by May Sage
Fuck.
Needing a reprieve from her own home - even upstairs, she could smell the spicy, musky scent of the male who drove her mad - she ran out the window, landing on a nearby branch, and ran along the trees until she was deep within the forest.
Then, after leaving her clothes on a neat pile, she shifted…and the fucking cat immediately turned around, heading back towards the house.
Aisling had to laugh. The animal was impossible.
She could have shifted back, but there was no need to - caging her animal was never a good idea, and contrary to just about any other shifter out there, Aisling could actually hang around others without alarming them.
Her soft paws expertly made it back inside the house and she went to perch on her favorite tree, where she liked to observe the newcomers.
Coveney, the tall, dark and handsome Head Enforcer, was fluent in grunts, but she didn’t think she’d heard him say much. Daunte, as per usual, was the life of the party, smiling when he didn’t laugh. Ian spent most of his time behind his laptop, but never seemed to miss a word of the conversation going on around him. Christine - the woman who’d ridden on Rygan’s bike - was sassy and outspoken, although she was clearly submissive, while Tracy, a dominant, read quietly in a corner. Ola seemed to be the caretaker, focusing on the children; Aisling recognized Hsu as the Seer, because she occasionally spoke of the future as though it was set in stone. “Don’t worry when you pick Niamh up late, tomorrow. She’ll make new friends at the grocery store.”
Niamh was the only one of their children who wasn’t a werecat; in fact, she wasn’t a shifter at all. If Aisling wasn’t mistaken, the kid was actually a witch. She knew plenty of witches with auras similar to hers, in any case. Then, there was Lola, the youngest, who was often glued to Rygan; the reason behind all their trouble was an adorable little thing who still sucked on her thumb.
Jasper, Clive, Victoria, Daniel and Will were around the same age, and acting like siblings, although none of them had any features in common.
Her cat purred, soaking in the atmosphere, and Aisling felt a pang of regret. The loner life was better for her, but there was no denying that her cat missed the sense of belonging a pride could bring.
Although frankly? She’d never known it. Aisling might have lived in a pride for a dozen years or so, but she had never been part of one.
Aisling and Daunte’s father wasn’t all there. Actually, scratch that. He was a pointblank lunatic and his nickname, The Butcher, was a euphemism. Nowadays, he was just a little unstable around the edges, but thirty years ago? That had been another story altogether.
Aisling knew other shifters felt sick to their stomach every time they heard the story but to her, it was just a fact. Just her life.
Her father had been feral - completely wild, never shifting back to his human form. As such, he mated with an actual animal. There was nothing wrong about it, as far as she was concerned because, well, he had been an animal, too.
She would have preferred if he’d picked a panther, a lynx, a margay - just about anything, really - but somehow, The Butcher mated with a Savannah; a breed that was a mix between a serval and a domestic cat. They were pretty and delicate, so she supposed it meant the man had good taste.
Either way, like it or not, those were her parents. A shifter and a cat.
She wasn’t sure how long she’d lived in the wild, two, three years maybe. But she hadn’t known better; she was smarter than her mother, and she questioned more - but as far as she had known, Aisling had been a cat.
Eventually, the pretty Savannah died. Aisling mourned her without being able to express it, not understanding the feeling that wasn’t quite natural in the forest. Death was part of life and another cat - an adult cat - would have moved on. She didn’t. She cried and stayed with the carcass for days. She still remembered the smell of the rotting corpse, and the way she’d had to fight against the predator who’d wanted to eat it.
But then he’d arrived. The smooth, big biped. She recognized his scent; she smelled exactly like the leopard who looked at her and her mother from afar some times, never attacking them. Safe, she thought. So, she let him approach, only scratching when he moved to touch the broken corpse.
The man ignored her hisses and warning claws, held her up by the scruff of her neck, and popped her on his shoulder.
“Stay here.”
It sounded like a weird growl to her, but while she didn’t understand the words, she obeyed his dominant order.
