Page 49

“His point,” Ezra said, “is that you’ve talked to our cats plenty while we’ve been in our two-legged form. They didn’t hurtyou then, and they won’t hurt you when we’re in our four-legged form, either.”

“I mean, don’t pull our tails or try to clean our ears,” Elijah said, and Ezra laughed.

“Sounds like there’s a story?” Dev asked. “I don’t recall seeing that warning in your paperwork.”

Ezra shrugged. “Someone we were loaned to for a few days. Not a big deal, and we were smart enough not to leave any teeth or claw marks. We just played with him enough to get the point across not to torment us in cat form.”

Dev crossed his arms. “For the record, I’ll do whatever I want to you, in whatever form you’re in, until you’ve passed the Concilio’s test that gives you the autonomy to make your own choices.”

“Yeah, so did our former masters,” Elijah said, “but he wasn’t our Master, and he was just being an ass.” He looked at Genie. “You’d never be an ass to us, so it’s probably okay if you play with our tails and look in our ears. They shouldn’t need cleaning because we don’t get to stay cat long enough for them to get dirty.”

“Is that something you’d want to do?” Genie asked.

“Well, yeah,” Ezra said. “To run and eat as a cat for a few days? That’d be heaven.”

“Prove yourself worthy of the trust, and you’ll be able to do that on this property,” Dev told them. “Might take a year or more to get there. It won’t be a quick thing, but there’s a path towards it.”

“My owl is so vulnerable,” Genie said, “I’ve never considered spending an extended time in her form.”

“Would you want to?” Dev asked.

Genie shook her head. “No way I could sleep. I told you a pine snake almost got me once, and that isn’t the only close callI’ve had. Once, I’d have been hawk food for sure if I hadn’t seen him coming and been able tochangeto human so fast.”

“If it’s important, we’ll figure it out,” Dev told her. “If it isn’t, we’ll make sure you’re safe for the time you want to be outside. I know Frost came with you once. We have plenty of birds of prey in our guard unit that I’d trust to keep you safe, too. Or we can probably come up with an aviary.”

“The thing about an aviary is that there has to be concrete under the dirt, which means you can’t have real trees, or if they are, they have to be in containers. Snakes can go under fences, mongooses and other predators tunnel under, too. It isn’t just the need for strong netting on the roof and walls.”

“Okay. Sounds like it’s a conversation for later.” He looked at the twins. “I’m sorry for the way we’ll have to transport you. I could tell you I’m following Brooke’s orders, but the truth is, I’d have made the same decision if it were mine to make. You’ve both gone a long way towards the beginning of trust, but it’s early days.”

“Leg and wrist irons?” Ezra asked.

“A little more, today, but it’s a twelve-minute drive. You’ll find sweatpants and a hoodie laid out for you, and socks with your slip-on sneakers. I’ll walk the two of you to the garage once you’ve changed.”

Genie watched the twins have to lie in the cages and place their wrists and ankles into the designated slots, so they’d be trapped in place when the lids were settled in place.

The tops of the cages were barely an inch above their faces when they were supine, and the right length for their height. They were flat on their backs, the enclosures somehow bolted into the storage area of the van so they didn’t move. A black cloth was settled over the cages, the two extra guards got into the back seat, and Dev got behind the wheel. He checked Genie’s seatbelt and then opened the garage, started the engine, and pulled out.

As promised, it didn’t take terribly long to get there, though Genie felt certain they made several unnecessary turns. They pulled up to a gate, it opened, they drove through, it closed, and then a good minute later, the next gate opened and let them through.

The house looked small for the size of the property and the level of security, but Genie knew vampire houses were mostly underground affairs, usually.

It didn’t take long to get the twins out of their cages, and Dev told them tochangeinside the van. Genie was aware the Concilio was worried about what satellites could pick up, so it made sense, once she considered it.

She’d worried she wouldn’t be able to tell them apart in their cat forms, but she could still feel them. Ezra and his practicality, Elijah and his adventurousness. They rubbed against her, claiming her as theirs, scent-marking her, and she laughed and petted their lithe, strong, furry bodies. Muscles under a super-soft pelt. Raw strength. What must it be like to change into something lethal?

Okay, so she was lethal to chipmunks and mice, but she was food to most everything else.

“Clive is at the main house today,” Dev told her when the cats had run off into the woods and he and Genie had entered a room off the garage. “He never has access to this room, but we usually don’t enter it unless he’s either outside in his animal form, or not here.”

“I assume honey badgers have a good sense of smell, so he’ll know you went through the door.”

“Yes. We aren’t hiding it from him, just trying not to shove it in his face that there are a few rooms in the home he considers his that he doesn’t have access to.”

Genie understood why they wouldn’t want him to know the tech implanted on the property when she realized the entire twoacres, much of it wooded, was set up so they could sense the heat signature of anything on the property.

“There should be more wildlife than this,” she noted. “Has Clive eaten all the birds, squirrels, and chipmunks? Other smaller critters, too.”

“Our equipment only notifies us of anything over three and a half pounds. It can be set to show us things that weigh less, but Clive rarely goes for anything less than about six or eight pounds, so this safely lets us know what might attract his attention.”