Moon-Tide (Lone March #5)

By Erin Irvin

"I was a bag of bones. I still had skin and hair and probably pumping blood, but for all intents and purposes, I was cadaverous."

Being at the center of the were world’s biggest conflict has finally landed March Howe in the ultimate mortal peril for a wolf: the middle of a cat lair. Surrounded by silver, she finds herself trapped by more than just the room she’s confined to. Endless thoughts and questions envelop her and the promise of death approaches like a boundless and heavy storm cloud.

Unaware that it was the cats, the pack races across the state, in search of the wolves they think have March. Meanwhile, Avery is assembling a diverse group of weres to aid in the invasion and to rescue the girl he swore to protect. And while March’s human friends may not know her secret, Ruthie Birch does. Enlisting the help of an ally unwelcome by the others, Ruthie devises a plan to join Avery’s army, whether he likes it or not. And Saffron Kellum is forced to leave her comfort zone when her twin brother goes missing and she discovers she’s the only one who can find him.

In Book Five of the Lone March Series, March Howe finds herself in an existential crisis that can only be soothed by the goddess she’s estranged herself from. While the cats make beastly plans for the last female were-wolf, her family and friends make plans of their own that involve uncovering secrets and even double-crossing each other to save the last she-wolf. Will this contrasting group be able to work together to save March, or will the last of the were-wolves lose everything when their old enemy threatens to destroy the only hope they have?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Erin Irvin
• Release date: May 2, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301798988

Erin Irvin

Erin Irvin is a novelist and musician who lives in Texas. She likes to draw, even if she's not very good at it, and writes songs, which she plays with her guitar, Bertram. She also wants you to know that she loves England a whole, whole lot.

Book preview

Chapter One

WEEK ONE

I was a hologram. Couldn’t sense myself. Only vaguely aware of my existence at all—and even then, only in past tense. I was a skipping projector—forced to replay the moments that led me here.

How long ago was it now? That Sunday. That indelible Sunday. I was a cold, wet thing that slipped around a shallow, leather seat, naked and knocked out. When I eventually came to, the pinhole, where a needle had entered my neck, though microscopic, was constant, prickling evidence of my sedation, as if the two were-cats in the front seat weren’t enough.

The little Nika’s short, black pigtails bobbed around as she talked spiritedly to Saffron, filling her in on all that had happened in her and Jasper’s absence from their lair. I tried to listen intently, telling myself that any information from the were-cats was important and should be taken seriously and filed away in my memory, but with the nameless, unknown substance still roiling through my veins, I couldn’t focus.

My eyes lolled up and behind me, toward the back windshield, where I saw the melted snow dripping down the glass as if it were raining. It was still snowing outside, and coming down harder as we bumped along, but the heat from the running engine made it melt as soon as it touched the little, gold Audi. I noted abstractly that my silent tears reflected the unfrozen snow in more ways than one. Melted snow, melted girl.

Saffron bulleted down the rural highway toward Austin like the prospect of state troopers was non-existent. Probably, for her, it was. Even before learning she was a were-cat, I always thought of her as someone who saw herself above the law. What would she do if she got pulled over by a cop? Perhaps she wouldn’t stop at all. Perhaps she’d lead him in a high-speed chase for awhile and then, with her certain knowledge of backstreets, lose him in traffic.

We must have been close to Austin, if my coming to from the drugs was any indication. In the two-door sports car, I didn’t have my own window to look out, so I took a furtive glance out the front windshield. Just as I thought, the topmost level of the Austin cityscape was swelling into view. Strangely enough, I felt a twinge of thrill, perking up at the idea of seeing my home state’s capitol city. I’d never been before, and despite my current state of kidnapped torpor, I was looking forward to watching the buildings rise around me. At least I’d get an interesting view on my way to what was sure to be hell. At least I’d have a nice parting glance with the world before I would be, most likely, ripped permanently from it. More tears stung down then, making it hard to see, but I stubbornly kept my eyes locked open, peering out onto a city I’d never know, I’d never be closer to than I was right then, inside a sealed trap of a car. I would take in as much of the view as I could, for as long as I could, before I was dragged into oblivion.

