And in the depths of his mind, Stoli snarled with possessive rage in the depths of his mind.
Back off. He’s our friend.
“You need to send her away,” Dave insisted stubbornly. “Get her the hell out of town.”
“Damn it, I know that. I tried to talk her into it, but she won’t go. What the fuck do you expect me to do, tie her up and throw her into the trunk of a car?”
“Reason with her. Or, hell, be a son of a bitch. Be the kind of sexist asshole women hate and she’ll leave on her own.”
Unable to sit still any longer, Kurt leaped to his feet and began to pace. “And what happens if the killers go after her? Do you have any idea how long she would last? I’m thinking about twenty, twenty-five seconds. Tops.”
“They can’t get to her if she wards her house. All they’d be able to do is pace around outside the way we did when they had Fred trapped in the arena.”
“And what happens when she has to go out and get a gallon of milk? When they ambush her in a convenience store parking lot and rip her to pieces?”
“Tell her you’ll buy the damned milk.”
Turning, he leaned back against the porch rail and tipped his head back, staring at the ceiling. “Look, she can ward this house as easily as she can ward her own. And then she’d have us for bodyguards.”
Dave rose to his feet and paced toward him, tail lashing. Stoli’s snarl grew louder. “Oh, yeah, she’ll be safe then,” he said sarcastically. “From everybody but the people in the house with her.”
He kept his voice low, steady. Resisted the urge to roar. “I am not going to hurt her.”
“It’s not just her I’m worried about, dumbass.” He flattened his ears and glared up at Kurt. “Look, under normal circumstances, there is no Feral I know with more discipline. Your self-control was always better than mine. But these are not ordinary circumstances. Fred was murdered tonight, and you and Stoli were shot. As if that’s not enough, we’re pretty sure the bastards are going to be coming after us next.”
Kurt stalked restlessly to the other side of the porch. “I can handle myself.”
“Against any ordinary Feral -- even a bear Feral -- yes. But that was not an ordinary Feral we saw tonight. That son of a bitch has more power than I have ever seen. It was all Fred could do to stay alive as long as he did.”
“Dad would have been fine if I hadn’t distracted him by getting shot.”
“Bullshit, Kurt. You could see the difference in their manifestations on the damned video. The bear was twice as bright. That fucker would have still had a full manifestation when Fred’s lion collapsed. And your dad would still have died.”
Kurt raked both hands through his hair in angry frustration, wishing like hell he could believe Dave was right. “You don’t know that. And if I’d killed that bastard Arc, we could have gotten in to help him fight off the bear.”
“Who died and made you Clark Kent?” Dave’s tail whipped back and forth as his whiskers bristled in irritation. “It’s Bobby and me all over again. I died because of me. I wasn’t paying attention to where I was going and ran into Bobby. I didn’t even see him touch that damn wall. And then I was too fuckin’ slow to manifest and fight him off. Or even shoot him.”
“For God’s sake, it all happened in a fraction of a second! I was able to react in time solely because I was farther back and he was busy with you.”
“And you’re so damned fast. Which is why Jake Nolan ain’t inhabiting Clarence right now. But you don’t give yourself credit for that. You just play coulda-woulda-shoulda until I want to bite you. Which is exactly why I don’t want to see you kill that girl, either because you’re unstable, or because you walk into the fucking Arc’s booby-trap.”
“I doubt these guys will do the same thing that Caliphate sorcerer did.”
“Really? Because if I were that asshole and I wanted Genevieve dead, that’s how I’d do it. Then you’d self-medicate with a nine-mil and he’d have both problems solved.” Dave started pacing the porch as if trapped in a very small cage. “What happens to the rest of us then? Me, Clarence, Parvati, all the cats here?”
That silenced even Stoli. “I’ll write a new will. I can leave BFS to Jake.”
“Jake’s a cop, Kurt. Yeah, he’d take over running the sanctuary, because that’s what kind of guy he is. But he hasn’t trained for it, and running BFS isn’t his passion the way it is yours. He likes being a cop. His thing is saving people, not cats.”
