“Yes. She doesn’t like eating cold food. I put some chicken in the oven at a hundred degrees. Pull it out and give it to her. It won’t be cooked, but it won’t be cold.”
I stepped into my jeans because being naked with a mongoose seemed like a bad idea. I wasn’t sure how strong her prey drive would be, but I knew they went after snakes.
When Tess changed, there were little sparkles of magic. You don’t often see magic, especially in something so mundane as a shapeshift. It almost felt like something out of a Disney movie, but the little mongoose was real.
Something told me the mongoose didn’t want me to comment on her cute little button nose, so I said, “Let’s start off with some food. I’m certain you’re more than capable of finding your own sustenance when you’re outside, but that isn’t an option right now.”
I put the tray of chicken on the stove, moved the pieces to a plate to make sure the mongoose didn’t get burned by the metal tray, and walked it to the little table in the kitchenette. Tess’s mongoose jumped onto a chair and then onto the table, so fucking graceful I wanted to watch it over and over. Instead, I sat and watched her eat.
I’d done a little research on mongooses. One of the first videos on a search is a single tiny mongoose successfully fending off four lions who thought she’d make a nice snack. She didn’t. The second video is a mongoose killing and then eating a black mamba snake, and the narrator points out these are two of the most fearsome predators in today’s world, and they’re both under ten pounds.
Mongooses also use tools to open clamshells, so they’re considered one of the smarter species alive. I wanted to test her, to see how smart she was, but my instincts told me to wait on that. Razor, our resident Raven in the Chattanooga chapter, can handle basic math in his animal form. Could Tess? My cat could handle a count of up to eight, and understood some time references, like short, wait, and soon, but had no clue what five minutes might entail. When she finished eating, I sat back and got comfortable. “Do you want to explore me? Smell me? I’ll sit still and let you.”
She ran into the other room, and I followed. Her lithe body sprang onto a chair and then up the back, so she sat on top, behind where my head would be. Clearly, she wanted me to sit and trust her when I couldn’t see her. I didn’t understand what, exactly, this test meant, but I knew I shouldn’t walk away.
I expected my inner cat to protest when I sat, but he was good. Any misgivings I felt came from the human. I pushed them down and focused on the mongoose I couldn’t see.
Honestly, I’m not sure if she gave me a scalp massage or was checking for lice, but it was an odd sensation. I forced myself to remain seated when every instinct wanted me to spring from the chair and land on the other side of the room.
When she finished with my head, she jumped down to my shoulder and sniffed the inside of my damned ear. I wasn’t sure if she was just fucking with me, or if this was her normal get-to-know-you sniffing session.
Damn, was I glad I’d put pants on by the time she made it to my waist. When she finally reached the floor, the little shit even pulled my toes apart to sniff between them.
And then she sprang back up into my lap and made herself comfortable, curled in the cutest ball ever.
Finally, I pet her, and she rubbed back. She pushed her head and neck into my hand as I stroked, clearly enjoying the sensations. Whatever test she’d given me, I seemed to have passed.
Chapter Twenty-One
Tess
Bobcat and I had a magical afternoon and evening. We met each other’s animals, we cooked ourselves a meal fit for royalty, we dined in style with wine and three kinds of meat, and then we sat on the sofa and talked for hours.
This was the night. The one where you get to know the other person — their history, their hopes for the future, the worst day of their life, their happiest memory. We also shared our stories of what we did during the battles. My fights had mostly been skirmishes with the opposing shapeshifters, vampires, and demons. Bobcat had fought in the biggest battle of all. He’d been thirty yards from Randall when the wolf Alpha had been killed. Bobcat’s President, Duke, was Randall’s identical twin, and he’d felt the Alpha’s death almost as deeply as the pack. He isn’t magically tied to Duke, and yet, the brotherhood of bikers is so close, they still felt it.
