Here Kitty, Kitty! (10 page)

***

Angie sat on the balcony staring out at the yard through the bars of the railing.  Wearing an oversized sweatshirt she’d gotten that day and nothing else, she had her knees tucked up under her chin.

When the two tigers suddenly appeared, she almost dashed back inside, but she forced herself to stay put.  She knew they had to be shifters.  They roared at the house while simultaneously batting each other around with their enormous paws.  Within a few minutes, another tiger she could only guess was Nik, jumped down and the three ran off into the trees.

They were beautiful to watch.  Their long powerful limbs moving with such precision.  It must be interesting to watch them hunt, to see them take down their prey.  You know… as long as it wasn’t her.

Angie finger-combed her wet hair.  Except for Sara, Miki, and Marrec there was no one else to tell that she was okay.  That dangerous shapeshifters hadn’t killed her.  Her parents didn’t know she had been missing and she wasn’t really sure they’d care.  Last she heard, they were on a dig somewhere in the Sudan.  Two scientists who had just enough love for their work and each other.  Angie had been an accident from the beginning and eventually they couldn’t even pretend to care anymore.  So they left her with her grandmother and every once in awhile they’d stop by to remind her she had parents.

Angie remembered her parents coming to visit when she turned ten.  They’d promised to take her away on a family vacation.  Instead, they spent thirty minutes telling her why they couldn’t.  She listened with absolutely no emotion, while her grandmother slammed pots around in the kitchen and cursed in Portuguese.  But Miki and Sara were there too.  They didn’t say anything, but she soon learned their silence was a very, very bad thing.

Sara limped into the kitchen and returned with a glass of what looked like milk and orange juice.  A revolting mix.  While staring at Angie’s parents, Sara handed the glass to Miki, who gulped it down in two big swallows.

Three minutes later, Miki staggered up and over to Angie’s mother and projectile vomited all over the woman.  Twice.

To this day, her mother wouldn’t even mention the two women who had become such an integral part of her life.  And until the day she died, both Sara and Miki always had a place at her grandmother’s table.

Her anger-management counselor seemed convinced her issues with physical contact were due to her parents’ lack of affection.  Perhaps, but knowing that didn’t make it better.  Or make any of it hurt less.

And although she knew she was too old to worry whether her parents cared or not, she did.  Still.  After all this time.

Angie laid her head on her knees and sighed.  She didn’t feel lonely often.  But when she did, she felt it all the way down to her bones.

She looked up as Nik—at least she really hoped it was Nik—burst out of the trees.  He sprinted across the backyard and took a wild leap up to her balcony.  He didn’t clear it, but clung to it with his big claws and forearms.  His giant tiger head dipped over the railing, as he looked at her.

So stunned by his return and launch at her balcony, Angie didn’t move or run for her life.  She just stared up at him.  She’d never seen a tiger this close up before.  She couldn’t believe how enormous he was.  His gold eyes glinted at her in the darkness and his huge tongue hung from his mouth.

“Is this your way of saying good night?”  He dragged that big tongue across her cheek.  “Dude!  Disgusting!”  But she laughed in spite of herself and immediately let go her sadness.

One paw released the banister and he hung off the side.  He stared through the bars of the railing and it took her a moment to realize he was staring at her…well, her and her no-panty-wearing ass.

“Hey!  Eyes front, cat!”

He again gripped the banister with both paws and let out a weird sound through his nose.  Like two big puffs of air.  Strange, but she got the feeling it didn’t mean anything bad.  His head came farther over the banister and he quietly waited.  She had the feeling he wouldn’t leave until he got what he wanted.

Praying she would get her hand back intact, Angie reached up and ran her fingers through his fur, like she had done with his hair earlier that day.  She kept it up for about three minutes, just petting him, lost in the feel of his fur against her fingertips.  Eventually, he made that puffing sound again, licked her wrist with his dry, rough tongue, and released the banister.  He fell back to the hard ground, but landed on his feet.  He turned to look at her once more, then bounded off into the trees.

She had no idea what happened, but she did know her hard nipples, wet thighs, and that damn thumping noise were freaking her the fuck out.

Chap
ter Six

Nik didn’t come back.  At least, she never heard him if he did.  Around eleven in the morning, she rolled out of bed and scrounged up a bowl of cereal, made a fresh pot of coffee, enjoyed two cups, and the newspaper before heading off to the shower.  Once bathed, she threw on a pair of denim shorts and a T-shirt, heading out to the backyard.  She draped herself onto a lounge chair and dialed Sara.

No answer on her cell.  So she tried Miki.

“Yeah?”

“Hey.  It’s me.”

“Yeah.”

“Oh, come on.  You’re not still mad at me.”

“No. 
I’m
not.”

“But Sara is?”

“She’s mad at everybody.  Zach, Conall, me.  The universe.”

Angie grimaced.  It took a lot to piss off sober Sara.  But once done, the woman wasn’t satisfied until someone lay bleeding and crying.

“Well do something.”

“Do what?  She won’t even talk to me.  She’s pissed.  I mean p-i-s…”

“Yes, Miki.  I know how to spell pissed.  I can actually spell it in several languages.”

“I still have you beat by two.”

“I’m sorry but Klingon and Elvish don’t count.”

“Says who?  Klingon is really tough.”

“Miki, hon, I really need you to focus.”

“Yeah.  Well, if I were you, I wouldn’t get too fuckin’ comfortable.”

“Am I the only one who sees the big picture here?  Hyenas are trying to kill you.  True, there are many who have wanted to see you dead, but these are the first that have actively tried.”

Miki snorted, “Look, I do understand.  And I appreciate you caring and all.”

“But…”

“There’s no but.  I mean, I did do a little research on this Vorislav guy last night and found some pics of him and his brothers on his company’s web site.  And imagine my surprise when I realized he’s the guy from the airport.  But, of course, I’m sure that has nothing to do with you staying there so comfortably.”