For a moment, I was surprised to discover that the lair was not hidden away in some abandoned building on the outskirts of town. But then I remembered this was a pride of cats, and not a pack of wolves, and the surprise wore off. I knew the reason for this was that the wolves had been displaced, stripped of nearly every creature comfort they’d known by the cats. I’d already known that the opposite effect of the wolves’ poverty was the cats’ prosperity, yet I still couldn’t believe it when Saffron parallel-parked on Austin’s legendary Sixth Street. Even I, who’d never been to Austin, knew that it was the most famed, and probably the busiest street in the city. The structure that towered over us to the right was obtrusive and swanky, standing in hard contrast to all the other buildings around it, which were typically Texan in their various shades of brick. While it was a narrow front, wedged as it was between two plainer buildings, it stretched back across the whole city block, making for a long, rectangular layout. Being blocked on both the left and right by other buildings just made the prospect of escape even more desolate (as if a lone wolf escaping from a lair of cats wasn’t enough of a desolate prospect already). And the fact that it was smack-dab in the heart of the city just reminded me of the boldness and fearlessness of the cats, a thought which only furthered my desolation.

Nika turned around in her seat to look at me. Her smile was big and happy-go-lucky as she said, Time to go back to sleep, poochie, and stuck another needle in my neck.

I was an unscratchable itch.

The icy burn on my cheek woke me. I was lying on my side, curled up in a ball, so when I lifted my lids, the gleaming silver-blue sheen was right before my eyes. I pushed myself up with great effort—surprised first at the fact that I wasn’t shackled up in silver, then at just how hard it was for me merely to sit up. I was wondering what could possibly have been in those needles when I realized what caused the burn and subsequently the sheen. My cell was made up entirely of silver—the walls, the floor, even the ceiling. No wonder they took off the cuffs. What purpose did they serve in such a cubicle? This explained my unprecedented weariness.

The only place I could see out was through a tiny window in the door, but there was nothing to look at through there but darkness. Then I saw them. A pair of brilliant, glowing eyes in a lustrous, honey color. Their enigmatic shapes were all that peered out of the shadows, and I was transfixed, almost allured. If I’d had the energy to move, I would have gotten closer to the window. As it was, I sat frozen, the icy burn now coming from two sources as I gaped at the eyes. They blinked once, and then they were gone. I wasn’t sure if the silver cell was soundproof, but I didn’t hear even the smallest noise as the figure made its exit.

No other eyes visited me that day or the next.

In the wake of the mysterious visiting eyes, I wondered why there weren’t other visitors. Where were my rescuers? What were Quinn and the pack doing about getting me back? A horrifying thought struck me then—what if they didn’t know where to find me? Even if they guessed it was the cats who took me, what if they didn’t know where to go? The cats had extremely potent and effective methods of cloaking their scents, as evidenced by my weeks-long close proximity to Jasper and Saffron without having an inkling of an idea what they were. Maybe that was just my inexperience with the were world. Or maybe it was due to my utterly indecent infatuation with Jasper, making me miss what was right in front of me, ignore all else in favor of ogling his body and leering into his entrancing eyes. Maybe Quinn and the rest, who’d had so many run-ins with the cats, would not be duped by the neutralizing perfumes.

But then…where were they? Surely, they knew the cats dominated central Texas, so they ought to be in the area. Were the cats so impenetrable that the pack had tried to rescue me and just plain failed? Would they really give up? No. No way. Forget that I was a member of the pack and Quinn’s granddaughter—I was the last female were-wolf in the world, a precious commodity. And the wolves were raging males who spent most of their time looking for a good brawl anyway. They would fight to the death just to fight; they’d fight harder against the cats, and hardest of all to get back their one she-wolf.

The more I thought about this, the more it worried me. What if something happened to them? Quinn and Graham? If Brigham somehow got wind of my capture—or Greyson. And what about Avery? He would have been the first to discover my disappearance. He, too, would fight, I decided. Perhaps he would be more cautious than the wolves; he had more to lose with a family to take care of. But what if something happened to him?

I couldn’t bear these thoughts, so I forced the whole subject out of my mind. It did no good to dwell on the hopelessness of my situation, my lack of rescue, the potential death of loved ones.

And that’s when I decided I hoped they wouldn’t find me. I hoped for their ill-informed safety.

I was a crumbling high-rise.

With the silver floor pressed unavoidably against my bare skin (I was still naked, with no signs of a clothing delivery on its way) I could physically feel my energy waning and draining out of me. I may as well have been in quicksand; I could barely move and even breathing was getting harder. In the same position I’d been in since I first woke up, I watched, from the strange and fuzzy peripheral view I had, the silver beneath my face fog and clear rapidly, over and over again, as I breathed in and out.

