by Zara Chase
Tyrone stopped walking and stared at Kane. “You’re kidding me, right?”
“I didn’t say it would be ideal, but I can’t bear the thought of losing either of you. We’ll explain it to Aisha somehow, make her understand.”
“We’ll get through this and make it come out the way we want. No half measures for either of us,” Tyrone said emphatically. “Besides, there’s the small matter of a vindictive ex-mate who’ll stop at nothing to get me back.” Tyrone shuddered. “I don’t wanna think about what she might do if she found out I was even considering mating again.”
Kane scowled. “Yeah, I know, but at least you’re aware of what you need to do. I don’t even know how the fuck I’m supposed to figure out if I even have a problem. If I take a chance and mate with Aisha, having already fucked another female, I could finish up losing all my powers. That would kill me, but so does the thought of passing up on Aisha.” Kane extended the claws on one hand and raked them down his thigh. “Shit, what a fucking mess!”
Tyrone pushed through the door to the Cat’s Whiskers. “Let’s see if our leader has any brilliant insights to share with us this morning. I could sure use some wise advice.”
“Amen to that.”
It was early in the day and, being a nocturnal colony, the bar was still empty. Only Chantal, Rafe and Vilas’s human mate, was there getting things set up for the breakfast trade. It would start at a normal person’s lunch hour.
“Hey, Chantal.” Tyrone leaned across the bar and kissed her cheek. “How you doing, gorgeous? Those guys treating you okay? If not, you know where to come.”
Chantal smiled at them both. “I’m doing all the work, as usual,” she replied without rancor. “While those two mates of mine sleep off the effects of a night out doing whatever it is you big pussycats do on your nights out. I prefer not to ask.”
“Baby,” Kane said, laughing as he, too, leaned in to kiss her. “You have no idea what you’re missing.”
“Leave her alone and find your own mate.” A bleary-eyed Vilas wandered into the bar wearing just a pair of shorts and slipped a protective arm around Chantal’s waist. “Morning, darlin’,” he said, kissing her hard on the lips.
Kane and Tyrone shared a look tinged with envy. Rafe and Vilas’s love for and protection of Chantal was common knowledge in the colony. They would both put their lives on the line for her without a moment’s hesitation. Now that he’d met Aisha, Kane understood exactly what motivated them. But would the day ever dawn when he could publicly display such territorial protection of the woman he already loved? His gut churned at the prospect of losing her, having finally found the only mate who could ever keep him happy. He knew it as surely as he knew his own name. Once again he felt it deep in his human soul, and in his leopard soul also. Determination gripped him. Somehow he’d make it happen. He didn’t care what it cost him, what bargains he had to make with the devil, there had to be a way.
“Is Rafe upstairs?” Kane asked. “We need a word.”
“Yeah, we just finished breakfast,” Vilas replied. “Go right on up. I’ll be along in a second.”
“Morning.” Vadim strode into the bar from the dock, where presumably he’d just left his boat. “You’ll be pleased to know that your little gal checks out. She was raised in Bridgeport, Connecticut and graduated Connecticut State with a bachelor’s degree in meteorology. Parents divorced. Mother died of cancer before Aisha graduated high school. Father’s whereabouts unknown. Far as I could discover, she has no contact with him. Aisha worked two jobs to pay her way through college and was taken on by Cordite News and Weather as soon as she graduated. The headhunters all had her in their sights and she had her choice of jobs. She keeps a studio apartment in New York close to the television station, works twelve-hour days, and doesn’t seem to have many friends because she’s married to her job.”
“How did you find out so much so quickly?” Kane asked.
“Trust me, buddy, you don’t wanna know.”
“Might not hurt to have Vadim check into the background of the woman who seduced you,” Vilas said from behind the bar. “You at least know her name, I assume.”
“Yeah, if she told me the truth.”
“If she didn’t, presumably the organizers of the conference will know which town council sent her,” Tyrone remarked.
