Chapter One
It started as a whisper. As all important moments in life do.
Her.
So softly, it crept from deep within his soul. His mangled, vicious soul. Whatever of it was left.
Her. Her, her.
It grew louder. More urgent. Uncomfortable.
Thomas “Ratchet” Golding stared down at the female curled into the tightest ball on the floor of the storage shed behind a row of trash barrels, wondering if she was dead.
No. Not dead. Too pink to be dead. But definitely asleep. Which seemed all wrong since he’d just tromped his way in here without a care.
Carefully, he crouched low to investigate. Her dark hair was snarled all to hell. Like she’d rolled around on a Velcro pillow. Some of it hung over her dirty face, but he didn’t dare touch her to move it. A thin hooded jacket was all she had for warmth, and the boots on her feet had a tear on the toe of the left one. The nails of both hands were broken. Several were caked with dried blood. Knuckles were bruised. Lips were cracked. And he suspected other parts of her were just as damaged even though they were covered by her clothes.
Her. She’s the one. Keep her.
Ratchet frowned at the voice whispering through his head. It was foreign. New. But similar to the voice he’d heard his whole life until two years ago. The one that belonged to his inner cat. His lion.
The lion he couldn’t call from his body anymore.
The one who’d hurt so many.
The one who had no voice anymore, no instinct to guide Ratchet. The one he’d relied on his entire life.
The one that failed him.
The cat would be able to hear her heartbeat, her breathing. The cat could be sure of her status. It would scent her, and know where she’d been. Who she’d been with. Whether she was dosed…
But without the cat, Ratchet couldn’t know any of those things.
Locked inside his body because of a curse, the animal had faded to something else. Something quiet. Something hardly there. Something learning. Changing.
The female whimpered in her sleep, assuring Ratchet that she was indeed alive. She jerked, her hands curling into claws, and for a breath, he thought she was awake. But she’d moved enough to shake the hair from over her eyes, and he could see she was still out. Deep in a nightmare, if her whispered, “no, no,” was anything to go by.
Should he wake her?
He glanced around, listening for any sign of the others. He didn’t call any of them brother anymore. They weren’t that. Not a brotherhood like they’d once been, brought together for the sole purpose of hurting others to gain power. The goal was to have so much of it, nothing stopped them from getting what they wanted, whatever that might be. No life was worth more than power. That had been the motto ground into them from a young age.
Now they were a miserable bunch of damaged shifters that had nowhere else to go. They were as any other human, but worse off. Because at least humans didn’t know what they were missing. The power of a shift, your body changing from one form to another at your beck and call. The power of the fear it instilled in others when your beast could overtake them with barely any effort.
Ratchet had lived off that fear.
Hungered for it.
The eyes pulled wide to see all the whites. The terror in a scream… he’d bathed in that, lapped it up like fucking cream.
Now he didn’t give one shit about making anyone piss their pants. He’d trade every piece of the past to have his animal back to working. One half of everything he was, just gone, in a blink… yeah, he’d do it all again differently if he had a chance.
They all would.
Everyone except Felix. The leader of their clan wasn’t so easily swayed by a little suffering. He’d been raised on worse. And something told Ratchet, the male was just biding his time until he could find a way out of his human shell. If it ever happened, the world was going to see what a were-jag rampage looked like. Ratchet had seen enough human Felix rampages to know an animal one wouldn’t be pretty.
“No, no,” the female murmured louder. Her voice was small and fragile, but it made noise.
And noise would attract the others.
Others included Felix.
And Felix might hurt her.
Which was unacceptable.
Ratchet frowned. Why would he care? He didn’t know this female, and she was trespassing on private property.
Because it’s her. Yours.
His? Bullshit. His mind was messing with him. Telling him things that might make him keep trying, when all he wanted to do was stop.
Stop going. Stop working.
Stop living, because he wasn’t really living anyway, and hadn’t been for a long, long time. Even before the battle that left him and the others crippled.
Besides, he didn’t believe the Alley Cats were getting fixed like some of them did. Skittles, that hopeful bastard, liked to think there was a way out, and Felix urged him on, if only so that one day he could get his revenge.
Ratchet wasn’t that stupid.
. They got hellfire and brimstone.
“No!” The female’s terrified cry rattled through the storage shed, making Ratchet stiffen. Her eyes popped open, going wide in emerald terror. The green irises, rimmed in red-streaked whites, was a testament to whatever she’d been dreaming. They zeroed in on him and went impossibly wider.
She jerked to a sit, scrambling backward and slamming into an empty barrel. The metal sliding against the concrete made an ear-splitting noise that was sure to grab anyone’s attention if they were near.
Shit.
Ratchet lunged forward to grab her, but she kicked her foot out just as he was about to connect. Her booted heel hit him just underneath the ribs, stealing his breath like a punch. She tried to crawl away, but couldn’t get very far, trapped by the barrels like she was. With a growl, he came at her side ways, reaching, but she knocked his hands away with a whimper. Her head went side to side. “No, no, please,” she begged, and it hit his chest all wrong.
He liked begging. Begging meant he was in control and the other person could be crushed under his toe like a tiny ant. Begging meant he had all the power. Begging was sweet music to his ears.
But not now.
Now it twisted his heart up like a crumpled sheet of paper in an angry fist.
“The hell is that?” Felix’s voice boomed across the parking lot outside.
“Whatever,” Skittles said in his normal bored tone. “Someone rummaging through the shed.”
“Don’t sound like someone rummaging. Sounds like someone messing shit up.”
“Ain’t nothing to mess up,” Skittles argued. “Just some old barrels and tools. We sold off all the valuables.”
The female started up again. “Please, please, please…”
“Shhh,” Ratchet hurried out, but he knew it was too late.
“Did you hear that?” Felix said darkly.
“Hear what?”
Footsteps crunched heavily through the gravel, getting closer and closer. And something crazy happened.
Ratchet felt fear.
Deep inside, way down.
So far down, he wondered if had ever existed at all. But he knew it did. It had just been beaten out of him at a young age. It was the only way to make an Alley Cat. Form them through careful intimidation, physical pain, emotional pain, and give them zero to live for except power. Always about the power.
But his fear wasn’t for himself. He’d been hoping Felix would cut him down for good for a while now. No. His fear was for the terrified little female who’d chosen their storage shed floor for a bed. He knew what Felix did to females. What they all did. Physically, none had been harmed. Mentally, he couldn’t say the same.
His stomach curled as the memories of his sins rose like cream to the top. The lying, the stealing, the using.
He was a bastard. They were all bastards.
He couldn’t let this female fall victim. He couldn’t change what he’d done in the past, but he could damn well keep another human from experiencing that shit. Maybe it would be his grand finale. Save her and then leave, like Gash did, like Malcom did.
Except leave permanently. Just stop… being.
“Ple—”
In a smooth move, Ratchet jerked her up off the floor and slid his hand over her mouth to muffle her pleas. Her back to his front, he locked her in with his forearm and tightened it until she stopped struggling.
“Hush, woman. Someone worse than me is coming.” The smash of boots was nearly at the door.
He could tell her to run. Leave here and stay away. But what if Felix found her on the way out? What if she was stupid and came back? What if whatever she was scared of caught her… and was worse than Felix?
Keep her, the voice inside whispered.
There was only one thing to do.
Ratchet dragged her past the barrels and out the back door of the storage shed, just as Felix and Skittles strolled in the front.