It was as I did this idle study that I heard the first sound in however long it was that I’d been locked in this deathtrap. A door, then footsteps. Two feet. I wanted to sit up, to face this fresh hell head-on, and cover myself up besides, but I couldn’t; I was literally weighted to the ground with silver-induced inertia.

If not for the smell, I would have thought the man who walked through the door was a raven, exquisitely dressed in a three-piece suit, carrying himself high and mighty. He was tall—a long, reedy body—with pallid skin and black hair, short-cropped and parted neatly. Except the eyes. When he came nearer, I saw that besides his scent, his eyes evinced his were status. They bore the unmistakable vivacity of a cat—bracing, vigorous, and bewitching. They were a milky cornflower blue; if not for his intent look, I would have guessed he was blind.

He stood unnervingly close to me, his height, coupled with my close proximity to the ground, making him appear much more frightening. After what felt like a long time of just staring, he did something that would make me hate him forever. He lifted the tip of his shoe, pressed it against the cheek I had closest to the ground, then pushed till I had no choice but to turn my head. Keeping his shoe firmly pressed into my skin, he studied my face in full with a cold and malevolent indifference. Apparently he had no intention of speaking. He proved me right when he pulled out his cell phone, typed out a quick text message, then left without a word.

This wasn’t like all the comic books I’d grown up reading. There wasn’t some sort of slightly interesting dungeon or creepy basement the character was being locked up in, which had a weakness, a small crack, a floor I could dig out, or a wall I could punch through. There was no sleeping guard with a large key ring on his belt, which was just close enough for me to get to with the use of a tool I’d found in my cell. There weren’t even clothes. And when the villain (or at least one of the villains, in my case) came in contact with me, he didn’t start monologueing and give away a bunch of information, which I would find useful later, once I’d escaped. No. Unfortunately, harsh reality didn’t provide such luck or happy endings.

With my heartbeat pulsing at a suddenly uneven rhythm, I turned the phrase over in my mind again—the one I’d been repeating since I was first captured: I’m going to die here.

Chapter Two

Avery

It was twenty minutes since he’d left her. Only twenty minutes since he’d shuffled reluctantly into his house and placed himself as a permanent fixture in the window of the front sitting room. He hardly blinked as he stared through it.

To say Avery Harper was a reserved man was an understatement. He came into the world, it was often remarked by his estranged flock, as a gentleman, reserve in place and without a cry, as if he consciously chose not to shed a tear at birth. His reticence only grew with his age and occupation. Being a lawyer required dignity and sophistication. So it was with poise that he now stood squarely and firmly in the frame of the window, hands clasped tightly behind his back as he watched and waited with growing unease.

The curb was empty; that future felon she rode off with hadn’t come back with her yet. With each successive minute that ticked by, he grew more impatient to have her return, and angrier at himself for letting her go in the first place. What if something happened to her under his care? Of course, so many things already had. But what if something more permanently damaging happened to the young girl he’d come to see as a daughter, the young girl who, in return, surely saw him as a father figure. His heart warmed at this. What started as an almost feckless enterprise to win back the good graces of the wolves he’d done so wrong all those years ago—indeed, another life entirely—became a different undertaking altogether, became a matter of devoted protection. Defender of the defenseless, safeguard for the susceptible, parent to a child. What had been simple fondness for March Howe during those middle weeks since he’d met her had grown into a deep and affectionate love. He now, irrevocably thought of himself as a father of two. And he would not tolerate losing her.

These thoughts, all of which he’d had many times over in the past weeks, only served to intensify his disquiet now; he checked his watch again. Twenty-three minutes.

"Just around the block," she’d said. He knew she, at least, was in earnest about this fact. Putting aside his impeccable were-raven intuition, he’d come to recognize the signs of March’s truth through her ingenuous brown eyes; she gave so much away there. He’d seen that innocence in his first meeting with her, nearly two months before, as he’d confronted her in his study, attempting to expose her hidden agenda as a wolf spy, out to finally settle a bygone score. She was no more than a harmless child. And in the long wake of that relieved observation, he’d never let that first impression leave his mind, that first image of her guileless face forever imprinted in him.

So when she’d turned those open eyes on him in the car, insisting—promising—that she’d only allow the hoodlum to drive her around the block as they talked, he’d been rendered powerless to object. He tried to prevent it but when March got insistent, he found the effectiveness of his methods dwindled shamefully fast. But as he stood in the window now, at twenty-seven minutes of her absence, he was increasingly uncertain, and thus increasingly regretful of his decision, irritated at himself for letting her go unsupervised except for a wayward delinquent he knew nothing about.

