Vengence of The Cat Men: A Shifter Romance (The Pride Book 3)

Also By Amie Heights

VENGENCE OF THE CAT MEN | A SHIFTER ROMANCE | BOOK THREE OF THE PRIDE

Further Reading: The Princess and the Punishment

Also By Amie Heights

Amie Heights

Copyright 2015 by Amie Heights

This work of fiction is intended for mature audiences only.  All characters represented within are eighteen years of age or older and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.  This work is property of Amie Heights, please do not reproduce illegally.

This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental.  The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.

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Adult Reading Material

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T
he Pride had gathered around Alison and sat on the floor of the cargo ship where they were hiding.  She looked at each of them and saw their cat-like bodies were much better equipped to sit without chairs than her human one did.  Gerald was hunched down with on all fours, his clawed hands resting between his legs.  To his sides were Samuel and Jacob, and next to them sat Mathew, Jean Luc and Davidson.  William was Gerald’s second in the Pride but he was sitting as far as he could from them and still be in the circle.

William would normally be right next to Gerald, but not tonight. Just a few hours ago Alison had to prevent them from fighting each other.  Their powerful half cat/half man bodies would have done so much damage that they easily could have killed each other unless she had stepped in.  She also considered it her responsibility since they were fighting over her.

She had recently been with both of them.  Gerald in his human form and William while in his beast one.  When it had happened with Gerald she had just been told that she was about to become a member of the Pride, converted from human to a shifter like them.  Later, William had stayed with her after the flight from the men pursuing them and she allowed herself to give in to her desire for his feline form.  She hadn’t considered that these men were not just giving in to desires too, but also had the beginnings of feelings forming for her.  Now there was a rift and she didn’t know how to repair it. 

There were much more pressing concerns to deal with first.  Alison and the Pride were hiding because they had no other choice now.  Their den had been raided and they were displaced, losing their secure home and forced into running for their lives.  Alison was responsible for that too, in part, because she had worked for the company that orchestrated the raid.  It was without her knowledge they had captured Samuel and began performing experiments on him to learn the secrets of how these men underwent the change from human to cat-beasts.  Luckily Gerald and William were able to rescue him before he was murdered.

Furious with how their pride brother had been violated, they took home Alison as vengeance.  She remembered how scared she had been, trapped and ravaged by the group of monstrous cat men, but also how exciting it was.  Since that night she had learned that the men retained their human intelligence when they changed into the beasts but became so much more.  Their senses expanded until they had a near magical connection with the environment around them.  They truly were creatures of the night, beyond human in every way. 

That was what the people chasing them wanted, and Alison knew it.

“I have a plan, and I need your help to make it happen,” Alison told them.

“Anything, you know that,” Davidson told her.  The other members of the Pride were nodding, agreeing with him, except Gerald who narrowed his feline eyes and focused on her.

“I will not allow you to endanger yourself,” he told her.

“Good, because that is why I need you to do this,” she said.

“And I will be your protector,” William added.  Gerald growled at that and the two glared at each other.

“I’ll need you both,” she continued, “In fact, I’m going to need something from all of you.”

In the time she had spent with the Pride she had learned how fiercely protective they were of one another.  They had risked their lives to save Samuel and knowing that it would cause them hardship, but did it anyway.  Now it was time for payback.

“Before we came here, you told me that I was going to join the Pride, not as a prisoner, but as a member,” she said.  “We couldn’t complete the transition because of the raid, but now we need to finish.”

“Why?  It hardly matters now that we are discovered, you no longer have a secret to keep,” Jean Luc said.  He was resigned to their fate but Alison had other plans for them.

“I don’t think that is true.  When I worked for the company they hid everything they did from the outside world.  They only reason I was hired was so they could have a person to sit in their lobby so they would look like any other business.  I was just camouflage.  They don’t want the world to know about us.”

“You are saying that they would not reveal our existence?” Jacob asked and Alison nodded.

“They wanted to find out our secrets, and keep them for themselves,” Mathew added.

“Exactly, and that is why we still have a chance.”

“How so?  Even if we were to mix our blood, you would just join us in being pursued by them,” Davidson said.

“Because they won’t know that I can change.  They are so desperate for information to find you, I believe they will welcome me back with open arms.  I will tell them I know where you are hiding, that I was captive and escaped.  If we time it right, I will be able to change and stop this once and for all.”

“What if you are wrong?  I can’t allow you to give yourself over to them,” Gerald said.  For the first time tonight he and William were in agreement.

“They may not believe you, and if you are captured when the change occurs they might use you as a test subject like they did me,” Samuel said.  The young man still had the scars from when they had taken large chunks of his flesh to experiment on.  He had spent days in an animal cage, drugged and tortured, as they tried to determine how to steal his shifter abilities.

“There is something else you will all need to consider, too.  I could be lying to you, I could be saying this so you will release me and I will send them to you when you are at your weakest.”

“Why would you say that?” asked Jacob, a shocked expression on his feline face, his lips pulling back to show his sharp teeth. 

“Because I want you to trust me.  Trust me to do only what is best for the Pride, trust me to be capable enough to do what needs to be done.”

