“I’m on it.” I circled to the front of the cabin and was pleased, when I stepped inside, to find that the smell of decay had faded significantly with the removal of Ivy’s body.

The refrigerator held nothing but an out-of-date box of baking soda, and the cabinets were empty, so I grabbed the empty water bottle from my backpack and refilled it from the sink. I was halfway to the door again when I heard a scream and a thud from outside.

Alarm raised every hair on my body. Pulse pounding, I raced down the front steps and around the small cabin, then past the shed, where a growl clawed its way up my throat from my gut.

Robyn lay pinned to the ground by a large shifter with his front paws on her shoulders, his muzzle inches from her neck.

His head snapped up when he heard me, and his gaze met mine. A low growl rumbled from his throat.

I skidded to a stop in the dirt, my hands up to show him I meant no harm, still holding the water bottle. I knew with one look at him that this cat wasn’t Justus. There was no recognition in his gaze.

Shoving down the fury raging inside me at the sight of Robyn in danger, I spoke in a low, even voice to keep him calm. “Hey. It’s okay. We’re not here to hurt you, and we don’t want anything.”

He continued to growl, but softer than before.

“My name is Titus Alexander. The lady you have pinned down is Robyn Sheffield. We’re shifters. Like you.”

The cat’s head cocked in an oddly human look of confusion, and I took that as confirmation that he was listening and that he could understand me. Though something in my statement had clearly puzzled him.

“Smell her,” I said, but the cat only blinked at me. “Seriously, smell her.”

Robyn gasped when he lowered his muzzle to her neck, and for a moment I wondered if I’d made a huge mistake. If he bit her throat instead of smelling it, she was as good as dead.

If that happened, nothing would keep me from ripping him apart with my bare hands.

But the cat only sniffed her skin, then turned to me.

“Smells familiar, right? That’s because she’s a shifter, just like you. Just like me. You seem a little confused about what’s happened to you, so I’m going to take a guess, and you nod if I’m right. Okay?” I said, but he only stared at me, still standing on Robyn’s shoulders while she took even, measured breaths, obviously trying to lie very still. “I’m guessing you were attacked by a cat who looked like you do now, a couple of days ago.”

I wasn’t close enough to get a good whiff of his scent with my human-form nose, but unless we’d stumbled upon a scratch fever epidemic, there was only one logical conclusion for me to draw, having concluded that this shifter was not my brother. “Is your name Leland?”

The cat cocked his head to the side again, silently asking me a question.

“It was an educated guess. We met a friend of yours yesterday,” I explained. “Corey Morris. He told us that you and he had come out to the cabin the other night with Ivy, and that a cat had attacked him. He didn’t know that cat was a shifter until we explained it to him, and I’m guessing you didn’t either.” I gave him a second to respond, but he didn’t seem to know how. “If I’m right, you can nod your head.”

Leland’s muzzle bobbed up and down, hesitantly at first, and I could practically see the lightbulb flare in the air over his head. With that one gesture, he’d bridged the gap between his feline and human halves. Understanding that he was capable of human thought and communication even in cat form was the first step toward the harmonious co-existence of both parts of himself.

“Good. Now, if you’ll let Robyn up, she and I can finish giving Ivy a proper burial, and if you want, we can talk you through shifting back into human form. Have you done that yet?”

Leland slowly shook his muzzle back and forth.

“Well, we’d be happy to help.”

“If you’ll get off me,” Robyn reiterated, her words strained by the weight on her chest.

And finally, Leland backed carefully off her.

“Thanks.” Robyn sat up slowly, careful not to spook him with any sudden movements. When he seemed calm, she stood, just as slowly, and began brushing dirt and leaves from the back of her—my—wool coat.

It took all my restraint to keep from pulling her into my arms, away from him, and kissing her. From telling her how stupid I’d been to push her away. She could have died. I could have lost her.

But I couldn’t tell her any of that with him listening. A new stray should not know how much power he’d wielded. Or how close I’d been to killing him.

“Is it okay with you if we finish burying Ivy?” Robyn asked, impressively composed, after what she’d been through.

After a long moment of hesitation, Leland nodded.

“Why don’t I do that while you talk him through a shift?” I picked up the shovel where it had obviously landed when he’d pounced on her, prepared to use it as a weapon, if I had to. The sooner we got Leland in human form, the sooner we could question him about Justus. And disarm him of his claws.

Robyn shrugged with a glance at Leland. “I’m game if you are.”

FIFTEEN

Robyn

Still spooked from my near-death experience, I walked Leland away from the grave, hyper-conscious that if I startled him, I could wind up right back in the dirt, with him on my chest. Leland’s infection and transition had obviously been even more traumatic than mine, and until then, he’d never even met another shifter. He would be taking his very first behavioral cues from us, and I understood that if he didn’t trust us, rather than helping a stray, we’d be creating a rogue. A true wildcat.

While Titus finished digging the hole, I gave Leland softly-voiced, patient instructions for how to take his shift into his own hands. “You aren’t at the mercy of it,” I told him. “I know you didn’t have any choice that first time, but you do now. And the same goes for all your new feline instincts and urges. No matter which form you’re in, you are in charge of your body, not the other way around. But sometimes the easiest way to exercise that control is to relinquish a little bit of it. Your body knows what to do. All you have to do is get out of your own way.”

By the time the hole was deep enough, Leland was nearly finished with his shift. As Titus lifted Ivy’s lifeless body and lowered her into the grave, Leland carefully rose from the leaf-strewn dirt—finally human and naked—to watch.