The more he thought of that miscreant, the worse his impression became. He’d come out of nowhere, seduced March a mere week after her relationship with Ethyn ended, and succeeded in stealing her carnal innocence. No such reprobate could be safe for a sixteen-year-old girl, let alone a girl as important as March. Especially now that the deadbeat knew her secret (or one of them, anyway).

And this was another matter that plagued him as he kept his silent vigil. Why had March’s anomalous and unexpected feline form shown itself when it did? Certainly, the loss of a girl’s virginity (he hated even thinking of this, much less seeing the images he’d gleaned from touching her hands last night) was an immense experience, but could such a thing really initiate an animal form’s emergence for the first time? He thought not. But then, so many things with March were already unorthodox. Perhaps the incident was yet another way in which she broke the mold.

She was raised fully human, with no knowledge of the existence of weres or her own status as such. Most were children grew up learning all about their secret world, preparing for their first changes into their gestalt forms, and subsequently learning how to take their animal forms. The gestalt triggered the animal form; in other words, the animal form could not precede the were form. So how was it that this new cat form could surface without a feline gestalt to usher it? It was as if the whole happening had been a fluke. He remembered March’s words, that morning at Wycherley House.

"If I hadn’t met up with Jasper, then this freaky cat thing wouldn’t have happened. Maybe I never would have discovered it was in me."

Perhaps her unwitting conclusion was closer to the answer than they realized. Perhaps it had more to do with the boy than either of them knew. He could not forget the moment it had happened. Much as he wanted to rid his mind’s eye of the image of her—his dear foster daughter—sitting unclothed atop that foul con artist, he couldn’t. It was almost as if the pariah had himself pulled the feline out of March. But this also was something Avery had never known to be possible. A human having the power to pull an alternate form out of a shapeshifter? It was an accepted fact that one were could cause another to feel an electric charge, a pull toward their shared ability to transform, but a human had no such power over a were.

Unless…Could it be that the boy wasn’t human? Avery had not considered this for the simple fact that he had not sensed anything other than human in this Jasper’s presence. However, he recalled his own words to March that morning, during their walk through the grove at Wycherley Place. He’d told her about the neutralizing perfume some weres used to cloak their scents from unwanted noses. It seemed unlikely, but not impossible that he could have missed the boy’s true identity for this fact—it wasn’t as if he’d had much contact with him. He’d only been face-to-face with him twice, and both times there was a car between them.

As a were-raven, it was not Avery’s nose that usually told him what he needed to know about a person, but his sheer intuition. Though, perhaps the absence of the scent was enough to throw him off the suggestion. If so, he would never be more ashamed of himself for missing something that ought to have been so obvious.

And if the kid was were, what were was he? The more he thought of him as such, the more sense it made. How else could March’s cat form have been pulled so abruptly out of her? Suddenly, Avery had a terrible thought—the boy could be a cat! One cat coaxing the feline form out of another…The idea exploded in his mind. It wasn’t just that he could be a cat—it was that he must be! There didn’t seem to be an alternative explanation. And the whole lot of them were known for their cunning ways; deception was second nature to them. And if any were kind could fool a raven, it would be a cat. It all made such easy sense that he was discomfited by not having realized it before. The cat within Jasper emitted the very electric charge that had pulled March’s hiding feline from her body. This was how it had been dormant till now—March had no were-cat around to guide her through the process (neither, of course, did she have even the knowledge of the possibility). So the close physical connection she’d made with Jasper last night opened the door to a sort of makeshift heralding procedure and thus her alternate were-species was revealed.

One thing was clear: March knew nothing of Jasper’s were status. Which meant he hadn’t told her, or a more accurate description would be that he kept it hidden from her. In all his years in the were world, in all his dealings with cats, Avery had never known a single one of them to be wholly sincere or good. If he didn’t trust the cats before, he trusted them less—much less—around March. There didn’t seem to be any reason a cat would be genuinely kind to her; there were a thousand reasons, however, for why a cat would want to harm her. And how was it that one of them was going to school with her in the first place when there were no cat prides in a two-hundred mile radius? This was no coincidence. This Jasper was a cat and he could not want simply to have a romance with the last she-wolf on earth.

