could’ve happened. Why not a nice restaurant? Women like restaurants.”
I cracked up. Curran flashed a grin and we climbed off the concrete into the alley.
Curran had parked his Pack Jeep on the corner of the alley and Fourteenth Street. Three thugs, two men and a woman, were trying to pop the lock open. Oy. Thanks, Atlanta.
The would-be carjackers saw us. The man in a blue jacket swung around and leveled a gun in our general direction. Big barrel, small brain. Hey, here are some guys walking out of Unicorn Lane at night. They’re in good shape and look like they could kick my ass. I think I’m going to try to take their car at gunpoint. Sheer brilliance. Yep, this will totally work.
Without breaking his stride, Curran moved slightly in front of me. I had no doubt that if the thug fired, His Furriness would block it rather than letting the bullet hit me. He’d pulled this maneuver before a couple of times. I still wasn’t sure how I felt about it. I really didn’t want him getting shot on my account.
“Give me the keys!” Blue Jacket said, his voice raspy.
Curran’s eyes went gold. His voice dropped into a rough growl. “If you’re going to shoot, make sure to empty the clip, because after you’re done, I’ll shove that gun up your ass sideways.”
Blue Jacket blinked.
“Can you even do that?” I asked.
“Let’s find out.” Curran stared at the thug. “Well? Shoot, so we can start this experiment.”
Blue Jacket stuck the gun into his pocket and fled. His buddies dashed after him down the street.
Curran shook his head, got the keys out, and opened the hatch. We packed the crate with the bunnycat inside, Curran slid into the driver’s seat and started the engine, and we were off, heading through the city toward the northeast, where the shapeshifter Pack made its lair in the Keep.
The car heater kicked in. My teeth stopped chattering.
“I’m so hungry,” Ascanio said. “What’s for dinner in the Keep?”
“We are going to the Keep,” Curran said. “You’re going to your mother’s house.”
Ascanio bristled. “Why?”
“Because you haven’t been there in the past three days and she would like to see your face. And because she would like to discuss your latest report card.”
Damn it. Him and Julie both. My fifteen-year-old ward had failed algebra in a spectacular fashion. First, she tried to convince me that the teacher lost her homework, all four different assignments of it. Then she ranted for a while about how school was hard and we were placing unreasonable demands on her, and then, for a big finish, she informed us that she would rather drop out and be homeless. Curran and I slow-clapped for a whole minute.
“What did you fail this time?”
“I failed nothing. I’m passing all my classes.”
“He has a forty in algebra,” Curran said.
Algebra again.
I turned around in my seat so I could see Ascanio. “How the hell did you get a forty?”
“I don’t know.”
“He isn’t turning his homework in. He spends half of his time with Raphael and the rest with you at Cutting Edge.”
“School is overrated,” Ascanio said. “I don’t like it and I have no interest in it. I just want to work for the Pack.”
“Let me burst that bubble for you,” Curran said. “The Pack requires educated people. If you want to climb up the food chain, you need to know what you’re doing. Most alphas have advanced college degrees. In fact, most people you know have degrees.”
“Like who?” Ascanio asked.
“Raphael has an MBA. Barabas has a Juris Doctor. Andrea has completed the Order’s Academy. Doolittle completed medical school. Mahon has a doctorate in medieval history.”
That explained some things. Mahon ran Clan Heavy and I always thought his reasoning was on the medieval side. Oooh, I should tell him that sometime. He would like that. Just not while he was in his bear form. I could run really well for a human, but I had a feeling an enraged Kodiak would be faster.
“Aunt B didn’t have a degree,” Ascanio volunteered.
“Yes, she did,” Curran said. “She went to Agnes Scott and majored in psychology.”
Ascanio stared out the window.
“What’s the plan?” Curran asked. “You’re sixteen; you have to have a plan. Or are you going to let your mother pay your bills for the rest of your life?”
“No.” Ascanio bit off the word.
“Then I suggest you rethink algebra,” Curran said.
• • •
WE DROPPED ASCANIO off, delivered the bunnycat, got paid, and Curran drove toward the Keep. I snuggled up in my seat. All was well that ended well. I didn’t die; I’d earned my money, I was finally warm, and now, after a long day at work, I’d get to go home and take a nice shower.
“You watch him a lot,” Curran said. “Like you’re expecting he’ll break. He’s a sturdy kid. He can hold his own and I know you know that, so what’s the deal?”
That was a loaded question. “I had a dream last night. I was trapped on the castle tower. The roof was on fire. There were flames all around me and they burned off my feet.” In real life, the castle had been consumed by magical flame, but it had never gotten to that particular tower. It was too high. “In the courtyard Hibla was killing Aunt B.”
That part of the dream was born from my memories, so vivid they hurt. When we had gone to the Black Sea to get the panacea, we found Hugh d’Ambray, my father’s warlord and preceptor of the Order of Iron Dogs. Hibla was his second-in-command. When the castle caught fire, I ended up trapped on top of the tower. I saw our people try to get out of the castle, chased by Hugh’s Iron Dogs, and Aunt B had sacrificed herself. She knew the Iron Dogs would kill her before they would move on. They had a mage with them. I could see it in my mind, the silver chains whipping from the mage and pinning Aunt B in place, the hail of arrows that pierced her body, and finally Hibla, walking to her, sword in hand.