Like Cats and... Wolves? The Werepigeon Apocalypse [FREE and COMPLETED]

Chapter 8

Kate really thought that watching her sister die was the worst moment of her life. But when she walked into the cell, still trying to wipe the sleep out of her eyes, and saw that huge beast snap her teeth near Zoe’s neck, Kate’s heart simply stopped and refused to resume beating again. No, this could not be happening. Raw panic rippled through her body, nearly knocking her down to her knees. Bastet, please, not Zoe!

This was all Kate’s fault. She was the one who claimed the f*****g werewolf was harmless. What the hell was she thinking? He was a wolf, a deadly predator, a rogue on top of that. Kate got distracted by how strangely comfortable she felt around him and the price for her mistake was the life of her niece. There was nothing she could possibly do, the wolf would snap the girl in half before Kate could even take a step forward. She begged without a second thought, hoping that there was a shred of humanity somewhere in the beast’s heart, that the man inside would remember how she helped him and perhaps would be willing to show mercy to an innocent child.

She didn’t even have to link the rest of the gang, the other cats present in the building heard her scream, and Grams as their Prime no doubt felt the pure horror threatening to take over Kate’s mind. They came fast, taking the wolf down with the darts they had prepared earlier just in case something like this happened.

Almost out of her mind from fear, Kate jumped towards Zoe and hugged her desperately, hands sliding over the girl's body in an attempt to make sure she wasn’t hurt. Ignoring Zoe’s protests, Kate dragged her out of the room, shutting the door to muffle the man’s pained screams.

“Zoe!” She crouched next to the girl and threw her arms around her again, sniffling and sobbing in relief. “Are you alright? Are you hurt?”

Zoe squirmed out of Kate’s hug and pushed her away furiously, nearly causing the woman to fall back. “Don’t touch me!” she cried out, her face twisted in anger. “Why did you have to hurt them? They did nothing wrong! But you always hurt people!”

Kate blinked in surprise, wiping the tears off her face with the back of her hand. “Zoe, that wolf could have hurt you. Why were you even in that cage?” There was no time to think about that earlier, Kate’s mind was too occupied by imagining the girl’s horrible death, but now it dawned on her that Zoe was inside the cage and the chains that held the werewolf down were unlocked, not broken.

“Nick and Adira are my friends, the only friends I have in this stupid place,” the girl hissed, “and you keep hurting them! I hate you!”

Before Kate could react, the girl swiftly turned around and jumped away, shifting mid-air. She was a natural, just like her mother, Kate could have never pulled something like that off when she was her age. Damn, she could barely control her shifts back then, she and Fatim always fighting for dominance. So much so that she spent a lot of time somewhere between being a human and a cat. However, Zoe’s skills proved quite problematic these days, since at the slightest sign of trouble she simply shifted and ran off, hiding Bastet knows where.

Just like now. The black kitten darted away, crawling through a broken hatch to the building's ventilation system. Kate hated when the girl did that, she was always frightened that Zoe would get stuck somewhere. But of course, the girl didn’t listen to her.

I hate you. The words echoed through her mind. Zoe had told her lots of hurtful things when she was angry and Kate accepted that, knowing that it was just a way to deal with grief over losing her mother. But she had never said these particular words before. How did she get so close to the werewolf?

One of the Grams’ current mates was just leaving the cell and the prisoner’s tortured moans got louder for a moment before he closed the door again. “The kid brought him keys,” he rolled his eyes, jingling the keyring in front of Kate’s eyes. “You better get her under control, kitty.”

“He did not just say that,” Fatim smirked and stretched her body, pulling out her claws to check how sharp they were.

Kate was actually glad for his words. Beating the s**t out of people was a great way to let off some steam. Her knee swiftly connected with his groin and his fall to the floor was hastened by a swift punch under his chin. “Listen to me, you dimwit,” she leaned over him, grabbing his face with her hand.

Fatim wanted to join in on the fun as well and Kate saw no reason to stop her. The already sharp fingernails turned into even sharper claws, piercing his skin and forcing small trails of blood to run down his cheeks. It was harder to speak with the elongated fangs but Kate had more than enough experience to always be able to get the message through.

