Shepherd's Moon (24 page)

He raised his hands in mock surrender. “I’m just saying that they won’t be easy to trap. First we have to figure out what, or who, to use as bait. Then we gotta find them. Even if we succeed in trapping them, we have to keep them trapped.”

“We’ll figure something out.” I finished my tea and stood up. “Let’s focus on the immediate problem, and that would be repairing the cages.”

The holding cages in what was originally designed to be a wine cellar, was sorely outdated and we really needed to purchase a new one, but none of us had time to chase one down online, and buying something like a trap big enough to grab a cougar was harder than it sounds. There are permits involved and lots of questions, neither of which were our preferred mode of operation. It created an interest that we couldn’t afford, and established a paper trail we didn’t want. Sometimes it was easier to just make do with what you have on hand — and ours needed some serious welding.

“What kind of shape is it in?”

“Not good,” Brock answered. “Last time I checked, it wouldn’t even hold the cubs for more than an hour.”

I reached for another slice of bacon. “Can it be repaired?”

“Maybe,” Billy said, looking doubtful. “But if so, we’re on our last weld.
Mufasa
over there just about destroyed it last time.”

His comment took me back to our first few weeks with Modnik and the twins. After escaping years of enslavement and leaving their native jungle of Costa Rica, I could hardly blame them for not wanting to be caged.

Not that Modnik had given us much choice.

Domestication had been slow and we
still
weren’t all the way there. I sighed, hoping this particular case would be a lot smoother and that the two big cats were females. Modnik hadn’t tolerated any of the men in our home to come within 100 yards of her back then, which meant the responsibilities of caring for her and her two cubs had fallen upon Aida and myself. At least with their arrival, the house had become a little less testosterone-driven. There’s nothing like a young mother and two cubs to put a bunch of men in their place.

“Weld what you can.” I stacked the papers together. “We don’t have time to order a new one.”

Their expressions tightened a bit, but no one protested. As we finished breakfast, I mused about why they weren’t arguing. Normally I would be ordering, threatening or cajoling to get their assistance with cats. I let it go, chalking it up to an act of God. It was just too early to get into it with them and I really needed to start being grateful when they cooperated with me rather than expecting them to argue. I had bigger concerns anyway. Like where to put two more wildcats that I had a feeling wouldn’t do well with the general population.

“We’re going to run out of room eventually.” I sipped the coffee, echoing the Bren’s words at Meg’s house only a few days earlier. “This house only holds so many people.”

Billy laughed. “The house is 30,000 square feet. If we can’t handle a couple of more cats, then we need to take a closer look at our lifestyle.”

His defense caught me off guard. Coyotes weren’t known for their ability to share, especially not with cats. I pushed my chair back. Billy was, for once, the least of my problems.

“Tell everyone to get ready and be sure Aida has the dart guns prepped. I’ve got some things to take care of right now.”

Rinsing my dish, I placed it in the dishwasher then moved down the hall thinking of all the work that would need to be done before the evening rolled around. I would need to talk with Modnik as well. She wouldn’t take kindly to having new cats around, and I’m sure Daniel’s arrival had already created a bit of an uproar. Sometimes being around so many creatures was just too much. At least Modnik stayed in her form of a jaguar, and didn’t have plans on being out of it until her cubs were at least two years old.

Checking my phone, I glanced at the time. I stopped wearing a watch years ago. There isn’t much reason to wear one when your entire life revolves around animals.

“Alright — I’m off to shower. Take care of those repairs and I’ll meet you down there in a few minutes. We’ll work out a plan.”

It was more like an hour. But after food, caffeine, and a hot shower, I was feeling strong enough to face the day. While my arm was showing definite signs of healing, it still ached and I absent-mindedly stretched as I got ready. Dressed in jeans, a tank top and hiking boots, I was feeling pretty human despite the lack of sleep. I made my way down to the cellar — an unusual commodity in Arizona as the ground was generally too impacted to dig in. But with the right pay, and motivated employees, nothing is impossible.

The boys were still working on the spot welds as I looked over their work and tested the bars. “What do the traps look like?”

“They’ll hold,” Brock answered, reaching between the bars for his torch. “Billy, toss me another rod, will you?”

Posed as though he were actually going to toss it, I caught Billy’s eye and shook my head once. Then, taking the long piece of metal from him, I walked back to Brock and handed it to him.

“Have either of you seen Bren lately?”

Billy shook his head, handing me a bottle of water. “No—and that means it’s been a good week.”

Brock glanced up from the steel bars of the cat trap. “He was a no show again last night.”

I made my way around to the other side of the cage. “After we’re done here, see if you can track him down. He needs to be available tonight. We may need some assistance with the general public if we find these cats and they do turn out to be shifters.”

The sound proofed cellar was much larger and cooler than the rest of the house and when I was a lot younger, Billy and I would sneak down here to play. It was also the place we had kept any undomesticated strays, and now resembled more of a giant kennel than a wine cellar. We had long ago removed anything breakable and the expensive wine bottles that had once lined the cold rock walls had since been sold, given away, or drunk.

Two eight-foot long, galvanized steel traps lay in the center of the large room and had been designed to hook into the kennels that lined the length of the room, providing a safe environment to release large animals without getting killed in the process. I ran my hands along the welded stock panels. No evidence of gaps large enough for a mountain lion to escape from, but not exactly designed to hold a pissed off 200-pound wildcat for any longer than a few hours.

“We need to get this bent back into place,” I said pointing to the bars and kneeling down to examine the hinges on the door. “The door will need to be replaced too. Billy, take Daniel and pick up a new panel for the second cage.” Running a few errands with the cat would do both of them some good.

