Beneath the Skin: de La Vega Cats, Book 3

by Lauren Dane

  The world changed all around him. Scents, powerful but still muted in human form, burst through his senses. He was strong and cunning. He would be safe now because he was feared and respected.

  The pain slowly wisped away and his blood sped the exorcism of the poison. His system burned it up. Destroying it.

  Within a few minutes he’d healed enough to notice other things in the room. The female, most especially.

  His cat liked the way she looked. Small. Golden with delicate rosettes all over her fur. She head-butted him and he sent her a lazy growl. Here in her place, he had no desire to do anything but lie and watch her. Breathe in her scent.

  He head-butted her back, letting his teeth catch her a little. She responded with a growl of her own before swatting at him, her claws still sheathed. He knew this female would draw blood if she were truly unhappy. His cat liked that too.

  She stared at him and blew a frustrated huff.

  The human within wanted to change back. Needed to check in with the Alpha and find the people who harmed him. The cat did not care. It just wanted to be here in this place with this female.

  She changed back slowly, easing to stand as she grabbed her pants. He scented the pain, just a brief twinge, but it concerned his cat enough to let go so the human could surface.

  “Are you all right?” he managed to say as he rolled to get to his feet. The wounds had healed over but still hurt. The cost of using silver.

  She stepped into her jeans and zipped up before sending him a look over her shoulder. That’s when he saw the freshly healed wounds on her chest.

  “Me? You got shot three times with silver. I’m fine.” She pulled a T-shirt on, not bothering with a bra.

  She tossed him his shorts. “I had to cut your pants and shirt. I’ll get you something of my brother’s. Your phone is right on the nightstand if you need to call someone.” She sashayed from the room.

  He grabbed it and called Dario. “Hey. Turns out Bertram’s cats wanted to shoot me. Three times. With silver ammo. I’m all right, but I want some men out there now, looking for these cats. I want them brought in to answer for this.”

  “Are you all right? Do you need a healer?”

  “I’m fine. Someone helped me. Another cat. Get on the search and call me back.”

  And then he followed up with a call to his brother.

  “Max is listening to your mother give him a lecture right now. What do you need?” Kendra barely held back a snicker.

  “I told him that if he didn’t take care of that fence issue the way she wanted she’d skin his ass alive.” She had such a lightness to her tone that he hated to say the next part. “I got shot tonight.”

  “What? You did what? Are you all right? Where are you?” She’d gone from scared and concerned for him to bossy all in one sentence.

  A tussle as Max must have heard and came to take his phone back. Kendra clearly allowed it, as Gibson heard no howls of pain. And there would have been if she hadn’t wanted to give up the phone.

  “Where are you?”

  His savior came back with a shirt and some sweats.

  “Where am I?” he asked her as he pulled the sweats on.

  She rattled off an address that he didn’t bother relaying to Max, who’d have heard it the first time.

  A fact his brother underlined when he began to give orders in the background before turning his attention to Gibson again. “Sending a car now. We’ll have a doctor for you. Do you need the hospital? Who are you with?”

  “She’s one of ours. A cat.” He turned his attention back to the woman. “You never said what your name was. At least not while I was conscious.”

  She looked him up and down as she decided to tell him or not. “Mia Porter.”

  Well, shit.

  “Did she say Porter?” Wariness edged Max’s voice.

  She sighed. “Yes, that Porter family.”

  “How do you know she’s not part of it?” his brother asked.

  The brown of her eyes went amber as her cat rose close to the skin. He liked that. Though the look on her face was scary enough that he’d give her some space.

  One hand on her hip, she snarled in response to Max, and Gibson was glad he got to see the glorious fury of this female. “You’ve got some nerve to make accusations while your brother’s blood is all over my sheets. Get this straight, asshole. My family may not love yours, but if I wanted anyone dead, I’d come straight on and do it so you knew it was me.”

  Gibson liked some moxie in a woman. This one had that in spades. Too bad she was a Porter. “He didn’t mean it like that.”

