How to Tame a Werewolf: Seven Brides for Seven Shifters, Book 3 (3 page)

Kitty screamed.

Ian didn’t think. He moved.

Grabbing the railing, he pulled himself up, leapt to the second floor, and bounded across the landing. Kitty’s cries led him through an open door.

Then the goddamn lights went out again.

Chapter Four

Ian mentally gave his night vision a score of +100. His heightened sense made it a lot easier to move through Kitty’s apartment without bumping into furniture or stumbling over shoes. He didn’t know what he expected to find when he entered the now pitch-black space.

Perhaps Kitty’s father had doubled back to punish her more for whatever she’d done. Her father could easily be the “he” she’d mentioned at the diner, extracting revenge by stealing away with her treasured wine. Ian worried another series of vicious slaps from her father could be the cause of her screams. Or perhaps she had one of those crazy landlords, one who had an eye for wine and who Kitty in turn had to keep an eye on.

However, when Ian entered the flashlight-lit kitchen, he discovered the last thing he’d expected to find. Make that three unexpected things:

1. A slightly sinister game of keep away, orchestrated by a cat shifter who’d easily pass for a younger, lighter haired John Travolta.

2. An actual bottle of 1993 Somerfield Reserve. The real deal.

3. A very drunk Kitty.
(When the hell did that happen?)

Ian decided to deal with the most pressing issue first. The cat shifter who looked like John Travolta had to be named David, judging from the way Kitty kept snarling, “Stop it, David.” That solved the mystery of the wine stash thief.

Not that David cared. He kept taunting Kitty with the wine. He held it over her head, allowed her to lunge for it, then yanked it out of reach at the last moment. Over and over. It seemed to give him a sense of perverse glee. Ian nearly growled. His father’s last bottle of Reserve wasn’t a fucking cat toy.

In a burst of speed, Ian ran over, snatched the bottle away from David, and returned to his place by the door. Leaning on the jamb, he took his time examining the bottle. Rotating it in his hands a few times, he inspected the platinum stamp, the hand-dipped wax corking, and the textured cream label with his father’s sloping signature. Kitty had been right to treasure this bottle. To Ian it was priceless.

Caught up in the joy of the discovery, it took Ian a moment to notice the shocked expressions on both Kitty and David’s faces. Ian forced himself to smile though huge effort because what he wanted to do was introduce David’s cocky face to the wall.

Kitty helped transform Ian’s smile into a real one by yelling, “Dumpster Diver!” in the same tone someone else would use to say, “Welcome home!” Then she stumbled sideways, grabbed the countertop, giggled and said, “How the hell are ya?”

“And what the fuck do you think you’re doing?” David asked.

“Sorry.” Ian finally got his first word out. It hurt to speak after so long and his voice sounded harsh. However, his second words were easier. “I was worried someone would get hurt.”

David opened his mouth to say more but Ian cut him off with a glance at Kitty. “Why…” he began, “…or better, how are you drunk?”

She grinned with total abandon and Ian’s knees almost buckled. “I had wine,” she said, nodding like a three-year-old giving a report on the cookies she’d eaten for snack time.

“You had one glass,” Ian countered.

“I had one before that one.” She swayed. “Which makes that one plus one, which equals…” She paused and swayed again. Ian could see the gears turning in her head and going nowhere. Finally, unable to come up with an answer, she rolled her hand in the air and finished with, “Talk amongst yourselves.” After which she flipped the kitchen faucet on and drank directly from the tap.

Ian and David both watched her for a while. Once they figured out she’d dismissed them they stared back at each other.

“Are you the latest boyfriend?” David asked, surprisingly less belligerent than moments before. “And did someone mug you for your clothes?”

Ian laid the bottle on the countertop beside the refrigerator, making sure to keep the precious wine out of sight, and thus, out of harm’s way. He tried to pull his extra small T-shirt down to cover his abs. It didn’t work. “Nope, I wasn’t mugged. This is fashionable,” Ian replied. “And I’ve got nothing to do with her. I came here for answers.”

David nodded, although he clearly doubted Ian’s fashion statement. “Then you won’t mind if I take my wine and go.” The cat shifter, a puma by the scent of him, turned and bent down in front of a mini wine cooler sitting beneath the kitchen’s only window. Throwing the door open he removed the bottle of Latour that Kitty had mentioned back at the diner.

