Sullivan (Leopard's Spots 7) (9 page)

“What do you mean, Grandma is going to let Otto try to hypnotise her? We already know a lot more about what we are than we did even a year ago!” Sully was beginning to think calling his cousin Levi was a mistake. The plan had been to see if he could get some info on Bobby without being obvious. What he’d got was talk of a subject that gave him the heebee-jeebees.

“We don’t know enough, Grandma thinks. She wants to see what she might have forgotten from her time living with her clan,” Levi explained. “She’s cool with it. I think it’s a bunch of mumbo-jumbo crazy shit, but I wouldn’t tell her that.”

“She’d thump the crap out of you if you did,” Sully muttered. Grandma Marybeth could thump or flick someone like a pro. Such a small thing shouldn’t hurt so bad, and maybe it didn’t. Maybe it was knowing they’d let Grandma Marybeth down that caused the most pain. “I just don’t know what else she wants to find out. We know we are whatever we die as, human or cat. We don’t catch human diseases, not communicable ones, anyway, and our animals are actually spirits inside of us, which is why we are whatever we die as. Our spirit leaves and what remains is an empty husk.”
God, this is depressing.
“We have mates that, if we’re lucky enough to find, we never part from nor do we want to. Seriously, what else is she looking for?”

“Memories,” Levi said, and Sully barely kept from saying
duh.
“I really think she wants to know more about her family, and our roles in the family now. Oscar swears he’s some sort of protector, and the storytellers are me and Tim. I think she is looking for a shaman and God only knows what else. I don’t think we should have any kind of assigned roles other than the usual familial ones. I don’t know. It won’t hurt to let her have her way.”

“And it’ll hurt if you try to stop her,” Sully added, repeating his basic statement from earlier. “She was pretty young when her clan was slaughtered. She probably does want to mine whatever memories she has of her lost loved ones.”

“Yes. So.” Levi cleared his throat. Sully closed his eyes and sighed. He knew what was coming, and Levi didn’t disappoint. “Tell me, is that kid still with you?” Levi asked.

“Yeah.” Sully wasn’t exactly lying. Yeah, Mando was gone, but not forever. Sully intended to find Mando and bring him back. He was worried about the kid. So far he’d had no luck the past two days, but between starting classes and trying to keep from hunting Bobby down and begging to fuck him again, Sully’s nerves were shot. He couldn’t smell for shit in this city, either. He might never get accustomed to the odours. “And your watchdog came and checked him out. Bobby. The watchdog, I mean. Was Bobby.”

“You sound nervous there, Sully. Did Bobby freak you out? I know he’s a weird mother, but he was the only person we could think to ask without setting off alarms in the family. Personally, I don’t think Bobby should lead the wolf pack once his father retires. I don’t think Bobby should lead a fly to the front door to shoo it out, either.” Sully’s temper flared. Bobby wasn’t an incompetent loser. For whatever reason, he’d run off, but it could be just the way Bobby had told him—the man wasn’t a cuddler.

Anyway, Sully didn’t want to hear anyone else talk trash about Bobby. He had to watch becoming defensive, though. Levi was perceptive, and, like all of Sully’s family, nosy as hell.

“Bobby seemed all right to me.” There. That didn’t sound too protective. Sully was, he realised. He was pissed off in nine different directions at Bobby, but he didn’t want anyone else to mess with the man, to judge him or anything.

Bobby was his.

“Bobby’s an odd one, but Oscar says he’s a lot smarter than he comes across, that he acts weird to keep people away.” Levi muttered something unintelligible. “I still think that’s a bad thing for a leader, but whatever. Not my problem, or yours. I’m just glad the guy didn’t weird you out or anything.”

Sully’s leopard was getting a tad…touchy. It took every ounce of self-restraint he had not to go all batshit angry on Levi. The main reason he didn’t was because he knew that would be a dead giveaway about his interest in Bobby, and that would lead to questions and teasing, and Sully hated both of those. He could take a joke, take being razzed, but not when it was about something so serious for him.

“Bobby seemed okay. I might have to go check out his club.” Sully crossed his fingers and waited for Levi to go conversationally where he wanted Levi to. It worked like a charm.

