The Cougar's Bargain (28 page)

“Mason is going to have our hides if we make a mess here,” she whispered. It was desperate, but she didn't care. She knew he was one of the few people who wouldn't tease her for being afraid.

Sean turned his head slightly toward hers. It wasn't exactly an acknowledgement, but at the very least, he'd heard her voice.

She rubbed his back some more and whispered, “This is just a test, right? It's easy. We didn't even need to study. You just keep that cougar from coming out and I'll do the same.”

No sooner had she said the words did one of the idiots pick up a chair and swing it toward Sean, and by extension, Hannah.

They both ducked, but Sean didn't get back up. He went for the guy's legs, and Hannah—snarling—went for the one who'd tried to capitalize on the distraction by swinging at Steven.

But Steven didn't need her help.

He had the guy's arm twisted behind his back and Steven slammed his face hard against the tabletop. He followed him down to the floor, leaving his back turned to the room.

She went to guard his back to the shout of, “Yo, grab that chick,” and she caught the two idiots closing in on her in her periphery. Old Hannah might have turned and swung on them, but New Hannah thought a bit more like Sean while in a fight, apparently. She stood still and let them grab her by the arms. They dragged her a couple of yards back through the tables—enough for her to see both Steven and Sean scrambling to their feet to fight off the next couple of contenders—and she didn't want to be a distraction for them.

She didn't need rescuing. Not this time.

The bikers had her almost at the bar when she drew on the well of strength she hadn't had before becoming transformed into some thing that was half woman and half animal. She scooped her shoulders low and snapped both arms forward at once in a quick yank that had her would-be captors falling into each other. They let go of her to catch their balances, but the one from her left was there, open for punishment. She slammed her elbow forcefully down in the general area of his kidney, and before he could draw in a breath, brought her knee up to his gut.

She would have hit him some more if the other guy hadn't been reaching for her hair. She hated that—hated people putting their hands near her face uninvited. It triggered something in her that made her rear back and slap him hard enough to rearrange his teeth.

“Bitch!”

“Want another one? You should be happy to get it. It's like Florence Welch—no relation—says in that song ‘Kiss with a Fist.' You should make that your ringtone.” She closed her fingers in and her next blow, which she waited to take until he rebounded from her feint, was a punch.

The dude had a hard-ass head, so that punch didn't take him down, but she didn't have a chance to take another one.

She was swept off her feet from behind and carried away.

She flailed and struggled, swearing at him and fighting against the strong-as-iron arm around him until his energy filled in all her gaps and registered as familiar, as compatible.

Sean.

She stopped struggling.

He carried her through the kitchen door a wide-eyed December held open, and it was then that Hannah registered the approaching sirens.

Police.

We didn't start it.

They started it.

The kitchen had a second door that opened into the alleyway, and Sean hurried her through it, set her on her feet, and ran with her hand in his.

She risked a glance over her shoulder at Steven who was doing an admirable job of keeping up in spite of Sean's supernatural speed and Hannah's sprint which was
close enough
to supernatural.

They didn't stop running until they reached the motel's back lot.

Sean let go of her hand, gave her a quick once-over, and looked at Steven.

He was doubled over, winded, but laughing.

He's fucking laughing!

“Oh, shit, I thought we were toast,” he said. “The last time I got into a fight like that was at some redneck shindig on Jordan Lake that I was working undercover at. I guess I don't have to worry about
you
, huh, Hannah? Damn. What the
hell
was that?”

“I told you that you didn't need to worry about me.” She let her forceful exhalation sputter her lips. “I lost my sunglasses. We need to go back and get them.”

“
Hell
, no. We ain't going back there. Are you out of your ever-loving mind? We're not going anywhere near there before we get up out of this town. Steal another pair from your boyfriend or something.”

Hannah turned to see what Sean thought of being called her
boyfriend
, but he wasn't there. “Where'd he go?”

“Upstairs. He's so damned quiet that it's no wonder you didn't hear him.” Steven coughed a few times, still bent at the waist, and finally forced himself upright. “Shit, y'all move fast.”

“We're faster in cat form.”

“But you're still
scary
fast on two legs.”

“Maybe so.” She probably had a skewed perspective of speed after the past couple of months witnessing shapeshifter activity. She did okay if she were pulled along, but she knew Sean could go even faster. Belle was faster than pretty much everyone in the glaring, besides Tito, and Tito didn't like showing off. His legend was that he could run fast enough to disappear, though no one in modern times had witnessed it.

She looked up at the window she thought was Sean's and gave her stolen watch a few idle twists around her wrist.
What got into him?
He wasn't the kind of guy who started fights. In fact, in all that time she'd been struggling with him early on, he'd never touched her beyond moving her from one place to another, and she'd been trying
so
hard to hurt him. He'd done everything he could not to hurt her, physically or otherwise, though they'd both exchanged some pretty creative barbs.

He'd been so laid back in all that time. He was exactly what she'd needed in a partner, and she hadn't seen it.

I guess Lola did, though.

Hannah twirled her braid and pulled her gaze down from the window.

“Is that what we're up against with those shifters?” Steven asked.

“The truth is that Sean and I don't know much about the way
Los Impostores
operate now. They caused a lot of trouble for Lola in the past and she says they could make a lot of trouble for
us
if they're allowed to operate unfettered. Lola said they'd find ways to take over the glaring or just attack one family at a time to take what they want, and of course, at the end, the glaring would fall apart, and that would be Mason's legacy.”

“Yeah, I could see where that'd be a problem.” Steven scraped his hair back from his eyes and retied the hair elastic holding it all together.

“For real, though, what's with the baby ponytail?”

