The Catalyst (3 page)

She tried to forget his pecs and focus on her anger.
“That’s your rationalization for kidnapping me? Let’s find out what
the authorities have to say.” She turned to the older gentleman who
had been stitching up her arm. “This man has brought me here
against my will. You have to call the police. It’s your civic
duty.”

The older gentleman held out his hand. “Please, Miss.
Just one more stitch and I’ll have you all patched up. Would you
like some drugs to dull the pain?”

She goggled at him. No she didn’t want drugs. That
was the last thing she needed. “Didn’t you hear me?”

“I heard you.” He guided her to sit back on the
couch, took her arm, and finished the stitching while she tried not
to scream. No way was she going to let the asshole who brought her
here see her cry over stitches. A few moments later the older man
patted her arm. “There, now. You’ll be good as new before you know
it.”

She could have handled it just fine on her own with
her books and tools and with much less pokey-needle pain. She
didn’t need someone to come along and stitch her up. The man handed
a bottle of pills to Z.

“Make sure she takes these. One in the morning and
one at night to avoid infection. Humans aren’t like us. You’ve got
to be careful with them.”

“I’m a witch! I don’t need any of that. I’ve got
magic.” She looked around, but none of her books were there—just a
small bag she recognized that looked like it had clothes in it.
“Where are my books and tools?”

“Again,” Z said, “I won’t have you doing magic while
you’re with me. I’m not stupid.”

She felt like she couldn’t breathe. No books or
tools. She wasn’t at her house, but outside. Miles away. Was the
room getting hotter?

Z snapped a finger in front of her face before she
could make a dramatic scene. The panic attack had been edging in on
her senses.

“Hey. None of that. We’re not doing that here. Do you
read me?”

His flippant attitude about her emotional state
pissed her off enough that the anxiety eased. Nothing like anger to
ward off an encroaching panic attack. She looked around. At least
the cave looked secure. It was small, closed in. Cozy. Safe. Safer
than her house right now, she reasoned. She just had to think of
this as the new, safe home base.

Easier said than done.

The doctor continued, unfazed. “And this one…” he
passed a second bottle to Z. “These are for pain if she needs
them.”

“I’m not taking any of that,” Fiona said, still
ruffled that the doctor who wasn’t human was siding with her
abductor. Only therians had this honor-among-thieves code to this
extreme. No human doctor would go along with kidnapping.

Z’s eyes narrowed at her, then he turned back to the
doctor. “She’ll take them. Thanks, doc.”

“No problem. You have my number.”

When he was gone, Fiona dropped back into the chair.
She was trapped. Maybe not literally. She wasn’t sure if she was
locked in or not. But the fear of going outside was enough to
confine her to this new prison.

It was only now that the situation was starting to
dawn on her in the way it would have dawned on someone who didn’t
have her particular phobias much earlier. A dangerous panther
therian had kidnapped her. He’d said he needed her help with the
pup, but he’d also said he just needed her to watch the wolf for a
while, during which time he’d gone to get the tools he needed to
take her without a fight. His word was worthless.

“Hey. Stop all that thinking,” Z said, snapping his
fingers in front of her face again. “I really did just bring you
here to help me with the pup. I have no evil plan.”

“How can I trust that?”

He held up three fingers. “Scout’s honor.”

Fiona wrinkled her nose, not trusting that for a
minute.

“Look. If I’d wanted to hurt you, I could have done
it a thousand times already.”

She held up her arm again to make the point that he
had, in fact, already done physical damage.

“You know what I mean. You think I couldn’t have
killed you in a couple of swipes if I’d wanted? And if I’d wanted
to do other things… that would have been simple enough, too. I’m
not a bad guy.”

She didn’t like the way his eyes roved over her body,
sizing her up when he said
other things
. Or maybe she did
like it. She’d never had a man look at her like she was an
appetizer before. Again, that was probably because she wasn’t
around men, being in her house all the time.

