A Cougar's Claim (Charmed in Vegas Book 7) (12 page)

“I’m having a bad fucking day my friend. How did you happen to be there to save my ass back there?”

Daegus leaned over the bike’s handlebars. Several of the other members of the Hunt laughed. “Kit, you rode with us once upon a time. We always know where you are.”

Well, if that wasn’t kind of creepy, he didn’t know what is.

The urge to thank the fae rested on the tip of his tongue. But a person who valued their freedom did not thank the fae. Ever.

“Guess all that partying paid off then, huh?” Kit grinned, but the cougar within paced, agitated and unnerved. Rhiannon wasn’t safe yet. He swung his leg over the empty motorcycle’s saddle, grateful that the bike could balance on its own. “The devil you know...”

Daegus turned solemn, his black eyes almost wistful. “You know, no one’s accused me of being Lucifer for centuries.”

The female behind Daegus laughed. Kit adjusted Rhiannon on his lap, trying to maneuver his clothes without dropping anything.

“Grabbed her bag for you.” A curvaceous blonde woman rolled up next to him and hoisted the formerly purple bag into the air. Something about her turned his insides molten, and his cock grew partially hard. “Let me help you. I’m Peyton, this is my mate Ian.” She gestured toward the motorcycle she rode. “He’s a phooka. I’m a lawyer turned fae. A fae lawyer. I uh, have gifts with fertility. Sex stuff. So...yeah...it’s kinda weird sometimes. Sorry. It’s all confusing and wibbly-wobbly.”

Kit’s eyebrows rose and he swallowed hard. What the hell did he say to that?

Peyton blushed and stammered. “What I’m trying to get at, is, uh.... Never mind. Just forget it.” Her cheeks turned a pretty pink and Kit found himself relaxing a fraction. She was sweet and more embarrassed by his current state than he was. “I assume you know that many of the Hunt are shapeshifters, and the Hunt’s magic disguises them, so me telling you this motorcycle is my mate isn’t surprising.”

“Yeah.” Kit swallowed another growl. Being turned on by a strange woman when he held Rhiannon in his arms felt wrong, like a violation, even though he couldn’t help his reaction to her magic.

“Well, at least I haven’t told you we all have to jump into an opening to hell to save the world, right?” Peyton cleared her throat, stroking the gas tank clasped between her thighs.

His lips twitched. A nerdy fae lawyer fertility deity. And he thought he had his hands full with Rhiannon.

Reality washed over him in a cold, furious tidal wave. No, he didn’t have his hands full with Rhiannon, because she hadn’t accepted the mate bond yet. If she’d accepted their bond, she’d be able to heal magically.

“Hurry it up you two. We’ve got to move. I’ve already sent the local human cops around most of the outskirts of the city. The witches in the supernatural division will figure out how to track us soon, and then this little joy ride will be over.” Daegus rolled past them, the metal studs in his lip and eyebrows glittering under the Vegas sun.

Kit placed his feet on the pegs, confident that whomever provided his transport wouldn’t let him fall. Paul ran up and down the sidewalk, shouting for them, the glamor hiding the Hunt confusing his senses. Kit believed the wolf shifter knew where Jase was, however the lure of finding his cousin could be a trap and he wasn’t taking his mate into a den of strange wolves when they were both injured. Paul showing up with their stuff was too convenient, too easy. Something smelled like rotted meat with that wolf. “Let’s go.”

Rhiannon took priority right now. Worst came to worst he’d hide her with the Wild Hunt. She wouldn’t age, would never die, and might even decide to forgive him. She’d be safe.

He brushed shaking fingers over the deep purple and black bruises blooming on her throat, the road rash on her palms and forearms, a nasty lump on her cheek.

Scratch her
.

The cougar had never been so vocal. Kit didn’t know if he liked this new development or not. Most people had no reaction to being scratched or bitten.

But a fated mate would change. Become a shifter themselves. The wound had to be deep enough for the magic to take hold. Those little hickeys and tiny nips he’d given her earlier wouldn’t do shit. But a decent scratch with one of his claws, something two or three inches long and a half inch deep? That’d do it for sure.

The anger rose in him again, and he sighed. Impotent fear, fear without an outlet, grew into uncontrollable rage. He wasn’t angry with his mate, he was scared. No other woman—shifter or human—had ever come close to his heart, because she’d stolen it years ago.

