Pride. Rachel Vincent

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      “Marc?” Malone called again from the living room. He twisted in his chair, glancing down the hall first, then toward the kitchen, where he found us all frozen in place—Marc in anger, me in dread, and Jace in what could only be humiliation. I hadn’t noticed his reaction earlier, because Marc was clearly about to blow his top. But when I looked at Jace, I saw that his jaws were clenched, muscles bulging in his cheeks, and that he stared at Malone in nothing short of rage. Pure, murderous rage.

      “Ramos, front-n-center!” Malone shouted, apparently oblivious to the fact that he was insulting my father’s top enforcer—the tomcat who got paid to bust heads in defense of our territory.

      Marc growled louder, and the chair back creaked beneath his hands. He watched my father instead of Malone, waiting for either a nod or a shake of his Alpha’s head to tell him what to do. But instead, my father shrugged. He was leaving the decision up to Marc, and I loved him for it. For not demanding that Marc present himself to be sniffed like a bitch in heat.

      However, before Marc could make up his mind, Keller spoke again, slicing through the tension with a single, insightful statement. “I can smell you from here, son. No need to put yourself out on my account.”

      Marc nodded. He didn’t smile—he was much too angry for that—but I could see respect for Keller in his eyes.

      “So.” Malone dismissed Marc as casually as he’d called for him. “Did these werecats smell like us, or like him?”

      I never actually heard Keller’s answer because the wood splintering under Marc’s hands drowned it out. An instant later, Marc held the detached back of Jace’s chair—a solid strip of oak attached to four thin spindles—in one hand. Jace jumped from his seat just as Marc hurled the wood through the window over the kitchen sink. Glass shattered, spraying the ground outside. Heads swiveled our way, eyes wide, mouths gaping. Then, before anyone seemed to realize what had happened, Marc was gone, and the screen door slammed shut.

      Malone practically shook with fury, now standing in the middle of the living-room floor. “Jace, bring him back. Now!”

      Jace’s hands curled into fists at his sides, and anger smoldered in his eyes. He ignored Malone and watched his own Alpha for a signal.

      “Let him go.” My father didn’t shout. He didn’t need to.

      Jace’s hands uncurled, and he sank back into his broken chair, ears flaming as he stared at the table.

      Calvin Malone turned to face my father, and again I saw him in profile. “Do you let that kind of disrespect go unpunished among your men?”

      “You mind your Pride, and I’ll mind mine.” His carefully blank face was the only hint at how very angry my father was. At Malone, not Marc or Jace.

      Malone’s mouth twitched. He was furious, but making an obvious attempt to rein his temper in, at least until the bruin was gone. “We’ll discuss this later.”

      My father nodded curtly. “We certainly will.”

      “Well, I’ll get out of your fur.” Keller rose from the couch, and its springs screeched in relief. He stepped toward the door, and had to duck beneath the fan overhead.

      “Mr. Keller, wait,” Uncle Rick called, and the bruin paused several feet from the door. “Where did you last see these strays?” So they were strays…“And how many are there? We’ll send some men out on patrol, and they’ll need to know where to start.”

      Keller’s face relaxed. “There’s a good-size pond not six miles north of here. I scented at least two of them there this morning, and several more before that. That good enough to get you started?”

      “Yes, thank you. We appreciate the warning.” My father escorted Keller to the door, step by creaking step. The bruin had to bend to fit through, and when my father turned to the rest of us, his face was all business. “Can you spare two men apiece?” he asked, glancing around the room from Alpha to Alpha.

      “Of course,” Blackwell said, “More, if you need them.”

      My father nodded, acknowledging the commitment.

      “You’re not serious about this, Greg?” Malone demanded, looking around the room for support from his fellow Alphas. My father, the head of the Territorial Council, walked past him without responding, and it was all I could do not to laugh out loud. He’d been using that tactic on me for years, but I’d never expected to see him ignore a fellow Alpha’s question, as if it wasn’t worthy of reply. Though, for the record, I agreed with him completely.

      Malone shouted after him. “We all took time away from our jobs—our lives—to come here on werecat business, not to take tea with Yogi Bear!”

      My dad strolled through the living room and into the kitchen, where we all watched him pour the last of the coffee into a clean mug, as if his authority wasn’t being questioned in front of Alpha and enforcer alike.

      Malone followed him, stopping on the worn linoleum. “This is free territory. Of course there are strays here. We put them here!”

      Daddy poured a packet of sugar into his coffee and stirred, looking no more annoyed than he might be by a fly buzzing near his ear. Malone seethed. “You cannot seriously be asking us to set aside your daughter’s criminal behavior in favor of chasing a few stray cats up the side of a mountain.”

      That did it. My father brought the mug slowly to his lips. He sipped from it, eyeing Malone with all the patience in the world, and I understood in that moment why my father was the head of the council, and Calvin Malone never would be: Malone had no patience. No sense of timing. He wanted instant gratification, even on little things like getting a rise out of my father.

      “No,” Daddy said. “I’m not asking you to do anything.” With that, he turned his back on Malone, showing the entire room that he had nothing to fear from his fellow Alpha. For toms like Malone, fear was synonymous with respect, and my father had just insulted him on a massive scale.

      I think I was starting to rub off on him.

      My father set his mug on the counter and turned to face the room. “We’ll send everyone we can spare. Jace, will you round them up, please?”

      Jace was out of his chair and through the back door in less than a second.

      As the first of the enforcers straggled in, I rose to refill my mug and found the pot empty. I had a fresh pot going when Marc followed the last tom in, at which point my father finished his coffee and cleared his throat for our attention. “In case anyone’s eavesdropping efforts failed—” quiet chuckling echoed across the living room “—we have agreed to investigate a matter brought to our attention by Elias Keller, the bruin we all just met. Mr. Keller says a group of strays has been making trouble near his home. You should be able to pick up their scents at a pond about six miles north of here.”

      Excited murmurs rose throughout the room as anticipation of the chase swelled. I shared the guys’ eagerness, but knew without being told that I would not be participating. The council would never let me run free—even on an important assignment—while the hearing was in progress, and once it was over, the point would likely be moot. I might never run anywhere again.

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