I moved to the second trap and inspected it. This one was in much better shape.

“Who are we using for bait this time?”

“If we can find Bren, we could use him.” Billy smirked as we left the room.

“Knock it off,” I warned. “He’s still a part of this family.”

“Have you told
him
that lately?” Brock asked, pulling the door closed with a loud bang.

“Not exactly,” I admitted. He didn’t need to say anything else. It was time I started treating Bren like a member of the pack, not as an outcast. “Fine. The next I see him, I’ll make a point of mentioning it to him.”

Brock set the welding torch back in place on the shelf and pulled off the safety visor, running his hand through his hair. “I’m sure he would appreciate hearing that.”

I wasn’t sure Bren cared for anything at all I said to him, but refrained from sharing that with Brock. They were still brothers no matter how different they were in the way they approached life, or in the way they felt about me.

After a final check of the traps, we closed and locked the door behind us before making our way up the steep, narrow stairway. Stone tile stretched throughout the rest of the huge territorial-style mansion, keeping the rooms naturally cool and giving me a significant break on the electric bill during the sweltering Arizona summers.

Large, sweeping living areas trimmed with white oak made up the rest of the house. We had removed the exterior wall and it now opened up onto the living room and pool. I’d since had it modified with a twenty-foot wall of bulletproof glass, easily retractable as we tended to keep the large windows open during cool winter evenings. A set of smaller rooms occupied the back wing—each with a view of the desert and French doors that opened onto an enormous covered patio that ran the length of the house. It would have been a security nightmare for most homeowners, but in our case, the tenants gave us far more problems than any intruders.

I pitied the person who made an attempt to enter this house uninvited.

“If we’re going to handle this tonight, we need those panels,” I said, glancing at my phone for the time. “And I still have to let Modnik know we may have a few more cats coming in.”

If the cougars were not shifters, they would need to be returned to the desert before Game and Fish got hold of them. But, if they were indeed a matched set of unsupervised creations from our favorite new Handler, they would need to come back here until they learned the rules of being preternatural in a world filled with humans. Until we had them in custody, I didn’t have any idea where they’d be going.

Billy nodded. “She won’t be too happy about that.”

I frowned, already picturing how that conversation would go. She hadn’t shifted into human form since she got here, and it was possible that she wouldn’t until her cubs were grown. Cubs are just a lot easier to care for than human twins, and she couldn’t care for large, rambunctious cubs as a human. That made talking to her a little more difficult as I had to do it in images rather than words—and I had to do it quickly before she got the wrong idea. I touched Billy on the arm as I passed him to move up the stairs.

“Just focus on getting those panels in place.”

“I heard you the first time, Alex.” His expression tightened as his eyes met mine.

“Okay.” I paused, hesitating a moment at the tone of his voice.
Why was he so tense all of a sudden?
Keeping my eyes on him, I called out to Brock. “Brock, have someone prep the quarantine room. If they are Weres, we’ll need to isolate them for questioning.”

Billy stalked off, leaving me to wonder what else was going on with him. He was getting so moody lately. One minute he was the happy-go-lucky boy I had grown up with, the next he was a resentful, sarcastic man who acted more like a total stranger than a friend. With a glance back at him as he abruptly slammed a wrench against a table, I vaulted up the rest of the stairs. I didn’t have time to find out what was going on with him right now.

I moved down the hall, my boots clicking against the slate floor, until I reached the waterfall.

After a glance at Modnik that let her know I needed to talk with her privately, I idly fingered the wilted foliage of the trailing vines. The cubs were sprawled lazily over the branch of a large tree that overlooked the room, their pelts almost featureless in the dim light. Both stood at my approach and yawned—it was a stress yawn and they stared at their dam, seeking permission to run over to me. The overprotective eye of their mom could become monotonous after awhile. Tau began pacing, nearly beside himself with the desire to run to me. He chirped anxiously at her, but a low growl kept him in place on the branch.

“Hey, Modnik.” I motioned for her to come down from the tree, then was distracted by the shredded vines that hung low to the floor near my shoulder. “Little ones, Jace is going to have your hide if you don’t stop destroying these vines.”

Without warning, the horse-shifter seemed to appear in front of me, something that always made me inhale sharply and drive my heart rate up a few extra beats. “Geez, Jace! I asked you not to do that.”

“Sorry love, I heard my name.” Glancing down at the vines I held, he let loose a high-pitched chirp of disgust. I shot the cubs a quick look of apology.

“These are the most destructive cubs…” he muttered angrily under his breath. Lifting a vine, he dropped it in disgust.

Conscious of the kittens nearby, and not seeing any point in restating the obvious, I smiled at them as they sat a safe distance away looking appropriately chastised.

“They’re kittens, Jace. Of course they’re going to shred everything. If you don’t want the vines shredded, then cut them back far enough they can’t get a hold of them.” I paused and took a closer look at him. The middle of his chestnut hair had been lightly frosted with a flaxen strip; it was a new look for him and would have looked terrible on anyone else, but somehow he managed to pull it off.

“What did you do to your hair?”

He ran his hand through it. “Is it too much?”

In two gracious leaps, Modnik jumped down from the tree to sit next to us and receive a head scratch from me as she rubbed against my leg.

I looked at Jace again. “Oddly, it works on you.”

He grinned, our last conversation apparently forgiven, and turned his attention to Modnik. The cubs still hesitated, waiting for her go-ahead. “Well, aren’t you going to let the kids come say hello? Don’t be rude, Modnik.”