The Tomcats Tame the Domme [The Shifters of Catamount, Texas 2] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting)

by Josie Hunter

  Her gaze flitted to the hazy gloom of that small window. Beyond that lay freedom, such an elusive thing, almost insignificant to the woman when her serpent was dying in tiny increments with each passing moment in this dank prison. They were each other, and when one died, the other surely died as well. Without her serpent, she was nothing and no one.

  Her heartbeat had slowed. She knew it. She could feel the muscle laboring to beat inside her chest, gummed up by the cold, thick blood slogging through it. Each breath she drew into her lungs seared her internal flesh, stabbing her with an ice pick of pain. The only thing that seemed to be holding on to life was her brain. Her thoughts ricocheted from one topic to another, from one memory to another, taunting her with bright flickers of hope one moment and dark moments of despair in the next. But each memory started and stopped in such rapid, random succession she had trouble holding on to anything. Friends…she had many friends, but she could barely picture them. Lovers…she had those as well, men who cared for her, pleasured her. Where were they now? Did they miss her? Were they looking for her? Family…her mind snapped closed, refusing to think of that.

  She drew in a shaky breath, the cold skittering through her lungs like tiny shards of glass.

  “Please come for me,” she whispered to the good shadows in her head. “Please help me.”

  She swayed and slid sideways, her head hitting the concrete. She relished the solid hit and immersed herself in the normal, welcome pain that jolted through her head. At least it was real. She allowed herself to sink deeper into the place where she felt no pain, where she could shift and slither and slide with the memory of her inner serpent.

  “Please don’t die…”

  * * * *

  She had no idea how long she lay there, but when she heard the sound of the lock sliding in the metal door, she glanced up and couldn’t find the light of the window. Night then. But how many nights?

  The sliver of light near the door to freedom widened until it became an opening, and she had to squint against the harsh light. Wincing, she closed her eyes against the stabbing brilliance, but within moments, a dark shadow consumed nearly all of that precious light, and she lay once again in blessed gloom. She tried to sit up as the shadow moved toward her, becoming larger and larger, a monstrous figure that bent toward her. She shrank back against the cold brick, half sitting, half lying, shivering uncontrollably.

  Suddenly, blessed warmth consumed her lower body. She gathered it toward her with one hand, her stiff fingers trying to find purchase until she’d covered her neck, shoulders, and chest. It was a blanket, stiff with grime, dirty and smelly, but still a wonderful gift. Immediately her body began to warm, her living molecules trying to fuse with the molecules of fabric, as the shivering began to lessen. Her dead fingers gripped it tighter in the event the monster tried to take it from her. She’d fight to the death to keep it.

  She felt a soft nudge at her consciousness, a tiny little movement that felt like a slither through her mind, a very welcome slither. Tears puddled in her eyes, and they felt so warm as they tracked down her cheek.

  Oh, my friend. You’re still alive. Sí, come to the warmth. I can protect you now.

  The big, hulking monster retreated into the light for a moment, and she concentrated, forcing her eyes to adjust to the light. When he returned, he held something in his hands. A tray of some sort filled with… She craned her neck, but she couldn’t see because he held it so high above her, but delicious scents wafted toward her on the smelly air. Her mouth watered, the first few drops of moisture she’d had in endless days. She nearly cried with the want.

  Food. Please…

  She couldn’t see the food, but she was now able to see his face—large, angular, his large nose taking up so much of his big face. His eyes were narrow under a high forehead. Of course she recognized him. The man she’d befriended, the one who’d betrayed her.

  “L–Larry… I–I…” Her voice got lost again, trapped in the desert of her throat. She struggled for both voice and words, and then she tried again. “I–I suspected you c–could walk.”

  He ignored her, but she heard the scrape of something across the floor and could see enough now to know what it was. He moved a small table across the room, his foot hooked behind the leg. The sound was raw and painful in her ears, too loud in the confined space. He set the tray on that table then turned to her.

  “Wrong guy,” he said.

