CHAPTER ELEVEN

CATCHER

Road trips were the best when you weren't running after or from death. Of course it helped when my company wasn't just my cousin hell-bent on saving me from a cure that couldn't be cured again. Or at least, we thought it couldn't be cured again. Or I did. Rafferty never gave up and I guessed I was glad for it now, since somehow he'd cured the cure. Despite my love of genetics and biology and everything that made a body in motion tick, I'd avoided thoughts of my new and better situation. I didn't want to over think it. It was that whole gift horse in the mouth thing. But when I finally told Cassie my story, she brought up a damned valid point.

"Well, did he ever tap into your brain to accelerate your adaptation process?" I was driving up interstate 95 with Cassie shotgun. Her bare feet were propped on the dash and Lovett was sprawled across the back seat half snoring half grunting and kicking the door panel. We had already spend a half hour making fun of him 'chasing rabbits', but considering he was ducking the Aggi crew in Europe (and therefore the Kin in America) I doubted whatever he was running at or from had a cute fluffy tail.

We'd set out that morning, early, since it would take ten or more hours to get to New York, in two cars. We had an RV once, but around Illinois where we picked up Lovett, we'd decided to turn in the RV for a sedan and a crossover SUV. Both hybrid. It was slightly pricier than the trade in, but we'd already seen the benefit with the gas prices the way they were. Some might have said it was a dumb decision considering our pack's size, but honestly having two cars allowed some of us the time away from the twins we needed. Besides it was a whole lost easier to park a four door than a semi-beast.

Raff was with Mia, Meele, and the boys in the SUV leading the way, mostly so they could pull off every time the boys needed to piss or eat and I could easily follow. At the moment though, we weren't going very far or very fast. There was an accident just outside of Baltimore that was clogging the Northbound side at all lanes; eighteen wheelers had a tendency to do that when they tipped over. Rafferty had called to tell me as much, as well as that it was too far away to be certain, but he didn't think anyone was dead yet. When I saw the hospital chopper circle overhead I understood why he tacked that 'yet' on.

"Adaptation process?" I echoed Cassie as the concept slowly sunk in.

"Well, I don't know the correct term for it, but werewolves came from wolves." She said it with certainty, which meant she wasn't guessing, but knew. Not surprising; the Harbinger was older than some races, not all, but a few. She was three thousand years old or more and she was curled up with her toes against the AC vent and her hands idly braiding her autumn blond hair. It was a little comical really. "From what I know they adapted into a creature that could change form to human as well as wolf. You kinda went back to your roots, so what if he tapped into that gene that makes you go from hunt, kill, eat, hump to...well, the same only with verbs and adjectives."

I snorted, but didn't disagree. Our needs were simple ones. We tried not to bog life down with all the idiosyncrasies and stresses that the humans did. And we had more fun for it. And she very well could have been right. One of the first things Rafferty tried was accelerating everything and anything in my brain that may have contributed to genetic adaptation. It made me, pardon the pun, sick as a dog and I made him take it off. It was possible he didn't 'take it off' but rather made it less intense. It would explain a lot. Why I lost my mind to the wolf before I rallied back into a human form. If I was adapting from square one, I had to be at square one first...

Rafferty has said he thought he saw little glimmers of intelligence in my eyes in the months before I woke up fleshy and confused. Maybe he kicked up the brain-tampering then and just failed to tell me. "It's possible." Cassie had been glancing over at me in concern for a while now. Probably worried she brought up something she shouldn't since it took me so long to respond. "I'll talk to Rafferty when I feel like getting poked and prodded again. Or, oh, maybe if we leave it on I'll turn into the next best thing. Super smart, dashing, and debonair."

"Or you might just become the Hulk and turn into a wolf the size of a Hummer when you get pissed or horny."

I laughed, but it was a possibility. Anything was. "So tell me," I started, changing the subject to something I was actually curious about. "Why do you think Caliban hates you? Because if he hates you for leaving him to spare him...well, I'd have bone to pick with the boy because he did the same thing to...someone else in his life."

"George," Cassie offered with a knowing smile. I'd spared the name in case of impending jealousy or hurt. There was no reason to air out all of Cal's ex-girlfriends considering Cassie obviously hated Delilah. "You don't have to tip-toe around it. Caliban told me pretty much everything. I think he did tell me everything. It was like he was desperate for someone to talk to." Her smile became wistful, but her body smelled of heat. Oh, the girl had it bad; I could guess what other things had happened those nights that didn't involve talking. "He was surprised that I didn't run away screaming, I guess, even more surprise when I..." She glanced over at me. "Showed my acceptance." I grinned at her, making her blush a little. "Well, I'm not going to give you a play by play, as desperate as you might seem."