  She rolled her eyes, totally unimpressed by his name, or Max’s, for that matter. “Of course he did. Your grandpa wasn’t all that. Just a serial cheater with a swelled head. Not rare and not special. Dumb assholes getting shot and when you help them they accuse you of being part of it. How do I know you didn’t need getting shot anyway?” When she pointed a finger in his direction, her breasts jiggled a little bit. Enough for him to lose his train of thought a moment.

  Max cursed in the background. He wasn’t usually this clumsy when it came to dealing with the cats in his jamboree, but he’d touched a nerve and Mia Porter was one pissed-off woman.

  He tried for a sexy smile, most likely watered down by the blood. Though she was a shifter so maybe not. “I probably do merit it.” He spoke to Max again. “But this is Bertram’s doing. I scented his cats before I went down. I’ve got my men on it. I’ll be over in a bit.” He hung up and took in the wreck of her room before he went back out to the living room in her wake.

  She favored her left side but was clearly right-handed, and he remembered the freshly healed spots on her chest and arm.

  “I’m sorry about that. He didn’t mean it, not the way you think. He’d have asked the same thing of any other person who happened to be around.”

  “Clearly you seem to think I’m unaware of how your family runs things. I know how he meant it. Just like I notice he didn’t ask the question until he heard my last name.”

  He sighed but didn’t argue because she was right in part.

  “Did I hurt you?” He tipped his chin to indicate her right side.

  Something passed over her features before she put it away. “No.”

  “The person who did it? He still alive?” He hoped so, just so he could kick the shit out of a person who’d hurt her.

  She handed him a glass of juice. “Plural. And yes, unfortunately.”

  “Silver?” Everything in him stilled.

  “Among other things, yes.”

  “Want my help with that? The alive part that is. I’m feeling a little mean just now, so making someone pay for hurting one of my cats would hit the spot.” He hoped he sounded casual, because he felt murderous.

  She laughed but wasn’t amused. “There’ll be a reckoning someday. And when it comes, it’ll come from me.”

  Even preoccupied with this situation with Bertram, he couldn’t help but be impressed by Mia Porter.

  “Porter or no, not many people would have gotten involved much less dragged a man back to their apartment to dig bullets from them. I appreciate it.” He sat.

  “My mother didn’t raise her children to ignore a dying man in the middle of the sidewalk. Even if you interrupted my plans for a meatball sandwich for dinner.” She was moving slowly, clearly favoring one side.

  “Are you all right?”

  “Not all of us come from an alpha family.” She raised a brow but when the buzzer sounded, she sighed. “It takes a while for me to recover after I shift.” She turned to answer. “Yes?”

  “I’m here for Gibson.”

  She buzzed the door open. “Second floor. Apartment C.”

  He was a pretty big guy and he must have been dead weight. She’d brought him all the way back up here from where he’d been shot? Even as a shifter, she had to be extra strong to handle it. “Thank you. I, uh, ruined your bedding. I don’t have a wallet with me but I’ll reimburse you.”r />
  She waved it away, and he would of course ignore it and do just what he wanted.

  He opened the door before Dario could knock. “Mia, can I contact you again? I might have some questions about what you may have seen.”

  She looked him over warily before giving him her cell number.

  “Thank you again. I’m in your debt.”

  She shook her head quickly. “No. I keep telling you, there’s no debt for doing what’s right.”

  Damn. He liked this one. Too bad she was a Porter.

  He nodded. “All right then. Thank you again.”

  Dario looked him up and down as they got back to the street. He tossed Gibson the keys knowing he’d need that control.

  “Max thought it best to send me. I put Robby on the search.”

  His brother was smart that way. “Good idea. First let’s go back to where I was.”

  They walked over, finding the spot easily enough. Dario combed through the bushes in front of the small park and around the apartment buildings lining the street. “Large cat prints.”

  The place stunk with Bertram’s cats. “I’m beyond understanding here.” He stood, stretching a little, the wounds from the shots still burned, though they were healed over on the outside.

