Free Andromeda's Fall (Shadowcat Nation) by Abigail Owen Page A

counter.
    Andie
tipped her head and then took a closer look around the space. “Really?”
    A.J.
shook his head at her with a smirk. “Oh, ye of little faith.”
    Andie
just regarded him, skepticism in every inch of her wary stance.
    “Nick
gets back tomorrow. We need to stick you somewhere.”
    Andie’s
mouth twitched. “Now that I believe. But why my own apartment?”
    A.J.
shrugged. “With Nick coming home you can’t stay with Hannah. We’re trying to
keep you a secret from most of the dare, and the only other cats you know are
the guards.”
    Looking
around, she nodded. “I could handle this.” She didn’t add that it would be nice
to have her own space finally. Much as she loved Hannah, she could use some
alone time. Andie turned and walked to the wall of windows that faced an inner
courtyard. Out of sheer habit, she started checking the alarm and safety
measures.
    “Why
do you do that?” A.J.’s voice at her side caused her to jump a little. Dang.
Snuck up on her again.
    “Do
what?”
    “You
do it in every new room you enter, check everything – alarms, cameras, exits.
You know you do. Are you afraid of Carstairs finding you here?”
    Andie
chewed at the inside of her cheek. Sure, she’d gotten a little closer to A.J.
these last weeks, but should she tell him? Andie moved to the couch and flopped
down. “This started long before Carstairs,” she began.
    A.J.
said nothing, just followed to sit beside her.
    “When
I was six years old, my mother went on a diplomatic mission seeking other types
of shifters for treaties either with the Carstairs Dare or the Shadowcat
Nation. My father was occupied with a coyote attack on the Carstairs northern borders,
so I went with Mom. They felt it was safer that way.”
    Andie
paused and glanced at A.J., who appeared to be listening attentively. He nodded
for her to continue.
    “My
mother was a very charismatic and charming woman, but also very strategically
smart. It made her excellent at diplomacy. The types of animals we were looking
to find were similar to cougars – loners who would make good allies against the
pack animals.”
    Andie
swallowed. This next bit was the hard part.
    “We’d
been gone about a month and were up in Northern Canada in a cabin with some
other shifters – I was six so I don’t really remember the details of who or
what.”
    She
paused again, lost in thought about a dark-haired boy three or four years older
than she was at the time. He’d played games with her. He’d grossed her out by
making her sardine sandwiches. He’d watched her while her mother was busy. For
a few days, it was like having an older brother.
    “We’d
been there a few days when the attack happened. Timber wolves. About fifteen or
so. Maybe twenty. I don’t really remember. I guess a decision was made to stay
in the house where we were meeting and to fight them from there rather than run
for help. This is almost twenty years ago now, so a lot of the technology we
have today wasn’t around yet to call for help.”
    Andie
swallowed hard before continuing. “The people we were with, my mother included,
held the wolves off as long as they could, but, the wolves just kept coming.
They… have you ever seen a wolf shifter pack attack? A coordinated one?”
    A.J.
nodded, but didn’t elaborate. Andie grimaced. “Then you know that they’re
relentless. No matter how many of them die or are injured, they just keep
coming.”
    She
shook her head as memories of fangs and fur, those eerie coordinated howls, and
the reflection of eyes in the moonlight flitted through her mind. And then
blood everywhere. Screaming. Chaos.
    “After
the first night, my mother took one of the wolves they’d killed and skinned it.
I asked her why she was doing that, and she said that it was to help me escape.
That if I saw a chance, I should wrap up in it and leave. Head south. Use all
the survival skills Dad had taught me.”
    “It
was to mask your scent,” A.J.