Cats and Dogs_Age of Night_Book Four

by May Sage

The Heart

  Ian was annoying; not only did he cook a million times better than she, but he also didn’t leave a mess, which meant that she had nothing to do with her hands after fleeing to the kitchen. Maybe she could grab an onion and starting cutting it, just to explain why her eyes were getting a little watery.

  "Hey."

  She turned to find her Alpha female standing behind her, rocking her baby in her arms.

  "You know you don't have to hide it, right?"

  "Hide what?" Christine asked, genuinely confused.

  "Pain. Grief."

  Ace opened the glass door leading outside and stepped out. When Christine followed, the Alpha female closed the door behind them. This was as close as they ever got to privacy in the pride house, although the others could probably still hear them if they focused.

  "I suck at talking, I prefer punching stuff."

  Christine laughed. What else was new?

  "Let me try, anyway. When I was little - I don't even know what age - my mother died. I didn't know how to deal with it. I'd never learned what grief was and I was alone. Then, my father stepped in. I couldn't understand a word he said, I had no clue what his gestures meant, but as I clawed at him, drawing blood, he just held me. Petted me. That's something I told myself I didn't need, for a long time. But there's a reason why I didn't kick you all out of here when you turned up on my doorstep. I do need it, your support. The animal inside me craved this community. To have someone to hold close when I'm sad."

  Fuck, if Ace felt it was necessary to have a heart to heart with her, she must have seriously been pathetic.

  "I didn't lose Tracey; we all did. But I'm the only one who feels like this."

  She kept busy, doing stuff to keep her mind off it, but the moment her hands were idle, she felt downright miserable.

  Ace snorted. "Yeah, right. And it's usual for Rye to listen to pop songs in the car, or for Ian to wear Christmas sweaters in the summer. Plus, Jas wears dresses every day."

  Christine opened her mouth and closed it. Rye hated pop songs; it was Tracey's thing. Ian had stubbornly refused to wear the Christmas sweaters Tracey bought them every year. Jas never wore dresses. Ever.

  She bit her lip, wondering how she'd missed all these little things.

  "It's more obvious to me because I'm like them. I take action to deal with shit. You'll always be different from us, in here," Ace reached out, touching Christine's chest. "We're dominant. Not just your everyday brand of idiotic dominant ready to whip out their dicks at the first challenge; all of us have a crazy high dominance level. You know what you are in all this?"

  A weakling. What Ace was saying was that while she might be able to defend herself, and protect the kids, she'd always be weaker inside.

  "You're our heart, Chris." She lifted her head and searched Ace's eyes. She didn't read any lie in them, or in the tone of her voice. "I'm the fist, Rye's the brain, Daunte's the dick." They grinned. "We all have a part. Still, the thing is, most of us are expendable. But nothing can function without its heart."

  "I'm just..."

  "A fight would break out every day without you. I've seen submissive vibes before, I know how they work. You pacify them and make sure every disagreement ends in a discussion, or in a joke."

  She frowned. "I don't--"

  Ace titled her head and smiled. "You don't know you're doing it?" The Alpha chuckled. "Right. And how many times have you come back from visiting your family and found them at each other's throats, or with bruises from beating the shit out of each other?"

  She thought it through, trying to recall one instance when she hadn't come back to a mess.

  "The thing with being a loner is, I hung out with people who don't let prejudice get in the way of facts. Submissives are highly sought after amongst loners because dominants are a mess on their own. That's kind of why Vi, Rain, and I are friends with Faith. She balances us out. She's been busy of late, and, I bet anything, if you went to ask Vi and Rain why they're spending so much time with us these days, they'd tell you it's because it's peaceful here. Thanks to you."

  Christine rolled her eyes.

  "There's no way I alone am responsible for keeping nine - eleven, counting your girlfriends - highly dominant sups from killing each other. We just get along with each other. And the kids help; we have to act like adults around them."