“Jake’s a Feral, damn it. He is a cat.”
Dave huffed, an impatient sound. “My point is that we need you. And that girl needs to avoid catching anybody’s bullets -- or claws.”
“And I’m telling you she won’t leave. I tried desperately to convince her, but she feels guilty because she didn’t go out to the arena with Fred.”
“No wonder you like her. She’s got just as big a Jesus complex as you do. The two of you should go waltz on the lake.” He shook his head and began to pace again. “Damn it, I could’ve sworn I talked some sense into her when I told her about Bobby.”
“So you did do that on purpose.”
Dave didn’t even have the grace to look ashamed. “Hell yeah. I don’t want to see her get fed into the meat grinder with us. And if you were thinking straight, neither would you. You know damned well what Fred would say about this, even aside from her lack of Ferality. He wouldn’t want her involved for the exact same reason I don’t. It’s a monumentally bad idea.”
“Then you talk to her, since you’re so determined to stick your oar in.”
“I’m going to. But the job would’ve been a hell of a lot easier if you’d kept your dick zipped up.”
“My dick is none of your business.”
“No, evidently it’s Stoli’s, because he’s leading you around by it.”
“I have had enough!” Kurt’s voice emerged in the deep growling rumble that was barely understandable for its subsonic vibrations. ”She is mine.”
Dave turned and stalked right up to him. “Was that you talking, or Stoli? Because it sounded a fuck of a lot like Stoli. Maybe you’d better think about what it says when your cat starts controlling your body instead of the other way around.”
He manifested before he even knew he was going to do it, magic bursting out of his body in a soundless explosion.
Dave bound off the porch in a single long leap, whirling to crouch on the walk, gold eyes blazing with his magic. “Get a grip, Kurt, or I’m going to hurt you.”
Snarling, Kurt vaulted over the porch, Stoli blazing out around him like a torch.
“What are you going to do, Kurt? Kill me? And what do you think you’d do to her?”
A roar building in his throat, Kurt crouched to spring.
Light bare feet thumped down the house’s interior stairs, headed for the door.
“Genevieve?” Dave’s eyes rounded in horror. “Control that cat, Kurt!”
Stoli didn’t give a shit. Hell, he wanted to kill Dave in front of his female. It was exactly the kind of thing male tigers did in the wild.
The sheer inhumanity of that thought shocked Kurt still. Dave’s my best friend! He’d failed to save the man once; he wasn’t going to fail him this time. Clenching his eyes shut, he grappled for control. The manifestation vanished just as he heard the door bang open.
“The hell?” Genevieve stared wildly at them, then around into the surrounding darkness. “I thought the damned bear was out here! Scared the crap out of me!”
Kurt concentrated on combat breathing until he could manage words. “I’m sorry we woke you.”
“I was just trying to explain to Romeo here that you need to go home and ward your house.” Dave manifested a human arm, and held its thumb and forefinger a fraction of an inch apart. “And he came about this far from tearing my head off. I am a hell of a lot better able to defend myself than you are. Go the hell home and ward your house…” His voice vibrated the air like a set of amps turned up to 11. “And stay there.”
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Genevieve straightened and gave Dave a cool look. “So that’s what the Bobby story was about. You want me gone.”
Dave rumbled in frustration. “I want you safe. What I don’t want is my best friend eating a bullet because he lost his shit and killed you.”
She folded her arms and glared down at them from the porch. “Kurt’s not going to kill me. He could have, several times tonight. He didn’t. In fact, I seem to do a better job of helping him retain control than you. You’re the one out here trying to start a fight.”
Stoli growled. Kurt concentrated on keeping his breathing slow and even. Shut up, cat.
“Tell me something, Genevieve,” Dave said quietly. “How many fights with your boyfriends have you had? Did you ever say anything you regretted? Did one of them ever say anything he had to apologize for because he was pissed? How much worse would that have been if he’d weighed six hundred pounds and had three-inch claws?”
She made a point of studying Kurt. “I’d say it’s closer to two hundred, actually.”
