Page 4 of Brandon’s Mate

Just three misty panthers pacing around the gravesite, their eyes bright and accusing.

After a moment, another ghost stalked out of the woods, and turned its gaze on him.

And then there were four.

Brandon walked back down the hill and started hunting for the evidence that would tell him why Nick was killed—and how to bring down his killers.

He didn’t find it.

He found everything else packed into three different hidey-holes in the house and the shed—emergency cash, weapons, burn phones, Nick’s real ID and all his fakes. But nothing to show what Nick was doing here, or why he suddenly called in Brandon.

That meant this job would be harder than he’d thought, and it would take more time. And he’d have to fend off the crazy for a little longer.

He found some construction tools in the shed and started demolishing the living room where Nick had died. He savagely ripped out every piece of wallboard and flooring that had blood on it and stacked them in the front yard, working well into the night.

Then he doused it all with kerosene and set it on fire.

The flames rose high into the night, blocking out the stars. He could still see the ghosts in the firelight, weaving their way through the smoke. All four of them.

So fire didn’t get rid of ghosts after all. Good to know.

“I can still piss on you,” he told them. They didn’t fucking care, just stared at him with those accusing eyes.

He turned to the latest ghost. Nick’s ghost.

“I’m going to find them,” he promised. “And I’m going to take them all out, even if it kills me.”

The vow sizzled through his veins, filling him until he erupted into panther form, screaming grief and rage and vengeance into the night.

I’m going to find you murdering bastards, and I’m going to make you wish you’d never fucked with my people.

Chapter 2

Catalina “Kitty” Jameson was lost in a nightmare.

She was back in time, trapped inside the burning cabin.

Searing hot air… can’t breathe…

Sheets of fire surrounded her, flames licking at her, singeing her fur. Thick dark smoke, blurring her vision and filling her wolf nose with the scents of burning wood and melting plastic furniture, and even worse things.

And the echoes of screams in her ears.

Out, out, out, her wolf was demanding, panicked.

Was anyone still alive? Could she save them? Should she save them?

They’re all dead. They tried to hurt us. They deserved to die, her wolf snarled. No. Not her wolf. The wolf that wasn’t her, couldn’t be her—the wolf that had taken her over and done horrible, unspeakable things.

Monster Wolf.

She tried to make the monster go back and see if anyone could be saved, but the ceiling caved in and a beam hit their shoulder, burning their fur and flesh, and they were howling, dying, the air hurting their lungs.

Then, from outside, she heard a panther scream.

Somehow, even inside the dream, she knew that wasn’t right. There had been no panthers there that night.

The monster heaved the burning beam off them with a wrenching twist of its muscles, the wounds beginning to heal even as they moved forward again. It crashed through the wreckage, carrying her away inside its huge misshapen body toward fresh air and darkness, toward freedom and survival.