“Whatever. You know I’m stuck here now, right? If you
ever want to get rid of me, you’ll have to chloroform me to get me
back home. Because I still can’t go out there.” She knew it was
ludicrous, how crazy it sounded, that she’d rather stay in the cave
with some unhinged panther guy she didn’t know she could trust,
than to be faced with a few miles trip back to her own home. Of
course it was illogical. Phobias weren’t logical. But logic didn’t
change how she felt.

“I assumed as much. And if that’s all right with you,
I’ll do that as soon as I’ve found the pup’s family. Whatever you
need to make it easier. I also took care of your window. I’ve got a
guy working on it right now. When you get back home everything
should be secure. Just like before.”

Before you came crashing into my life, you mean?

There was still that part of her that was sad about
the prospect of going back to her house by herself. Because as
screwed up as this whole situation was, when and where was she
going to meet another guy? Even if she could go out and mingle like
normal people, the odds of meeting another one this hot were
slim.

Therians tended to have the animal magnetism going,
but they didn’t often mingle with magic users socially—not since
that website with the therian blood started up. There had always
been suspicion between the magic users and the therians. Neither
could ever trust the motivations of the other, and now, they didn’t
need to.

How many decades would pass before another eligible
man just showed up at her house and busted through her window? Men
weren’t like pizza delivery. Sadly. It was the one thing she
couldn’t order off the Internet.

Even if she met a guy, how was she going to date him?
The kind of man who would only be interested in coming over to her
place and not going anywhere, wasn’t the kind of man she wanted.
She didn’t want to be somebody’s late night booty call. Besides, it
was beyond embarrassing that she’d made it to twenty-seven without
losing her virginity. She wouldn’t know what to do. They’d assume
something was wrong with her, or that she was freaky religious.

Still, she wasn’t going to throw herself at the
panther, especially since he looked like the kind of guy who had
enough experience to write a sex manual. She didn’t want to be his
poker-with-the-guys story about the clueless chick who didn’t know
her way around a man’s body.

“All right, then,” Z said. “Are you hungry? I’m
afraid the extent of my kitchen skills are cardboard box plus
microwave. But I’ve got a stash of everything in the deep
freezer.”

“Don’t panthers hunt?”

“I do. But I’ve got a high metabolism. Hunting is
great, but I like to think my whole life doesn’t revolve around
it.” He waved the frozen food box in her direction. “I’ve got mac
and cheese, here. You interested?”

Why not? “Sure. Mac and cheese sounds fine.”

Fiona couldn’t stop looking at his tanned upper body
as he opened boxes and peeled the clear plastic cover off the food.
She was a great cook, but she wasn’t about to insist he run to the
store for her so she could make something proper. She bet he’d
never had homemade macaroni and cheese before.

She shook herself out of the thoughts of making him a
home-cooked meal. That was not the appropriate response when
someone kidnapped you to turn you into an indentured werewolf
nanny. Fiona wasn’t sure there was an appropriate response to that
circumstance, or that anyone else had ever had it happen to them
before.

A few minutes later he passed the first macaroni
entree to her, along with a fork, then he tossed his in the
microwave and pressed a couple of buttons.

“Milk, cola, water?”

“Water is fine,” she said, standing beside the
counter. She didn’t bother sitting because the kitchen table was
covered in papers and random crap he’d left piled on it. He was
definitely a single male. Or he was if what she’d seen of them on
TV shows was in any way accurate.

He put an antibiotic pill in her hand and she tossed
it back, not bothering to argue.

“How do you have electricity and indoor plumbing
here?”

“How do you have it in your house?”

She rolled her eyes. “You know what I mean. This is a
cave.”

“It’s a home just like any other. It can be wired up…
a little more difficult with all the stone, but not impossible. It
just took some creative thinking.”

He tossed her a plastic bottle and leaned against the
fridge, his arms crossed over his chest. “For someone who has just
been kidnapped, you seem calm.”

“I told you. I have a problem with outside. I’m
inside now. This is the new safe place. It’s fine.” This was all
babbling self-talk and bluster, because there was no reality in
which it was fine.

He arched a brow and laughed. “I could be crazy,
evil, or just garden-variety lecherous, and you’ve decided I’m safe
now?”