All business calls were supposed to be going to one of my associates, but he had instructions to call me for a few specific clients. One of those was the young man whose false arrest had put me in this situation. So, when my phone rang at three in the morning, I didn’t want to answer it, but I had to.
My heart sank into my stomach at the news — the young man and his father had been killed. Their security hadn’t been enough. It was being called a freak gas explosion, and it took out three houses on the same street. Seven people died in order for Andretti to take out the two people he needed to silence.
Well. Without the need to use the contents of the USB drive as leverage for my client, I could just upload the entire contents now. Bonus, I could do it guilt free, since my client had paid for me to be his dead-man’s-switch. I was obligated to upload the entire damned drive.
“I need access to the internet.”
Bobcat didn’t ask why, nor did he point out that keeping me safe meant keeping me offline. He merely walked me upstairs and handed me a laptop. On the way up, he asked if I wanted an unshielded device, or one routed so it couldn’t be traced back to the MC.
“What I’m doing won’t show where I came online, but a few extra layers to obfuscate things can’t hurt.”
He walked me through at least a mile of tunnel and came to a room I hadn’t seen before. “We’re still underground, but this room hits the WiFi.” He went to a cabinet and opened it to show a row of laptops, all plugged into a charging unit. “Brazil, Russia, Romania, or Greece?”
Did it matter? “Brazil feels right, though I’m not sure it matters.”
He shook his head. “It matters, but maybe Cuba would be better? More plausible that you’re hiding out there?” He grabbed a laptop from a drawer and handed it to me. “You’re in Cuba.”
I logged in to the server I maintained in the Caribbean, made sure the settings would show I was coming from there, and then went into the files in the cloud. I selected every file in the folder and pressed the button that would send them to U.S. media outlets. I selected files I’d marked previously and sent them to European media outlets. And then I set the four most scandalous files to upload to various video streaming sites every one to two hours, with the time chosen randomly. Another program would post these videos to various social media site blind accounts, with influencers tagged to try to gain their attention.
I’d paid top dollar for this software, and it’d more than paid for itself over the years. Some cases must be tried in the court of public opinion, not because it influences the jury — though it does — but because you can often get the prosecutor to completely change their battle plan if you can control the narrative. With this in mind, I also sent the entire package of videos to a vocal media personality in Atlanta, Orlando, Nashville, Houston, and Baltimore. Sometimes, the local people can spread the news better than the national ones — especially when the mainstream media is fighting to bury a story.
I logged out of my server and shut the laptop down. “Thank you.”
He tilted his head. “You’re welcome. Can I ask what you did, now that you’re finished?”
“You heard the phone call. He permanently silenced my client and his son. Without my need to use their information as leverage to keep the kid out of jail, I was obligated to broadcast it far and wide.” I considered the way Bobcat might see it and tried to quash that before he could say anything. “It might keep me safer, too. Killing me won’t stop the information from getting out. Everything I had is now in the wild. Theoretically, I should be out of play now.”
“And if it was really a gas leak?”
“You and I both know it wasn’t.”
He sighed. “We
do. He needed them dead and he made it happen. Or, his people did, anyway. You didn’t hold anything back?”
“This is proof that he was personally involved in bringing the cartels into our country. He was paid millions to enact laws designed to make things easy for them. He invited the highest levels of them into his home, and he was invited into theirs. It goes deeper than that, but I’m not sure the American public has the attention span to dive far enough in to see just how badly he sold our country out. Still, just the surface stuff should be enough to put him on trial for a multitude of felonies, including treason, I hope. Not just him, but a dozen of his colleagues in the House and Senate, from both sides of the aisle.”
Bobcat breathed in, rolled his eyes, and walked to the door. I took a breath and scented what he had — dragon. He opened the door and motioned Aaron Drake in.
“She knows, and she’s decided to move all her chess pieces at once.”
“Not all of them,” I told Aaron Drake. “I have personal dirt on Senator Andretti, and I still have that. However, Bobcat’s right about the USB — I shared everything. You’d think Andretti’s people would’ve made sure the dead-man’s switch was turned off before they blew my client’s house to smithereens with him in it.”
