The Magical Christmas Cat

by Lora Leigh

  h sugar cookie melted on his tongue, Ruby moved onto his lap and draped her arms around his neck. "Do you think it's possible I only love you because you saved my life? And my soul," she added, making a face and shuddering a little. "And the world, of course. For the purposes of this discussion, let's just stick with my life."

  "I don't know. Do I only love you because you feed me increasingly decadent sweets?"

  "Don't forget the sex," she said with a smile.

  "As if I could."

  She rested her head on his shoulder. "The sex is very nice, but I thought you loved me because I'm symmetrical."

  "There is that."

  It was too soon for love, perhaps, but they both felt it, and neither of them had been shy about saying the words. Almost losing everything would do that to a person, he supposed.

  For a few precious moments he tested Ruby's symmetry with his hands. Face. Shoulders. Breasts. Hips. Thighs. Lovely.

  "What am I thinking?" he whispered.

  For someone who had so firmly denounced "woowoo" a couple of weeks ago, Ruby accepted her own clairvoyance very easily. That talent had saved her; it had allowed her to communicate with the women who had been sacrificed to the demon in years past. She was no psychic, but she did have telling dreams, and more often than not she knew what was on his mind. They'd been "dating" for two weeks, if you could call spending every moment together "dating," and already she was finishing his sentences for him. After the first of the year, when she reopened her shop and he went back to teaching classes, they would have less time to study her abilities, so they had been doing all they could to test and refine it. What am I thinking? had become a game of sorts. She was quite good.

  It was too easy, of course, since lately his mind had been quite one-track, and still Ruby played along. Sitting in his lap, leaning toward him possessively, she closed he* eyes.

  She did best with visual images, they had discovered. It was very easy for Zane to vividly imagine what he wanted from Ruby. He didn't want to make it too easy for her this time, so he didn't picture her naked on his bed. Instead, he imagined her naked here, lying beside the Christmas tree, red and green satin ribbon wrapped around her torso, her hips, her thighs. She was the best Christmas present he had ever imagined, so it was fitting enough to see her this way.

  "This is no longer much of a challenge," she said softly. "Must I always be naked?"

  Practice was making her ability stronger. Day by day, she saw more, she saw more clearly. Though she could guess "naked" and be right more often than not.

  "All right," he said, "Let's try something else."

  He pictured another Christmas in another year, perhaps five years or so down the road. They were still in this house, and someone else, someone who had no idea what had happened there in the past, lived in the yellow house across the road. He was still teaching; Ruby still had her shop though she no longer worked there every day. She had her hands full with the kids. Two, he thought, maybe a boy and a girl. The Christmas tree was larger than the one they'd bought on clearance this year, and it was heavy with decorations, some purchased but many made by the kids.

  And they were happy and still in love. Whatever the reasons they had fallen in love so quickly, it was going to last. They were going to enjoy the only real forever that existed in this crazy world.

  Ruby's smile faded a little, and she placed her head on his shoulder and shifted closer. "Is that what you want or are you teasing me? Don't tease me," she added quickly. "Not like this."

  "It's what I want," he said honestly.

  She shifted, moving her body closer to his. "Me, too."

  He took her face in his hand and tilted it toward his so he could kiss her. "Merry Christmas, baby," he whispered with his mouth against hers.

  The kiss lingered for a while, then Ruby moved just far enough away to reach for the messy pile of wrapping supplies. She snagged the red and green spools of ribbon and proceeded to make all his Christmas wishes come true.

  For my early readers, all of you.

  For saying, Hey, this just doesn't work.

  Or, OMG this is working so great.

  For telling me when it's going wrong

  and when it's going right.

  Each book is a combined effort, a creation

  of my imagination, my early readers' imaginations, and all the hard work my editors put into it.

  You all make the difference.

  And I couldn't do it without you.

  Foreword

  They were created, they weren't born. They were trained, they weren't raised. They were taught to kill, and now they'll use their training to ensure their freedom.

  They are breeds. Genetically altered with the DNA of the predators of the earth. The wolf, the lion, the cougar, the Bengal tiger; the killers of the world. They were to be the weapons of a fanatical society intent on building its own personal army.

  Until the world learned of their existence. Until the council lost control of their creations, and their creations began to change the world.

  Now they're loose. Banding together, creating their own communities, their own society, and their own safety, and fighting to hide the one secret that could destroy them.

  The secret of mating heat. The chemical, biological, emotional reaction of one breed to the man or woman meant to be his or hers forever. A reaction that binds physically. A reaction that alters more than just the physical responses or heightens the sensuality. Nature has turned mating heat into the breeds' Achilles' heel. It's their strength, and yet their weakness. And Mother Nature isn't finished playing yet.

