When she had come back to the living room, ready to ride him to Hell and back, he had been sitting at his desk, bent over it and sound asleep.
She hadn’t had the heart to wake him.
Cait stole a glance at his profile and heat filled her, pushing her into pulling him to face her and kissing him. His injuries were healed now and he hadn’t been wearing himself out with research today. Maybe they could find a quiet place to tango before he met his contact.
It was on the tip of her tongue to suggest that when they made it beyond the crush of people that circulated around the largest streets and he released her wrist. Cold instantly settled where his hand had been and she rubbed at her wrist, trying to chase it from her skin.
“Owen?” she whispered, wanting him to look at her so she could gauge his mood before putting voice to her desire.
He glanced across at her. “Almost there.”
His smile hit her hard and her knees might have wobbled a little. She pretended not to notice. She wasn’t a little kitten, all green and new to desire. Plenty of handsome men had made her the centre of their attention. Owen wasn’t the first.
He was the first to shake her world though, rocking her confidence and filling her with an unsettling eagerness, a need she found difficult to deny. He was the first male to make her want to be the centre of his attention.
He was the first male to make her crave his eyes on her alone, his touch reserved for her, and his smiles under her sole possession.
They had to cross another busy thoroughfare and his hand claimed her wrist, sending an electric thrill buzzing through her bones.
Where was he taking her?
Cait hoped it wasn’t to the buildings at the far end. It was dangerous around there. Many shifter species had set up packs and dens there, and she had heard they were always at war with each other. There were ogres there too, among other less savoury species.
She eyed the gaudy four storey red building ahead of her, tucked between a building with the banner of a local wolf shifter pack streaming down one of its walls and a building with a banner she didn’t recognise.
Several women draped themselves over the balconies on the red building, dressed in minimal clothing and waving at the males below, catching their attention and no doubt their wallets in the process.
Cait never had liked the vixens. They had no morals. Any male was fair game to them. They were worse than the incubi. At least the male sex demons had rules.
Owen released her when they stepped out into a broad street that curved around the taller buildings, running in a sweeping arc that followed their shape and that of the cavern.
“Well if it isn’t the handsome Owen Nightingale.” A sweet voice sing-songed from above and Cait’s hackles rose as she sought the owner and found her.
The dazzling succubus leaned over a balcony on the first floor of the bordello, her large breasts nearly falling out of her skimpy black dress and a smile on her painted red lips as she twirled ash blonde wavy hair around her finger.
Owen raised his hand and smiled at the succubus.
Cait managed to bite back the growl that rumbled up her throat but failed to resist the need to glare at the woman for daring to steal Owen’s attention and a smile from him.
“What are you doing in this part of town, Handsome?” The female persisted and Cait wanted to leap up to the balcony, an easy feat for her, and claw the smile off her face.
“Here on business,” Owen replied and the succubus finally looked at Cait.
One pale eyebrow rose and she gave Cait a look that left her feeling that she thought Owen could do better.
Cait took a sharp step towards the bordello, her black claws emerging and her vision brightening as her eyes changed, burning with blue fire.
The succubus shrank back from the stone balustrade of the balcony, warily eyeing Cait before disappearing inside.
Owen looked back over his shoulder at Cait, the black slashes of his eyebrows drawn low over his green eyes.
She ignored him and kept walking, passing him and stomping ahead as she wrestled with her feelings, struggling to get them back under her control. She didn’t want to delve into why the succubus paying attention to Owen had riled her, but then she didn’t need to in order to know that she had been jealous.
Still was jealous.
Cait looked over at Owen as he fell into step beside her, taking in every inch of his six-foot-four athletic frame and how his black button-down shirt stretched snugly across his chest, revealing a hint of his muscles, and how his black jeans hugged his lithe legs. His pale green eyes slid her way and she didn’t have time to avert hers before his locked with them, a questioning edge to them.
“Do you often like to pay for your pleasure?” she snapped before she could get the better of herself.
His left eyebrow shot up and then a slow smile spread across his handsome face. He looked back towards the bordello and waved at the succubus again, who had evidently re-emerged from her hiding place.
Cait scowled at him and then at the bitch.
“She paid me.”
Those words leaving Owen’s lips whipped her gaze back to him.
His wicked mouth curved into a sultry smile.
Cait’s flattened into a harsh line.
Owen chuckled. “I did a job for her.”
He walked on ahead of her when she stopped dead, cursing herself for not having thought of that. He knew this town well, and everyone here seemed to know him too, even some of the more dangerous characters. It stood to reason that he would have done business here, assisting any number of the people who made this place their home.
But she had jumped straight to the conclusion that he had slept with the female.
What was wrong with her?
Owen stopped and looked back at her. “Keep up and keep your head down. We don’t want people discovering what you are in this area of town. Okay?”
