Kitty and the Midnight Hour Part 19

He ran off. Gliding like a missile over the concrete, he disappeared into the dark.

Too late, I realized I'd told off my best friend. I needed him. How was I going to get through the night by myself? I hadn't been this hurt since the first night Zan attacked me and brought me into the pack.

Zan wasn't any older than I was. His hair splayed around his head like a crown, soaked with the blood that was pooling on the street. His mouth was open. His eyes were closed. He still smelled like the pack, a familiar, warm scent that jarred with the overwhelming wash of blood. Wrong, wrong. I gagged, but didn't vomit.

I managed to stumble to my apartment. I sat in a kitchen chair and tried to think. I was cold, s.h.i.+vering. Werewolves had rapid healing. I just had to wait for the healing to start. And go into shock in the meantime.

I was more hurt than I wanted to admit I needed help.

I considered who I could call. No one from my pack. One of my pack had done this to me, and I'd just driven T.J. away. Not too many others would know what to do with me. I thought of Rick, then thought of what he might do when he saw this much blood drenched over everything. He might not have my well-being immediately in mind.

I called Cormac. Again, I called Cormac when any normal, sane person would have called the police. And for the same reason: How would I explain this to the police? To a hospital staff, as the nurses watched my wounds heal themselves? I wouldn't have to explain any of this to Cormac.

I dialed the number, and as usual he didn't answer until after half a dozen or so rings.

"Yeah."

"It's Kitty. I need help."

"Where are you?"

"Home." I dropped the phone into its cradle.

I made my way to the kitchen sink and ran water over my arm. I watched the patterns, water turning the blood pink, the holes in my skin that were revealed when the blood washed away. If I stood quietly, I could watch them heal, like time-lapse photography; watch the scabs form and the edges of the holes come together, like dirt filling in a grave. Fascinating.

The next thing I knew, he was standing there. Cormac. I squinted at him. He might have been standing there for hours, watching me.

"How'd you get in?" I said.

"You left your front door open."

"s.h.i.+t."

"What happened to you?"

"Sibling rivalry. Never mind."

He was as cool as ice. Never once broke his tough-guy tone. He searched the kitchen cupboards until he found a gla.s.s. He leaned over the sink, turned the faucet away from my arm, filled the gla.s.s with water, and handed it to me. I drank and felt better. A drink of water. I should have thought of that.

"You look like h.e.l.l," he said.

"I feel worse."

"You're not hurt that bad. Looks like you're healing pretty quick."

"It's not that." Wolf was still gnawing at my insides for putting her on the leash.

"Have anything to do with the mangled body in the driveway?"

s.h.i.+t. Had he called the police? "Yeah."

"Did you do it?"

"No," I said harshly.

"Anyone you know do it? Was it the rogue?"

"Hea"the guy outsidea"was a werewolf, too. Pack squabble." He watched me, frowning, his eyes unreadable. Like a cop at an interrogation, waiting for the suspect to crack. My throat felt dry. "Do you believe me?"

He said, "Why'd you call me for help?"

"I can't trust anyone, and you said you owed me. Didn't you?"

"Don't move." He went to the dresser on the other side of the room and opened drawers, looking for something. I stayed where I was, leaning on the counter until he came back. He had a towel over his shoulder and held a s.h.i.+rt out to me.

He turned away, staring at the opposite wall as I removed the shredded T-s.h.i.+rt and pulled on the tank top.

"I'm done," I said when I was finished changing.

He returned to the sink, wet the towel, and turned off the water. The place seemed quiet without the running faucet. He handed me the towel.

I sat in a chair and started cleaning the blood off while Cormac watched.

"Is Cormac your real name?"

"It seems to work all right."

The blood wouldn't come off. I just kept smearing it around.

Sighing, he took the towel from me. "Here. Let me." He held my wrist, straightened my arm, and started wiping off blood with much more focus and vigor than I'd given the task.

My arm had been numb. Now, it started to sting. Weakly, I tried to pull away. "Aren't you afraid of catching it? All the blooda""

"Lycanthropy isn't that contagious. Mostly through open wounds, and even then mostly when you're a wolf. I don't think I've ever heard of anyone catching it from a werewolf in human form."

"How did you learn so much about werewolves? How did you get into this line of work?"

He shrugged. "Runs in the family." Efficiently, as if he'd had lots of practice cleaning up blood, he washed my arm, shoulder, and neck. He even cleaned the blood out from under my fingernails. On both hands. Zan's blood, that time. "Don't you have a pack? Shouldn't one of your buddies be doing this?"

