Page 95 of Tangled Fates

“Here, water,” Levi said.

I took the glass from him and gave it to Barren. “Come inside and sit. Hudson and I will take care of things. Levi, make sure he stays put. He’s in shock.”

“What’s going on?” Dean asked as he peeked his head around the corner.

I drew in a deep breath. “We’ve got a rogue panther shifter still in the neighborhood. Stay here with him and wait for either me or Hudson to come back with more instructions.”

I passed off a very uneasy Barren before I charged out the front door. It didn’t take me long to track down which house was Martha’s since the decadent smell of pizza led me there. I wrapped around the back and took stock of the crooked porch. The middle of it was sinking, probably due to years of wear and tear without any sort of upkeep or management. I noticed that the wood itself needed to be sealed, but that was all I saw before those glowing, beady eyes peered at me from the darkness underneath the porch.

“Hudson?” I asked.

He hunched over, ready to attack. “I see the mangy cat.”

The panther hissed, but didn’t charge us, and that struck me as odd.

“Do you see any blood anywhere?” I asked.

“Plenty of it from my angle,” he growled.

I tilted my head. “Any chance that cat’s got one of ours in the darkness with it?”

But something was off. Something about all of this didn’t feel right.

“Hudson? Watch my back,” I said as I approached the darkness.

“Are you crazy? No! I’ll go under there, Raven, just?—”

I held out my hand as I approached the edge of the shadow the porch casted. “Are you okay under there?”

Another hiss sounded, but then a soft whimper followed behind it.

“Are you hurt?” I asked.

“Are you insane?” Hudson growled.

I shot him a look. “One more word out of you and I’ll send you back to the house. Got it?”

The anger in his eyes flashed, but he kept his mouth shut. So, I turned back toward the whimpering panther.

“Do you have any injured under there with you?” I asked.

The eyes volleyed up and down.

“Okay,” I said as I reached out softly, “if you bring the injured to me without a fight, I’ll spare you. But I can’t help you if you attack me, okay? You have to stay calm?”

I expected the cat to push a dead wolf out toward me. Hell, there were a lot of things that I expected to happen. A charge, or a fight. Claws swinging at me in defense. But instead, I watched as the black cat hobbled out of the darkness.

And its size caught me off guard.

“Hudson, does that look right to you?” I asked.

Even he was disarmed. “That’s pretty small for a panther.”

Fear gripped my gut. “Sweetheart, can you shift for me? Can you find your human form and show it?”

And when the panther slowly morphed back into a human, my suspicions were confirmed.

“Jesus, he’s just a kid,” Hudson murmured.

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