5. Chapter Five

The days continued to turn. An uneventful work week turned into a normal Saturday night off and a lazy Sunday.

"Looking forward to the full moon tomorrow night?" Heath asked as we walked down the trail the night before.

"Ambivalent to it."

We had talked about a lot but not the trespassers on my property. I told him everything else, though, like the decision I came to with Oliver and Dirk. He'd gotten a laugh out of the idea that people were so willing to believe I was a werewolf.

Now I was reading a book and waiting for the moment I knew I needed to head outside. Like all the moon cursed, I had a sixth sense for it. The curse activated on nights of the fullest moon, right on schedule, and only once the sun went down.

The book was good, part of a long series I couldn't put down now, a long-running mystery series, something to lose myself in when television started to bore me. I liked to read, even though I rarely found time. Hasan had sent me the Spanish editions for Christmas when he had learned through the grapevine I was studying the language. While I was by no means a conversational speaker of the language yet, I was beginning to make enough progress to read, with some assistance. I looked up words I didn't understand on my phone more frequently than I cared to admit, but it helped.

I put the book down and looked out the large windows of my home, seeing how the red glow of sunset was taking over the world. Standing slowly, I felt the pull of magic, a whisper asking me to head outside, to wait. I followed it, slowly stripping as I made my way, dropping my clothes wherever. By the time I was on my front porch, I had nothing left on, and the sun was nearly gone. I closed my eyes to breathe in the fresh night air. There was nothing unusual on the breeze, so I let that lull me into enjoying the night to come, letting go of the paranoia I'd felt for the last week.

There was no one out there.

When the sun was gone, I didn't fight the shift. I never did. When I was a young werecat, Hasan had taught me to go with the Change, flow with it, akin to going down a river. Like getting swept under a strong current, going with it was safer than trying to swim against it. I had embraced that lesson and learned to swim with the current, taking myself through the Change faster than most werecats my age. I ignored the pain and moved through it as my body rearranged itself into a new form—just under thirty seconds. It was as fast as I could go, and I was damn proud of it. Most of my family took just over a minute. Werewolves took upwards of fifteen minutes. I was the youngest person in the family, and I matched Hasan's speed through the Change, and it was through sheer force of will.

I shook, feeling the familiar, heavy weight of my werecat body, a saber-toothed feline reminiscent of something from the end of the ice age. I weighed more than an adult male lion and was considered small, thanks to my age. Jabari and Hasan both weighed over nine hundred pounds, practically double my size. Mischa and Zuri were the closest to my size, but both of my werecat sisters were thousands of years old and had finished filling out, unlike me.

I jumped off my porch and headed into the woods. The first thing I had to do was hunt, take a kill, and appease the feral side of my nature that came out to play during the full moon. Thanks to an out-of-control population, finding whitetail deer was easy, and no one noticed something was taking kills year-round. I caught the scent of several that had roamed through my woods over the last few nights and picked a buck over any of the does.

Once my mind was made up, my body entered hunting mode. I lived in the backseat of my own brain, letting the instincts take over and the cat be what it was meant to be—a hunter. It prowled through the trees until it finally caught sight of its prey. I felt my muscles tense as it lowered itself into a crouch, then I felt the twitch of muscles ready to release and take down its quarry.

It was easy to think of the cat as something other in moments like that, but I knew it wasn't the case. I used to believe the cat was something different from me. I would feel the needs and feelings of the cat and think I had to fight against it, but it was really just a different way of thinking inside my own mind, a different set of skills to draw on, and a different way of seeing the world. It was still me. I had to let go of human thought to truly embrace what I was.

It made life easier.

The kill was fast, and the meal was hearty. It felt good, and once those instincts felt as though they had their fill, my more human mind took control once again.

I have hours to waste now. I think that's the worst part about this. Once a month, I have to stay up all night and can't even get anything productive done.

It was close to midnight when a howl caught my attention. Heath and Landon often ran out of my territory on full moons to hunt on their own, but I felt them reenter my territory earlier than usual tonight. It wasn't a real cause for concern. They came back when they took their own kill together and would spend the rest of the night running along the trails near their home.

Heath did exactly what I thought he would, but Landon took a different route, making me curious. I got up and started trotting, not in any particular hurry. I had the clear advantage. When they were inside my territory, I knew where they were at all times. The territory magic was the one thing werecats had over werewolves, while they had pack magic, the ability to communicate in their wolf forms. I had both, but I was the exception—a very strange exception. The ability to use pack magic had been granted to me by a strange fae who ran a motel and gas station with his human wife and the sons he had with her. I never saw him again after that and hadn't gone looking.

I didn't get too close to Landon, but it was the direction he was headed that made me too curious for my own good.

He shouldn't be headed this way. He knows better.

I stopped nearly a hundred yards away, staying downwind of him. I watched as Dirk left the home he shared with Oliver and went outside. It was obvious Dirk could see Landon and knew who it was. It was also clear Landon's visit wasn't a surprise. I couldn't hear what was said, but Landon lowered himself to the ground.

Then his tail wagged.

Ah. No problems here, then. Just him bothering a friend.

I took a step back as Dirk's laughter rang out. He went inside, and I chuffed in feline laughter at the clear yellow tennis ball in his hand when he came back out.

