by Tate James
I blinked at him a couple of times, my poor, sluggish brain trying to comprehend what he was telling me. “Bast? As in… the ancient Egyptian goddess Bast? She’s real?”
“You didn’t seriously think that humans were the highest form of evolution, did you?” Raze scoffed, and I glowered at him. Sooner or later, that handsome asshat was going to catch my fist in his face.
“Again, we can get into the history of the immortals another day. I think everyone is a bit exhausted and it’s giving some of us a shorter temper than normal.” Boden speared Raze with a glare, but the bigger man just shrugged and finished off his dinner with a stubborn look on his face.
“Cleo, babe,” Hunter said, tucking a wet, dark-pink strand of hair behind my ear, then trailing his fingertips over my cheek. “Did you have any other questions before you rest, or are you good? Like Boden said, we will answer anything you want to know—not like those dickheads in romance novels who keep secrets from their girl for her own protection, you know?” He gave me a goofy grin, and I bit back a laugh. This wasn’t the time to fall for his charms… although I was stupidly turned on by the fact that he read romance novels.
“Uh... I have no idea.” I paused and chewed at my lip. “I guess... what does this thing do?” I held up the golden amulet and inspected the ancient writing on it. I’d taken it at face value for so many years it had never crossed my mind that it might be anything but a pretty piece of junk jewelry.
“You mean, what’s its power?” Boden tilted his head to the side, and I nodded.
“Yeah, like will it hurt me? Am I better off giving it to someone else more equipped to handle whatever drama comes with it?” I met Boden’s gaze head on, but my guts were clenched and churning in anticipation of his response. I didn’t want to give the amulet away, killer cultists or not.
He gave me a sad sort of smile and shook his head. “You couldn’t even if you wanted to—no more than we could give up our positions as your guardians.” His gaze flickered to Raze, then he cleared his throat and hurried on. “As for what it can do, well... anything you want it to.”
My brows shot up, and my lips parted in shock. “Anything?”
He shrugged. “Anything within reason. Its limitations aren’t really known, if it has any. It will just take time for you to bond with the magic and learn how to use it.”
I gaped down at the necklace, then wrinkled my nose. “How do I do that?” Because I wasn’t a fucking moron. If the amulet could do anything I wanted, then surely these cultists working for Bast wouldn’t be such an issue and I could just go about my life.
“No idea,” Hunter responded, cleaning up our empty plates, then propping his shoulder against the doorframe. “You have to figure it out on your own, Cleo-babe. We’re just the muscle to keep you alive.”
I nodded dumbly, my brain whirring with so much new information I could practically hear the gears turning. The whole thing was fucking insanity, but there was no denying that magic was real. One didn’t watch a grown-ass man turn into a huge cat and back again without accepting that the world wasn’t black and white anymore.
“Okay. Cool. I think I need to sleep now.” I blinked at Boden, who gave me a sad smile.
Raze grunted a pissed-off sort of noise and scraped his chair back from the table loudly before storming out of the room. Seconds later a door slammed somewhere deeper in the house, and I shot a confused look at Boden and Hunter.
“Who pissed in his kitty litter this morning?” I muttered with a frown, and Hunter grimaced.
“Raze is... in a tough spot,” the sexy, Aussie cat-shifter told me reluctantly. “I don’t know how much we should say on the matter.”
“She’s entitled to know, and he’s had plenty of opportunities to speak up today,” Boden said quietly, flicking a glance at Hunter. “He can’t just keep acting like a child without any explanation.”
I darted a confused look between the two of them. Clearly Raze was packing some baggage, and as much as it probably wasn’t Boden’s or Hunter’s place to tell me, I still wanted to know. Besides, Raze hadn’t done much to earn polite consideration from me.
“One of you spit it out,” I ordered them.
There was another pause in which the two of them exchanged a loaded look, then Hunter shrugged and shook his head. “This one’s on you, boss. I’m heading to bed.” With a flirty wink, he too left the kitchen and headed to a bedroom somewhere deeper in the cabin.
