“Oh, no. I just noticed how hard it was for anyone else even to walk in there, where the alpha almost…” She looked quickly away as she shrugged again, then back at April. “And I thought, well, I can compartmentalize, and I don’t have the emotional history with Malachi that almost all the rest of the pack does. It won’t hurt me to do this for them.”
“That was kind.”
Willow ducked her head as her cheeks pinked. “It was just logical.”
April couldn’t hold back a smile. Discovering Willow’s affinity for logic had taken only one conversation.
From across the room, amidst a few other quiet conversations, Trevor raised his hand, and quiet rippled over the group. He cleared his throat. “I’ve been trying not to say this, but now that we’re not overwhelmed with other scents and…awfulness…uh, do any of y’all wolves feel like you smell a cat in here?”
Responses came simultaneously from almost every wolf.
“Definitely,” Robert rumbled.
“So I’m not going crazy?” Jeremy said.
From his place on the couch, Arlo pointed toward the corner where the pups were playing. “No one else noticed? There’s the cat right there.”
“Thereisa cat!” Callie, Jeremy’s five-year-old daughter, ran up to him and grabbed his knees. “Daddy, can I interrupt now and show you it? Rhett has a cat!”
“Rhett can’t possibly have a cat,” Jeremy said. “No matter what my nose is telling me.”
“He has areal lifecat!” Callie said. “Can we borrow it?”
April sprang to her feet and called back to the adults as she ran to the rescue. “It’s Flannery. I brought her when Rhett came for me, and she ran and hid, and I hadn’t even thought to look for her.”
Gigi and Zane stood close together, facing the corner. Trapped, Flannery stood with her tail up straight, the fur along her back raised, her eyes wide. Her whole body shook as she hissed at the pups.
Tears filled April’s eyes, her emotions unable to weather one more thing. In this moment Flannery’s terror and desperation to protect herself felt unbearably sad; April’s failure to find and protect her felt reprehensible. She knelt and reached past Zane’s legs. The kitten swiped at her hand and left a red scratch.
“She scratch-ed April.” Gigi pointed. “Bad cat.”
“No, no, she’s not bad,” April said. “She’s only scared.” She inched closer and picked Flannery up. The kitten mewled up at her. “I don’t blame you. I brought you to a wolf’s house and then all these other wolves came, and you’re just a little kitten. I’m sorry, sweetie.”
She cuddled Flannery close and stood up. When she turned with the kitten in her arms, every adult in the room gaped at her.
“April…” Kelsey said. “You brought a cat with you? To Mal’s?”
“No, no, Flannery is his cat.”
“Wha-aa-at?” Trevor drew out the word in such a way that his wolf voice turned it into a sort of laughing howl.
“She’s a stray that found him one day outside, about a week ago. He brought her indoors and named her Flannery O’Connor.”
“No way,” Trevor said. “We’d smell a cat on our alpha if he decided to adopt one.”
“Might not,” Ezra said.
“How would we not?”
“Well, think about it, Trev. Do you know any scent stronger than Malachi’s essence? That little thing”—he nodded at Flannery—“probably doesn’t have a strong enough essence to rub off on him even if he were holding her. Which I assume she doesn’t allow, but you know what I mean.”
“Oh, she allows it,” April said. “In fact she insists. Loudly and often.”
Her feelings were on a pendulum. A moment ago, she had wanted to cry for the kitten’s smallness and helplessness. Now delight bubbled up inside for the laughter of the pack, born of their affection for her wolf.
“I’ve got to see this,” Jeremy said. “Malachi cuddling a kitten.”
April held onto Flannery and made her way back to the circle of conversation. A few of the wolves wrinkled their noses. “I’m sorry, is she bothersome to y’all?”