"I'm not desperate," I argued.

"You wanted to fuck an Auphe, that's pretty desperate."

"I wanted to fuck you, there is a distinctive difference. And if he is enough of an idiot to deny you the offer still stands."

Cassie giggled. "Please, don't tease him. He already got it from Robbie all the time."

"Robbie? Oh lord," I rolled my eyes to the ceiling of the Civic and let off a dramatic sigh. Great she was on a nickname basis with the puck. "I assume you mean Robin Goodfellow."

"Sure," Cassie replied. Lovett let off a whine, shuddered and shifted violently. Cassie stretched her arm behind her to touch his leg, whispering softly for him to be calm. It seemed to work, her voice musical in its bass. Lovett stilled back into a deeper sleep, mouth hanging open. "He's the puck I told you about. My best friend and partner in crime. Robin and I were friends for nearly a millennium before I ran off on mission: kill Auphe."

I lifted my eyebrows a little ashamed that I hadn't made the connection. When she told the stories she'd just called him the 'puck' or 'pan', maybe trying to keep his identity secret or just not seeing why I needed to know which puck it was. A thousand years was a long time to put up with that horny bastard though and if I found Cassie irresistible I could only imagine how many times she had to kick him off her leg. Or maybe she didn't…

"Thousand years, huh?" I muttered and let off a low whistle before wiggling my eyebrows in her direction. "You tap that?"

She rolled her eyes. "Why is everyone so concerned about me sleeping with Robin? It hasn't happened and it never will. There is such a thing as too much of a good thing and he has it dangling between his legs like a tripod."

Thank God we were stuck in stop go traffic or I would have probably swerved off the road, I was laughing so hard. It woke Lovett up and he rubbed at his eyes, immediately asking what he missed. I tried to fill him in, but most of it was lost since Lovett didn't know Robin and, well, you had to be there. I wiped the tears from my eyes and scooted the car the couple of feet that had opened up between me and Raffery's green Saturn.

"All right, so you never slept with a puck."

"No, have you?"

I smiled at her challenging retort. "No, many beings both human and nonhuman, but I can safely say, no pucks. But that is neither here nor there, because I asked you why you thought Cal hated you and you never answered."

Cassie sobered instantly. Her bare feet slid to the seat, making her look so tiny and fragile in an almost fetal position. "Because the story leading up to it shames me." I gave her a sidelong look. It would have been more glaring if I hadn't noticed Rafferty was pulling off at the rest stop, probably frenzied to get the pups out of the car.

"Well?" I asked as we weaved around the clover. It was one of the large rest stops with restaurants and a gas station. I wasn't going to let her out of the car until she talked, knowing very well it wasn't as bad as she thought.

"I lost Dante," she said softly. "To them...several times, but once it was for almost eight months in Tumulus. I didn't know what else to do so I went to Cal for help." She tried for her door handle when I parked, but I'd placed it in child-lock mode. Cassie gave me warning look; one that said she would break the door if I continued to mess with her. I didn't unlock it. She sighed heavy, both Lovett and my eyes trained on her. He didn't stop me from cornering her, probably just as curious as me by this point.

"When I found him he looked right through me." Cassie gave in, dropping her back to the seat and folding her arms under her chest. If she weren't so upset she probably would have hit me for my eyes wandering. "He ignored me, like I wasn't even there. I was a bit emotional at the time and I acted rashly. I just left. I thought was alone then. That I wasn't going to get help from him."

"So you didn't actually talk to him," I cut in. I leaned over the center console, trying to catch her eyes. "Cassie, you have to know if you had told him he was a father and the Auphe had his son he would have dropped everything to help you. Even if he didn't believe you. He wouldn't let a child go through what he did."

"I have to go to the bathroom," she informed me, which was more 'I'm done talking about this'. I frowned, but unlocked the door. She wasted no time slipping out and walking off toward the large mini-mall building. Her silence and refusal spoke clearly that she knew the mistake, but that didn't stop her from fearing his reaction to her now. She never told Caliban he was a father, never told him his son was in danger. That would certainly put a kink in things; the Leandros boys hated being lied to. Bit hypocritical considering how guarded they were about their own secrets. Cal never came clean about his lineage with Rafferty and me, never really had to considering Raff could sense what Cal was from several feet away, but still they never fessed up. Granted this was a bit more serious; this was Cal's son.

"She's got more issues than a comic book shop, doesn't she?" Lovett muttered, still shaking off his nap. He got out of the car and stretched lazily, giving me a mischievous look before he shut the door. "But she is cute."

