Downs, Jana - Cat and Mouse [Beast Games 1] (Siren Publishing Everlasting Classic ManLove)

by Jana Downs

  “However,” Elder Julia interrupted, “we’re willing to give you a chance to rectify your mistakes.”

  “So, wait, let me get this straight. The moment I found out about Cassisus being my mate, I was supposed to tell an elder? How come I was never informed of this?” Tobias asked. He thought they had to be making this stuff up. He’d never heard of such a thing in his entire life.

  Elder Julia answered, her brown eyes glittering with something that looked like amusement. “Not necessarily an elder. We don’t have time to hear out everyone all the time. Usually, it’s all right so long as it is reported to your immediate elder. Your mother or father would’ve done nicely.”

  Tobias swallowed. All this trouble because I didn’t tell my mom I mated a cat? Oh boy…It annoyed him to no end that he hadn’t been informed of this beforehand. It seemed ridiculous to him.

  The stable master spoke again. “In all honesty, I can understand why you didn’t tell anyone about your mating. If I mated a human, for example, I would be reluctant to tell anyone. But this is your family group. As nonpredatory shifters, we rely on our family groups to keep us safe and uplift us in the times we need it. They should be the first place you turn when you’re feeling conflicted. The other predators are kept solitary, but we have managed to remain united during our oppression.”

  “So what do I have to do to get out of exile?” he asked. “I mean, I already broke the rule I had no idea about, so I don’t want to fuck up the rest.” Sarcastic and annoyed? Me? Nah. It seemed stupid to him. Why in the world would anyone make a rule like that?

  The stable master’s son’s eyes narrowed. “Watch it, mouse. You’re in the presence of the elders.” Elders or not, they were getting on Tobias’s last nerves. Cass was probably pacing his cell, worried, and he was here playing poker with a bunch of old shifters who were pissed because he didn’t shout to the rooftops that he was joined with a cat before he slept with said cat. Unbelievable.

  “It’s all right, Dyend. He’s just being snippy because he feels like we’re being frivolous,” Elder Julia said, looking amused as she dealt out the card deck. “To be welcomed back into the fold, you must get your cat and have him be among us. We’ve never adopted a cat into the family before, but I imagine it’s much the same as welcoming a hawk, for example.” She looked over at Dyend and smiled gently. “Our boy, Dyend, here, just got betrothed to one of us. So it isn’t as if we haven’t joined families before.”

  “Cassisus is a predator, though. He won’t understand our ways, and he really won’t understand why he has to jump through hoops to be with his mate without a million road blocks in the way,” Tobias said. Though if he were being honest with himself he would note that he would probably just do exceptionally well on any test they gave him for spite. Despite the fact that Cassisus was a very physical man, there was a brain beneath that beautiful body.

  “We can teach him. After your stubborn youth, we shouldn’t have any issue,” Elder Julia said firmly. The last bit stung. Tobias hadn’t thought he’d been an overly unpleasant child. He just liked to question the normalcy of their hierarchy and want to know “Why” more often than most children, which was a feat in itself. “If you want to throw off your verdict of exile, bring Cassisus to us before you leave for New Orleans on Friday. We can arrange for you both to be out of the cell and in the servants’ quarters for one hour to greet the nest. After that, we’ll consider this nothing more than water under the proverbial bridge and you can go about your life.”

  To say he was shocked was an understatement. That simple? All I have to do is let him talk with my family? He’d gotten worked up for nothing. “All right. I’ll bring him. Just send a note via e-mail memo and I’ll make sure Cassisus is ready.”

  “Excellent,” Elder Julia said. “Now that business is taken care of. Let’s play some poker.”

  * * * *

  Corbin kept Cassisus company while he waited on Tobias to get back from his appeal. It was unusual for Corbin to keep the gladiators company, but tonight was an exceptional case. Despite the fact that the lanista typically disappeared to his own quarters on the second floor right after lights-out, he hadn’t wanted to have to come back to let Faustus into his own cell if Cass invited him over. Cass was grateful. If the bear hadn’t been there, he would’ve been agitated beyond what he could stand. His mate shouldn’t have had to go face potential hostility alone.

