by Lia Connor
“Balls, you mean,” Derek corrected. He resumed his nibbling on Gabriella’s breast.
“There are only a few hundred left,” Benjamin went on with a kiss to Gabriella’s exposed throat. “Out of the small prides and pards and clans still left, there are very few women. All cubs born in the last twenty years have been male. We’re running out of mates and there won’t be any generations to come.”
“But…” Gabriella struggled for solutions. “Why are only boys born?”
“We don’t know.” Benjamin sighed, his breath ghosting warmly over Gabriella’s collarbone. “And the ruling councils, they…”
Derek picked up where Benjamin left off, snorting in disgust. “They’re pompous old inbred idiots who won’t or can’t look past the old ways to try and save us.”
“It might already be too late,” Benjamin pointed out, ever the mediator.
Gabriella liked that about him. She snuggled back, fitting her buttocks to his groin. Still lodged within her, his cock stiffened to full hardness once again.
Derek grumbled in the Catkind language. Gabriella got the distinct feeling that she was hearing Catkind cursing.
“They won’t even think about cross-breeding between the cat-clans,” Benjamin explained. “It’s beyond what they can wrap their tails around. Maybe it’s not their fault. The Catkind have been proud and distant since time out of mind.” He held Gabriella closer still. “Derek and I found each other and knew, right away, we were mates.”
Deep understanding flooded her. “Man to man,” she said softly. “This is how you go on.”
Benjamin nodded, the tips of his hair brushing her cheek. “Yes. Derek and I were two halves of a whole. I’d never so much as thought about claiming a male. It horrified me at first.”
Derek bit Gabriella’s breast, almost but not quite hard enough to leave a mark. “Lucky for us, I wasn’t scared a bit.”
That, Gabriella could easily believe. She could see it all without being told, the whole story of how Derek had brazened his way into Benjamin’s life and charmed his way into the gentler Catkind male’s bed. From the passion with which they’d touched and kissed and tangled earlier, she knew the bonds that tied them together would run deeper than the seas.
But if they were bound so tightly to one another, then why had they wanted her? Perhaps for the same reasons she’d decided to give them a ride. A night’s worth of pussy and a soft female body to enjoy. Mates didn’t necessarily mean strictly gay, and she had the proof of that distending her pussy and ass.
Still, the things they’d promised about “forever” posed questions to which she needed answers. “What part do I play in this?” she asked, proud of the firm strength in her voice betraying no nervousness. “Why would you want me for more than a night?”
As one, the Catkind men wrapped her in a solid hug that included one another as well. “Because we are dying out,” Derek hissed above Gabriella’s ear. “It’s not about love. It’s not about sex. It’s about survival. That’s why we want you.”
And if that didn’t throw a bucket of cold water over a woman’s libido, Gabriella didn’t know what would.
“Let me get this straight,” she said, dripping with scorn. “You want me for a breeding bitch? Is that how it goes?”
“Gabriella, no --” Benjamin started.
Too late. The guilty flash on Derek’s face told Gabriella all she needed to hear. “Get off of me,” she ordered, forgetting her earlier caution as she struggled to get free. “Get off. Now!”
Benjamin groaned as he let her go, withdrawing his cock from her ass. Gabriella swallowed a moan at the sense of loss. Derek hung on until Gabriella sunk her fingernails into his flesh, piercing the skin. He yelped and retreated instinctively, sliding from her pussy. The shudders of arousal nearly did away with both temper and good sense.
No. Stubborn to the end, Gabriella seized the opportunity to scramble off the bed and find her own two feet.
The Catkind men gazed at her, Derek shamefacedly and Benjamin pleadingly. “Let me explain,” Benjamin started to coax. “He said it wrong.”
Gabriella hardened her heart and refused to be moved. “Screw you,” she said, jabbing her forefinger at Derek. “I thought you were better than this. Some kind of noble Catkind princes. Jesu Christo, what a fool I’ve been.”
“Gabriella --”
“Shut up!” She held up a hand to stop Benjamin’s plea before it went any further. “Where are my clothes? I’m leaving.”
