Once Bitten

A thrum of bass thundered in the air, vibrating off the surrounding buildings. It had to be coming from a club. If I could find the club, it would be full of people who'd provide me with anonymity and safety.

I stopped and listened. It didn't sound too far away.

After several blocks I realized I'd passed it. Now the music was diagonally behind me. Backtracking lost me the wind advantage, and I couldn't find a street leading closer to the music. Alleys cut between most of the buildings, so I turned down the nearest. A fence topped with barbed wire stopped it from being a thru-way. Nope. I wasn't going over that. I headed back toward the street.

Something crashed behind me, and I whirled around. A cat dashed from a toppled crate and disappeared through a hole in the fence. I took a deep breath. Jumping at shadows wasn't going to help. I needed to get off the street. I spared one last glance at the crate, then left the alley behind.

Three steps onto the street, a hand captured the back of my neck.

I swallowed a scream as my heart lodged in my throat. I tried to turn, but the hand tightened, preventing me from moving my head. My captor gave a small shove, and I stumbled forward. Crap. He shoved again. My muscles tensed, ready to run. The fingers only dug in harder. With little other choice, I let the hand guide me back into the alley.

We passed the crate the stray had toppled, and my captor's grip slackened. I wrenched free, spinning on my heels. I ducked, throwing my arms up to guard my face, but the blow I anticipated didn't come. I scurried back a few steps. My captor didn't try to stop me.

Focusing through the haze of fear and adrenaline took a moment. He should have just hit me—it couldn't have been any more painful than recognizing him.

"Did they send you to hunt me, Bobby? Or did you volunteer?"

Bobby straightened, his face taut. “I missed you, Kitten,” he finally said, his hand reaching for my face.

"Kita, not Kitten.” I took another step back, out of his reach.

His hand fell to his side then started forward again, only to be drawn back like he hadn't meant to move it in the first place. His other hand caught the first as if wrestling for control. I watched the skirmish, until I realized I was performing a very similar dance. Clenching my fists, I shoved them into the pockets of my coat. My eyes focused past him, watching the headlights of a car slide across the dumpsters in the alley. It was an effort to ignore the battle of his hands, but it wasn't his hands that had the most potential to hurt me.

"What's your plan, Bobby? Chains? Rope? Or do you intend to lock me in the basement of a safe house until the gate opens?"

"I'm not hunting you. Sebastian wants you home. It isn't safe here."

"Tell my father—"

"He isn't calling you home as a father.” Bobby's fingers clenched so tight the leather of his gloves looked ready to tear over his knuckles. “I'm trying to help you. To get you home. Do you know how many hunters are after you?"

I was starting to get an idea, but I only shrugged, the movement lost under my coat. “He sent that many?” Maybe I'd been holding onto the hope that my father would be easier on me, but being the daughter of the Torin, the clan leader, had never helped me before. “So, what did my dear father say he planned to do after I'm hauled back to Firth?"

Don't you know what's going on? Your being here implicates you. Hunters are all over this city, and they aren't playing nice right now. Too much is at stake; I have to get you out of the city until the gate home reopens."

"Implicates me for what? Not that it matters. We can't leave without a train, and they're down until morning. Sneaking aboard isn't easy, but at least it's free. Anything else is going to take money."

"I have money."

"Must be nice to be here legally."

"Kita—"

"I'm not leaving. I've hidden out this long. I'll stay a bit longer."

Bobby turned and stalked across the mouth of the alley like a predator caged in a zoo. “You don't understand,” he yelled, voice bouncing off the narrow walls. He paused, turning toward me and looking lost as to what to say next.

Five years hadn't aged Bobby much. He'd cropped his tawny hair at the shoulders, and lines crinkled the edges of his eyes, but otherwise he looked the same to me now as he had looked to the nineteen-year-old shifter who ran from her clan. The torrent of emotions that had gripped me the last time I'd seen him bubbled to the surface again and threatened to choke me. Taking a mental step back, I asked the question I wasn't sure I wanted answered.

"How is Lynn?"

"She ... she's resting,” he said, his hands finally dropping to his sides. “We're expecting soon."

"Oh.” I kicked at a snow-covered soda can and let the news soak through me. I couldn't think of anything else to say, so the silence stretched on. No, it didn't stretch. It opened like a three-mile trench between us.

Bobby crossed the silence first. Both with words and a hand that cupped my face so unexpectedly I jumped.

"I didn't ... I'm sor—"

"No.” I pushed his arm away. “You weren't the reason I left."

