Oath Sworn - K.N. Banet Page 0,16
when I woke up. Something touched my shoulder and made me jump clean out of my chair. I grabbed the broom near my dining room table, whirling around to find the threat, and stopped.
Carey giggled wildly, covering her face. She still looked worn and tired, with dark rings under her eyes, and in desperate need of a shower or bath or whatever eleven-year-olds did.
“Sorry. I’ve been awake for like an hour and I was getting hungry. And your phone was going off.” She pointed to it on the table near my books. I sighed, rubbing my face as she continued to watch me like I was the most fascinating thing she’d ever seen. “My dad says that werewolves are a lot like real wolves. Are werecats like that?”
“I guess,” I said, shrugging, trying to play it off. She had made me jump like people often did to their house cats and posted on the internet. I leaned the broom back against the wall and grabbed my phone, trying to act naturally. I called to the magic and it answered, telling me there were no threats on my territory. Good. That meant she wasn’t followed, at least not yet. I had no doubt that a wolf or two would eventually show up, but as long as it wasn’t a hunting pack, I could handle it. “What do you know about me?”
“He said you moved down here like five years ago. You own the bar below and you don’t go anywhere or talk to anyone. He thought you had secrets, but as a werecat, those aren’t my business or his.” She shrugged. “I was busy learning about my family. He said I would learn more about things like you and the vampires when I was older.”
“He’s right. They aren’t. I’ll fill in some general things for you since we’re going to be spending some time together.” I considered what I should start with and went with the basics. “Werecats are very solitary by nature. We don’t play nicely with others. We don’t fit in with wolves because we don’t play dominance games. We think we’re the top predator and that makes us a challenge for werewolf Alphas. We can defeat them, but we don’t want to rule because we don’t want the community. It leads to chaos, and no one wants chaos.” I yawned now, checking my screen.
There were a few texts and the most important were from my lawyer and Harrison, or so the text said. Each contained similar documents, and I sent the documents to my printer so that I could carry them. They were legal proof that Carey was in my care. I opened a browser and checked the news, letting out a long sigh of relief that the news was now reporting that Carey was in safe custody and removed from the danger in the cities.
“What else can you tell me? I’ve never met anything other than werewolves… and one witch. Well, kind of.” She sat down and I eyed her for a moment. There was still a fear in her scent that wouldn’t go away, which meant she was very good at hiding it. I wondered if it was because she grew up around monsters, predators. While they might have seen her as a member of their pack, she was still human. Her father, this oh-so-intelligent Alpha, must have taught her to never show that fear and she’d learned well.
“Um.” I didn’t really know what she wanted to hear. There was a lot I wasn’t allowed to say, and she could definitely take back werecat secrets to the werewolves. I wasn’t foolish. I didn’t think she was spying, but I wasn’t going to give her secrets to hold that weren’t hers. “Nothing really. There’s a lot of similarities between us and the wolves. Full moon makes shifting easier, and many can’t resist the Change that night. New moons make it harder and some can’t Change at all. You know, why don’t you go take a long shower and I’ll make us some lunch?” I checked the time. It was eleven in the morning. “Then we can figure out how this is going to work while you’re here.”
“Here?” She frowned at me and I frowned back.
“Yes. Here.”
“You aren’t going to go and save my daddy?” The tears were back. “I thought you were supposed to…”
“Protect you. Which means we stay right here. I take care of you. I stop others from taking you. Your father is on a