“She told me her name was Susanna Denton and that she’s from Cape Canaveral. The list of attendees backed that up.”
“I’m on it,” Vadim said, waving to them all and heading back to his boat.
Kane and Tyrone made their way upstairs. Rafe looked up from his laptop when they entered his sitting room, closed it down, and stood up.
“Hey, what news?”
Kane flopped into the nearest seat, by which time Vilas had joined them. He told them all about the Valium in his system and Mikael’s theories as to how it got there.
“So, any suggestions?” he asked when he ran out of words.
“Vadim’s already checking the woman out,” Vilas said. “He might find a connection to our enemies.”
“I doubt it,” Rafe replied. “They must know we’d be suspicious, so they wouldn’t be that careless.”
“You think the woman was a convenient stooge?” Kane asked.
Rafe nodded. “Yeah. I’m sure she’s a legitimate delegate who was either consciously doing a friend a favor or, more likely, she was coerced without being aware of it.”
Kane kicked at the edge of a rug. “You think our enemies messed with her mind?”
“It’s what I’d do if I was one of the bad guys. I don’t mean to toot your horn here, Kane, but you’re not a bad-looking guy, according to Chantal, anyway.”
Vilas scowled. “First I’ve heard about our mate eyeing up the opposition,” he said.
“Relax, man, she’s only window-shopping.”
“Says who?” Tyrone responded.
An evil grin creased the corners of Vilas’s mouth. “She needs to be punished,” he said.
“Women tend to get emotionally involved in the sort of situation you found yourself in, Kane,” Rafe said. “They’re not wired the same as us guys and can’t always be trusted to keep business and pleasure separate.”
“You think she might ’fess up if she knew she’d been played?” Tyrone asked.
“That’s my take, for what it’s worth.”
Kane groaned. “If she’s genuinely in the dark and has no connection to the people manipulating her, it doesn’t help us any. I mean, we can hardly tell her the truth, can we?”
“I don’t suggest contacting her,” Rafe said in a considering tone. “We know she’s not entirely innocent because she must have given you that Valium, right?”
“Right,” Kane agreed.
“Presumably you didn’t give her any reason to suppose that you wouldn’t finish up in bed with her voluntarily.”
“Not that I recall.”
“So why the need for a drug that would likely impair your performance?”
“True, so it has to be our enemies’ work,” Kane conceded with a weary sigh.
“Right. And I’m guessing that your Susanna Denton—”
“She isn’t mine.”
Rafe waved an apology. “I’m betting she’ll turn up here sooner rather than later in an effort to lay claim to you.”
“I’m lost,” Kane said, scratching his head. “Why would she do that?”
“To remind you of what happened between you.”
“I still don’t get it.”
“Our enemies’ thinking will be that if you’ve blown your chances of having any other woman, you might want to make the best of it with Ms. Denton.”
“And that would help them how?”
“You’d finish up in the same situation as me,” Tyrone said. “Mated to someone unsuitable, and that would threaten the future of leopard shifters in Impulse.”
Vilas wrinkled his nose. “Seems a bit tenuous, but I’ve known our enemies to try weirder ploys in my time.”
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“It’s a fucking nightmare!” Kane stood up and expelled a long, frustrated breath. “We’ve finally met the woman who’s destined to become our mate. We need to break it to her that we’re leopards in human clothing who prowl the national park at night because…well, because it’s what we do.”
“We need to explain that Impulse is a colony of shape-shifting felines of differing species,” Tyrone said, playing verbal tag with Kane. “And that just about every shifter in this part of the US wants Impulse for its unique properties—the very properties she thinks are attributable to a weather anomaly.”
“If we can somehow get her to believe us without freaking her out, we then have to try and get her to put aside her ambitions for a glittering career in the media and have her remain here in Impulse with us.”
“Where she’ll be under constant threat of attack every day for the rest of her life.”
Kane shook his head. “That’s gonna take some work, but we can’t even start on it until I know for sure that I’m in a position to embark on the mating ritual.”
