River Of Fire

“That’s a kittypet?” she breathed out.

“Didn’t your mother tell you about us?” the huge tom rasped, the amusement vanishing from his tone. “Behave yourself or the big fierce kittypets will get you?”

“Jacques! We’ve had trouble with Jacques and his friend, Susan, in the past,” Rowanclaw told Violetshine. “But I guess by the time you came to the forest we had enough to worry about with Darktail.”

“Have you got my kits?” Yarrowleaf asked tremulously. “Oh, please give them back!”

“No, I haven’t got your kits, flea-brain,” the tom sneered. “But I know where they are. Do you want me to show you?”

“Oh, please!” Yarrowleaf begged.

“Okay.” The black-and-white tom rose to his paws on the branch and arched his back in a good long stretch. “But lay one claw on me and you’ll never see your kits again.” He jumped down from the branch and landed with a soft thump at Rowanclaw’s side. Violetshine wrinkled her nose at his unfamiliar scent.

“This way,” the tom meowed, with a wave of his tail.

Violetshine and the other Clan cats followed him around a bramble thicket and along a path that wound through banks of ferns. At one point a gap in the undergrowth showed her a Twoleg den surrounded by a rough stone wall, and she remembered passing it a few times when she was on patrol.

But the huge tom wasn’t going to the den. He veered away, leading the Clan cats downward until he came to a rocky hollow overshadowed by gorse bushes. Water dripped slowly from a gap in the rocks, forming a tiny pool at the bottom of the hollow.

Beside the pool, Tawnypelt was crouched between two other cats. One was a light brown tabby Violetshine had never seen before; she assumed this must be the dreaded Susan. The second cat was all too familiar: Raven, the black she-cat of Darktail’s Kin, who had held Violetshine back when Darktail and Sleekwhisker had tried to drown Needletail in the lake.

On the other side of the pool Violetshine spotted Sleekwhisker with Nettle, another of Darktail’s rogues, who had mated with Yarrowleaf. Two tiny kits were huddled together beside them, looking up at him with wide, frightened eyes.

“My kits!” Yarrowleaf gasped.

“Yarrowleaf!” Flaxkit wailed, springing up to run to her, only to be batted to the ground with a careless swipe of Nettle’s paw.

Yarrowleaf let out a screech and sprang down into the hollow, gathering the trembling kits close to her. Violetshine braced her muscles, ready for a fight to break out, but Nettle simply gave her a contemptuous glance.

“These are my kits,” he told Yarrowleaf. “They’re staying with me.”

Yarrowleaf glared at him, while Violetshine wondered how any she-cat could bear to mate with the obnoxious Nettle, let alone have kits with him.

The black-and-white kittypet strolled down into the hollow and sat beside his denmate, while Rowanclaw and the rest of the patrol remained at the top of the slope.

“Tawnypelt, what’s going on?” Rowanclaw demanded.

“I wish I knew,” Tawnypelt growled, her green eyes narrowing in a look of fury. “When Leafstar and the others left for RiverClan, Sleekwhisker asked me if I wanted to go hunting with her. But when we got out into the forest, she disappeared, and then these two bee-brains jumped me.” She flicked her tail at the kittypets. “At least I gave them something to remember me by.”

Violetshine had already noticed the fresh scratch on the black-and-white tom’s nose. Now she saw that the tabby kittypet was missing several clumps of fur down one side, and Tawnypelt had a trickle of drying blood on one shoulder.

Thank StarClan! Violetshine thought. Tawnypelt is a prisoner, not a traitor!

“I see.” There was the first hint of a growl in Rowanclaw’s voice. “And then I suppose Sleekwhisker doubled back to camp and took the kits. Very neat. But I still don’t see what you want with Tawnypelt.”

“Oh, she’s especially for you, Rowanclaw.” Sleekwhisker rose to her paws and faced her former leader, gazing up at him with triumph in her eyes. “You were a weak leader of ShadowClan. I was miserable growing up, and many cats I cared about died because you failed to deal with Darktail.”

Rowanclaw bowed his head. “All true,” he admitted. “But I have paid for it.”

“Not enough!” Sleekwhisker’s voice was savage. “Now I’m going to have my revenge, because I’ve taken the thing you love most—Tawnypelt!

Rowanclaw suddenly stiffened, flexing his claws into the leaf-mold on the forest floor. “You may have taken her, but you won’t keep her,” he snarled.

“No—I won’t keep her. I’m going to kill her,” Sleekwhisker meowed. “And you’re going to watch.”

“I’d like to see you try!” Tawnypelt spat at her.

“Oh, I’ll do more than try,” Sleekwhisker assured her. “Because if any other cat twitches a whisker, the kits will never see another sunrise.”

“No!” Yarrowleaf yowled.

She tried to gather her kits closer, but Nettle thrust her away and stood over the two shivering scraps, blocking them from any other cat.