Then my father turned to me, and my heart tried to beat its way out through my rib cage with one look at his face. I wasn’t going to like whatever he had to say. “Kaci infected Bob Tindale—we know that for a fact—which means she probably knows what happened to his wife, too. We need to know what she knows. What she did. And we need you to find out. Fast.”

I smiled, well aware that my father was emphasizing the necessity of my participation for the other Alphas, as well as for me. “I’ll get your answers.” I stepped back, to look at all four Alphas at once. “But I think you should all be prepared for the possibility that you won’t like what you hear, and I’d rather you not shoot the messenger.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” Malone demanded, eyes narrowing at me in suspicion.

My father shot me a warning look, but I ignored it. Ignorance is dangerous, and ignorance on the part of our governing body could prove catastrophic. No pun intended. “That means there’s a good possibility Kaci Dillon is a stray.”

I felt the collective scowl on most of the faces surrounding me, but I didn’t give a damn what they thought. There was no scientific basis for the impossibility of a female stray. Rarity, perhaps. But not impossibility. “Her family was human, then her mother and sister were killed by a werecat. Two and a half months later she shows up here on her own. And she’s definitely not human. The conclusion seems pretty obvious to me.”

“We don’t know for sure that her family was human,” my uncle pointed out. “We only know that her father isn’t a Canadian Alpha.”

“Or a U.S. Alpha,” I insisted, reaching up again for the branch overhead. “Yet she speaks perfect English and was obviously raised in a North American culture.” Based on her fashion sense, love of pizza and vocabulary.

“If you’re so sure she’s a stray, why doesn’t she smell like one?” Calvin Malone demanded.

I opened my mouth to reply, but apparently the tact I was considering didn’t show in my expression, because Dr. Carver rushed to reply for me. “I don’t have an answer for that, Calvin. But with a sample of her blood and twelve hours to analyze it, I can tell you for sure whether or not she’s a stray.”

Malone looked intrigued, and I couldn’t stop the smile blooming on my face, in spite of the inappropriate circumstances. The council could argue with me until the day I died—which might be tragically soon. But they couldn’t argue with genetic evidence.

“Can you do that?” I searched Dr. Carver’s face for the truth before my hopes rose too far.