Night Cat | Night Cat #1 (CURRENTLY EDITING)

Night Cat - Chapter 17

Caught in a Catfight.

The furious panther circled around the bobcat menacingly, reminding me of a vulture I’d seen once on the Discovery Channel.

“Xander...” I could barely hear my own voice. It felt as if I’d tried to swallow half a dozen frogs in one go. “...Calm down.”

The panther roared back at me, causing my hair to stand up. I shut my mouth, not wanting to tick him off anymore than he already was.

Keegan, meanwhile, looked like he was about to wet himself. I guess he never expected Xander to ever become this wild. Well, that made two of us.

He kept spinning around in circles, not wanting to leave his back exposed. I resisted the urge to growl. As if Xander would ever attack him while his back was turned. I could literally feel my heart pounding away inside my oesophagus as I watched the two hunters walk around the clearing in dizzying circles.

Unable to contain himself anymore, Keegan made the first move, leaping at Xander with a strangled yowl. I cried out in fear. “Xander, Look out!”

The panther didn’t need my warning. As soon as the bobcat had moved, he had sprung into action, leaping out of the way just as the bobcat landed right where he’d originally been standing.

The look on the panther’s face told me he wasn’t too happy about Keegan’s decision to fight. He let out a loud, threatening roar and advanced on the bobcat, swatting him deftly with his paw.

I took a few steps back, scared. This was not the Xander I knew. The Xander I knew would have stayed on the defence and wouldn’t have wanted to hurt Keegan. Sure, the guy was a cold-blooded murder, but I knew Xander would never have attacked him the way the Panther was now.

Keegan recoiled and sprang again, this time landing on Xander’s back. He swiped, xreating a long gash in Xander’s neck.

I stared at the panther in horror. The fur around his neck was stained with crimson red blood, and an open wound stood out against the jet black fur. He was wounded.

It’s your fault, that annoying voice in my head told me. It’s your fault Xander is injured. You should have stayed at home.

My conscious was right. There was no denying it. If I had just stayed in bed like the doctor ordered, none of us would be in this mess right now. But my incontrollable need to figure out the truth had landed the three of us in a flame that was going to burn us into a crisp unless one of us did something about it.

Looking at the raging war that was going on in front of me, I didn’t think that the two males were going to be able to get their heads out of their butts long enough to get us out of this situation.

That left me.

But what could I do? I was trapped in my human form. Grandma Sanchez’s spell made me vulnerable. I couldn’t get us out of this mess if I didn’t stop this fight before one of the two wild cats in front of me killed the other.

Stupid spell. Stupid Grandma Sanchez for thinking I was the murderer. Stupid, stupid, stu—

A bolt of lightning hit my brain.

Of course! Why hadn’t I realized it before?

Grandma Sanchez had cast that spell to keep the werecat responsible for the murders from shifting. I wasn’t the murderer! I mean, sure, she had used my fur and all, but none of that mattered. I wasn’t the one responsible for those deaths, Keegan was.

I grinned, I’d just found a loophole to the spell. Eat that Wicca magic!

I ran over to a tree and climbed it, trying to get away from all the chaos down below. One I found a secure branch, I closed my eyes, concentrating. Praying.

Just as before, I couldn’t find my switch when I closed my eyes. I ignored that, focusing on the task at hand.

I’m not the murderer, I chanted in my mind. I’m not the killer cat.

Nothing changed.

I’m not the murderer.

Nothing. I shut my eyes tighter, blocking out the roars and hisses sounding below me.

I’m not the murderer! I repeated, determined to make this work. This time, there was a small flicker of faint yellow light.

I’M NOT THE MURDERER!

The blackness gave way, and I was hit with a burst of color. First it was gray, and then blue; then mauve and orange and then – Gold.

When I opened my eyes, I couldn’t hear the roars and snarls from the cats anymore. I could hear voices.

I’d broken the spell. I’d shifted.

Not wasting anytime, I leapt off the branch and landed smack in the middle of the fight.

“STOP!” I roared, jumping in-between the snarling beasts. They halted, thunderstruck.

“Ave???” The bobcat yowled in surprise. “How did—”

“I found a loop hole.” I said shortly. I wasn’t in the mod to deal with Keegan just yet.

I turned to Xander, ignoring the fact that the world had just started to spin again. “Xander, I need you to control yourself.”

Xander roared. “Control myself??” I winced at the sound. My eardrums were close to bursting. “I should kill him for what he’s done.”

I took a deep breath, trying to steady myself as the cliff on front of me titled precariously. “No, Xander. Then you won’t be any better than he is.” I blinked twice. My vision was starting to get really blurry. I thought I’d just seen another tail on Xander. “This is not you talking—”

“Yes it is!”

“No. It’s not.” I closed my eyes. I couldn’t look at that dizzying world anymore. “It’s your cat form. The animal inside you. Not the Xander I know.”

Something flickered behind those strange charcoal eyes. Was it comprehension?

“What the heck are you talking about Ave?” Keegan demanded angrily.

I continued to look at Xander, ignoring him. “It’s a full moon Xander.”

As he looked up to the sky, his stony eyes sublimed once more, turning smoky gray again. Understanding filled all the planes of his face. “The full...” He inhaled, slowly. “Oh God... Avery, I’m so sorry.”

Now there were three Xanders standing in front of me instead of one. I could feel his words ricocheting around my head, pounding on the walls of my skull. I felt nauseas. “It’s okay Xan”

I’d been about to tell him the perfect way to deal with Keegan, but I couldn’t. Because just then, I collapsed onto the mossy floor of the forest and blacked out. Again.