She jerked up, hitting her head on the swan neck faucet. “It’s not yours,” she slurred before lunging at David again. The male cat kept the female at bay with a palm to the forehead. David had a few inches on Kitty in height and reach, and that combined with her drunken state was all it took to hold her back. Ian didn’t like it.

“Stop,” Ian ground out. His jaw tightened with the beginnings of a rage he didn’t understand. He refrained from saying what he really wanted to. The words “stop touching her” were on the tip of his tongue, along with “or I’ll toss you out that window face first.” Neither phrase left Ian’s lips, but if David hadn’t immediately stopped touching Kitty, Ian would’ve illustrated those thoughts by introducing the puma to the sidewalk via broken glass.

Kitty swayed a bit more before sliding down to sit on the floor. David remained relaxed and standing. He’d miscalculated. Clearly the puma thought Ian didn’t care about the situation between him and Kitty because Ian had an agenda of his own.

What the puma hadn’t quite comprehended was Ian wanted to hurt him. He wanted to hurt him specifically for touching Kitty. For taunting her and making her scream in frustration. The need to smash and slash David made Ian’s claws unsheathe. He flexed his fingers and hid his claws beneath his folded arms, while continuing to casually lean against the doorjamb. The wolf inside him paced back and forth, fangs bared, ready to leap and shred the beta cat. Meanwhile, Ian smiled a predator’s grin his prey failed to recognize.

Why did the men in Kitty’s life keep screwing with her? Earlier that night, back at the diner, it had taken everything in Ian not to rip her father’s arm off after he’d smacked his daughter. The hurt in her eyes, a pain that went way beyond the physical, had reached out to Ian’s wounded heart. They’d both experienced rejections that had become a part of them. Wounds like that darkened your eyes when you let your guard down. That’s why Ian never dropped his mental shields. However, Kitty hadn’t learned how to do that yet, and Ian knew from experience that open wounds hurt more than scar tissue.

Back to the situation at hand, although Ian recognized David didn’t want to hurt Kitty the way her father had, the puma did want something from her. He’d guess payback. Why, Ian couldn’t say, but according to his estimations Kitty had experienced more ass whippings than she could take in one night. So Ian planned to end this here.

“Look,” David said, trying his best to be reasonable. He adopted a non-threatening posture and continued. “I can tell you’re pissed off. Let’s keep our individual business from interfering with each other.”

Ian nodded. He’d assessed the other shifter male perfectly. The puma didn’t get it. But Ian didn’t disagree with him. He needed to know exactly what the puma wanted so he could solve the problem here and now. “How about you tell me what you want from her, that way we can decide who goes first.”

David shrugged. Smoothing down his very casual but very expensive black-on-gray button up, he mirrored Ian’s relaxed pose and leaned against the countertop on the other side of the refrigerator. The guy had great taste in clothes.

“You first,” David said, clearly not wanting to back down completely.

Ian nodded. “She left me stranded with the check from dinner.” True but not really true. The staff at Cinna Mum’s knew Kitty well, so they’d put the food on her tab.

Not wanting to reveal any more, Ian moved to his left, hopping up on the countertop flanking the sink. His legs swung beside a sitting Kitty who’d gone very quiet.

The puma faced them both, following Ian’s gaze to the woman. After staring at her far too long for Ian’s taste, David looked back up and shook his head. “Rue is bad with alcohol. Two glasses is all it takes to put her on her ass.”

Rue. So that’s her name. It fit her, like the character in that movie about post apocalyptic teens fighting to the death for an audience. His Rue had that same kind of fierce vulnerability. Ian suspected she’d avoid a fight for as long as she could, but if you forced her hand you’d get a fist for your efforts.

Rue. He really liked that name. She yawned but surprised Ian by keeping up with the conversation. “Plus, I ran here.” True to her cat nature she rubbed her head against Ian’s bare calf, wrapped her arms around his leg and closed her eyes. “Running really got my blood alcohol pumping.” Then she sighed, snuggled Ian’s calf, and mumbled something like, “So firm. So masculine. Fuzzy wuzzy but not a bear.”

Ian felt the skin crinkle around his eyes in a smile that he stopped from reaching his lips. “Go on,” he said to David.

The puma’s expression changed while he looked at Rue. The emotion Ian read on the other shifter’s face wasn’t hate. It was something more complicated.

