A Cougar's Claim (Charmed in Vegas Book 7) (7 page)

They were touching too much. He didn’t need to brush her hair away from her eyes or hold her hand because the EMT was taking her blood pressure.

Cold, clammy fingers clamped around his bicep. Kit struggled to maintain a façade of calm, I-don’t-give-a-fuck. This was a hunt. She was his mate. Now wasn’t the time to make a move. He could be smart and patient.

“Hey asshole, I’m not paying for the damage to the elevator. You and your dragon friend are the ones that started this whole thing by setting off the fire alarms and got me trapped in that tiny metal box with that woman.”

Kit took four breaths, letting the briny, stinky fish scent of the man next to him sink in to his senses. The cougar swatted at him, annoyed. His cat wanted to pursue Rhiannon, not deal with another distraction. If it was up to the animal within, they’d gut this idiot, break the fire fighter’s jaw for smiling at Rhiannon, and drag her off by the nape of the neck into a stairwell and mate her.

He clasped the other shifter’s wrist and peeled pruny-skinned fingers off his arm. “If you have a problem with small spaces, take the goddamned stairs, chubby. I’m not paying for you pissing water all over the damn place because you had a hissy fit.”

Eyes the same color blue as when he’d changed shape grew round in the man’s face. He clutched at the lapels of a white bathrobe emblazoned with the hotel’s logo on the left breast closed over his pale greyish white chest. “I’m in the penthouse. You can’t expect me to walk down all those stairs. Do you know how long that takes?”

Kit squeezed, and felt the tiny bones under his fingers grind into each other. “If you don’t walk away, right now, I will do permanent damage to you. Do you understand me?”

“There’s no reason to be so, so, so dramatic about it. I don’t even have regular bones you know.” He sighed and rolled his eyes. “Sharks have cartilage. We’re flexible. You can squeeze all you want, but with my ability to heal and my superior skeletal structure, my wrist will be good as new in half an hour tops.”

Rhiannon’s scent, undermined with the sour tinge of sweat and salt, captured his attention. She stopped on his left, with her new admirer in tow.

The woman must want him to kill every man in the building.

He forced his thoughts clear. The cougar inside was too riled, getting too possessive and crazed and she was making it worse on purpose. Maybe he kinda deserved that. His hand clenched, an involuntary reaction to the fire fighter’s proximity to his mate.

The human stood close enough to her for his chest to brush her arm if he took a deep breath.

“Okay okay okay please stop that really hurts. I was lying about the cartilage thing, that’s only when I’m shifted.” The shark shifter went to his knees on the floor, face crimson and the robe gaping.

“Kit, what are you doing? Let the guy go.” Rhiannon knelt beside the shifter.

Chagrined, he released the shark shifter’s wrist and took a step back. This was bad. He couldn’t get so close to losing control.

The fire fighter gave him a wide berth, joining Rhiannon on the floor.

So now what did he do? Just stand here like shit left in a litterbox?

Shark boy cradled his injured hand to his chest. He look soft, unfinished, like a guy who worked a desk job and should be wearing glasses. With his long, thin nose, wide mouth, and overly large eyes, the guy was creepy but harmless. “I don’t even know why you’re touching me. You accused me of trying to eat you when we were in the elevator and I never even got near you.”

Rhiannon recoiled from the hurt shifter and stood, her cheeks bright red. “You’re a damn shark. You lost control of yourself in an enclosed space. Yes, I thought you might eat me. I would have thought any shifter was going to take a bite or a swipe or eviscerate me right after losing it because they were afraid for their life. At least I didn’t tase you, you rotten fishy creep.”

The shark shifter got to his feet, gesturing with both arms and his robe flapping. “I am so sick of you humans and your prejudices against sharks. News flash, y’all are not very tasty. If I’m really hungry I’ll go and get some nibbles from the local fish market. I don’t have to go biting everything just because I’m a shark.”

“Sir, calm down. I can’t asses your injury if you’re gesturing at Ms. Delamatre.” The fire fighter placed himself to the left and slightly in front of Rhiannon.

In
his
place. He should be protecting her,
not
the human. Two fluid steps, and he’d insinuated himself between his mate and the human.

That was better.

