But that was years ago, and a lot had changed since then.

I was almost asleep when the soft click of the door latch brought me instantly alert. My eyes flew open, frantical y searching the dark room as my heart raced. Stil lying on my side, I arched one arm over my head, fumbling on the glass end table for the lamp switch. My fingertips brushed over a notepad and a smal , heavy statuette of a cat reared to pounce. But I couldn’t find the lamp.

Wood creaked beneath someone’s bare feet, but my human eyes couldn’t make out more than a man’s vague silhouette against the dim moonlight spil ing in from the foyer.

Stil feeling around on the table, I twisted silently onto my stomach, hoping for a better reach. Instead of the lamp, my fingers swept a path across my father’s marble-and-jade chess set, knocking off most of the hand-carved playing pieces.

“Shit,” I muttered, stil stretching for the lamp as the last figures clattered to the floor. I held my breath, trying to determine from the sound whether any of them had broken. I couldn’t tel .

Another footstep whispered across the floor as the silhouette approached. I froze, sniffing the air. I identified his scent even as he spoke.

“Relax, it’s just me.”

Marc. Of course. “I’m not sure that’s any reason to relax,” I said, sagging with relief anyway. I let my head fal to rest against the arm of the love seat, my hand dangling above the chessboard. In two long steps, Marc was there, turning on the lamp.

I squinted against the sudden glare. “Why the hell were you sneaking up on me like that?” I demanded, frowning up at him. I pushed myself into a sitting position and glanced at the clock over the door. It was nearly three in the morning, and I couldn’t clearly remember why I’d come to Daddy’s office instead of just going to bed.

“I wasn’t sneaking up.”

“The hel you weren’t,” I snapped, swinging my feet onto the floor. My right foot came down on a chess piece, and I bent to pick it up. It was a jade rook, shaped like a traditional castle turret. And it was whole, thank goodness. I had no idea how to go about replacing one-of-a-kind chess pieces carved especial y for my father by an associate in China. The artisan whose handiwork I’d sent crashing to the floor had died a decade before I was born.

“I need to talk to you.”

“Not now, Marc.” My voice was sleep-gruff and groggy. “I can’t deal with you anymore tonight.”

“It’s not about us.”

“Good, because there is no us.” The rook stil nestled in my palm, I slid off the love seat and onto the floor to pick up the other pieces. Marc knelt across from me with the scattering of jade and marble figures between us, like slain soldiers on a miniature battlefield.

“I was supposed to go to Oklahoma tomorrow.”

“I know. Jace told me.” I set the rook on a corner square of the chessboard, next to a jade knight, a horse frozen in the act of tossing its mane.

“What did he say?”

“Just that you were supposed to check out a report about another stray.” I held a white marble bishop up to the light, looking for cracks. “Why?”

“Did he tell you who called it in?”

I shook my head slowly, suspiciously, my focus shifting from the bishop to Marc. Why should it matter who made the report?

“Danny Carver.”

I froze, my hand clenching around the cold marble, and met his eyes in dread.

Dr. Carver. Shit. That means there’s a body.

Dr. Danny Carver was a tom born into one of the western Prides. When I was a kid, he worked as a part-time enforcer for my father as part of an agreement al owing him to complete his fel owship in forensic pathology at a school in our territory. He’d been a kind of last-minute backup, just for emergencies. After his fel owship, he’d taken a job as an assistant medical examiner in Oklahoma and my father had gladly accepted him as an adopted member of our Pride, just as he would later accept Jace, Vic, Parker, and several other toms now scattered across the territory.

After nearly ten years in the same office, Dr. Carver was promoted to senior assistant to the state medical examiner, which gave us a conveniently placed set of eyes and ears. We’d hoped never to have to use his position, and we’d been lucky for the most part. Until now.

“What happened?” I asked, my hand hovering over the prone form of a white pawn. I desperately didn’t want to know the answer, but I’d long since learned that ignorance was not real y bliss. Not ever.

“They brought in a partial y dismembered body yesterday morning,” Marc said.

I groaned, and let my hand fal into my lap, empty. I was supposed to be at school studying the classics, not at home hearing about abductions and dead bodies.

This was the worst summer vacation ever.

When I realized he’d stopped talking, I glanced at Marc. He hooked one eyebrow at me like a facial question mark, and I nodded for him to continue as I picked up the pawn and set it on an empty square in the second row.

“The cops can’t figure out what happened to her, but their best guess so far is that she was attacked by some psychopath and left to die, then actual y kil ed by a large wildcat. But it won’t take them long to measure the claw and bite marks and realize there shouldn’t be cats that big roaming wild in suburban Oklahoma. Or anywhere else in the U.S.”

My eyes were glued to his face as I waited for the rest, but nothing more came. “What happened to her?” I asked again, my hands tangled together in my lap. He was avoiding the details of the crime, probably hoping to spare me from the specifics. Far from finding that considerate, I found it annoying. If I needed to know, I’d rather get it al over with at once.