“Look at that,” Samantha said in her ear. “Some fool shot a hole right in the ceiling! This is ridiculous—when are we ever going to get stricter gun laws in this country?”
“Moonlight!” someone in the crowd shouted. “Watch out—he’s Shifting!”
To her mingled horror and fascination, Sadie saw they were right. Mathis’s big body was jerking and changing, the muscles and bones beginning to rearrange themselves under his olive-toned skin.
“God,” she heard Samantha whisper beside her. “What’s wrong with him? Is he seizing? Do you know if he has a history of epilepsy, Sadie? Or any kind of temporal lobe trauma?”
Sadie didn’t answer her twin—she didn’t need to.
At that moment, Mathis lost the battle he’d been clearly fighting not to change. His clothes ripped apart and suddenly the entire process she’d seen the night before—bones lengthening, knees bending backward, fur flowing to cover the suddenly massive form—all happened again. Only this time, it seemed to happen in fast forward—so quickly Sadie could barely follow it all. Almost before she could blink, a massive Buck stood before them. Last of all, the enormous rack of antlers popped out of his forehead, taking up what seemed to be all of the available space in the already crowded bar.
“Get back! Get away!” she heard people shouting and beside her Samantha sounded like she was hyperventilating.
“Oh my God . . . oh God, what just happened to him? Where did he go and how did that thing get in here?” she gasped.
But Sadie wasn’t paying attention to her sister or the crowd or even Mathis in his Buck form. Her eyes were glued to Keller—he was changing too.
His Shift was at least as fast as Mathis’s, though somehow more graceful. His face elongated, his ears moved to the top of his head, and his pale green eyes grew huge. He was down on all fours, ripping out of his expensive designer clothes almost before Sadie could blink and then tawny, dappled fur flowed over his body.
“My God,” Samantha whispered hoarsely. “Look at the size of that thing! I thought Keller said he turned into a Cougar—not a freaking horse! And look at those teeth. What the hell? I thought only saber-toothed tigers had fangs like that!”
It was true, Sadie saw with a sinking heart. Keller’s animal form had long, curving, almost tusklike fangs that protruded from his snarling mouth. Not only that—he really was as big as a horse. Mathis’s Buck was still bigger but Keller’s Cougar appeared to be well equipped to take him on.
The two huge animals began to circle each other as everyone cleared out of the way. From somewhere on the fringes of the crowd, Sadie could hear Fiona shouting orders. Something about clearing any Betas who couldn’t hold back their urge to Shift out of the bar.
Sadie supposed it made sense—if everyone started Shifting the one-on-one fight would become a free-for-all. Not that it wasn’t already. People were shouting and whooping and struggling to get farther away from the Shifter battle that was now taking up considerably more space than before.
It was surreal to see two huge animals, which belonged back in the Stone Age, facing off in the prosaic setting of a local tavern. The neon lights from the COORS LIGHT sign above the bar gleamed off the Buck’s hooves and horns and the Cougar stepped delicately around a spilled puddle of beer on the hardwood floor. Sadie felt like she must be dreaming, but it was all too real.
It’s Clan of the Cave Bear right here in Cougarville, she thought deliriously. Oh my God, this is insane!
Mathis’s Buck snorted and tossed his head, stamping one hoof on the wooden floor. Keller’s Cougar snarled and crouched, the tip of his tail twitching like a cat about to pounce.
“Oh, Mathis,” Sadie couldn’t help whispering to herself. “Please be careful—please!”
And then everything seemed to happen at once. The huge Cougar sprang, clearly aiming for the Buck’s throat. The Buck tossed his head, bringing his enormous rack of antlers into play. With a single swipe, he tossed the heavy Cougar across the room—and right into the bars of the cage.
“Oh!” Sadie and Samantha gasped together, jumping back. Neither had been hurt but the thick iron bars were now bent, Sadie saw, and the massive Cougar was lying on the floor, shaking his head as though dazed by the impact.
For a moment she thought he would stay down. Then, with an angry snarl, the Cougar launched himself from the floor straight onto the Buck’s back.