“Oh, I'm gonna cut it off soon. It's driving me nuts. Maybe it was a little passive aggressive on my part, but I grew it out after Dad made a snide comment about a friend of mine. Dad said he was flamboyant or some shit like that because he happens to have two pierced ears and grows out his hair to donate for wigs.”

“I didn't think you had it in you.”

He shrugged. “Sometimes, you just get tired of being so quiet about things. We both know arguing with Dad isn't going to get us anywhere, but we can upset him in other ways.”

“Be careful. You might get yourself cut out of the will.”

He shrugged again. “You'll take care of me in my old age, right?”

“Who's gonna take care of
me
?”

Steven cut his gaze toward the staircase. “Trouble in paradise already?”

She rocked back on her heels and started for the stairs. “All we know is trouble.”

“At least you're getting into it on your own terms. Hey, I'm gonna go get that meter reader stuff. I'll call you if I have any issues.”

“Yeah,” she called over her shoulder. “Okay.”

In her room, she deposited her backpack onto the dresser and padded to the closed door between her room and Sean's. She opened it without knocking, and found him on the bed with his boots kicked off, reclining against the headboard.

His hazel gaze went from the television that played the midday news at low volume, to her, then back to the television. He turned his phone over and over in one large hand and said nothing.

She might not have known him long, but she knew that him being speechless wasn't a good thing. She sat on the edge of the bed and watched the news coverage for a few minutes without speaking. There was some cell phone video footage of a few of those bikers being stuffed into the backs of police cruisers, and then December appeared on the screen talking about the increase in fights at the bar and others like it in the past year.

Hannah still wasn't sure what had caused the fight. She and Steven had walked in when tensions were already high and bubbling over, and all she could do was
guess
that Sean was on the right side of it. It didn't matter whose fault it was, though. From the moment that biker took the first swing at him, Hannah had been ready to yank the guy's arm out of its socket. Sean could fight his own battles—that was evident—but the avenger wanted people to remember why they should never start shit with him again. He wasn't only a Cougar in her glaring, but a mate she couldn't get rid of even if she tried.

She'd tried, and had been bamboozled by an evil little Mexican goddess who smelled like pastel mints and hot pepper sauce.

“What was it about?” She hated to interrupt his thoughts, his quiet, but she had to know why it all went down.

He cleared his throat and picked up the remote control. He flitted through the channels and found something scripted and light, then he shrugged. “They were harassing December.”

“Why?”

“Because they can. Because she wouldn't fight back, and they knew that.”

“You told them to stop?”

“More or less.”

“I guess you have a bit of a crusader streak, huh?”

He bobbed his eyebrows and put his back to the short headboard. “The difference between her and some people is that she actually wanted my help.”

His statement sounded a lot like a judgment, and she couldn't tell precisely who it was directed to.

To me?

She
did
need his help. She thought she'd made that clear.

“Uh … we'll have to send her our apologies,” she said. “I hope she doesn't think badly of us.”

“I already did. She's not mad. She's glad for the media attention because it'll mean types like those bikers will probably steer clear of the bar for a while. The owner thought it was good publicity, too.”

“Glad we could help, then.” She laughed, but when he didn't join in, she let hers fall off, and cleared her throat nervously.

He stared straight ahead at the television like some kind of mannequin, his breathing slow and even, and body unmoving. He'd even stopped twiddling with the phone.

Something's wrong
.
That's not Sean
.

But, it was Sean. She knew that. It wasn't some random shifter wearing a skin that looked like his. The
energy
belonged to Sean Foye, and she would have recognized it even blindfolded in a room crowded with shifters of every ilk.

The cat inside her knew the feel of him intimately, and that even if it was right, at the moment, it was so wrong. His energy usually pulsed and engulfed her, but at the moment, it was as still as a stagnant pond, and tasted almost as sour.

“What's wrong?” she whispered.

“Nothin'.”

The part of her that was
La Bella Dama
's avenger said he was full of shit, and she wanted to fix whatever had upset him. She couldn't do that, though, if he didn't let her in and tell her what it was.

“Everything okay at home?”

“Everything's fine.” His voice was too calm, too measured, and she couldn't discern anything else from his scent and energy. It was all too still and unchanging, practically artificial in constitution.

She got on all fours and crawled toward the middle of the bed, putting her head between his and the television. His gaze's focus didn't move—pupils didn't dilate. “Sean?”

“Hmm?”

“You okay?”

“Don't worry. Everything's fine.”

“No it's not. You're scaring me.”

“I just want to be alone right now. You've got to leave cats alone sometimes.”

Bull
.

Cats may have wanted to be left to their own devices on occasion, but the cat inside
her
wanted to call him on it.
He's lying
, she seemed to be saying, and although Hannah had a hell of a time figuring out what was simply her human conscience talking and what warnings came from the new cat inside her, those words were clear as day.
He's lying.

He drew away from the hand she reached out to push his hair out of his eyes—some instinctive flinch that had his body moving even if his expression didn't.

“I don't understand why you're doing this. Are you mad at me?”

No response.

She'd never been so afraid of quiet in all her life, and she didn't know what to do to make him respond to her. She wasn't used to begging. It was easier to just walk away, especially when she didn't think something was worth begging for. Sean was, or at least she thought, but she didn't think simpering would make a difference. He wasn't listening. He didn't care, or
couldn't
care—she wasn't sure which.

So, she did walk away, because she didn't know what else to do.

It was easiest not to feel anything.

Sean had learned that lesson when his father died and when there had been so many emotions to filter and regulate. Grief. Guilt. Righteousness. Regret. Humiliation. Hopelessness. Pride.