by Zoe Chant
"Yes, but it's not as much of a big deal with kittens as it is with toddlers or even puppies." She picked up a cordless drill off the floor under the sawhorse and set it on top. "You want to make sure they can't get into anything toxic, and they might chew on things like electrical cords. Mostly you want to pick up anything they might get tangled in, or anything that could poison them."
They went around the living room checking for hazards and moving appliances out of reach. Ben secured the cabinets under the sink with a loop of twine to stop them from trying to get inside. The kittens were oblivious; the entire world was a fascinating jungle gym, made for kittens to climb on.
"I apologize in advance if they destroy anything."
Ben shrugged. "My friends Derek and Gaby have been up here with their son. He's six. Trust me, I'm not bothered by that sort of thing. Anyway, can I get you anything? Show you where anything is?"
"Let me just look around and see what there is to drink."
"There's still some coffee if you want it. Not much else right now, besides water."
Tessa went into the kitchen, reached for the pot of coffee keeping warm by the stove, then poured herself a glass of water instead. If she started drinking coffee this late at night, she'd never sleep, and she was finally starting to feel like she could sleep—relaxed, comfortable, no longer scared or even worried.
Ben was on the couch again, smiling at her. She went over to join him, curling her bare feet under her.
"So what do you do in the evening here?" she asked. "Just read?"
"Mostly. I could teach you some card games." He laid his book aside. "Or we could just talk. There's so much I want to know about you."
"There's nothing interesting about me, though."
"Everything about you is interesting to me," Ben said gently. "Tell me an interesting fact about yourself."
"Uh ... I like cats?"
He laughed. "I already know that one. How about ... hmmm. I don't know anything about you, really. Did you go to college?"
Tessa shook her head, feeling embarrassment creep up her neck in the form of a flush. "No. I couldn't afford it."
Ben picked up her hand and kissed her fingertips lightly. "Did you want to?"
"I don't know. I didn't have anything specific in mind, nothing I wanted to study, I mean." There had been nothing even remotely judgmental in his tone, but talking about herself still made her squirm. "What about you? Did you imagine yourself as a cop when you were a kid?"
"Not really. I've actually got an engineering degree."
Her eyes went wide. "Really?"
"Not what you expected, huh? That was my career for awhile. I traveled all over the world, planning designs for bridges and that sort of thing." He smiled. "Want to hear some stories about that?"
Somehow he recognized that she didn't like talking about herself and was giving her a graceful out. She couldn't get over how he was just ... perfect. "Yes," she said, and she lay down on the couch, snuggling her head into his lap. She could lie here forever, just listening to his voice. "Tell me some stories."
It wasn't even the words so much as his voice. She closed her eyes and drifted as he petted her hair and talked about the places he'd been, the things he'd seen.
He had lived such an interesting life. Why was he interested in her? Would he eventually get over his infatuation and leave?
She didn't want to think about that right now. She was comfortable; she felt safe.
She just wanted to stay here forever.
Chapter Nine
Ben's bed was more than big and comfortable enough for two people to sleep, spooned together. Tessa was awakened in the morning by Ben sitting bolt upright in bed next to her. Early morning sun shafted through the window, turning his skin soft gold and evoking pleasant memories of the night before.
"Mmm?" she managed sleepily.
"I hear an engine. Someone's coming up the driveway."
That cleared the sleep out of her foggy brain. "Your friend Derek, maybe?"
"Maybe." He got out of bed and went to the window, then shook his head and started to dress in a hurry. "But he'd have no reason to think I'm here. I didn't tell him I was coming out to the cabin, and it's not even a weekend. There's no reason why anyone who knows me would visit."
Tessa reached for her clothes as well, spurning the sexy crop-top for another of her oversized T-shirts. "You said no one could follow us here. Is there any way someone could have found us?"
"I don't see how." Ben strapped on his shoulder holster over a T-shirt. "The cabin's not in my name. Only a handful of people know about it, and I trust all of them. Well, my dad—" He stopped, then shook his head. "No. I don't trust my dad, but the exact reasons why I don't trust him are also why I don't think he'd sell us out in a situation like this."
