She couldn’t help smiling a little at his question. Gage was nothing if not direct.
Instead of answering right away, she got up and helped herself to a bottle of soda before going back to her seat. While the water was great, she needed something with sugar in it right now.
“I’ve known I was a witch since I was four years old when it came as a shock to me that not everyone could make their stuffed bunny hop around their bedroom,” she explained. “Since then, I loved magic, not for what I could do with it but simply because it exists. I think it’s because there’s something so amazing about never having to give up that sense of wonder that comes with believing in magic.”
She opened her soda and took a sip, stifling a moan. There was nothing quite so wonderful as that first gulp of a cold soda, especially when she hadn’t tasted it in forever. The sweetness of the syrup, the tickle of the fizzy bubbles. Damn, she’d missed little things like this.
“I had a nice little coven in my hometown of Kennewick, Washington. Just north of the Oregon border,” she continued after a moment. “We weren’t the largest coven in the country or even in the Northwest, but we were definitely powerful. Not that we cared about any of that. We spent our time collecting and studying old magic tomes and developing our bonds as a coven. It made us stronger together than any of us were apart.”
She glanced at Connor again to see him studying her intently before he quickly looked away. She wished she knew what he was thinking.
Then again, maybe not.
“Our combined strength is what got us noticed by a warlock named Marko Kemp,” she said, going back to her story. Merely saying the name made her want to shudder. “Powerful covens with limited members can be easy targets for other covens interested in boosting their memberships. It’s kind of the magical version of a hostile takeover. Marko came to us with the normal sales pitch, telling us how we could be part of something bigger, become stronger than we ever thought possible, and accomplish things we’d only dreamed about.”
“What kind of things?” Connor asked.
“The usual,” she said. “Fame, fortune, power, undying devotion of anyone we chose, control over the world. The kind of things that vain, shallow people always seem to want. Marko was a smooth talker to be sure, but my coven wasn’t interested in anything he had to offer, so we turned him down.”
“I’m guessing Marko didn’t take that very well?” Trevor asked.
Kat frowned, replaying the particular moment when Marko had dropped the charming veneer and revealed his true self. His face had become a twisted mask of rage, his lips curling in disgust, eyes hard as ice. It had given her nightmares ever since. “Honestly, I think he knew we’d say no before he even asked. In his mind, it justified everything he did after that.”
“And what did he do?” Connor asked when she didn’t say anything more. He sounded a little wary, like he wasn’t sure he wanted to know the answer.
She tightened her grip on the bottle of soda, trying hard to keep from completely losing it and crying right in front of everyone as one horrible memory after another flashed through her head. Even now, she could hear her friends’ screams, could see them writhing in pain. There wasn’t a week that went by without her waking up screaming—or yowling—in fear from the dreams she had about that night. It had been four years ago, but the pain was as strong as if it had happened yesterday. Kat doubted she’d ever be able to truly put that night behind her.
“Marko forced me to watch as he killed every member of my coven,” she said quietly. “He sacrificed them in some bizarre scheme to make himself more powerful.”
“That’s awful!” Rachel said. “How did you get away?”
Kat offered her a wan smile. “To this day, I’m still not sure how I did, especially since he turned me into his familiar.” When everyone looked at her blankly, she added, “In the form of a cat. Terribly cliché, I know, but Marko is nothing if not traditional. But before he was able to finish the binding portion of the ritual, I managed to break free of the protective circle holding me and escape. Without the final binding part of the ritual, Marko never gained access to my coven’s magic, which he transferred into me after he killed them.”
“Doesn’t that make you stronger than he is, then?” Rachel asked.
“Unfortunately, no.” Kat sighed. “Marko performed a spell that won’t let me access any of it. I can barely access my own most of the time. Not that I can use a lot of magic when I’m trapped in my cat form anyway, which is most of the year.”
“Most?” Hale echoed. “How much is most?”
She shrugged. “I get to be human somewhere about seven to fourteen days out of the year. From around the first week of September until the fall equinox, which is on the twenty-second this year. That means this year I get about ten days to walk around on two legs. Unfortunately, I wasted three of them trying to recover from the change. After that, I’ll be the cat who’s been living with you for the past nine months.”
“So, when you disappeared earlier in the week,” Connor said slowly, “that was so you could change back into a human?”
She nodded glumly. “I felt the change coming the night before you left for San Antonio. I was afraid I’d change right there in your bed.”
Kat ignored the barely hidden smiles from Connor’s pack mates. For some reason, they all seemed amused at the idea of him letting a cat sleep in his bed. She could only imagine what they’d say if they knew she spent most of those nights curled up squarely on his chest. Which was damn near the best thing in the world as far as she was concerned.
“When you and I came to the compound that morning, I ran,” she added, looking at him. “I had no idea where I was going, but I was lucky enough to find a home not too far from here that had gone into foreclosure. The family must have left in a hurry because there was some food in the kitchen and a mattress in one of the bedrooms. That’s where I stayed until the change finished and I recovered enough to come back here.”
No one said anything. It was like they were too stunned at the thought of her changing from a cat to a person to even comment. Which was ridiculous when she thought about, especially since half the Pack could shift back and forth from human to wolf on demand.
“Is your name really Kat?” Rachel asked suddenly, her expression curious. “I mean, Connor seemed like he pulled that name out of his butt.”
Her lips curved. “No, it’s really my name. Katya actually, but everyone’s called me Kat since I was a kid. My grandmother is the only one who ever used my full name.”
Rachel turned to Connor. “How did you know her name is Kat?”
He gave his pack mates a sheepish look. “I tried a bunch of different names, and that was the one she seemed to like when I said it.”