Rhiannon tossed her hair back. Her eyes flashed and chest heaved, her face flushed. “I could have drowned in there! I’m trying to be
nice
to you, you scaly, slimy, asshole.”

“I tried to get you out of the water, and you refused to leave the elevator. Stop being so hard on him about the water.” Kit cocked an eyebrow at her. Rhiannon sputtered, huffed, and crossed her arms over her chest. He bit back the urge to laugh. Laughing would only make her angrier. “No way in hell you’d have drowned. Not with me there.”

The shark shifter waved his arms, all worry about the robe staying closed over his pasty, nude body forgotten. “I’m part human you know. I’m not a damn cannibal, for all the good it does me—”

Rhiannon poked the shark shifter in the chest. “I knew I should have tased you. I even yelled at Kit for punching you and now I can’t figure out why I fucking bothered. You’re a whiny bitch.”

“Me? Pot, meet kettle, honey. A little bit of water and you’re screeching like a banshee with a flaming cattle prod up your ass.”

The fire fighter sat on his heels and rubbed a hand down his face. He caught Kit’s attention with an exasperated expression that was universal guy code for “let’s bail on this shit.”

Kit passed Rhiannon her bag in an attempt to defuse the escalating screaming match. If this got much worse, he would lose control of his cougar and the beast wouldn’t be satisfied until it obliterated the barrel bellied fish man into chunks small enough for a tuna can. “I’m the one that god tased, remember? And it hurt like a mother fucker.”

“Go away Kit.” Rhiannon shouldered the bag.

“Yeah, go away Kit,” the shark flicked his fingers at Kit in dismissal. “This all started because of you. I heard the hotel manager. It was that dragon prostitute, wasn’t it? I can smell her stink all over his hotel. We’ve all seen her, that dirty dragon, waving her hoo-ha around like there’s a Blue Light Special posted between her thighs. Can’t get it up for someone you’re not paying? Were you going to have her comb your fur and rub your belly?”

Kit considered how to react to the taunts. No one had said such ridiculous crap to him since...well, actually never. In the clan, he held too much power, even as a child. Every wrestling match, every scuffle, every play fight whether in cougar or human form, he’d won. Biting back a laugh, he and the fire fighter glanced at each other.

“How do
you
know Inila? Does she come and change your diapers? Help you find your binky? How’d you even know she was in the building?” Rhiannon leaned in and sniffed loudly right next to shark’s throat. Warmth invaded Kit’s chest. His mate was defending him, even if she wasn’t conscious of it. “Is that baby powder I smell? Was the widdle baby sharky playing fetish games this morning? I bet that’s how you know she was here. There’s no way you can smell her. Sharks are primed to smell blood and that’s about all. She was with you before she came down to Kit’s room.”

Lips spreading wide to reveal an amazing array of razor sharp teeth, the shark’s eyes darkened. Kit tensed to move between his mate the short, rotund fish-man.

“Oh, I see it now. Kitty cat, you snuck out here to play dirty games with a lizard lady, and your mate here found out and confronted you. That’s why she was crying when she got on the elevator.”

Rhiannon gasped, stomped her feet, and screamed. She slammed the shark right in the chest with her duffle bag and kicked him in the leg.

What happened next was a set of perfect circumstances working together to create chaos.

The shifter toppled sideways, slipped in a puddle, and hit the floor. His head bounced with a horrible crack.

“Liar. You are such an asshole. “I wasn’t crying.” Her fists curled into white knuckled hammers, she took a shuddering breath. “Oh no. He’s...oh crap.”

“Oh shit.” The fire fighter knelt on the floor and checked the shifter’s pulse.

Kit couldn’t look away from Rhiannon.

She was so fierce and strong and tender hearted and half wild. She looked like she might drift away on a stiff desert breeze like a grain of sand.

“I know.” Putting his arm around her, and drawing her in for a hug when she didn’t resist, he gave her a squeeze. Trying to put all the crazy emotions battering him into the contact. “You’re too strong for that shit. You’d never cry over some asshole you haven’t seen in a decade. What’s he matter anyway, right?”

She picked her bag back up. “Damn straight.”

The shit hit the fan in supersonic speed right after that. Kit hadn’t even adjusted to the way she relaxed into him, her soft curves cradled against his hard muscles before the cops came over and busted up the party.