He buried her mother deep, so that no other animal would harm her. The grave was unmarked, but she could still exactly pinpoint the place where it had happened.
Then, her father took her home.
It took two years for her to shift to human form, and she didn’t talk before she was ten. However, she could hunt, and kill just about anything, completely at peace with her animal.
Aisling was a legend - everyone knew of The Butcher’s first child. Especially since she’d taken on some jobs as a bounty hunter after leaving her pride the minute she’d turned eighteen.
The pride members had been frightened of her - understandably - and that meant that the kids had bullied her, while the adults treated her like trash and blamed her for everything that ever happened.
Her pride did one thing right. She’d left ten years ago, and still, no one knew she was a girl; The Butcher’s first child, as far as the world knew, was a gruff, illiterate, grunting hunter who never shifted to his human form - not a bookish baker. The Alpha might have given them all an order to keep it secret, frightened of what would happen to them if she was thrown under the bus.
Oh, she wouldn’t bother them - as far as she was concerned, they were nothing more than a bad memory. But her father, who still lived with them in Maryland, might have seen things differently. The Alpha wasn’t stupid. He knew The Butcher could and would kill him, if he ever felt like it.
She was snapped back from memory lane and her cat lifted her pretty head when someone cooed at her, flattered by the words and soothed by the tone. Of course it had to be the damn Alpha she wanted to jump.
Rygan.
Rygan Wayland. She’d googled him the minute she’d been alone after her brother had given her his name.
Second son of the Ruler of all feline shifters in the US, Rygan had formed his own pack after his current Head Enforcer, Coveney, had wrongfully been accused of raping some important guy’s daughter. He probably hadn’t wanted the man to become a loner - a hated loner, at that. Coveney had been a close friend of his and, going against most of his pride and all his family, he supported him. He was followed by another one of his friends, Ian, Ola, an apprentice healer, and Christine, a submissive. Ace wasn’t sure how or when the others had joined, but she knew Daunte had turned eighteen a couple of years after the whole drama; he immediately asked to be transferred to his pride.
About six years ago, the woman who’d started the whole mess had come forward to retract her accusation, but by then, the Wyvern Pride had been fully formed, and completely independent.
Rygan wasn’t all heart and flowers. His linage and the size of his pride made him a prime target for any idiot wanting to make a name for himself by killing a werecat prince, so he’d been attacked numerous times, and each time, he and his small pride had left dozens of corpses - wolves, hyenas, crows - anything that had come at them. The Vergas pack was a different kind of enemy, though - they were large, resourceful, and determined. Worse yet: they genuinely believed they were doing the right thing, and that made them dangerous.
Still, Ace thought the pride had a good chance of making it. Honestly, when she’d first learned about the small pride Daunte had joined, she’d assumed that they survived attacks thanks to her brother, but now, she wasn’t so sure. Rye looked like he’d enjoy a bloodbath almost as much as the next psycho.
He was broad, tall, lean but muscular, and his dark grey eyes could be cold, when he wasn’t cooing and calling her “pretty kitty.”
A
nd what did her damn slutty pussy do? She jumped down, and rubbed against his leg.
Rygan scratched her fur, making her purr like her life depended on it; then he actually scooped her up in his arms.
Now was the time to be a badass and scratch the heck out of him. Any minute. Aisling scowled at her cat, who stretched in his arms, baring her belly as if to say “Scratch me theeeeere.”
And the damn Alpha did.
She was infuriated. But as she was also getting a tummy rub, she was infuriated while daydreaming of freaking rainbows and pink unicorns.
“Rye, are you going to take over from Coveney? He hasn’t eaten yet.”
The Alpha sighed, and gently popped her down on the floor, telling her, “See you later, kitty cat. It appears I have some work to do,” with one last scratch between her ears.
He walked out of the house, which didn’t please her cat - the damn hussy pussy just followed him, softly, silently.
She found his clothes on the back door’s steps and felt a jolt of excitement at the prospect of meeting his cat.