I gave him a jaundiced look as he went to catch up with the others. I leaned back in my own seat, closing my eyes in the silence for a moment. I felt bad for Cassie and for Cal. Neither ever asked to be born the way they were, into the horrors that they faced. And now they had the responsibility of a little bundle, keeping him from being torn to shreds by the cruel world. It wasn't a small weight by any means.

"Hey." I jumped and spun at the tap to the window glass. Curbing the little chirp of surprise, I rolled the window down for Rafferty, taking in a few calming breaths. He was grinning at my sensitive reaction.

"You're a jerk."

He handed me his cell phone without explanation so I pressed it to my ear. I heard the droned recording of our voicemail. Rafferty hadn't thought he would need his old cell phone with me all wolf all the time so he chucked it. Once I was back in the flesh we bought a couple of used out-of-date phones in Wyoming. Unfortunately when Raff chucked the old cell he trashed all the numbers we used to know along with it. Not long after I was back on two legs and less furry he decided to hack into the old voicemail at our place in Staten Island, apparently he'd been paying that bill without realizing. The house we abandoned was paid off by his inheritance from his parents, but the bills continued to collect minute amounts from his bank account back in New York. A sure sign that he knew deep down we were never going back there. Well, wasn't he eating those words now.

I hesitated with the phone to my ear and pressing one to repeat message. There were many people that knew that house number, seeing how Rafferty used run a pseudo practice there, but few would still bother to call. After the beep I recognized the voice on the other line immediately. He didn't say who he was, but the smooth calm that transcended through the line was unmistakable. Niko Leandros.

"Rafferty, if you get this message I ask two things of you. Please tell Catcher to stop sending us postcards -as nice as it is to hear from the two of you, it's causing some Kin ears and noses to twitch in interest."Shit. I cast a guilty look at my cousin. He hadn't wanted me to send those cards to begin with, but I couldn't help myself. I felt a snap of guilt for getting Tarv into this inevitable mess. Serendipity had us meet him in Denver where Raff healed his mate after a boggle attack. He'd felt in debited to Rafferty and pleaded to be able to do more than provide money. When I heard they were moving to New York, I asked him to be my liaison to the Leandros boys. With their reputation I figured they wouldn't be hard to find. Apparently Tarv found them and the Kin found him.

"Secondly, please be careful and avoid any areas that are Kin-centric. They still seem to have All Wolf fever. Avoid Delilah, please." There was extra emphasis there, probably because I'd shown great interested in the white wolf before. "I'm glad Catcher's gotten better." A long pause, then. "Take care; both of you."

I eyed my cousin as I hung up the phone. I didn't delete the message, thinking he might need to refer back to it. I didn't; I knew that that long pause for what it was: omission. He didn't want to tell us something, didn't want to bring us into whatever flames that were consuming them. Two guesses as to what trouble they were into. Kin plus baby half Auphe didn't create very many promising scenarios in my head. "You try to call him?"

Rafferty nodded and leaned against the open window. "No answer. I left a message basically telling him to stop being a wuss and ask for help when it was needed. And I told him we'd be in New York by nightfall."

"And Cassie?"

"I left that surprise for later. And we aren't telling her about this either." I narrowed my eyes. "I know you don't like that, but I don't want her flying off the handle because her son might be in danger with the Kin. Especially considering her reaction to Delilah's name. I have faith that Cal and Niko can keep Dante safe for a few more hours."

He was right, I didn't like it. Cassie laid down her life for that boy barely a week ago; it didn't seem right that we would keep this information from her. Even if Niko hadn't said the kid was directly in danger, it was obvious something was going wrong and we were involved whether they wanted to admit that or not. The Kin were after Rafferty, we knew that before Niko's call, now they were trying to go through the brothers to get to us. It wasn't long for it. I knew that would happen the moment Delilah saw me last year. I just figured she would be too busy boning Cal to try and blackmail him. Maybe she found the perfect playing piece in the form of a pint-sized predator in the making. I wouldn't be surprised if she had eyes on Caliban even after cutting ties.

"Not a word," he warned me. His eyes flashed yellow for a moment as he pointed a finger at me. "And be careful when you get to the city." I nodded. The plan had been for me, Cassie, and Lovett to start tracking down Cal and Niko, while Rafferty took Mia, Melee and the boys to our old place in Staten Island. It probably needed a major overhaul in the dusting department. Raff planned to meet up with us if/when we ran into trouble. I had assumed finding Niko and Caliban would be easy with Tarv, but now...damn, I hoped he and his mate were all right; the Kin could be very 'convincing' when they wanted something.

He smacked the side of my car. "You want a burger?"

I held up three fingers. "And fries."