  She squinted again, peering at him, studying those features she’d seen in her disjointed dreams. “N–No…I remember you.” Didn’t she? Had she dreamed so much of what she’d thought reality? “No, we spoke through the door. You were right outside.” The warmth of the blanket was penetrating the haze, allowing her blood to flow freely and her heart to beat. The words were coming easier now.

  “You remember someone else. I’m the sane one. At least as sane as anyone can be in this place.”

  “Twins?” The idea seemed absurd. Surely there couldn’t be two such creatures, and yet… She stared at him more closely. His mouth was different. This mouth was not twisted by a scar.

  He didn’t answer her. Instead, he continued to fiddle with something on the tray. Then he bent toward her, but the smell of the object in his hand was not food. It was medicinal, harsh and biting against the delicate skin of her nostrils, bruised from trying to draw in enough air.

  “What is that?” she asked, almost afraid to know.

  He hunkered down toward her, and she tried to kick out, but her legs, still cold and lifeless because the blanket only reached her waist, barely twitched.

  “Antiseptic swab,” he said simply.

  Before she could respond or protest, he swiped it down the length of her exposed thigh, the cold of the liquid sending a jolt through her body. Even then, her leg simply jerked ineffectually. He tossed it back to the tray and lifted something else. She saw the glitter of metal in the shadow. A needle and a syringe.

  She groaned and tried to pull back, to disappear into the brick.

  “You gonna be a good girl?”

  “Do I have a choice?” she muttered.

  His big head tilted, and she saw his eyes locked on her. “Not really but there’s an easy way and hard way to everything.”

  “Can I keep the blanket?” she asked.

  He nodded.

  “And I can have the food?” Her gaze lifted toward the location of the enticing smells.

  He nodded again.

  “Then I prefer the easy way.”

  “Good girl. Now hold still.”

  “That,” she said bitterly, “is not going to be a problem.”

  She felt the stab of the needle and closed her eyes as her blood flowed into the syringe. He took six vials, and she began to feel woozy.

  “Where’s my father?” she asked. Her voice sounded weak again.

  He either refused to answer or he didn’t know.

  “What’s your name?”

  “You can call me…Barry.”

  She almost laughed, but of course, that was impossible. There was no laughter left in her body.

  He put all his vials on the table then leaned toward her with another needle in his hand. “One more sting.”

  She cried out when he plunged the needle into her thigh. It was so much more than a sting. It felt like molten lava being shot into her flesh. She gritted her teeth as she felt the hot lick of the lava funnel through her body, touching and burning everything it passed. She began to shiver again despite the heat, and the tiny beat of her serpent’s life retreated once more into the darkness of her mind.

  He laid something near her hand, and she smelled those incredible scents again. She felt blindly, suddenly too tired to move her head. Her fingers drifted over a paper plate filled with a sandwich—she smelled ham—some cheese, and some hard, curling things that felt like…corn chips. She felt something against her lips.

  “Open up and drink,” he said.

  She didn’t smell anything terrible, so she did as he ordere
d. Blissful coolness dripped into her mouth. Water. Life. She gulped down the entire bottle as he held it to her mouth.

  “There are two more bottles here,” he said. He lifted her hand and wrapped her fingers around one cool bottle then another.

  “Thank you,” she murmured, and she meant it.

  “Better eat quickly. The chemicals works fast.”

  Chemicals. Not medication. Chemicals. What are they doing to me?

  “I will.”

  She lifted her eyes to his. They stared at one another for several moments, and then he dragged his gaze from hers. He stood up, and she heard the slide of the table as he moved it to the far wall, retreating back into the shadow world. The light began to merge with the shadows as he closed the door, and it became a sliver once more. She could barely see it now because it seemed so dim.

  She ate fast, faster than she’d eaten in her life. Every bite tasted like ambrosia. She wanted to savor it, but she couldn’t risk running out of time. She ached for more when she’d finished, but even as she did, her stomach protested, growing queasy. She ignored it, though, and drank another bottle of water, the cool liquid sliding down her throat to squelch the fire in her veins. After that, her eyes grew heavy, and that haze returned to her mind. She lost her voice, and she lost her words as she slid into the mire of forgetfulness.