Oh, no, no, no. No way, no how.
Rygan wasn’t an idiot, or a weirdo like her father, but there was no doubt in her mind that her damn cat was going to do her best to get mounted, which would be so fucking embarrassing she might die on the spot, so she started to force the shift, but before her cat had relented, she found herself face to face with a goddamn sabertooth tiger.
She was pretty certain those things were supposed to be extinct. Was he wearing some kind of fake kitty fangs?
Aisling tilted her head, intrigued and cautious, but her cat didn’t give a damn. She wanted to plaaaaaay. The animal, who was comparatively tiny, had decided that the humongous beast in front of her was an appropriate playmate. Idiot.
However, as she was relatively confident her cat currently was more interested in playing hide and seek than getting fucked, she let her do her routine, trot around and rub against the banisters.
You’re not afraid.
Her cat wasn’t, but Aisling, however, was freaked out. Big time.
They weren’t part of the same pride and they’d never exchanged blood, so she was not supposed to hear Rygan in her damn head. But she let it slide, preventing herself from responding. If she did, he’d know she was a shifter.
Aisling had one advantage over others of her kind: there was more animal than human in her, which meant that when she did shift in her animal form, her human scent was almost negligible. Shifters who didn’t know better never realized she was one of them, in that form. That had been a tremendous help, back when she’d been a bounty hunter.
The tiger in front of her lowered his head, back side lifted, and pounced on her - delighted, her stupid cat ran around, and Aisling must have been totally stupid, too, because she was smiling like a crazy person. Having fun. It had been a while she’d played with a cat - Daunte visited, but they rarely shifted.
Regretfully, Rygan’s tiger stopped after a while and slowly walked towards the border of her territory, where they met another tiger - a normal one this time. No weird fangs.
Aisling didn’t hear their mental conversation, which was a relief; although it didn’t explain how she heard Rygan in the first place. They conversed while her cat stayed close by, cleaning her claws. Coveney - she recognized his scent - asked about her, she could feel it. He seemed open to play, too, because that was what cats did, when they didn’t fuck, or sleep - but her cat just looked at him with utter contempt.
The cat was such an ass. Aisling was silently laughing and shaking her head. But what could she say? The girl had standards.
Decisions
Rygan woke up alone, although he’d fallen asleep on the grass next to the female who had tired him out.
That sounded like the best kind of naughty in the world, but as he was talking about an actual cat - of the non-shifting variety - he’d just run trying to catch her until he couldn’t move another muscle. Damn kitty was quick.
“Waking up just in time for a Cuban,” Daunte said, holding a box of cigars up. “Want one?”
Rygan stretched languorously, before shifting.
He was pretty sure the reason why he got along with his Beta so well was because they were both freaks of sort - or in any case, Daunte had been raised by one. He understood.
Rygan might not be completely mad like The Butcher, but he had the same effect on people - they feared him, because he was bigger than any feline shifter out there. Those deadly white fangs coming out from under his upper lip probably didn’t help.
His pack members were used to it, but at first, they all shuddered. In fact, he’d never met anyone who didn’t. Except Daunte. And that pretty Savannah-ish cat, too.
He found himself wondering, “What is he like? Your older brother.” The one person who was seen as more freakish than him by their community. “You never speak of him.”
Daunte was pretty open to sharing information about his father, the way he’d raised him; he’d even put the enforcers through some of the training The Butcher had taught him, but Rygan couldn’t recall one time when he’d mentioned his notorious sibling.
Rygan understood. He wasn’t particularly fond of speaking about his own brother, Colter, his father’s heir, so he’d never asked.
Colter was perfect - strong, smart, reliable. Whatever Rygan accomplished, Colter had already done it, and that completely negated his value, as far as his old pride had been concerned. He’d been expected to excel, because his brother had before him. The first time Rye had become his own person, rather than a King’s lesser son and a Prince’s brother, was when he’d created his pack. Even then, no one had supported his decision.
