He’d accepted responsibility for what Abby had done to hide and protect Robyn from the council. Because Robyn had killed the men who’d infected her and murdered her friends, and in the process, had uncovered a ring of human hunters.

Robyn Sheffield, with her big, innocent eyes, had a higher kill count than most of my enforcers, and her targets had been actual, dangerous criminals, rather than strays who’d gone bad because no one was there to teach and assist them when they were newly infected, terrified, and confused.

Robyn was the most infuriating woman I’d ever met. Yet somehow she was also the most beautiful, fascinating stray I’d ever come across.

And she held the fate of my Pride—the trajectory of the rest of my life—in her graceful, deadly little hands…

A soft huffing sound wormed its way into my dream, and I woke up with my forehead resting on my arms, which were folded on the edge of the table. I blinked, and my bare feet came into focus on the concrete floor, between the legs of my chair. A soft beam of sunlight shone over them from the narrow window high on one wall.

Morning had come.

That sound came again—a deep huffing exhalation—and I sat straight up, my pulse rushing in anticipation.

Somehow, I’d slept through Corey Morris’s first shift. He sat on his haunches a few feet in front of the table, with his tail curled around his legs and his back to me. Glossy black fur covered a sleek but powerful feline musculature. He was slender in human form, but in cat form, he wasn’t much bigger than Abby.

Despite the groan of my chair when I sat up, he ignored me, his silent focus trained inside his cell at…Corey Morris?

Morris stood on two human legs in sweat-drenched clothes, staring through the open door of his cell at—

I sniffed the air, and her scent flooded my nostrils. I stood so fast my chair clattered to the floor.

The cat wasn’t Morris. It was Robyn.

She glanced over one shoulder at me, and the graceful arch of her neck gleamed in the florescent utility light hanging from the ceiling. Robyn blinked once, then dismissed me with a soft snort as she turned to Morris.

His eyes were wide, his forehead shiny with sweat. His cheeks practically glowed with fever. His gaze seemed to swim in and out of focus.

He probably thought he was dreaming. Or hallucinating.

“Robyn,” I whispered. “Come here.”

Instead, she stood and padded silently into his cell. Morris took a shaky step back. His chest hitched with deep, quick inhalations until his jaw snapped shut and he drew in a breath through his nose. Then he froze.

Recognition flickered across his expression, followed almost immediately by confusion. He wasn’t afraid of her, but he didn’t understand why. He recognized something about her scent, but he didn’t understand that either.

I remembered being where he was, but the first time I saw a fellow shifter was a week after my infection. I’d been stuck in cat form for days, and I was starting to wonder if I’d only imagined ever being human.

Robyn made a soft cooing sound deep in her throat, and Morris’s tense frame relaxed a little. He knew that sound—that gentle chorus of comfort and acceptance—though he’d likely never heard it before that moment. He reached out to her with one trembling hand.

She stepped forward and pressed the top of her fur-covered head against his palm, like a giant house cat demanding to be petted. He ran his hand over her head and as far down her spine as he could reach without moving. Wonder played across his flushed features.

“Who are you?” he whispered.

Robyn brushed the side of her face across the outside of his left thigh, marking him with a trace of her scent. Labeling him as a friend.

Irritation shot up my spine. “Robyn,” I snapped. She didn’t have permission to bond with my new tom. I was supposed to help him through the transition. I was the one he needed to trust and depend on.

I had to establish my authority over and responsibility for him from the very beginning.

Yet that wasn’t why I’d snapped at her.

She hadn’t marked me as a friend. She’d hardly even touched me, and I’d given her sanctuary. All Corey Morris had done was stare at her in a fevered haze.

I recognized the irrationality—the blatant envy—of my own thought even as Robyn turned to blink lazily at me. She seemed unmoved by my irritation, but I heard the spike in her heartbeat. Try as she might to hide it, her instincts responded to displeasure from an Alpha.

You could be her Alpha, a traitorous voice whispered from deep inside me. Or you could just be hers…

I dislodged that thought with a single shake of my head. “Come out of there. What are you doing here?”

“Who is she?” Morris whispered as Robyn padded toward me. He knew she was female, and he knew she was a who, not a what. But he didn’t seem to know how he knew any of that.

“Corey Morris, this is Robyn Sheffield. She’s a stray. Like you.” Well, not entirely like him.

“Like me?” Morris frowned. “Is this a dream? This doesn’t feel real.”

In my experience, there were two types of newly infected strays. The first responded to their own transitional state with fear and aggression, snapping and hissing at anyone who came close. Even in human form. Even before they understood the nature of the infection.

The second kind reacted with disbelief, confusion, and—often—the fear that they were losing their minds. Morris, thankfully, seemed to be the second kind. He might be harder to convince, but he’d be easier to handle. At least physically.

“This is real. She has the same infection you have. So do I. This is what it does to you.” I nodded at Robyn. “What it turns you into. You can choose to accept that, along with both the advantages and disadvantages your new life brings. Or you can fight it, and live the rest of your life in misery.”

His focus slid from me to her. “I don’t understand. Why do you have a panther?”

“She’s not a panther. ‘Panther’ isn’t a species.” And I certainly don’t have her. Alas. “Robyn?” I said, and she turned to look up at me. “Would you like to demonstrate?”

At first, she only blinked at me silently. Then her head bobbed, and she made a soft purring sound, evidently pleased to have been asked.

“Holy shit.” Morris’s eyes widened until I worried that they might pop from his skull. “Did the cat answer you?”