"I'm kind of on the outs with them right now." Feeling was coming back to the arm, which was bad, because it hurt, throbbing from neck to fingers. I started shaking.

"Jesus, I didn't think werewolves went into shock." He threw the towel into the sink, stomped to the bed and grabbed the blanket off it. He draped it over my shoulders, moving to my front to bring the edges close together, tugging me into a warm coc.o.o.n. I snuggled into the shelter of the blanket, sighing deeply, finally letting go of the tension.

Just how long had it been since I'd felt warm and safe? And how ironic, that I should feel like that now, with him. The werewolf hunter. He was right; I must have been in shock.

Before he could draw his hand away from the blanket, I reached for it. I was fast and gentle; he didn't even flinch when I pressed his hand against my shoulder. The pressure was there before he realized that I'd moved.

Members of a pack feel safer in groups. Touch holds them together. Two members of a pack can rarely be in the same room without touching every now and then, sometimes nothing more than the backs of their hands brus.h.i.+ng together, or the furred shoulders of wolves b.u.mping. Touch meant everything was going to be okay. For that moment, for a split second, I wanted Cormac to be pack.

Then the human voice came to the fore and noticed how freaking odd this must have looked to him. I pulled my hand away and looked down, shaking my head. "Sorry. Ia""

He took my hand back. My eyes widened. He curled my fingers into his grip and squeezed. His skin was warm, still a little damp from the wet towel. The touch rooted me, brought me away from the pain. Everything was going to be okay.

He was still kneeling by my chair, which meant his head was a little lower than mine. I looked down on him, slightly. He was in the perfect place for me to kiss him.

I touched his cheek with my free hand and brushed my lips against his, lightly, just to see what he would do. He hesitated, but he didn't pull away.

Then he kissed back, and he was hungry. His mouth was warm, his lips active, grasping. I tried to match his energy, move my lips with his, letting the heat of attraction burn through my body, through my muscles. I wrapped my uninjured arm around his neck and slid off the chair, pressing myself to him. He held me there, his hands against my back. He moved his kisses from my lips to my chin, up my jaw, to my ear. Clinging to him, I stifled a gasp.

I hadn't been with a normal, nonlycanthropic human since I'd become a werewolf. I'd been afraid to be with a normal human. Afraid of what I might do if I lost it. But Cormac could take care of himself. Being with him was different from being with a lycanthrope. I hadn't realized it would be different. I was stronger than he was. I could feel the strength in my muscles pressing against him. I could hold him away or squeeze him until he cried out. It made me feel powerful, more in control than I ever had been in my life. I wanted to take him in, all of him. I could hear the blood rus.h.i.+ng through his body, sense the strain of desire in his tendons. He smelled different from lycanthropes. Morea civilized, like soap and cars and houses. He didn't smell like pack, and that made him new. Exciting. I decided I liked the way he smelled.

I buried my face in his hair and took a deep breath. I squirmed out of his grip so that I could work my way down his whole body, tracing the whole scent of him, down his neck, along the collar of his s.h.i.+rt, down his torso and the hint of chest hair through the fabric, across his chest to his armpit, which burst with his smell. I lingered there, then nuzzled my way down to the waistband of his jeans, and oh, I couldn't wait to find out how he smelled down therea Grabbing my shoulders, Cormac pushed me away and held me at arm's length.

"What are you doing?"

"You smell fresh." I strained toward him, my eyes half-closed, wanting to plunge back into the scent of him.

He stood, putting s.p.a.ce between us. "You're not human." He marched away.

I knelt on the kitchen floor, my knees digging into the tile, my heart pounding, reaching for the body that wasn't there.

After a moment, I wandered to the other half of the apartment. He leaned against the opposite wall, his arms crossed, defensive, staring at the door like he couldn't understand why he didn't just leave.

"I'm sorry," I said. I wasn't sure what I was apologizing for. For being what I was, maybe. I couldn't help that, though, so I didn't want to apologize for it. So I was apologizing for this. For calling him. For kissing him. For not guessing how he would react.

He started to say one thing, then shook his head. He looked at the floor, then looked at me.

"How did you get like this? You're not the kind that goes asking for it."

I sat at the edge of the bed and hugged my knees. My arm was getting better by the minute. The punctures were closed, covered with red scabs, fading to pink. The pain was turning to an itch.

What had that government spook asked me? Who did I go to when I needed advice, when I needed to talk? What would I say if someone called the show and told me my story? Tough break, kid. Deal with it. But that didn't a.s.suage the anger I still felt. The anger I still hadn't dealt with. I'd never told anyone the whole story, not even T.J. or anyone else in the pack.