“Just because you are f*****g the Prime right now doesn’t put you in charge of anyone around here,” she hissed, making sure that her sharp teeth were close to the asshole’s neck. “You and that dumb friend of yours are nothing but s*x toys for Grams. And I don’t take orders from a talking dildo. So piss off!” The claws left long scratches on his cheeks as Kate let go of his face, angrily striding away, afraid that if she stayed any longer, she would actually hurt him. And Grams was quite fond of her toys.

Mindlinking young cats was rarely a good idea. They had little control over what part of their thoughts went into the link and it could quickly get overwhelming. But it wasn’t like Kate had another choice now when Zoe refused to talk to her. “Zoe?” Kate reached out to the girl, feeling her anger even through the closed link. “Zoe, please.” Kate’s niece didn’t shut her out completely, which was hopefully a good sign. Or perhaps she just didn’t know how. There was another presence helping to block the link, much wilder and angrier than Zoe. “Leila? I know you can hear me, both of you. Could we please talk? About… Nick?”

Kate didn’t ask for the werewolf's name, she didn’t want to know it, just in case it really did become necessary to get rid of him. She couldn’t afford to get too attached. Now that she knew it, she was forced to think about him as about a person, a young man that might have a family somewhere, that was probably really just randomly passing through Silver Falls and got caught up in this mess. Great. As if Kate needed more guilt to deal with.

Zoe didn’t respond directly but she (or her cat) opened the link for Kate. The woman’s mind immediately got flooded by an unfiltered stream of thoughts, emotions, and memories. Staggering, Kate had to lean against a wall and close her eyes for a moment to deal with it, trying to pick useful information out of the jumbled mess that was coming from Zoe’s head.

She saw the werewolf through Leila’s eyes, his big hand extended towards her to let her sniff it. Just like he did with Fatim when Kate first saw him. The smile on his face was warm and honest, Leila felt safe and protected around him. Enough to climb on his lap and fall asleep. Bastet! The kitten was so naive! Even with the silver chains, he could have killed her with his bare hands! But he didn’t, he just continued to gently stroke the fur on Leila’s back until she drifted off to sleep, his strong scent filling her nostrils. It was the scent of a predator, of a dangerous, deadly beast. Yet, for some reason, Leila found it comforting, immediately deciding to trust the werewolf.

One of the memories of Zoe talking to the man was surrealistically interrupted by a couple of kangaroos in Santa hats jumping around the cell, playing in a heap of snow that suddenly appeared there. Kate just shrugged and ignored them. The kid obviously had a wild imagination.

Leila brought him the keys. There was a deep sympathy for the wolf trapped in the cage in Zoe’s mind, and a searing hate Leila felt towards the people who put the animal into such a position. Towards Grams, towards the gang. Towards Kate. As far as she could tell, most of the hate originated from the cat, not from Zoe herself, but it hardly mattered.

What was more important was what actually happened in the cell before Kate got there. Because it sure as hell seemed very different from the girl’s perspective. Kate only saw a huge beast attacking Zoe, her panicking brain didn’t allow her to think about it any further. But Zoe saw a beautiful animal, felt the smooth fur under her fingers. A wild surge of happiness bubbled through her when the wolf licked her cheek, making her giggle. Kate didn’t just see it, the mindlink allowed her to feel it, to literally relive that moment from Zoe’s perspective. And there was absolutely no fear involved.

Even when the wolf playfully snapped her sharp huge teeth next to the girl’s face, Zoe just felt amused and Leila wanted to play more. Because that’s what they were doing, Kate realized, they were playing. The wolf wasn’t trying to kill Zoe. Of course not. If the beast wanted her dead, Zoe wouldn’t last a whole second. They were just playing and Zoe felt happy, happier than Kate had seen her in weeks. She was never that happy and relaxed around Kate, her own family, not since Em died. No, Zoe chose to trust a complete stranger over her aunt and it hurt Kate more than anything.

She snapped out of Zoe’s mind and severed the link, sliding down on the ground and hugging her knees. Was she really such a horrible person that even her own family resented her? Fatim swiped her tail from side to side but didn’t say anything. Still, Kate could sense her being displeased. “What?” The last thing she needed now was to get scolded by a voice in her head.