A hurried twist of his body changed the course of Avery’s mind to one aching thought: track down that car and save his daughter.

The brisk winter air reflected his state of panic. It was like having a bucket of cold water dumped over his head. His life—every aspect of his being—would be unceremoniously changed forever if he lost her. He couldn’t let this happen. Especially not over his own foolish oversight.

As he wheeled the Escalade out of the drive, he hit the speed-dial button that would call Graham Redding’s phone. What with all the situations they’d dealt with over March, the kidnapping by Greggor, then her absence from school (when she was found half an hour later, lying on top of that deleterious cat in his flashy sports car), Avery had been obliged to put the number on his speed-dial list so that he could have one of the wolves on the phone at a moment’s notice. Unfortunately, this plan had been failing him since last night. The moment he’d arrived at Wycherley Place, he’d sensed March’s presence, confirming the phone call he’d received from Beatrice, telling him to come and collect his ‘pet dog’. So, with slow and heavy steps toward the plantation house, he put in a call to Graham to let the pack know she’d been found and she was alive and okay. But for the first time in Avery’s experience calling him, Graham didn’t pick up. The pack had gone out to try and track her down, everyone assuming Greggor had betrayed them and managed to take her again. In their wolf forms they had no place for cell phones. And they certainly wouldn’t be coming home empty-handed. So, though Avery persisted in calling and leaving a message every hour since finding March (knowing what they must have been going through with worry over losing her, as he’d gone through it himself), they had not yet spoken. The pack must still have been out hopelessly chasing Greggor, leaving Avery the sole protector of the last female were-wolf in the world.

This exacerbated the already intense flame in his mind and body. He had to find that gold car. He had to save his daughter. And he had to end the malefactor behind that wheel.

Chapter Three

Jasper

Goddamn piece of shit! Jasper spat through gritted teeth, flinging beads of saliva on the punk he had pinned to the ground. With tight fistfuls of Dominic’s undershirt, Jasper knocked him repeatedly against the concrete. But it wasn’t inflicting enough damage—not as much as Jasper wanted to inflict on him.

C’mon, Jas, Dominic grunted, trying unsuccessfully to throw off a guy he knew was bigger and stronger than him. You’re the one who defected here—I’m just stayin’ true to my pride.

Defected? Jasper growled with new anger. You know what? Defect this. He punctuated his expression with a swift and solid punch to Dom’s nose. It broke instantly, and Jasper shoved loose the one handful he still had of his ex-friend’s shirt and heaved himself up from the ground.

There was no time to lose; he only had a good ten minutes before Dom would be coming to and chasing after him. Another fight with him would do nothing but slow him down. With new rage, Jasper realized this was probably why Saffron had chosen Dom, of all the members of their pride, to come to Glenbrook and finish carrying out this stupid mission with her. What Dominic lacked in size and strength, he made up for in speed. He couldn’t win a fight against Jasper, but he could definitely keep up with him and keep him busy long enough for Saffron to get March to the lair. Another fight was probably inevitable, but Jasper would get as far as he could before that fight came.

He didn’t have to make the conscious decision; his feet were already running him down the neighborhood street, his eyes in a frenzied search for the fastest car on the block.

It was in this—and only this—that he actually envied the wolves. Lucky dogs could take their lupine forms any time they wanted without much worry of scaring people. Sure, most people weren’t exactly comfortable with wolves running around their neighborhoods or down their city streets, but it was possible—even if only slightly—that a wolf could be mistaken for a dog. Not so with cats. Jasper’s feline form was a big, black leopard. If he was seen in this form by a human, he’d be tracked and tranquilized in twenty miles or less. People liked big predators—in zoos. They didn’t like seeing them too close to home; they didn’t actually want to mix with the wild. Yep. He’d definitely be captured if he took his cat form here. If he could use his feline, he’d catch up to his car in no time.

But without that option he’d have to settle for stealing a car. A nice Pagani Zonda would do the trick—or even a Porsche Carrera—but in the heart of suburbia, he’d probably be lucky to find a Honda Civic. As he was rounding the block, he threw a glance to his left, eyeing the driveways for something fast, and was already about to turn away, when he found what he was looking for—better than what he was looking for.

Too good to be true, he thought, curving the corner of his mouth into his trademark wily grin as he turned toward the electric blue dream that glinted off the high noon sun only three houses down from the corner he was already leaving behind.