After the prolonged pit stop we packed it up and hit the road, Lovett taking his turn behind the wheel. I decided to ride in the back seat with Cassie. We left all the windows down, the radio blasting and the three of us singing classic rock at the top of our lungs. Even better considering the traffic hadn't gotten much better on the interstate. Cassie laughed as she tapped her feet against my thigh, sitting in her seat so her back was to the door. Amazing how quickly she could bounce back, but I supposed when you lived as long as she had (with a free-loving puck for the majority of the time) you had to have some fun before depression and loneliness killed you. I always had Rafferty so I wouldn't know. Not true loneliness. Not being lost with all eyes that bothered to gaze at you doing so with violence or fear.

"How do you do it?" I shouted over the radio. Cassie lifted her eyebrows, either not hearing me or not understanding. I wrapped my hands around her feet to stop them from drumming. "How do you stay so balanced? After all you've been through?"

"How do you?" she countered with a bright smile. "Fluffy."

I wouldn't be honest with myself if I denied that I wanted to maul her right then and there in the back seat of the Civic, in a pup in heat kind of way. She seemed to sense it though and lifted one foot to press against my shoulder, pinning me to the seat. "I found love, Mr. Jeftichew. In many different levels and many different ways and I intend never to lose it." She let me up and sat with her one leg curled up against her, the other stretched behind Lovett's seat. "Beauty can be seen best from the deepest darkness."

"Poetic," I commented, but in truth it sounded like something I would have spouted off years ago, and meant it. "Don't lose touch. When you find your love of many levels and ways."

She smiled that sultry quirk of a grin and nodded. "Of course not."

"If I kiss you, Caliban will skin me, won't he?" Lovett chose that moment to turn down the volume on the radio since we weren't singing along with him anymore. I could see him cringe in the rear view; my embarrassment had not been his intention.

Cassie's mahogany eyes flickered down, not bashful like a school girl not wanting to admit she was giving the go ahead, but it a rueful way that told me I had no chance. "I have no idea how Cal feels about me, but I love him. And honestly, until he outright rejects me I don't think I can accept anyone else like I did him. I'm sorry, Catcher."

"Nothing to be sorry about. I was just wondering how casual your relationship was. Ya know, get a little werewolf nookie in on the sly." They were just words and she knew it. She leaned forward and dropped her head to my shoulder in another form of apology. I sighed and took in her scent while I could. "You're too irresistible for your own good."

"So Robin has told me," she hummed. "You know I believe I'm the only half Auphe, or half peri for that matter, that had two pucks literally fighting over me."

She was changing the subject and to save my dignity I let her. "I think that is a safe assumption. Who won?"

"I guess Robin, though the night of the fight I knocked them both on their asses for the sheer narcissism of it all."

I brightened at that; I loved a good puck-humbling story. "Oh, tell me more, great seductress."

And she did. She told me about the first night she met Robin, the new puck in town, and Loki, the owner of the bar she'd strolled into. An unfortunate night for the two of them and probably one of the first that either struck out with their target. Apparently, it had started out as a pan bet: who could bed the peri and survive? It ended, obviously with a lasting friendship between Robin and Cassie. And suddenly it made sense to me why Robin hugged so close to Niko and Cal when the usual puck mentality was duck and cover until the shit settled and the party started back up. He missed Cassie. He missed his best friend.

And there was a lot to miss from the dozen stories she told next. Fighting the Evati in Europe (that story was vastly different when Cassie told it and flattering to neither party involved), dinning with the first Pharaoh of Egypt, diving off a Viking ship into the Atlantic, and watching the first fireworks display in China. And somehow she still seemed fascinated by my menial stories about the Amazon and Lovett's retelling of the Aggi and Yardie feuds. Yeah, road trips were much better when you weren't running for your lives.

By the time we got out of grid-lock we'd resumed goofier icebreaker games and were currently laughing so hard through our 'first times' that my sides were hurting. It hadn't started out with the obvious –we were all leaving that juicy one for later. First bar fight, first broken heart, first broken bone, first boner. That was the one I was cracking up about at the moment as Lovett tried to defend his first run in with authority in combination with his first boner. "It's not funny, I thought I was a damn masochist for the longest time after that!"

"There is not shame in that," Cassie giggled. "None at all! You're a werewolf there isn't that far a leap from tennis ball to ballgag." I couldn't breathe, I seriously couldn't breathe. Lovett threw a burger wrapper at her from the front seat, which she blocked.

I took in a few deep breathes and wiped the tears from my eyes. "Okay, okay. It's time for the popping of the cherry." I slapped my hands together rubbing them and pointing at Cassie. "You first, unless Lovett's tale of scholastic corporal punishment continues.

