Freakn' Cougar (15 page)

“I’m going to bite you if you don’t shut up.”

“Testy, testy. You’re going to have to learn to curb that temper of yours if we’re all going to live together. I can’t see Patricia putting up with much bullshit.”

“She’ll whack us with her stick,” Ricky agreed. Then he’d beat her with his stick. Or was that impale her with it? Either way it would—“Ouch!” Ricky couldn’t help the yell as his big toe hit the edge of the door they went through.

“Shh. We don’t want the guards to find us. We’re almost there.”

“You know, you’re not all that bad for a wolf,” Ricky admitted. Someone shoot him now—at least seven times since he was pretty sure that was how many lives he had left. Since when did he like the stupid wolf, and since when did he admit such a thing out loud? They’d take away his man card for sure if the news got out.

“Aah, I like you too, kitty cat.”

“Call me that again, and I will ram my foot so far up your ass it will come out your mouth,” Ricky growled. It came out slurred, but his intent was clear.

Not that Stu took him seriously. “I can see I’m going to have to ask Ma where she gets her sturdy furniture. I predict a few violent bumps in the road to all of us living together.”

Living together? Ricky groaned. Fuck him. He’d not even thought that far ahead. The dog raised a valid point. If they both claimed Patricia, then the next step would be getting a home for all of them, which raised an interesting dilemma. “You don’t think she’s going to make us share a bed, do you?”

“So long as it’s king sized, I think we can work it providing she stays in the middle.”

“But what about when we wanna screw? Are we going to, like, take turns?”

“And what, have the other one watch? Sounds kinky.”

The automatic retort was no. He expected Stu to get his ass to another room while he pleasured his woman, but on second thought, he couldn’t deny a certain curiosity as to how it would feel to have an audience. Someone watching as he pleasured their cougar. Made her scream with his prowess. But how about when the wolf took his turn? Could he handle it?

Again, his first impulse was to roar a resounding no! A man did not share his woman, did not let another touch her fair skin or kiss her full lips or sink his cock into her sweet sheathe. But it seemed his body thought differently, as did his mind, because he could all too easily see the decadence of being present as his woman got taken. He’d get to watch her face as she flushed and lost herself in the grip of passion, smell her, and maybe even participate in driving her over the brink of pleasurable sanity. Could the two of them together make Patricia lose her mind with bliss?

Only one way to find out. And if it proved awkward, or he got too jealous, well, bruises eventually healed, and surely if they were mated, Patricia would forgive him for breaking her puppy’s face sooner or later.

They’d almost made it back to their cell when the beam of a flashlight hit them square in the face, blinding them. Uh-oh. Ricky squinted, cursing his drunken cat, which lolled in his head and purred, not apologetic at all for not having warned him they had company approaching.

“Well, well,” said a mocking voice. “What do we have here? Looks like we’ve got a pair of lovers out for a stroll. Hope the fucking was worth it. You’re both going to solitary.”

Ricky would have liked to repudiate the allegation he and Stu were lovers. However, between the drugs he still fought off and the fact Stu had dropped him to raise his hands over his head, he hit the floor face first and passed out. Buck-assed naked.

Thank god no one got it on video.

I can’t believe they got it on video.

Stunned into horrified silence, Stu watched his ignoble capture—stark naked and supporting an equally bare-assed feline—in black and white on the small screen while seated in an office rented by the shifter council.
Please don’t let my brothers get a hold of this.
They’d no doubt delight in playing it at the next family gathering, probably over a big bowl of popcorn while providing a live narration.

“Bad luck about the cameras coming back online before you managed to get back to your cell,” said Fred, an older wolf shifter who worked with RCMP for the jail’s district. He’d been the one to bail them out of solitary a few hours before.

Bad luck indeed. Now if only they could keep it under wraps and forget the humiliation of having it played at home. With his luck, and given what he’d done to his brothers in the past, they’d probably upload it to YouTube for the world to see.

“What a shame the operation was a bust,” Fred said as if unaware of the inner cringing Stu suffered as the tape repeated itself, caught in a loop of infamy.

