“What do you want?” he demanded. The man was about to answer when Rebecca and Nic burst through the apartment door skidding to a stop when they saw the stranger with the gun.
“You two, over there, next to him! Now!” the man screamed as spit flew from his lips. Nic edged in front of Rebecca and they walked over to where Ashby stood. Both men took defensive positions in front of their Alpha Mother.
“Why are you here?” Ashby asked.
“As if you didn’t know!” the man screamed. Ashby shook his head.
“I don’t know, really I don’t. I don’t even know you.”
“He is mine. He was going to talk to me that night, I just know it. Then you came along in your tight jeans, tempting him. Swaying him to you. We are destined to be together.” The man’s voice rose to a fanatic crescendo. Ashby gaped at the man.
“Oh my God, I remember you! You stood in front of me in line at Purgatory the night Gabriel claimed me. You were the raccoon with the cologne,” Ashby exclaimed.
“I sent him a love letter, on special pretty paper. I told him you would die. I just knew he was waiting for me.” The man walked back and forth in front of them waving the gun. Nic turned his head a fraction caught Ashby’s eye and both turned to look at Rebecca, who mouthed a single word.
Kate.
Both men nodded and concentrated on connecting through to the missing fourth member of their Inner Court.
“If you wanted me dead, why did you attack Gabriel?” Ashby asked, trying to stall for time.
The man turned his faced crazed.
“I didn’t! I didn’t! I didn’t! You were supposed to die, not him. I have a secret. Yes a secret. I’m only half shifter. The other half is witch. I was raised by my witch grandmother who taught me things. I used a spell to break your mating bond. It should have killed you! Why aren’t you dead? Poison didn’t work, the spell didn’t work. But I know what will work. My gun will work. Then he will be mine,” he said in an insane singsong childlike voice.
“Mating bonds are built into shifters, you can’t break them in us. All you did was drive Gabriel feral, you son of a bitch,” Ashby said furiously. This man was responsible for all of the pain he experienced in the past week and had made his mating with Gabriel miserable.
“Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!” The man pointed the gun at Ashby.
“Don’t piss off the crazy man with the gun Ashers,” Rebecca whispered.
“I’m not crazy! Step out in front, bitch!” he said, leveling the gun at Ashby.
“No!” Both Ashby and Nic protested. The man started to squeeze the trigger slowly with the gun pointed at Ashby’s head.
“Wait! I’m stepping forward,” Rebecca said, easing forward until she stood in front of Ashby and Nic. Sebastian jumped in front of Rebecca and arched his back hissing at the crazed half shifter.
“Is this the best protection Arkadia has to offer? A little kitty cat.” He laughed manically.
“Say good-bye, bitch.” He swung the gun around until it pointed at Rebecca’s small baby bump and pulled the trigger.
“No!” Ashby yelled and dove to knock Rebecca down. He felt the bullet graze past his arm as Nic jumped on top of him to cover them with his body. Above them an eardrum-shattering roar filled the tiny apartment. Nic, Ashby and Rebecca looked up to see a huge saber-toothed tiger standing between them and the shooter.
Roaring again, the tiger swiped away the gun before jumping on top of the attacker, who was screaming in high-pitched tones. The screeches quickly turned to blood-filled gurgles as the saber-toothed tiger bit down on the man’s throat and shook him like a rag doll.
Aleks, Kate, Bran, Caleb and Liam burst through the apartment door. Aleks’s hands shifted as he advanced on the saber toothed tiger. Rebecca wiggled out from under Nic and Ashby to stand between her charging mate and the half-ton tiger behind her.
“Aleks stop! Leave Sebastian alone, he saved us!” she said, holding up both hands to stop her mate.
Aleks stopped in the middle of the floor staring up at the tiger that was currently standing over his tiny mate.
“Sebastian?” he asked incredulously.
Rebecca looked down and wrinkled her nose at what was left of the attacker, before stepping over his body and moving toward Aleks.
“Yes, Sebastian. He shifted into super kitty and saved us,” she said, beaming proudly.
Ashby knew in that moment he never loved his friend more. The eviscerated man at her feet warranted only a nose wrinkle and she was looking at her shifted cat like a proud mama. No other could fill the role as Alpha Mother more.