“Scaredy cat,” Boden muttered after his retreating back. “Okay, I’ll keep this brief. If Raze wants to fill in the details, he can.” I nodded my understanding and motioned for him to continue. “Raze... has a wife.” My jaw dropped. “Which wouldn’t actually be that much of a problem, if not for the kids.”
Okay. Yep. My jaw just hit the damn floor.
“What?” I exclaimed, about to start a panicked freak out before I caught myself.
So what if Raze was married with kids? It wasn’t like I’d fucked him in the back of Candy Jack or anything. I hadn’t even thought about it. Okay, fine, that was a dirty lie; I had already fantasized about Raze naked and pounding the stuffing out of me about sixteen hundred times in the last twenty-four hours. But, still. Me imagining what it’d be like to fuck him did not mean he was thinking the same thing, so what was I really outraged about here?
Checking myself, I collected my dropped jaw and cleared my throat. “I mean, that’s cool. Good for him. Does she know he’s furry?”
A sly grin crept across Boden’s face, and he gave me a moment to squirm in my own awkwardness before replying. “She’s not a shifter, but she knows about us. And in case you’re wondering, the girls aren’t his biological kids. Maeve was his sister-in-law, and when Raze’s brother was killed, she and the girls were going to be kicked out of their house. Raze married her to circumvent some bureaucratic shifter bullshit and let them keep the family home.”
If anything, this almost shocked me even more. It was such a... nice thing for him to do. It didn’t match the angry, sarcastic man I’d known for all of a day.
“So, they’re not...” I trailed off. What was I asking here? If the path was clear for me to make a move? Jesus Christ Supercats, like it wasn’t enough that I’d almost let Boden fuck me in the woods like a wild animal and Hunter was clearly interested, I needed Raze too? He wasn’t even remotely interested in me!
Boden smirked. “No, they’re not romantic. But he loves those little girls like they’re his own. He’s angry and frustrated because he knows he won’t be around as much to see them grow up or keep them safe. It’s misplaced, but he’s blaming you.”
“No shit,” I murmured. “But why? Can’t he just... not be a guardian? I didn’t ask for you all to tag along, don’t forget.” Vaguely, Boden’s earlier words came back to me, and I answered my own question. “No, it doesn’t work like that, does it?” Boden shook his head and sighed.
“Sorry, Cleo. He’ll get over it eventually. He’s known this would happen for a long-ass time, so he just needs to suck it up.” He scraped back his own chair and stood. Placing his hands on my cheeks, he bent down so our faces were level. “It’s our sworn duty to protect the descendent, and it’s a damn high honor. None of us would trade this for the world, not even Raze.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure,” I whispered, frowning. Raze had really been an asshat the whole time I’d known him, but I guess it sort of made sense in hindsight. I was pretty confident he’d happily give up his calling to be rid of me, though.
Boden gave me a small smile, his eyes running over my face and pausing briefly on my lips like he was thinking about kissing me, but then he released my face and straightened back up. “You don’t know him like I do. Just give him time and patience. Or don’t... Maybe a good kick in the nuts is exactly what he needs.” He made his way to the hall where the others had disappeared. “You can have the master bedroom where you showered. This cabin is protected so the Bastites won’t find us here.”
“Thanks,” I said, try
ing not to chew a hole in my lip due to anxiety. “Good night.”
“Sweet dreams, Cleo,” the blond man told me with a wink. Wasn’t hard to guess what sort of sweet dreams he was wishing me, given that wink was hot enough to set the damn house on fire.
Alone in the kitchen, I groaned and dropped my face onto the table. Maybe I would’ve been better off with regular old, run-of-the-mill psychopaths and serial killers. I totally could have handled that situation better than all this magic.
What in the actual fuck was I going to do?
“Sleep, Cleo. You’re going to sleep.” I muttered the words to myself under my breath, like it made me less crazy to say it out loud. “In the morning, this won’t look so insane. Surely.”
As reasonable as that all sounded, I knew damn well it was only going to get more nuts before I adjusted to the whole thing. Call it a hunch.
I still had kittens to rescue, too!
Chapter Six
When I woke, it was with an odd sense of deja-vu. A hot, hard body was wrapped around me, and I was sweating my damn nipples off.