His face shut down, becoming unreadable, and he straightened to his full, looming height. He would be an intimidating figure if I hadn't known him since childhood.

"Your clan needs its Dyre,” he said, and I looked away.

"The Nekai clan boasts lions and tigers. It doesn't need a five-pound nothing of a calico cat."

"Kitten..."

A box falling to my left caught our attention. A rat as long as my forearm foolishly wandered out from the warm place it had been hiding. Perfect. A distraction. I fell into a crouch, and my gaze darted to Bobby. His eyes flashed, and he nodded over his shoulder at a dark corner of the alley. We both slinked backwards, eyes on the rat.

Bobby shucked his clothes before dropping to his knees. In Firth, he and I had spent most our lives as the smallest of our clan, and so we had paired up often to hunt. Bobby took my suggestion like no time had passed and we were still back home. But time had passed, and we had changed.

I hesitated, eyes flicking to Bobby's kneeling form.

His spine appeared to spring from his back as his skin split and slipped down. I heard the bones and joints popping, breaking, reshaping, and shrinking down from the shape of a man. His body twisted itself toward his first form, a bobcat, and his change progressed faster than I remembered him of being capable. I watched—only a single heartbeat—until the change was unstoppable. Then I ran.

I shouldn't have glanced back, but I did. The betrayed look on Bobby's face I would carry until my death.

Chapter 2

I adjusted my coat, still in a dead run. With any luck it would be a full hour before Bobby could shift back into human form. I could only hope he would hide in the alley and not trail me as a bobcat. He wouldn't risk humans spotting him on the street, would he? Surely he would want his clothes when he changed back. He wasn't like me, able to shift with clothing. I sped up, turning corners at random. There was really no telling what Bobby would do.

Shoving my hands into my pockets, I felt the piece of paper with the map the girl at the bookstore had given me. I pulled it out and stopped at an intersection to compare the street names. If the map were remotely accurate, I might survive the night. The club was probably the same one I'd heard music coming from earlier. My heartbeat drowned out all other sounds too completely to confirm my idea, but I followed the directions on the crude map and said a silent prayer.

The darkened storefronts gave way to sprawling warehouses, and I forced myself to walk as the rambunctious noise of the club grew louder. The streetlights were spaced further apart than they had been in the shopping district, the empty area thick with shadows, but the louder the music became, the more cars lined the street. At the corner of Ravin and Sloan, I stopped in front of a brick building pulsing with dance music.

This had to be the place.

I circled to the back and found exactly what I expected: two bouncers with a line of people waiting anxiously to enter. Well, maybe not exactly what I expected. To-a-one, the crowd was male, dressed in everything from torn jeans to tight plastic pants. I needed to get off the street, but the all-male clientele made me pause. I glanced at the red scrap of map; this was definitely the right address. Surely the bookseller wouldn't have suggested I show up at an all-male club?

As I deliberated, two overly made-up girls in their early twenties rounded the corner of the opposite street. They walked right past the line of waiting guys and up to one of the bouncers. The girls shed their coats as they approached, and a sympathetic shiver ran across my arms for all the bare flesh they exposed to the cold night air. The pair struck a pose, and the bouncer's eyes roved over them appreciatively before he nodded to his partner, who opened the club door and let them pass. Well, that settled it. Girls could get in.

In the shadows, I did a mental check of my appearance. My scarf and gloves would have to go, as would my bulky grey coat and sweater. Under that I had on a spaghetti-string camisole, which would be acceptable. My jeans were a little faded, but flattering, and my dark blue sneakers were in fair shape. I stripped off my warm clothes and shivered in the snow.

Spinning my hair into a bun at the top of my head, I pulled my hat on and tucked up the wisps of hair that tried to escape. My hair attracted too much attention when left visible. I didn't have any makeup to put on. Honestly, I didn't own any. My sharp cheekbones didn't play nicely with blush, my eyes were vibrant enough on their own, and lipstick alone would look silly. At one point I'd owned some lip gloss, which would have at least given my lips a little shimmer, but after searching through my coat pockets, I determined I must have lost it. Well, I looked as good as I was going to.

The scarf and gloves made my coat pockets bulge, but they fit. The sweater—not so much on the fitting front. Great. I only owned the one sweater. I didn't want to lose it. I glanced around. There was a stack of crates along the wall of the alley. After poking around the crates, I stowed the sweater in a dry niche between two. I'd come back for it later. By the time I had everything situated, my hands stung from the cold.