True Nature Page 3

  Will wandered into the living room while they waited for the computer to boot. He rubbed his head against Griffin’s leg until she leaned down to pet him; then he lolloped over to Kelsey on his three legs and meowed at her.

  Sighing, Kelsey bent and lifted him up onto the couch, where he rolled into a feline ball between Griffin and Kelsey and promptly fell asleep.

  Griffin grinned at her. “You’re totally pussy-whipped, wolf.”

  “I-I’m not!” Kelsey stammered while heat crawled up her neck. “He’s just lording rule number two over me: Don’t terrorize the cats, or the big cat will terrorize you.”

  Griffin smirked.

  “Hey, you two,” Jorie said from her easy chair. She leaned forward and nodded at the laptop. “Can we focus on finding the boy now, or do I need to watch you fight like cat and dog for the rest of the night?”

  Fingers lingering over her keyboard, Griffin said, “All right. So, any idea on how to find the boy? Your dream vision didn’t, by any chance, show you his name, did it?”

  Jorie sighed. “No. It’s never that easy. But Kelsey thinks she knows a way to find him.”

  Griffin raked her gaze up and down Kelsey’s body and lifted a brow. “What way is that?”

  “The boy is deaf,” Kelsey said, ignoring Griffin’s skeptical gaze. This was her area of expertise. She had grown up using American Sign Language. “Or at least he’s using sign language. If the council authorizes it, we can look for a deaf teenager in the Wrasa database.”

  Neither Griffin nor Jorie answered. Only Will’s snoring interrupted the sudden quiet.

  Kelsey looked from Griffin to Jorie. Why was no one reaching for the phone to call the council and request access to the secret database? Did they merely want to wait until morning, or was something else going on?

  “No council,” Jorie finally said. “We’re doing this on our own. At least for now.”

  “What?” Kelsey jumped up from the couch. Her knee banged against the coffee table, and she clutched her kneecap. “But, Maharsi, the First Law demands that we—”

  “Do you remember what happened the last time the council thought a human was out to hurt them?” Jorie asked. Her eyes, now almost black with intensity, drilled into Kelsey, who quickly looked away.

  “Yes,” Kelsey whispered. She sank back onto the couch.

  “Do you really? Because I sure remember a few dozen Saru chasing me all over Michigan and a pack of wolves almost ripping out my throat.”

  Jorie’s voice, sharp as steel, cut into Kelsey, making her look away in shame. She had been part of that pack.

  “All because of some paranoid prejudices against humans.” Jorie pressed her hands to her knees, leaned forward, and slid her gaze from Kelsey to Griffin. “If you ask me, the Saru take their task of protecting the Wrasa a little too seriously. They still like to shoot first and ask questions later. I won’t let that happen to another human. Not without having definitive proof that she’s really trying to hurt the boy and I’m not just misinterpreting my dream.”

  Misinterpreting? How can you misinterpret choking someone? Kelsey thought but said nothing.

  “Besides,” Jorie said, “the council is finally considering abandoning the First Law. I don’t want to endanger that by telling them a human might be about to hurt a helpless Wrasa teen.”

  Griffin shook her head. “I understand why you want to do it this way and I support your decision, but I don’t like it, Jorie. I don’t want you to get into trouble. If the council finds out we’re going behind their backs...”

  “Who’s going to tell them?” Jorie asked.

  Griffin’s gaze hit Kelsey like a silent accusation.

  Kelsey curled her hands around the edge of the couch as if it would hold back the anger bubbling up inside of her. For once, she met Griffin’s gaze and held it. “Are you calling me a traitor?”

  Not looking away, Griffin shrugged. “If the shoe fits. You think we don’t know you’re reporting directly to the council, informing them about every move Jorie makes?”

  Oh, Great Hunter, they know! Kelsey’s stomach knotted. Her gaze darted back and forth between Griffin and the door.

  “Griffin...” Jorie’s voice held an obvious warning, but Griffin ignored it.

  “No, Jorie. It’s time to settle this once and for all. I was silent for too long already, but I won’t let her hurt you.” A growl entered Griffin’s tone. “We’re not stupid, wolf. A human knowing about us makes the council as nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs.”