Fiona grew annoyed with the mocking. “No,” she said
in between bites, “I didn’t say
you
were safe. I said this
physical location is. You, I’m still not sure about, but you
haven’t done anything scary since you took me, so I’m waiting it
out. Right now the forest is scarier than you are.”

The microwave dinged, and he shook his head. “You are
a piece of work. I didn’t know crazy came in such a cute package.
It’s a shame.”

She felt her face heat at the quasi-compliment, and
also felt a tiny bit safer knowing crazy wasn’t on his list of
turn-ons. That increased her safety level, right?

“Here, let’s sit and eat like normal people.” Z swept
the papers off the table and onto the floor while Fiona gawked, her
mind going to soap operas she’d seen where men cleared desks of
papers in order to take a lover.
The daydream was
interrupted as the pup, sensing a game, ran up and started rolling
around and chewing on the papers.

Normal people? An agoraphobic witch and a panther guy
taking care of a baby werewolf. Yeah. That was normal. Z dropped
into a chair with his macaroni and a glass of milk. Fiona shrugged
and sat across from him. This couldn’t get any weirder, and she had
to admit, it was better than being alone all the time. She hadn’t
had a real in-person conversation in longer than she wanted to
admit. Crazy or not, company was company. Television playing in the
background as her only sense of companionship had become less
convincing as the years passed.

Part of her hoped it took a long time to find the
pup’s family so she wouldn’t have to go back to being alone. Or
maybe they’d never find the family. Her gaze lingered on his bicep.
If he wasn’t mentally ill or evil, she wouldn’t mind waking up to
that every day. Even if they weren’t a couple and didn’t share a
bed. Just sharing space might be enough. She didn’t want to think
about how pathetic that sounded in her head.

Her eyes went back to the shirtless panther chowing
down on mac and cheese. Fiona swallowed around the lump in her
throat. She might be a virgin, but her brain had just moved into
the pornographic zone. Hormones that had long been ignored
screeched at her, jumping up and down for attention. Unconsciously,
she pushed her hair behind her ears and might have batted her
eyelashes when he looked up at her.

Z smirked.

“So,” she said, trying to find something to talk
about that would keep her body language from begging him to mount
her, “you said someone’s after the pup?”

He’d finished the rest of his milk with one gulp.
“Yeah. I’m not sure who they are. I smelled magic, so I know some
of them were magic users. One was a vampire, which is odd because I
haven’t seen a vampire in these parts in twenty years or more. But
it seemed like they knew something about the pup to want him so
much.

“I don’t know how I outran them, pure adrenaline is
my guess. But I bunked down with a friend, and the next day I had
wards put on the cave. Now I can’t take the pup outside to play,
but as you can see, he’s been known to wander off if my attention
strays. I put him in a cage at night or when I have to shower or
something, but he figured out the latch. That’s how he ended up at
your place.”

Fiona looked horrified. “You keep him locked in a
cage?”

“Not all the time. And it’s big. It’s like a play pen
that you put a baby in. He’s got toys and food and stuff. I’m not a
monster.” Z pointed over to the corner where the cage sat. “I’m
going to have to figure out a better way to lock it so we don’t
have a repeat of today.”

Fiona got up and went to the living area to take a
better look at the cage, then turned back to Z. “You should also
maybe do something about the sharp edges.”

He smiled, a brilliant, milk-commercial smile. “See?
I knew you were going to be beneficial.”

Her lips curved downward at his justification for
kidnapping, but she was intrigued by the fact that Z was playing
the role of surrogate father. If he’d take a child not of his
species in and care for it, he couldn’t be too bad a guy. Could
he?

“I need to go back out, though. Into town. I’m sure
they’ll have something at the hardware store I can use to secure
him. Can you watch him while I’m gone?” He pulled the black T-shirt
over his head.

“Are you going to drug me again when you get
back?”

Z rolled his eyes. “Don’t be goofy. I know you aren’t
going anywhere.” He gestured toward the door. “That’s the big bad
outside out there. I don’t need a lock to keep you in.”