Fred’s words startled him from ways he could hack into their system and steal the master copy for destruction. He straightened in his seat, but before he could open his mouth to ask what Fred meant, Ricky uttered in a low growl, “What do you mean a bust? We caught the woman killer red-handed.”

“Yes, you did. Just so you know, there seems to be no doubt as to her culpability, not judging by your reports.”

“Then I don’t understand. Why did you let her go?”

“We didn’t. Patricia made the hand-off without any issues. What we didn’t suspect was that our suspect had an accomplice.”

“You’re fucking kidding!” Stu couldn’t help but exclaim. “None of the facts in the cases hinted at the possibility.” But, then again, given the intricacy required in getting in and out, not to mention staging the murderous events, should have tipped them off. Stu slammed his head down on the desk for not even thinking of it.

Fred reiterated his thoughts. “No one suspected a second villain, and yet, there’s no disguising the fact that someone followed Patricia after she took the killer into custody and got her out of the prison. After she made the exchange, the acquiring agent, while sitting at a red light, was shot through the windshield multiple times. The second assailant probably assumed he’d die. He didn’t by the way, but while the agent was incapacitated, the woman in custody was freed. She and her partner have since vanished.”

Stu wanted to slam his head against the desk again. Instead he asked in a morose voice, “So they’re both back out there? And in possession of our secret?”

“Afraid so. As you might imagine, the council is quite upset by this turn of events.”

“Are you putting us back undercover to see if they’ll come back to the prison? Do you want us to cover another prison?” Ricky asked, immediately volunteering them.

“Thanks for the offer, but no. Your cover is compromised. If the killers see you, they’ll just move on. Your role in this is over, gentlemen.”

“What do you mean over? There’s still a pair of shifter killers out there. We can help you catch them.” Ricky said what Stu didn’t. He thought it though.

I might not have ever thought of myself as a fighter for justice, but this killing duo needs to be stopped. They can’t be allowed to continue killing shifters.
Not to mention, Ricky needed closure. Stu knew about his brother’s death.
If it were one of my brothers, I wouldn’t want to rest until the culprit was caught.

“Thanks but no thanks. We already have several teams on the job. The suspects have been identified via fingerprint. It’s only a matter of time before they surface, and when they do, we’ll get them. You are free to go back to your lives. As a thanks for your service, the shifter council has deposited monetary sums to your bank accounts.”

With those final words and a handshake to thank them for doing this civic shifter duty, Fred left them with more questions than answers. But Ricky wasn’t afraid to shout the most important one, “What about Patricia? Where is she? We need to talk to her.”

Fred paused and turned back to look at them. “Patricia has taken a leave of absence.”

‘What? She wouldn’t have left the case with those monsters at large.”

“She wasn’t given a choice. She was also compromised. Given that she hates desk work, she decided to cash in some of her vacation days.”

“So she’s home.”

“Not that I know of.”

“You mean she’s left? She can’t have. We need to talk to her.” More than talk. The three of them needed to resolve the mating issue once and for all.

Fred shook his head. “Sorry. Anything you need to say will have to wait until she gets back.”

Ricky loomed over the other man, bristling from every pore, his eyes flashing golden as his cat showed its irritation at being thwarted. “We can’t wait that long. We need to know where she is now.”

It didn’t intimidate Fred in the least. “I’m afraid we can’t divulge private info about another agent.”

“The woman is our mate.”

“Not according to her file.”

“Because we were waiting to solve the case to exchange the mating mark.”

“And it looks like you’ll have to wait a bit longer. I wish I could help you, but the boss would have my ass if I gave out info on another agent. Sorry, boys.” With an apologetic shrug, Fred left.

Ricky slammed the table with a fist. “Bloody freakn’ hell. All that bullshit in the prison was for nothing.”

“Not completely for nothing. We now know at least who one of the killers is. And because of the prison food, I lost a few pounds and fit in my jeans from high school again.”

The glare Ricky shot his way almost singed his skin.

But Stu had survived dirtier looks from his siblings. “Hey, do you know how much vintage Levi’s cost? I’m in pants heaven.”