I pushed a stray hair out of my face. I hadn’t even thought to brush it before leaving the safety of our little basement den. “Or, maybe they thought they did? At any rate, I shouldn’t be in play anymore, but if I am, I can threaten what I personally know if they don’t back off of me, and yes, it’s covered by attorney-client privilege, but if I have my own dead-man’s switch, who cares? What are they going to do, posthumously disbar me?”
Aaron crossed his arms and stared at me. Unmoving. The dragon in human form, going through all possible outcomes of all possible moves. No one said anything for at least three minutes.
Finally, he uncrossed his arms and blinked. “It’s your ball game. We’re acting as security. In the future, I’d like you to talk to me about any moves you intend to make, so I can be certain you’re safe while you make them. I assume you followed safety protocols online?”
“I own a server that isn’t in the U.S. or any of its territories. The server cannot be traced back to me. I log into a server farm in Russia and it pings me to the server I own in this other country, and then everything I do seems to come from the server, as if I’m sitting in a chair in front of the computer there, instead of here.”
“I gave her a laptop that will always look as if you’re inside of Cuba accessing the internet from a government building.”
Aaron Drake lifted a brow. “Which government building?”
Bobcat grinned. “Palacio de la Revolución.”
The dragon-in-human-form chuckled and shook his head. “Andretti’s head might explode at that one. Okay then, if we’re finished creating chaos and confusion, perhaps we can head back to the deep underground residence?”
“How did we not see the dragon, before?” Until he’d married the Swan Queen, no one had known what kind of shapeshifter he was.
He shrugged. “I don’t know. I frequently hear from people that they can see me as the dragon now, even when I’m in this form. It isn’t just you.”
I looked to Bobcat and back to Aaron. “I can see the lion when His Majesty the Amakhosi walks, sometimes. Likewise, I can see the cat in Bobcat’s movements. Now that I’ve spent time with his cat, I think I see even more of the cat’s motions and movements.”
Bobcat put his arm around me from the side. “And now that I’ve met your mongoose, I can see her motions in a few of your mannerisms.”
Aaron led us back to the deep underground and got us back on topic. “We’ll keep you here through the weekend. Sunday night, I’ll send a vampire body double to your home — someone with a similar build to you. We’ll let her drive your car. The area around your house is quiet, so she’ll hear a sniper fire from a distance and will be able to dodge before it hits her head. We’ll put her in body armor, and I’ll be a few miles away so she can drink from me if she’s hit, but she won’t be. She’ll be able to look into the heads of anyone close enough for a shot she can’t dodge. Or, at least sense a brain she can’t see into, if someone’s shielded.”
“You knew I’d argue about someone taking my place.”
“Yep.”
“Vampires don’t usually offer to be cannon fodder.”
“She’s young. Barely a hundred, but strong and fast. Five hundred years from now she’ll be scary powerful, but right now she’s building up her fortune, and the position pays well.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Bobcat
My weekend with Tess was practically magical, despite the circumstances. We couldn’t go online, couldn’t go outside, so we kept each other company.
Mad Dog filled in a few nights for me, so we wouldn’t have to deal with getting me back and forth. Most women would’ve been on my nerves an hour or two in, but I only wanted more, and more, of Tess.
She still couldn’t submit to me, but that was okay. When she was ready, we’d have meaningful sex. Until then, I was more than happy to fuck her ass and throat.
I sat in on a couple of wargaming sessions between Tess, Aaron Drake, Ranger, Mac, and a few other Drake Security employees. They analyzed the news, but mostly, they looked through discussion forums to see what people were saying. Some in Senator Andretti’s party were trying to make excuses for him. Many were in outright denial, refusing to believe. Once again, the country was split, and I kept my mouth shut about how this could be. I’m not good with politics. I mean, I know what I believe, but I can’t understand how someone can see an elected official doing clearly treasonous things and then make excuses for them. This wasn’t he-said-she-said shit. It was pictures and video, and it wasn’t complicated.
