Page 5 of Brandon’s Mate

The panther screamed again.

Kitty was suddenly outside the building, in human form, watching it burn. Not the cabin from that night, but a long, low building with a parking lot. And a sign lit by blood-red flames.

One of the building’s walls crashed in and sparks shot into the air. The flames surged, and Kitty could see black shapes outside, silhouetted against them. Animals fighting. And crows, crows everywhere, filling the night sky.

The panther screamed again, and then there was a man standing in the midst of the flames. Broken, bloody, covered in soot and burns.

Brandon.

She started to run to him, but as hard as she ran she couldn’t seem to get any closer. The ceiling buckled, right over his head, but he didn’t see. He was staring at something else, something off in the distance, and his face contorted in a snarl.

The flaming beams toppled in slow motion, down, down, down…

“Brandon!”

She screamed at the top of her lungs, but he didn’t hear and she couldn’t get to him, and the beams were falling, falling…

They crashed down and Kitty woke with a start, tangled in the sweat-soaked sheets.

She fought her way out and lay gasping and disoriented, the sweat cooling on her skin from the breeze through the open window. The night was quiet.

It’s okay, she told herself, trying to calm her breathing. You’re okay. You’re home.

Home in her childhood bedroom, in her parents’ cabin in the Bad Blood territory outside Nashville, Tennessee. The safest place she could ever be.

Kitty sat up, pushing her wavy blond hair out of her eyes. Her covers were in tatters—she must have sleep-Changed and torn them with her teeth and claws.

Another set of sheets ruined. So much for Hello Kitty.

The thought of lying back down made her feel nauseated. The familiar nightmare was still clear in her mind, where she was reliving that horrible night almost a year ago. Before she’d left college and run home to hide like a coward among her childhood crew, with a nice safe job in the crew’s construction company and a nice safe bedroom in her parents’ house where she could have her nightmares in peace.

Because face it, she was a chicken-shit.

But the second part of the dream was different. Once again she saw the strange building, the fighting crows. And Brandon.

Over the years she’d taught herself—with awe-inspiring self-discipline—not to think about Brandon. Who was supposed to be her best friend and turned out to be a friend-abandoning douche.

But the dream had been so real. Brandon, in deadly danger. That really did make her feel nauseated—her stomach was aching with a familiar pain. The one she’d gotten since childhood, whenever Brandon was in trouble.

The walls of her room felt like they were closing in on her.

Out, her wolf murmured. Her real wolf, her other half.

Not the monster. The monster was gone.

But the chill that ran through her said, You hope.

Kitty climbed out of bed and went through the dark, silent cabin to the front porch, grabbing a super-sized multi-pack of Hostess cupcakes out of the pantry as she passed.

Nothing like some sugar-filled fake food to chase the nightmares away.

She settled onto the big cushioned porch swing, digging her toes into the polished floorboards to set it swinging gently, the chains that attached it to the roof beam creaking.

Kitty breathed in deeply, letting the scents of their home territory calm her wolf. Forest and damp earth and new leaves, and small, hot-blooded, crunchable animals foraging and hunting and being hunted.

The lingering scents of the crew—her extended family. In the moonlight, she could see faint sparkles of glitter in the corners and crevices of the porch floor. Her uncle Xander loved to prank the crew by leaving glitter-covered “presents” on their front porches. Glittery animal poop. Glittery roadkill.

Two decades of glitter residue had become part of the porch. Part of home.