Kat almost laughed as she remembered the list of suitable “cat” names Connor had come up with and how she’d kept vetoing them by batting at his arm with her paw. For some reason she still couldn’t understand, she’d wanted him to call her by her real name.
“You said you could do magic while you were a cat, right?” Trevor asked.
The question caught her a little by surprise. “Yeah. It’s much more difficult and wears me out for days afterward, but I can do it. Like that time you locked me in the arms room because you didn’t want me going on that call with Connor and the rest of you. It wasn’t that difficult to open the lock from the inside with magic, but I was still furious with you for weeks.”
Trevor was still laughing at that reminder when the other questions started coming at her so fast, she had a hard time keeping up with them, each sillier than the last. She did her best to answer all of them, but when Hale asked if she had problems with hairballs, she knew things were getting out of control.
“Why did you run away and hide without letting us know what was going on?” Connor demanded, his voice low and so gruff, it was nearly a growl, silencing the whole room.
It wasn’t until that moment that Kat realized Connor hadn’t been taking part in the joking going on around them. In fact, he hadn’t said a word. The silence following his question quickly became awkward, and as much as Connor was trying to hide it, Kat could tell he was truly angry at her.
“And how exactly would I have done that?” Kat shot back, not bothering to hide her own anger. “Spin around in a circle and meow three times like I was Lassie trying to tell you that Timmy fell down the well? Or maybe I should have typed it out on your laptop with my paws? Trust me, I considered it but figured you’d think I was possessed or something.”
That seemed to give him pause, and he flushed under his tan. “Okay, I get your point. But why leave at all? You could have stayed here in the compound, where you’d be safe. We’re werewolves. Did you really think we’d care if we saw you change from a cat to a person?”
Kat sagged in her chair, letting out a long sigh. She’d honestly considered staying at the compound, but ultimately, it was the difference between her shift and theirs that made up her mind. For werewolves, going from human to wolf and back again was natural, beautiful. Her change was unnatural and about as far from beautiful as you could get. She refused to apologize for doing what she’d had to.
“When I change, it’s nothing like the wolf shift some of you can do. It’s slow, agonizingly painful, exhausting, and to be honest, it’s mortifying,” she said softly. “It starts with hours of shaking, sweating, and feeling like I’m going to be sick. By the time the change actually comes, I’m so exhausted that all I can do is lie there, yowling in pain. Then I spend hours upon hours stuck in various stages partway between cat and human form. It’s repulsive. I didn’t want anyone seeing me like that. I didn’t wantyouto see me like that.”
If the room had been quiet before, it was like a tomb now. Kat sat there, gaze locked on Connor’s, holding her breath as she waited to see how he’d respond. But he didn’t say anything. Instead, he continued to look at her, his expression unreadable.
Gage’s cell phone rang, breaking the painful silence. Taking it out of his pocket, he held it to his ear. “Dixon.”
After a few moments of listening to whatever the caller had to say, he hung up and looked at Connor.
“It’s obvious that you and Kat have a lot to talk about, but I’m afraid it’s going to have to wait. While you were in San Antonio, something happened that the chief wants our help with, and since you have the most experience working missing persons, I want you to take lead on it.”
Chapter 6
“Well, you guys do that SWAT thing you do, while I go take a shower,” Kat announced, getting to her feet. “I haven’t been able to clean myself in nearly a year, and trust me, tongue baths donotcount.”
Connor heard the words Kat said, but his head was still spinning too fast to comprehend them. He could barely think straight. Truthfully, he’d been completely off balance since she’d kissed him in San Antonio, then introduced herself as Kat before promptly passing out in his arms.
It had only gotten worse since then, as every time he’d opened his mouth, stupid shit had come out. After hearing her story, Connor knew he didn’t have any reason to be mad at Kat, but he couldn’t help feeling that she’d been lying to him for all these months. It was stupid and childish, but he couldn’t seem to stop.
He supposed part of it was the fact she was human now. He’d be the first to admit he was having a hard time dealing with that. The last time he’d seen her, she was ten inches tall, furry, and liked to have her belly rubbed. Now she was five eight with long, silky dark hair and a perfect body, and gave off a vibe suggesting that anyone who touched her stomach without permission would be turned into a toad. Or maybe obliterated like she’d done with those stone tokens down in San Antonio. It made sense now why she’d never eaten cat food, or played with the toys he’d gotten her, or bothered with catnip. She’d been a person the whole damn time.
It was an awful lot to get his head around.
Of course, there was also the issue of Kat being the most beautiful, distracting woman Connor had ever seen. Perfect porcelain skin, kissable lips, and mesmerizing hazel eyes that seemed to pull him in and trap his soul. There was no other way to describe her but to say she was an angel come to earth.
On top of that, she smelled like an absolute dream. Like cinnamon spice cake with a hint of something vaguely feline. Connor abruptly realized she’d smelled like that even when she was a cat, although it’d been much more subtle then. Even now, in a room full of werewolves, chips, and sub sandwiches, he couldn’t smell anything but her. It was messing with his head!
Connor was so distracted that even after Kat left to go take that shower she’d mentioned, he had a hard time paying attention as Gage filled them in on what happened while they’d been gone.
“Last night, two teenagers disappeared from their home,” Gage was saying. “A patrol unit responded and checked out the residence but saw no obvious signs of struggle or foul play. No broken windows, no jimmied lock or even a ruffled bedcover. When the officers suggested the boy and girl might have simply slipped out on their own to see a movie or something like that, the kids’ parents insisted that wasn’t the case and that their teens would never do that. The officers humored them and called the kids’ cell phones. When they rang one, they realized the sound was coming from outside the house somewhere.
“They found the girl’s phone in a flower bed on the edge of the property. The glass was cracked, and there was some blood on it. When her mother unlocked it, there was an unsent text saying they were being forced to leave the house and couldn’t get away. That’s when they brought in the Missing Persons Unit and forensics. They scoured the home and surrounding property for hours and didn’t find a single damn clue to indicate that anyone besides those two kids had been inside or out in the backyard where the phone was found. That’s when the girl’s mother started calling in favors and asking for SWAT’s help.”
Connor frowned. “I understand better than anyone how freaked out parents can be when a child goes missing, but why would they specifically want our help? That’s not exactly our specialty.”
“Because the parents of these two particular teenagers have trusted their children to our care before,” Gage said grimly. “It’s Addy Lloyd and Ben Sullivan.”
On the other side of the room, Rachel gasped. “What? Why didn’t you lead with that?”
Connor remembered the mission back in February, when Rachel and some of their pack mates had provided personal protection for the Lloyd family. Rachel had ended up risking her life multiple times to protect Addy and Ben.
“This can’t be a coincidence,” Rachel continued, not giving Gage a chance to answer. “The only question is whether Addy’s father and that a-hole he was in league with are behind the kidnapping or if it’s thatthingwe all thought was dead.”
