Chapter 2
“Good. All right, son. You may be part beast, but you’re human, too. So, wherever you came from, you’re gonna have to learn how to survive in this world as you are. People don’t like folks who are different, and you’ll learn that. Not that there’s anything wrong with you, but this world can be a scary place.” He studied me. “You probably already know this, since you were all alone out there in the woods.”
I stared at my plate, sadness overwhelming me. I had been abandoned, and I didn’t know why. Probably never would. A hand came into my line of vision and patted my head. I looked up at the human again. “My name’s Ben Cotter, and I’m gonna take care of you from now on, okay?”
I contemplated my savior. He looked sincere, smelled of truth. How had I gotten so lucky?
I said the first word that I’d used in a long time. “Okay.”
I was home. 1
There’s that smell again.
Feeling my cock rise, I made sure my jacket covered the bulge at my crotch completely. Wouldn’t want to scare off—or encourage—the client.I spoke from experience.
As I prowled around the scene of the previous night’s robbery, I considered my prey. This particular thief was unlike any other I’d encountered in the past. I’d caught the same scent at each location, and it smelled like…belonging.I didn’t know how else to describe it. Odd as this was, it seemed to call to me, and I wanted to know why. I needed to tell Uncle Ben about this. Maybe he could help me figure out why this affected me so much.
I smiled to myself as I thought about my cantankerous guardian. Benjamin Allen Cotter—”Ben” to everyone who knew him—was the man who’d raised me and had taken me in many years ago after I’d wandered up to his campfire in the woods—in shifted form, no less. I’d been just a cub then, and, kudos to Uncle Ben, he’d taken it in stride when I’d changed from beast to human while I devoured the food he’d offered me.
I was huge—at least ten feet in length, not counting my tail—and quite broad when I let out the beast. Neither Ben nor I had been able to figure out over the years just exactly whatI was, and we’d searched every source we could think of. I was simply the creature—body like a black panther, snow-white head like a Bengal tiger, with matching paws—that Uncle Ben had brought home to stay. Maybe my real parents had had an orgy or something. I was a weird mix of really bad-ass cats. Ben had adopted me, and I was christened Felix Cotter.
While examining the safe visually, I thought about my childhood. Growing up had been an adventure for Ben and me, especially as I adapted to more human ways, and learned to control my shifting, both partial and full. It didn’t depend on moon cycles or seasons that I could tell. Neither of us knew what my background had been, since I couldn’t remember much from before the time he’d found me. I would get pictures or images in dreams, sometimes. Maybe a smell that tried to trigger something, but never anything helpful.
So we started from scratch. I became less feral as I grew older. Uncle Ben homeschooled me until he felt it was safe for me to be out in public by myself. We would go into the woods near his house and explore my abilities. I went to high school and kept pretty much to myself, not making many friends. My sheer size as a human ensured that I was left alone, most of the time.
I needed to visit the old codger. I usually went home once a week, but this case had kept me too busy to do the long trip into the mountains for about a month. Maybe we’d go camping in the woods this weekend. I’d have to call Ben and see if he was up to it, with his rheumatoid arthritis and all.
As I continued to check the room for clues, I reflected as I always did, on my heightened olfactory abilities. It made me damn good at my job as an insurance investigator. All my senses were much keener than those of most people, but my nose was one of my greatest assets. It was something that I had honed to my advantage. I could literally sniff out the truth, or a lie. It didn’t hurt that I was also intimidating in person, at six-foot-seven inches in height. It was simply a fact of my life, and this spate of jewelry robberies from policyholders all along the East Coast was bringing every one of those abilities to bear.