by P. Jameson
“Is this about mating?” Doc asked quietly. She could practically smell the humiliation wafting from her friend, but there was no way to make this any easier for her. All Doc could do was stay professional.
Bailey swallowed twice before lifting her gaze, pushing her chin out and shoulders back. “Yes. It’s a possibility now. Even for me.”
“Of course it is.”
“And I’d like to be acceptable in the eyes of whatever male I choose.”
Doc didn’t add that Bailey would never choose a male who refused to account for the beauty inside as well as outside. She’d pick someone who wanted the whole package. And forever. So her issue was a moot point really.
“And you don’t think you’re acceptable the way you are?”
Bailey’s eyes never left Doc’s. “I think I could be better.”
Aw, screw professionalism.
Doc reached for her script pad, jotted down a line, and ripped it from the stack. Pushing her glasses up her nose, she handed it to Bailey who looked overcome with relief. She studied it, a frown creasing her forehead and causing the three braids that ran along one side of her scalp to pull forward. She shook her head in confusion, the rest of her curly hair falling over the other side of her face in a rippling curtain.
“I don’t understand,” she said, looking to Doc for an explanation.
“It’s a prescription. Relatively new. Called Fuqdat. It’s innovative, cutting edge medicine. I’m on it myself and it’s just about time for my next dose so I can show you how to administer it.”
Bailey rolled her eyes, the hand holding the script falling heavy to her lap.
“So, it’s like this,” Doc said in her most professional sounding voice. “Take your hand—whichever one you’re more comfortable with—and hold it up like so. Sort of like you’re making a fist, with the back of your hand facing away from you. Now slowly, but firmly, flip your middle finger up, leaving your other fingers down, and hold it… hold it… for about three solid breaths. Then return your hand to its original position.”
Bailey blinked at Doc’s antics. “You are the actual worst, you know that? You really are.”
“I’m actually not. It’s just that I’m true and I don’t like bullshit. And that could-be-better stuff, my friend, is utter bullshit.”
Bailey pursed her lips.
“You are strong and capable. You are beautiful and smart. You have been through a shitty upbringing and managed to become a loving, caring person. You’re a hard worker, you make damn good food, and you’re there for your friends when they need you. You are wonderful the way you are. There’s no better. This is you, and you need to remember it. Also, if you don’t mind me saying, your tits are banging. So, there’s that.” Doc shrugged. “Or you can fill the prescription.”
“No,” Bailey said, putting her hand up to ward off more of Doc’s medicine. “No, I think I’m good.” A smirky tilt of her lips told Doc she was finally seeing the light.
“You sure? If you need more, you know where to find me.”
Bailey shook her head, exasperated. “I swear you aren’t okay in the head.”
Doc shrugged in reluctant agreement. “Side effect of Fuqdat. Forgot to mention it.”
Scooting off the exam table, Bailey headed for the door. “Banging tits, huh?”
“Yup.” Doc grabbed her own tiny teats. “You’ve got the bongos, and I’ve got like, I dunno, the empty coke cans. But either way, we have tits. Let’s remember that.”
A laugh slipped past her friend’s lips, and her eyes twinkled with humor. Doc even thought her shoulders stood a little higher and her back a little straighter. Her confidence was returning. Whatever had shaken it was being flushed away with the truth, and Doc felt that warm satisfaction that came from truly helping someone who needed it. This was what her profession was all about.
Sometimes healing a patient didn’t happen by doling out medicine.
“Yes,” Bailey agreed, “let’s always remember the tits.”
“Very important.”
Doc’s hands fell away as Bailey pushed out of the room, and she breathed a happy sigh. Not even 9am and already kicking ass at her job. It was a good start to the day, and hopefully a sign of more good to come.
Maybe today she’d get that call she’d been waiting for. The one that would explain his absence. Or explain… something. Maybe today he’d even come home. Wouldn’t that make her cougar happy.
