if that’s what you want. After that, it’s up to you.” He paused, tilting his head down to catch my eyes. “It’s up to you anyway. We can forget the whole thing right now, if you want.”
I seriously considered it. Really. But if I said no, I’d be turning down my best chance of escape. Daddy wouldn’t let me have a car, for the same reason he’d installed bars on my bedroom window: I was a flight risk. So, if I wanted freedom, it would have to come behind the wheel of someone else’s car, and everyone knew better than to leave their keys unattended.
Digging deep inside myself, I recovered my determination to win. I needed those keys. “No. I’m still in.”
Jace’s smile brightened his whole face, turning his eyes into blue stained glass, lit from within. “Great. Let’s get the race out of the way so we can get down to the good stuff.”
I blushed again, and something low and sensitive clenched. I couldn’t help it. I had no intention of losing, but I was only human—well, mostly human, anyway—and subject to the same temptations as the rest of my gender. And what a temptation Jace was.
Could Marc’s overwhelming presence in my life be the real reason I’d never seriously considered Jace before, even though dating him would have seriously irked my father?
Marc. Shit. Marc would throw a fit if I lost and held up my end of the bargain. And there would be no way to hide it from him. Not in a house like ours, where we were lucky to shower in private. Screw Marc. I no longer cared what he thought. Really. Yet I was suddenly terribly eager to be on my feet, earning Jace’s keys and absolving myself of any obligation to him.
“The good stuff, huh?” I teased with newfound confidence, already backing out of his lap. “Then you’d better catch me.”
“You’re on.” He jumped to his feet with a speed and dexterity that would have shocked a human. But he was too late. Despite pausing to open the door, I was already halfway down the hall and looking back over my shoulder when Marc stepped out of the den to block Jace’s path. He’d intentionally let me go by.
“Move, Marc, she’s getting away,” Jace groaned. I slowed enough to turn around and jog backward, watching them uneasily as I went.
“Yes, she is.” Marc lunged to block Jace’s dart to the right.
“But if she wins—”
“I’m more worried about her losing.”
I cringed, but kept going. I should have realized the eavesdropper was Marc. Anyone else would have shown himself. Cats have amazing ears, and we were lucky my parents hadn’t heard us. How was I sure they hadn’t? Because my father would have already locked me in the basement and ground the key into steel powder.
Spinning in midstep, I shoved the back door open and raced for the trees, letting the screen slam shut behind me. I ran at top speed, glorying in the taste of freedom, temporary as it was. Grass tickled my bare feet, and the sultry night air caressed my skin. If I hadn’t been racing, I would have stopped to look at the moon. It was full, which wasn’t necessary for Shifting, but made for a very scenic run.
Standing at the tree line, I could still hear Jace and Marc arguing in the house behind me, but more interesting was what I heard in the woods.
Our ranch and its adjoining twenty acres of woodland backed up to the north side of the Davy Crockett National Forest, with nothing more than an imaginary boundary separating the two. What that meant for me was a freedom unlike anything I could ever gain in civilized society. It was the freedom of grass, and trees, and fallen leaves, and pinecones, and most important, the freedom of speed. With speed and our natural stealth came the power of life and death. It was an intoxication alcohol could never match. And it was my birthright.
Obviously, prudence demanded the use of caution during the tourist season, which included all three summer months, as well as most of the fall. But we could hear and smell humans long before we saw them, and we could see them before they saw us, so it really wasn’t difficult to avoid contact. In fact, it was kind of fun, like a one-sided game of sight-tag.
Deep in the forest, I heard the guys weaving among the trees, occasionally pouncing on one another, or on a rodent or small rabbit. Behind me, at the front of the house, Michael’s car growled to life, followed by the crunch of gravel beneath his tires and the biting odor of exhaust. He was going home.
I spared a moment for disappointment that my homecoming hadn’t meant more to my oldest brother, but only a moment. I sympathized with his obligations and respected them. Michael had a wife. He was the only tomcat I knew who’d married a human woman, and even though Holly was a model—an honest-to-goodness runway model who spent most of her time in New York, L.A., or Paris—maintaining his marriage when she was home required a delicate balance of secrecy and creative planning. Even better than most, I understood. Though I’ll admit to being curious about how he interacted with her normal, human family.
Jace burst through the back door with Marc on his heels while I was still unzipping my pants. I let them fall to the ground as I pulled my shirt over my head, then dropped my underwear on the small heap of clothing on the grass.
Both men ran toward me, pulling their shirts off as they came. I paused for a moment to enjoy the view as generous moonlight highlighted every hard plane on their chests and cast shadows beneath each ripple of their abs. Very nice. Almost worth being dragged home for.
The guys never bothered with neat piles. They left their clothing scattered all over the yard, draped across bushes and sometimes hanging from tree branches. It would have been quite a sight for the unaccustomed eye. Fortunately, we had no close neighbors and never had human visitors, other than Michael’s wife, who visited rarely enough that it was easy for us to keep our inner cats on their leashes. So there was seldom anyone around to be scandalized by our behavior.
Naked, I ducked beneath the branches of the nearest tree and into the forest, twigs and thorns scraping my bare skin. Relief rushed through me to ease tension I hadn’t even realized I’d felt. My impulse to rush was gone now; in crossing the tree line, I’d won the race. Jace’s car was mine, if and when I had the nerve to take it. I’d have to remember to thank Marc. Yeah, right.
My means of escape secured, I was ready to relax and stretch my legs in the forest, a luxury I’d sorely missed at school.
As soon as the guys were out of sight, I dropped to all fours and closed my eyes in concentration. Shifting always begins for me with a moment of quiet relaxation or meditation. It sounds like a page from Zen for Dummies, but it really helps and only takes a couple of minutes. It’s just a moment for my mind to acknowledge and submit to what my body wants.
Shifting is possible during moments of extreme stress, but I wouldn’t recommend it. If your brain hasn’t had a chance to adjust to what’s coming, it responds by sending your body more pain signals than necessary. No one wants to experience avoidable pain. Okay, maybe masochists do, but I harbor no fondness for pain. No fondness for experiencing it, anyway.
Dimly, I heard leaves rustle as Marc and Jace entered the woods, but I made no effort to acknowledge them. I didn’t need to. They dropped to the ground, one on either side of me, and began their own Shifts.
On my knees, with my nose less than two feet from the ground, I breathed in the fragrances of the forest, letting the pine-scented air trigger my Shift. Just as certain notes played on the piano can bring to mind an entire melody, so the smell of last year’s pine needles and leaf mold called forth the cat from inside