“Hunter?” I mumbled, trying—and failing—to wriggle out of his anaconda grip. “What are you doing in my bed?”
“Sleeping,” he replied with a husky, half-asleep voice. “You started having a nightmare, and it was keeping me awake.”
I frowned into the darkness, trying to remember what I might have dreamed but coming up blank. “So you decided to become my personal barnacle? How did that fix anything?”
“You stopped thrashing around when I came in to check on you, so I decided to stay and let us both get some sleep. Besides, you’re the perfect little spoon size, did you know?” Hunter yawned heavily and stretched, but dragged me with him so I ended up sprawled across his chest with my legs straddling his waist. Which really wouldn’t have been such an issue except that my underwear was still drying from the sink wash I’d given them, and I was still commando.
I froze against Hunter’s chest, not wanting to draw attention to my naked pussy pressed against his rapidly hardening cock. He still wore boxers, so maybe he wouldn’t notice?
“Maybe this was a bad idea,” he murmured with a sleepy grin as his palms slid down my back and encountered the bare skin of my ass. “I’m currently considering all the ways I can take advantage of this situation.”
Without conscious thought, I gave a little wriggle, then gasped when his hips bucked softly in response. Dammit. Why couldn’t my guardians be crusty old dudes. Or ladies! I never had been into pussy...
Oh wait.
Biting back a laugh at my own mental joke, I pushed up with my hands on Hunter’s stupidly chiseled chest to look at him.
“Why would that be such a bad thing?” I was feeling flirty. Or maybe just horny. Whatever, he was the one in my bed, not the other way around. “Unless you also have a wife and kids?”
His lips pulled up at the corners, like he was trying not to laugh at my sarcasm. “I don’t, and I hope Boden explained that situation a little better than that.”
I rolled my eyes and huffed.
“It would be bad,” Hunter continued, his hands both now gripping my ass cheeks as his erection rocked against my core in a lazy sort of way, “because technically this is a big old no-no from the powers that be.”
Well, that made me pause. “How so?” I asked, my question only a fraction breathy with arousal. I was interested to hear what he meant by that, but to be totally honest, I was more interested in learning what it would feel like to lose those pesky boxers of his...
“Our job is to keep you alive, not fuck you stupid. No matter how badly we might want to.” He let out a small, frustrated groan but didn’t make any moves to stop the torture.
I frowned, then shook my head to try and regain some of my senses. “But earlier, Boden and I—”
“Were about to break the rules in a big way,” Hunter finished my sentence for me. “But I can keep a secret if you can.” His dirty wink and smile suggested he wasn’t just talking about keeping my tryst with Boden quiet.
I smirked back, leaning down to kiss him but hesitating just an inch from his lips. “You can, but can Raze?” I sat back up and tried to ignore the urgent throbbing between my legs. “More to the point, would he? Loveless marriage and adopted kids aside, he still doesn’t seem super inclined to do me a solid, and I can’t imagine he’d be thrilled if I slept with both of his buddies.”
Hunter wrinkled his nose and pouted in a way that said I had a valid question.
Sighing heavily, I peeled his strong hands off my ass and scrambled off him. Hot sex with Hunter wasn’t going to happen. At least not until I could be sure Raze wouldn’t go running off to tattle to whoever was in charge. I had no idea what the punishments for Hunter or Boden would be, but given there were people literally trying to kill us and magic was a real thing, I wasn’t messing around with the risk.
“I’m going to grab a glass of water,” I announced. “You should go back to your room.”
“I should,” Hunter agreed. “But do you want me to?”
“Fuck no,” I groaned, running my hand through my hair, then grimacing when I spotted the hot-pink strands. “But you should.”
With that, I stood up and tugged my borrowed sweatshirt over my ass and made my way out into the dark hallway. I never really needed lights on at nighttime, so I just trailed my fingers along the wall until I reached the kitchen.
Once there, the light from the moon lit up enough of the room that I was able to locate a glass and fill it with water from the tap. Leaning on the counter with one hand, I sipped my drink and peered out into the still night. There was something so serene about being in the forest at night. No cars or sirens or other manmade distractions...