  Man had attempted to mess with her creations. Now, she's going to show man exactly how she can refine them.

  Killers will become lovers, lawyers, statesmen, and heroes. And through it all they will each cleave to one mate, one heart, and create a dynasty.

  Prologue

  Haley McQuire was hiding in Sanctuary's extensive, beautiful library the night of the pre-Thanksgiving party. She didn't do parties well, and she didn't enjoy them. Jonas Wyatt, Director of Breed Affairs, had given her permission to peruse the extensive collection of first-edition classics, but he had warned her that if one of his enforcers caught her there, they would drag her back to the party.

  If she was found, she hoped that it wasn't by Noble Chavin. She smiled a bit at that thought. Noble loved books too, though. He would understand.

  He was always at the library, choosing books she would never have expected him to read. Carpentry books, books on world history. He devoured them, it sometimes seemed. And when he returned them, she could quiz him playfully, and he always had the answers.

  And he talked to her about the books. She liked that. Perhaps too much. And though he would probably talk to her, she doubted he would let her stay.

  So when the door opened, she hid quickly. She expected the breed entering the room to smell her instantly. She was a human, and fairly easy for a breed to detect. Haley didn't understand why she didn't.

  Maydene Brock was a breed older, a nurse in the labs. With her graying brown hair and pinched expression, Haley had never really seen her as much of a caregiver.

  And perhaps she might have sensed Haley if the men following her hadn't overpowered the room with the scent of cologne.

  Haley wrinkled her nose at the smell. Even across the room, hidden behind a low shelf as she peeked between the books, she could smell the obnoxious scents.

  "Do you have payment ready?" Maydene snapped.

  "We need the code," Phillip Brackenmore, the head of Brackenmore Pharmaceutical Research, informed the nurse dangerously. "No code, no payment, breed."

  Maydene sniffed. "We'll meet you at the hotel with the code. We'll slip it out when Dr. Morrey arrives at the party. Everyone will be busy with her," she told them smugly. "When you transfer payment, we'll hand you the code. I don't trust the two of you as much as you would like to think I should."

  "As long as you're there," Horace Engalls, president and
CEO of Engalls Pharmaceuticals, replied. "Don't bother trying to betray us. We have our own spies watching you, Maydene."

  Maydene growled at that. "I know who your little bitch is. She can watch until hell freezes over. All we care about is the cash."

  "And all we care about is the information to complete our own research. The live trials on the breeds you suggested aren't working out as well as we had hoped."

  "I warned you." Maydene's voice was smug as Haley felt chills race up her spine. "Even Morrey isn't responding as well as you had hoped, is she? I told you, you need us."

  "So we do," Brackenmore drawled. "We'll meet you at the hotel and transfer the money to your account, but we'll see what we're paying for first. Understood?"

  "Quite well," Maydene sneered. "Return to the party now, before you're missed."

  Haley peeked over the top of the books that lined the shelf she was hiding behind. She could barely see them, and as the door opened, she eased back down carefully, certain that if Maydene looked back, she would sense her.

  She waited. She waited so long. She could feel her muscles cramping, feel the sweat that eased along her spine, but she could still feel the danger.

  She looked up at the vent above her and inhaled slowly. Was that why Maydene hadn't smelled her? The vent pulled the air out of the library and circulated it, while another vent fed dry air into the library to protect the expensive books. That combined with the scent of men's cologne must have hidden Haley's scent.

  But Maydene must have suspected that someone was in the room. As Haley began to consider the risk of peeking over the books again, she heard movement, a doorknob turning, a muttered curse.

  She took a chance and watched as the breed made her way from the library.

  Just a few more minutes, she told herself. If Maydene was suspicious, she might watch the door from outside. She might be waiting for whoever she had sensed.

  My God, what were they talking about? Drugging breeds? Selling information? She had to find Noble. The breed enforcer would know what to do—he would know how to handle this. She had to find him before Maydene and whoever was helping her managed to slip from the estate.

  Carefully, she moved from behind the shelf, thankful that someone had made the little hidden reading nook that Merinus had shown her a few weeks before. It had possibly saved her life.

  Now, to sneak out of the library and get to Noble.

  There was something about librarian Haley McQuire and her staid little outfits that just made Jaguar breed enforcer Noble Chavin insane.

  He should be watching the ballroom, keeping his eyes trained on the two men they knew would make an attempt tonight to gain confidential breed information from a source within Sanctuary.