Fucking, researching bitch!

“It has nothing to do with that.  I’m waiting for the Pack to get here.  Then I’ll be back.”

“Well, they seem to be taking their sweet time, but I’m sure you’ll find someway to survive.”

“Oh for the love of all that’s holy.  Look, I’m doing this for your…oh my.”

“What?  What’s wrong?”

“Um…puppy.”

“Don’t call my baby that!”

Angie rolled her eyes.  “I’m not, you garden gnome.  I see an actual puppy.”

An adorable black lab puppy specifically, running through the grass of Nik’s backyard.

“Puppy?  Why don’t you call him what he is…a mid-day snack.”

Her crazy friend was right.  Tigers roamed this property.  A cute little thing loping through the grass was really just a moving Snickers bar.

Angie secured her phone to her shorts and made sure her headphones were on, then she moved across the grass toward the puppy while yelling at her best friend.

“All I’m doing is trying to protect my family.  You think she’d appreciate it.”

“Aw, you consider me family?”

“That is the dumbest fuckin’ thing you’ve ever said.  Of course I do!”

“Well, ya don’t have to get nasty.”

“Yes, I do.  When you ask me stupid fuckin’ questions.  You, Sara, and Marrec are the only family I have since my grandmother died.”

“The breeders still live.”

“Yes, but they don’t count.”  She caught up to the puppy as it came to the very edge of where the lawn ended and the acres of trees and tall grass began.  “Come here, cutie.”

She crouched down and picked the little beast up.  “What are you doing around here, little one?”

“Maybe he’s suicidal.”

“Shut up.”

“How come you’re nicer to the dog?”

“The dog doesn’t make it his goal in life to piss me off.”

“This is true.”

The puppy squirmed out of her hands.  “Shit.”  She grabbed for him, but froze when she watched the puppy climb on top of the tiger less than five feet away from her.  So well hidden in the grass, she never saw him.  Her real problem?  His markings were different from Nik’s.  His ears bent a little differently.  His eyes a little more slanted.  This wasn’t Nik.  Which meant she didn’t know how safe or unsafe she may be.

“Shit,” she barked again and scrambled back.

“What’s wrong?”

“Uh…,” the tiger moved forward, his big body raising up out of the grass.  He shook himself, the puppy tumbling off.  He caught the little beast between his teeth by the back of its neck.  Angie flinched.  She really had no desire to watch a dog become anyone’s lunch.  Really.  But the puppy hung from the tiger’s mouth without any fear.

The tiger walked forward slowly, eventually dropping the puppy at Angie’s feet.  She scooped him up and backed away until her ass sat back on the lounger.

The tiger watched her for several very long seconds.  Then he charged into the woods.

“Are you still there?”

“What?  Oh.  Yeah.  I’m here.”

“What’s going on?”

“Tiger antics.”

“Don’t ever turn your back on one.”

“Excuse me?”

“Tigers.  They attack from behind.”

Angie closed her eyes on a sigh, “Good God, you’ve been reading.”

“It’s what I do.  Research.”

The tiger returned, a rabbit in his mouth.  Unlike the puppy, the rabbit didn’t fair too well.  He dropped the bloody carcass in the middle of Nik’s lawn, and looked at her expectantly.

Another tiger, this one’s marking different from Nik’s as well, wandered out of the woods.  He caught sight of the other tiger.  Looked at her.  Then the dead rabbit.  He turned and charged back into the woods.  After a few moments,  he trotted in with his own rabbit.  A bigger one.  He dropped it on top of the first one.

“Uh-oh.”

“What uh-oh?”

The two tigers glared at each other, and charged back into the woods.

“Something’s going on.”

“Something bad?”

“Not for me.”

They returned, each carrying a deer.  One held a doe, the other a buck.  They dropped their prey, roared at each other, turned and charged back into the woods yet again.

Angie giggled, “Dude, this is gettin’ weird.”

“How weird?”

“Well, I could be wrong… but I think I’m being wooed… tiger style.”

“What does that entail?”

“So far?  Rabbit and deer.”

“What?”

The brothers returned, both carrying their own elk.  They dragged and dropped them on the pile.  Then one slapped the other in the head with his paw.  The other hit him back.  Before she knew it, they turned into a mass of snarling, biting, slashing stripes.

“What the hell is that noise?”

“Cat fight.”

“They’re fighting over you?”

“I don’t know.”

“They are so fighting over you,” Miki laughed.  “Angelina and those mighty legs strike again.”

“Oh, shut up.”

“You’re wearing shorts, aren’t you?”

“Shut up!”

A third tiger charged out of the woods.  Nik.  She knew his markings now.  Using his massive jaws, he grabbed one brother by the scruff of the neck, flinging him into the woods.  The other went to follow, but Nik knocked him back with a well-placed paw.  Then he chased that brother in the opposite direction.

“It’s all clear.  Big brother handled it.”

“I swear, everywhere you go…”

“
Oh, shut up
!”

Nik returned.  He trotted past Angelina, barely glancing in her direction and ungracefully belly-flopped into his pool.

Angie laughed again.

“What?”

“Nothing.  Just Tiger-Nik jumped into his pool.  Like that goofy fat kid in eighth grade swim class.”

“Well, I read that tigers love water.  And they don’t purr.”

“This one purrs.”

“Really,” she could hear Miki “thinking.”  “Interesting.  Tigers are the one cat that doesn’t…it must be the human in him.”

Shaking her head and smiling, Angie watched the seven-hundred-pound beast splash around like a little kid.

“Look, Angie.  Are you sure you’re okay?  Really?”  Miki’s concern for her bled through the phone connection and it warmed her hard heart.