“I don’t know if what you are proposing is even possible now,” Mathew said.  He was the most knowledge of the group when it came to their unique physical conditions.  He had acted as a doctor for them on several occasions when it was necessary.  He continued on.

“In the den I had the equipment needed to extract our blood, to inject it into you.  I’d need needles, vials...,” he trailed off when he saw those things being pulled out by Alison from her bag.

“I found them when looking for food on the ship,” she said.  “They had an infirmary, it was pretty well stocked.  They took all the drugs of course, and the electronic equipment, but they left the things that they couldn’t reuse.”

“It’s dangerous even in a controlled environment.  Are you absolutely sure you want to go through this?  Once it is done there is no turning back, no cure.”

Alison covered her eyes with her hand.  She thought about what her life was up to this moment.  Her childhood had been painfully normal, her adult life much the same.  She had no real family anymore and her friends had drifted away.  Once this adventure had begun she felt as if it was the first time she was actually living her life, instead of just watching it play out down a predetermined path.  Nothing was going to stop her from seeing to through to the end.

“I’m sure,” she said.  That was all they needed to hear.

Mathew took a needle and vial and unwrapped them from their sanitary wrappers, using one of his long claws to tear the paper.  He connected the vial to the end of the needle, and brought it to his furry arm.  Without hesitation he poked it into his vein and watched the dark red blood fill the clear glass.  When he had what he deemed was enough, he removed it from his arm and set the filled vial aside.

“Jean Luc,” he said, and motioned for him to come to him next.  Jena Luc walked slowly and Alison saw that his tail flicked back and forth as he went.  Mathew took his blood next and sat the matching vial down with the first.  Like students in line the members of the Pride each came to him to give him their tithe in blood, a penance that needed to be paid if they wanted to embrace their newcomer.

When they had each given a sample Mathew poured each into the beaker, swirling it around until he was confident that they were mixed thoroughly.  He unwrapped a new syringe and filled it with the dark blood.  He looked expectantly at Alison.

“I would normally never do this at night, when the change is already happening.  It is better to do it during the day so you can change with the Pride naturally at night,” he explained.

“What will happen if we do it now?” she asked him.

Mathew considered his response before answering.

“As the blood mixes with yours you will feel it almost instantly.  Your body will change to its new form and will stay that way until morning.  You will be confused, and probably be overcome with sensations.  Everything will be easier to see, to feel, to sense.”

“It’s not something that can be explained, really,” Jacob added.

“I understand,” she said, not truly understanding but knowing she would soon enough.

“You will need to be undressed, your body will tear through these clothes,” Samuel said, almost apologetically.  She smiled even if it was a little forced and began to take off her clothing.  Once she was down to her underwear she paused and saw that they were all looking at her hungrily.  When these men were changed into their feral forms they had a harder time controlling the most basic urges.

There could be nothing for it, and she unfastened her bra to toss it onto the little pile of clothes she had made.  Her panties slid off and she stepped out of them, kicking them aside to stand naked in front of the seven beasts.

She extended her arm to Mathew.  Finding her vein, he slid in the needle and depressed the plunger.  Alison forced herself not to jerk back as the metal pricked her skin, feeling a little queasy at the sight of the blood.

Suddenly she felt like the room had fallen out from under her.  She stumbled, but was held safe by the clawed hands of the men around her.  They lowered her to the floor of the ship and watched as her body shivered.

An awareness of her surroundings dawned on her like never before.  She could hear the beating hearts of each man around her, quick and strong.  She could hear the lapping waves as they slapped against the side of the ship.  The floor was cold on her back and she could sense every inch of it where it touched her.

She could also smell the ship around her.  It painted an almost three dimensional map inside her mind of where each man crouched beside her.  The smell of the past crew of the ship lingered as well, something she had not noticed in her human form.  The light that came from the portholes had seemed so dim before now provided amble light to see even the far corners of the room.

Her skin felt itchy and she raised her arms in front of her face to see that thick, soft hair was sprouting from them, from her entire body.  A wriggling sensation came from the below the small of her back and she knew that she was growing her cat tail.  Touching her tongue to her teeth she almost bit herself on the sharp fangs she now had.

“Alison, can you understand me?” came a voice.  She tried to focus on who had spoken but her eyes, now much larger and foreign to her, wouldn’t respond the way she wanted them too. 

Concentrating, she narrowed her eyes and looked into the face of William, who cradled her.  She could see every detail, every hair, every line.  His feline face was cast in worry for her.

Even like that, he was beautiful to her. 

She felt an urge rise inside her body.  She wanted to run, to jump high, and to chase anything that ran from her.  Looking around at the men who crouched beside her, she realized she wanted something else as well.  Something primal, something to quench the heat she felt in her new form.

She swiped a claw at William’s face without even knowing why.  She remembered a cat she had that would bite and claw for now reason, was she going to be like that?  Unable to control how she expressed her feelings?

“Easy, easy,” he told her.  She reached up and drew his face down to hers and kissed him.  Or at least she tried to, her teeth were getting in the way, her whiskers brushing his.

Alison felt his hands on her now, William was unable to contain the passion for her anymore.  She saw that the others had joined him, eager for her new flesh, to help her explore her new body.