“Thank you Sebastian. Is that your real name?” Ashby asked, walking up beside the tiger. He picked up his bathrobe from the sofa where he had left it nearly a week ago.
The huge saber toothed tiger shimmered and in its place a lithe, sandy-haired man stood looking at them with fearful brown eyes. Ashby wrapped the robe around him. Liam sucked in a breath.
“You knew. You had to know!” he yelled, turned, and left the apartment slamming the door behind him.
“Oh dear. Aleks go after Liam, he’s hurting and needs you as a friend. Oh, and take that with you please,” Rebecca said, pointing to the bloody body. Aleks opened his mouth, then closed it. He looked at Sebastian, opened his mouth, then looked at Rebecca who was staring at him expectantly, then closed it.
“Yes dear,” he said. He reached down grabbed the body by the ankle and dragged it out of the apartment. Bran and Caleb winced as they heard the thunk, thunk, thunk sounds coming from the stairs as the body hit each step on the way down.
“My name is Sebastian. I told Liam my name the day we met in the alley,” Sebastian said.
“Liam said it just popped into his head. Was that because you are mates?” she asked. Sebastian nodded.
“I have weak telepathic abilities,” Sebastian explained, still looking a little dazed.
“Sebastian, why didn’t you tell us? We would have kept you safe,” Ashby said, sitting the smaller man down on the sofa.
“I didn’t mean to lie. When I first came here I was so scared but then Rebecca found me. And she was warm and safe. I thought to myself, I’d rather be her cat and safe than a man again. I was scared all the time,” he said shuddering.
“You must have realized at some point that Liam was your mate, and that he wouldn’t hurt you.” Ashby wrapped an arm around the man when he began to shake.
“I was sold by my Alpha. I only recently felt safe enough where I was thinking about shifting back. I knew the one that caged me was close to finding me and I had to warn everyone, I just didn’t know how. Liam isn’t like my old Alpha, I know that now,” he said as tears began to stream down his cheeks.
“I don’t mean to be rude, but how can you have two forms? I didn’t even know that we had domesticated cat shifters,” Bran asked. Sebastian shook his head.
“There aren’t any. I’m a hybrid. My grandparents on my mother’s side were a tiger and a wolf and the grandparents on my father’s side were a lion and a hawk. Each couple produced a half breed baby. Those babies grew up met, fell in love and had me. True hybrids occur when four individual animals come together to make two, that come together to make one. I can shift into any animal that I see and my telepathic abilities may get stronger after I’m claimed by my mate,” Sebastian explained.
“OK, I take back wanting to be a bear. I want to be a hybrid,” Rebecca whispered, eyes wide. Kate smacked her arm.
“We’re not impossible to find, but we are extremely rare. That was why I was sold to the man collecting hybrids. He was going to sell us. He drugged us, made us shift into small animals and kept us in bespelled titanium cages. We weren’t able to shift into larger animals to escape. Malcom didn’t know and when he shifted the cage cut him into tiny cube-shaped pieces. We were only able to escape when the man who was collecting us left. His abused boyfriend came in and let us all out. He told us to run and find Arkadian towns. We agreed that it would be too easy to tr
ack us as a large group and split up. I saw the boyfriend here in town last week. It’s only a matter of time before that psychopath finds us, and forces us to go with him.” Sebastian covered his face with his hands.
“Not going to happen, Sebastian. Didn’t I promise you that you would always have a home with me?” Rebecca asked him, rubbing her hand over his head. He instinctively turned his head into her touch. He caught himself and nodded.
“I swear to you that no one will take you away from us.” Rebecca turned to Nic.
“Can you drive him back to the ranch so he can get some rest? He’s had a long day,” she said, leaning forward and kissing the top of his head just like she did when he was in cat form.
“You mean it? I can stay with you even though I’m not a cat?” he asked, his lower lip quivering. She nodded.
“Of course, you’re family.” She smiled at him and hesitantly he smiled in return. Nic stood and helped Sebastian to stand on his own two feet instead of his normal four. Slowly they made their way out of the apartment and down the blood-stained stairs. No one moved until they heard the door shut.