“She owes me,” the puma said with sudden vehemence. “She owes me for the years I took care of her. I fucking worshipped her. Paid for everything, would’ve given her anything.” Agitated, the other shifter male pushed off the counter and went to stare out of the window. “She never gave me anything back for that. She used me.”

Whirling back to face him, the puma asked, “Do you know her three rules?”

“I’ll tell him,” Rue mumbled, once again rubbing her face against Ian’s calf. It caused his wolf to pant and that made it hard to concentrate on David. She continued in a voice made mushy by the alcohol. “Fake it ’til you make it, never give up, don’t fall in love.” She lifted her hands as though conducting an orchestra. “Very simple.”

“Don’t fall in love,” David echoed. He pointed a trembling finger at Rue. “That bitch spent my money, made me love her, and gave me nothing back but a breakup in a diner over a plate of cinnamon buns. I fucking hate sweets,” he said. “She never even bothered to learn that about me. She made a fool of me.”

That “more complicated than hate” emotion Ian had picked up on but not understood became clear. David both loved and hated Rue simultaneously and those contrasting emotions had become something ugly inside him. All David had left was a thirst for payback. Ian understood the pain well but he considered retribution a weakness. Not once had he ever contemplated taking his pain out on Lennox and her husband. His father had taught him the old expression about digging two graves before seeking revenge and Ian knew the truth of it.

Rue’s slurred voice broke through his thoughts. “I never thought you were a fool. And I nevah, I—never led you on. I told you I didn’t want anything more. You kept forcing it, but I told you from the beginning.” Her head lolled against Ian’s leg while her grip tightened around it. “That’s why we broken…that’s why we brokened up. I didn’t want you to get hurt.”

David exploded. “Shut up, you drunken bitch. I’m too good for you. My mother said so but I had to have you. That skin, those eyes, I had to fucking have you. And you shitted on me.”

Ian tensed. He’d had enough of this conversation. David hadn’t disagreed with Rue and therefore what she said about being honest with him was probably true. Hell, Ian understood the guy’s feelings. He’d been in the same place for the last two years. It hurt to love a phenomenal woman and lose her because she didn’t love you back. It hurt like hell but, as a pack alpha, Ian never thought about retaliation against those he cared for. Actions like those were for lesser males.

“When you say ‘bitch’,” Ian began, his body language still casual, although he could feel the amber burning bright behind his eyes, “do you mean it in the wolfen sense or the human definition?”

David scoffed. “I’m not a wolf. When I call a bitch a bitch, I mean she’s a fucking slag.” David gripped the neck of the Latour bottle and walked back from the window to stand in front of them. “So I’m taking this bottle of wine I gave her along with the bottle she loves more than anything else in life and I’m leaving.”

The puma looked ready to hit someone or something with that bottle. Ian wouldn’t risk it either way. Before he could kick David in the head, a soft melodic sound filled the kitchen. Rue had started to laugh, half out of it, mostly drunk, and snuggling his leg while doing it.

“I might be a drunk bitch but you’re oblivious,” she said.

“How do you figure?” David asked, looking more like Travolta when confused.

She sighed and let go of Ian’s calf, choosing to lay her head back against the cabinet door instead. “’Cause you’re reading his body language and not his eyes.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” David’s grip on the neck of that bottle got tighter. He jutted it backwards and forward as he spoke. “I’ve had enough of you calling me stupid.” He mumbled.

Rue sighed again. “I never thought you were stupid. I liked you a lot, David. Love is out of the question, though. It doesn’t work for me.” She paused then said, “You should look out.”

Too late.

Ian leapt off the counter. He caught David around the neck with one arm, spun the slightly taller man around, and used his free hand to pinch down on the nerves running along the collarbone. The cat went down on one knee with a grunt of pain.

“That’s a Vulcan nerve pinch, Mr. Spock!” Rue yelled out.

Ian shushed her and focused on David. “I was somewhat on your side before you snapped,” Ian began.

“What the hell?” Rue interrupted him.

Ian shushed her a second time and began again. “I felt for you, David. I’ve been where you are, stuck in a one-sided love and thinking it’d be better to let a superior alpha rip your heart out rather than deal with the rejection.”

David jerked away but only managed to move a couple of inches. He couldn’t match Ian’s strength. They both knew it. Ian held the top position in a pack with strong bonds. Those ties to his pack made him a more powerful alpha. David was barely beta. No competition.