“Don’t. God, no.” Derek struggled up until he sat on his heels, arms reaching for her. “I did say it wrong, totally wrong. Just listen to us, would you?”
“I think I’ve heard enough.” Gabriella found her jeans and began to stuff her legs in them, one at a time. “Don’t say anything. Let me go with some dignity.”
Her cheeks burned as she thought about how carefully she’d dressed, wanting to look her sexiest in her tightest 501’s. That’d worked out well, eh? Tears burned in her eyes, wanting to fall.
Warm, hard hands seizing her upper arms from behind startled her. She hadn’t seen or heard either of the men move. From the long length of the body pressing tight and the darkly furred panther’s tail twining around her thigh to the knee, Gabriella knew it was Benjamin who’d caught her.
“Let me go,” she ordered, trying to twist free.
No such luck; Benjamin wasn’t having any of it. He held her as inflexibly as iron. She could sense the rigid control he maintained as he spoke, low and urgent. “Derek’s a fool to tell you this has nothing to do with you. You’re more than a pussy and a womb to us.”
“Didn’t sound like it to me.”
Benjamin gave her a light shake. Through all of this, his erection hadn’t diminished. The press of his swollen cock to her sensitive backside made Gabriella gasp.
“Don’t make this any more difficult than it already is,” she persisted. Her body betrayed her by arching back against Benjamin’s marvelous cock. “I had fun, we all did, and now it’s over.”
“Would you listen to yourself?” Benjamin’s panther tail compressed her thigh in a fierce grip. “It’s fun, it’s not enough. Come on, woman, you want it both ways. All along you’ve thought of us as ‘just a cock’ and ‘just an adventure’. And you have the nerve to flare up when Derek puts his foot in his mouth?”
Gabriella’s face burned with shame. Dios mio… was right. She’d behaved shamefully. She dipped her head and said nothing.
Benjamin gentled. “I know this is new for you. That it’s frightening. I told you I was terrified when Derek changed my life so dramatically.” He loosened his hold and stroked her arms, his tail sweeping gently along her leg. “And no, it’s not about love, not yet. Not like hearts and flowers.”
“It’s more than love,” Derek surprised Gabriella by putting in. She saw him move out of the corner of her eye, sliding gracefully out of the bed and coming to stand in front of her, chest to chest. The tenderness she saw in his tentative smile startled her more than his contribution to Benjamin’s speech. “More than,” he emphasized.
“I don’t understand.”
“Humans,” Derek griped, but fondly. He nuzzled her nose. “We’re mates. The three of us are mates. It’s like nothing any Catkind, man or woman, has ever done before. We’re not even supposed to be able to do this, much less want it.”
“But you’re different,” Gabriella realized, whispering her understanding out loud. “Mates. Explain ‘mates’.”
“How much of an explanation does it need?”
“Humor me.”
“It means we’re bound together, the three of us,” Benjamin answered for Derek. He swept the soft down of his palm over Gabriella’s breast. “Chains no one can ever break. We do want you in some of the ways you thought, but not as a sex slave nor as a cub factory. We want to see you as more than a kitten mother. You are to be the queen of the new dynasty.”
The confession took Gabriella’s breath away. Madre de Dios, she’d neve
r even so much as thought about children before, except for pitying poor Marnie in a distant sort of way.
And now they were asking for this?
“I have to think,” she said, though she didn’t try to push the Catkind men away. “I can’t say yes or no without knowing it’s the right choice.”
“You do know,” Derek insisted. “Your body knows.” He wrapped his lion’s tail around Gabriella’s other leg. His cock slipped easily inside her pussy. She cried out, arching her neck. The Catkind man, the insatiable and reckless lover of hers, slipped his hand between them to tug and tease at her swollen clit.
The firm press of Benjamin’s cock at her stretched rosebud made Gabriella hiss. He impaled her slowly and gently, but with a firmness that would not be denied. “Your heart knows, too.”
Gabriella struggled for words and found none amongst the fires exploding beneath her skin and the pulsing of her stretched entrances. “I… I…”
“Listen to your body and your heart,” Benjamin coaxed, kneading her breast. His tail loosed from her thigh and wound about her waist, teasing the top of her pussy. “They already know what the answer is.”
