by Tate James
A low growl rumbled from Boden’s chest, and his eyes flickered in a decidedly nonhuman sort of way. “Do not question my orders, Raziel. Not now.”
Raze ducked his head, dropping all of the arrogant ass-face-ness from his posture. “Apologies, sir.”
Before I could appropriately voice my objections, Boden had released me and all three guys were tossing their few items of clothing at me and shifting into huge-ass cats. Yes, I totally shrieked that in my head. It was that fucking insane. Sadly, the boxers Hunter tossed at me landed on my face, and by the time I’d clawed them off, the guys were all furry. Damn.
Oh well. I’d seen more than enough of Boden’s naked ass earlier—yesterday?—to add to my mental spank bank. Don’t judge, we all have one.
It was the first time I’d seen all three of them in cat forms up close, though, and the overall result was a little bit terrifying. Suddenly I found myself kind of wishing they were serial killers. At least then I’d have a solid chance of escape if I needed to run. Right?
Boden was clearly recognizable as the golden lynx with intelligent blue eyes. Hunter was a scary bastard up close—his fangs were way bigger than I’d first realized, but his striped brown fur was strangely beautiful. Raze... Raze was downright massive.
“What the fucking gods of cats...” I breathed the curse as I eyed him warily. He was pure black and so glossy he looked like he was made of silk, and his green eyes glowed with that unnerving back light all cats seemed to have in the dark.
My inspection of him was interrupted by cat-Boden nudging me with his huge, pale head, and I instinctively scratched behind one of his ears. Like he was a house cat. I paused, waiting for him to get super offended and, like, eat me or something. But he just vibrated with a loud-as-fuck purr and nudged me again to continue.
I laughed nervously and scratched behind his other ear while Hunter prowled closer and sniffed my bare leg. His whiskers tickled my skin, and I reached down to pat him too.
“Pretty kitty,” I cooed, tracing my fingers over one of his stripes. He jerked out of my reach and made an annoyed, hissing sound before loping off into the trees.
“I’m sorry!” I yelled after him, trying really hard not to laugh. “Not a kitty! You’re not a cat; I didn’t forget!” I really hadn’t. But he looked a hell of a lot like a cat, and “pretty, giant, extinct marsupial” didn’t have the same ring to it.
Cat-Boden shook his head with a purring sigh and stepped out of the way for me to approach Raze. The huge black... uh... panther, I think, had crouched down so his belly brushed the ground and I could sort of semi-scramble onto his huge back.
It took a bit of wriggling around to find my balance, and I ended up bunching their clothes up and tucking them under my T-shirt. Eventually I found myself sort of lying down with my knees hugging Raze’s strong sides and my fingers tangled in the silken fur at his neck.
As he started running, I hummed country music songs to myself to keep my mind busy. It was that or acknowledge the fact that my naked pussy was rubbing all over a giant pussy. Yeah. Awkward didn’t even begin to cover it.
Chapter Eight
It probably wasn’t long that I rode Raze before we came... upon a truck stop. I know, I know, but my humor was the only thing helping me from totally losing my mind. If I hadn’t already. I hadn’t totally abandoned the idea that this whole thing was the creation of my poor, broken, drugged mind as I rattled around in a padded room somewhere.
“Thank Ra,” Raze groaned when he shifted back, and I threw his T-shirt and boxer shorts at him. I mean, not before I sneaked just a little peak at his ass. Fucker shifted with his back to me like he was paranoid I’d check him out—probably justified. “If I had to listen to you hum Taylor Swift’s greatest hits off key for one more minute, I was going to jump in front of a truck.”
Hunter and Boden both grinned broadly as they shifted back to human and pulled their boxers on. I kept Boden’s T-shirt on because otherwise I would be naked and now was not the time for that nonsense.
“All right, let’s grab some supplies from the store and then borrow a car,” Boden instructed us, nodding to the truck stop just past where we’d stopped inside the tree line.
I raised my hand and crinkled my nose. “Uh, one problem,” I pointed out. “We’re all pretty much naked. How are we going in unnoticed, let alone how are we paying for supplies?”
