Five minutes later I pulled the bedroom door open and held it for a jeans-and-T-shirt-clad tabby who smiled in spite of the tense way her arms hung at her sides. She was nervous about meeting everyone, and I couldn’t really blame her. I liked only about half of the people I’d be introducing her to, mostly because the other half wanted me dead. Or whored out to one of their sons.
“Where are you going?” the new guard asked, glancing from her to me, then down the hall toward the staircase, as if hoping someone would come to his rescue before he had to use the biggest muscle found above his neck.
“Downstairs. Kaci’s ready to make some new friends. Would you like to be the first, or are you going to be a pain in our collective ass?”
“I have to clear it with an Alpha,” the guard said, glancing uncertainly from me to Kaci, then back to me.
I shrugged. “So, go. Clear.”
The guard jogged off in search of an Alpha, but I saw no reason to wait, so I led the tabby down the hall after him.
Kaci hung behind me on the stairs, so that I stepped into the living room first, and when she peeked out from behind me, all conversation stopped. The lodge became so quiet I could hear the individual heartbeats of everyone in the room—only a few toms recently back from the search, thankfully.
Marc sat in the armchair closest to the sickroom, from which he could see the entire room at once, including the front door. Jace sat on the end of the couch nearest him.
Dr. Carver was gone, a fact I verified with a quick glance out the front window at the empty spot his rental car had occupied. Blackwell and Malone were in the dining room at the rear of the lodge, their presence betrayed by the indistinct buzz of quiet conversation.
Presumably everyone else was still out searching for the missing female hiker. Except for my father, who stepped into the living room from the kitchen at that moment, the guard on his heels, frozen in mid-question.
He raised one brow at me in question, and when I only smiled in response, he nodded, then ducked back into the kitchen, as if the tabby coming out of her shell for the first time was no big deal. A rush of gratitude brought heat to my cheeks, and I would have thanked him if Kaci hadn’t been practically clinging to my arm.
“Kaci, you remember Marc and Jace, right?” I tugged her gently into sight.
“Hi.” She stepped warily around me, into the fringe of the room.
“Hey, kiddo!” Leaning forward on the couch, Jace favored her with his typical grin, all straight white teeth and cherubic lips. “’Bout time you joined the party.”