  "The kids definitely help, but you're pulling the weight. Try to pay attention to what you're doing next time a fight breaks out. I don't always consciously shove my dominant vibes in people's faces, they sort of burst out. That's probably what you've been doing all these years."

  That was a mind-blowing idea, although feeling responsible for keeping the peace was a little frightening.

  "Anyway, all of that to say, we need you, every day, all day. So don't you feel weird about needing us from time to time. I know Tracey's body was sent to her parents but we could hold a wake here, on the lake, with scented candles and bad pop music. Someone could read her last book."

  Fuck, could someone just stake her heart? That ought to hurt less than this. Christine sobbed like a blubbering idiot, and Ace shifted her now very awake baby onto one shoulder, to hold her tight with her free arm.

  "I suck at hugs. Let me know if I do this right."

  Christine chuckled. "It's the best hug. And thank you. Tracey would love that, wherever she is."

  Ace let go of her and seemed hesitant for one second.

  "What?"

  "I was just thinking about something, but it might not work out, so let me keep it to myself for a bit. In other news, though, a wolf. Really? I can't say I saw that coming. You can't stand dogs."

  Christine shrugged. "Wolves smell better."

  "They still totally act like idiotic dogs. I'd know: my best friend is one. I can't fucking stop Vi from chasing me when we're in our animal form."

  "Well, then you're very well placed to know that it happens to be kind of fun."

  "For me?" Ace chuckled. "Yeah, sure. She pounces, I shove her, she barks, I hiss, then we chill for a minute and I scratch the fuck out of her without warning when I'm bored." She grinned like the crazy bitch she was. "That's how we roll. But whenever we’re having our fun, you stay as far as possible from us, so what changed about you?"

  Christine looked in the distance, shrugging. Nothing had changed about her today. She was just plain old Chris. It just happened to be a Chris who liked playing cats and dogs.

  Chapter 15

  Trail

  The crowd was thinning out, and he didn't have to make use of his superior hearing to realize that it was past time to make himself scarce; the mated pairs had spent most of the evening touching each other. There were going to be a lot of noise and scents he didn't want to endure soon. Come to think of it, it was probably a good thing that they'd asked him to stay outside the pride house.

  "Doesn't it get to you?" he asked Ian. "Living in the same house."

  "Hell, yes. If you're thinking about the others getting their freak on, that's not the problem. This place is ideal; every room is soundproof. But I certainly would prefer to have a bit more privacy. Our cats like to be together, but even they want their own territory sometimes."

  "Then why don't you work on the other cabins out there for you guys?" he wondered. "On our run back, I saw at least five."

  But as the words passed his lips, he could guess the answer. They banded together that way because it was safer.

  "Protecting one single house is much easier if we're under siege. And if we're taken by surprise someday, there'll be a bunch of us around the kids."

  Hunter nodded. He got it. Most of this pride's issues were due to his pack. How messed up was that? They hadn't done anything wrong, and their entire lives were in shambles because the Vergas wanted to kill a defenseless three-year-old.

  There were a few hybrids in the world - not many, but enough to keep the Vergas busy, if their intention had been to just eradicate them. Yet, they left them all alone, every one except Lola.
Their problem wasn't that she was a hybrid, it was that she was a Force hybrid. In an ideal world, the two shifter groups could have just sat down and talked it out like adults. The Vergas didn't want it known that they'd given birth to a hybrid? They could have signed a goddamned treaty assuring that Lola would never admit to a kinship with them and that would have been it. But Arthur Force didn't talk things through. He didn't negotiate. He killed. He hunted. He tortured.

  Quite suddenly, Hunter had an idea. A very dangerous idea, but one which would nonetheless solve all his problems, and the Vergas' too.

  Coveney walked in the living room, wearing dark cargo pants and a brown tank, the sort of colors people wore on patrol at night. He was staring at the phone in his hand.

  "Hey, have you heard from Jas?"

  Ian frowned.

  "Isn't she supposed to come back from her patrol shift now?"