Too many days had gone by without any word.
Not that she expected any updates. That wasn’t part of their agreement. He was a grown-ass man, and he wasn’t truly hers no matter what their bodies had to say about it.
But as Bailey said, lots of things had changed around the Ouachitas. Maybe a certain panther’s heart had changed as well.
Yes, maybe today would be a good day.
And if it wasn’t? Well, there was a prescription for that.
***
“This isn’t our gig, man. My dogs don’t take out the garbage.” Rigor crossed his big arms over his chest and stared hard at the jaguar shifter in front of him. “That’s a cat’s job.”
Felix, leader of the Alley Cats and the baddest shifter in Memphis, tilted his head in the most feline way, chin jutting and eyes glowering.
“You have a yard full of junk as your business. You literally keep trash. I throw it out. So I really don’t accept your haughty attitude about this.”
Rigor narrowed his gaze. The junkyard wasn’t their business. It was just part of the job. The towing was their business, and it was the only noble part of their operations. It was the one clean thing his wolves had going for them. One late night call to pull a stranded mother off the road cancelled out a week’s worth of shit he did for Felix.
“What you’re asking us to do is too much.”
It wasn’t crossing any line Rigor hadn’t stepped over in the past. It was just that the people involved were innocent. A small clan tucked away in the fucking mountains. They ran a vacation lodge of all things. Real badasses to be sure. They probably didn’t even know what a monster they had living among them.
“We need to deal with Gash. He needs to make restitution for his betrayal and earn his way back into our clan.”
“He doesn’t want back in. He’s gone. Moved on. Can’t you just leave well enough alone? He’s your brother for fuck’s sake. Let him go.”
“That’s not how we work. You know that. You turn your back on your clan, you pay.”
“Fine. But this has nothing to do with my wolf pack. Your beef with your brother is your problem.”
Felix arched one black eyebrow, giving his silver gaze an eerie glow. “Is it? We’ve both got our hands in Bastian’s cookie jar. I’d say that makes my problems yours.”
Bastian. The fucking human who thought he owned Memphis. But Bastian’s dirty money paid the bills and gave the shifters a measure of freedom. They were untouchable, because there wasn’t a Memphis law enforcement officer not under Bastian’s thumb.
“That aside,” Felix said, smirking. “The Ouachita clan should interest you for other reasons.”
Rigor growled under his breath. He could feel his dogs getting antsy from their positions around the lot. They were far enough back they couldn’t hear, even with their shifter ears, but Felix had been strutting around wolf territory for longer than was tolerable.
“Can you get to the fucking point? Your time here is limited.”
The cat’s eyes flickered to those of his animal’s and then back to human between one blink and the next. “Gash’s new clan has connections to the hunters.”
Rigor went numb at the mention of the human monsters who took his female’s life. Shifter hunters with a single mission: kill them all, innocent or guilty.
And that’s exactly what they’d done. Eva was an innocent. She didn’t play the dirty games Rigor did. And she’d loved unconditionally. A trait that set her apart from so many others and elevated her to angel status in his eyes.
; But how did a meek clan of cats from the mountains have a connection with the brutal shifter killers?
“Explain,” Rigor ground out.
A tight smile spread across Felix’s face. “See, you getting all bossy like that makes me want to claw your pretty face up. But alas…” He sighed. “It gives me pleasure to see you riled. And I need your help.”
“Damn it, cat. You’re pressing a nerve you don’t want to fuck with.”
Felix’s fossil eyes narrowed threateningly, and Rigor heard the low snarl of one of his wolves hidden behind an old rusted out Chevy hull.
“The man who killed your woman…”
Aaron Redman. Rigor knew his name, his family, his hopes and dreams. The goddamn pattern of streaks in his iris, and how fast his pupil could contract under stress.