The three of them just smiled and shook their heads at me. I lied. Boden and Hunter smiled; Raze just scowled.
“Watch and learn, Cleo-babe,” Hunter replied with a wink, then started sauntering across the grass cool as a fucking cucumber in nothing but his boxer-briefs.
I shot a startled look at Boden, who just linked his fingers through mine and started following Hunter. Like... what the actual fuck? We were going to get arrested for public nudity or something! Which begged the question...
“Where are we?” I whispered, fidgeting with his fingers as I shivered. “Like, what police station are we going to end up in when we get arrested? Shit, I don’t have my bag anymore, and I don’t know Meg’s number by heart. That means I would have to call”—I shuddered—“my mother.”
Boden shot me a quick look as he hurried us after Hunter and stepped under the bright lights of the store parking lot. “You haven’t mentioned your mother before. I bet she’s pretty amazing, seeing as she raised you.”
A strangled sound somewhere between a laugh and disgust escaped my throat as he led me into the store and straight past Hunter, who was leaning halfway over the cash register and flirting shamelessly with the girl working it. He held her hand in both of his, and the dazed look on her face told me he was working that fucking juju he’d used on me.
Mother. Fucker.
“She’s not?” Boden interpreted my noise, and I dragged my jealous gaze away from Hunter and his victim.
“My mother?” I asked, checking that was what he was referring to. “No. Amazing is not how I would describe Prudence Carroll. She’s a pearl-clutching Puritan who literally evicted me from my house while I was broken down on the side of the road outside Edan. My mother is a bitch.”
Boden hummed an undecipherable sound under his breath, but half my attention was still on Hunter and that girl. “She sounds a lot like Raze’s parents,” he commented, and this drew my focus back.
“How so?”
Boden handed me a pair of sweatpants. “Put these on.”
I hesitated a second before doing as I was told. My ass was fucking freezing, and I was getting a bit over my vagina being flashed to half of North America.
“Ask him about it sometime,” Boden continued, back to talking about Raze’s parents. “It sounds like you guys might actually have some common ground.” He raised his brows at me with a small smile, and I gasped dramatically.
“Surely not,” I replied with heavy sarcasm. “I somehow doubt mister tall, dark, and broodingly sexy is interested in finding common ground with little old me.” As soon as I said it, my cheeks heated with embarrassment. Thank fuck my bronze skin hid the blush from curious gazes. Still, I turned away and grabbed a long sleeve, ladies T-shirt sporting a proud looking bald eagle.
“Hey,” I prodded when Boden made no move to turn around for me to change. “You mind giving a girl some privacy?”
A wide grin split his face, and his eyes heated. “You sure? You didn’t mind me looking yesterday.”
I scowled at him and made the motion for him to spin around—which he did—but he kind of had a point. In fact, I was all for showing Boden my not small tits... just not in the middle of a brightly lit truck stop store while Hunter flirted with some other chick.
Once I’d exchanged Boden’s thin T-shirt for the long sleeved, bald eagle monstrosity, I handed it back to him and he pulled the fabric over his head.
“Mmm, still warm,” he murmured with a teasing smile as he grabbed sweats for himself, then tossed a pair for each of the other guys over his shoulder. “Pick some boots that fit,” he told me, p
ointing to the selection of cowboy boots. “I’ll find you a sweatshirt.”
Moments later, I looked like Big Jim’s 24-Hour Truck Stop had vomited all over me, but at least I was warm.
“Don’t worry,” Boden assured me as we wandered over to the hot food cabinet. “We have better clothes stashed at the next safe house, and once we regroup, we can go shopping.”
I shrugged, fiddling with the zipper of my new sweatshirt. “No big deal,” I replied. “I still fully expect to wake up in a sanitarium soon, so I’m just coasting with this insanity while it lasts.” I flashed him a toothy smile and could tell he wasn’t totally sure if I was joking or not. Well, that made two of us.
“Here.” Boden handed me two hot dogs in buns and indicated for me to sit at one of the plastic tables while he fetched ketchup and mustard. He plunked the condiments down in front of me, then went back for five more hot dogs before sitting down opposite me.
