“People can be both.”
Damon gives him a hard look. “Are you one of those people?”
“Unlikely.”
“We fed them a few weeks ago. Before the wedding,” I add quickly, like that explains everything. “And they recognize Damon. Mostly.”
“Of course they do.” That earns a snort from Hunter as he turns the wheel and then mutters, ”Cat whisperer.”
We start the drive out toward Northridge, and some of my anxiety from earlier loosens, the energy shifting into something different—anticipation. The road narrows, streetlights thinning until we’re swallowed by the dark.
“Turn here.” Damon directs Hunter down a rutted side road, past a sagging fence and a line of bare trees.
The boathouse crouches near the water. Half-collapsed, tagged with graffiti, surrounded by rusted cans and old bottles.
Damon grabs the bag and a flashlight from the truck’s glove compartment. “Watch your step.” As soon as his feet hit theground, shadows peel themselves out of the dark. Six shapes, at least.
“There they are,” I say, a little surprised. I guess I wasn’t sure they’d still be here.
“Little monsters,” Damon says, ripping the top off the bag. He pours little piles of food straight on the ground.
A sleek black female slips forward first, narrow as a blade, a single white sock on one foot. She circles wide, clever eyes fixed on Damon like she’s already beaten him at a game he doesn’t know he’s playing. He ducks into the boathouse with the flashlight, leaving us in the pale moonlight, and returns with his metal trap.
He pulls out a single can of tuna, baiting the trap.
She ignores it completely, stepping around it to steal kibble from one of the piles.
“She does that on purpose,” Damon mutters. “I swear to God she’s laughing at me.”
“You’re trying to catch them?”
“Her for sure. She needs to get fixed before she has another litter.”
A scrawny male with a torn ear muscles in next, then a gray cat that hangs back, waiting until everyone else commits before creeping closer. Kittens tumble out last–all ribs and fuzz and attitude. “They’re bigger,” I point out, then I notice it. “Oh no, she’s still limping.”
Damon’s already watching it. A tiny body, one front paw bent wrong, twisted just enough to make my stomach hurt. When I crouch and extend a finger, it bats at me.
“Still spicy,” Damon says softly.
“It’s worse,” I whisper. “It’s worse than last time.”
The kitten stumbles when it tries to move away, then sits, breathing fast.
I feel it then–that pull. That awful, familiar recognition of something so innocent and pure being neglected.
The kitten cries, a thin, broken sound.
I stand abruptly. “We can’t leave it.”
Hunter straightens from where he was watching the swarm ofkittens eating from a metal pan. “We can’t take a kitten back to the House of Night.”
I turn to him. “You have Ares.”
His jaw tightens. “I gotpermissionto bring Ares.”
“Well,” I say, stepping closer to the kitten again, my voice filled with certainty, “we can’t leave her here. She’ll never make it. Not like this.”
The kitten lets out another broken cry, like it’s proving my point.