“I’m not trying to say that you are a bad person, my dear human,” the cat said carefully. “I know you always try your best. But right now, there’s a man and a wolf not far from us that are suffering from an unimaginable pain for no reason at all. You know I don’t particularly give a damn about other people, but isn’t that something a good person shouldn’t allow?”

Great. Even her normally emotionally distant, borderline sociopathic cat was defending the werewolf now. What has the world come to? The worst part was that Fatim was right, Zoe and Leila were right, the werewolf- “Nick, dear. His name is Nick,” Fatim interrupted her, licking her paw. Right, Nick. Nick didn’t deserve to be suffering as he was right now. But what the hell was she supposed to do about it? As far as she knew, there was no antidote against wolfsbane, they would just have to wait until it left his system. Which could be hours.

There was no way to hasten that but… Kate hesitated. The cocktail of strong sedatives they used to knock the werewolf out and drag him here was probably not something a person should be injected with too often, not unless they wanted to suffer from brain damage. But it did work on him. And wasn’t it better to be unconscious and wake up with a huge headache than to be screaming in pain for hours? Kate knew what she would choose.

There were still several syringes ready in the office and Kate rushed over to grab one, picking up some clean clothes from his bag as well before heading back to the cell. Nick was curled up on the floor, squealing quietly, the lower half of his face covered in blood. “What the f**k did you do to him?” Kate snapped at Grams’ second mate who was leaning against the wall, frowning at the prisoner.

“Nothing,” he replied quickly, “I think he bit his tongue. I… uh… are you sure you want to keep the chains on him? I’m not sure if the combination won’t kill him.”

Of course those assholes proactively put the werewolf in silver chains again, wrapping them all around his naked body. At least it seemed that the Talking Dildo #2 was feeling bad about it. “No,” she shook her head, approaching the bars. “Come on, help me with him.”

Nick’s brown eyes widened in horror when he noticed her leaning above him and he unsuccessfully tried to crawl away from her. As if she needed to feel more guilty about what was happening to him. “P-please,” he sniffled, “I-I did-didn't-”

“It’s alright.” Kate gently placed her hand on his shoulder to hold him still, trying to ignore the strange tingling sensation she felt every time she touched his skin. “I won’t hurt you. This will make the pain go away.” Hopefully. But how much worse could it get?

He shook his head helplessly as he watched her pull out the syringe, tears rolling down his face. A quiet whimper escaped his lips when the needle pierced his skin but a hint of relief flashed through his eyes before they closed and he fell into a merciful unconsciousness. Kate let out a shaky breath, grateful that it actually worked.

“Lift him a bit, we need to get the silver off before it burns itself into his skin again,” she instructed the Dildo man and together they carefully unwrapped the chain from Nick’s body and dressed him up. Kate had to chuckle over the image of a very grumpy cat on his T-shirt. How fitting.

She hesitated. He didn’t seem particularly strong, especially not for a werewolf, definitely not a fighter. But he was still most likely going to be absolutely furious when he woke up, his wolf even more so. Kate didn’t want to keep him tied up but she simply couldn’t risk the beast tearing everyone to shreds before she could get a chance to talk to Nick. To explain the misunderstanding, to apologize. He was probably going to tell her to f**k off, and quite rightfully so, but at least he wasn’t going to kill her right on the spot as his wolf would.

With that in mind, Kate carefully wrapped a bandage around Nick’s neck again and put a piece of the silver chain back in place, securing it with a padlock. It was not ideal but it seemed like an acceptable compromise.

“Hey, uh…” Grams’ mate scratched his head and looked at her nervously, “sorry about Jim. He’s a dick.”

Kate smirked. “Yea, his d**k is the only reason the Prime keeps him around. She tends to get new toys every couple of weeks, so don’t get too comfortable around here.”

“What a shame,” he chuckled, “you seem like an interesting bunch. I’m Emmet, by the way.”

Huh, weird, it seemed that this one even had a brain. That was unusual. “I don’t care. Can you carry him?”

“Sure, he’s just a skinny kid.” Emmet picked Nick’s body off the ground almost effortlessly and placed it over his shoulder. “You don’t want to keep him locked up?”

Kate ran her hand through her long hair and hesitated for a moment before answering. “No. Take him to my place.”