  Dario took a call, turning his attention back to Gibson. “Craig and Emmy connected with Robby and Matt. They’re working together to track the cats now.” Robby and Matt were the two from his team that Gibson had sent out to escort Bertram and his cats from town. Craig and his mate Emmy were also on his team and some of his best hunters.

  “What’s the story then? I know I didn’t mumble when I told them to stick with Bertram’s cats until at least the state line.”

  Dario knew there’d be hell to pay if someone had messed up. Gibson was pretty laid-back unless his orders didn’t get followed. And if they weren’t, he underlined just why he was in charge to start with.

  “They followed them to the state line. They checked in with me at that time.”

  A raised brow as Gibson thought a moment. “So they waited and turned around to come back? Foolish, no? I want Bertram Simmons and I want him as soon as possible. I don’t give a fuck if he’s got to be dragged back here by the scruff of his neck.”

  Bringing an Alpha from another jamboree to show obeisance was unusual. And maybe if they hadn’t shot him he’d have more mercy. But this was nothing less than a declaration of war and de La Vega demanded answers.

  Gibson would get those answers.

  He got back in the car, and they headed over to Max and Kendra’s where he was quite sure half his family would already be waiting.

  “You got shot? Gibson, what did I tell you about that?” Imogene opened the door mid-lecture before she hauled him into the foyer, looking him over with a mother’s eyes.

  No matter that he was the most feared Bringer in the country, that gaze took him right back to about seven years old and he had to resist the urge to make an excuse.

  “It’s not like I wore a sign around my neck saying shoot me.” He frowned, but his mother was made of far sterner stuff than to even give the look a second glance.

  “Mami, let him get inside.” Max came out and put an arm around their mother as he shot his brother an apologetic glance. “Come through. Kendra’s worried and I want to hear the whole story.”

  Kendra looked up from her screen and came over. “I won’t fuss. But I’m glad you’re all right. Sit, and after you talk business, someone is totally going to tell me who this Porter family is and why it’s all so escandalo!”

  Max heaved a sigh, but Imogene laughed. Kendra lightened Gibson’s heart. She was perfect for his overly serious older brother. She made him laugh, poked at him and didn’t take him too seriously. Max’s leadership was only enhanced by her at his side.

  “Look, I met with Bertram’s Bringer this morning along with his human lawyer. I set them straight on what the rules were and then told them to get out of our territory before calling to get the permission they needed to be here. I checked in with Max when the meeting ended. I had my people follow them to the state line. I thought it was over. Apparently not.”

  “They used silver. It’s not even an overreaction, it’s just totally nonsensical. We’ve never had beef with them. Hell, they’re some tiny little jamboree. I don’t think I’ve dealt with them at all before this.” Max ignored the sound of their sister-in-law Renee entering the house along with their brother Galen, and Galen and Renee’s other mate, Jack.

  Renee walked right up and hugged him tight before kissing both cheeks. “This isn’t good. I am not a fan of my best boys getting shot. Gibson, did you look too good to someone’s wife or something?”

  Kendra, who also happened to be Renee’s sister, laughed. “Dude, there’s some other mystery too. Porters, whoever they are, are involved.”

  Galen shot him a look.

  God. Women. “Let me finish the story before getting to the Porter thing.” He told them the rest of the story, all he knew anyway, and then turned to Kendra and Renee.

  But before he could say a word, Renee shoved a mug of something mildly stinky into his hands. “First drink this. It’ll help with the poison the silver left behind.” He should have known better than to have assumed he’d get away without some of her potions. She was a healer. A nurturer. He pretended to be annoyed, though she touched him with the way she cared for the people in her life.

  Of course it tasted like the bottom of a shoe, so he gulped it down and fought back the grimace he wanted to make.

  “Cats using silver on each other. What is the world coming to?” His mother nearly growled.

