Warriors Super Edition: Yellowfang’s Secret Read Free

himself.
    Annoyed as she was, Yellowkit couldn’t help admiring the older toms. Her paws itched to practice their battle moves, but she knew that she and her littermates would only get sneered at if they tried.
    “Come on!” Nutkit nudged her. “Let’s go and see if there are any mice in the brambles.”
    “You won’t catch any, even if there are,” Raggedkit meowed, rising to his paws and shaking debris from his fur.
    “I wasn’t talking to you.” Nutkit’s fur bristled and he bared tiny, needle-sharp teeth. “Kittypet!”
    For a moment all five kittens froze. Yellowkit could feel her heart pounding. Like her littermates, she had heard the elders gossiping, wondering who had fathered Raggedkit and Scorchkit, asking one another if it could be true that Featherstorm’s mate had been a kittypet. The young she-cat had often strayed into Twolegplace, and she’d never been obviously close to any of the toms in the Clan. But Yellowkit knew that it was something you should never, never say out loud.
    Raggedkit took a pace closer to Nutkit, stiff-legged with fury. “ What did you call me?” he snarled, his voice dangerously quiet.
    Nutkit’s eyes were wide and scared, but he didn’t back down. “Kittypet!” he repeated.
    A low growl came from Raggedkit’s throat. Scorchkit’s gaze darkened and he flexed his claws. Neither of them looked one bit like a soft, fluffy kittypet. Yellowkit braced herself to defend her littermate.
    “Nutkit!”
    Yellowkit turned at the sound of her mother’s voice. Brightflower was standing beside the thornbush that shielded the nursery hollow. Her orange tabby tail was twitching in annoyance.
    “Nutkit, if you can’t play sensibly, then you’d better come back here. You too, Yellowkit and Rowankit. I won’t have you fighting.”
    “Not fair,” Nutkit muttered as all three littermates began trailing toward the nursery. He scuffed his paws through the pine needles on the ground. “They started it.”
    “They’re just stupid kittypets,” Rowankit whispered.
    Yellowkit couldn’t resist glancing over her shoulder as she reached the thornbush. Raggedkit and Scorchkit stood in the middle of the clearing, glaring after them. The force of Raggedkit’s anger scared her and fascinated her at the same time. Behind it she could sense something else: a black space that echoed with fearful questioning. She thought of her own father, Brackenfoot, who told stories of patrols and hunting and Gatherings at Fourtrees, who let his kits scramble all over him and pretended to be a fox so they could attack him. Yellowkit loved him and wanted to be like him.
    What must it be like, not to know who your father is? Especially if every cat thinks he was a kittypet?
    Then Yellowkit realized that Raggedkit’s gaze had locked with hers. With a squeak of alarm she ducked underneath the branches and tumbled down into the nursery after her littermates.

C HAPTER 2

    “I’m bored,” Nutkit complained. “Let’s go play in the warriors’ den.”
    Yellowkit blinked at him. “Are you mouse-brained? The warriors will rip our pelts off.”
    Three sunrises had passed since the quarrel with Raggedkit and Scorchkit. Yellowkit still felt uneasy around them, and tried to avoid them around the camp.
    “You’re a scaredy-mouse!” Nutkit taunted her. “Go on—peek under the bush. I dare you!”
    I can’t back down now, Yellowkit thought, bracing herself as she gazed across the clearing to the thick bramble bush where the warriors slept. Like all the ShadowClan dens, theirs was a shallow dip in the ground, sheltered by tightly woven thorns and enclosed by the circle of brambles. The dens surrounded a clearing beneath pine trees, with the entrance to the camp at one end and a large lichen-covered rock, known as the Clanrock, at the other.
    Rowankit nudged Yellowkit. “Don’t do it! Brightflower’s got her eye on us. Look over there.” She angled her ears to where Brightflower and Brackenfoot were sharing