“Well, the damage from the fire has been repaired as of today, I think—”

“What fire?” Sully asked, heart pounding. If something had happened to Bobby—

“There was a fire in the storage room at his club several days ago. Before he came to check on you. Wasn’t too bad and the club’s supposed to be opening tonight, that’s what Josiah said.”

That was really all the information Sully needed. Bobby hadn’t been hurt, so he really didn’t want to see Sully. Well, that was too bad. Sully wanted to see him, and he was going to. All he had to do was a little bit of research in the newspaper going a few days back, and he could do that online.

* * * *

It was good. The club was crowded, much more than usual even for Thursday night.

Bobby guessed people missed the place. He sure had. The thrumming music, blaring so loud it shook your insides, the strobes and shouts and laughter, the scent of alcohol, sweat, and horny men—yeah, he’d missed it all something fierce. Later in the early morning hours, when he was trying to even out the tills, he might feel differently, but for now, this was the one place he belonged where no one had already decided what he was going to be or do.

And even with all of that, he was almost sick with the need to go to Sully. He’d heard tales that mates separated didn’t do so well—as in, they could die if they stayed apart too long. Often mates died within days of one another, although if there was a family involved that needed taking care of, the opposite occurred. The surviving mate tended to be able to deal with the loss and go on living. Nothing was set in stone, though, which was why Bobby had thought he might have a chance of having a choice in the whole mating business.

But he didn’t, and he was probably putting Sully through hell. Bobby could only guess that Sully hadn’t narc’d to his family, otherwise Bobby would have been getting phone calls and more likely, visits that involved people trying to beat the shit out of him, because he was doing Sully wrong.

That was another heavy ball of guilt. Mates didn’t hurt each other…but he was hurting them both. And why? Just to be a stubborn ass. He was beginning to think he was dumber than he thought. He’d never considered himself dim, but what kind of idiot dug their heels in when it obviously was making him miserable?

Then Bobby had a terrifying thought. His wolf had been throwing a right fit since he’d left Sully. Had been, until a few hours ago. Bobby knew his wolf spirit could leave him if he abused it. Sure, he’d done some drugs and got shitfaced a few times, but only long-term usage of those things would drive the animal spirit from him. Refusing to accept his mate, that might be less tolerable.

Bobby might bitch and moan to himself about his paths being chosen for him, but he knew clearly then that he didn’t want to punish his wolf, or worse, lose it. He’d die for sure, because he loved being a shifter. That being the case, why did he punish his wolf, and himself? All just to be stubborn? He must have some issue with authority.

It had to stop. If his spirit animal left him, the pack would have no immediate leader.

There could potentially be a lot of fighting to determine who would take the pack over. His dad might even be killed if someone he deemed unworthy tried to take the pack.

Sully…would Sully’s leopard spirit leave him, or would he find a new mate somehow? Just because Bobby had always heard there was only one mate for a person, that didn’t mean his spirit animal wouldn’t go into someone else.

Well, a newborn shifter. It’d take a while, but Sully would maybe someday have his mate if that were the case. Shifters were basically humans who were blessed with a spirit that altered them, body and soul. It enabled them to turn into another animal beside the human one. While a shifter could, and would, die, the spirit that had been a part of them didn’t.

According to the shaman from Bobby’s pack, that spirit was born again into a new shifter, so in theory, if Bobby died, his wolf spirit could go into a newborn and Sully could have a mate again in eighteen years.

In theory. No telling if that would happen as soon as I bit it. And who in the pack is knocked up?

No one. So the wolf spirit might float off to some other pack, somewhere else in the world.

Surely, if that spirit and Sully’s were mates, they’d find each other again, eventually.

Bobby wrinkled his nose at that idea. He flat-out didn’t like it.
At. All
. The idea of Sully pining away for him didn’t sit well either. Contrary to his behaviour, Bobby didn’t want to hurt Sully.

Sully hadn’t come hunting him down. There was always the chance that snow leopard shifters didn’t suffer the same way for their mates, or because of them. Sure, Oscar, a snow leopard, was the mate of Josiah, but how did Bobby know the strength of the bond was as strong on Oscar’s side, or if it was the wolf’s mating bond that held the couple together somehow, making the bond impenetrable, unbreakable? If the wolf shifter backed off, the leopard shifter could very well go on their merry way.