“Put like that,” Tyrone said gloomily. “There’s not much to entice a classy, independent woman like Aisha. I hadn’t really thought about it before. I just assumed that when our mate turned up, she’d know it and so would we, and that would be that.”
“Don’t put yourselves down,” Vilas said, grinning. “Chantal says the benefits of having two shifters with, in her words, very impressive equipment more than make up for the incongruities of life in Impulse.”
Rafe laughed. “Don’t forget that Aisha’s lifespan will triple once she mates with you guys. Besides, most of the female mates enjoy the excitement of being around us wild animals, to say nothing of the community spirit here in Impulse.”
“Not all the shifter mates feel that way,” Tyrone said.
Rafe nodded. “Ah, I was going to ask you how your visit to Maria went.”
“Not well. Nothing’s changed. She wants me back but refuses to return to Impulse. She’s denying her shifter blood and doesn’t want the kids to even know what they are.” Tyrone threw his head back and hissed. “I’ve tried to tell her that eventually our enemies will pick on the kids to get to me, but she won’t listen. She says if we live together like a normal family and have nothing to do with Impulse, no one will have reason to bother us.”
“Fuck it, I’m sorry, buddy,” Vilas said. “She was always a rebel when we were growing up, but I figured she’d gotten over that.”
“Yeah well, it’s my fault for letting things drift for so long. I kept thinking she’d see sense, get over her restlessness, and at least accept that she’s a shifter and so are the kids. I know now that she never will. Whatever was once between us died when she cheated on me. It’s just the kids I want to have back.”
“And Tyrone can’t mate with Aisha until he’s sorted out the situation with Maria,” Kane said. “If she somehow finds out she has competition, there’s no telling what she’ll do.”
“Maria’s abandoned Impulse, but she’s still a shifter and I’m her leader,” Rafe said firmly. “If I call her back here to explain herself, she won’t be able to withstand the pull.”
“I didn’t want to involve you in my domestic problems,” Tyrone said.
“I know, which is why I’ve kept out of them until now, hoping things would sort themselves out. But you’re right, she’s putting the entire colony at risk by being out there with your kids. I can’t let that go on.”
“Even if she did come back, she’d want me to give up Kane.”
“Shit!” Vilas looked ready to commit murder. “How can a fellow shifter be so fucking vindictive?”
“Practice,” Tyrone replied drolly. “She’s had plenty of it when it comes to getting her way. I’m partly to blame for letting her get away with it.”
“The time’s definitely come for me to act, Tyrone,” Rafe said. “You and Kane are a weak link in the colony right now, what with your need for a mate, and our enemies know it. That’s why you’ve been targeted, Kane, and why Maria needs to be reminded of who she really is.”
“Not to the extent that she moves back to Impulse and expects to be with me,” Tyrone protested. “She did the dirty on me, went with a human in a fit of rebellion, so she broke our mating ritual.”
“Oh no, she won’t be invited to stay,” Rafe said, “but she’s going to have to accept that the kids belong here.”
Tyrone rolled his eyes. “Good luck convincing her of that.”
“Does she have trouble suppressing her shifter tendencies?” Vilas asked.
“She says not when she’s living a human lifestyle away from Impulse,” Tyrone replied. “I don’t get that myself, but apparently it’s easier for females to overcome their urges.”
“So I’ve been told.” Rafe stretched his arms above his head and grinned. “So, tell us about the lovely Aisha. You sure she’s the one?”
“Absolutely!” Kane and Tyrone said together.
“Then I’m very happy for you both, and, trust me, we’ll find a way to make it happen. When are we going to meet her? It might help if she got a sense of the community spirit we have going here before breaking the trickier stuff to her. She could chat with Chantal and some of the other human mates. They understand better than we ever could just what she has to come to terms with if she’s to stay here.”
“Yeah,” Tyrone agreed. “But they can’t tell her much without giving the game away.”