"Fuck you, Catch."

"I'm guessing that's a no, so go, little birdie, go." Cassie shook her head. Her cheerful expression had faded and her scent had dampened to that of a ruffled bird that had just fallen out of its nest. "Cassie?

"I'd rather plead the fifth on this one."

"Improper use of the term and denied!" Lovett caroled from the driver's seat. He couldn't see her though, couldn't smell her as well as I could with the windows still down. Her eyes met mine in pleading and I felt my stomach triple flip around those burgers and fries.

"Shit," I whispered. "Please don't tell me it was the Auphe."

Her teeth were clenched. "It's nothing now. It was a long time ago." That didn't change the fact that I felt utterly guilty for dredging up possibly the most horrific memories I could think up. "It wasn't them, though they let it happen...encouraged it." She rubbed her hands over her round face before emotion could form there. "It was my brother...brothers. There were eight of us that hatched and survived. Six male, two female. The Auphe didn't want the females to think they held any dominance so...I'm sure you can get it without me painting a picture."

"Cassie, you don't—"

"You said to come to you when I wanted to talk, right?"

I dropped my hands in my lap and nodded. Cassie swallowed hard and lifted her chin to gather strength. "Robin's the only other one I told this to." She tried for a smile and its luster failed. "You're now privy to guarded information. That must mean I like you."

Lovett didn't say a word in the driver's seat. He didn't turn off the radio or lift up the windows, he knew this was for me, but Cassie knew he could hear her just fine and she didn't seem to care. When you needed to get something off your chest that had been there for as long as this had, you tended not to care who heard. Her eyes were fixed on me though, flickering down to her hands every so often or out the window. "One of my brothers killed my sister in front of me. After he'd just fucked her, he picked her up by the hair, drove his hand into her chest with a gate and ripped her heart out. Like he wanted to show me how good he was. He came toward me next, saying they only needed one."

I wanted to hug her, lord did I want to hold her so badly. Her sun-lit eyes and coy quirky smile, how did she maintain them? How...did she not stay in the feral abyss the Auphe put her into? She met my eyes again, no tears, no strain in her smile. "That's when I learn survival. I killed him and went for my other brothers. It wasn't until the last three were ganging up on me that the Auphe stopped us. I don't know if it was for my rage or because I was holding my own against my brothers, but they set their sights on me. I became the golden child, their pride and joy. I was never touched after that, not until I betrayed them at least. And eventually I became an only child by my design."

Cassie took in a breath and let it out with a whoosh, stretching her hands in front of her as if the bad energy was released and she was pushing it away. "There," she said resolutely. "That was a little cathartic, but now I ruined the game. Maybe I should talk about my first time feeling a man's orgasm as if it was my own."

I hesitated, then leaned forward and kissed Cassie's cheek. She didn't flinch, not that she had to, I was no threat and she knew it. Just a friend sympathizing and thanking her for sharing that dark part of her past. "However did you manage that?" I asked, humoring her topic evasion.

"It's a neat little trick called Claiming that only those with Auphe blood can accomplish. Too bad for you, because from what Cal tells me a woman's orgasm is almost better than a man's."

I lifted my eyebrows and chuckled. "Well, now I'm all sorts of jealous."

Cassie dropped back against the door and looked out the front for a moment. "I'm glad it was him." I waited for her to continue, not quite connecting the dots. I figured she was talking about Caliban, but with the way her emotions were pin-balling I couldn't be sure. "I never thought it possible, but since it apparently is, I'm glad it was Caliban. If Dante had been the son of one of them…I would have had to kill him." She chuckled, a weak and strained sound. Bitter and dark. "It really makes a difference, him coming from me. I killed so many young Auphelings without a bat of the eye, cut them down, choked them out, broke their necks…I almost killed Cal, but if Dante had been theirs…"

I gave in. I pushed her feet to the floor and wrapped my arms around her shoulders, pulling her against my chest. She didn't fight it. She even curled up against me, the wind from the windows making flyway from her dark blond crown brush against my cheek and chin. "Don't think about the irrelevant. It didn't happen, therefore there is nothing to fix, okay?" She nodded against my chest. "He's Cal's son, he's your son, he's got some human and peri in him. That's more than enough to prove the world wrong."

"I miss him," she whispered, almost too soft for me to catch. I buried my nose into her hair hating to smell her anguish mingling with sweet flower and earthy wood. I wasn't sure if she was talking about Dante or Caliban, but my bets were on both.

"We'll be there soon," I promised, my gut twisting at all I was leaving out. We would be there soon and if anything was wrong, we would fix it.