The vast majority of strays are created by other strays, then abandoned before the attacker knows his victim wil not only survive but become a werecat. These attackers are perpetuating a cycle that began when they were abandoned in the same fashion, before they had a chance to learn about the werecat way of life.

Many werecat victims don’t survive their initial attack, and others die soon afterward. And while some strays do live and learn to survive on their own, many of them never learn to hide their existence from humans or to control their feline impulses, which makes it very important for us to get to them before their actions expose us al to humanity. Unfortunately, by the time we find them, few strays are happy to see us. They blame us for the destruction of their lives, and they have no interest in being “ruled” by an Alpha they don’t know from Adam. It doesn’t help that instincts they can’t possibly understand yet tel them to be wary of and hostile toward strange cats.

As recently as a century ago, an enforcer’s job consisted mainly of defending territorial borders, not from humans, who don’t yet know we exist, but from other Prides intent on expanding their own boundaries. But recent history has seen an important shift. Just as the various Prides learned to get along— for the most part—in the interest of secrecy, the population of strays exploded. Pride enforcers are now mostly used to deal with these new members of our society.

My father’s men track newly infected werecats as they come to our attention and administer a crash-course on werecat history, biology and law. They also monitor and control those strays who become violent and volatile. But an ever-increasing amount of their time is spent trying to keep strays out of our territory, cleaning up after them, and dealing out justice as necessary for those who refuse to follow the rules.

Even those few strays we manage to form a cordial relationship with typical y have no interest in joining a Pride. Which is just as well, because most council members have no interest in letting them in. For them, it’s an issue of class. Strays are considered second-class citizens. In fact, my father dealt with a lot of criticism for taking Marc in, but he never once faltered in his decision, even though the beginning was real y hard on al of us, particularly Marc.

Watching him, I remembered how confused he’d been and how much he’d missed his mother. Why would Daddy send him to investigate a case like that? I thought, furious with my father al over again.

“I wanted to go,” Marc said.

“Stop reading my mind,” I snapped, pulling my feet out from under me to sit cross-legged at the edge of the area rug.

“I’m reading your expression.” His lips curled up into a tight, smug smile. “It’s not my fault you can’t keep every fleeting thought from showing on your face.” He made it sound so easy, so logical, but it was just another reminder that he knew me better than anyone else in the world. Whether I liked it or not.

Marc plucked the queen from my palm, returning her to her rightful place at her husband’s side. Most of the chess pieces had landed on the rug, which kept them from breaking. But not the queen. She’d taken the full impact of her fal on the hardwood, yet remained stubbornly whole and unscathed. She was one tough bitch.

My kind of gal.

I glanced at her and thought I saw the tiniest hint of a smirk among the vague features of her face. The queen was my favorite chess piece. Unlike the women I knew in real life, she was powerful. Her job was to defend her husband at al costs, because while he was weak and practically defenseless—only al owed to move one square at a time—she was the strongest player on the board, hindered by no restrictions at al .

If real life were a game of chess, I’d be calling the shots, dragging Marc’s helpless ass home for his own protection.

Marc frowned at me, as if to let me know he’d read that thought on my face too. I cleared my throat and leaned back against the love seat, determined to bring the discussion back on track. “I assume Dr. Carver could smel the bastard on her body?”

“Yeah.”

When he volunteered no more information, I asked the obvious question.

“Well? Did he recognize the scent?”

Marc shook his head, and I wasn’t real y surprised. If they’d identified the kil er, he would already have told me. “But Danny said it was definitely a stray.

We’ve had two other reports of a stray from Oklahoma in the last week and a half.

My guess is that they were al the same cat.”

I frowned. Both wildcats and strays were forbidden to enter our territory without permission for a very good reason: they were usual y unpredictable, uncontrollable and often violent. There were no exceptions to that rule, even for Ryan, in self-imposed exile.

“Couldn’t Dr. Carver be wrong?” I asked. “Couldn’t it have been one of Daddy’s cats?” As horrifying as I found the idea of there being a murderer among us, it’s always easier to fight the evil you know than the one you don’t.

Marc shook his head. “Danny knows all the other south-central Pride cats, if not by name, then by scent. He said this one had a foreign smel to him. Central, or maybe South American.” His eyes held mine captive, waiting for his meaning to sink in.

My heart leapt from fear bordering on terror, as I thought of the stray on campus. He’s a jungle cat. And he’s collecting tabbies, but killing humans.

South American cats were an entirely different kind of animal. They formed no councils, acknowledged no political borders, and suffered no negotiations. With the Amazon rain forest at their disposal, the Prides in most of the southern hemisphere indulged their feline instinct at the expense of their humanity, meaning they lived more like actual jungle cats than like people, as if over the past few hundred years, the world had moved on without them. Their territorial boundaries were in a constant state of flux, swel ing and shrinking with the slaughter of each Alpha and the rise of his successor.