Pet Rescue Panther

by Zoe Chant

  The road leveled off at last. Trees blocked their view of the valley, or what could be seen of it in the growing darkness. They drove through a short stretch of woods and, as stars began to emerge in the purpling sky, came out onto the mansion's wide-open grounds.

  He always forgot how big this place was. The house had seemed small from the valley floor, dwarfed by the height of the cliff and the massive scale of the mountains framing it, but now it loomed over them. Some of the windows were lit warmly from within; most were dark. Lights picked out a sweeping front drive. Ben drove past that to a row of garage doors in a separate outbuilding, and parked on the wide gravel apron in front of it.

  A warm breeze rising up from the valley blew back their hair as they stepped out of the car. Tessa reached into the back to retrieve the kittens' tote.

  "Leave that for now," Ben said. He knew she wasn't going to make the best impression on his dad, and he didn't give a damn, but if it was possible for her to meet his dad without having a large bright-blue Rubbermaid tote clutched in both hands, that would probably help.

  Tessa shook her head firmly. In the tote, the kittens scratched and scrabbled. They'd been fed—he and Tessa had stopped to buy kitten food on the road—and had a nest in the tote made of Tessa's T-shirt and a spare sweatshirt of Derek's, but they were either nervous at the presence of dragons, or very ready to be out of the tote. Maybe both.

  "They'll be okay for just a few minutes. We can talk to my dad and arrange for a room, and then come back and get them."

  "No," Tessa said firmly. "They depend on me. I didn't leave them to be eaten by Reive, and I'm not leaving them now."

  Ben couldn't help thinking that she was going to make a hell of a mom one of these days. Having been abandoned by her parents at an early age, intentionally or not, she'd brought all her protective instincts to bear on the other small, helpless creatures of the world.

  "Okay, how about this. We'll take them inside—I know the layout of this place reasonably well, and we can pick any unused bedroom on this wing and—"

  "Well, look what we have here."

  The voice was gruff and deep; it sounded like its owner had been gargling with rocks. Ben sighed and turned around.

  "Maddox. I liked you better in handcuffs."

  The big, crewcut slab of muscle folded his arms, making his shoulders bulge and ripple under his suit. "You gonna try to arrest me again?"

  "Not unless you do something illegal in front of me." Ben took a quiet sidestep to place himself between Tessa and his father's henchman. "We're here to see my dad."

  "You call ahead?"

  "I'm his son. I don't need an appointment."

  "You sure about that?"

  "Maddox, I know you don't like me, and trust me, it's mutual. But this is a matter of life and death. You want to make it a fight, go ahead; you'll answer to Dad for it." Ben nodded to Tessa. "Come on. Let's go in the house."

  She glanced nervously at Maddox, but the big henchman made no threatening moves in their direction. When they started walking, he fell in line a few steps behind them, walking with startlingly silent steps for such a big guy—Ben could barely hear him at all, even on gravel.

  Of course, it was hard to hear anything at all over the scrabbling, mewing kittens.

  Tessa leaned forward to whisper, "Is he a dragon, too?"

  "I don't think so." Ben glanced over his shoulder. Maddox's eyes glinted at him in the shadows. "He could be some other kind of shifter, though. Like me."

  The gravel path, edged with ornamental shrubbery, curved gently around the verge of the driveway toward the big house. As they neared the steps leading up to the main entrance, the door opened and Ben's father came out.

  At least he hadn't shown up as a dragon; Ben relaxed a little inside. He wouldn't put it past his father to do exactly that, probably scaring the life out of his mate when she'd just been attacked by a dragon on multiple occasions. And his father's shifted form was even bigger than Reive's.

  Even as a human, though, Darius Keegan was an imposing man. Arms folded, he looked down at his son from the top of the steps. "What's this?" he asked flatly.

  "You told me she needed protection. I'm protecting her." Ben was aware of Tessa giving him a quick look.

  "I didn't tell you to bring her here."

  "Where safer?" Ben asked succinctly. "Since you're not going to introduce yourself properly, Dad—Tessa, this is Darius Keegan, my father. Dad, this is Tessa Davelos."