“His sister belongs to a wolf in western Arkansas. The Dirt Track Dogs.” He spit on the ground as if the name tasted bad in his mouth. “The pack is tight with the Ouachita clan. Get to the clan, you can get to her. Get to her, you can get the murdering bastard and make him pay. Six degrees of…”
“Separation?”
Felix tilted his head with a cruel twist of his lips. “Revenge, my man. Six degrees of the sweetest fucking revenge you could ask for.”
The idea was seductive and left Rigor hard below the belt. He’d dreamed of making that evil asshole pay for his crimes. Such vivid dreams he woke up choking on the high of ripping Redman to pieces while his own woman watched. It would be the perfect payback.
After all this time, he could finally avenge Eva. If a couple cats from the Ouachitas had to be collateral damage, so be it.
“Fine.”
Rigor stared past the car crusher and the gutted trucks that filled the lot, to a small building set away from all the others. It was where he kept his trump card. The thing he’d been saving for such a time as this. He was glad he was a hoarder of sorts. Because sometimes what looked like junk, was really a hidden gem.
“My wolves are in.”
Chapter Two
Restlessly, Doc rechecked her supply cabinets in the exam room off the side of her office. The gauze was refilled, the syringes and tranquilizers were well stocked, and the whole place had been wiped down. Twice. Was it wrong to wish someone would injure themselves so she’d have something to do?
Yes. Of course it was.
Doc shook her head, moving to wipe down the exam table one more time. Couldn’t be too clean, right?
It was almost time to head down to the spa for her shift there. She was taking on more of Mason’s shifts to help fill her time. She wasn’t as skilled as he and Bethany in the fine arts of massage, but she knew enough to put their guests at ease, and many of the afternoon rub-downs were walk-ins who didn’t require a certain set of skills.
Doc gasped as a solid male body pushed up behind her, pressing her against the hard ridge of the exam table. Barely gentle hands ghosted over her hips and around to rub her belly, one snaking up to knead her breast.
“Need. You.” His tone was rough and his breath hot as he rasped against her ear.
“Owyn,” she breathed, surprise and relief mixing into one exhale.
He was back. He was here. The hands she’d needed to feel. The solid steel of his body taking up space next to hers.
He was finally here and she wanted to cry with relief.
“I missed you so. Fucking. Much.” His breath exploded against the back of her neck. She heard his deep inhale as he scented her, and it made her stomach flutter just knowing he needed her smell in his lungs.
“I missed you too.”
They hardly talked beyond clan duties and randomly in the hall. And when they met for sex. But she knew what he meant. Just the fact that his presence was lacking among the lodge made her miss him fiercely. The idea that there was no chance she’d run into him turning a corner or see him across the room at dinner left her cat feeling lost.
In a quick move, he spun her to face him. His navy eyes burned with the nearness of his cat as he took in every feature.
He grabbed her bun, quickly unfurling it to release her hair. His fingers tangled in the strands, pulling her head back until her neck was exposed. His rough, hot tongue licked a trail up the column of her throat, returning to the base and following it up with soft wet kisses. She moaned when he nipped her jaw.
“Shh,” he admonished.
“I know.”
They had to be quiet. They always had to be quiet. Forever a secret. Even though mating was technically allowed now.
She’d been relieved when their leader, Magic, met his one and only. She’d assumed their days of hiding were over, that Owyn would wish to finally mate her. Mark her as his own.
But he didn’t. It was the same as always. He wanted her for sex, not for life.
He’d been honest about his intentions from the beginning. And she wouldn’t complain because she wanted him too. But she also wanted more.
Then after Christmas, Owyn went to visit the Dirt Track Dogs in western Arkansas. He didn’t even tell her he was leaving. The next day, he was just gone. And she realized he wasn’t nearly as anxious to mate as she’d hoped.
He pulled back, frowning. “Your scent’s changed.”
Doc shook her head.
“Did you have another while I was gone?”
Shit. The fact that he’d jumped right to that assumption hurt. And told her he’d probably done exactly what he was accusing her of.
