Page 53 of Beasts of Mine

Which, apparently, he had.

Interesting.

I edged slightly forward. Malek's eyes immediately shifted toward my fern.

I stopped.

Then Evie appeared between the trees.

My first thought was that she carried entirely too much equipment. There were straps everywhere. One camera rested against her chest, another smaller one hung near her hip, and a dark field bag crossed her body before knocking lightly against her thigh with each step. Her long black hair had been pulled into a braid over one shoulder, though the humidity had already freed several strands around her face. Dirt marked one knee of her cargo shorts, and a faint smear of something green crossed the inside of her wrist.

She looked as though she'd spent the morning crawling through half the forest and considered that a productive use of her time. Then she saw Malek, and her entire face brightened.

“There you are. I was starting to think the monkeys finally convinced you to move,” Evie greeted Malek, smiling as she adjusted the camera strap digging into her shoulder and headed toward the creek without the slightest hesitation.

I glanced at Malek. His expression remained annoyingly controlled, but his scent didn't. The change was subtle, a hint of satisfaction warming it as she approached.

Our Head Alpha was in serious trouble.

And miss lunch? Malek asked Evie, lowering his chin onto his paws with enough casual indifference that I might have believed him if I hadn't spent the last ten minutes watching him listen for her.

“I'm so glad I know where I rank,” Evie told Malek, laughing as she tested the first wet stone with one boot before carefully transferring her weight onto it.

Evie didn't use the careful voice humans usually adopted around something large enough to kill them. She wasn't trying to sound soothing or nonthreatening. She spoke to Malek as though he'd been irritating her for years instead of less than a week, and Malek answered her with a familiarity I'd never heard him use with a human before.

She crossed the final stone, stepped onto our side of the creek, and dropped her bag beside the roots.

I shifted one front paw.

A branch beneath the fern cracked.

Evie's fingers stopped on the zipper.

Malek closed his eyes.

I chose to interpret that as support.

“What was that?” Evie asked Malek, straightening slowly while her gaze moved toward the vegetation hiding me. Without seeming to realize she'd done it, she shifted a little closer to his side.

Nothing dangerous, Malek told Evie, opening his eyes and staring directly into the leaves where I sat.

Evie's eyebrows rose.

“That answer somehow made it worse,” Evie informed Malek, squinting toward the ferns while one hand remained curled around the strap of her bag.

I could have stayed hidden longer. Malek almost certainly wanted me to.

I stepped out instead. Evie went silent. Her gaze moved over my face first, then down the line of my shoulders and across the rosettes covering my coat. The caution in her posture lasted only a moment before curiosity pushed it aside.

I approved.

Then Luca emerged from the shade on the opposite side of the clearing. Evie's head turned toward him. She stared for a moment, looked back at me, and then very slowly turned toward Malek.

“Oh, you've got to be kidding me. Cat, there are three of you,” Evie told Malek, lifting one hand as she gestured between us with open disbelief.

I almost forgot the entire reason I was there.

Cat.