  “You’re starting to lose it again, cat. Get your mind back on the topic at hand,” Corbin said, drawing Cass out of his spiraling thoughts.

  He blinked. “Which was?”

  “We’re analyzing your competition in New Orleans. Look at your vid screen.” Corbin’s patience was the stuff of legends. Cass had a notoriously short attention span, and the fact that the bear put up with him at all was a miracle.

  “I’d rather talk about something else. I’ve done drills and crap all day. I’m talked out about the other gladiator schools. Give it a rest, Lanista. I need to unwind, not contemplate the probability of getting my ass handed to me,” Cass said, leaning against the bars of his cell much the same way he had when Tobias had still been sitting outside. Corbin had dragged over a fold-out chair, which he reclined on.

  “What do you want to talk about then?” Corbin asked.

  “Hmmm…” It was really hard to come up with a conversation topic with Corbin. He was their trainer and kind of their boss. The title and the job description did not make Cass want to confide any vulnerable information in him. “Well, have you seen the new place that they’re putting Tobias’s and my new cell? I’d like to hear how it was going. I heard from one of the Ludus staff that they were tearing down a wall between two of the guest cells and making a bigger room out of it. The bathroom will be the same size, but at least we’ll have better living space.”

  Corbin frowned. “That’s odd. I would’ve thought that you and Tobias would’ve chosen to move out to the cottage in the estate. I hadn’t even heard of the construction going on in the Ludus itself.”

  It was Cassisus’s turn to frown then. Corbin knew everything that went down in the Ludus. In fact, he had to approve most of it. “We weren’t given a choice. Master Flavius said that he couldn’t allow a predator outside the Ludus, so Tobias negotiated the two-cells-made-into-one deal.”

  Something that looked a whole lot like irritation flickered over Corbin’s face. “He couldn’t allow a predator outside? You may be stubborn sometimes, but you have never been a threat to anyone.” He wasn’t looking at Cassisus anymore but instead was looking down the darkened hallway toward the exit where the guards stood. “None of us have been. It isn’t right to deny you comfort and privacy. You’re mates.”

  Ah, I know where this is going. “He trusts you, Lanista. You’re the only one allowed to wander the estate. He’s human and fragile.”

  “He’s from an arrogant and disrespectful breed.” Corbin growled. He shoved himself to his feet. Okay…Someone is being a little sensitive tonight. I thought I was supposed to be the one who got all brooding and pissed. He didn’t see what Corbin had to be upset about. It wasn’t like he was the one who wasn’t trusted to wander around.

  “Corbin?” Cass asked as the lanista stalked down the hall in the direction of the door. “Corbin?” he called a little louder. Great. Now I’m alone. He sighed.

  “He just wants to protect you. He’s dedicated to his gladiators,” Seneca, his neighbor and fellow gladiator, said. He shared a cell wall with Faustus on the other side. He wasn’t really close to Seneca, but they’d been in more than one tournament together and had lived next door to one another since they were teenagers.

  “I suppose.” Nothing ruffled the lanista but their master. It made Cassisus wonder just how long it would be before Corbin snapped and he tried to take Flavius in hand. The idea didn’t amuse him nearly as much as it should’ve. Tobias had cautioned him about change, and Cass had soothed his fears and encouraged him to think differently. However, Cass had his own reservations abo
ut the whole hierarchy thing. Of course, he couldn’t really tell Seneca the reason he was disturbed by Corbin’s behavior as it concerned their master. Things were always in delicate balance at the Ludus and the house. Cass wouldn’t mind if things were permanently fixed for the better, but rocking the boat unnecessarily seemed like a bad idea.

  “You think the rest of us could have mates in the house?” Seneca asked from the darkness in his cell.

  Cass leaned on the bars, hanging his hands through as he rested his forehead on the iron therein. “I don’t know. Maybe, but things with nonpredatory shifters are difficult.”

  “I don’t care,” Seneca whispered. “I would give anything to have something as great as a mate to call my own.” He shifted on his mattress, the springs squeaking as he repositioned himself.

