Lurking Evil

Chapter 14

Whisperpaw opened her eyes to the sight of an orange tabby face standing over her.

"Guess what!" squealed Raypaw.

"What?" she grunted. Have you decided to keep your mouth shut while I'm trying to sleep?  she added to herself.

"Sagetail is going to have more kits! She told Bronzepelt on a hunting patrol the other day, and then she came to tell me!" Raypaw squealed.

"Really?" Whisperpaw sat up. More kits? In leaf-bare? Prey was scarce enough as it was without having more mouths to feed!

Raypaw bounced around the den. "So, I'm going to have brothers and sisters!"

Despite the fact that Raypaw had woken her up, Whisperpaw felt happy for him; he hadn't had any littermates; it'd just been him when he was a kit. Whisperpaw twitched her whiskers in amusement. "When will they be born?" she asked him.

"I don't know! I haven't asked her yet!"

Whisperpaw padded over to the den entrance. Dawn was rising on the camp, and the sky was pale orange. Frost glittered in the sunlight and the ground was covered in patches of unmelted snow from the previous snowstorm. She looked up at the sun, its weak yellow rays not helping much to warm the forest in the chill of leaf-bare.

Whisperpaw yawned. Goldheart had ordered her not to leave the camp for a few days, to make sure she was well recovered from hitting her head on that tree. But Whisperpaw didn't think that she'd hit her head that hard. Why did she need to stay in camp for this long? Whisperpaw sighed as she sat at the den entrance, watching the other apprentices mill about the camp, while she was stuck in camp doing nothing useful for the fourth day in a row.

Echopaw and Whisperpaw didn't speak of the argument they'd had about Whisperpaw sneaking into the forest. Echopaw seemed to have decided to drop it, and both of them acted like that conversation never happened, which Whisperpaw was glad of. How had Echopaw known she'd been out of the camp that night, that she'd snuck out into the forest? Whisperpaw didn't think she'd made it that obvious!

"There's Sagetail now!" Raypaw meowed behind her excitedly, interrupting her thoughts. "Let's go ask her when the kits are supposed to be born!"

"Let's?" asked Whisperpaw sarcastically.

"Oh, come on!" sighed Raypaw. "You know you want to know too."

"Alright, I'm coming," she laughed as Raypaw ran over to his mother ahead of her.

"Mother!" he called.

Sagetail looked up. "Yes?" she purred.

"Did Goldheart say when the kits will be born?" Raypaw bounced around his mother.

Sagetail purred. "By the end of leaf-bare," she replied, licking her son's ears.

"Hey!" he complained as her tongue rasped along his head. "I'm not a kit, you know! You'll have new kits to fuss over; not me anymore!"

"Yes, that's right," laughed Bronzepelt, who was walking up behind his mate. He stopped and licked her ears, then asked, "Are you staying in the nursery now?"

"Already?" Raypaw asked.

"Well, Goldheart said it'd be better for me; I'd get worn out easily doing warrior duties, and being on my feet yesterday and hunting was enough," she laughed.

"So are you sleeping there now?" Raypaw asked. "Aspenleaf wouldn't be alone."

"Yes, I think I'll move into the nursery," nodded Sagetail, her cream tail flicking and her paws kneading the ground as she became lost in her own thoughts.