She'd never told them so, but she craved adventure.

 And if there was one thing Ryars Valley lacked, it was excitement. She'd heard all kinds of wild stories, of course, but if dragons had ever battled here, or a cult had ever flourished, all traces of them were long gone. Life had been whittled down to a slow round of school and gossip, and it left Joana Katter disgruntled and bored.

 She'd thought there was more to the Nightworld than this. It was just as her old life had been, as if she had never been changed, remaining as domesticated and demure as ever. She did all the things that teenaged girls did: she spent endless hours in front of a mirror, bought and discarded clothes as fast as the seasons changed, bitched and argued and flirted, all with the same devilish smile on her mouth.

 And the fact that she was barely human seemed to pass everyone by; her life was scudding past like clouds caught on the wind.

 Her friends were an eclectic mix, all of them apparently content to meander through the days as idly as a magician shuffling cards, the promise of magic shrunk down to the dreary feeling that she'd done all this before.

 "God, I wish something would happen," she said to Riose Orage as he sat under the sun, picking at a bag of chocolate.

 "Like what?" he'd asked, his voice slow and sure as the Nile.

 "I don't know." She waggled her fingers, sketching vague shapes in the air. "Anything."

 "Dangerous request." She thought she'd seen something dark and bitter swell in his eyes, stealing some of his tranquillity to give his face a subtle rigidity she found unexpectedly intimidating. "You don't want it granted."

 The sharpness of his words had ended the conversation.

~*~

 She loved the hunting nights. They were the only times she felt her staid life unfurling into something of the lushness and intimacy she had been promised.

 Under the glancing light of the moon, she danced from shadow to shadow, moving between forms; one moment, a girl sliding between the trees as if her body was nothing more than cotton shimmying on a breeze, all arches and hollows in the gloom...next, a bundle of camouflage and claws, the sounds of the forest magnified in her ears, scrambling up trunks, leaping easily from branch to branch.

 Nothing then but the patter of her heart, beating twice as fast a human's, tail twitching occasionally as she crouched in the undergrowth, watching for prey-

 There, a hunter poised, she felt most alive, indoctrinated to a world that she saw with feline eyes and understood with a human mind.

 Sometimes, she ran with other shapeshifters, though not many of them were sociable enough to share their kills. A pair of foxes were willing to track prey with her, and sometimes they'd fight in a thrilling tangle of tooth and claw that Jo enjoyed almost as much as the hunt. It was never serious, and she rather thought the older of the two brothers hoped for more than a rough-and-tumble friendship. Sometimes Jepar Jubatus joined them, though he was always a discord; cheetahs belonged on the grasslands, in hot and sultry climes, not in temperate woodlands. There were others as well, a carousel of changing faces and bodies that she considered little more than acquaintances.

 If she was honest with herself, she longed for someone to share it with.

 She'd thought Patrick Gibson might be the person, but it turned out she had just been a distraction, a way for him to pass the time before his family married him off to a nice, respectable shapeshifter. He'd presented her with a wad of lies, dressed up in flattery and sob stories, and she'd believed him.

 Dumb, yes, but she was no longer so easily fooled.

 He'd seemed so worldly when they met; even though he was only few months older, he had an effortless confidence she'd admired, snared by his seeming mystery. A mystery he had made every effort to cultivate, she saw now. It had been a childish romance of kisses and cuddles and clumsy vows of forever.

 They'd got a little drunk one night on cheap cider and a bottle of whisky she'd stolen from her mother's drinks' cabinet. Well. A lot drunk.

 Then it had all slipped out in a whispered confession, his breath reeking of alcohol and his expression full of self-pity. How hard it all was, how he would be married off to some girl he barely knew, how she was so much more fun and the only little setback was how human she was...

 When Patrick changed, right there before her doubling vision, she'd only been able to think how cool it all was, like something from a movie - and how cute he was even as a cat with those big eyes and his fluffy face-

 Boy, she must have been paralytic.

 Maybe that was why she'd agreed when he suggested changing her. Jo liked to think that she'd have had the sense to say no in better circumstances. After all, when you thought it was forever, relative immortality seemed like a good idea.

Mistake.

 And so at thirteen, she'd been inducted into the Nightworld. She hadn't had any real awareness of what would happen, and neither had he. She remembered markedly little of the change itself; she'd fallen into a fever, blood still on her neck and arms, and that must have been about the point where he panicked and ran.