“Not in terms of magical force. You keep treating us like humans with special effects, but we’re not. Humans are social animals. Tigers are ambush predators, and we’re solitary.”
Genevieve snorted. “Yeah, you’re real solitary. I can tell that by all the videos on YouTube. You wouldn’t love giving everybody a good laugh if you were all that damned solitary.”
“That’s my human half, Gen. I’ve got a hell of a lot more experience in dealing with this than you do. When I tell you that you need to leave, you need to leave.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” she growled. “I’m going to ward this house and make sure that the next time the fucking Arc shows up, I break whatever spell he casts. And for the record, if you’d had an Arcanist on that mission, he’d have sensed the trap and disarmed it. All of you would still be human and Bobby would still be alive.”
“Our team Arc was breaking a trap elsewhere in the cave, but even if she’d been there, it happened in seconds,” Dave told her. “There wouldn’t have been time.”
“But it wouldn’t have mattered, because she’d have seen the booby trap and kept you from tripping it in the first place. So I’m staying, and I’m going to help you avoid any more traps.”
Dave rumbled in disgust. “Then I hope you like having a fuzzy striped shadow, because I’m going to keep you alive if you don’t have the common sense to do it yourself.”
“Keep up the condescension and you’ll be the only bald tiger in North America.” She turned on her heel, walked into the house and slammed the door behind her.
Kurt and Dave stood there in silence for a moment, listening to her stomp back up the stairs. Dave sighed. “I’m sorry about that, but I’m not going to let you destroy yourself.”
“Thank you, Dave,” Kurt said, shaken and meaning it. That had been entirely too damned close. “I’d appreciate all the help I can get. If you can convince her to leave, do it.”
* * *
Genevieve woke the next morning to the sound of voices. A lot of voices. It sounded as if the house was full of people. “What the heck?” She rolled out of bed, pulled on her shorts again and headed for the bathroom at the end of the hall. They’d done renovations on the house at some point, installing indoor plumbing and adding a couple of bathrooms. The claw-footed tub was the oldest she’d seen outside of a television show, with cracked white enamel and an actual stopper you inserted in the drain.
She stood under the spray a long time, trying to come alive again. Which was probably a bad choice of words, given Fred.
Coffee, Genevieve thought, shampooing her hair. I need coffee. Which was only the first item on her to-do list. Next was heading back to her house to pack.
Along with making a few calls to do some rescheduling. Like that trip to Palm Springs next week to paint the A-list actress who’d hired her to perform a magical face lift. That one needed to be moved into next month.
Genevieve frowned as she soaped herself down. She’d heard the longer a crime went unsolved, the less likely cops were to solve it. And they had to solve this one before anyone else got killed. Then I can go home and get the hell away from these people before I do anything I regret. Or at least, anything else I regret.
Her hands slowed their sweep over her body, remembering Kurt’s touch, Kurt’s mouth. She supposed she couldn’t really say she regretted making love to him; it had been too damn sweet.
And too damn dangerous to more than her heart. She was afraid the tiger was right about Kurt eating a bullet if he lost control and hurt her.
Kurt was not the sort of man to just shrug something like that off.
Gen shut off the tap with a vicious twist and got out to towel off her wet hair. She made use of a brush from her bag, then got dressed, grimacing as she pulled on the clothes she’d worn the day before.
Not only were the shorts and top wrinkled, they were covered in pastel dust. She always ended up looking like one big smudge after a working, since blending the drawing with her fingers was crucial to the magic.
“I’m going to make a great impression on those people downstairs.” Spotting a bottle of mouthwash, she poured some into her palm and rinsed her mouth, wishing she’d thought to bring a toothbrush.
This, however, was about the best she could do to get some of the nasty out of her mouth and avoid revolting anyone who stood too close.
Downstairs, the house was indeed full of people, most of them women who looked like they’d been crying. So did the pair of elderly male retirees who seemed as shell shocked as everyone else. They all wore T-shirts in different colors with the BFS lion logo on one breast, with the word “Volunteer” across the back in white lettering.
