He dropped his backpack by the corner of the house and rounded it after Mikael, feeling Maxim’s presence at his back very acutely.
The view from the back deck was lovely. The lake was brilliant even in the setting sun of the late afternoon, and he could see four teenagers goofing off on and around the dock.
Derek smiled at the sight. He couldn’t really see details from this distance—something he would’ve been able to do only a few years ago without a problem—but he could tell that one of the boys was shorter than the others by far.
“Is that Kit?” he asked, before he could reconsider his words.
“What do you know about Kit?” Maxim half-growled.
Before Derek had time to answer, there were steps from the side of the house, rounding the corner.
“Have you seen Kit—?”
Derek locked eyes with Cal, the love of his life. The moment froze, feeling like an eternity.
Cal looked at him, his gaze going from Cal’s good eye to the eye patch covering his right eye, and something changed. The energy became completely different, even Derek could feel it with his human senses.
A strangled, loud, horrible sound of a cat in pain tore out from Cal’s mouth, and his eyes rolled back as he fell to the ground. In the second it took for him to hit the deck, his body twitched and shifted, until a Scottish wildcat struggled away from the clothing left behind. It let out another yowl and dashed back around the corner.
“Dad? Dad!” Kit screamed from the shore.