Gabriella sobbed, not wanting to give them the answer no matter how deeply she longed to say the words.
“It’s all right,” Derek soothed. He pressed a hard kiss to Gabriella’s lips, stealing her breath. “We won’t hurt you. We’ll make you our Empress.”
“Our lover.”
“Our wife, shared between us.”
“All you have to do is say yes.”
“Say yes, angel,” Derek urged, rocking his cock in her pussy, drenching his length in her renewed cream. “One little word, and all your dreams come true.”
Gabriella parted her lips to speak, She’d never expected anything like this when she took silly Lucia up on her dare. Let her hair down? Ay, she’d done that, all right.
She burned to say yes. But what would happen to Gatos? She kind of doubted either Derek or Benjamin planned to stick around in the arid lands bare of anything a cat might desire. What would happen to Lucia, and Marnie?
Torn between the need to mate and the need to take care of her sisters, Gabriella hung frozen in the balance. She licked her dry lips and tried to steady herself on Benjamin’s chest while they fucked her gently but mercilessly. The orgasm took her by surprise when it came, so suddenly she had no breath to keen or cry out. She shuddered out her completion while held up by strong arms and whip-like cats’ tails, coming once more as first Benjamin and then Derek swore vicious curses and released jets of semen deep within her.
Gabriella’s ears rang, her pulse roaring. She couldn’t say no. She should say no. She gathered her strength to speak. The words were near the tip of her tongue when a howlingly loud crack! shattered the silence broken before only by rasping breath.
Benjamin and Derek tore free of Gabriella in an instant. Before she had time to protest the loss, she was on the ground, Benjamin blanketing her completely.
Another crack! blasted the air. Gabriella screamed and curled tight under Benjamin. The window glass had shattered. Dios mio. Gunshots!
“Get after him,” Derek snarled, wrestling Gabriella away from Benjamin. “Go! We’re coming behind you.” He turned to Gabriella, examining her intently and with such concern and caring she was stunned to the core. “Angel, are you hurt? Angel?”
Chapter Eight
“I’m fine!” Gabriella pulled -- almost -- all the dirty fighting tricks she knew out of her arsenal to get Derek’s bulk the heck off of her. She stopped short of kneeing him in the groin -- although the thought tempted her when he refused to move. The Catkind man was heavy! “Would you let me up?”
“Not while there’s a shooter around, no.” Derek scanned the room, for the first time revealing all the fang and claw ferocity of his species. Gabriella didn’t ever want to be his enemy. He smoothed her hair down absently. “If it’s the same asshole who shot at us before, I’ll tear his throat out.”
“Wait, wait, wait. Before?” Gabriella redoubled her struggles. “You were attacked before? And you didn’t tell me?”
Derek had enough sense to wince. “We should have told you.”
“Damn right, you should.” Gabriella elbowed Derek in the soft meat of his belly. When he grunted and flinched away, she scrabbled her way out of his arms. “You idiot. What were you thinking? You could have gotten all of us killed.”
“Get back here. You were never in danger.”
“Tell that to someone stupider than I am.” Gabriella stayed low, braced on hands and knees. She felt vulnerable and naked but she could watch her own back. “You check us all into the fanciest hotel in town. The most visible. You probably paraded in here waving your tails like great big signs. Quarry Here, Hunting Season Open.” She raised one hand high enough to quirk her fingers in quote marks. “Whoever’s hunting you knew you were here. And if they hadn’t missed -- if they’d shot you --” Her throat closed up.
Derek blinked at her, his surprise evident, but thanks be, quickly followed by comprehension and then dismay. “You could have died, too.” He looked both stunned and sickened. “Fuck me for a jackass.”
Gabriella rolled her eyes at the example of what she already knew to be classic Derek. The man had an interesting way with words.
“I’m sorry. On my life.” Derek stole a quick kiss from Gabriella. “I’m good with the big picture.”
“And the little details bite you in the ass.”
Derek grinned. “There’s more than one reason I’ve got Benjie on my side. He was born for figuring out the fine print in life. Did you know he was a Prince of his Panther Catkind?”
