Authors: Eliza Gayle
Tags: #werewolves, #shapeshifter, #mate, #alpha male, #werewolves and shifters
Bad Kitty
BAD KITTY
Southern Shifter
Series
By ELIZA GAYLE ©
2013
All Rights
Reserved
Smashwords
Edition
If you think you've lost everything. Think
again.
Kitty lost her father, her home and her
clan. Clinging to what's left of her pride, she's forced into the
neutral zone, the supposed safe haven for half-breeds and outcasts.
An attack forces her to the wrong side of the treaty line and into
an even more dangerous situation. Determined to greet death with
the last of her dignity, she is suddenly rescued by a tall,
gorgeous...wolf???
As the next alpha leader of his pack, Rafe
Comyn has more than enough to handle with pack politics and
precarious treaties. The last thing he needs is a pissed off feline
landing in his lap, especially when her scent triggers his
overwhelming drive to mate. While the daughter of a former rival is
quite a conquest, she's both forbidden and dangerous.
But as the heat of desire threatens to
consume them, their differences escalate and Rafe must keep his own
pack from killing the one woman he can't live without.
A Note From
Eliza
When Kitty first showed up in the second
book of the Black Cougar Trilogy (KANE) I never envisioned her as
more than a barely there minor character. Then she showed up again
in the third book of the Black Cougar Trilogy (MALCOLM) and I
started to get the idea she wasn't going away. It took a while to
get her story out of her but I'm excited it's here and I get to
share with all the readers who've patiently waited for another sexy
shapeshifter book from me.
Happy Reading
Eliza
P.S. For those fans of White Cougar
Christmas who write to me regularly about the full story on Dean
and Nikki, you might get excited when you read Bad Kitty. There's a
little tidbit just for you! Their book is definitely on the
way.
Acknowledgements
There are many people who go into making
each book the best it can be. Editors, cover artists, beta readers,
critique partners and good friends. I owe them all so much.
Thanks to the patience and help of Cat
Johnson, Dahlia Rose and my family, I was able to finish this book
and they helped me make it even better.
Special thanks to the beta readers Patricia
Slovinsky, Tina Dale, and Lisa Morgan who took the time to read
from one chapter to the entire book and provide their opinion on
how the story was going. Your input was invaluable.
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Kitty stared down at the keys in her hand
and shook her head. Walking away from the Clan and everything she'd
ever known had been hard enough, but this...this was too much. She
wasn't just some damn charity case Kane could sweep under the rug
by offering an empty house in the neutral zone for her to live in.
Her entire life to this point had been in the sheltered protection
of her clan. Now they didn't want her, just like her father.
Anger boiled in her veins every time she
thought of him. She tried to do the right thing when she found out
about his attempt to kidnap Malcolm's child, but the Clan decided
her efforts were too little too late. Her father's attempts to kill
or undermine the Guardian brothers at every turn had failed. He'd
been a damned fool all along. Yes, she'd remained quiet despite
what she knew. But she didn't need to stick her neck out and bring
her own father's wrath down on her head.
All she'd had to do was wait for everything
to blow up. And there lay the crux of her problem today. She'd had
more than a pretty good idea about much of what her father was up
to and had kept the information to herself. As far as she'd been
concerned, it hadn't been her place to either agree with him or
stand against him.
The why of most of his
schemes still escaped her, so she ignored the havoc he'd created.
She'd been under the mistaken impression that, somewhere deep down,
her father cared about her. But then she'd discovered the child.
Her father found out about Malcolm's secret offspring and had
planned to do who knows what with her. So she'd snuck the child
away and out of her father's reach. Rescuing the girl had been her
only saving grace with the council and meant the difference between
a death sentence and
this
. At the last minute Kane had
stood up for her and offered a compromise in the form of an
extended vacation. Kitty chuffed, the sound far more animal than
human.
Vacation my ass.
More like indefinite
exile, and to the neutral zone no less. The only people who
belonged here were the half-breeds no one knew what else to do
with. Kitty curled her upper lip, pushed opened the door and exited
the car packed with the few belongings she'd been allowed to
keep
.
She headed
toward the small cottage with the extended wrap-around porch.
Maybe, just maybe, if she'd been offered a place like this on clan
land, its pretty exterior would have charmed her. But here it was
no more than a prison of four walls where she'd have to hide from
the local residents. No one wanted a full blood feline hanging
around. Trust would be impossible.
She had half a mind to take her chances with
the humans instead.
