Chapter Eight
Lottie
“I want to kill the ex.”
“Fuck off. I called dibs.”
“You can do the drug runner. If you can find him.”
“Sounds like a second-rate deal to me.”
My head swung back and forth as I stared between my two instant lovers of last night while they bantered my past for a future between them.
“You can’t kill anyone,” I blurted, holding up both hands and ignoring the toast Blake made me.
Both of them stopped talking and looked at me after exchanging glances.
Oddly, it was Blake who answered. “Why not?” he asked politely.
I stared. “Because you can’t just go around unaliving people. That’s not how the world works.”
Gray laughed, getting up from the table.
One moment I was looking at a tall brooding man who screwed me to within an inch of my life the night before.
Then I stared at the blank space he had filled.
At waist height I found the giant black wildcat that prowled around my barstool at the breakfast bar in the kitchen where half the shenanigans went down the night before.
My body still thrummed from all the attention and I hurt a bit too, though they both helped that ache leave with their magic saliva.
But even cactus cocks weren’t able to prevent me from shrinking at the appearance of a giant cat leaping onto the breakfast bar where Gray had stood beside me a moment before.
“You have got to stop doing that,” I cussed him. “I believe you, all right? I get it. We’re mates. It’s magical. You’re a giant black pussy. It’s fine.”
Blake snorted coffee out of his nostrils and across the kitchen, then spluttered the remainder into the sink. “Fuck me, sweetness. I don’t think anyone but you would have the balls to call Gray a big black pussy. But you go right ahead and see if you don’t wear yourself a spanking shortly.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Any spankings will have to wait for another day.”
A literal shimmer and black kitty turned into a regular male again. Naked, and ginning in my face, and standing beside me this time. Let’s be honest. A grinning Gray seemed weird as all get out. Maybe weirder than the giant black pussy.
“She has spoken.” His mouth turned down as he surveyed me. “I want to know more about this ex who threw you out onto the streets.”
It was my turn to be uncomfortable. “I don’t want to talk about him.” Ever . “He was just a loser.”
That I walked away without Brad following me, stalking me as per his usual M.O. was a minor miracle in itself.
“What about your time in the alley?” he pushed. “How were you given the drug?”
That earned another shrug from me. “I don’t know, okay?” That came out terse. I softened my tone, or tried to when Blake swapped a glance with Gray and reached for my hand. I let him have it, enjoying the rough feel of his calluses, the larger, all-encompassing warmth of him.
He might be submissive to Gray, but to me he was everything. I couldn’t imagine my life without these two—black cats—whatever the hell they counted as, not now that I had found them.
I didn’t know how I would exist if they disappeared as suddenly as they arrived in my life. It was like we were all tethered together. A pull at my chest came with every micro-expression, every intonation I picked up in their unspoken exchanges.
“Sure there wasn’t something, sweetness?” Blake’s thumb rubbed back and forth across my pulse point at my wrist in a hypnotic rhythm. “A person, someone you agreed to do something for...”
He didn’t say “offer services like a whore,” but he may as well have.
A deep growl reverberated through Gray’s chest as he stalked toward me, the strings winding us together pulling in both directions at once and suddenly it was all too much.
“Stop.” I scrambled backward, pulling my hand out of Blake’s hold. “I need you to stop and not come any closer,” I warned both of them, still retreating across the kitchen. Tiled floor turned to carpet and still my feet kept moving.
Blake watched me carefully, making not a single move, though Gray leaned forward and I knew the moment I ran he'd be on me. And I couldn't outrun him. I wasn’t sure I wanted to outrun him.
A knock on the apartment door saved us all.
“Bathroom,” I muttered and broke away, trotting quickly to the main room rather than the smaller en suite the boys both used that led off the bedroom.
Right now, I just wanted to have a room to myself, sit on the floor, and panic attack all over the place without their watchful eyes bearing down on me. Perfect they might be, amazing the call to them, but also too much all at once.
I’d known them for a handful of hours. Gray had fucked me into submission along with Blake several times, and I couldn’t take much more of his attention for a while.
My insides felt like they had been scraped raw, over-sensitized to the point I was afraid if I jumped up and down on the spot, I'd orgasm right in front of him if he so much as touched me.
And his kisses. Those were the all-encompassing sort.
I craved Gray’s kisses like they were an addiction.
Sliding my back to the bathroom door the moment I was inside, I did not need to turn on the light as the rising sun illuminated every crevasse, removing the need to hide within the shadows.
I settled on the cold, unyielding tiles and rested my cheek on my knees.
The tee Gray gave me—one of his after he shredded the sweatshirt Blake provided before—rose up leaving me chilled and numbed.
The warmth from the boys in the kitchen dissipated with their absence.
Because I chose to run from them. But here, for a minute, I could breathe.