“Uh... got enough?” I nodded to the pile of dogs on his tray, and he grinned.
“Shifting burns a shit ton of energy,” he informed me. “Eat up. Raze will be done procuring us a car soon, and he gets a bit antsy if we make him wait.”
“You don’t say,” I murmured with heavy sarcasm, then glanced back to the counter where Hunter seemed to have the cashier under some sort of hypnosis. He was stroking his finger down the side of her cheek while he spoke, and the glazed-over look on her face said she literally couldn’t see anyone but him. No wonder our little shopping spree was going unnoticed.
“Ugh,” I grunted. “I think I lost my appetite. Is that what he did to me at the bar the other night?”
Boden turned to look in the direction I was scowling, then turned back to me with a shake of his head. “Not even close, beautiful. He wouldn’t use that shit on you.” Then he paused, considering. “Not deliberately, anyway. Sometimes it can bleed out of him a bit when he’s, uh, happy.”
It didn’t take a genius to read between the lines. “You mean when he’s turned on?”
Boden gave a sheepish smile and shrugged. “It’s a talent unique to his breed. Kind of an animal magnetism thing that they developed when their kind started dying out. As distasteful as it sounds, when a species starts going extinct, the sole focus becomes reproduction.”
I wrinkled my nose, but finished my mouthful of food before replying. “So he has some magic crap that makes chicks want to sleep with him? Explains a lot.” I muttered it in kind of a sour way, and Boden coughed a laugh.
“Does it? Hmm, I wonder why so much jealousy is radiating off you, then?” His smirk was way too damn smug, so I ripped off a piece of my hot dog bun and threw it at him.
Damn cat caught it in his mouth.
Why was that instantly sexy? Shit, damn, and cats. I needed to get laid or just like... rub one out or something. My libido had been taking way too much control over my actions lately.
“I’m not jealous,” I lied, even as Hunter stroked his fingers through the cashier’s hair and my teeth ground together hard. “Shouldn’t we be going? Raze is probably all kinds of pissy out there in the cold.”
Boden nodded, scoffing down the last of his food and gathering up the spare clothes. We headed out of the shop, Boden nodding to Hunter on the way past, and straight across the parking lot to where Raze leaned on the hood of... a minivan?
“Interesting choice,” I commented as he tugged on the truck-stop branded sweats. “I never would have picked you as a minivan kinda guy, but who am I to judge?”
Raze shot me a withering glare before he yanked open the sliding door open and gestured for me to get in. “Minivans have shitty locks,” he informed me as I ducked into the beige interior, “and more space to spread out.”
I took the middle row of seats, so he took the back row, where he spread out and got comfortable. I’d deny it if asked, but I was a tiny bit disappointed there would be no opportunity to get all cozy with these big, muscled cat-shifters.
Boden slid behind the steering wheel, and seconds later Hunter came jogging over—still wearing just his boxer shorts. It could have been my imagination, or maybe a trick of the light, but I could swear he was a little bit hard. My jealousy flared.
“No room,” I announced, slamming the sliding door shut as he approached.
Confusion crossed his face, but he wordlessly took the passenger seat when Boden popped the door open for him.
Where the fuck did I get off being jealous of some random truck stop clerk, knowing full damn well he was “flirting” to cover for Boden and I raiding the clothes and food? Ah fuck it, I never pretended to be a saint.
Silence lay thick in the minivan as Boden put us back on the road, and I knew it was my doing. But I was way too deep in my own mixed-up emotions to untangle the mess I’d just made.
Chapter Nine
“This is the next safe house?” I asked, crinkling my nose and peering out the window at the dodgy looking motel with a flickering neon sign. “Interesting choice.”
A heavy yawn pulled at my jaw, and I rubbed my eyes with the back of my tattooed hand. I’d been dozing on and off for the past few hours, mostly just to avoid conversation with Hunter. Good idea? Hell no. As the minutes had ticked past, I’d grown more and more pissed off at the whole situation.
“Not the safe house,” Boden responded from the front seat as he pulled into a parking spot outside the little office. “But with the three of you all snoring, I’m about to fall asleep at the wheel.”
