Robyn pushed her way between us. She growled, and I glanced down, assuming she was demanding an ill-timed introduction. But she only sniffed Justus’s thigh. Dramatically. Insistently. And finally, I understood.
I pulled him into a hug and inhaled his scent right at his neck. Where it was strongest.
He smelled like himself. Like he always had. And he smelled like me, more now than ever. And he smelled like…
Rage burned through me, unburdened by logic. I didn’t understand what my nose was telling me, but I didn’t doubt it.
“Drew!” I spun toward him, but he was gone. My best friend of nearly a decade. My college roommate. My trusted employee, even before we’d been infected.
The traitorous bastard who’d attacked my brother.
“What? Drew’s here?” Justus asked, and with a sudden stunned comprehension, I realized he didn’t know who’d infected him because as a human—even a newly infected stray—his sense of smell hadn’t been strong enough to identify the cat who’d scratched him. He hadn’t even known that was possible. And unlike Corey Morris, he hadn’t yet connected his own scent to that of his infector.
Which could only mean that he hadn’t smelled Drew since he’d shifted.
Focus, Titus. One thing at a time.
“Justus, this is Robyn. My…girlfriend.” I laid one hand on her head, fighting for patience when every muscle in my body demanded that I find Drew and make him pay. “She’s going to take you into the bushes, and you’re both going to stay there until I get back,” I said, talking over him when he tried to object. Or maybe ask a question. I turned to Robyn. “Can you still hear Drew?”
She went still, except for her ears, rotating on top of her head. Finding and categorizing sounds. Then she nodded, and her eyes narrowed. She pointed her muzzle toward the west.
“Thanks,” I whispered. Then I took off running.
TWENTY-TWO
Robyn
Justus stared after his older brother in astonishment and utter confusion as Titus’s footsteps pounded off to the west. Around a curve in the trail, several girls screamed, then burst into laughter, and I realized Titus had startled them as he raced by. They wouldn’t recover so quickly from finding me on the path.
I seized Justus’s jeans cuff between my teeth and tried to tug him toward the bushes, but he jumped back, startled, and the material ripped. His beer bottle exploded on the pavement. He blinked at me in the dark, uncomprehending, and I realized how little he’d understood of what had happened in the past minute and a half. So instead of trying to pull him again, I whined softly and turned toward the foliage, asking as clearly and politely as I could for him to follow me.
He stared at me for a second, and I recognized comprehension the instant it registered in his eyes. He’d finally connected me—a cat—with his brother’s designation of me as his girlfriend. A descriptor that felt monumental, yet somehow insufficient.
And finally, as a group of six girls my age rounded the westward curve in the path, Justus stepped into the bushes with me and dropped into a squat.
“Robyn?” he whispered.
I nodded, and his eyes widened as if confirmation that I was a shifter—that I could understand and respond to him—was almost more miraculous than his mere suspicion that that was the case.
“You’re with Titus?” he asked, and I nodded again. “And you’re…like me?”
I bobbed my muzzle again, and his relieved exhalation was so deep and thorough that it broke my heart. “I hoped I wasn’t the only one. Is…is Titus…?”
I nodded, wishing for my human mouth, capable of giving him the answers he needed. How could he think he was the only one? How could he know Drew, yet not know Drew had infected him? At least he wasn’t stuck in cat form, like Leland Blum had been.
“What’s going on, Robyn? Who are you? How do you know my brother? Why are you guys here?” Tears welled in eyes the same shade of gray as Titus’s. His voice was thick with confusion. But without my human mouth, I could only rub my head against his arm, hoping he understood the comfort I was trying to communicate. “I don’t know what that means!” His voice was getting louder, and I could hear more partygoers coming up the path. “Change back so I can talk to you!” he demanded in a loud whisper. “Please!”
Finally, I nodded, though I wasn’t sure that was the wisest course of action, with so many humans nearby. But Justus needed answers, and I knew exactly how that felt. So I lay down with my legs folded beneath me and began the process.
Spurred on by his pain and the knowledge that we could be discovered any second, I managed my fastest shift ever, though it was still nowhere near what Titus could do.
“Holy shit!” Justus breathed when I finally sat up, naked and breathing heavily, covered in chill bumps from the cold. Exhausted by the process. “Is that what I look like? I’ve never seen it. It’s pretty disgusting, in the middle.”
“I know,” I whispered. “And yes, that’s what you look like.” I crossed my arms over my chest, suddenly self-conscious about my nudity, now that Titus’s little brother was staring at me. “Can you hand me that bag?” I motioned to the backpack, where Titus had hidden it behind a fern.
Justus handed me the bag. “You’re my brother’s girlfriend?”
I pulled my shirt over my head without bothering with my bra. “Yeah, I guess. It’s a new development.”