The sun's rays trickled through the tree
canopy that offered the hideout more privacy than she'd expected.
Despite the chill in the late afternoon air, everything around her
mocked her with its almost summer like beauty. She didn't want to
notice the pretty poppies growing in a border around the left side
of the yard, nor did she want to see raised garden beds at the edge
of the property that beckoned for someone to fill them with fruits
and vegetables.
They could dress it up and call this place
whatever they wanted. She'd essentially been kicked out with no
information about when or if she could ever return. Irritated and
tired, she walked up the driveway toward her banishment. As far as
she knew the place had stood empty for many years. While Deals Gap,
North Carolina had officially been declared a neutral zone in the
tenuous treaty between the wolf and cougar clans, they'd been
encouraged to keep to their own lands as much as possible.
Especially her. Her father had been beyond vigilant in his
preaching about keeping the bloodlines pure and not associating
with other races for anything more than absolute necessity.
Supposedly everything he'd done had been in some part due to his
bloodline obsession. Although, considering her recent discovery of
a half-sister who was half-cougar and half-witch, she'd begun to
question everything.
Kitty rubbed her head and tried to push the
anger and resentment from her thoughts. Her actions of the last few
years had not been great either. The embarrassment of her
relentless pursuit of a man who didn't give a rat's ass about her
burned through her soul like acid. Unfortunately there were a lot
of other things she'd done almost as humiliating as her behavior
with Kane. Things she couldn't take back or change.
She'd hole up here for a few weeks until she
got her head on straight and come up with a new strategy for the
next several months. Her father's assets had all been confiscated,
leaving her with nothing to fall back on. Her job skills were a
joke and there had been no reason to hold down a nine to five with
her father taking care of everything. Kitty had wasted all her time
being a stuck up bitch. There, she admitted it.
Oh
,
how the mighty have
fallen...
Stepping onto the small porch, Kitty lifted
the sunglasses from her eyes. The paint looked fresh and the area
around her was neat, obviously someone took care of the place. As
she slid the key into the deadbolt of the door, the scrape of metal
on metal screeched through her head. She pushed the door open and
the air suddenly shifted around her. The hair at her nape stood on
end. Tension pulled at her skull and instantly notified her she was
no longer alone. Before she could react, or even turn around, the
door slammed in her face and she flew backwards. Her muscles flexed
and her claws burst free as she scrambled to catch herself.
The air whooshed from her lungs as her
thickened nails dug into the wooden steps of the porch, barely
breaking her fall. She pushed to her feet at the same time a hard
kick was delivered to her ribs and another to her face.
"Don't even think about it, bitch. You've
had this coming for a long damn time and I'm going to make sure you
finally get what's yours."
Black spots blurred Kitty's vision from the
pain of the blows. She didn't need sight to put a face to that
voice. Laurel James had been gunning for her for a very long time.
Competition among the feline women for the men of their kind was
fierce and often violent. This wouldn't be the first time she'd
fought for what she wanted.
As Kitty perched precariously on all fours,
several pairs of legs crossed her line of sight. Laurel wasn't
alone. Whatever they had planned, she'd brought reinforcements and
this wasn't going to go well for Kitty. It didn't take a genius to
realize she'd been out maneuvered and out numbered. Now her only
thought turned to survival as she struggled to find a solution
before they pulled her limb from limb.
"This is your idea of a fair fight? Four
against one?" Kitty spat. She needed to try and buy some time.
She'd dropped her keys and she needed precious seconds to locate
them.
"What the hell do you know
about fair? You have dicked around with our men behind our backs,
done everything in your power to hold us back in clan
politics
,
all
while you schemed with your father to bring down our Guardians. Our
only protection from the mongrels across the state line. And if
that wasn't enough, just when you were finally due to get what you
had coming, you somehow convinced Kane to have mercy on you and
were given this cozy little house to hide out in."
White-hot rage filled
Kitty's veins. She fought through the pain and pulled herself
upright. With one eye on Laurel and the other on her pack of stupid
bitches, she slowly took a step forward. "Are you on drugs? Do you
honestly think coming here was some kind of reward? I've lost my
father," she pointed her finger at Laurel
,
who inched back a few steps. "I've
lost my home. And now I'm being forced to look at your ugly
face."
Laurel's face turned various shades of red
and Kitty swore steam came from the woman's ears. It dawned on her
that she might have pushed too hard when the four of them circled
her in a show of solidarity. She frantically searched the area for
her keys with no luck. They had to be here. They couldn't have
just—