She nodded and hurried to catch up with him. During the drive to the beautiful country estate above the fae town, he had told her the same thing on repeat, stating several times that it was important that they get in, see what information they could discover about Marius from Owen’s contact, and get out without rousing suspicion about her. He wanted to protect her. Not only from word spreading about her being there and reaching the male through the grapevine, but from mercenaries in the town who worked for the black markets.
Owen had told her that he didn’t want her to end up in their hands.
It had touched her, but he didn’t have to worry.
She had no intention of ending up in one of their cages. She was going to keep her head down and let Owen conduct his business, acting as his assistant, and then she was going to make him leave this place. She had enjoyed fae towns once, before meeting Owen.
The things he had told her about them and how many of the people visiting them trafficked in shifters and other species, had changed her view of them.
She wanted to get out as soon as possible and in one piece.
Owen seemed to want to challenge that desire by dragging her to the shifters.
If he had told her before that he was going to bring her to this end of the town, she would have flatly refused to go with him. The concerned look he shot across at her said that he had known that and it was the reason he hadn’t mentioned where in the fae town they had been heading.
“It’ll be okay,” he said, his deep voice curling around her and soothing her nerves. “Just stay close.”
He held out his hand to her and she slipped hers into it. Surprise claimed her when he linked their fingers, locking their hands together, his palm pressed against hers.
Cait stared down at their joined hands, struggling to remember the last time a male had held hers. He felt warm and strong against her, and it was comforting. She was stunned that something so simple could give her so much comfort and reassurance. It gave her confidence too. In him. In herself. It restored her balance, as if his strength and calmness was
flowing through his hand and into hers, sharing it with her.
“You okay?” Owen said and she lifted her gaze to his, and blinked when she found his green eyes were soft and warm, dazzling her and making her feel light and airy inside.
She nodded.
He smiled, knocking the wind from her, and jerked his chin towards the road ahead of them. “Come on… quicker I get this done… quicker we can get out of here.”
She nodded again, wanting that more than anything.
She wasn’t afraid of the demons or the succubi, or even the mercenaries that roamed the streets. None of them scared her, but what stood ahead of her did.
She looked there, towards a tall haphazard blue building with a cerulean and silver banner hanging on the wall. Tiger shifters. Beyond their building was a cream one with a black banner. She wasn’t familiar with it, but the smell of cat shifters was strong in that direction, a mixture of panther, leopard and lion.
It held an underlying note of hellcat.
Owen headed straight towards that building and the ominous feeling brewing in the pit of her chest grew with each step and each hard breath she sucked down into her lungs as she fought for air.
The male wasn’t here.
She knew that.
But a hellcat was and that meant the meeting that Owen had set up was about to go any way other than how he expected it.
Each step closer she got to the cream building, the hairs on the back of her neck rose higher and her claws grew longer. She curled her free hand into a fist to conceal them, digging them into her palm as she fought for calm and for control.
The deep primal instinct beating in her heart made having that control impossible.
It drove her to fight.
Owen glanced back at her when she dug her claws into the back of his hand, a flicker of concern in his green eyes.
“You sure you’re okay?” he said and turned towards her, his gaze searching hers, filled with warmth that soothed her a degree and gave her the strength to nod.
She could keep control of herself. Her will was stronger than her instincts.
She could keep control.
Owen began walking again and a big tawny-haired male with bright golden eyes stepped out from the cream building, flanked by two other males of similar stature and breadth.
“Niko?” Owen said and the brute nodded.
Cait sniffed and rubbed her nose, pretending there was something wrong with it as she tried to catch Niko’s scent.
He smelled like a panther, but mingled with his scent was that of another.
Her claws grew further and her fangs began to descend, the drive to break free of Owen’s grip and shove past the male to burst into the building almost seizing control of her. She breathed slowly and deeply, focusing on Owen’s hand and how good it felt as it clutched hers, using him to keep herself rooted to the spot. She didn’t want to fight.
“I’m Owen.” He held his free hand out to the shifter but the male only looked at it. “I contacted you about needing some information.”
Niko nodded and folded his arms across his broad muscular chest, causing the tight white t-shirt he wore with his dark blue jeans to stretch even tighter across his biceps. His golden gaze slid towards Cait, briefly narrowed, and then edged away again.
Cait mentally bared her fangs at him.
Owen’s plan was a bust.
This male knew what she was because he was involved with one of her kind. He could smell it on her, just as she could smell female hellcat all over him.
Her fangs punched longer, the lower canines growing to match the upper ones as her instincts began to hijack her body, bending her to their will.
“I don’t like how she smells,” the male to the left of Niko grumbled and the one beside him nodded, flicking a glance at her, and then a glare at Owen.
“I don’t like him either. What’s a hunter want with us?”
“I’m not here for you. I’m not even here to speak with you.” Owen lifted the flap on his black satchel and took his tablet device out. He flipped the cover open and managed to swipe the screen without releasing her hand.