One flick with his claw, and all his worries about her human fragility could melt away. The temptation to inflict a small wound crested inside him, pressure mounting until he thought he’d smother under the indecision.

The motorcycle under him rolled forward, and Kit studied his index finger’s long, razor tipped claw.

S
oft warmth enfolded her up to her neck, in sharp contrast to the line of heavy, unyielding heat crowding her back. Rhiannon slithered away and rolled to her belly. A headache kicked her temple in an unceasing rhythm, and all the muscles in her body had frozen into contorted positions.

In short, she wished she’d never woken up at all.

Lying on her stomach made breathing difficult and now that she’d moved away from the source of furnace-like heat on the other side of the mattress, she grew cold. She groaned and rolled back to her side until she collided with the body next to hers.

Could be anyone at all in bed with her, but she didn’t care. She hurt, itched, and needed comfort, even if that comfort proved false.

Breath slid over the nape of her neck. “How are you feeling?”

Kit. Speaking took two tries and lots of swallowing past the damaged tissue in her throat. “I’m sleeping. Go away.”

“No.” He curved his arm over her waist and managed to get even closer. “You’re not.”

She huffed, not sure if she was angry that he was in bed with her and they both had clothes on, that he’d snuggled her and kept his hands to himself while she slept, or that he’d gone and put his arm around her without permission. “I’m totally asleep right now. This is sleep talking. I’m asleep and I’m dreaming this whole thing.”

Lips slid across her neck, the stubble on his face tickling her. A rush of heat and arousal flooded her. She moaned and tipped her head down, not sure if she was hiding her face or trying to give him easier access for more kisses. Heavy, strong, calloused fingers massaged her scalp, and he eased one leg between her thighs, fitting her ass tight to his groin. Positioning her how he wanted.

How they both wanted.

There was a new ache in her bones, a calling in her blood for this man.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

He licked the side of her throat, paused over her pulse, and hummed a few bars. “I’m singing you a lullaby.”

“I sure as hell don’t hear any singing,” she wriggled her hips.

“Rhiannon,” he sang, his voice gruff. Soft. Perfect. Exactly how she’d remembered him singing through all the long years she hadn’t seen him. Every word of the old Fleetwood Mac song was a vibration in her blood. It was like he lived inside her, called to an unseen, sleeping part of her to emerge from the dark. Kit had a voice and range that could have landed him on a major studio label.

The words evolved into something new with each note Kit sang. When he trailed off into a whisper, Rhiannon felt gutted, a shell with nothing left inside but her world-weary heart.

“Growing up I hated it when people sang that song to me,” she said, and cleared her throat. “And then you sang it to me that summer. And all this time I hated it even more because you weren’t around to sing it to me anymore.”

“I’ll sing it whenever, wherever you want. I’ll sing you anything you want.” Kit kissed her shoulder, the shell of her ear, the top of her head.

“Don’t make my any promises. Don’t kiss me like you’re going to stick around.” She scooted away, intending to head for the bathroom and stay inside until he left. A black side table with a telephone on top sat next to the bed. The walls of the room toed the line between gaudy and edgy modern; every piece of furniture and art work held black, red, and white in the palette.

“So how should I kiss you?”

“You shouldn’t. No kissing.” What should she say?

Kiss me like you love me.

Kiss me like I matter.

Kiss me like I’m the last woman you’ll ever kiss.

Kiss me like I’m air, like I’m water, like I’m priceless beyond measure and you can’t live without me.

Kiss me the way I ache to kiss you.

She couldn’t say those things. Not to him.

The mattress dipped and he clambered off the other side. “I’ll get you something for pain.”

“Okay.” Too bad they didn’t make medicine for heart break. Rhiannon stretched for the phone, whimpering in discomfort. If only he understood that physical pain was the least of her problems. “Where are we?”

“The Phoenix.”

Holy hell. The most lurid, infamous hotel on the Strip? Great. Well, everyone who liked to throw shade and start rumors about her being a prostitute in addition to a burlesque dancer would have a whole bunch of ammo for their trash talking now.

“Baby Jesus and all the crackers. Why The Phoenix?” She dialed Inila’s number from memory and left a message when the dragon shifter didn’t answer. What if the demon Lilith went after her too?