That made exactly zero sense, but Tessa didn't think now was the time to ask him to explain. She could hear the engine now too, a loud coughing roar that sounded like it was coming into the yard of the cabin. "Is that a motorcycle?" she asked.
"Sounds like it," Ben said grimly. "Stay here."
Tessa shook her head. "I'm not letting you face danger without me. Besides, this probably concerns me, and I want to know what's going on."
He huffed a sigh. "Fine, you can come downstairs, but stay out of sight."
Tessa stuffed the pendant down the front of her shirt and bent over to tie her shoes. "I guess there's no chance we could just lock the doors and hope they'll go away."
"With my car outside? I doubt it."
Outside the cabin, the loud, coughing engine died. Ben opened the bedroom door and went down the stairs two at a time, vaulting over a kitten. Tessa followed more quietly, picking up the kitten (it was either Twix or Butterfinger; she couldn't tell them apart) and taking it with her to the bottom of the stairs. If they were going to have to leave, she should start getting them back into their carrier, but for now, she went softly to the window beside the door and peeked out from behind the curtain.
A figure in a black leather jacket was just swinging his leg off a large, gleaming motorcycle, its chrome shining in the morning sun. That was definitely Reive. So much for Ben's assurances that they hadn't been followed.
Ben closed the door behind him and went down the porch steps. "You're a long way from home," he said evenly.
"So are you, panther. So are you." Reive wasn't wearing a helmet, and his black hair was wind-tousled. He pushed a pair of expensive-looking sunglasses to the top of his head.
"This is my home. You're trespassing on private property." From her perspective at the window, Tessa saw Ben's arm shift as he moved a hand to the butt of the gun holstered against his side. He hadn't covered it with a jacket this time; the strap cut across the back of his T-shirt in a sharp diagonal slash. "And I'm telling you to leave right now. If you don't, there's going to be trouble."
Reive held his hands out, showing the palms. He didn't appear to have any weapons, though he could be hiding anything under his heavy jacket. "I've told you, my quarrel is not with you. It's the woman you're hiding that I want."
"Leave. Now."
The kitten in Tessa's arms hooked its tiny claws into her shirt. She absently freed its small, soft paw without tearing her eyes away from the window. She knew she shouldn't be delaying like this; she should be packing up the kittens and getting ready to leave. But she couldn't look away from the confrontation in the yard.
"You won't desist, will you?" Reive's words came out resigned.
Ben drew his gun. Tessa had to stifle a gasp. She'd never seen anyone use a gun in real life before. He wasn't pointing it at Reive, but he held it in a way that made it very clear he could raise it in a heartbeat.
"Very well," Reive said. "If it's a fight you want, no one ever accused me of bringing a knife to a gunfight."
His last words came out in a rumbling growl ... and he changed.
Tessa recoiled away from the window, the kitten in her arms turning to a snarling, hissing ball of claws.
Ben's shift from man to panther had been a gentle transition, his body easing with feline grace from one to the other. This transition was violent. Reive erupted in a wall of scales, rearing upward against the clear morning sky. Spikes burst from his neck and shoulders; a pair of wings erupted forth and spread to block the sun. Tessa couldn't even tell what happened to his clothes. They seemed to become part of him, vanishing into his glossy scales.
His lean, spiky body seemed to go up and up forever. The long-jawed reptilian head bowed over Ben like the head of a cobra mesmerizing a mouse. The dragon was copper-colored, gleaming in the sun like a polished brass kettle. A red stripe ran down each side of his body, making it look as if he'd been painted in blood. Each of the claws on his enormous forepaws, poised over Ben like a cat's claws, was as long as a sword.
The kitten wrenched itself from Tessa's arms, leaving bloody scratches down her wrists. The pain recalled her to herself. She had to get the kittens and get out of here. There was no way she could fight something like that. There was no way Ben could fight something like that. Their only chance was to flee and find somewhere to hide and ...