So, I didn’t offer any input while they discussed their next steps. The goal was to remove the Senator from power so he could no longer control the level of people who’d been coming after Tess. Somewhere in there, Tess needed to speak up for herself, but they had to finesse it. Meanwhile, Tess’s legal firm released a statement saying how regretful it was that their client’s case was handled with an assassination instead of allowing the case to go to a court of law. The wording was finessed so it could easily be taken to say that the law firm had proof their clients were killed by an assassin, though it didn’t say it outright.
In between these meetings, Tess and I talked. We snuggled. We ate. We worked out. We watched a few movies. One night, we both changed into our animal forms and walked around outside. Two thirty in the morning, brutally cold, and neither of our animals cared. A bobcat and a mongoose. Hell, she fucking rode the cat around at one point, and they both thoroughly enjoyed it.
I worked Blaze from two in the afternoon until four in the morning Saturday night / Sunday morning. It was deemed safe for me to travel to and from the spa. We owned it, and there was no reason to believe Tess’s enemies might think she was there.
After a few nights with Mad Dog, the dancers and waitresses were practically ecstatic when I walked in the door. I wasn’t sure what he’d done, but the girls hadn’t been fans.
We were debuting a new dancer on this night — the girls said Enigma was ready. There’d been a lot of promo, and we had a full house. I’d been informed Enigma had actually taken the stage in a surprise sneak peek just before four in the morning the night before. Just enough to give her a little experience in front of a small, friendly crowd.
The first Saturday night of every month, the girls all dance a number together. Different song each month, and the girls are in different places on the various stages, but it’s mostly the same moves so they don’t have to relearn it every month. They just adjust it so it fits in with the new music. Something about rearranging eight-counts.
So, we had more people because it was the first Saturday, and because we had a new dancer. We were so full, Dementor had a long waiting line since people had to leave before more could enter. I helped out b
y delivering food orders and breaking down larger bills with smaller ones.
I stepped backstage before Enigma was due to take the stage and heard Trinity tell her, “You’re out there by yourself. Just you, the music, the stage, and the pole. No one knows if you screw up your moves unless you tell them. No matter what, look like you’re doing exactly what you’re supposed to be doing. No sudden movements, no rushed arms. If you totally lose your place, stop and rub your hands over your body until you figure out where you are in the music, and then transition back into it like you’re making love to the dance. Slide back into it.”
“You’ve got this,” Soul told her. “Own the stage. Own the audience. Eye contact with the big spenders. Glance at the cheapskates. Reward the people who deserve it. Don’t matter how ugly they are.”
“Eye contact with everyone tonight,” Trinity said. “Don’t complicate things yet.”
“She right,” said Soul. “Don’t overthink it tonight. Have fun. Own it.”
“You’re beautiful,” I told her. “Deep breath.”
The music stopped, the announcer started Enigma’s introduction, and I walked her to the edge of the stage.
“I wasn’t counting on a full house.”
“Go with it. The money’s flowing. Ready?”
Her music started, and she stepped into the spotlight.
One employee handles the music, lights, and announcement duties. We have two people on the payroll to make sure we’re always covered, but only one person at a time handles all of it. The girls give the ones they like a little of their take. I have no idea how much, but the idea is that he makes sure the lighting is especially flattering to the dancers who pay him well. I’ve been trained to do it in case neither can come in, but I hope it never comes to me being the best choice.
Sometimes, Enigma was spotlit. Other times, the colored lights on the stage were all she needed, and he switched between them as she went from sultry seductress to dominant nearly-naked woman who fucking owned the stage. High heels and a G-string, and I’m pretty sure she channeled her inner wolf as she stalked from the back of the stage to the front of the runway, and then went ten feet up the pole to spread her legs and tease the fuck out of the room.
Bobcat (Rolling Thunder MC Birmingham Book 2) Page 13