“You’re going to get us all killed, you know,” Raze’s angry accusation startled me so hard that I dropped my glass into the sink with a clatter. Miraculously, it didn’t break, but the same couldn’t be said for my nerves.
Turning to face him, I folded my arms to hide my trembling hands. He stood so damn close I needed to crane my neck to look at him, and his mere presence was making me sweat. I don’t know what it was, but angry, sarcastic men were just such a ridiculous turn-on it wasn’t even funny.
“You three seem pretty capable of keeping yourselves alive,” I retorted. “The whole claws and fangs thing probably helps with that.” I mimed claws and fangs, but he didn’t even crack a smile. Stoic bastard.
If anything, his glare just sharpened, and he placed a hand on either side of me on the sink, effectively boxing me in. Damn, that was sexy.
“I didn’t mean the three of us. I meant the world, Margaret. You’re a hot mess. Since the moment you met us, all you can focus on is either sex or serial killers. We showed you that magic is real, and what was the first thing you did?” His accusing sneer scorched me, and I shifted uncomfortably. “You somehow wound up with your legs wrapped around the general of the Shifter Alliance like he’s some fuckboy you met in a club. This isn’t a game, Margaret. It’s the fate of the damn world.”
“I’m well aware of that, Raze,” I snapped back, feeling defensive as all fuck, even if he did pose some damn good points. “Might I remind you that this is all new information to me? I had no idea magic even existed until I saw Hunter turn into a huge-ass cat, so excuse me for requiring a little bit of time to wrap my brain around it all.” Gathering up my anger like a security blanket, I jabbed him in the chest with a finger. “As for Boden being in some army... well... that’s also news to me. It’s not like you’ve all just been offering this info up on a silver platter.”
Raze’s dark lashes narrowed around his eyes. “When, exactly, would you have liked us to explain this all to you? When you were drowning in booze last night? When you had Boden’s lips wrapped around your perky little tits in the woods? Or maybe just now when you were panting all over Hunter?” His lush lips curved into a cruel smile, and I floundered for a sassy response.
“My tits,” I responde
d in a tart voice, “are not little.”
This was equally the worst thing to say and the freaking best because as if on reflex, Raze’s gaze dropped to the body part in question. The oversized sweatshirt had slipped off one of my shoulders, and the neckline hung dangerously close to exposing one of my moderate-sized breasts.
“Fucking hell,” the bronze-skinned god of a man muttered. “You really are something.”
The way he said that did not sound like a compliment.
“If you’d kindly get the fuck out of my way? It’s late, and I’d rather be anywhere but here with you right now, Raze,” I lied, swallowing hard and trying not to sound nervous.
His gaze slowly returned to my face from my chest, and a humorless smile touched his lips. “Liar.” He called me on my bullshit, leaning in even closer until I could practically feel his body heat radiating off him. “You think I don’t see the way you look at me? The way your gaze lingers on my body and your breathing speeds up when I’m close?”
Raze crowded me tighter against the sink, and damn it if my traitorous lungs didn’t do exactly what he’d said. What fucking game was he even playing at? He’d made his contempt pretty damn clear.
“You’re dreaming,” I denied his accusations with a shaking voice. “I’m more turned on by that toaster than you.”
This was, apparently, the wrong thing to say. Raze’s green eyes glittered with the challenge I’d just presented; I saw his lips curl even tighter in a cruel sort of smirk before his head dipped low and his lips brushed my earlobe.
“You can’t lie for shit, Maggie,” he informed me, his warm breath tickling my ear and neck in a way that should not have been as erotic as it was. Ugh, holy fucking cats, I’m in trouble. “I think we both know that you’d happily let me fuck you over this sink right now.” One hand left the countertop, and I gasped as his warm fingers met the skin of my thigh.
Holding his gaze defiantly, I desperately tried to control my breathing and heart rate as his hand caressed my skin, drifting higher underneath my sweatshirt. Lightning shocks of desire zapped through me, despite my better judgement, and it was all I could do to keep my feet under me. Given that I was about three seconds from melting into a puddle of sexually frustrated goo, I needed to end this little standoff ASAP.