Genevieve followed the sound of Kurt’s voice to the den where they’d made love the night before. He stood with his back to the fireplace in a fresh BFS T-shirt and jeans, a pair of thick work boots on his big feet.
“I want to thank you all for coming in today,” he told them, his voice clear, his expression carefully controlled. “No matter what’s happened overnight, we have fifty-nine cats who still need to be fed. I’m obviously going to be pretty distracted for the next few days, so I’m going to have to count on y’all to take care of things for me.”
There was a general murmur of assurances that they were all more than happy to help.
“Be aware, there are going to be a lot of cops on the premises. I want you to give them your full cooperation.” Kurt grimaced as his voice dropped to a growl. “There are also reporters hanging around outside the gates. Please avoid them as much as possible.” As if on cue, his cell phone rang. He plucked it out of his back pocket, eyed the screen, and put it back without answering. “Speak of the devil.”
“Vultures,” somebody muttered.
“Yeah, you can hear the flapping from here. Point is, you’re going to be approached by people looking for quotes. I can’t tell you what to say, and wouldn’t even if I could. You’re volunteers, and I’m grateful for all the help you have given us over the years.”
“We’re glad to do whatever we can,” a graying woman murmured. Tears gleamed on her face. “Your father…” Her voice cracked. “was a remarkable man.”
Kurt’s gaze softened. “He thought a lot of you too, Karla. He often told me how much he appreciated all your hard work.”
The woman’s shoulders shook. Another volunteer wrapped an arm around her.
He looked around the room, meeting the tearing eyes of the crowd. “Remember anything we say is almost guaranteed to go viral. We don’t want to make it harder for the cops to catch Dad’s killers.” A muscle ticked in his broad jaw. “And we don’t want to damage BFS’s reputation. We count on the thirty bucks a head we get from tours to keep our cats fed and healthy. If our income takes a big hit, I’ll have to find other sanctuaries that will take them. Fifty-nine cats would be extremely difficult to find safe homes for.”
“But wouldn’t the Feds help?” asked one earnest young blonde.
“I mean, we have a grant to take care of the Ferals, right?”
“Right, but most of our cats aren’t Familiars. They’re old and retired from circuses or roadside zoos, and they could wind up in places a hell of a lot worse than this one. I don’t want to see that happen.”
Karla wiped her eyes with a tissue. “I think I’m speaking for all of us when I say we’ll all keep our mouths shut to the press.” She turned to sweep a hard gaze over the volunteers. “Won’t we?”
A ragged chorus assured her that they would.
“If somebody asks you for a quote, you send them to me,” she said firmly. “And for God’s sake, don’t say anything inflammatory on Facebook or Twitter or whatever social media you belong to. That’d go viral quicker than a television interview.” She clapped her hands in a brisk gesture, looking for all the world like a football coach before the big game. “Let’s go get those cats fed and their enclosures cleaned.”
It wasn’t quite that easy. People walked up to hug Kurt and talk to him a moment before heading out.
Heart aching, Genevieve made her way into the kitchen for the cup of coffee she’d been craving since she woke up.
Instead of the pot she was expecting, there was a huge stainless steel urn, and the kitchen table was covered in open boxes of donuts and plates of cookies, some of which smelled as if they’d been baked just that morning. This being the South the day after a death, she knew there would be a constant stream of visitors with food and condolences.
As she made for the coffee, Gen had to circle around Dave, who sprawled on the floor. He’d buried his muzzle in a huge bowl full of bacon, eggs, sausage patties, and a whole cooked chicken.
“Morning.” He did not, of course, sound as if his mouth was full. “How’d you sleep?”
She sighed as she filled a Styrofoam cup and doctored it with Splenda and creamer. “Better than Kurt did.”
“Yeah, that’s a pretty safe bet. Sawyer came by this morning to tell him to keep his mouth shut about the investigation. Which is going to be damned uncomfortable, since he’s got to talk to the press or people are going to think he was involved.”
Arcane Kiss (Talents Book 1) Page 12