Inila was a dragon, practically impervious to harm, but that didn’t mean Rhiannon didn’t worry about her friend.

“Some friends of mine thought it’d be easy for me to get in here without shocking the front desk staff.” Cabinet doors banged and a faucet ran.

“Why would you shock the front desk staff somewhere else?” She propped herself up on her elbows for less than ten seconds and decided that was the worst decision she’d made yet that day.

“I was naked.”

“You were....” A rather large part of her was pissed that she’d missed the show. Mmm, naked Kit.

If she could have punched herself in the face for that dangerous fucking train of thought, she would have. Multiple times. Who cared how he looked naked? Not her. No ma’am. “Oh, you shifted and didn’t have your clothes.”

“I had my clothes. I would have had to lay you down on the ground so I could change or have someone else hold you. No way in hell that was going to happen.” Kit crouched next to the bed and dropped three white pills in her open palm. “Here.”

Blinking to clear unexpected tears from her eyes, she forced herself to look anywhere but at him. He couldn’t lay her down long enough to get dressed? Her heart thumped in her chest too hard and too slow.

“I don’t think I can swallow anything right now.” She clenched her fingers around the tablets and stared at the geometric pattern in the carpet. Kit smelled too good again, his pheromones trying to convince her some mattress dancing was a good idea. He also looked amazing, even if the faint pink lines of new scars marred his abdomen, his upper lip had a split in it, and what might be blood was crusted under his fingernails.

“I’ll crush them and put them in water for you then.”

“Please, stop. Stop doing this.” She dialed the number for The Howler. The owners of the bar would be pissed at her, but she could barely move, let alone dance. At least she could explain things had gone sideways because of shifter shit and a demon and going to jail without having to hide parts of the story like she would with humans. What the hell time was it, anyway? Was it even the same day?

“Stop doing what? I got you some pain medicine.” He shifted from one foot to the other, his shoulders curled inward, but he put both fists on his hips.

She left another message, a thread of worry starting to take root. Where were Inila and the staff of The Howler? The bar, at least, should have had some one there to take a message.

And then there was Kit. Hovering around her, acting like he expected a swat on the nose or something. How very odd. How irritating. Kit wasn’t supposed to be acting like an insecure boy. Big strong alpha males didn’t do that. The last thing she had time for was coddling a butt hurt man baby. “Just...get away from me. I want out of here. I’m going home and I’m going to curl up in my bed and sleep until some of the pain goes away.”

A sound rolled out from his lips, in such a deep octave that all the tiny hairs on her arms and the back of her neck rose. The glass of water rattled on the side table. Cold fear, the kind that lived in the part of her brain that still feared the dark, marched on unsteady heartbeats across her skin. Arousal trickled along behind the fear.

Uh-oh. Maybe he wasn’t being a baby after all. Or she’d pushed him past the line of trying to be careful with her right into alpha-hole territory.

Well, good then. She understood the alpha-hole mentality.

Except this was Kit.

The noise swelled, larger, larger, larger, until a full bodied snarl crawled free from Kit’s lips. “I’m trying damn hard to be patient. To take care of you. To not do anything that will get you hurt further. To not scare you or be an overbearing alpha asshole. But you’re testing me to the limit. I’m a shifter who needs to take care of his injured, fragile mate.” Kit crouched next to the bed, his eyes reflected the low light in the room back to her, the irises the strange green and gold hue of his beast. Fangs pricked his lower lip. “Take. The. Fucking. Pain. Pills.”

She tossed the tablets in her mouth and chased them with water. Being bossed around with the right touch of aggression turned her into compliant goop. God help her if he ever figured it out.

The pills caught in her throat and she coughed, water dribbling from the corner of her mouth. Kit swiped at her chin, the rub of his thumb arousing despite her injuries and the all too obvious reasons she should tell him to fuck off. What did that say about her—getting wound up over him cleaning her face off like she was a baby dribbling drool?

“Shifters are nothing but trouble.” She gasped from pain, trying to roll into a sitting position, shivering when Kit helped her upright. He stuffed pillows behind her back, still growling and huffing under his breath, cussing every other word. “My daddy was right. He told me I’d end up nothing but a piece of ass to be used and tossed aside, dead in a ditch. I’m halfway there already.”