  “I don’t know what this is all about, but if I don’t get answers and very soon, I’m going to have to get mean.” Max began to pace and his wife watched him carefully.

  “Let me tell you the story of the Porters and de La Vegas. Cesar’s father and his brothers were all very close. Jorge, that’s Cesar’s father, took over jamboree leadership from their father when he was a pretty young man. His right-hand cat was his next oldest brother, Silvio.”

  Imogene, warming to the story, took Gibson’s hand before she continued. “Silvio had an eye for the ladies.” She rolled her eyes. “Legendary, even for a de La Vega male. He began to court one of the cats in the jamboree.”

  “Oh uh oh, I can see where this is going.” Kendra shook her head.

  Imogene nodded. “Indeed. Lettie was one of the most beautiful women in Boston in her day. Still packs a punch in her seventies. Lettie’s parents went to Silvio’s family, the alpha pair, and demanded they either make him back off or get serious about their eighteen-year-old daughter. Who he got pregnant.”

  Gibson sighed. He really hated this story. He wondered if Lettie was Mia’s grandmother or great aunt? Wondered too, what she had been raised to think about his family.

  “Of course he had to marry her. It wasn’t so long ago that a boy who got a girl pregnant would marry her because that’s what you did. Especially in a tight-knit shifter community. Wedding plans went forward, but a month before the date Lettie lost the baby. But they didn’t cancel the wedding. He made his bed and he made it with a young woman he got pregnant. Cesar’s father was beyond old school. He was an old-school shifter. The day of the wedding arrived and the church was full. Full of everyone but Silvio and one other cat, a female by the name of Charlotte.”

  Kendra’s features left no doubt just how outrageous she thought Silvio’s actions were. “He left her at the altar? Please don’t tell me he went to Vegas to marry Charlotte.”

  “Not Vegas. But he ran off with her for several weeks, and when they came back, they were married and she was pregnant with the first of three children she gave him before he imprinted on yet another female he ran off with for good. Abandoning his wife and kids back here.”

  Kendra shook her head slowly. “Wow, that sort of is a scandal. So the Porters clearly hate the de La Vegas for a reason, though Silvio isn’t here anymore.”

 
; “It gets worse. He and Charlotte spent a great deal of time talking poorly of Lettie when they returned. Charlotte, who I do like, couldn’t ever really get past her jealousy of Lettie, so she was quite unpleasant on that subject. The Porters pulled back, though they never left the jamboree entirely. They attend major gatherings and answer all the calls made. But they don’t do anything more than what is required. Jorge made amends with them I know, but there’s an enmity to this day.”

  “Whatever the current state of de La Vega, Porter drama, Mia carried me back to her apartment and saved my life. Quick thinking.”

  “Cesar and I plan to thank her ourselves. She did a great service to this jamboree and to my family.”

  He barely managed to keep his cringe inside. “I don’t know if she’s going to like that.”

  “It was two generations ago. Ridiculous to be held back by that man whore Silvio’s dastardly deeds.” His mother waved lazily. She’d clearly made her mind up, and he had nothing to do but hope it went all right.

  He tried to push to stand, but his mother put a restraining hand on his shoulder. He reined in his impatience and squeezed her hand. “I need to get back out there. I want these cats found and dealt with. Nobody shoots me and walks away without a lot of pain.”

  Imogene simply kept her hand in place, one brow arching.

  “You’ll do no such thing. You will nap for three hours at the very least, and you’ll do it here so we can keep an eye on you.” Renee stood and Galen sent Gibson a look.

  The look told him he was on his own.

  He gave Renee a smile and cocked his head a little. “Bebe, really I’m fine.”

  “No you aren’t.” Her response made him frown. This is what love got you. Bossy women. He had enough bossy women in his life but his brothers kept bringing more home.

  Renee waved away his expression. “You have silver in your system. It’s a poison, remember? You need to rest to let your body get rid of it all. Once you’ve rested and are back to one hundred percent, you can go hunting. Don’t give me your grr face, it doesn’t work on me.”