As he’d had more than two members following him, no one could legally deny his application to form the Wyvern pride, but they had all been as unsupportive as possible; except Rygan’s grandmother.
The old crone was yet another Colter groupie, and she had never been very fond of Rye, yet she was the one who’d made it down to the hotel where they’d stayed while deciding on a direction, a large check in hand. He still didn’t understand it, but one day, he was going to have to thank her for it. As that meant going to his father’s territory, or attending the Fest, it wasn’t very high in his list of priorities.
“Ah, yes. My sibling. Half of what you’ve heard is probably true, the other half couldn’t be more inaccurate.”
Rygan waggled an eyebrow, wondering when his Beta had taken to talking in riddles.
“We get along. There’s no doubt that we have each other’s back. But yep. He’s a crazy motherfucker and he’ll tear through someone’s skull in a heartbeat - for the right reasons.”
Rygan smiled, smoking his cigar.
“That makes two of us.”
He’d cracked a skull or two in his time.
“If we get the house, we’ll need to purchase it under the umbrella of one of Ian’s companies, or a fake name. The wolves will find us eventually, but let’s not make it easy on them.”
He didn’t always understand the details of Hsu’s visions, as the images flew too quickly, but there was no doubt that a battle was still coming; when she’d seen what happened here, though, the results of the battle was everyone coming home; battered, exhausted, but alive. The kids, Ola and Christine were also fine. Something had made a difference in Lakesides; perhaps there was a hide-out the wolves wouldn’t find.
Doubtful. Wolves were the best trackers; their damn noses were naturally better than any feline’s. Rye was missing something.
“You look worried. I mean, more than usual.”
Rygan sighed.
“I think Hsu’s vision might make us complacent. Now we know what’s after us, I don’t see any reason why the pride should be safer here than anywhere else, so we need to be vigilant.”
Daunte looked like he might want to say something but after a second, he just nodded.
“I’ll patrol, if you want to go back to bed. You’ve barely slept for days. You need a fe
w hours in a row, Alpha - not twenty minutes here and there.”
Rye nodded, thankful, and headed inside.
Daunte was right, he wouldn’t be any good to the pride completely sleep deprived, so he went to the small bedroom, and dropped on the twin bed. He was asleep before his head hit the pillow.
Rye was awoken by one of the most pleasing sensations in the world, a soft hand running along his cock, a wet tongue lapping at it, but something was wrong; he knew it before opening his eyes. Instead of feeling aroused, he was revolted, and also pretty confused.
“What the fuck are you doing?” he yelled, pushing Kim's hand away.
It didn’t make a bit of sense.
Okay, so maybe he’d been stupid, years ago, when she first joined his pack; he might have screwed the woman once or twice, but he'd made it absolutely clear that he was done a long time ago, and she had seemed okay with it. She’d just gone to the rest of the males in the pride to satisfy her needs - Daunte, Ian, and Coveney had all obliged; sometimes, together, from what he’d heard. The woman had three holes and knew how to use them.
Rye hated the term, but for lack of better words, she really was the pride whore. She had no other use.
What she’d done now wasn’t going to fly. He wouldn’t have minded if she'd just made the move on him; he would simply have rejected her, and that would've been that, but touching him while he slept, without his consent? That wasn't acceptable. They didn’t have that sort of relationship and she damn well knew it.
“I see you looking at me,” she purred, batting her long lashes. “I came to give us what we both want.”
Right. So the girl was delusional.
“What was that?”
He was just dumbfounded. If he ever looked at her, it was with contempt.
Ten years ago, he'd been young, restless, as well as overwhelmed with all the duties suddenly entrusted to him, so he’d welcomed the distraction. Pounding the hole between her long legs had given him an outlet for a few minutes here and there, but he’d since realized just how pitiful and self-centered Kim was, and she had completely lost her appeal. Plus, he didn’t judge the others for doing it, but he’d never fuck a woman who’d gone through all his pridemates.