I wasn't sure Cormac was the right person to tell, but I didn't know when I'd get another chance to talk.

"Wrong place at the wrong time," I said, and told him the story.

Bill was cute. I'd give him that much. Sandy brown hair, square jaw, winning smile. But he was only interested in one thing from me. He was a frat boy type, and I wasa well, I was confused. He impressed me because he was cute and arrogant.

We were at a Fourth of July party in EstesPark, in the mountains, where they launched fireworks into the valley and the noise echoed back and forth between the hills. He'd spent the whole time talking smack with his friends, while gripping me around the waist like I was some kind of accessory. That was what I got for being blond and looking good in a miniskirt. My face hurt from forcing it to smile at everyone. I didn't have a good time, and I was ready for the night to be over.

He spent the car ride back to town crawling his hand up my leg, trying to get under my skirt.

"I just want to go home," I said for the fifth time, pus.h.i.+ng his hand away.

"But it's still early."

"Please."

"Whatever."

So he drove, and I stared out the window. When he turned onto a side road, it was in the middle of nowhere and there wasn't much I could do about it.

"Where are we going?" Scrub oak and pine trees lined the narrow road. It led to a trailhead near a river. "Turn around."

The place was popular with hikers and mountain bikers during the day. But this was midnight. Bill shut off the headlights and pulled to a corner of the parking lot shaded by overhanging branches.

I grabbed the door handle, but he pushed the automatic lock as he stopped the engine.

He moved so fast, I bet he'd done this before.

He held my arms, pinning them, and clambered to my side of the car, pressing me to the bucket seat. Two hundred pounds of Bill weighed on me, and no matter how much I squirmed, I couldn't get away. I started hyperventilating.

"Relax, baby. Just relax."

I kept saying, No, stop, no, please, the whole time. I'd never been so scared and angry. When he brought his face close, I bit him. He slapped me and pounded into me that much harder.

I tasted blood. I'd bitten my cheek, and my nose was bleeding.

With a sigh, he rolled away finally. It still hurt.

I scrabbled at the lock until it clicked, then I opened the door and tumbled out.

Bill shouted after me. "Don't you want a ride back? Christ!" He started up his car and pulled away.

I ran. Legs weak, breath heaving, I ran away. I only wanted to get away.

A full moon shone that night. Weird shadows lit the gra.s.s and scrub. This was stupid; I had no idea where I was, no idea how I was going to get home. I slid into the gra.s.s and sobbed. Stupid, Kitty. This whole night was stupid and look where it got me.

A picnic area lay a little ways from the parking lot. Shelters covered some of the tables. I sat down at one, pulling my knees to my chin and hugging myself. My panties were still in Bill's car. I figured I'd sit here until some jogger found me in the morning and called the cops. I could do that. Hug myself to stop s.h.i.+vering, maybe go to sleep.

In the distance, a wolf howled. Far away. Nothing to do with me.

Maybe I dozed. Maybe I thought it was a nightmare at first when the shrubs nearby rustled. A shadow moved. Its fur was like shadow, silvery and brindled. It turned bronze eyes on me. Canine nostrils quivered.

It stepped closer, head low, sniffing, never turning from me. The wolf was as big as a Great Dane, with bulky shoulders and a thick ruff of fur. Even with me sitting on the table, it could reach me without trying.

Later, I learned that the wolf could smell the blood from my injuries, and instinct had told it a wounded animal was near. Easy prey.

I trembled like a rabbit, and like a rabbit, the minute I thought of running, it pounced.

I screamed as its claws raked my leg and I lurched away, falling off the table. I kept screaming when its jaw clamped on my hip. Using that as purchase, it climbed up my body, scratching the whole way. My flesh gave way like b.u.t.ter, pieces of it flaying with every touch.

Panic, panic, panic. I kicked its face. Startled, it backed off for a moment. In an adrenaline haze, I jumped and grabbed hold of the edge of the shelter's roof. Gasping, clutching, gritting my teeth, I swung one leg up. The wolf jumped, sc.r.a.ped claws down the other leg. I screamed, fallinga"but no, I clutched the edge, the wolf lost its grip, and I caught one leg over the edge, then the other. Lying there, spent, I dared to look down.

The wolf looked back at me, but it couldn't reach me. It turned and ran.

I didn't have the energy to move another muscle, so I fell unconscious, one arm hanging over the edge of the shelter.