“No,” she ground out. “I would never. You know that.”
He bent to her neck, his ball cap sliding back on his forehead as he inhaled again. “Then what is that smell?”
Sadness. The smell was sadness buried so deep she hardly ever admitted it was there. And he didn’t recognize it because what little time they spent together was all about arousal. Arousal cancelled out sadness. Usually.
“It’s nothing.”
His frown deepened to a scowl. “I don’t like it. I want it off of you. I want…” His throat worked around a swallow. “I want you to smell like me.”
But that wasn’t true. Showering immediately after their union was always a requirement. If she was honest, it was probably her favorite part. Or at least bittersweet. She loved the tender way he bathed and cared for her; she hated watching his scent go down the drain.
“For just a little while,” she said, hoping he was trying to tell her something different this time.
But he nodded in agreement. “For a little while.”
His mouth swooped in to kiss her lips, but she stopped him. She had to know first.
“Did you?”
The question barely made it past her voice box. If he was with another female, it would crush her. Her heart would be dust in the palm of his hand.
They’d made a promise in the beginning. They’d never break the clan’s no-mating pact, and always fulfill their sexual needs with each other. There was no way to know for sure if Owyn had kept his part, but she had.
His eyes narrowed.
“Did I what?” his voice whipped.
She had to swallow the fear down before she was able to voice her question.
“Have another?” Doc jutted her chin to make her whisper-thin voice seem stronger.
“If I had, do you think I’d be here right now, needing you so fucking bad I want to kill somebody?”
That wasn’t an answer.
“Just tell me,” she snapped. “I’m a big girl. I can handle it.”
Those words weren’t true. She could never handle something like that. It was why she’d joined Magic’s clan in the first place.
Owyn fumed. He was strung so tight, he was mentally more animal than man. Whatever was going on with him, he needed a release. Soon.
“I’m going to fuck you now, unless you stop me.”
She couldn’t stop him. Oh sure, she could say no, and he’d honor that. Owyn was a good man. But her heart, her body, it bent to his will no matter what. She needed this pairing as much as he did. And insi
de, her cat wailed for him like an in-heat tabby.
She needed and wanted him. End of story.
It was their bond. They were secretly mated. He was hers. Her secret pleasure, her secret torture.
She had one final thought as he prepared her for his body.
What would their secrets do to them before it was all over?
And then she lost herself in her mate’s attention.
***
Owyn’s panther roared beneath the surface. They’d been away from mate too long. Now mate smelled all wrong. Needed to fix it. Make her feel good and make her smell like his.
Forcing his hands to be gentle, he tilted her head back to get full access to her beautiful neck. He buried his face at the curve where it met up with her shoulder, nuzzling with his lips.
Too rough. Her pale skin went pink from the brushing of his day old beard.
Owyn lapped at the spot with his tongue to sooth it and Doc let out a strangled moan.
What he wouldn’t give for her to be free to respond as loudly as she desired. What a rush it would be to hear his female scream his name while he gave her body what it needed.
Panther roared louder, and Owyn clenched his teeth to keep the sound from escaping.
Grief and regret swirled with desire and need. He was a fucking mess right now. With what he’d learned while visiting the dogs, about their Christmas visitor and shifter hunters, and his little meeting with Magic and Gash about the shadow clan… he needed Doc to make him solid again. He needed her to anchor him to life again so he could think.
Make her need you.
It had been his goal for five damn years whether she knew it or not.
Grabbing a handful of her long platinum hair, he brought the strands to his nose and inhaled. Mmm. There she was, his mate with her scent of sweet orange flowers. How she smelled like an orange grove in the middle of the mountains, he didn’t know, but it was his favorite smell.
With his other hand he quickly unbuttoned her shirt, pushing it and her white lab coat from her shoulders so her pink bra was exposed. Nice, but he wanted that out of the way too. He needed skin to skin. So close he could forget they were two separate people.