He didn’t hesitate to walk right up the stranger’s drive and run his hand along the rear wing, leaving streaks of blue where his fingers sliced through the smooth layer of snow that covered the spoiler. He never thought he’d see this car in Glenbrook, Texas. A Jaguar XKR-S. He chuckled to himself at the irony as he swiped the snow from the driver’s window. Without a second thought, which he didn’t have time for anyway, he stood back, hiked a leg up, and shot his foot straight through the glass. The alarm rang instantly, a pesky, tinkling sound in the quiet, snowed-in neighborhood. Jasper went speedily to work, unlocking the door and starting for the front dash panel to pull it off and get at the wiring.

He recalled the steps he’d applied in the past, in less hectic situations, when he and his friends had pulled pranks on unsuspecting Austin clubbers, who unwisely parked their cars in reserved spots. He let his right hand morph into his leopard paw, using a sharp claw to cut the wires. He stripped the ends then wrapped his tee shirt over his fingers to twist the innards of the cables together, careful not to touch the exposed copper. It was a damn shame that were-cats had a metallic weakness, but the real crime was that it had to be copper. With an average of fifteen pounds of it in a typical car, it was a heavy burden to deal with. He grudgingly admitted to himself that this was one more thing he was jealous of when it came to the wolves. Their weakness was silver. Cars required no silver. Needless to say, the cats, who all demanded the fast luxury of an automobile, had to build up enough tolerance to the metal to manage driving. This tolerance did not—could not—extend to actually coming in physical contact with the stuff. So he worked quickly but extremely carefully as he carried out the hot-wiring procedure.

In no time the engine revved to life and Jasper swung his feet into the car and slammed the door. Now he was on track; now he could follow his sister and save March.

In all the stress and excitement, he hadn’t noticed the man who’d galloped out of the house and raced to the car before Jasper had been able to put it in gear. Through the hole where a window had been came the long, skinny nose of a thirty-aught-six Springfield rifle. It didn’t stop till it made contact with Jasper’s skin, pushing into the flesh of his cheek and freezing Jasper where he sat. He stifled the roar he wanted to let loose, and uncurled his wide fingers from the steering wheel, raising them up in reluctant surrender.

Who the hell do you think you are, boy?! the man shouted at Jasper. Nobody steals from me! He opened the door, whipping the gun out of the window frame and around the door to point it back at him. Get outta the car, he growled.

Jasper swung his feet back out onto the concrete and started to step out of the car, already concocting scenarios for how he could feint the gun’s aim and tackle the asshole, but the man crooked the muzzle of the gun around to press it into the back of his neck.

On the ground, he commanded, and put your hands behind your head.

Jasper wanted nothing more than to track down Saffron and get to March, but he was immobilized by the bolt action long range rifle bearing down on his neck. It was an accurate and effective weapon from a hundred yards out, but right up against his spinal column? There would be no recovering if the man fired—were-cat super-healing or not. So he clamped his jaw shut, dropped to his knees, and wrapped his hands behind his head.

The man put his shoe on Jasper’s back and shoved him to the ground, keeping him pinned there. He seemed practiced, comfortable in this position, and not all that scared to point a gun at someone. It was an accepted reality in the Lone Star state. Texans loved their guns and their property and you better not mess with either one. They had grit and strong will. And they had the Castle law, with the Stand-Your-Ground clause. This man could and would shoot without a second thought if he wanted to. Jasper would have to play by his rules.

My name is Don Dobbs, the man announced proudly into his cell phone. And I’ve apprehended a burglar at my home.

Chapter Four

Week Two

I was an open wound.

I felt so raw and wizened that I couldn’t even cry my silent, indolent tears anymore. I had no energy for them, nor a single drop of moisture to spare. I was given a cup of water every day and some unrecognizable lump of food, neither of which I had the capacity to refuse. I was too thirsty and starved to concern myself with the pointless questions of what drugs were probably hidden in them. Whatever it was must not have been lethal in small doses, because I was, for all my despondency and all my desire to die at this point, still alive. I didn’t want to fixate on why that was, why they were keeping me alive, knowing it had to be something worse than death with the cats involved, but I couldn’t help it. With nothing else with which to occupy my mind, I thought of little else but this unknowable matter.

It made me wonder…Did they know who I was? Did they know that I was not only a surviving wolf girl, but the very wolf girl who started the war? I would think they’d want to kill me as soon as they heard of my existence, being the sole survivor of their otherwise thorough genocide (my survival would be a slap in the face to the cats). But the fact