... and she didn't know, she didn't know how she was ever going to be free of this, but even running forever was better than being torn apart with those terrible claws.
Base animal instinct told her to just run out the back, to get away as far as possible. But she couldn't leave Ben, and she couldn't abandon the helpless kittens who depended on her.
Right now the nearest of the helpless kittens had wedged itself as far under the couch as it could go. "Come out out," she whispered, afraid to make too much noise for fear the dragon would hear her.
A sudden burst of gunshots outside made her jump with a small scream. The kitten hissed and backed even further under the couch, out of her reach.
"Come on, come on, baby." Tessa fought to keep her voice calm as she strained to reach the kitten in its hiding place. "I'm trying to help you."
The gunshots had to be Ben. A dragon wouldn't carry a gun.
A roar outside the cabin rattled the windows. That was the dragon. It was followed by the snap of another gunshot.
With panic breathing down her neck like hot dragonbreath, Tessa gave up trying to retrieve that particular kitten and went after the other ones. They had all panicked and run for cover, but most of them hadn't been as successful at finding a hiding place. She scooped up one of them in a corner of the kitchen and caught another under a chair.
A tremendous crash shook the cabin and sent adrenaline jolting through her, almost making her drop the kittens. I have to get out of here! She sent her desperately worried good wishes in Ben's direction as she took the kittens into the back bedroom.
Here she discovered another problem.
The kittens hadn't objected to being stuffed into the carrier at the shelter. It was a new experience for them, so all she'd had to do was grab them and pop them in, one by one. This time, however, they knew what was coming, and they did not like it at all.
It was amazing how one small kitten could suddenly consist of about ten legs and 400 claws, half of them attempting to hold off the carrier and the other half aimed at Tessa's hand and arm.
"Get in there!" Tessa ordered between her teeth, jamming Kit Kat down just as Toblerone tried to make a break for it. "I could just abandon you ungrateful little jerks, you know!"
Sobbing with frustration and fear, she managed to get them all jammed inside and zipped up, along with another she found cowering under the bed. She was tempted to just leave the other two (one under the sofa, the other hiding in some unknown location), but what if the dragon burned down the cabin? Could real dragons breathe fire?
And once she caught the kittens, what then? She and Ben were going to have to escape past that thing.
If Ben was even still alive. She hadn't heard any gunshots lately. Panic choked her, not for herself, but for the man who, in so short a time, had become so much a part of her that she couldn't imagine her life without him.
***
Ben stood his ground as the dragon reared above him. Even if he was willing to consider running—and there wasn't a chance, not with Tessa in the cabin—it wouldn't do him much good. The dragon wasn't really built for sprinting, but with those wings, it could follow him anywhere.
He'd watched his father shift on more than one occasion, so this wasn't the first time he'd seen a dragon in the flesh. It still never got easy. They were not just huge, but alien-looking, every part of their body adapted to be the most powerful and efficient predator in the modern world ... perhaps the most effective predator the world had ever seen.
The sudden, incongruous image of a dragon fighting a dinosaur popped into Ben's head. His lips twitched.
"Why are you smiling?" Reive demanded, his voice a deep rumble. Dragons were among the only shifters who could speak in their animal form.
"Just wondering if you'd win in a fight against a T-rex."
Reive stared down at him. "Are you stalling?"
"Not really. Just giving you a chance to change your mind. If you don't shift back immediately, I won't hesitate to use lethal force against you."
He wasn't sure if the curl of Reive's lip was amusement or contempt. "Puny little shifter, you couldn't hurt me if you tried."
Ben squeezed off a fusillade of bullets at him.
Despite his warning, he was trying to stop Reive, not kill him, so rather than aiming for the head, he fired into center mass: in this case, Reive's chest, a broad expanse of shimmering copper scales. That would've been a kill shot on a human, but given Reive's size, Ben wasn't even sure if the .38 would have enough stopping power to penetrate his scales.