 At least he'd called an ambulance before he fled, shunning her in an act of self-preservation that made her realise that he wasn't just a boy who could look like a cat; he was as much a cat as a boy, a weird amalgam of instinct and thoughtless cruelty and intelligence.

 Of course, by the time she realised all that, it was far too late to change her mind.  

 She woke to crisp sheets and her mother's anxious face. And beside her, a man she didn't recognise, who introduced himself to both of them; a man who later turned out to be rather well-known in the Night World. Over a period of several days, he'd explained just what had happened, and suggested that for a few years, Jo live with a shapeshifter family who could teach her about the life she'd chosen.

 In no uncertain terms, he had made some of the nastier aspects of the Nightworld clear, particularly what happened to those changed illegally, and he'd spoken in gut-wrenching detail of The Furies, and just what they would do to someone like her. Especially as the Gibson family had drawn up a contract for her life.

  His insistence, his bluntness, his unflinching brutality had persuaded both of them.

 So now her mother lived halfway across the country, much beloved and missed, but safe, thank god.

 And she lived with a foster family, embroiled in the alien culture that would be hers now until the day she died. She wore a human face, but when you got down to it, she lived by the law of the jungle.

 And she was lonely. Very lonely.

She'd made friends, yes, but they had lived with the Nightworld for longer than she and it had lost its excitement for them, if it had ever had any. Celia was human, yet had a blasé, amused air about the Nightworld, as if it was some quaint ideology like Gnosticism or Scientology. As a witch, Finn treated his powers as part inheritance, part religion and part lifestyle choice, and except from his tendency to start fires, displayed disturbing normalcy. Riose had shucked off almost all the customs of traditional lamia families, from what she could gather, and had a positive obsession with living as human a life as possible.

 Phi was perhaps the most absorbed in true Nightworld ideals, but she seemed to spend more time trying to escape her inhumanity rather than embracing it. She was a mermaid in the truest sense of the word, yet only her love of all things aquatic and her alluring singing voice gave away her true form.

 Much as she loved them, Jo suspected she was the only one of her friends who wasn't trying to run from the Nightworld.

 And she longed for someone else to explore its secrets with, to delve into the lustrous nights with, who could understand the passion she felt for what she had become: for the hunter that thirsted for the simple pleasures of stealth and long nights, for the girl who was finding grace in her own movements and in her own ideals, for the life that was laid out before her in a plush array of sensual and spiritual experience.

 She'd come to the Nightworld through a mistake, but she didn't regret making it.

 She wondered if the rest of her friends felt the same.

~*~

 In the afternoons, when school was done, she liked to go out to the very edge of the woods where a big oak tree flourished. The faint scent of magic explained just why it was growing in barren soil, and she spared a thought for its mysterious planter who had provided her favourite lair.

 She swung herself up into the tree, her fingernails sharpening into claws that gave her extra grip. Where several of the branches met the trunk, there was a wide cradle that she'd laid an old blanket across, making herself a sort of makeshift sun-bed. It was too hot for fur, so she curled into the hollow, dappled sunlight striking her through the gaps in the leaves above.

 She'd been lying there long enough for her eyes to fall closed, the warm air wrapped around her like a blanket, drifting in a pleasant torpor-

 "Hellcat!"

 Jo jumped, blinking dazedly. For a moment she didn't recognise the light voice or its grinning owner, but then her sleepy mind caught up, and she returned his smile, leaning out from her nest. "Foxy boy. What are you doing all the way out here?"

 She was used to seeing Adrian Raynard at night, when he was reduced down to a palette of dull hues. It was something of a shock to see him under sunlight, and here, of all places. Unlike most shapeshifters, there was nothing to give away his animal form: the curly brown hair and hazel eyes were more ursine than vulpine, and only his nimble movements and small frame spoke of a fox's swift and feral ways.  

"We-ell..." He tilted his head to one side, peering up through his eyelashes with the manner of a child confessing to wrongdoing. It was peculiarly endearing. "I saw you walking out of town and wondered where you were headed. Curiosity, and all that."

 "I thought that was supposed to be my trait," she called down.

 He waggled a finger out her. "Oh hellcat, you have a lot to learn about foxes."