Whoa. “I think we missed that part,” Gabriella pointed out. Urgency trumped sarcasm. “Go after him already! Go! If that bastardo gets another clear shot at Benjamin…”
Derek’s jaw hardened. “I know. But I’m not leaving you, angel.”
“You’re not, no. I’m coming with you.”
“What?” Derek sat upright in disbelief. “The hell you say.”
Gabriella shot him a dirty look as she retrieved her fallen jeans and tugged them hastily up her legs. “Do you want to waste time arguing, or do you want to go help Benjamin? With or without you, it’s your choice, but you’re not leaving me behind. I’m not sitting around naked when a man I love is in danger.”
Derek’s amazement melted into a mix of adoration and awe. “You love him?” he asked, standing to caress Gabriella’s bare shoulder.
She blushed deeper and refused to meet his eyes. “Where’s my blouse?”
The tawny Catkind man scooped up her discarded shirt and tossed it to her. She caught it in one hand and shrugged the sleeves over her arms, knotting the tails in the front rather than take the time to do up buttons. “Mierde! My bra.”
Derek huffed impatiently as Gabriella made a dash for the beautiful bathroom and retrieved her demi-cups. She wriggled the bra up under her tied blouse and hooked it in place with the surety of long habit. Running without support with boobs her size made for absolute misery.
Derek caught her chin and brought her in for a kiss. “Tell me that you love me.”
“Stubborn mule,” Gabriella grumbled, but returned his kiss. “All right. Fine. I do. I love the both of you. It’s fast and it’s crazy and it’s not at all what I planned for my life. All the same, I love you and yes, I’ll even believe I’m your mate.”
Amidst the chaos, Gabriella had to take a moment to roll with the crashing, stunning wave of accepting the truth of what she’d said. Derek took advantage of her brief pause to pull her closer and ravage her lips with hungry kisses.
When he let her go free, it was with a great effort. “All for one. Let’s go.”
He loped toward the suite exit, the joints in his legs bending in strange ways. Gabriella stared, fascinated, as he transformed smoothly from man shape to a nearly all-feline mountain lion.
Nearly. She could definitely still tell he was male. “You’re naked,” she pr
otested.
The mountain lion shot her a look of disbelief.
“Now you insinuate that I’m wasting time,” she grumbled, closing the fastening on her jeans. “Fine. I’m half-naked, too.”
The mountain lion chuffed. He flicked his tail at her and turned his side to her. He used the tip of his tail to point at his back.
Despite the urgency of the situation, Gabriella wanted to squeal with glee. “You’re serious? I can ride you?”
Gabriella wouldn’t have thought it possible, but the lion leered at her. She could imagine Derek in his human form, comically waggling his eyebrows. She couldn’t find it in her heart to snipe at him. “All right. Later, and I’ll hold you to that.” She sprinted to the mountain lion and ran her hand over his thickly furred back. “Here we go.” She flung her leg over and fastened her hands deep in Derek’s mane.
Good thing, too. The moment Gabriella had found her seat, the mountain lion roared and ran forward at full speed. Gabriella screamed and buried her face in his heavy mane, hiding her eyes.
Terror fought with exhilaration. The giddy excitement won out. “Wheeeeeeee!” Gabriella caroled as they ran.
Now this? This was living!
* * *
The heart-pounding race carried Gabriella and Derek down to the main concourse of the ritzy hotel. She registered terrified screams and shouts as they plunged through milling crowds of the city’s elite and couldn’t care less. She knew Derek wouldn’t hurt them.
Newspapers, magazines, nosy journalists, they’d all been wrong about the Catkind in more ways than she could count. They were strong, they were loving, and they were brave.
She knew, with a deep and exultant thrill, that she would be proud to join with them. Empress? A nice dream. She’d definitely take it if the dream came true.
That, though, she could worry about later. Derek pulled up short, his extended claws screeching on the fine parquet floor. He slumped forward, rolling Gabriella off his back. She tucked and rolled somehow, somersaulting clumsily away from her lion.
Derek stood fluidly, shedding his mountain lion shape for the almost human body he usually wore. His ear-splitting, indignant roar silenced the furor from the panicking crowd.