This time he was home.

It was twenty minutes after nine when we pulled to a stop in front of Ben Feldman’s house, two small towns and nearly forty-five minutes from Marc’s driveway. A well-kept ten-year-old Toyota sat in front of the single-car garage, and the minute Parker cut his engine, the silhouette of a head appeared in the front window of the house.

Feldman knew we were there.

“Okay, I know I’m one to talk in this regard, but we can’t let this one go down like it did with Yarnell,” I said from the backseat, unbuckling my seat belt. “Another incident like that won’t do much to convince the stray population that we’re not out to get them.”

Parker nodded in agreement. “We play nice this time.”

Dan looked relieved, and I could tell he really respected Feldman—a rarity among strays, who typically spent very little time in one another’s company. Though Dan was shaping up to be an exception to that rule.

When we stepped out of the car, the head disappeared from Feldman’s window. We crossed the tiny brown lawn with me and Dan in front, Parker and Ethan close at our backs.

The front door opened before we could knock, and Ben Feldman appeared behind the storm door, backlit so that his face was a shadowy compilation of wide planes and rugged angles. Feldman was so broad he took up the entire glass panel, and so tall I couldn’t see the top of his head. He wasn’t quite as big as my cousin Lucas, but was easily the largest stray I’d ever seen.

And he did not look friendly.

“Painter? What the hell are you doing here?” Feldman’s voice was like granite—smooth, hard, and beautiful. A pleasant surprise in all three respects.

Before Dan could answer, I stepped forward and smiled my brightest, friendliest smile, determined to win Feldman over, rather than fighting him. We couldn’t afford to make an enemy of every stray we met, and based as much on his confident stance as on his size, this tom would be a formidable opponent. “I asked him to introduce us. I’d really like to talk to you, Mr. Feldman, if you have a few minutes.”

“And you are…?”

More smiling. My jaw was starting to ache. “I’m Faythe Sanders.” I paused to see if he would react to my name.

Feldman’s dark eyes widened almost imperceptibly, but the flaring of his nostrils was much more noticeable, as he verified from my scent that I was indeed who I said I was. Or at least that I was a tabbycat.

But rather than returning my smile, or ushering me inside, both of which I’d expected from a tom who’d probably never met a female of his species, he pressed his lips together in a frown. “What can I do for you, Miss Sanders?”

“May we come in? I have a few questions, and it’s pretty cold out tonight.” I rubbed my arms through my jacket for emphasis.

Feldman’s frown deepened, and he crossed bare, dark arms over a pale button-down shirt. His eyes focused over my head on Parker and Ethan, then he scanned the yard slowly, inhaling deeply.

“It’s just the four of us,” I assured him, impressed that he’d thought to check for backup. I used to forget that one a lot myself.

After another moment’s hesitation, he pulled the screen door open for us.

I stepped inside with the guys at my heels, all of us relieved by the warmth of the small room, but before he closed the door, Feldman took one last glance and sniff outside, to verify that we were alone. “Sit.” He waved one arm at a tan couch. The sofa was by no means new, but it was cleaner than anything in the guesthouse back home, and it matched the armchair in one corner, against which Feldman leaned, facing both us and the front door.

“Thank you.” I sank onto the cushion farthest from our host, and all three guys squeezed in with me, intentionally avoiding the aggressive backup stance. On the coffee table, a fat, hardbound book lay open next to a spiral notebook covered in neat, slanted writing. One glance at the book, and I nearly choked on my own surprise. It was a textbook anthology, open to Antigone.

“Are you in college, Mr. Feldman?” I asked, eyeing him in interest as I flashed back to my own days as an English major. Feldman looked to be in his midthirties—a little old for an undergrad, but not unheard-of.

His dark eyes hardened, and thick, brown hands smoothed his shirt as he settled into the armchair. “Is that what you came to ask me?”

Okay, he wasn’t exactly approachable, but at least he hadn’t kicked us out. Or tried to kill us. Yet. “Um, no. I was just curious.”

“Then no, I’m not in school. I teach Classical Humanities at the junior college in Natchez. Mostly night classes.”

“Oh.” Ohhh. I felt my face flame, and I glared at Dan, irritated by the lack of background information on our host. He only shrugged and, to my further embarrassment, I thought I saw amusement flit across Feldman’s face, softening it for just an instant.

“It’s late, Miss Sanders, and I take it this isn’t a social call, so why don’t you get to the point?”

“Of course.” I crossed my legs at the knee, hoping to look competent and official. “This is Parker Pierce and my brother Ethan.” I gestured at each tom in turn, without taking my eyes from our host. “We’re enforcers for the south-central Pride, and personal friends of Marc Ramos—”

Feldman’s thick eyebrows arched. “The way I hear it, regarding your relationship with Ramos, that’s a bit of an understatement, Ms. Sanders.”

I blinked in surprise, and when I met Feldman’s gaze again, I saw challenge in his eyes. He knew exactly who I was and what I wanted, and he was daring me to drop the pretense and stop wasting everyone’s time.