  Breeds betraying breeds, for money. For greed. And the humans determined to destroy them. Several breeds had already been killed in the past day, and if they didn't stop that information from going out, then more would die.

  It had to be insanity, he decided again, as Haley stepped into the ballroom from the direction of the ladies' room down the hall, because nothing else could describe his reaction to how completely luscious she looked in the simple black'long-sleeved ball gown. Or how she snagged his attention against all his best efforts.

  The gown swept the floor, the hem floating around her like a dark, sexy dream as he tried to keep his eyes off her. He was there to increase security, not to ogle the little librarian, who seemed to hug the wall more than she danced.

  But his eyes had a will of their own. His gaze swept over the full skirt of the gown, lifted to her curved hips and trim waist, and he had to swallow as he came to where the material draped from her shoulders and barely hid the hint of curvy, sweet breasts beneath. She might have believed she had succeeded in hiding those curves with the folds of material that draped over them, but he could have assured her, nothing was further from the truth.

  He should have stopped there. Dammit, he had no business looking further. But he did anyway. He let his eyes caress the smooth, creamy flesh above the material, the graceful arch of her throat.

  A stubborn chin. There was fire in her. Soft rosebud lips, a pert nose, and eyes that mesmerized. Dammit to hell, he knew better, but there he was, staring into eyes that seemed to be looking right back at him. Dove gray and ringed with the merest hint of blue. Thick chestnut lashes surrounded them, and they stared back at him as though as helpless as he to break the connection.

  Fiery red hair surrounding a gently sculpted face, added spark and fire to her eyes, and the look of her had his back teeth clenching as he fought unsuccess-fully to drag his gaze away.

  Back to her feet. Where the tip of one small black shoe peeked out beneath her dress. The dress flowed around her, drifted and moved like a whisper as though teasing him, tempting him to brush it from her legs to see all the pale, beautiful flesh he knew it hid.

  Damn, if she didn't draw his gaze like a hidden flame, one he was certain would erupt into a conflagration.

  He forced his gaze away then, far away, not even looking at her feet but at her slender, graceful fingers. She wore no rings. No adornments. As though proclaiming to the world no ties and no bonds. She was as free as the wind yet restrained by some force inside her.

  And she was moving toward him.

  Noble let his gaze move to her face once again, a frown edging at his brows, a sense of foreboding rasping at the back of his neck at the look on her face.

  Perhaps he should have paid more attention to her face. Because there was an edge of fear in those odd, blue-ringed gray eyes and the pinched line of her lips. Her face was pale, but her chin was lifted in determination and purpose.

  His gaze moved around the room then. She had come out of the hall and into the ballroom no more than minutes after Phillip Brackenmore and Horace Engalls had entered, the two pharmaceutical and drug-research magnates.

  "Noble." She all but whispered his name, and he heard the sound, that soft hint of longing he wondered if she even knew was in her voice, at the same moment he glimpsed the entrance of the ballroom from his peripheral vision.

  He gripped her arm and jerked her behind him, ignoring her soft little cry as orders began to snap into the communications link at his ear.

  "You stay!" He jerked her to the corner and pushed her into the little alcove created by the fronds of several potted plants. He pushed her to the floor and pointed his finger to her pale face. "Stay till I come for you. Understand?"

  She nodded quickly even as he turned away and began snapping orders to other guests, herding them quickly from the confrontation brewing at the ballroom's entrance and into the buffet room.

  Why he hadn't pushed little Miss Haley McQuire into the more secure room, he couldn't explain. It was something about her eyes, that edge of fear, and the fact that she had entered after Bracken-more and Engalls more than anything else.

  Or it could have been that niggle of insanity that he had been trying to ignore for months.

  "Librarian Haley McQuire is secured in the far left corner of the ballroom, leave her in place," he spoke into the small mic that curved along his cheek as he helped secure the ballroom.

  "She's a hazard in the ballroom," he was told, Rule's voice cold. "Get her with the others."

  "Negative," he refused the order. "Something isn't right with that, Rule. I want her separated for her own safety."

  He heard the tension in the line. "For now," Rule finally snapped.

  Moments later, several things happened at once. A breed female enforcer distracted Dr. Ely Morrey, and Jonas jerked the gun from Ely.

  "Move in on Brackenmore and Engalls," Rule ordered through the comm link. "Secure them and get ready to move them out."

  Noble moved toward the two, staring back at them with cold, brutal determination. They were involved with whatever was going on. Involved in trying to control and kill breeds. The bastards needed to die now, not later.