  Kelsey couldn’t deny it. Having a human dream seer put the council in a precarious position. They couldn’t kill Jorie, but they also didn’t trust her.

  “We know the council picked you for this team because you’ve got plenty of reasons to hate Jorie and me,” Griffin said.

  Kelsey shook her head so forcefully that she almost became dizzy. “That’s not true. I don’t hate you.”

  “No?” Griffin leaned across the couch, encroaching on Kelsey’s space so that Kelsey had to lean back to avoid butting heads. “I killed your alpha.”

  “Griff, please, let it go,” Jorie said. “Even if you don’t fully trust Kelsey, you need to trust my judgment.”

  Inch by inch, Griffin retreated, but her relentless gaze still drilled into Kelsey. “I do. But I can’t help thinking that maybe it wasn’t such a bright idea to accept a member of Jennings’s pack as your bodyguard. What if she betrays us?”

  Kelsey’s fingers, clenched around the edge of the couch, started to cramp. Are you going to sit here and let her question your loyalty? This time, it sounded like her mother’s voice. “Jennings caused his own death, and it’s no longer my pack,” she said, trying to keep a tremor out of her voice. “They threw me out.”

  “What?” Jorie’s head jerked around. She stared at Kelsey across the coffee table. “They threw you out? I thought you just hadn’t been in contact for a while. God, Kelsey, I’m so sorry. Why didn’t you tell me? Maybe I could have convinced them—”

  “No.” Kelsey shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. I never really fit into Jennings’s pack anyway. My loyalty is to you and Griffin now.” She tried to catch Jorie’s gaze, longing for reassuring physical contact with one of her nataks but knowing she wouldn’t get that kind of comfort. That was the biggest disadvantage of not belonging to a pack. Jorie wasn’t a touch-positive person. She rarely touched anyone but Griffin. Reassuring little touches to her bodyguards just didn’t occur to her.

  Griffin leaned over to stare down Kelsey again. “So you’re denying that you passed on information to the council?”

  At Griffin’s raised voice, the cat between them woke and jumped from the couch. Griffin’s nose almost touched Kelsey’s now, and when she spoke, hot breath hit Kelsey’s face and made her wince. Her own breathing sped up until she was nearly hyperventilating. Griffin was too close. “I—”

  “Stop it!” Jorie’s decisive voice cut through Kelsey’s panicked haze. “Jesus, Griff, stop the feline intimidation tactics. Kelsey is not the enemy.”

  “No, I...” Kelsey swallowed. “I want to explain. Yes, I passed on information to the council.” A whiff of anger from Griffin hit her, and she pinched her nose to block it out. “I gave them just enough to make them think I am spying on you, but I never reported anything that could harm either of you. If I refused to cooperate with them, they’d just replace me with someone who would, and then—”

  “Kelsey, calm down,” Jorie said. Instead of jumping up and hurling accusations, she leaned back in her chair and regarded Kelsey steadily. “You don’t need to explain. I already know.”

  Kelsey pitched forward, almost falling against Griffin. She pressed her hand against her forehead and rubbed the spot above her right eyebrow. “W-what? You knew? But...how?”

  A hint of a smile ghosted across Jorie’s face. “I saw it in a dream vision.”

  A dream vision about me! Never had Kelsey imagined that their only maharsi would dream about insig
nificant folks like her. She stared at Jorie. “What did you see?”

  “In my vision, you reported to the council and told them what was going on here. But you held back information.” Jorie leaned forward, her black eyes searching Kelsey’s face. “You know we told my mother about the Wrasa, don’t you?”

  “I suspected,” Kelsey said.

  “And yet you never mentioned it to the council.”

  “As far as your visions showed you,” Griffin said.

  “I never told them,” Kelsey said. “I don’t want them to hurt your mother or any of you.”

  Griffin still regarded her with an unblinking cat stare. Her scent told Kelsey that she was in overprotective mate mode, not ready to trust despite Jorie’s vision. “How can we be sure? Just because you haven’t betrayed us yet doesn’t mean you won’t in the future. You attacked Jorie before.”

  Kelsey’s cheeks burned with shame.

