“By a scratch or a bite from another werecat,” I said. “But that won’t work on just anybody. In order to actually be infected, instead of just getting really sick, you have to be born with a certain recessive gene inherited from a werecat ancestor. Dr. Eames’s research proved that just a few months ago.” And in the process, he’d stirred up one of the biggest controversies the Territorial Council had ever survived. Even bigger than…well, me.

It had taken half a dozen easy-to-understand lectures on genetic testing and several hundred dollars’ worth of full-color graphic displays to bring the older Alphas to a functional understanding of a science they’d considered a bunch of mumbo jumbo only weeks before. Change did not come easily to a culture as old and secretive as ours. But eventually understanding did seep through the age-old cracks in tradition. Regarding werecat genetics, at least.

They were still decades behind the times on gender equality.

“If you don’t have the gene, you’ll just…well, you won’t catch it.” You’d die of infection instead, but I couldn’t say that to Kaci. Not knowing what I knew about her family. And not with her looking at me as if her whole world had shrunk to include nothing but me and the protection I could offer her. In theory.

“But I wasn’t scratched.” She glanced at the doc, then back at me. “Or bitten.”

Dr. Carver’s gaze rose to meet mine as he thumped the second vial to get the blood flowing again. I knew what he was thinking, but I wasn’t bothered by Kaci’s statement. Very few strays had any memory of their attack.

“You probably just don’t remember.” I brushed a strand of chestnut waves from her thin face. “A newly infected stray gets pretty sick for a while. High fever, rabid hunger, delirium. It’s a miracle you came through it okay with no one to take care of you.”

“But…Faythe, I wasn’t sick,” she insisted. I nodded, humoring her, but she continued, even more vehement in her protests. “I was the first werecat I ever saw. No one scratched or bit me, and I never got sick.”

Dr. Carver pulled the second vial loose and reached for the cotton ball he had ready, watching me the whole time.

“Honey, you just don’t remember it.” Hell, she’d probably blocked the whole horrible attack from her memory, to save her own sanity. My hand found hers, and I squeezed it. “You had to become one of us somehow, Kaci, and that’s the only possible way.” Unless someone else managed to infect her in human form, as I’d infected Andrew. But even if that were possible, it wouldn’t explain why she didn’t remember being sick.

Her eyes narrowed in doubt, but she didn’t argue further.