“We’re not asking you to leave.” Slash paused beside Star Flower. Pushing his muzzle close to her injured cheek, he licked the blood from her fur with a long, lingering lap. “I just want to meet with the leaders of your groups so we can discuss how you might share your prey with us, like the strays used to.” He glanced up at the sky. The moon was high and bright. “Tomorrow night, at this same time, I want to meet all the leaders on the sunning rocks beside the river.”
Clear Sky stared back at him. What kind of leader would obey these fox-hearts? “What if they don’t agree?”
Slash’s tail flicked sharply behind him. “I will kill Star Flower.” He nodded to the tabby tom and padded away between the trees. The tabby grabbed Star Flower’s scruff between his teeth and dragged her after Slash. The ginger tom followed, snarling at Star Flower’s tail as her legs kicked in a futile attempt to free herself.
Clear Sky’s thoughts tumbled over one another. Blood pulsed though his paws. He wanted to run after them and free Star Flower. But she might die.
So might the kits!
He felt sick.
The bracken rustled behind him.
He turned, fur bushing, as Quick Water slunk out.
“Were you watching?” he gasped.
She nodded, her gaze sharp.
“Why didn’t you help?”
“Two against four?” Quick Water narrowed her eyes.
“Three against three!” Clear Sky hissed. “Star Flower would have fought beside us.”
“Would she?” Quick Water looked unconvinced. “It sounded to me like she and Slash were pretty close once. And you remember how she betrayed us for her father. Why wouldn’t she betray us for her father’s friend, too?”
Rage pulsed through Clear Sky. “Didn’t you see how he hurt her?”
“It could have been part of the act.”
Blood roaring in his ears, Clear Sky lashed out with his paw and raked Quick Water’s face.
“Does that feel like an act?” he yowled.
Quick Water ducked away as blood shone on her muzzle. She glanced at him resentfully.
“Clawing me won’t make Star Flower loyal.”
“She is loyal!” Clear Sky hissed. “More loyal than my own kin!”
“Only you believe that.” Quick Water rubbed her nose with her paw. “Do you really think the other leaders are going to risk their pelts to save Star Flower? No cat will fight those mangy rogues to save a traitor, even if she is carrying your kits.”
Clear Sky stared at the old she-cat. Where was her loyalty? Didn’t she realize these rogues weren’t just threatening Star Flower? They were threatening every cat! He pushed through the bracken, frustration burning in his pelt. Skirting the top of the mud bank, he barged past the bramble and stalked from the camp. The tops of the trees seemed aflame in the rising sun as he headed for the edge of the forest. Quick Water was wrong. The other cats would help. They weren’t mouse-brained old fleabags like she was. They’d realize the threat facing them.
And they will fight for Star Flower.
They had to! Even if Clear Sky had to force them to fight.
No one threatens my kits and gets away with it.
Bonus Scene
Prologue
Slate skidded to a halt, panting, and gazed around, her ears pricked. The moorland stretched away from her in all directions, the short, springy grass dotted with clumps of reeds, gorse bushes, and outcrops of rock. Nothing moved in all the landscape.
“Cricket!” Slate yowled, her pelt prickling with worry. “Cricket, where are you?”
There was no reply, no glimpse of her brother’s orange tabby fur.
I thought he was right behind me…
Slate and her brother, Cricket, had been racing toward a big jutting boulder that reared up from the flat moorland in front of them. Slate had been winning, and when she’d glanced over her shoulder to see how close her brother was, he had vanished.
It was stupid of me to get so far ahead, Slate thought. What if something happened to him?
Cricket is always getting into mischief. There were foxes and badgers on the moors, she knew, not to mention those aggressive cats who had appeared out of nowhere a few seasons before and settled down in huge groups as if they owned the place. What if Cricket had run into them?
Though they were littermates, Slate and Cricket were completely different cats. Slate had amber eyes and thick gray fur, quite unlike Cricket’s orange tabby pelt. Cricket was lighthearted, always joking and playing around, while Slate was more serious and liked to plan ahead.
Once they had been part of a happy family. But the sickness that stalked the moor had taken their mother and their sister, leaving Slate and Cricket alone.
We only have each other, Slate thought. I have to find him!
“YAAAHHHHH!” Slate let out a terrified yowl as something heavy landed on her back and she felt four sets of claws digging into her pelt. Instinctively she hit the ground and rolled, sliding out her claws and bracing her muscles for a fight. But her attacker still clung on, and Slate heard bubbling mrrow s of laughter coming from him.
“Cricket!” she spat. “You stupid furball!”
Cricket leaped away from her, and Slate scrambled to her paws to see him standing close beside her, his green eyes bright.
“You frightened me out of my fur!” she exclaimed.
“Yeah, I really got you.” Cricket’s tail curled with amusement. “You should have seen your face!”
Slate drew her lips back in the beginning of a snarl, then a moment later relaxed and swatted at her brother, brushing his ear with her claws sheathed. I can’t get angry with him. I love him too much.
“We can’t mess around all day,” she meowed. “We need to hunt.”
Cricket nodded vigorously. “My belly has never felt this empty.”
“Come on, then. I bet I catch something first.”
“We’ll see about that,” Cricket retorted.
The two cats split up. Cricket disappeared around a scatter of boulders, while Slate prowled across the moor, heading for the clumps of longer grass that grew around a pool. That’s a good place for prey to hide.
Slate parted her jaws to taste the air, and picked up the scent of mouse. When she angled her ears forward, she heard tiny sounds of scuffling from the long grass and saw the stems twitching as a mouse pushed its way between them. Setting her paws down lightly, Slate crept up on her prey, then bunched her muscles for a pounce. Her paws slammed down on the terrified creature and she grabbed it in her claws.
Suddenly a yowl of alarm came from behind the boulders where Cricket had disappeared. Slate paused, her head raised, the mouse wriggling desperately in her grip.
Is Cricket playing another joke? she wondered. I’ll make him sorry if I lose this mouse and we don’t eat today.
Sniffing, she caught a trace of rank scent drifting toward her. Fox! Releasing the mouse, she spun around in time to hear another yowl as Cricket burst into the open from behind the clump of boulders.
A big fox was hard on his paws, jaws wide to grab him.
My brother is not your prey!
Her heart thumping hard, Slate raced across the grass and hurled herself at the fox, swiping at its shoulder with her claws extended. The fox whipped around, faster than Slate had thought possible.