LITMIR.BIZ

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can wait.” He pulled open the fridge and snagged one of Marc’s Cokes from the top shelf. Normally I would have warned him not to do that, but I was trying not to piss him off at the moment. Plus, I kind of wanted to be there when Marc found out.

      “No it cannot wait. That’s disgusting. You filled it up, you take it out.”

      Colin glared at me over the top of Marc’s Coke. “I’m not taking out your trash. If you want it out, take it yourself.”

      And just like that, Tweedledum had told me to do what I wanted to do in the first place. Idiot.

      “Lazy tom…” I muttered, stomping past him as if in aggravation. I was three feet from the back door, garbage bag in hand, when he caught on.

      “Stop. Nice try, but the council doesn’t want you out alone. Brett, you take it.”

       Damn it.

      Brett started to complain, but Colin was bigger and stronger, which meant he called the shots, in the absence of a higher-ranking enforcer or an Alpha. Grumbling beneath his breath, Brett plodded into the kitchen and took the bag from me. He headed into the backyard, and I returned to the couch and my novel, fuming silently.

      A minute later, something heavy thumped at the rear of the cabin. Probably the trash bag hitting the bottom of the metal can. But then I heard another thump, and a wave of alarm surged through me. I looked up from my book and froze, listening. There were no more thumps, but I picked up a muted whispering sound, too soft for a human to have heard.

      I jumped up from the couch and bolted into the kitchen to peer through the window over the sink. At first I saw nothing, but by the time Colin joined me, leaning much closer to me than necessary, the source of the sound had come into view. Sort of.

      It was a tail, solid black and twitching in nervous excitement. I smiled. One of the guys had returned from the hunt and was obviously trying to cheer me up with a game of stalk-and-pounce. It wasn’t Marc or Jace; I knew that even at a glance. Maybe my cousin Lucas?

      But as the hindquarters wriggled farther into sight, I realized they didn’t belong to anyone I knew.

      “Who’s that?” Colin asked, and as I took in the confused look on his face, my apprehension deepened. My pulse pounded. An instant later, the cat came into full view, and I gasped, startled into inaction for a moment longer than I should have been. He was no one I knew. But he was dragging someone I knew: Brett, unconscious and bleeding from his stomach, the starched collar of his shirt clamped between the cat’s sharp front teeth.

      “Shit!”

      The cat started at the sound of my voice. He dropped Brett’s collar and met my stare through the window. His fur stood on end. He hissed, baring two-inch canines, white whiskers standing out against the black fur on his face.

      “Who the fuck is that?” Colin demanded, louder that time.

      I glanced around the kitchen, searching frantically for something to use as a weapon. “It’s one of the strays, genius. Who else could it be?” My focus settled on a block of knives near the stove, and I pulled the butcher knife free, hefting it in one hand to test its weight. Not bad.

      “What are you doing?” Colin stared at me like I’d lost my mind.

      “Hurry, before he gets to the woods.” I was halfway to the door when my gaze caught an ice pick lying on the counter by the refrigerator. I grabbed the pick and dropped the knife in its place, sparing time for another glance out the window. The cat and his prey were now a third of the way to the tree line.

      Colin hesitated, then his head bobbed in reluctant concession. “Just give me a minute.” He bent to take off his shoes. Then he unbuttoned his pants.

      “What the hell are you doing?You don’t have time to Shift.” Werecats have very powerful jaws and legs. I’d once seen a tom haul an entire deer into the branches of a tree to protect it from scavengers. Once he got into the forest, the stray could drag Brett anywhere he wanted and we’d never catch him.

      “We can’t go out there like this. He’ll shred us. Unless you can use that partial Shift trick to come up with a quick set of claws…” The bastard actually smirked at me, like we had all afternoon to trade insults.

      “That’s not how it w—” I stopped, sucking in a deep breath. There was no time to argue, much less to defend my partial Shift claims. “Get your ass out there and help me, or I swear I’ll tell the entire council that you’re a spineless, dickless fur-ball whose dam should have eaten him at birth.”

      Colin’s smirk faded into cocky sneer. “Like anyone listens to you.”

      Disgusted, I turned my back on him and caught sight of the meat mallet stuck upright in the dish drainer. It was bulky, with a sharply textured, two-sided aluminum head, a one-and-a-half-pound monster, which I could attest to, having taken out my frustration on a couple of sirloins the night before. Dropping the ice pick into the sink, I snatched the mallet and ran for the back door. My left fist closed over the doorknob as Colin grabbed my right arm, halting my progress and nearly pulling my shoulder out of its socket.

      I whirled on him, fury and fear battling for control of my expression. The left hook flew out of habit; I’d been practicing with my southpaw during my recent period of unemployment. The practice paid off.

      My fist hit Colin’s chin. His head snapped to the side with a grunt of pain and surprise. He stumbled backward several steps, then tripped over his own foot. Colin’s skull hit the countertop, then his back hit the linoleum. His eyes fluttered, then closed. He was out cold.

      Shit! I needed his help. Good going, Faythe!

      Flustered and out of time, I waited a second to make sure he was breathing, then shoved my way through the back door before I had a chance to consider my odds and chicken out. I raced across the grass toward the cat, now less than twenty feet from the tree line. A shriek of fury split my skull as I ran, and it took me a moment to realize it was coming from me.

      When I reached Brett’s feet, the stray dropped his prey and bared his canines at me. His fur stood on end, gleaming in the midafternoon sun. His tail swished back and forth in equal parts fear and aggression. He was going to attack.

      So was I.

      I planted one foot on the ground and knelt as I swung the mallet. The stray hunched, preparing to pounce. My scream became a cry of triumph even before the hammer made contact. And it did make contact.

      The mallet slammed into the left side of his skull.

      A sickening thud-crunch raised goose bumps all over my skin. Blood and fur flew from the point of contact. The impact traveled up the handle to vibrate in my arm. The cat fell over sideways. Then there was silence. And stillness. Nothing moved, other than the rise and fall of my chest on the bottom edge of my vision as I sucked in air and spit it back out, over and over again.

      Sound came back slowly, and the first thing I heard was my own rasping breath. The cat didn’t breathe. I knew he was dead without checking for a pulse. I’d caved in his skull. Ripped flesh and fur from bone. Whoever the bastard was, he’d never bother Elias Keller again. Or anyone else.

      After several seconds of shock, my senses came back enough that I knew I should check on Brett. At first I couldn’t bring myself to touch him. Blood had soaked through his shirt, drenching his torso and crotch so badly that I couldn’t find the wound. I saw no movement from him at all. No breathing. No pulse jiggling in his throat.

      Then, suddenly, he seemed to be moving everywhere all at once. Shaking.

      No, wait. He wasn’t shaking. I was shaking. I was shivering all over.

      I dropped to the ground on my knees, and my left hand landed on Brett’s chest. And that’s when I realized he was moving after all. Breathing shallowly, but steadily. Thank goodness.

      My fingers uncurled, and the mallet fell onto the grass. I explored

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