  Seneca wasn’t a slacker by anyone’s judgment, but he didn’t make as much as Cass and Faustus did. Whereas their winnings gained them more privileges, Seneca’s got him the necessities and a little extra if he had a particularly good showing. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that if it wasn’t for his breeding, Seneca wouldn’t be a gladiator.

  For the first time in his life, Cass saw something wrong with that. Gladiators weren’t allowed many personal possessions, so it made sense that all of them hoarded what they had. Since they were all cats, the impulse was even stronger than it normally would’ve been. If Seneca had been allowed to make his own decisions about his life, maybe it would’ve been different. Maybe he would’ve chosen a different profession. Cass loved the arena, but what became of a gladiator who didn’t? A squeaky mattress, for starters. Maybe he had been a little selfish with his winnings.

  “When I move into the bigger cell with my mate, you can have my mattress. I’ll talk to Corbin about it tomorrow,” Cass offered.

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. Why not? I don’t have a use for it, and Faustus has a better one, so he won’t want it.” He could always give it to Mal, but Seneca needed it more.

  “We’re not exactly friends, Cassisus. Why are you giving me something so hard to earn?” Seneca asked.

  Cass sighed as the reason slid into place. “Because it shouldn’t be. Would you choose this? To be a gladiator, I mean.”

  There was a long pause from the other cell, and Cass was pretty sure that Seneca had fallen asleep until he spoke. “You and your mate are well suited. I hear you guys talking some nights about things only free men should talk about. It’s cool. I wish I could think like that sometimes.”

  “Nothing is stopping you from thinking what you want to, Seneca,” Cass said, surprised. He hadn’t realized that the other gladiators had been listening to their conversations during their long chats.

  Another pause answered his declaration, but it wasn’t nearly as long as the first. “I think I’d like to have been a bookkeeper. You remember last year when we went to Memphis and visited the library?”

  “Yeah.” Cass had been in a pissy mood that day because Faustus had fallen during their exhibition match and lost them critical points that had cost them the match. It had been before they were official gladiators and touring the circuits and hadn’t been able to even fight publically but at a few select events. The loss had been more than aggravating. He hadn’t wanted to accompany their former master to the huge domed building that boasted about having the largest collection of paper books and manuscripts in the world, even more than the library in Alexandria, Egypt. Most paper texts had been eliminated and replaced with digital copies long ago. So it was a treat to see physical books in this day and age.

  “When we were on the tour, do you remember the sorting room in the back?” Seneca asked.

  “Sort of. That was where those six guys were entering data into the computers and putting the books on carts to be reshelved right?” Where was this story going?

  Seneca continued, his tone dreamy and excited. “Exactly. I would love to work in a records place like that.”

  God, why? That sounded like the most boring thing on the face of the planet. “Wouldn’t you miss the arena?”

  “Not really. Sometimes when I sleep, I imagine that I’m living a simple life that requires no travel and includes a mate who is gentle and loves me more than he loves anything else in the world. You are a lucky man, Cassisus. You love to be a gladiator, and you have a mate who loves you deeply. I envy you,” Seneca admitted.

  Cassisus snorted. “It hasn’t exactly been an easy row to hoe, man. I would be careful what you wish for. Tobias is a handful. I don’t know what you’ve heard about nonpredatory men, but they are not all soft, cuddly, and submissive.”

  “Soft, cuddly, and submissive?” a familiar voice asked dryly. “I was unaware you were under that misimpression to begin with, Cassisus.”

  Relief washed over the gladiator. “Sneaking up on me, mate?” Cass asked, smiling. Tobias had come down the opposite direction in the hallway. He typically came through the main doors, but apparently tonight he’d come through the servants’ entrance at the other end. He looked tired but otherwise intact. The mouse was just as handsome as he always was with his mussed brown hair and wide brown eyes. Cass’s reaction was immediate. He wanted to pull the other man through the bars and into his arms.

  “I’ll let you two get to it. Good night,” Seneca called from his cell.