  "She is. I was going to replace her, to give you a break, since you picked up extra shifts in our absence. But she isn't back and she isn't answering her phone."

  Frowning, Hunter got up from the sofa at the same time as Ian. "I'm a good tracker and I know her scent. I'll help."

  He didn't offer his help as much as announce he'd give it, whatever they had to say against it. If his hunch proved true, they'd need him.

  "What's the matter?" Christine asked, coming back inside.

  She'd spent the last hour outside. Hunter was seriously pissed at himself when he realized he needed to postpone their little trip up to the guest house, after all.

  "Jas isn't back from patrol," said Ian. "We're going to check things out - can you notify Rye if we don't call or turn up within the next hour?"

  Hunter walked to the closest window and opened it, tentatively sniffing the air.

  Every scent assaulted him violently, now that he'd focused on his strongest sense. The wind carried the smell of the night, the lake, the woods, and every pack member. He wasn't familiar with them as much as he'd been with the Vergas' scents, but he could still distinguish them.

  Above it all, there was another scent.

  It smelled of coffee.

  Not good. Not good at all.

  "Fifteen minutes," Hunter countered. "If we don't text or call within fifteen minutes, wake up every one."

  Coveney stepped close to him and looked outside, no doubt finding nothing out of the ordinary.

  Felines didn't have a sense of smell as acute as ordinary wolves; there was no chance that the Head Enforcer could distinguish as many nuances as Hunter.

  "What do you know?" he asked.

  "Someone - someone who knows me - is masking scents with freshly ground coffee."

  Christine and both enforcers stiffened, understanding what he wasn't saying.

  "The Vergas are here."

  Chapter 16

  Jason

  It wasn't the first time that Jason Force had held a woman captive. It wasn't even the first time this year.

  The others had deserved it. He was Beta of the strong, large, powerful Vergas Pack. That meant interrogating spies, traitors, and bounty hunters sent to hurt them fell under his responsibilities. At least half of them were loner females. Shifters thought little of gender; what mattered was power.

  This female hadn't done anything wrong. He didn't want to hurt her if he could help it.

  "Stay put and nothing will happen to you," he told the tigress.

  Her smile was almost a snarl, showing her very white and sharp teeth. "Yeah, right. Don't confuse me for one of your bitches, Vergas. I don't stay. I don't fetch. I don't heel."

  He didn't doubt that. Her eyes were unwavering, even as she stared at him. That was a first. Females didn't stare at him like that; not when he was working. His aura and the vibes around him changed during an attack. She should have shivered and cowered, but apparently no one had told her that.

  "You will, if you know what's good for you."

  His orders were simple. Keep the girl where he was sure his traitor of a brother would find her and deliver a message when Hunter turned up: the Vergas would sign a treaty of peace with the Wyvern as long as Hunter came back home. He was to free the tigress as a sign of good faith.

  They'd accept the deal if they had any sense. And if anyone asked Jason, he thought it was past time that they moved on from the irrelevant little pride, in any case. He didn't know why his father was so damn obsessed with them, anyway. It wasn't his problem, he wasn't Alpha, but, in Jason's opinion, their failure to obliterate such a small group would end up damaging their reputation.

  And he wanted Hunter back. The little shit needed a good beating, then he'd fall in line. Why had he been so damn stubborn? Jason didn't like his father's rules either. Those who did were rare. But, unlike Hunter, his response wasn't running away first and then kidnapping a kid in the middle of an evaluation. That was short-sighted, and stupid.

  Why save one kid? What difference did it make in the long game? Jason intended to bide his time and, when his father gave him the reins of the pack, then he could implement changes. Run it like he wanted. Keep the submissives, for one; they weren't really doing any harm. They might be a little useless, but, hey, there were plenty of boring jobs to do. They could contribute to the pack by cooking or something.

  Arthur was sixty-three. He remained fit, as shifters generally did, but how long could he truly expect to retain leadership without challenge? A few years, that was it. Then, rather than lose it to the first person who challenged him, he'd name Jason.