  He began to climb the stairs. Tessa, looking anxious, followed him after a moment of paralyzed hesitation.

  Darius moved to block their path. "You dare to bring that into my house—"

  "She is my mate."

  Ben's panther rose up snarling in his chest. He was, he realized, spoiling for a fight. He hadn't gotten satisfaction with Reive, and then they'd been running, and his panther hated it, hated not having the opportunity to protect their mate properly. And this was a fight that had been coming for a long time.

  "Do you want to challenge me on this, Father?" he asked, softly but with spring-wound steel underneath, aware of the panther rising to the surface, glinting gold in his eyes. "There is nowhere else safe for us. And we have an important piece of business we need to discuss. Important dragon business."

  Darius's eyes flashed. "She knows?"

  "We almost got killed by a dragon at my cabin," Ben said coldly. "I think she knows."

  For a long moment they stood face to face, father and son. Ben's panther was tense inside him, barely contained, prepared to erupt out of him at the slightest threat to his mate.

  Then, to Ben's surprise, his father stepped aside—not in a way that suggested capitulation but simply a sidestep as if he'd always meant to do that. "Take her to the Lilac Room. I'll be up shortly to talk."

  Ben gave him a tight nod—one equal to another. The nod was not returned, but he thought his father's cold gray eyes viewed him now with a look he'd never seen there before. Assessing, but not in the usual way, when he was measured and found wanting.

  He thought he might, for the first time in his life, have earned a little of his father's respect ... long past the time in his life when he cared if he got it or not.

  I don't want your respect, or your fatherhood. I just want to make sure you keep my mate safe. That's all.

  As Ben and Tessa passed him, Darius stopped Tessa with a light touch on her arm. Ben and his panther both bristled; his fingers curled with the effort of keeping the cat in check. If his father made one move to harm her—

  "What is that?" Darius asked. He tapped the plastic of the tote, causing a fresh eruption of scrabbling and mewing inside.

  "Kittens?" Tessa said nervously.

  "Kittens," Darius repeated. He seemed taken aback. Ben wasn't used to seeing his father caught off guard.

  "They'll be in the Lilac Room with us," Ben told him. Flatly, a statement, not a question. That was the key to dealing with his father, one that he'd learned slowly over the years. Never show doubt or weakness; never give him a crack to sink his claws into. He rested a hand in the small of Tessa's back, making it clear to his father and Maddox and any other henchmen who might be watching from the shadows: This is mine. She is mine. They are mine. "Come on, Tessa," he added more gently. "Let's go. I'll show you where it is."

  He was all too aware of his father's eyes on him as they turned away.

  ***

  "He told you I needed protection? I thought it was Melody."

  Tessa managed to wait until the door was closed and the two of them were alone (in a bedroom larger than her entire apartment) to say it.

  "It came from Melody, by way of my dad. Do you want help with—"

  "I've got it."

  Ben had also offered to take the tote from her in the hall, but she'd stubbornly hung onto it, so now he merely watched as she set it in the middle of the cream-and-violet bedspread.

  To her relief, the Lilac Room wasn't as overwhelmingly lavender as she'd been afraid of; it had
a very tasteful blue, violet, and white color scheme. A bouquet of lilac flowers on the old-fashioned vanity looked so real that Tessa wanted to smell them to make sure they were, as she suspected, fabric. Surely they couldn't keep fresh flowers in all the rooms all the time, just in case a guest stopped by. But maybe they did; maybe that's what being this rich was all about.

  She'd never felt as out of place as she did in this house. It was like she'd stepped onto the set of a movie. The public areas of the house were dominated by hallways with enormous high ceilings (to accommodate dragons, she thought, with an uncomfortable twist in her stomach), elaborate mosaics tiled in the marble floors, carved wooden moldings, and gilt wallpaper that she had an awful feeling might really be gold leaf. Ornate display tables held antique vases and abstract sculptures. She'd been terrified that she was going to bump into something with the cats' tote and knock over a vase worth several million dollars.

  Meanwhile, Ben walked through it like he thought it was all perfectly normal.