  "Please come with me, Mr. Brackenmore, Mr. Engalls," he requested, his voice
carefully bland, unemotional. He wanted to kill rather than react politely.

  Those damned animal genetics. He could feel the blood he needed to spill for the threat this man represented to the breeds.

  "What the hell is going on here?" Brackenmore blustered, as Noble gripped his arm and began to move him, his wife, and Engalls to the entrance, waiting for the final go-ahead from Rule to escort them from the estate.

  "Director Wyatt will discuss this with you soon I'm certain." Noble flashed his canines in a tight, hard smile as he watched the other breeds filling the room, keeping a careful barrier between the guests and the clean-up of the situation that had just arisen.

  Felines weren't the only ones in attendance. Noble watched as Wolf Gunnar, pack leader of the wolves, conferred with Del-Rey, pack leader of the coyotes, to direct their own security forces in concert with the felines'.

  The pre-Thanksgiving party Sanctuary hosted every year had never been so exciting. Now if they could just make certain they kept the damned journalists contained.

  "Noble, give Brackenmore and the others to Mordecai. I want you to contain your librarian and get her sequestered," Jonas said into the link seconds later. "We have a security report from surveillance that she may have been close to a meeting between Brackenmore, Engalls, and one of the lab assistants earlier in the hallway."

  Noble's head jerked in her direction. He could still see the very edge of her skirt peeking out from where he had pushed her.

  The Coyote breed, Mordecai, his face scarred, his icy blue eyes filled with death, took Brackenmore and the others, and Noble strode across the ballroom quickly.

  Haley was still huddled there and stared back at him, her eyes wide and touched with courage and trepidation. He held his hand out to her and watched as she lifted hers, her fingers trembling as he gripped them.

  "They're monsters," she whispered, and though her eyes were dry, sorrow filled them. "Noble, they're monsters."

  The fine hairs along his body lifted in warning, but even worse, the spots along his shoulders began to tingle in foreboding. She knew something. In that moment he knew, she had seen or heard something that could possibly get her killed.

  Chapter 1

  THREE WEEKS LATER

  DECEMBER 7

  The winter storm heading for the Virginia mountains is slated to pile on the snow. We're looking at up to ten inches possible before nightfall, with another ten to fifteen over the next two days. The moisture we're tracking . . ."

  Haley turned off the television and stared at the black screen in satisfaction as she forced herself not to smile in glee at the thought of snow.

  She tugged at the snug cuffs of her cheery red cotton blouse instead and turned to her assistant, Patricia.

  Nearing fifty, but as spry as a woman fifteen years younger, Patricia looked displeased over the weather forecast. Dressed in dark brown tailored slacks and a matching sweater, Patricia had a smile that always brightened the darker hues of the clothing she wore.

  "i'll never get out of that damned lane the county refuses to pave with that kind of accumulation," Patricia pouted, her brown eyes sorrowful. "I hate being stuck."

  Haley frowned. Patricia's little sedan would never handle such a heavy snowfall, nor was it equipped with the same traction sensors and tires that Haley's four-wheel-drive truck had.

  Living in town, Haley didn't worry as much about getting out as she did about the inconvenience of the snow itself. They hadn't had a storm like this move in for years, and the dump of fluffy white stuff almost had her rubbing her hands in glee.

  But she knew Patricia, and her friend hated the snow, just as she hated the way it confined her in her little house outside of Buffalo Gap.

  "Take my truck." Haley moved to the counter behind which she and Patricia worked and lifted her purse from the floor.

  She pulled the car keys from the inside and tossed them to her friend.

  "Are you serious?" Patricia stared back at her in surprise.

  "They'll have the roads here in town clear before noon, and Sanctuary will make certain the main road is clear before then. All you'll have to worry about is getting out of that little hole you live in."

  She almost shuddered. Patricia lived in one of the small hollows that dotted the mountain terrain. The mile-long track between her house and the main road was rough at all times. Filled with snow, it would be impossible for Patricia to navigate in her little car.

  "You'll take my car then?" Patricia worried. "I'd hate to leave it just sitting in the parking lot." She gripped Haley's keys like a lifeline.

  "The car will be fine for me until they get the snow cleared to your house." Haley shrugged, then stared back at Patricia worriedly. "But please be careful. I just bought her, and she's still un-scratched."

  The pristine cherry red pickup had been her dream vehicle, with big tires, the standard shift—and the advanced electronics was her pride and joy.

  "Don't worry, I'll take care of your baby." Patricia was almost as gleeful over driving the truck as Hal