Kat wandered around Connor’s one-bedroom apartment, taking in everything she’d previously only seen from the perspective of a feline. The one-bedroom place with the sand-colored walls and plush tan carpet seemed so much different now than she remembered it. Smaller and a little less welcoming somehow. She supposed it could be because she was taller now. Then again, maybe it was all the barriers Connor had put up around himself since discovering she wasn’t truly a cat. It made any room he was in feel smaller.
Of course, if it were up to him, she’d be staying at a hotel right now. Or sleeping on one of the cots on the second floor of the compound’s admin building.
The knowledge that Connor didn’t want her around brought a rush of hot tears to her eyes, making it hard to breathe. After living with him for nine months, this was not how she’d imagined the situation would play out when she finally turned back into a human. Maybe it was a little naive, but she’d thought Connor would be thrilled to finally see the real her. She’d dreamed of him sweeping her into his arms and spinning her in a big circle, laughing as he kissed her.
Yeah, that definitely hadn’t happened.
She suspected he’d only given in and agreed to let her stay here because the rest of the Pack had started to berate the hell out of him. She wasn’t too sure how she felt about the fact that he only let her come home with him out of guilt. But really, what else was she going to do? Where was she going to go? She liked everyone in the Pack, especially Rachel and Khaki, but staying at the apartments they shared with their mates would be all kinds of awkward.
She smiled a little as she admired the various knickknacks and framed photos scattered around the living room and along both sides of the hallway that led toward the bedroom. She’d seen them before, of course, but it was cool looking at them again with human eyes. The colors were more vivid, with a lot more reds and pinks than she remembered.
Kat glanced at the watch on her wrist. It was a gift from Rachel, who’d quickly figured out that she didn’t own anything except the clothes on her back, which weren’t technically even hers. It had been fifteen minutes since Connor had dropped her off at his place, then left, saying he wanted to talk to some people he knew about Addy and Ben before calling it a night. She was sure that was merely an excuse so he wouldn’t have to spend any more time with her than absolutely necessary.
Crap, that hurt like hell.
Back at the Lloyd house, Connor hadn’t wanted to give up looking for Addy and Ben. None of his pack mates had. Kat had searched the streets and woods behind the Lloyd residence for two hours along with them, but they’d come up with nothing. They’d all finally decided that until the detectives from the Missing Persons Unit talked to Anton Marshall and Conrad Lloyd to see if they were involved in the kidnapping, the investigation was at a standstill.
On the bright side—if there was one—Rachel hadn’t gotten the feeling that the nachtmahr had been anywhere near the house. From what Rachel said, the creature that had gone after her had always left a remnant of fear behind that was enough to raise the hairs on the back of her neck.
Sighing, Kat turned her attention back to the photos on the wall. Some of the pictures were of a younger Connor with his fellow cops, wearing a patrol uniform. Others were of him in a suit and tie. Kat couldn’t help smiling at those. While Connor looked dashing in a suit, it was obvious he was one of those guys who simply didn’t feel comfortable wearing it. A little farther down the hall were photos of Connor and his pack mates. He seemed the happiest in those. His smiles were broader, and there was a relaxed vibe about him.
But of all the photos spread around the apartment, the ones that drew her in the most were the pictures of Connor’s family. He’d never said anything about them to Kat. Then again, telling a cat about your family would have been a little weird, she supposed. Connor was a teenager in some of them, making it almost impossible to connect the kid with the werewolf she knew him to be now. Except for that gorgeous smile of his. That was the same in every picture, regardless of age.
There were four people in the grouping of photos along one wall that Connor had apparently set aside for family. The middle-aged man and woman were his parents, obviously, and the two girls had to be his younger sisters. Kat ran her gaze over each of the framed photos, trying to figure out what was bothering her about them. Then it hit her.
While there were nearly a dozen photos of one sister, ranging in age from early teens to midtwenties, there were only a few pics of the other, and those were all when she was a kid. Kat was afraid to wonder why there weren’t any pictures of her after that.
The door of the apartment opened, interrupting her thoughts. Kat turned to see Connor walking in, three pizza boxes balanced in one hand and a six-pack of diet soda in the other. Since he hated diet anything purely on principle, she could only assume he’d gotten them for her. It was silly, but the thought still loosened a little of the tightness in her chest.
“Sorry that took me longer than I thought. The pizza place was packed,” he said. “You want plates, or are you good eating out of the box?”
Crossing the living room, he walked into the cozy adjoining kitchen and set the boxes on the table, then grabbed two glasses from the upper cabinet beside the fridge.
“I’ve eaten pizza out of worse places than a box when I was a cat,” she said, pulling out a chair and sitting down. “No need to dirty plates.”
Kat was surprised at the expression of pain that flickered across his handsome features. Or maybe it was revulsion. She couldn’t be sure. Perhaps she shouldn’t be so bluntly honest with him about what her life as a cat was like. He might have all these fairy-tale visions of her living large as some rich person’s pampered pet.
Silence descended on the kitchen as Connor filled their glasses with ice from the dispenser on the refrigerator door, then joined her at the table. He popped the top on a can of soda, filling her glass first before taking care of his own. While he did that, she opened the pizza box on top of the stack, almost swooning as the aroma of marinara sauce and pepperoni wafted across her nose. The mozzarella cheese covering it was so thick and gooey, it practically made her drool.
“How long have you been dealing with this curse?” Connor asked as they ate.
Kat wondered if she should correct him and explain that she wasn’t under a curse. That magic didn’t work that way. But she decided not to bother. It was complicated, and she doubted he’d be interested in the subtle nuances of the spell that had been used against her. Besides, from his point of view, the spell probably seemed like a curse.
She finished the bite of pizza she’d been savoring, then took a sip of soda. “Four years.”
Connor winced. “Damn. Where did you stay all that time? Did you find someone to take you in?”
She gazed down at the half-eaten slice of pizza in her hand. After four years, the memories shouldn’t cause so much pain anymore, but they did.
“Right after my coven was killed and I realized I trulywastrapped in a cat’s body, I kind of lost it for a little bit.” She winced. “Okay, to be honest, I completely lost it. I ran without even slowing to consider where I was going. I knew that if Marko got his hands on me, it would all be over. I’d be his familiar, and my coven’s deaths—my friends’ deaths—would have all been in vain.”
“What about after that?”
“I was constantly on the move for the first week or so, sleeping in the crawl spaces of houses, under cars and bridges, eating out of trash cans and dumpsters,” she said quietly, trying not to shudder—and failing. “I was sure that every person I saw, every figure in the shadows, was one of Marko’s coven members, there to drag me back to him so he could finish the ritual. Either that or kill me for ruining it in the first place. I was a complete mess.”
On the other side of the table, Connor stared at her in shock. “That’s how it was the whole four years? You were always on the run, hiding and scavenging for food?”
“Not the whole time,” she admitted. “After the initial terror of being a cat wore off, I started working on a plan to reverse the spell. My first idea was to get help from another coven near Spokane, one I’d worked with several times before. I hoped that with their help, it would be a simple process to reverse the binding Marko had placed on me. But apparently, he knew I would try that and had already threatened all the covens in the area with what would happen to them if they helped me. They called Marko the second they realized who I was, then tried to hold me captive until he arrived. Luckily, I got away. I tried a few other covens after that, but they all did the same thing.”