  * * * *

  Robb was getting discouraged, and so were Steve and Marcus. Once in Louisiana, they’d contacted a gator-shifter they knew in one of the southern parishes. Within an hour, the guy had secured enough weapons to see them through almost any situation. Then they’d checked out every lead they had pertaining to Miguel Santos, Esteban’s younger brother. The man ran several legitimate businesses in New Orleans, all of them entertainment venues of one sort or another. They’d been to all of them, starting with a couple of strip clubs and an elegant restaurant catering to high-class tourists downtown. The next day, they’d hit a loud Cajun dive on the outskirts of the French Quarter. The bar had a more native clientele, and they’d spent a rather rousing evening there talking with the barflies and drunks, but getting nowhere fast. Another dive bar several miles from the heart of the city lured in bikers with its name alone—Motorcycle Mike’s.

  They’d pulled into the parking lot with their rented SUV and had immediately been targeted by several overly large bull-shifters with chips on their well-muscled shoulders but not a brain in their heads. That fight had lasted all of thirty seconds. They hadn’t really hurt the guys, but they’d made it clear they had a mission and it was best to get the hell out of their way.

  After that, the bulls had been more than cooperative, saying that Mike—Miguel—did come by from time to time. He liked to cheat at cards in the back room, though one guy said, “Hell, it’s his club. If he wants to cheat, we don’t care.” Robb chalked that rationale up to the big thug’s rather questionable brainpan size and continued to listen. Apparently Mike also liked to show off his bleached-blonde bitches. They were quick to point out Miguel had a stable of whores that he rented out using the cover of a liquor store downtown. They all liked Miguel because he always bought a few rounds when he came to the bar, and he was good for a few laughs.

  Sure, they all knew he was shady. “Fuck,” one beefy guy said, “he’s a serpent-shifter. What the hell do you expect from them? At least we drink for free.”

  Everyone they interviewed—with the help of tequila shots—was surprised to find Miguel had brothers, and because the men seemed rather brainless and the women were nothing but sizeable arm candy for their hulking shifters, Robb believed them. They didn’t seem capable of subterfuge.

  * * * *

  That night in their hotel room, as Steve got into the shower and Robb went out to do some scenting, Marcus poured himself a couple fingers of Captain Morgan and opened the door to let in the warm night. He went out to the balcony and settled at the little wrought iron table with his laptop. He set the scrambler to cover his tracks and satellite usage then got to work.

  They had to be missing something. Robb was a great ops guy, and Steve might be a better physical tracker, but Marcus knew no one could find his way through a warren of firewalls and nests of pass codes better than he could. He’d made a mistake in simply accepting the research of others. They’d given him what they had, but there had to be more. He might have wasted valuable time.

  Miguel was a dead end, or as close to a dead end as they could get without falling off a cliff. Marcus knew that now. The man was probably nothing more than what he seemed—a shady serpent-shifter in touch with the pulse of his city, all facets of his city. No matter who breezed through his town or lived within it, Miguel was liable to get a piece of them eventually, whether they were rich tourists, partying locals, or those on the outside of vanilla society. He catered to everyone, one way or another.

  “Except that’s not quite true.”

  When he thought of New Orleans, he thought of two things—spicy food and jazz. Well, they had the food in spades. Not only did they have the little Cajun bar with its tinny Dixieland band and spicy eats, they had the restaurant on Decatur Street, a wonderful French Quarter experience of Creole haute cuisine and timeless elegance. A string quartet had been in attendance, playing classical music by the world’s most gifted composers throughout their meal, but…

  Where’s the jazz?

  When he thought of jazz, he thought of the quiet, sultry tones and soul-reaching, soul-sucking music that wound its way out of a dark, smoke-filled bar to wrap its tendrils around the most unsuspecting passerby. There was no way anyone—tourist or local—could resist the siren call of real, scorching-hot jazz sung by a smokin’-hot woman with a voice like a nightingale floating on hot, humid air. Why would he not have a club that catered to the kind of music most tourists to New Orleans sought out?

