Page 96 of All Hallows Game

“Death,” Miz breathed, his voice small and devastated. “It’s really her.”

“Come here,” Death replied, holding out a hand.

I kept my eyes on our girl as she edged towards the trees, keeping all of us in her line of sight. Like we were threats. Like we’d attack her. “Where do you think you’re going, pussy cat? Get over here, and let’s see if this beautiful new jaguar of yours can purr.”

Miz shot me a disbelieving look as he reached Death’s side, near enough to see that he shook from head to toe. I shrugged in reply to the glance. If that really was Cat, my girl was under all that fur. I didn’t care if she had warts and a hooked nose; she was mine, and I loved her.

“She’s going to run,” Virgil warned softly. “She needs the antidote before she can get away, or she’ll be stuck this way.”

“I’m not injecting her with an unknown substance,” Death argued, unmoving on the subject.

I held Virgil’s eyes, letting all my darkness out to play, and sent a tendril of magic to wrap around his ankle. “Tell the truth, or I’ll kill you here and now, no second chances.”

“I’m serious,” he hissed, breathing faster when he noticed the magic wrapping around his calf. “I’d be stuck in beast form right now without the antidote. I managed to shove my shoulder into the needle and press the plunger with my claws. I’m… conscious while I’m in the other form, but Cat’s so new, she’s all instinct right now. She needs this.” He held out the syringe, moonlight making the yellow liquid inside glow. “She’s my sister, I’m not about to fuck with her health, her life. But she’ll—if she stays in this form, she’ll kill someone. We all do eventually.”

Cat had barely recovered from killing Darya. I couldn’t let her take another life.

“We only have your word for that,” Misery said with a frown. “It’s not enough. We’ll—”

Cat lunged for the treeline with a surprising burst of speed and energy. Fuck, my girl was fast in this form. I let darkness pool under me and jumped into it, carrying myself across the woods and into her path.

“Not that way, beautiful. We can’t lose you in these woods.” Not when Nightmare would be watching this unfold. Had she planned for Cat to become one of her creatures, or was this a happy accident? I had a million questions, but keeping Cat where we could protect her was more important.

Cat’s throat shook with a warning snarl, a sound that was fucking adorable even if she currently wanted to rip my head off. She was taller up close, as tall as I was, but even knowing a wild animal faced me, it was hard to be afraid when this was my Cat.

I reached a hand back to Virgil, ignoring Death’s low, vibrating protest.

“Tor,” Misery protested.

“Our girl needs this, Miz. This will turn her back, right Virgil?”

His voice was right behind me, cautious and rasping. “It lasts for a week before she needs another dose.”

I nodded, closing my fingers around the syringe he put in my hand. I glanced down only to check there was no stopper on the needle, but it was a split second Cat used to jerk forward, hot breath fanning over my skull, my face, my arm.

“Tor!” Death yelled.

I didn’t move out of the way, letting my girl snap her impressive jaws around my shoulder. While her teeth were buried in me, the site of each puncture wound screaming with pain, I brought my other hand around and buried the needle in her side, depressing the plunger until it was empty.

“You’re cute even when you’re biting me,” I said, my voice tight with pain. I booped her wet nose, staring into her shiny black eyes as she removed her teeth, blood spurting from my shoulder.

“Tor,” Miz snapped, footsteps beating the ground as he ran for me, Death right on his heels.

“I don’t know who you are, but you seem to give a shit about my sister,” Virgil said, grabbing my good shoulder to pull me back when Cat darted forward again, lithe with grace and feline power, so fucking beautiful. I’d let her bite me again if it made her happy. “And I doubt she’d want you full of holes of her own making.”

“I hope they scar,” I said, and meant it.

“You insane motherfucker,” Misery snapped, throwing his arm across my back. I leant into him, watching our girl as she shook her head, then again, and again. “Cat?” he asked in a small voice.

“She’s turning back,” Virgil explained, letting go of me. There was an awful stench of piss and filth around him; I tried not to wrinkle my nose. “It can be disorienting. She’ll need me and her husband.”

“Husbands,” Death corrected, a low thunder of warning still in his voice.

“Husbands,” Virgil echoed, scrubbing his face. “More than one. More than one husband. Multiple husbands. Husbands, plural. Two of you.”

“Three,” I corrected, frowning when the pain in my shoulder and back burned hotter in every place she’d bitten me. Exactly like the wound on my thigh. Fuck. Death better be right about Pain having something to fix this; I couldn't afford to be weak with Nightmare lurking.

“Oh, good. Three husbands,” Virgil breathed, on the brink of a meltdown. “Three.”

---