Raze and Hunter were both snoring quietly, but I huffed with indignation. “I do not snore.”
Boden snickered a laugh. “Uh-huh, sure you don’t.”
He opened his door, getting out, and I scrambled out of the back to join him in the dirty little reception area. There was no one at the desk, despite the old school tube TV being on and playing old episodes of Sabrina The Teenage Witch.
We glanced at each other, then Boden reached out and dinged the little bell a couple of times.
“Two seconds!” a guy called from the back room, and there was a clattering that had Boden and I looking at each other with raised brows. What the fuck was going on back there?
Moments later, there was a screaming howl, sort of like—
“Fuck! You shitting stinker!” the same man yelled as a soaking wet pussycat came tearing out from the back room and past us. The front door hadn’t closed properly, so in less than a second, the cat was long gone.
“Uh...” I peered into the darkness after the cat, then jolted back around when the motel receptionist appeared with a huff. He was a portly older man in striped pajama pants and a white, coffee-stained tank top over his ample beer gut. His face and arms were a mess of bright red cat scratches, so it wasn’t too hard to figure out what we’d just interrupted.
“Sorry to disturb you during... bath time,” Boden commented, a smile pulling at his lips. His arm came around my waist, and his hand rested on my hip possessively. It was kinda hot. Who knew I’d be into alpha males? My ex had been submissive as all fuck. “My girl and I were looking for a room.”
The man scowled, but sat down at his ancient computer to check—I guess—for free rooms. Not that I could see this motel being particularly busy, but whatever.
“Room three,” he grunted, tossing a key on the counter as he dabbed his bleeding arms with a grimy cloth.
“Actually, could we get an interconnecting room, too?” Boden added with a charming smile. “We have some friends joining us.”
The man grunted but threw another key down, and Boden handed over a credit card.
“Have fun,” the guy said with a leer as he ran the card, then handed it back. “There’re condoms and lube in the vending machine beside the ice machine.”
Boden laughed and kissed my neck as we left the office with our two keys, but I cringed and tried really hard not to keep my voice low.
“What kind of motel sells condoms and lube in a vending machine, Boden?” I hissed at him. “Is this like... a rent by the hour kind of place
?”
“It’s just a place with beds that we can catch a couple hours of sleep in. I don’t know about you, beautiful, but I’ve been in one too many vehicle accidents this week.” Boden quirked a brow at me, and I shuddered my agreement. Poor Candy Jack.
“Wait. Hold up. Where did the credit card come from? I thought we lost everything at the cabin?” I scowled at him accusingly, and he gave a slightly guilty smile back.
“The mini-van owner might have left her wallet in the car,” he admitted. “I’ll make sure she’s compensated once we get back to safety.”
Oh. Well, yeah, I guess that was preferable to having Hunter work his creepy sex mojo on the motel clerk.
“Should we wake them up?” I asked, pointing to the two sleeping giants in the stolen minivan. “Or like... hide the van or something?”
Boden unlocked the door to room three and held it open for me to enter. “Nah, fuck them. They can keep sleeping in the van for now. Sooner or later they’ll wake up and seek out somewhere warmer, but have you ever woken a sleeping cat before? They get scratchy.”
I snickered a laugh, thinking of the receptionist’s scratched-to-shit arms and face. “Can’t be as bad as bathing a cat. Hey, are you guys that adverse to water, too?”
“Wanna take a shower with me and find out?” His heated gaze was all suggestion, and my lady bits all screamed at me to accept. In fact, I was halfway across the room to the bathroom before my better sense barely kicked in.
“Hold up there, fluff-butt. What was it Raze said about you being the general of some-something cat army? And Hunter said it was a crazy big no-no for us to fuck.” I propped my hands on my hips and glared at him with suspicion. “Explain.”
Boden’s shoulders slumped, and his face was almost sad-puppy... if there was a cat equivalent of that? Or was it only dogs who sulked? Anyway, he looked disappointed as shit.
“Commander of the Shifter Alliance,” he muttered, definitely sulking. “Can I explain more after I shower?”