  “So did you,” Jorie said, voice soft. “Yet I still trust you with my life and with my heart. Why can’t you at least trust Kelsey not to hurt us? Use your nose. You know she isn’t lying.”

  Now Griffin was the one to lower her gaze. “Maybe she isn’t consciously lying. But if push comes to shove, she’ll still betray us. Not informing the council about a human out to hurt one of us... That’s big.”

  Big? Kelsey tried to rein in her panicked breathing. Try huge!

  “Not reporting a violation of the First Law goes against everything she has been taught as a Saru,” Griffin said, looking up to fix her gaze on Kelsey. “She’s a Syak, and the council speaker is their most powerful alpha. It’s in her blood to do whatever the council wants.”

  The truth of her words echoed through Kelsey’s mind. “Yes, it is,” she said slowly. Her tongue felt heavy in her dry mouth. “But that doesn’t mean I can’t fight against that instinct. Twice in my life, following orders because it’s in my blood had catastrophic consequences.” Her gaze veered to Jorie, then away.

  Griffin growled. “You and your pack nearly killed Jorie, just because your insane alpha ordered it.”

  “Twice?” Jorie asked.

  Being forced to talk about it felt like getting stabbed in the heart. “The other time, my brother ordered me to leave. And then he died trying to save his family on his own. If I had helped him instead of leaving like he wanted me to…” The thought had spun through her mind on repeat for years. She rubbed her forehead as if to wipe away her memories. “I’ll never again blindly follow an order when I’m not convinced it’s the right thing to do.”

  A few seconds ticked by, then Griffin moved away, giving Kelsey room to breathe. “All right. But don’t make me regret this, wolf. If you harm Jorie in any way...”

  “I won’t. I swear.”

  Griffin smoothed her palms over the sleeves of her shirt like a cat licking its ruffled fur. She pulled her laptop closer and stretched her fingers. Then the rapid-fire clicking of her keyboard echoed through the otherwise silent living room.

  While they waited, Kelsey looked over and met Jorie’s gaze. Jorie gave her a nod and a brief smile before she turned toward Griffin. “The boy is about thirteen or fourteen, slender, almost a bit gawky, with dark hair.”

  “Judging from the way he signs, he probably lives somewhere in the US or in Canada,” Kelsey added.

  Griffin glanced up from her keyboard. “How do you know so much about sign language?”

  “My brother was deaf,” Kelsey said, trying to keep the emotion from her voice.

  With a nod, Griffin returned to her typing. She mumbled something and typed another series of words. Her brows bunched together as she studied the laptop screen. “That can’t be.” She typed in another word, hit enter, and then shook her head. “Weird. I can’t find him in the database.”

  “So no one filed a missing-persons report with the Saru?” Jorie asked.

  “Not just that,” Griffin answered. “There are only two deaf male Wrasa in the database. One is three years old, and the other is fifty-two.”

  “Some children with autism sign instead of speaking,” Kelsey said. “Maybe the boy is autistic, not deaf.”

  Griffin did another search and then again shook her head. “Nothing. The boy is not in the database.”

  “What?” Jorie circled the coffee table and squeezed in between Griffin and Kelsey. “Let me see.”

  When Griffin turned the laptop to show her, Jorie squinted down at it. “What’s this? I thought you were searching the Saru database.”

  “This is the Saru database,” Griffin said with a grin.

  “But...but that’s the website for some rock band.” Jorie leaned closer to the laptop screen. “The Howlers.”

  Across Jorie’s shoulder, Kelsey dared to take a peek. Only higher-ranking Saru like Griffin had access to their secret database. Now Kelsey watched as her commander moved the mouse over the screen.

  One click on “events” revealed a list of places and times for concerts and band appearances. “These are secret meeting places of Saru command, searches for criminals on the run, and other urgent news. If any Wrasa had been kidnapped, it would show up here.”

  “God, the Wrasa’s version of America’s Most Wanted, dressed up as rock concerts. Weren’t all the passwords enough to protect the database from human eyes?” Jorie lifted her hands before Griffin could answer. “Don’t answer that. I forgot that I’m talking about a species of paranoids.”

