and let the humans draw their own conclusions with the scraps of real information they did have.
I went in first, sniffing the air, with Heath following so close behind me I could hear him breathe. I caught whatever scents I could. Jabari had visited this place, and the other two werecats, definitely a male and female, had to be Gaia and Titan. There was no scent of wolves anywhere.
“Do you smell anything?”
“Two male werecats,” he answered.
“One is Jabari. I would know his scent anywhere. It’s like Hasan’s.” I walked past the living room into the very old-school kitchen. “They were living here two centuries ago,” I commented, pointing at the oven.
“Out here, I bet there was no chance of them getting modern appliances, electricity, or gas. I bet there’s a well dug somewhere nearby or a mountain stream where they got their water.”
“Yeah…” I continued to look around. Only one bedroom, smelling of them both. Jabari hadn’t gone in it. As it was, I just stood at the doorway, not wanting to disturb the private place where two ancient lovers once met together. It made my heart ache that there would no longer be clandestine rendezvous here. “I wonder how long they were together.”
“Hm?” Heath walked up behind me, sniffing the space over my shoulder. “Hm…I have no idea. Sad to see it end like this, dead in their own homes.”
“I wonder if there was a falling out…” I leaned on the door frame. “There's no smell of wolves here.”
“I noticed.” His voice went gruff and thick. “We’ll figure this out.”
I only nodded as we backed away from the private bedroom and left the house. There was nothing to find.
“How did the bodies look when you found them?” I asked the moment I was in the fresh air.
“Broken necks,” John answered. I must have looked surprised because John’s face went a bit pink. “Honestly. I think Gaia’s back was broken too…It had the look of it.”
“You’ve seen that before?” Heath was more focused than me now. I was still trying to comprehend seeing a werecat with a broken neck and back. In human form, it was possible but still difficult.
“Fallen climbers and hikers. You know.”
“Sure.” Heath nodded, his grey-blue eyes darker than I had ever seen them. “No blood or anything?”
“No…” Gina whimpered, then sobbed. “It was so awful.”
I sighed, turning away to let the humans console each other. I felt bad for not helping, but I was spooked.
“I want to see Gaia’s house. Where she was found.” I pointed out. “It’s that way.”
“Um…yeah, we use a trail for hiking over there…” Haley pulled away from John and Gina to come close to us. “You might be able to get an ATV on it, but it won’t be easy.”
“A dirt bike?” I asked.
“It can make it, but you both won’t fit, and I’m not sure anyone should be walking around these woods alone right now.”
I looked up and checked the daylight. It had to be close to noon, but the afternoon heat wasn’t close to settling in. “Heath, you up for a hike?”
“We can make it there and back, I bet. How long do you think it’ll take to walk out there?”
“It takes us about three hours?” Haley shrugged. “Might be less for you.”
“It will be. Let’s go. You all can wait here or head back and meet us at the service shack but leave us an ATV to take back. I want to check out her home alone.”
“Wait…how do you know where it is?” Haley was frowning again. “And be careful where you step. We cremated her there.”
“I’m a werecat. I know.” I smiled tightly at her. “I’ll be respectful of the land.”
Walking away, I let Heath follow behind me as I set the pace. I took the trail only for convenience. It was worn down just enough to be walkable without major tripping, but the humans had been right. An ATV would be hard to take because it was very narrow. Heath and I couldn’t walk side by side.
“Can you really find the center of her territory just by feeling?” he asked about twenty minutes into the walk.
“Yup. It’s like…a beacon. It’s the center. If a werecat didn’t meet me for a challenge, it’s where I would go to make them pay attention to me, to make them see me and respond. We don’t fight over pitiful lines. We fight over it all. It’s useless to take a piece of land from a werecat who can just reclaim