  “Steve!”

  His friend poked his wet head out the French door.

  “What were those lyrics we wrote down in Catamount?”

  Steve disappeared and came back, unfolding a sheet of paper. “Truckin’ down to New Orleans, fuckin’ off of Bourbon Street. New girl’s gonna scream and scream.” He glanced up. “That’s it.”

  “Get me the pad, would ya?”

  The pad of paper came flying through the open door to land on the table, the pages flapping like wounded birds.

  “Don’t strain yourself,” Marcus muttered.

  “Wouldn’t dream of it,” Steve said from inside.

  “Pencil?”

  He caught the pen hurled toward him, and he heard the clink of ice in a glass. As his hands flew over the keyboard, Steve came out, laid a bottle on the table, and dropped into the other chair.

  “Make yourself useful,” Marcus said. “Write down what I say.”

  Steve rolled his eyes but picked up the pen and pulled the tablet toward him. Marcus began to give him a list of street names. When they were finished with that, he did another search and gave him a list of establishments to put next to the street names.

  “Jesus,” Steve said, reading through the list, “you planning to go on a major bender? These are all restaurants, bars, or nightclubs by the look of the names.”

  “They are. Let’s start with the ones that sound more like nightclubs. First one.”

  “Manny’s Underworld.”

  Marcus did a quick search for a website. He glanced at a few pictures. The atmosphere was dark, the décor somewhat eclectic, and Marcus saw a bandstand and small group of musicians in one photo. The music type was marked as jazz and blues. He marked it as a possibility and moved on. At the end of their research—and three drinks later—they had a list of a dozen potential places.

  “I need to prowl,” Steve said, standing up and stretching his large, lean frame. “You got this?”

  “Sure, go ahead,” Marcus said. “I have to do some deep searching now. You’ll just be bored.”

  “I’m bored now,” he said blandly. “I can’t imagine what more bored would be like.” He tossed back the rest o
f his Captain Morgan. “I’m going to see if I can catch the scent of feathers, eagle, falcon, hawk…”

  Marcus ripped some papers off the notepad and tossed it toward him. Steve caught it against his chest. “Take notes.”

  Steve tapped his temple. “I keep everything in here, buddy.”

  “Take notes.”

  Steve gave him a murderous stare but shoved the pad into the pocket of his jeans.

  Marcus returned his gaze to the computer, digging into the ownership of Manny’s Underworld. He heard the click of the hotel door closing and poured himself another drink.

  * * * *

  On Bourbon Street, Steve stepped off the curb to head to the next block. He paused and sniffed, his panther leaping forward to capture the scent. Eagle? Hawk? He sniffed again. Definitely eagle. Slowly, he let his gaze drift around his immediate surroundings. It seemed to be coming from his left. He stepped back onto the curb and glanced down the small side street. There was an open French door set into the side of the brick building on the corner. He heard the soft strands of jazz coming from inside, so he strolled toward the door. He usually liked rock and roll, but when in Rome… Besides, he was on a mission, not a tourist.

  The dull brass plaque said Coral’s. The smell of feathers was stronger now, musty enough to steal breath. The scent clung to his lungs like a spiderweb, and his panther cringed backward at the dry, stale smell.

  He peeked inside, and the heat hit him like a brick to the head, a deep, soul-sucking heat that choked his already-belabored lungs and weighed his eyelids. The temp was at least ten degrees warmer than the hot outside air. Steve liked the heat okay, but it was a bit too warm for even him. The décor was pure French Quarter—a tourist’s wet dream—a mix of Creole and Cajun, a blending of old-world charm and Louisiana bayou. As his eyes adjusted to the dim interior, he focused on the group of five musicians on the small bandstand until a woman with skin like caramel candy, wearing a long, slinky red dress, moved toward him like a scarlet ribbon.