  “Jorie, come on.” Griffin gave Jorie a gentle nudge. “You know why most of us think it’s better to hide our existence. The Inquisition drove us to the edge of extinction.”

  A tired smile lifted one corner of Jorie’s mouth. “Well, at least you were creative. The Howlers. Tsk.” She pointed at another link on the website. “What’s this?”

  Griffin clicked on the fan club link. “This is a database of every Wrasa in North America. Each pack or pride is required to register its offspring before they reach their first birthday.”

  “What if a human stumbles across the site and wants to join the fan club or go to one of the concerts?” Jorie asked.

  “They can’t access the information on the site without the passwords, and they’re all in the Old Language. But if anyone managed to get in...” With two clicks, Griffin returned to the main site and clicked on a play button. Screeching guitars and off-key singing rattled the laptop’s speakers.

  “Okay, okay, okay! Turn it off. Jesus. No one would voluntarily go to a concert like that.” Jorie rubbed her ears.

  A Cheshire-cat grin spread over Griffin’s face. “Yeah. And we really have a band called The Howlers. Just in case, because some humans have weird taste in music.”

  Jorie stared at the screen. “So you searched the database, but the boy isn’t listed. What does that mean? Maybe his family just forgot to register him.”

  “Maybe,” Griffin said but didn’t sound convinced. “Let me try something else.” She pulled the laptop closer and pressed a series of commands into the keyboard. After what seemed like an eternity, she shook her head. “I tried human law enforcement, but there’s no AMBER alert out in any state for a deaf teenager. Nothing in the NCIC, the central database for crime-related information, either. There’s no missing deaf boy at the moment.”

  Jorie blew out a breath, ruffling a strand of black hair hanging into her eyes. “Damn.”

  “There might be another way,” Kelsey said. “If we can get into the records of schools for the deaf and click through the photos of all enrolled students, you might be able to recognize him.”

  “Can you do that, Griff?” Jorie asked.

  “Yeah, my sister showed me how to do something like that.” Again, Griffin’s fingers flew across the keyboard.

  “Limit your search to students in the seventh, eighth, and ninth grade for now,” Jorie said.

  As the first pictures flashed across the screen, the excitement of the hunt swirled through Kelsey’s blood, and this time, she welcomed it. Hunting fever would sharpen her senses and might h
elp them find the boy before the human woman choked him to death.

  * * *

  Hours later, the first rays of the rising sun crept into the living room. With burning eyes, Kelsey watched Jorie click through one photo after another.

  Jorie’s clicking had become less enthusiastic. With each photo, the firm line of her lips tightened. When she reached the last class photo from a school in Los Angeles, she pushed the laptop over to Griffin so that she could get them into the system of the next school.

  But instead of reaching for the laptop, Griffin stared at the list of schools they’d put together. “That was the last one.”

  The couch shook as they simultaneously sank against the backrest. “So whoever he is, he’s probably going to a mainstream high school, not a school for the deaf.” Kelsey dug her teeth into her bottom lip. “We can’t search them all. There are just too many. And if his parents are homeschooling him, we’ll never find him.”

  Jorie placed two fingers on the laptop and closed the lid with a resounding click. “Maybe I was wrong. Maybe what I saw in my dream will happen far in the future or already happened years ago.”

  A hollow feeling settled in the pit of Kelsey’s stomach. The boy might be long dead.

  “Any other ideas?” Griffin asked and reached over to rub Jorie’s thigh.

  Jorie shook her head. Her frustration stung Kelsey’s nose.

  When Griffin shifted her gaze toward Kelsey, she shook her head too. They just didn’t have enough information to find the boy. Except for being deaf, he seemed like a pretty average Wrasa teenager, with no special characteristics that could help identify him.

  “Then I guess I’ll go make breakfast now.” Griffin shoved the laptop away and stood.

  Numb, Kelsey stayed behind as Jorie followed Griffin to the kitchen. Her thoughts were still stuck. Average Wrasa teenager. She shot upright when a sudden thought occurred to her. What if...?

  “Griffin, wait!” With bounding strides, Kelsey dashed through the living room and into the kitchen.

  Griffin turned.