"I told you if you came and bothered me on a full moon, I was going to treat you like a stray dog," Dirk said loudly before he threw the ball. Landon ran after it as Dirk laughed.

I stepped back again, turning my head in Heath's direction. He had to hear about this. I took off in a full run, racing through the trees, carefully crossing roads until I made it to the edge of Heath's property. He was hanging out in the large field that was his backyard, probably near the stable where a little pony lived for Carey. The horse was comfortable with the werewolves now, but it was still skittish around me.

"Heath!"I called out. "You won't believe what I saw!"

"Yeah, I can only imagine,"he replied, a clear chuckle in his words. "Landon said he was going to go mess with Dirk for a laugh tonight."

"Dirk is making him play fetch."

Heath's clear laughter made me want to smile as he appeared in front of me. He was a big wolf, nearly shoulder to shoulder with me, although I still had him on weight, probably a hundred pounds.

"I wish I could see it, but I can't sneak as well as you," he said, coming to sit beside me. "Did they know you were there?"

"No, I stayed downwind and gave them some distance. I just wanted to see what Landon was doing going near them on a full moon."

"We hunted. He's in control,"Heath said, bumping me.

"I figured."

We sat together in the dark, looking over his property as if we were waiting for something. We weren't. We didn't often spend time during a full moon because when we met, we weren't sure if our instinctual sides could get along, especially at the beginning of a full moon. The need to hunt, to kill something and eat it was a pressing one, and we were never sure if we would turn on each other.

"Zuri is still on vacation. Jabari is getting annoyed,"I said, offering up a small piece of my family's dramas since I knew his so well.

"When were you going to tell me about the people who wandered around your property?"he asked suddenly, ignoring what I said.

"Let me guess…Dirk told Landon, and Landon told you."

"No, I could smell them on the trail when I visited yesterday, but you didn't acknowledge it, so I held off. If Dirk tells Landon anything, it certainly doesn't make it back to me,"he retorted. "The scents were faint, but they weren't there the week before."

I huffed. "Last Monday, I found their car when I got back from dropping Carey off at school. I followed their scents, but they made it back to their car before I could get eyes on them. I played it safe since I didn't know if they were armed. The plates on their car were a dead end. Nothing's happened since."

"You aren't worried?"

"Of course I'm worried, but I didn't want to make a big deal of it. If something else had come up in the last week, I would have mentioned it, but nothing did. I'm going to wait to see if anything else comes up. Some of my family are convinced it's just some idiots looking over the property, thinking they might want to make me an offer. Dirk, Oliver, and I also talked. I mentioned that last night."

"You didn't tell me why it came up, though,"he reminded me.

"And now, you know."I bumped him with my shoulder. "You don't really have a leg to stand on here, Heath. You're the werewolf who never really explained to me how werewolves grow stronger as they grow more dominant, but who didn't want to admit he was more of an Alpha than the Russian. You could have taken that pack last year."

He growled softly. "Fine. You got me. It's not something I'm comfortable with, you know. I never expected it to happen." He laid down in the grass. "I've never wanted to be anything more than what was needed. I became an Alpha, fought for it because I needed the position to protect my sons. If I was in charge, no one would try to hurt Landon, who was becoming a vicious fighter to protect himself.The only reason I've defied them and stayed here is for Carey…and you. It didn't start with you, but it became you."

"You knew you would lose all your support and friends from Dallas the moment you decided to retire." I still hated that. I disagreed with the idea Heath had to keep his distance from a pack that used to be his family. "You needed something to help you protect your daughter, Heath, and I was the clear choice. They can't blame you for that."

"They don't, not in so many words. Besides, I'm glad I don't have any connection to the Dallas pack right now. I'm still…trying to figure out what to do with the information I have on them." He sighed. "I've decided to keep it in my safe until I need it. I don't like blackmail, but I'm not better than it. I've lived too long to ignore the option, but I won't use it until it's the only thing I have."

"You're a good man, Heath. And I promise, if anything comes up that might pose a danger to you, Carey, or Landon, I'll be the first to tell you. I just don't want to create trouble where there might be none. I'm tired of the trouble we've had over the past couple of years. I'm certainly not trying to look for or create it where there might not be any."

His mental laugh echoed in my head.

"I'm going to head home,"I declared, stretching.

"Can I come?"

"Don't you have to get Carey to school after sunrise?"

"Nope. She's taking the day off," he replied. "Ah…"

I looked toward his house, then back at him, understanding, thanks to our previous conversations. "Well, you should stick close by then. She might need something. Have you two talked about it yet?"

"Not yet," he admitted. "It's a conversation I've never had, so I'm…waiting for her. If she needs me, I'll be there for her."

I chuckled mentally. "You're a good father, Heath Everson. Don't forget that."

He nodded as he stood. We went our separate ways, Heath heading toward his house and me heading toward mine. I passed Landon on the way home, seeing him cross a road to get back home as well.

When I made it home, I jumped onto my porch and looked over my woods.

That feeling I couldn't shake came back, as though someone was watching me, which made no sense. There was no one in the trees.

I'm just paranoid. Heath got me thinking about it, and that's it.