Mathis’s Buck threw back his head and snorted, sweeping his antlers from side to side, clearly hoping to catch the Cougar and toss him again. But this time the big Cat was keeping low, under the swinging rack. Ears laid back to his skull, he bent his head and sank the six-inch razor-sharp fangs into the side of the Buck’s throat.
“No!” Sadie gasped—she was sure it must be a killing blow. And for another, smaller animal it surely would have been. But Mathis’s Buck was truly huge and his skin and pelt were thick and shaggy, providing some protection. With an angry snort he bucked upward, like a bronco trying to rid himself of an unwanted rider.
The Cougar lost his grip on the Buck’s neck but still he held on, his long, cruel claws digging into the other animal’s shaggy coat. The Buck went wild—stamping and twisting, trying anything to shake the Cougar off. His huge antlers swept from side to side, clattering against the low ceiling and knocking bottles of premium scotch and bourbon from the shelves of the bar. They burst like bombs, spraying their contents and filling the air with an alcoholic reek as the Buck’s hooves made deep scars in the wooden floor. But still Keller’s Cougar clung to his back.
Sadie looked around wildly for a weapon—anything at all she could use to help dislodge the Cougar. The only thing in the cage with them was a beer bottle some former drunk had left as a souvenir. Grabbing it, Sadie took aim through the bent section of the cage, which gave her a little more clearance.
Once upon a time, she’d been a pitcher in her high school softball league. Of course, that was mostly underhand pitching but she’d practiced a fair amount of overhand as well for speed and accuracy. Sadie knew she would need both to pull off what she was hoping to do, especially with both huge animals thrashing around like crazy in the center of the room.
Are you crazy? whispered a little voice in her head. Sure you were a pitcher but that was over twenty years ago. The last time you held a ball was when you played catch with the twins back when they were ten.
It didn’t matter though—she wasn’t the old Sadie anymore. As she hefted the beer bottle, she could feel the muscle memory returning to her pitching arm. The Rejuvenation process that had given her back her youth had also given her confidence to go with it. She could do this, damn it—she was sure of it.
Samantha clearly understood what she was trying.
“Go, Sadie,” she whispered fiercely. “You’ve got this—brain that bastard!”
With a low cry, Sadie threw the heavy glass bottle as hard as she could. Whistling, it flew end over end, flashing like a deadly, glinting missile through the bar’s smoky air.
Thwack! To her satisfaction, it hit the Cougar right in the side of the head, just as he was bending down to try and get another bite.
The blow, while not as hard as she would have liked, was enough to startle the big Cat. Sadie laughed in relief at the almost comical look on his feline face as he lost his grip and fell off the Buck’s back onto the hardwood floor.
Mathis’s Buck didn’t waste any time. Before the Cougar could get up again, he was trampling the huge Cat—sharp hooves stabbing down with lethal force.
There was a low, feline yowl and Sadie shuddered to hear bones snapping along with the heavy jabbing blows of the Buck’s hooves coming down over and over and over again. He was just one animal but the wooden floor shook with his weight and it sounded like a herd of buffalo had decided to run through the bar.
“He’ll kill him,” Samantha whispered in a horrified voice. “I think he’s actually going to kill Keller!”
“Why do you care?” Sadie demanded. But at the same ti
me, she realized she didn’t want to see Mathis kill the other man, even if they were both in animal form. It was too awful—too final.
“Call him,” Samantha urged her. “Call him over.”
“Mathis!” Sadie shouted. “Mathis, please—I need you!”
As she said the words, she realized they were nothing but the truth. The pounding headache that had been with her almost since Keller locked her in the cage was reaching a throbbing crescendo. She needed the touch of an Alpha soon—it felt like her head was going to explode.
Mathis’s Buck snorted and looked up at her.
“Mathis,” she begged again. “Please!”
The Buck tossed his head. Leaving the bleeding mass of fur on the floor, he came trotting over to the cage. He gave Sadie a long look from one liquid brown eye. Then, lowering his head, he rattled his massive, wide-spreading antlers against the iron bars.