Reive grunted, more in surprise than pain. Bright blood glistened on his chest, so at least the bullets had done some damage, but he showed no signs of being badly hurt.
"Really?" Reive rumbled. "You think that's going to stop me?"
"Worth a try." Maybe he should've gone for a headshot after all. By his count, he had four shots left—and no spare ammo, because it was all in his jacket (still in the house) and in his car.
Not that reloading would help a whole lot, unless what he was reloading was a cannon.
Reive had been crouching on his back legs, making himself nearly as tall as the roof of the cabin; now he crashed down to all fours, his massive foreclaws tearing chunks out of the meadow turf. His body was low-slung, the shoulders angled slightly outward like an alligator's.
"Listen," he said, staring at Ben down his long scaled snout. "This isn't your fight. I have no quarrel with you. I just need the girl."
"You're going to kill her."
"Well, yes, obviously, but that doesn't have to be your problem."
"Even leaving aside the fact that I'm a cop, and I'm not just going to let you eat someone—"
"Eurgh, I'm not going to eat her! What kind of barbarian do you think I am?"
"—every one of her problems is my problem too," Ben said. "She's my mate."
It was hard to read expression on Reive's inhuman features, but a frisson of some sharp emotion passed across his face. "No wonder you're so persistent. Suppose I can't expect you to get out of the way, then."
"Nope," Ben said, and shot him in the face.
He aimed for the eye, one of the few parts of Reive's well-armored dragon body where he thought the gun's tiny bullets could do serious damage, but Reive's reflexes were hideously fast, faster even than those of most shifters. The dragon jerked his head to the side. Blood sprayed anyway, and for a moment Ben couldn't tell if he'd actually managed to put an eye out, but then Reive opened his eyes, the right slightly bloodshot with a mask of blood around it. The bullet must have grazed the lid or winged the softer, less scaled flesh just beneath it.
"Honorless scoundrel," Reive growled, and lashed out with one huge forepaw.
Dragons were fast, but panthers were fast, too. Ben sprang out of the way, keeping a firm grip on his gun. He would've vastly preferred a larger weapon (a bazooka might
have come in handy) but at least the pistol didn't interfere with his ability to maneuver.
If he survived this, maybe it would be a good idea to invest in a hunting rifle to keep in the cabin. He didn't own one because, when he hunted, it wasn't on two legs. However, a larger weapon than his service sidearm might come in handy in case of—
—unexpected dragon attacks? Okay, so this wasn't the kind of situation likely to come up again. Hopefully.
"Hold still," Reive snarled, swiping at him again. Ben ducked behind one of the rough-hewn wooden poles supporting the porch roof; it splintered under the blow driven by Reive's powerful shoulder muscles.
"So you can claw me to death? I don't think so!"
He wanted to draw Reive away from the cabin, but didn't dare try. Reive wasn't stupid. The dragon had to guess Tessa was in there.
Would she have the presence of mind to try to escape while Ben held off Reive? So far, she hadn't come out or made a sound that he could hear. The cabin had no back door, but the windows in the bedrooms were large enough to get in and out of. Derek had told Ben that he'd gone in through a window while his mate's family was being held hostage in the cabin last year.
Ben wished true telepathy went along with the mate bond. Longtime mated pairs joked about being able to read each other's minds, but so did long-married human couples. It was really just a matter of being completely in sync with each other, and reading the other's small tells.
Still, he thought desperately at Tessa, Get out! Don't worry about me!
"This is such a waste of time," Reive complained, shaking splinters out of his claw. The porch roof sagged alarmingly over Ben's head.
"If your time is that precious to you, I have a suggestion. Leave."
"I would if I could." Reive reared on his back legs and smacked a paw on the unstable end of the porch roof. Ben dodged out of the way as it crashed down where he'd been standing.
And I just got done fixing the cabin from the damage last summer!
"But I can't return to my clan empty-handed," the dragon went on, weaving his head in an attempt to locate Ben in the rubble. "I've been given a task and I'm honor-bound to complete it."