In spite of the frustrated feminist in me who insisted that women were capable of anything men were—including murder—I had to admit to having similar questions. To my knowledge, I was the only other tabby who’d ever killed anyone, and I’d done it in self-defense. Mostly. But there were no signs that either Harper or Moore had tried to hurt the tabby in question.

And beyond all of that, there was an even bigger question…

“Who the hell is she?” I asked, my attention on my father even when someone grumbled softly over my language. No one else ever cussed around our Alpha; it was considered disrespectful. I didn’t do it to be rude; I did it to remind him that even though he had me where he wanted me—for the moment—I wasn’t completely mal eable. And, honestly, sometimes it just slipped out. My mother was right: bad habits die hard.

“I don’t know,” my father said, surprising me with the honest bewilderment in his voice. Of course he didn’t know. There was no reason he should know. But I was kind of accustomed to his having all the answers…

“How on earth did she get here?” Parker wondered aloud. “And where are her enforcers? Why would her family let her come here alone?

She has to be alone, doesn’t she?”

“Yes.” Marc nodded firmly. “We’d know it if there were an entire contingent of foreign cats in our territory. It’s one thing for a single cat to evade detection for a little while. But a whole party?” His tone went up in question on the end. “No way.”

Jace brushed a strand of short brown hair back from his face, and his cobalt eyes sparkled with sudden excitement. “Maybe she doesn’t have any family or enforcers. Maybe she’s a stray.”

Vic snickered, and even Parker smiled at the thought of a female stray. There weren’t any, and to my knowledge, there never had been.

Not even in legend.

The theory general y accepted by the Council was that human women were too weak to survive either the initial infection, or the transition period itself. To my surprise, that theory had survived Dr. Carver’s recent revelation about the recessive werecat genes, by virtue of the fact that we’d never once found a female stray. But with no proof of the impossibility, I was no longer willing to accept the old theory as fact.

Women really could do anything men could do, and our mysterious tabby was proof of that.

Still, while the possibility of a female stray did exist, at least in my mind, our murderer didn’t fit the bill.

“No.” Marc and I spoke in unison, and I gestured for him to continue.

The spotlight was starting to make me sweat, and he was more than welcome to it. “She’s not a stray,” he said, and I nodded in agreement.

This second whiff of her scent had verified that she was a natural-born cat. A natural-born South American cat, apparently.

“Then that brings us back to my questions,” Parker said. “If she belongs to one of the South American Prides, where are her fellow Pride members? Why on earth would they let her off on her own?”

“Maybe she killed them all,” Vic suggested, morbid humor shadowed behind his eyes.

Ethan crossed his arms. “Then they probably won’t mind if we keep her.” His cocky smile clearly showed his confidence that he could tame any tabby.

I frowned, un-amused. “Ethan, she’s a murderer, not a stray puppy.

You can’t be serious.” But he only smiled, and most of the others suddenly found the straw at their feet fascinating. I looked to my father for help, but he simply gestured at my fellow enforcers, telling me to take my complaint to the general assembly. Frustration rumbled up my throat in the form of a mild growl. “Guys, come on!” I couldn’t believe them! We were talking about a cold-blooded killer, and they acted like she was a lost kitten they wanted to adopt.

“What would you suggest, Faythe?” Owen asked gently, peering at me from beneath the brim of a stained and faded cowboy hat. “You want to execute a tabby?”

Did I? My uncertainty stung like salt rubbed into the open wound that was my own indignation. Whoever the tabby was, she was a murderer.

But she was also a tabby cat. The species needed her just as badly as it needed me. Did that mean she should literally get away with murder?

Based on the expressions around me, the guys had come to an unspoken, unanimous conclusion: yes. She should get a walk—at least from the death penalty—because of her gender. They thought they could reform this murderess, whoever she was. Or they at least thought it was worth a try. Even Marc, who met my eyes unflinchingly.

My father cleared his throat, effectively cutting off the retort I hadn’t even thought of yet. All eyes turned toward him, and I noticed idly that no one was looking at poor Harper anymore. Our interest had shifted from the dead guy to the girl who’d introduced him to his current state of rigor mortis.

Our Alpha eyed each of us in turn. “We’ll cross that bridge when it crumbles beneath our feet. For now, I believe the most important question is, Who is she? While I seriously doubt she killed her entire family, the fact remains that she’s running around the southern U.S.

killing strays, so I’d say there’s a very good possibility she’s no longer on good terms with her Pride. But without more information, or a stronger scent, I couldn’t begin to guess which Pride that is.”

My father dropped his shoes on the ground in front of his feet and glanced around the barn. “I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’ve had enough excitement for tonight, and we need some time to think about all this. I’m going to bed, and I suggest the rest of you do the same.