“What next? The Loch Ness Monster?” Bran asked, pacing the floor.
“Like we didn’t have enough to worry about.” Caleb rubbed his face with his hands. Both women glared at them. Ashby stared the men down, and through his bond he could feel Rebecca and Kate’s aggravation.
“He’s family, we take care of family. He also saved my life,” Rebecca reminded the men who looked down at her properly chastised. They looked up at Kate guiltily.
“You’re also forgetting that he’s Liam’s mate. Liam was willing to risk every man in his pride to keep our boys safe when we couldn’t. Are you saying now that you aren’t willing to defend his mate?” Kate demanded, tapping her foot.
“No, lovely baby, we would never turn our back on Liam that way,” Caleb said, taking one of Kate’s clenched fists. Bran grabbed the other.
“We’re just worried about a new threat to the town, that is all,” Bran explained.
“Good, for a moment there neither one of you was going to get any sex for at least a month,” Kate said, eyeing her men who paled under her gaze.
Rebecca looked around the apartment and down at the bloody floor.
“You know what, I’m freaking starving. Let’s go to the diner, I’m craving steak and eggs.” Rebecca smiled and Ashby chuckled wickedly. Together they walked toward the door and headed down the stairs. Caleb and Bran turned a little green and Kate patted them on their shoulders.
“You boys can’t hang with the big girls.” She laughed and followed Rebecca and Ashby out of the apartment.
Bran turned to Caleb.
“Never, ever, ever piss off those two women.” Caleb nodded. They quickly followed the other three to the diner.
* * * *
“Liam wait up!” Aleks yelled as he marched down Market Street after his friend. Liam turned, hissed and kept walking. Aleks rolled his eyes.
“Dammit, Liam, hold up!” Aleks yelled as they passed the diner. Behind him he heard gasps but he kept walking. Fuck them if they didn’t like him cussing. Finally he added a little speed and caught up to Liam.
“Fuck off Aleks!” Liam said through clenched teeth.
“Can’t. Rebecca sicced me on you. So here I am standing in front of you, when I would rather be stripping my mate naked and inspecting every inch of her body. I almost lost her again today. Am I with her? No! I’m with your flea-bitten cat ass! So you better spill your guts and cry or whatever shit you need to do so I can tell Rebecca I was there for you, so I can get back to my plan of stripping her naked,” Aleks bellowed.
In the background he heard children begin to cry. He frowned. OK, he admitted to himself that he needed to watch his language. Liam stared at him blankly.
“You’re totally scared of her adorable psychotic little ass,” he said.
“I am not! And she isn’t psychotic. She’s brilliant,” Aleks protested. Liam nodded.
“At least she never denied you,” Liam said brokenly.
“No. But I denied her, remember?” Aleks said bitterly and Liam winced.
“Listen, I don’t know what’s going on with the little guy, but he looked scared as hell when he shifted back to human. You don’t look that scared when you can shift into a fucking saber-toothed tiger without some major trauma somewhere in your past,” Aleks said, taking a deep breath. Then he stopped and his eyes went wide.
“He’s a he. I mean he’s a guy. He’s your mate. Oh my God you’re gay!” Aleks exclaimed. Liam slapped himself on the forehead.
“You are just sick!” a woman on the sidewalk hissed at them.
“Fuck off you close-minded bitch, we don’t choose our mates, they are chosen for us,” Aleks growled at her. Her mouth worked like a fish’s before she went running down the street calling for Ma Arkadion. Aleks looked at Liam, his face scarlet.
“Look man, I don’t care who your mate is. I just want you to be happy,” he said in a gruff voice. Liam wiped his eyes from laughing too hard and shook his head.
“Doesn’t look like that is going to happen anytime soon.” When Liam looked up at him there was a new depth of sadness that wasn’t there this morning. Aleks opened his mouth to reassure his friend when he heard something that chilled him to the bone.
“Aleksander Aaron Arkadion! What in the hell is wrong with you! Why are you dragging that mangled corpse through town? You traumatized an entire first-grade class on a field trip to the town center,” Ma said, striding up to them pointing down to the body that Aleks still had a hold of.
