My father nodded again, this time with a hint of a smile. That hint—that tiny upturn of one corner of his mouth— set me at ease as no mere drink could ever have done. He would never have smiled if he were planning to have his own daughter put to death.

“Yes, clearly he has come into contact with a cat. I meant to ask if you know the identity of that cat.”

“No.” I shrugged, rolling my head on my neck to release some of the built-up tension. “I have no idea. And just to speed things up, I’m not intentionally withholding any information from you. Well, no information pertinent to this case, anyway,” I corrected myself. And there was that tiny smile again. “I don’t know who infected him. Or when or how it happened. Or how long ago.”

“And he’s called you three times?”

I shrugged, trying hard to appear casual. “Yeah. He was really angry, which I understand now. And he seemed to think I already knew he’d been infected, though I have no idea why he would thi—” My hand flew to my mouth, cutting off my words even as I choked on them. My heart slammed against the inside of my chest as a sudden realization singed through me like an electrical shock, setting off pain sensors I hadn’t even known I had. My skin tingled. My head ached. My stomach heaved. I clamped my jaws shut to hold back half-digested halibut and scalloped potatoes.

I knew who had infected Andrew. I even knew how it had happened.

He’d only had contact with one werecat.

Me.

Chapter Eighteen

“What’s wrong?” Michael leaned forward, as if to catch me if I fell off the couch. I barely heard him. I was too busy hearing Andrew.

You didn’t tell them about me. Andrew’s words played in my head, his voice reproduced in my mind with frightening accuracy. You owe me, Faythe.

What I’d said to my father was accurate—for the most part. I’d never intentionally or knowingly Shifted in front of Andrew. But I hadn’t meant for my eyes to Shift an hour earlier, either. And they weren’t the only part of my face to ever experience an unexpected partial Shift.

My teeth had done it, too.

I’d bitten Andrew’s ear the very day I left school, not two hours before Marc had shown up in the quad. I’d broken the skin. Just barely, but enough to draw a single drop of blood. Apparently that was enough.

I’d infected him. I hadn’t meant to. I hadn’t even known I’d done it. Or that it was possible. Yet I’d accidentally made him one of us, then left him, abandoning him to pain, fear, and incapacitating disorientation during his transition. It was a miracle he’d survived.

Huh. Look at that, I thought, teetering on the razor-sharp edge of hysteria. I committed a capital crime after all. No wonder Andrew wanted to kill me. I couldn’t really blame him.

“Faythe, say something,” Michael urged, and it took me a minute to realize I’d gone completely silent. “If you don’t start explaining, Dad’s going to draw his own conclusions.”

“Too late.” My father eyed me with frightening intensity, and it took every ounce of wil power I had to keep from squirming where I sat.

“I think I know who infected Andrew,” I whispered. It was the best I could do.

The Alpha sat straighter in his chair, his eyes narrowing in suspicion. If he didn’t know exactly what I was going to say, he must have been pretty close. And he was no longer eager to hear it. “What happened?” he said at last. “And consider your words very carefully.”

Suddenly the silence in the soundproofed office seemed dangerous, and somehow wrong. I felt compelled to fill it with a blurted confession, followed by babbling apologies and tearful explanations. But I didn’t. I wouldn’t have shamed myself with such a display before I became an enforcer, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to do it now.

But I had to say something.

I hesitated one last time. I’d let my father down more times than I could count, but this was the Big One. This was humiliation, disappointment, and disillusionment all wrapped up together, tied with a big red bow of disgrace. The gift that keeps on giving.

“It was an accident,” I said, continuing calmly but quickly, before he had a chance to interrupt. “I didn’t understand what happened until just now.”

Michael nodded, urging me on. He seemed to be the only one who real y wanted me to continue.

My heart thumped painfully, and my hands connected in my lap, my fingers twisting and pulling one another mercilessly. “I bit him.

Accidentally.” I couldn’t help repeating that last part.

“You bit him? Accidentally?” My father’s green eyes hardened. I knew that look. The Alpha had arrived, and he was angry. “Explain yourself.

Now.”

I nodded, grateful for the opportunity in spite of the rage in his eyes.

“I was in human form. It should have been safe. I swear I didn’t know what was happening.” My hands moved wildly, punctuating each sentence, and I couldn’t seem to stop them. “At the time I had no clue this was even possible, but now I think my teeth Shifted. They couldn’t have changed much, because I didn’t notice it, and neither did he. But that’s the only way it could have happened.”

My desperate, babbling excuses faded into silence, and still my father stared at me. As did Michael. His eyes burned into me, seeing right past my defensive explanation to the truth. The whole truth, which our father obviously didn’t understand.

“You bit him in human form?” For one long, torturous moment, confusion replaced the anger in the Alpha’s expression. “Why? Why would you bite him?”