  Of course he did, she thought resentfully. He must have grown up with this. She knew it wasn't his fault, but that just made her feel more angry about being irrationally angry.

  It was just ... what had happened to the guy she was slowly but steadily falling in love with? She hadn't known him for long, but she had thought she did know him. Ben was a down-to-earth guy, a guy who worked with his hands and built his own cabin, a dedicated cop. He was someone who, even if he hadn't lost his parents like she had, wasn't that close to them; he understood her feelings of alienation and isolation.

  And now it felt like a whole new side of his world had opened up in front of her: something she hadn't even guessed at, which felt completely unwelcoming to her. It wasn't that Ben had done anything to make her unwelcome, it was just that she'd thought they had so much in common, and now she wondered if they'd ever had anything in common at all.

  "Are you okay?" Ben asked, his voice gentle. He reached out a hand.

  She pulled away. "I'm fine. I just need to make myself look—" Less like me. "—more presentable, that's all."

  "There's a bathroom through there." Ben pointed to a white door with a gold handle. "Are you hungry? I can have the kitchen send something up—"

  "No!" she snapped, temper flaring. He was just so relaxed about this, as if calling down to the kitchen for room service was a perfectly normal thing to do in a perfectly normal household. And she couldn't even think how to explain; anything she said would just make her sound stupid and childish. "Look after the kittens for me." And she went quickly into the bathroom before she either burst into tears or started yelling.

  The bathroom was as stupidly, ridiculously huge and ostentatious as everything else in the house (only half the size of my apartment, she thought; downright modest by their standards) with an enormous step-down hot tub and a white vanity with a gold-edged mirror shaped like a giant shell. She did actually feel a little better once she'd washed her face with some of the faintly floral soap, dried her face on a towel with embroidered lilacs along the edge, and smoothed down her hair somewhat. She found a comb and other toiletries in a drawer of the vanity.

  As completely over-the-top as this whole place was, it did feel nice to pamper herself a little bit. She wished she could just relax and enjoy the unaccustomed luxury.

  The only person making you feel bad is you, she told herself firmly.

  But as soon as she stepped out of the bathroom and saw Ben on the floor, playing with the kittens, she felt her level of tension start to ratchet up again. He'd taken off his shoes, and even in sweatpants a size too large for him, he looked at home there, in a way she never would be.

  It's not like he's going to make you live in a mansion. It wouldn't even be bad if he did! I mean, you'd be in a mansion!

  But ...

  But there was still that sense of distance between them, that she hadn't felt until they came here.

  Ben looked up at her and smiled hopefully. She managed to smile back, and sat down on the plush white carpet near him, picking up a kitten to pet it.

  "Tessa," Ben said quietly, "if it's my dad, I promise you—"

  "Stop," she said. "It's not—I mean—look, you're the one that wanted to come here." And that was the crux of the problem, really. Even telling herself that he was just trying to help didn't make her feel any better about it. "I'll let him look at my parents' necklace as long as I have your word that you won't let him take it away."

  "I won't. I promise."

  "I know." She softened, seeing how distressed he was, how much he wanted to make her feel better even though he didn't know what was bothering her. "It's just that ..."

  She broke off, not sure how to explain, not sure if she even could explain. Ben started to reach out, gently, hand curled to brush her cheek with his fingers.

  —at which point, the door opened without a warning knock and Darius Keegan loomed in the doorway. One of the kittens (Toblerone, of course) made a break for the hallway. Without pausing, possibly on pure instinct, Darius reached down in a smooth, lightning-fast grab and picked it up by the scruff as it ran past him. The kitten dangled in his grip, staring at him, while he stared at it.

  "Don't hold them like that," Tessa said sharply, scrambling to her feet. "They get heavier as they get bigger, and you can't keep picking them up like they're tiny babies. You'll hurt him."

  Ben made an abortive movement, as if he'd started to grab for her, and then he sat back on his heels, petting the kitten in his lap and silently watching.

  Darius turned his flat, appraising stare from the dangling kitten to Tessa. "What?"