“I can’t believe you’re acting so blasé about the fact that our mate essentially ran away.”

“She went to clear her head.”

“Alone. Who knows when and if she’ll come back? Doesn’t that bother you in the slightest?”

“Not really, because I know where she is.”

Years of living with four other brothers had given Stu special abilities. It came in handy in moments like these when he needed to duck a body flying through the air, intent on a headlong tackle. Had he goaded the cat? Damned straight he had. Just because Stu had to partner with Ricky didn’t mean he couldn’t have fun. Even if that fun came with a few lumps and bruises.

It was just like being at home.

Cowardly. Not a word Patricia had ever used to describe herself, yet it was the path she’d chosen when her mission ended and the shifter council informed her she was free to return to her life. Just one problem; she no longer knew what that life was, or with who.

Her first act as an egg-laying fowl? She handed off the task of freeing Stu and Ricky to someone else. Distance made her body ache. Separation from them made her anxious. Those two combined scared her poor, battered heart. So she ran back to Ottawa, back to her home.

It should have proven easy to slip back into her old job and apartment. Okay, maybe not easy. Putting the mission behind her while knowing a killer and an accomplice still roamed left a hairball in her throat, but Patricia’s role was done, whether she liked it or not.
Time to tackle a new job.
It was what she usually did no matter the outcome. Report to work, accept whatever duty her boss assigned her, and do it to the best of her ability.

Yeah, that didn’t happen.

For one thing, she couldn’t stop thinking about the fact a pair of someones targeted her kind. They needed to be captured. But her bigger dilemma was she couldn’t stop thinking of Stu and Ricky. How she missed them. How she wanted to see them. How it would never work.

Setting foot in her apartment back in Ottawa, she expected to shed some of the anxiety she’d lived with over the past while. Instead, she couldn’t help but notice the quiet, the stillness, how lonely her home appeared. Sterile walls still painted a dull beige. No pictures or color to adorn them. A single comfortable armchair in front of her flat screen television, which sat propped on a pair of unopened boxes. Boxes of memories and knickknacks she couldn’t bear to part with yet couldn’t stand to see in the open.

This wasn’t the home of a person who lived or enjoyed life. This wasn’t a place of happiness and laughter. Not a place of love or sharing. It was a blatant admission that she’d never moved on or gotten over Ryker’s untimely death. Worse, it was a slap in his face, to his memory, because she knew, knew with every ounce of her being, that he wouldn’t have wanted this for her. That he would have been the first to tell her to get on with her damned life, to not live in the past, and to embrace the present and dream of a bright future.

A future with someone else.

The truth hit her in the face, and still she couldn’t face it, couldn’t accept it, and for the second time in as many days, she ran away from a problem instead of facing it. She bolted like a frightened animal to the one place that never failed to ground her, her grandfather’s cabin in the Rockies.

This late in the fall, she arrived to a blanket of white as snow covered the ground and roof of the rustic, log-hewn cabin. She punched in the code on the keypad to let herself in and stomped her booted feet on the mat to knock off the snow before slipping her footwear off. She padded into the comfortable setting in her thick wool socks, the plank floor smoothed by sanding and years of use, chilly even through that thermal layer.

With cold fingers, she set some pieces of wood in the potbellied woodstove, balling up some leftover newspapers to provide a quick kindling for the match she lit. Flames whooshed, crackling and dancing, consuming the dry tinder and exhaling heat into the frigid room. Slamming the heavy metal door shut to prevent stray sparks, she stood and looked around.

The moment she’d entered, tension eased from her shoulders. This place never failed to soothe. Everywhere she looked there were happy memories. The rocking chair in the corner where her granddaddy used to snuggle her on his lap, regaling her with stories of the bears he’d hunted in his prime. The worn couch with the sagging springs, covered in an afghan knitted by her mother. She could remember so many occasions where she and her parents, or she and Ryker, had sat on those cushions, laughing and cuddling. Tears pricked her eyes.

I was once so happy.
Until everyone she loved left her. Was it any wonder she’d fled Ricky and Stu before they could get any closer? She’d gone through so much loss already. She didn’t have it in her to do it again.