“It’s locked,” Sadie told him. “We need the key. Unless you think you can break it?”
The Buck snorted and shook his head up and down. Then he backed up and turned around so that his back hooves were toward the cage.
“Get back—into the corner. He’s going to kick it open!” Sadie grabbed her twin and dragged her out of the danger zone.
The Buck aimed a few well-placed blows at the door of the drunk tank. On the third ringing kick Sadie heard the flat snap of the metal lock breaking and the door flew open with a clang.
“We’re out—we’re free!” She grabbed her sister’s hand. “Come on—let’s get out of here!”
“I can’t. Can’t go.” For some reason, Samantha hung back.
Sadie saw her twin was looking at the trampled form of the Cougar. At first she thought Mathis’s Buck had killed him after all. Blood was pooling around his head and he seemed to be perfectly still. Then she saw one huge, furry side heave as the big Cat gasped for breath. A low, painful sound came from between the deadly jaws as he twitched helplessly.
“Sammie, no!” she exclaimed as her twin started cautiously towards the massive injured animal. “You’re a trauma surgeon—not a vet. You can’t help him and you know how dangerous wounded animals are—he’ll kill you!”
“No, he won’t.” Samantha looked up, her eyes blazing. “You know me, Sadie—I can’t leave a patient to die when I might be able to save him. Even an asshole like Keller.”
“But—” Suddenly she felt a cool hand on her arm.
“Let your sister do what she must, my dear,” a soft voice murmured in her ear. It was Fiona, speaking quietly and calmly despite all the chaos and confusion around them.
“I don’t want her to get hurt,” Sadie protested. “That Cougar thing is huge.”
“All will be well,” Fiona promised her. “Tonight your sister starts her journey but your own is far from finished. Go with Mathis, my dear—he’s waiting for you.”
The huge Buck snorted and tossed his head as though agreeing with her.
Sadie looked back at Fiona, at her ageless face and large dark eyes that seemed to hold secrets that might never be revealed. And then she cast a glance at Samantha, who was kneeling beside the massive Cougar and barking orders to some of the other people in the crowd who still hadn’t left the bar.
“You—call nine-one-one. Do it now! And you”—pointing to another hapless bar patron—“is there a first aid kit in here? Go find it and bring it to me. Move it!”
Sadie had to smother a smile. Whatever her faults, Samantha was definitely good at taking charge in an emergency situation. And she could also be flexible when she had to. She’d gone from completely disbelieving the whole Shifter idea to embracing it wholeheartedly and treating one of the most frightening Alphas in town as a patient. Yes, Fiona was right—her sister could definitely handle herself.
“All right,” she said at last. “I guess she’ll be all right.”
“Of course she will.” Fiona gave her a mysterious smile. “And one more thing, my dear—don’t be afraid to take what you want and what you need. If you have the courage to stretch out your hand for it, I promise it will be yours.”
Sadie bit her lip. “I don’t know exactly what that means but . . . I’ll try.”
Fiona nodded gravely. “That is all I can ask.”
“Thank you.” Sadie hugged her impulsively. “For everything.”
The enigmatic dark eyes grew warm. “Thank me when this night is over and you’re happily bonded, my dear. Now go.”
“All right.” Sadie nodded and climbed up to balance precariously on a high bar stool. “Come on, Mathis.”
The Buck understood and trotted over to her, standing still so she could climb on his broad back. As before, Sadie sat at the base of his neck. Leaning forward, she wrapped her arms around the shaggy throat.
“Let’s go!” she told him. “Take me away from all this.”
The Buck snorted and they were off.
Twenty-two
It was a good thing the Cougar’s Den had wide double front doors or they would never have gotten out with Mathis in his animal form. Luckily, the doors were standing open, and so, with Sadie crouching low over his neck to avoid being scraped off, they were able to get outside.
The minute the silvery moonlight hit her, Sadie began to feel strange. To feel wrong.
For one thing the throbbing headache that had been about to drive her crazy was suddenly completely gone. That in and of itself was such a relief Sadie didn’t notice the wrongness until Mathis’s Buck had trotted off of Main Street and was heading out into the forest that surrounded Cougarville. But once she started noticing it, she couldn’t ignore it.