Jesus. He’d given his ass, without complaint from his wolf—which should have been a dead giveaway about them being mates—and Sully hadn’t been, what? Besotted enough to come for Bobby?

When Bobby realised he’d been carrying around the stupid, romantic hope that Sully would want him enough to find him, he groaned and closed his eyes. That was what he got for reading so many romance novels. He wanted True Love and a Happy Ever After.

Wow, and I wanted to be the one who got chased and rescued or whatever. God, shoot me now!

To say he was mortified was an understatement. Bobby burned with the heat of embarrassment as he cracked open one eye and darted to the newly restored room. He needed to escape his up-to-then sanctuary.

The odour of freshly applied paint stung his nose and he sneezed a few times as he rushed around boxes and shelves. He’d specified that odourless paint be used and the workmen had done as asked, but with his wolf’s senses—

A wave of relief crashed over him and he stumbled by the back exit. His wolf was still hanging tough in him, but Bobby knew that could—would—change if he didn’t get his shit together.

He fumbled with the lock on the door then got it open and pushed. The alley didn’t smell better, exactly, but he’d take the scent of rot to the scorching chemical one for tonight at least. Drawing deep breaths in through his mouth, Bobby tried to keep his olfactory sense from being utterly abused.

Familiar sounds in the alley filtered to him, soft grunts, pants, bodies slapping together.

The scent of sex was as redolent as the scent of garbage. Only one of those things was giving him wood. Bobby tried not to look then shrugged and watched one couple in the shadows. If they’d have wanted privacy, they wouldn’t have been fucking outside, and they were certainly doing that. The larger man had his partner facing the wall, was shoving him against it with every jarring thrust. Both men were clearly enjoying the rough fucking. Bobby was tempted to masturbate as he watched, except even though his cock was firm, he wasn’t feeling it. The men were hot, but they weren’t him and Sully.

Well, he’d been told mates wouldn’t desire anyone else once they’d found each other, and that was another truth. Watching turned Bobby on, but that was all it did. A three-or-more-some didn’t interest him at all.

He wanted Sully. He was just going to have to go grovel and beg, if that was what it took. Just because they were pulled together as mates didn’t mean there wouldn’t be arguments and hurt feelings. They were still people as well as shifters, with emotions and all that shit in play. And Bobby had royally screwed up.

He turned as he heard the back door opening. Paava waved him over. “Hey, boss man, got a situation you need to handle.” Paava wasn’t smiling, in fact he was downright grim, and that was always very bad.

“What the hell happened now?” Bobby muttered, hurrying inside, the erotic displays he’d been watching already forgotten. “How bad is it?”

“Bad,” Paava said, “but contained, as it is.” Paava groaned and scrubbed his hands up and down his face. “Fuck, that is a horrible way to look at it.” He dropped his hands and his gaze bored into Bobby. “Jerry at the door screwed up big-time, let a minor in. There’s no way he should have fallen for the fake ID—”

“Fire him,” Bobby snapped, already moving to do just that. “Why is he still working here?”

“He’s going to wait in your office for the ass-kicking he has coming, that’s why,” Paava growled.

Bobby stopped and turned on his heel, looking at Paava. “How. Bad?” Bobby curled his hands into fists, trying to brace himself.

Paava glanced away after a second. “Bad enough I called our shaman in. The kid was…was hurt.”

The way Paava said it, the manner in which he shifted his weight from foot to foot, told Bobby just how the kid was hurt. “Who did it?”

Paava shrugged. “I don’t know. I found the kid in the hall by your office. There were too many scents, and the paint had fucked up my nose already—” Bobby took off for the hall. “Where’s the kid now?”

“With Lisa and Jerry, although Jerry’s sitting on the floor behind your desk. Kid freaked when he saw him.”

Bobby craned his neck a little to see Paava while still heading for the kid. “Was it Jerry, d’ya think?”

“No. He smells clean, sexually at least.”

If Bobby had had any doubts about what had happened, that would have cleared it all up. As it was he gagged and forced the bile back down. What kind of alpha would he be if he puked when he got upset?

“It’s just that he’s a guy, I think,” Paava said, panting as he kept up with Bobby. Bobby kept his power on and out, his wolf no longer pouting at him but helping him clear a path.