 "This has nothing do with foxes. You're just nosy." But there was no real sharpness behind her words. In a way, she was flattered that he'd been interested enough to follow her.

 He prodded his nose. "Hmm. That's not my fault, that's just genetics. Besides, I don't think it's that big."

 "Well, you know what they say about men with big noses..." Jo quipped, amused by his theatrics. That was something else about Adrian; you could always count on him to entertain. On hunt nights, he liked to hide in the undergrowth and ambush people. He'd done it to one of the Pack once, by mistake, and only escaped on those fast little fox's legs, minus a few tufts of his tail.

 "That they use a lot of tissues?"

 She sniggered. "Well...in a manner of speaking."

 "Crude," he chided, but she noticed his mouth trembling as if he was trying not to laugh. "So..." said Adrian with attempted nonchalance, hooking his thumbs into his waistband. "Is there room for a little one up there?"

 She eyed up her space, pretending to weigh up the notion. In truth, though, there was plenty of room and he was easy company. "If you think those pretty paws can handle the climb."

 "Ha!" With surprising agility for a shapeshifter who spent most of his time three inches from the ground, he scrambled up the branches, plumping himself down next to her with a distinctly smug air. "Relic of a misspent youth," he explained, settling into a patch of sun. "How'd you find this place?"

 "I might possibly have played a prank on Don Ivan," she murmured. "And the pod boys might just possibly have chased me all the way across town. They can swim like no one's business, but they can't climb trees."

 His body was a heavy weight on her side, and that feline part of her wanted to curl up against him and soak up his heat. Instead, she linked her hands behind her head and watched the leaves move, clouds drifting over the ragged holes where the sky showed through the canopy.

 "Our friendly Mafia," Adrian said dryly. "I've never met such a touchy bunch."

 "Not even that wolf you jumped out on?"

 "More bite-y than touchy," he said thoughtfully. "Chronic bad breath too. Plus I think I'd miss the Pack's special brand of mania if they weren't around. They add a bit of local flavour."

 She glanced at him sideways. "Yeah, unwashed skin."

 "Well, if you will bite them..." he countered loftily.

 "He ate my dinner."

 He shook his head sadly, and even when he wasn't smiling, the promise of it seemed to hover on his mouth, soft in his eyes. "Oh, of course, you were completely justified in taking on a wolf four times your size - because there's only one vole in the whole of the woods. You just like trouble, hellcat, admit it."

 "Maybe," she said evasively. "Anyway, so do you!"

 He raised his eyebrows, a touch of ridicule under his words. "Of course I do. Why else do you think I'm here?"

 She hadn't expected that. "Meaning...?"

 He looked right at her - and there it was, a fox's boldness, something of the wild in the gold flecks of his eyes, something she recognised like it was part of herself. "Meaning I don't usually follow girls around. So, hellcat, want to make some trouble together?"

 "Now?"

 His laugh was low and cheerful, and it occurred to her that it had been a long time since she'd heard her friends' laughter. Odd, that. "What, you need a timetable? Well, we could go out tomorrow evening."

 Her heart sank a little; he would suggest the cinema, or maybe a meal, and it would be like any other date in any other life. But still, she reminded herself, he's cute, and he's funny, and you know he's got a wicked streak a mile wide, and all of those make for a lot of fun. So why does anything else matter? It shouldn't, should it?

 "What did you have in mind?" she asked, letting coyness coil through her voice like candle smoke.

 "Hmm..." Something appealing about his face, lively and expressive, the wide mouth, the round impish features. "Well, I've heard there's a haunted house out in the woods. If that's not too weird for you, want to go take a look?"

 Huh? He looked like he meant it.

 A haunted house. Now that...that sounded like somewhere a cat could risk one of her nine lives, and it sounded like somewhere a pair of intrepid adventurers could find some trouble, somewhere with the promise of cobwebbed corners and old myths, maybe a ghoul or two.

 "If you think you can handle it," she said, a little thrill squirming down her spine, even under the summer sky. "And me."

  "So far, so good."

 And she thought of the promise those words held: of further and better, and her smile was that of a cat, slow and sinuous and satisfied.
        
 "And as long as you don´t expect me to behave," she added, pretending to examine her nails.
        
 He looked appalled. "Of course not! I certainly don´t intend to."
        
 Suddenly, the future was looking a lot more exciting.