  "You're holding it wrong. Look. I'll show you." As she took Toblerone out of his hands, there was a part of her shrieking, He's a dragon! And you're just treating him like some random cat lady in the animal shelter! He seemed to loom over her, terrible and tall, with a palpable sense of power surrounding him. No wonder the cats didn't like Melody and Reive. Tessa had never been able to feel this from the other dragons she'd met, but with Darius, she was all too aware of it. Lurking inside him was a huge predator, and it brought out the tiny skittering prey animal in the back of her brain.

  But he was also holding a kitten wrong. Tessa cuddled Toblerone to her chest, calming him down. "Look," she said. "You have to support a cat and make sure it knows you aren't going to drop it. They don't like to be grabbed or just held out at arm's length like a bag of someone's trash. Would you?"

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Ben staring at her in open awe. Darius was regarding her with a look she couldn't read at all. He looked a lot like Ben, she thought, but much sharper and harder, as if everything soft in him had been planed away. Ben's eyes were the gray of stormclouds and rain-washed seas; Darius's were the color of cold pewter.

  Against her chest, the kitten had calmed and begun to purr. It was lucky it was Toblerone, she thought; a less outgoing kitten might have still been freaked out. This one might actually let Darius hold him.

  "Look," Tessa said again, and lifted Toblerone carefully away from her chest. "Support its bottom with one hand, like this." She took Darius's cool fingers in hers and cupped them around the kitten's backside. "And with your other hand—no, baby—" Toblerone had begun to struggle. Tessa firmly clamped Darius's fingers around the kitten's chest, noticing that a hint of actual panic had slipped into his gunmetal eyes, and then let go and took a step back.

  "Er," Darius said, now awkwardly holding a kitten. The kitten seemed no less pleased.

  Tessa mimed bringing something to her chest. "Hold him against you, not at arm's length."

  Very slowly, Darius brought the kitten to his chest. He was still holding it clamped firmly between his hands. "It appears to be trying to bite me."

  Tessa rolled her eyes. "Pet it."

  "I'm using both hands to hold it here," Darius pointed out reasonably.

  "You don't need both hands now. Hold him to your chest with the hand under his chest. Then pet him with the other."

  Dariu
s cautiously ran his hand over the kitten's soft fur. Tessa held her breath in concern—she wasn't sure how Darius would react if the kitten clawed him—but Toblerone, true to his bold nature, seemed to be settling down.

  Then he made a sudden break for freedom. Darius let go, startled, but instead of jumping down, the kitten clambered up his arm onto his shoulder. At the top, Toblerone paused and crouched, as if this wasn't quite what he'd had in mind but he couldn't think of a good way out of the situation.

  Darius had much the same expression. He leaned his head away from the kitten and reached up cautiously to touch it.

  Ben was staring.

  Tessa decided that was about as much bonding as either of them could take, and stepped in to lift the cat off his shoulder; she had to stand on tiptoe. "Nicely done," she said with a somewhat forced smile. "And now you know how to pet a cat."

  But he had lost interest in the cat as soon as he saw the silver chain around her neck. "Let me see it," he said.

  It was a command, not a request. Darius Keegan, Tessa guessed, wasn't a man who was used to asking for things. At a different time, Tessa would have objected, but she didn't feel this was the time.

  She set down Toblerone gently, and fished up the necklace out of her collar. As she slipped it over her head, she was intensely aware of the powerful sense of attraction she'd felt from the moment she had seen it among her parents' things. Giving it to Ben had been hard enough. Placing it in Darius's narrow palm was almost physically painful.

  As soon as the crystal touched his skin, Darius made a soft, inhuman hissing sound. Tessa glanced quickly up at his face, and for a startling instant she glimpsed his eyes change. The pupils elongated to slits, and his eyes flashed green-gold before returning to normal gray human eyes so quickly she almost thought she'd imagined it.

  Ben had seen as well. "It's draconic in origin, isn't it?"

  "Yes," Darius said softly. He held the pendant up to the light, the silver chain twined about his long, strong fingers. "It is more than that, it is ... Benedict, will you leave the room, please?"