A uniformed cop approached. “Ma’am, I’m placing you under arrest for assault.”

“What?” He and Rhiannon spoke at the same time, although she sounded shocked and worn out, and his voice resonated through the entire hall.

“You knocked him out cold ma’am in front of video cameras and multiple witnesses. That’s Kenny Banks, a famous poker player. Goes by the stage name ‘Blacktip.’” The policeman cuffed her hands behind her back. “He’s a jerk, and I have a feeling the video of you putting him on his ass is going to wind up online, but you can’t just go around knocking out every asshole you meet.”

“This has been the worst. Day. Ever.” Rhiannon marched, her chin high and mascara streaked down her cheeks.

Kit ground his teeth together and tried not to lose his temper. The hotel manager came mincing back and threw Kit’s credit card at his chest rather than handing it over. A couple of cops subtly changed their stances, hands resting on batons or even firearms. He kept it together, carefully tucking the card back into its slot in his wallet. He’d need the thing to make a cash advance so he could bail his mate out of jail.

Un-fucking-believable. He was going to be broke without having even stepped on a casino floor.

N
ot being stupid—regardless of what anyone in her current circle thought—meant Rhiannon kept her mouth shut the second the cop handcuffed her.

Once upon a time she’d entertained the whole cop fantasy where she’d get “arrested” and “handcuffed” and then she and the “cop” would have super-hot and dirty sex in return for him not taking her to jail.

But this was not a fantasy. Not even close.

The Las Vegas party scene meant that there were loads and loads and loads of people arrested almost non-stop for fighting, shop lifting, getting drunk and belligerent, casting illegal spells, shifting shape in weird places like the frozen food section.... The police force had everything down to a pretty well-oiled machine. Rhiannon had her photo taken, was finger printed, and thoroughly debased and downtrodden in only two hours.

At least she’d landed on the human side of the jail. She peered through the magically warded glass partition in front of her. A horde of goblins had constructed a semi-permanent fort from plastic chairs and gobs of yellow-green snot in the far right corner. The leader of the horde scrambled to the top and launched snot rockets from his impressively large right nostril at a trio of what Rhiannon thought might be leprechauns.

A juvenile dragon clung to the ceiling, a silver collar, muzzle, and chains looped around the creature’s entire white and gold scaled body. Various shifters lounged on chairs or laid in heaps near desks with each animal group delineated from one another. The person who concerned her most was the red head levitating three feet off the floor, chanting, with pink smoke coalescing around her feet and calves. Thank goodness for the magical wards painted on the floor below her.

Nothing good ever came from angry witches and pink smoke.

The metal slab bolted to the floor bit into her backside, cold and unrelenting. The cell she’d been stowed in had nothing welcoming to recommend it. Several other women were inside with her, but none of them had made an attempt to say, rob her of her ruined salty clothes or tried to force her to give them oral or thrown up on her shoes, so all in all she counted her first foray into jail a success.

Man, what would her mother think of this one? She’d pushed Rhiannon to get away from home and try new things, but somehow getting in real trouble with cops didn’t strike her as a life goal.

Rhiannon attempted to surreptitiously scratch under her left boob. A blonde with a blistered nose and tattoos from her left temple to her throat stared.

Oh, what the hell? There was salt crusted to her nether regions. The first thing she’d do when she got out of here was find a source of fresh water and throw herself in it.

Although, she hadn’t had an opportunity to make a phone call yet and to post bail she had to have exact change in cash so she might be in here long enough to be considered a dried and salted food item for the dragon on the other side of the partition.

She regretted nothing.

Not a damn thing.

A wild, uncontrollable giggle bubbled up from somewhere inside. So many times she’d bitten her tongue and just...taken it. Whatever someone said to or about her. Fabricated horrible things. Or the times she’d let yet another ex-boyfriend give her some half-assed apology for breaking her heart or borrowing money or hocking her television and she hadn’t done anything. She hadn’t stood up to them, made them realize she valued herself enough to know she deserved better.

For all the times she got left behind for a fated mate. Yeah. No more Ms. Doormat. No more being the consolation prize because she was all lush curves, loved to party, and didn’t demand long term commitments. She’d been bad boy shifter bait for way too long.