He looked down at the ankle he was holding.
“Fuck my life.” Aleks looked behind his ma at the trail of blood heading back to the ice cream parlor.
Liam laughed, his arms wrapped around his waist holding his sides. Aleks had a feeling that Liam was laughing to keep from crying.
Chapter 17
“You know what this means Ashby?” Rebecca said, wiggling around behind the counter as Ma walked into the diner muttering about dense sons. Ethan, Gina and Cecelia were giggling at Aleks’s gaffe from a table by the door.
“What does what mean?” Ashby asked, picking apart a muffin.
“It means that you can go be with Gabriel. The threat was from his crazy-ass stalker, not the drug ring. Speaking of crazy stalkers.” Rebecca rummaged around in different containers before holding up her gun triumphantly. Connor paled as she tucked it into her purse. She returned to her table as Caleb and Bran eyed her warily. She resumed eating her steak.
“Oh my God, you’re right. I can go back!” he said, grinning from ear to ear.
“Hate to lose you little buddy,” Mojo said from a side table where he was having breakfast with a much smaller man who kept looking around nervously. Ashby identified one of his shirts and smiled.
“I’ll figure out a way to get you your sundaes. Is this Peyton?” Ashby asked, smiling at the twitchy man. Mojo nodded.
“Yup, this is Peyton Miller, my new employee at the bar. Say hello to everyone Peyton. It’s OK, everyone here is real nice.” Mojo waved to everyone who smiled warmly and waved back to the small man. Slowly a shy smile appeared as he gave a small wave before ducking his head.
“He is so cute!!” Rebecca gushed. Peyton looked up blushing and looked back down again.
Ashby was about to comment when the door swung open and three strange men walked in. Immediately the shifters in the diner went on alert. Ma stepped out from behind the counter.
“Can we help you gentlemen?” she asked, crossing her arms over her chest. Normally Ma was very welcoming to everyone, but there was something off about these three. Ashby shuddered. He wanted to get as far away from them as possible. The man in front looked around the diner and gave an oily smile. His eyes went from Peyton to Kate then back to Ma.
“I’m looking for Bran McGregor,” the seedy-looking leader said. Kate stood and began to growl loudly. Bran and Caleb stood in front of their mate.
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“I’m Bran McGregor,” Bran said, frowning at the rough-looking man.
“I challenge you to become Alpha of the Arkadian wolf pack,” he said and Ashby gasped.
“You can’t do that,” Rebecca said calmly between bites of steak.
“It’s a dominance challenge, no one can interfere. I’m simply reclaiming what is mine. My brother promised me a piece of that bitch there,” he said, pointing to Kate.
“Once I’m Alpha, she’ll be my bitch. I’ll also be taking that twink off your hands. He belongs to my pack,” he said pointing to Peyton. Ashby felt the air move as Mojo took up a position in front of him and Peyton. Out of the corner of his eye Ashby saw Ethan slip out of the diner and take off down the road.
“You son of a bitch, why can’t you just leave us alone!” Kate demanded.
“Who is he, Kate?” Ma asked.
“He’s the brother to my old Alpha,” Kate growled.
“Interesting, so your parents failed on two occasions.” Rebecca looked up at the wolf and scrunched her nose before shaking her head.
“Like I said before, you can’t challenge Bran. And even if you could, you can’t just own people. That’s just rude,” Rebecca said, chasing the juice from her steak around her plate with what looked to be her last bite.
“Rebecca he’s right, no one can interfere with a dominance challenge,” Bran said, cracking his knuckles. Caleb bared his canines at the man.
“Except when that challenge is issued to a pack that is under the protection of the Alpha Mother in an Arkadian town. In the Shifter Council bylaws the only time such a challenge is recognized is when approved of by the Alpha Mother. So like I said…again. You can’t do that,” she said, sweetly smiling up at the man. He growled and knocked the table away from Rebecca to leave her sitting in the chair before him. The entire diner began to growl as Connor jumped the counter and stood directly behind Rebecca.
“Fine. Where is the Alpha Mother? Bring her to me,” he demanded. Rebecca stood.
“I’m right here,” she said, placing her hands on her hips.