“With improvements,” Jace said.

“Hers doesn’t have a kitchenette,” Abby added. “And hers is for detention, whereas we mostly use this one for acclimating new strays.”

“Think of this more as a hospital than a prison,” Titus said. “We only lock the cells if the patient gets violent, and that’s as much for his good as for ours. But most of them are just sick.”

“Like you were,” Abby reminded me.

The guesthouse front door squealed open upstairs. “Hey! A little help?” a new voice called, and in answer, I heard the clomp of more footsteps, coming from the second floor of the guest house.

“Move over.” Titus tugged me away from the stairs as a tall, fair, shirtless man came down backward, carrying the lower half of an unconscious guy by the ankles. As he twisted to spot the next step, a loose strand of dark blond hair brushed his left shoulder blade from a rapidly unraveling man bun. His chin and upper lip were covered by a neatly trimmed full beard and mustache a shade darker than his hair.

Higher on the stairs, the unconscious stray’s shoulders were carried by a man in greenish scrubs, with warm brown skin and eyes glowing a rosy hue of amber in the clean white light falling from the ceiling of the stairwell.

“We’re ready for him in here,” Drew called, as he set a freshly cased pillow on the twin bed in the far cell.

“Spence, can you tell how long ago he was infected?” Jace asked as he pulled a forehead touch thermometer from a drawer in the kitchenette.

“He’d been there for hours when my shift started. His temp was 102 in the ER, so I’d say it’s been at least a day since he was infected,” the man in scrubs—clearly Spencer—said. “Which would mean…Thursday night, maybe? But I don’t think he’s shifted yet.”

“Where’s the wound?” Titus followed them into the cell as the other men laid the stray on the bed. The patient’s face was pale , and his clothes were soaked with sweat.

“Did I look like that?” I whispered.

Abby nodded, her eyes wide.

Spencer carefully lifted the man’s T-shirt to reveal a bloodstained bandage wrapping around his lower ribs toward his back. “He told the ER doc a cougar attacked him in the woods. Animal control issued an alert and they’re sending people out to look for it at first light.”

“What was the diagnosis?” Titus asked.

“The doc thinks the fever is from an infection,” Spencer said. “She gave him IV antibiotics and ibuprofen, but those weren’t working, so I had to talk him into checking out before they ordered blood tests.”

“How did you do it?” I asked, and when Spencer turned, seeming to notice me for the first time, I realized I’d wandered to within feet of the cage where the new stray now lay on the twin mattress. “How did you get him to check out?”

“Who…?” Spencer aimed a questioning frown at his Alpha.

“Spence, Loch, this is Robyn Sheffield. She’ll be with us for the next two weeks. Treat her like you treat Abby.”

“Only better,” Abby said with a grin.

Spencer gave her a friendly wink, then turned to me. He inhaled deeply, and I tried not to be offended or weirded out, but I still couldn’t get used to the way cats sniff each other all the time. Even if the human-form version was much more polite than a house cat’s butt sniffing.

I braced myself for his reaction. For the subtle staring and less-than-subtle excuses to touch me. But Spencer only shrugged and held out his hand to be shaken. “Hey. I’m Spencer Cole.”

“Lochlan Hayes.” The tall, blond tom stuck out his hand, peering at me through light hazel eyes, and I could only stare at them both. Though I caught their Alpha looking every time I turned around, they seemed totally unaffected by the presence of the only female stray known to exist in the US.

Spencer laughed and lowered his hand, when I failed to reply to his introduction. “Nice to meet you anyway. And to answer your question, I told him I knew a specialist who was familiar with this particular infection. Then I offered to treat him for free. No need to file anything with his insurance. That last part usually seals the deal.”

“Do we have a name?” Titus asked.

Lochlan pulled a worn leather wallet from the pocket of his gray jogging pants and handed it to his Alpha. “Corey Morris. Looks like he’s a freshman at Ole Miss.”

“Any idea why he’d go to the hospital in Jackson?” Jace asked. “That’s a two-hour drive south of Oxford.”

“Maybe the way you drive,” Abby said. “It’d take me two and a half.”

Drew shrugged. “Poor kid’s just eighteen years old.”

“His life isn’t over.” Titus stared at the unconscious new stray, while Spencer pulled an IV bag full of clear liquid from one of the upper cabinets on the other side of the basement. “It’s just a lot harder now.”

My chest began to ache as his words dug into me like the claws that had simultaneously shredded my skin and ruined my life. I couldn’t think of a truer statement in the world. My life wasn’t over either, but since I’d been scratched by a dying stray in a cage more than four months ago, everything had gotten infinitely, immeasurably harder.

Every decision seemed complicated by a whole list of consequences and considerations I’d never had as a human. Each breath brought with it a banquet of scents my sluggish brain struggled to identify and classify. Every beat of my heart pumped blood-borne instincts and cravings I fought to resist. Every square foot of earth belonged to some Alpha who would only let me stand on it if I promised something in return. Loyalty. Obedience. Marriage.

Corey Morris would wake up in a world he no longer recognized or truly belonged to.

I knew exactly how that felt.

Spencer crossed the cell and hung the IV bag from a hook on the wall above the twin bed. While he opened a packet of sterile IV tubing and supplies, Titus knelt next to the bed until his nose was inches from the bloody bandage. Then he inhaled deeply. “He definitely hasn’t shifted yet. I can’t smell his infector’s scent in his blood.”

“What does that mean?” I whispered to Abby.

“The way my dad puts it, sampling someone’s scent is like tasting wine,” she whispered, while we watched from the other side of the cell. “You know how when you smell a person, you get the primary scent, but also subtle layers of other things? Fear. Health. Pregnancy, if that applies.”