Cait was thankful for that as he turned the device towards Niko. Could Owen sense how close to the edge she was? If he let go of her hand, she wouldn’t be able to stop herself from launching past the panther shifter and seeking out the hellcat.
She needed to fight.
The urge was overwhelming, built into all females of her species. They were highly territorial, driven to battle each other whenever they crossed paths, both for the sake of expanding their territory and for the sake of having the attention of more males.
It was a stupid instinct. Cait had always hated it. Modern female hellcats were neither interested in territory nor males. It was the reason the males had taken to enslaving them.
“Seen this guy around?” Owen said as he showed the tablet screen to Niko.
The big panther shifter’s eyes narrowed and he nodded. “He was here about a week ago, but I’ve seen him before that. I know what he is.”
Owen’s hand tensed in hers but it was the only sign that he had stiffened on hearing that the panther knew the male in question was a hellcat. His schooled expression and casual demeanour concealed everything she could sense in him through their linked hands. It had shaken him.
Because of her.
He feared that the panther knew what she was, and he was right to fear it, because Niko did know. His minions didn’t though. They appeared to have blunter senses, which made Cait suspect the pair were of a weaker cat shifter species, possibly lion. Male lions had dull senses, because they relied heavily on their harem of females for hunting and protection.
They were lazy and filled with conceited pride and a sense of entitlement, just like male hellcats.
Cait sneered at them.
The one to Niko’s left glared at her and bared his fangs. “I don’t like the bitch.”
Niko ignored the male and studied the tablet Owen was holding out to him, his golden eyes swiftly darting across the screen as he read the information Owen had gathered so far on the male hellcat.
The lion males exchanged a glance.
All hell broke loose.
Owen launched himself between her and the two males just as they lunged for her. He took a hard blow to the right side of his jaw, grunted and staggered left before hitting the cobbled street in a slump, his tablet spilling from his hand.
The panther male reached out to grab hold of both of his minions. He snagged one by the collar of his t-shirt and the other evaded him, heading straight for Owen.
Cait leaped between Owen and the male, shielding him with her body, and growled low in her throat.
The change was upon her before she could consider what she was doing, her twin tails sprouting from the base of her spine as black fur coursed over her body. Her ribs expanded and limbs shifted, the violence of the transformation tearing her corset and leather trousers apart. She dropped onto all four paws as she completed the shift and snarled at the three males standing dumbstruck in front of her.
Her tails swished, the blue flames that coated their tips fluttering as she moved them, and she stared down the male who had gone after Owen.
She could feel Owen’s intense and focused gaze on her as he picked himself up off the cobbles and could sense his astonishment and awe on her sharper senses.
She looked back at him, blue flames licking around her teeth as she dragged air in over them to catch his scent of spice and fire.
His green eyes widened, his heart pounding in her ears.
Cait turned her focus back on the three shifter males. The panther looked as if he was considering shifting too. If he did, he would be an imperfect mirror of her sleek black form, a weaker version far smaller than she was.
She huffed, the flames flickering around her fangs dancing forwards on the air, and lowered her head. The blue fire that normally engulfed only the last third of her tails spread downwards as her anger rose.
Cerulean flames burst from beneath her paws too, twisting and twining up her black legs.
Cait hissed and growled, the strange sound echoing off the buildings around her and drawing too many eyes her way.
Owen had wanted her to keep a low profile.
She hadn’t been able to stop herself from changing to protect him and she wasn’t sure she could stop herself from attacking the males to make them pay for harming him.
A murmur ran through the crowd gathering around them.
Owen shoved his tablet into his satchel and hissed at her. “Cait.”
She looked back at him and he looked off to his left. Her gaze followed his and fear trickled through her when she spotted the three big demons amidst the crowd, swords strapped to their backs and their eyes pinned on her as they talked in low voices.
About her.
Shit was about to go even further south.
CHAPTER 7
Owen grabbed Cait’s hand the second she had finished transforming back into her normal form. He ran with her, shoving through the narrowest point in the crowd and then dragging her down a side street. She looked back over her shoulder, sure the three demons were following, and gasped when she spotted them lumbering towards her.
Cait wrapped her free arm across her chest to cover her breasts and ran harder, sprinting alongside Owen as he blazed a trail through the fae town, his satchel bouncing against his hip. He knew it better than she had thought, or he was just running in a crazy pattern to throw the demons, because he kept twisting and turning down smaller and smaller alleyways.
Slowing the demons down.
The males were mostly mortal in appearance, with the exception of the dusky ridged horns that curled from behind the tops of their pointed ears, and their impressive stature. All of them stood several inches taller than Owen and all were at least twice his breadth. The smaller alleys made their pursuit difficult as they tried to squeeze their big muscular bodies down the narrow gaps between the buildings.
Bitten by a Hellcat Page 6