“Lottie?” Blake knocked on the bathroom door. “Checking you’re okay, sweetness. Nothing more, all right?”
“Can’t a girl pee in peace?” I lied.
He chuckled. “‘Course you can. But you’re also full of shit.”
“That obvious, huh?”
“I might not know you, but I know you , sweetness. You’re ours as much as we are yours.”
My chest warmed and tightened all at once, both accepting and rejecting what he said. I craved the connection, panicked at the thought of having no choice.
But I want to stay with them. Never leave .
And that gut reaction scared me more no matter how much I wanted it.
“Yeah, that’s not confronting at all to a girl who had nothing less than twelve hours ago,” I admitted, biting my lip.
Blake laughed, the door creaking as he leaned his weight against it from the other side.
“It’s a change,” he said softly. “Gray ... he’s been my brother in the family, sort of, for so long that when we turned to each other out of need for comfort one night it just seemed right.
He tell you what happened to our parents? ”
“No.” Blood filled my mouth as I bit through my lip and I sucked on the wound, wincing, and was glad he wasn’t there to see the self-inflicted damage, knowing he’d sass me for it.
Blake sighed. “Back then, we were hidden. No one was supposed to know about shifters. Some did, of course. It happened. But we had no community except a few small families. Panthers don’t travel in packs.
The local claw here—that’s what we call a group of panther shifters—is huge.
Out of necessity, I think. Safety in numbers and all.
But it’s not natural to us. Gray hates being associated with them, does anything to hide away. He’ll do anything to hide you .”
“Oh.” I didn’t know what else to say. “Thank you?”
“He’s very protective of those he loves.” Blake let that slip out like it was the easiest thing in the world.
Maybe for him, it was.
“I’m sure he is for you.”
A chuckle met my ears, the sound rich and low and filled with tension. “That includes you by default, sweetness. You’re his now too, no matter how much you hide it. He accepted you, claimed you, and so he loves you.”
“That easy, huh?” My broken whisper was a child’s prayer at best.
“That easy.” Blake’s simple promise left my cheeks damp.
“It’s okay to be scared. That story I was telling you?
Panthers were hunted almost to extinction.
We lost our parents in one night. Ran for the next six years.
Settled, until I fucked it up and now we’re .
.. well, we aren’t running, exactly. Walking, maybe.
Until we found you.” He paused for breath. “I’ll tell Gray you’re fine.”
I listened to his footsteps retreating up the hallway and let out another breath.
After a few more, they came easier. I didn’t struggle quite so much with the panic and it receded too.
Finally, after my ass well and truly fell asleep, I pushed up on shaking legs that ached nearly as much as my worn-out pussy, and hauled myself in front of the mirror.
The face that stared back at me didn’t resemble any human I recognized.
I might have expected my face to be gaunt or skeletal, but the twenty-something girl who stared back with silky locks that curled around her shoulders and glowing cheeks, high cheekbones, albeit a bit on the skinny side, didn’t resemble a starved homeless girl at all.
Is this who they see when they share me?
I blinked at myself for a stunned moment. Maybe that panther saliva really was that good. Or maybe it had other properties. I had no idea but maybe I needed to find out more about this new world I'd fallen into.
Rummaging through the case of things on the bench that looked like they belonged to Blake from the colors, blue toothbrush, yellow case, minty green swirl glitter toothpaste—everything Gray owned was, well, gray. I brushed my teeth with the borrowed brush and prayed he wouldn't mind.
Mate, remember?
Biting my lip, I practiced my apology a few times once I washed my face and finger-combed my hair, not that it seemed to make much difference. Then I made it to the door. The shadow on the other side told me Blake was back. A smile grew across my face as I rested my forehead against the door.
“You’re not going to leave me alone, are you?” I turned the handle and pulled the door inward, stepping back.
A mistake, as it allowed the person on the other side space to step in with me. A person who, from their pasty skin, short stature and dull eyes, was definitely not either of my mates. How quickly I've fallen into their language.
A scream built in my throat but I barely had time to register the dull gleam before a sting hit the side of my neck and the world hazed over. A pretty purple, and the sting reminded me of the last time this happened. At least, I thought it did. Maybe.
Then that memory, and my reality was gone, replaced by the purple haze that blocked the world out of my body, overheated, and all I craved was Gray. Preferably inside me.
Not that I got the chance for that either as I was towed out of the apartment. My mind screamed there was something I should be doing. Mate, mate, mate! Like, call for someone, ask for something— Help me, save me, don’t let them!
But I couldn’t form the thought properly in my hazed-out mind.
I don't want to leave.
The face I didn’t recognize turned toward me, but I couldn’t focus on him either—on anything, really—once we hit the street level, or somewhere beyond it. None of it mattered. Nothing did.