  It should have been Gwen, the eldest, of course, but she'd passed away.

  Jason's fists curled as they always did when he thought about his sister. The fastest wolf in the pack. With legendary white fur, she had been as beautiful as she'd been strong.

  And she was dead, because of the father of the kid they were hunting.

  Arthur had told him that the coward had shot her from behind, with silver. At the time, Jason had led the search for the child, bitterness and the need for revenge running in his veins. Years later, though, he was tired of the hunt and he also had stopped blaming the child for her father's sins.

  They'd caught the guy. He'd paid for his crimes a thousand times over. Jason had made him understand the true meaning of suffering before he'd bled out.

  The child could live, as far as he was concerned. He was glad his father had finally seen sense.

  The woman in front of him wasn't making it easy, though. Three times he'd had to replace her handcuffs, because she'd yanked them off the radiator. Damn, she was strong. And hot, too. For a tigress, anyway.

  She wore her hair cut short, emphasizing her delicate, almost elfin bone structure. Her lips were painted dark red, and black eyeshadow emphasized the color of her eyes; a hazel that was so very feline, he would have guessed her nature even if she didn't smell of cat.

  As he’d only brought four pairs of handcuffs, he'd tied her to a chair this time - hands behind her back. Seeing her wiggle to try to get out of it, he sighed.

  "Do you ever do as you're told?"

  "Would you obey if I had you tied up on a goddamn chair?" she shot back.

  It was his turn to smile this time.

  "Depends on the circumstance."

  She snorted. "Yeah, right. I know your type. I doubt you've ever let a girl on top."

  His nostrils flared as he imagined her slim, athletic frame above him. She'd ride him hard. If she was trying to distract him, she was doing a brilliant job of it.

  "One way to find out."

  The female rolled her eyes and moved her shoulders in a way that couldn't be comfortable, to try to get her hands free. Dammit.

  "Easy, tiger. This will be over soon. I promise I'll let you go in less than ten minutes."

  From her expression, he knew what she thought of his promise.

  Her mistake. The Force men didn't give their words lightly.

  "What happens in ten minutes?"

  "My brother caught your trail. He'll get here, try to kick my ass, and fail. Then we'
ll talk and I'll let you go."

  She frowned. "That's where I know you from. You're Hunter's brother." She thought it out. "Jason, right?"

  He bowed. "Delighted to make your acquaintance. And what might I call you?"

  "You may not call me at all, dickhead."

  He'd seen that one coming. It was no matter. They had comprehensive information on the Wyverns at home, he could find out.

  He could even find her phone number if he wanted to.

  He was about to point that out when he stiffened, catching a scent.

  Looked like Hunter was faster than he'd thought.

  Chapter 17

  The Lake Cabin

  The coffee hadn’t been used to mask a trail, as much as to give him a clear one; he distinctly recognized the scent of various Vergas enforcers at the border of the Wyvern territory, his brother's amongst them, but all the other trails had been tempered, except one.

  "It's a trap," he told Ian without ambiguity. "But I can handle my brother, and Jas' scent is pretty clear, too. Go wake up your Alphas and strengthen your defenses. I'll be in touch."

  "No way are you going in there by yourself," said Ian.

  The trail had led them to one of the abandoned cabins; the one furthest from the pride house, closest to the lake.

  "I am," Hunter replied. "Jason's alone with Jas. And for what it's worth, he's my brother. We might not be close, but I doubt they'd send him for a kill order."

  He wasn't really sure about that. After all, Jason had been part of the crew hunting Lola. But what he didn't doubt was that if he didn't turn up alone, Jas was going to get a set of fangs or claws through the throat.

  He'd seen Jason kill on order without hesitation.

  "Alright. Ian, stay here as back up," Coveney ordered. "No other wolf gets into the cabin. Hunter, if you need help, you call out. Understood?"

  Back up. Had he ever had back up? Someone who he knew would come help if he needed it.