  Tobias smiled up at him through the iron. “Making friends, Cass?”

  “I was chitchatting to keep from going insane waiting on you. I don’t think I can do the separation thing again. Bad message or not. I will come with you next time,” Cass said firmly. There was no way he would be left at home like an anxious housewife while Tobias was elsewhere in probable danger.

  The mouse pulled his shirt over his head and toed off his sneakers. “Good. I was hoping you would say that because you are going to have to come with me tomorrow and meet my family.”

  Cass blinked. “Um, what?”

  Tobias popped the button on his jeans, and Cass nearly lost his train of thought. “The elders said that I have to bring you tomorrow after lights-out to meet the nest and the rest of the representatives from the house staff. They’re willing to adopt you, but you’re going to have to play nice first,” Tobias said. He was teasing him with his slow stripping. Cass bristled at the knowledge that the other gladiators could potentially see his mostly naked mate.

  “Hurry and get in here, mate. I don’t want anyone to see you,” Cass rumbled. Then what Tobias said penetrated. “How am I going to meet with your family after lights-out? Corbin always locks us in the cells.”

  Tobias sighed like Cass was being difficult. “We’re going to sneak out of course.” Cassisus’s mouth dropped open, and Tobias shifted from his human form to his feral form in a blink of an eye. The little mouse looked up at him and preened, smoothing his tiny paws over his whiskers and carefully crawling from the pile of clothes.

  “Get in here and shift back, Tobias. What the hell do you mean ‘sneak’?”

  Chapter Eleven

  Cassisus was pretty sure he was a dead man. Of all the stupid things he’d done before, this was probably the most idiotic. Tobias had gotten a set of master keys from one of the house locksmiths and stood outside his cell as the guard changed at a quarter after twelve.

  Cass had gone to bed as he normally did and had bid Corbin good night before going over to his television and watching some mindless reruns of last year’s gladiatorial finals in Washington, DC, as he waited for his mate to get there. No one seemed to suspect anything, but the nervousness still ate him alive.

  He wasn’t scared about what would happen to him so much as what restrictions would be placed on the time he spent with Tobias should they be caught. He’d given Faustus a heads up just in case he needed a cover for the other gladiators. His brother had agreed the plan was crazy and had called him an idiot. Cass couldn’t help but think his brother had a point.

  Tobias swung the door open and motioned him out into the hallway. For the fiftieth time, he wondered why he h
adn’t just asked Corbin to let him out for a few hours. “Hurry up, Cass. I don’t want to leave this door open too long.”

  “Yeah, yeah, got it.” It felt weird to wear his full clothes without getting on a bus or having a travel bag in hand. He wore some loose, black track pants and a printed T-shirt with Flavius’s family crest and Cassisus’s name and gladiator number on the back. It was a pretty standard uniform when they were traveling.

  He stepped out into the hallway and watched as Tobias shut the gate behind him as quietly as possible. He didn’t lock it back. Cass swallowed hard. “How much time do we have?”

  “Not long. About two minutes. Come on. We’ll go through the servants’ entrance and out the back. We’ll go round the backside of the house and enter through the service entrance. We’ve been over this,” Tobias whispered, all but dragging him down the hall toward the servants’ door.

  Cass snorted. “Yeah. Easy peasy. Steal key, sneak past guards, sneak into house, meet your mother, and sneak back without anyone finding out. Yeah. Sounded real easy when we went over it earlier.”

  “Good luck, bro!” Faustus whispered as they passed, extending a hand through the bar for Cass to shake.

  “No time for brotherly hugs.” Tobias hissed, “Let’s move.”

  Faustus chuckled as Cassisus sighed heavily. “He’s going to be the death of me, Faustus.”

  “What a way to go, brother,” Faustus said with a wink. A pinch to Cassisus’s arm drew his attention back to the hall and his furious-looking mate.

  Cass rubbed the place Tobias had pinched. “All right, bossy. I’m coming!” When they got back to his cell he was going to fuck him stupid and show him exactly who was boss in this relationship. If Tobias was particularly bad, there was a spanking in his near future.