It started with a tingling in her nipples—a feeling of sensitivity so great that her plain cotton bra suddenly seemed intensely itchy and uncomfortable. Then the sensitivity spread to the area between her legs. Sadie shifted uncomfortably on the Buck’s back as her pussy began to feel swollen and hot and for some reason empty—so empty.
What’s wrong with me? Is it the breeding fever Fiona and Keller were talking about?
If it was, they hadn’t been wrong about the fever part of it. Her nipples and sex were getting hotter and hotter, more and more swollen as she rode, jouncing uncomfortably on the Buck’s back. The rest of her body felt hot too—almost as though she had a live coal inside her that was radiating heat from the inside out. A chilly autumn wind whipped through the branches of the forest but Sadie barely noticed it. Her skin felt too hot and too tight—stretched over her body like suit that had shrunk until it no longer fit and there was a tension growing inside her she’d never felt before.
It’s happening, she thought deliriously. It’s really happening. I’m out of time—I’m going to Shift tonight . . . but into what?
She knew what Fiona and Keller had both told her—that the final form of her animal would be determined by the male who bred her. Strangely, the idea no longer seemed foreign or wrong to her. In fact, Sadie thought she was beginning to understand what female animals who went into heat felt like.
She’d been given a cat once in college by a friend who swore the animal was already neutered. At first she had seemed like the perfect pet—Miss Meow was an indolent feline whose favorite hobbies were snoozing in a patch of sunshine by Sadie’s dorm room window and batting around a catnip mouse. Most of the time she’d been content to stay indoors—until, of course, her natural urges kicked in.
Sadie had found out the hard way that the cat wasn’t actually fixed. Grimly, she remembered the first time the cat had come into heat—Sadie and the rest of her dorm had been woken up by an unearthly yowling at 3:00 A.M. It quickly became clear that all Miss Meow’s girly parts were intact and fully functional—not only that, she was itching to use them.
Now, with the moonlight pouring down on her and her whole body heating up, Sadie thought of how she had stumbled out of bed that night to find Miss Meow screaming and yowling and arching her back. She’d been scratching at the door, trying desperately to get out of the dorm so she could find a willing t
om to scratch her itch. It almost sounded as though she was in pain. Or at the very least, desperate for some male attention.
That was how Sadie was beginning to feel now—desperate. And the hard ridge of the Buck’s spine pressing insistently against her swollen sex as she rode was making things infinitely worse.
At last, just as they came to a small, moonlit clearing, Sadie felt she couldn’t stand it anymore.
“Stop! Stop!” she gasped, pounding on the Buck’s sides. “Please, Mathis—I need to get down!”
Obligingly, the huge creature stopped and lowered himself, folding his legs under him. As soon as the ground was close enough, Sadie rolled off his back. She found herself in the middle of a soft patch of springy moss that felt cool and soothing to her fevered skin. For a moment she just lay there, breathing, trying to get control of the desire that was threatening to consume her. God, how could her body go so crazy all at once? And how was she going to make it through this?
“Sweetheart? You okay?”
Mathis’s deep voice behind her startled her. Sadie sat up and turned around to see him crouching on the mossy ground behind her. Apparently he’d Shifted back to human form so quietly and quickly she hadn’t heard a thing.
He was completely naked, of course, and his deep green eyes still held some of the wildness of his Buck—as well as overwhelming concern for her.
“Oh, Mathis!” Sadie threw herself into his arms and he held her tight against his broad, bare chest. “I was so afraid,” she whispered, pressing her hot face to the side of his neck. “So afraid he would hurt you—kill you.”
“Nah, sweetheart—I’m fine,” he assured her, his deep voice rumbling through her as he held her close. “Keller got in a few good bites but my Buck has pretty thick skin—I’m okay.”
“I’m so glad.” Sadie nuzzled against him. “I couldn’t stand to lose you.” She dared to look up at him at last. “What you told Fiona, well . . . I feel the same way. I mean, I love you too.”
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