was too late. Blood ran from a jagged cut on the end of Colin’s nose to drip down his chin.
Shit! That wasn’t supposed to happen.
The scent of blood exacerbated my bloodlust, and this time when I growled, it wasn’t on purpose. My fists clenched around the afghan on either side of Colin’s knees. My toes curled in the rough cotton yarn, stabilizing my body for another lunge.
Colin’s eyes widened, then his focus shifted to something over my shoulder as footsteps shuffled on the carpet. One whiff of the air told me Malone was back. A tiny pop, and I knew he’d uncapped the syringe. The sharp chemical scent of the sedative stung my nose. “Hold her still.”
“What is that?” Dr. Carver asked from my right. I hadn’t heard him come back in.
“It’s just a tranquilizer,” Malone said. More firm footfalls, and I bucked wildly. I had prior experience with syringes, and the memories were not pleasant. Marc’s grip on my arms tightened, and he pulled back, putting pressure on my shoulders.
“Stop, Calvin,” my father ordered, and I stilled to listen, still pinning Colin with my glare. “You wanted a demonstration, and now you’re getting one. She’s fine, aren’t you, Faythe?”
Marc answered for me. “She’ll be fine once she calms down. And she’ll calm down as soon as Dean tells the truth.”
Malone’s footsteps stomped closer.
“One more step and I’ll let her go,” Marc warned, and I expected to hear my father object, but he didn’t. “Dean’s the only one who can end this. Do it, Dean. Tell the truth. You owe her that.”
Colin whined, and I opened my mouth, showing my willingness to follow through on Marc’s threat. “Fine! You’re right!” He faced away from me on the pillow. “She was going after the stray, and I wanted to Shift first. He could have shredded us like he did Brett. I just wanted a fair fight.”
“Yet a tabby half your size was willing to face him with nothing but a meat mallet and a prayer. You’re useless, Dean, and you’re not worth her mercy,” Marc spat, releasing my arms.
Gratitude swept through me, chased by a familiar pang of loss I was coming to associate with Marc.
Justice is a powerful concept, and it was not lost on me, in spite of the more feral righteousness the cat in me demanded. Triumph penetrated my rage and soothed my bloodlust like balm on a burn. I swung one leg over Colin’s stomach and stood. He exhaled in relief, but watched me warily, as if I might yet decide to rip his throat out.
Dismissing Colin, I turned toward the rest of the room and smiled to the best of my ability. I crossed my arms beneath my breasts in a show of confidence, as if I’d never doubted the outcome.
“Well played,” Marc said, grinning at me proudly.
Malone’s face flushed beneath his obvious horror at my appearance. He knew he’d been conned, and he was pissed. But he was too much of a coward to complain while I still had the physical advantage.
“Wow,” Dr. Carver said, and my head swiveled in his direction. A sharp gasp came from behind him, and Paul Blackwell stared at me in undisguised revulsion. Evidently most of the room’s occupants hadn’t gotten a good look at my inbetween face in the mirror.
Their reactions were what I expected. They were horrified. Repulsed. Every last one of them, except Marc, my father and the doctor. Even Jace looked…uncomfortable, at best. Later, they might realize what a wonderful thing the partial Shift was. That if we mastered it, we would gain the use of our werecat’s enhanced sight and hearing—and one hell of a set of canines—without losing the use of our fingers, and those handy semi-opposable thumbs. But for now, all they could think about was my deformed face.
I had to look. I’d had no intention of doing it, but when the moment came, when I stared at each of them in turn, meeting stare after disgusted stare, I had to know what they saw.
Smoothing my shirt into place, I turned slowly toward the dresser, only dimly aware of the people around me as my face came into focus in the mirror. I’d only really seen the inbetween face once before, but I’d felt the features with my hands often enough to know that what I saw in the mirror was unlike anything I’d Shifted into before.
Before, my jaw had always Shifted to one degree or another, and my eyes had taken on slitlike pupils and irises, if not their actual cat shape. This time, in addition to that, my jaw had elongated into a hairless muzzle, complete with an entire set of cat teeth. My nose was feline too—black, and flat, with the familiar thin split between the nostrils.
I plodded toward the mirror in a daze, and my fingers found my nose. It was damp and warm, as it should have been—on a cat. But that wasn’t the worst part. Or the best. Or…whatever.
Though my forehead was smooth, and still completely human, sticking out of my normal, human eyebrows were several stiff white hairs on each side. Whiskers. I had brow whiskers. And cat eyes, in human sockets.
My face held the single-most bizarre combination of features I’d ever seen. And by “bizarre,” I mean ugly as shit. But on the bright side, if the whole enforcer thing didn’t work out, I’d have a long career waiting for me in the circus.
While the tribunal met in the dining room—I knew they were arguing because they’d turned on loud classical music to cover up their voices—I sat on the side of a bed in the empty first-floor bedroom, while Dr. Carver peered at my face with undisguised eagerness. “So, you can’t do this at will?”
“ ’Aw eh,” I mumbled, forced to work around jaws more suited to chomping than enunciating.
For an interpretation, Dr. Carver looked to Marc, who stood peering through a gap in the blinds at the darkness outside. “What’d she say?”
“‘Not yet,’” Marc translated without turning. “She can’t do it on command yet, but she thinks she could, with some practice. She thinks we could do it, too.”
Dr. Carver nodded, shining his penlight in my eyes. “I don’t doubt that.”
Growling softly, I winced and closed my eyes against the light.
“Try to keep them open for me, hon. This won’t take long.”
I opened my eyes and kept them wide as his light traveled back and forth between my pupils. Tears formed to defend my eyes from the invasion, and when I could finally blink, they rolled down my cheeks. When the light went off, I closed my eyes and pressed the heels of my hands against them.
“Here.” Something soft brushed my cheek, and I looked up to find Marc offering me a tissue. Smiling in thanks, I blotted my eyes, then wiped my cheeks, watching the doctor on the other bed as he scribbled in a notebook.
“Your eyes themselves appear to have Shifted completely,” he said, finally looking up from the paper, though his pen was still poised over it. “And you have brow whiskers, though the bone structure above your nose is still completely human. What about your vision? How do you see things?”
“ ’ike a aaa.”
“What?”
“Like a cat.” Marc settled onto the bed next to me, close enough that our knees touched.