“Chantal noticed oddities on her first morning here,” Vilas said.
“That’s because she was confronted with you,” Rafe replied.
Vilas shot his buddy the finger. “Even so, bring her over for dinner tonight. I’ll send out a pheromone and let everyone know they have to be on their best behavior.”
“That oughta do it,” Kane said with a wry smile.
Chapter Eight
As Kane and Tyrone walked home together, Kane’s phone buzzed. He recognized the Information Center’s number and picked up the call.
“Yeah, Claudia. What is it?”
“Hey, Kane, don’t forget you have a school party coming this morning. They’re just pulling up now.”
“Okay, I’ll be right there.” Kane pocketed his phone. “Shit, just as well she called. I’d forgotten about them.”
“I’ll take them if you like.”
“No, you did the last one. Besides, it might take my mind off things. You go back, check on Aisha, and prepare lunch. I’ll be there in an hour, tops.”
“You got it.”
Tyrone left Kane in the reception area and took the stairs two at a time, keen to see how Aisha had fared in their absence. A glance at his watch told him they’d been gone longer than he’d intended. He hoped she hadn’t been too overwhelmed by all that data and still felt guilty for setting her on a wild goose chase. He glanced around the door to the records room, but it was empty. Files were open on the table, the lights on Aisha’s laptop were flashing, indicating recent use, but of Aisha herself there was no sign.
Assuming she was either in her room or in the bathroom, Tyrone headed back to the living room. He glanced out the window when he got there and was surprised to see her sitting at the terrace table, a file open in front of her.
“Hell, she shouldn’t be out there.” Tyrone slid the door open and stepped out to join her. “Hey, did you get…shit!”
What was she thinking? He thought she knew better than to try and sit outside. Tyrone rushed to her side and crouched beside her chair. There were tears rolling down her cheeks—cheeks that were bright red from the strain of trying to breathe the air. Because she couldn’t get enough oxygen into her lungs she’d fallen into a semicomatose state—hopefully nothing worse than that.
Tyrone felt her pulse, which was strong and regular, implying that she couldn’t have been out there for too long. The rasping noises coming from her throat were reassuring. He’d seen hundreds of outsiders over the years trying to prove to themselves and others that they could han
dle the atmosphere. They never could, and all finished up in the same state as Aisha was now in.
Tyrone scooped their half-conscious mate into his arms and carried her back into the air-conditioned apartment. Her eyes flew open as she greedily filled her lungs with the clean, pure air they craved. Sitting up in the chair Tyrone placed her in, coughing her way back to full consciousness, she looked up at him with a contrite expression.
“Sorry, I—”
“Shush, don’t talk.” Tyrone brushed the hair away from a forehead soaked with perspiration. “Give yourself a moment.”
Tyrone fetched a glass of water. She grabbed it from his hand and drank it down in one gulp.
“Thanks. I guess it was pretty dumb, going out there.”
“It was. Whatever possessed you to—”
“I figured you guys can breathe so it must just be a case of getting acclimatized. I needed to take a break from all those files, so I decided to sit out, just for a minute or two. I intended to come back inside if it got too hard to breathe.” She choked on a sob. “But my lungs seized up and I couldn’t move. If you hadn’t come back when you did, I—”
“It’s okay.”
But it wasn’t, not really. Tyrone had been so wrapped up in his and Kane’s problems that he hadn’t picked up on her distress. That was bad, but it had also taught him a vital lesson. He’d keep that channel permanently open from now on. Better yet, he’d ensure that their mate was never left on her own until she got the hang of this place. Keeping her in their sights twenty-four-seven was a tough job, but someone had to do it.
“How did you do with the records?”
“I’ve started making charts of the different conclusions drawn and think I can already see a pattern. But I need to—”
“You need to get out and check the lay of the land for yourself.” Tyrone flashed a warning smile. “I understand that, but you have to take one step at a time.”
“I guess so.” She meekly dropped her eyes. “Impatience is one of my many failings.”
