You can’t outrun the past, especially when it comes back to get you.
Nolan has been in the scientists’ hands for months. He’s finally rescued, but it’s only to be abandoned in a snowy Whitedell, alone. Luckily for him he’s a cat shifter, and who wouldn’t want to adopt a cute kitty like him? That’s how he ends up in the middle of a house full of felines so much bigger than him, who could eat him for breakfast. They don’t, but a new problem arises. Nolan meets his mate, a mate he doesn’t want.
Casey ran from his birth pride years ago and spent most of his life alone in his cheetah form. After being rescued by Dominic, the pride’s Alpha, he is happy to find his mate, even if it seems Nolan doesn’t want him. Just as they start solving their problems, someone from Casey’s past comes back, someone who will do anything to have him back, even hurting Casey, or worse, Nolan.
Will Nolan and Casey be able to save their budding relationship from Casey’s past, or will they be separated forever?
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Nolan
Copyright © 2014 Catherine Lievens
ISBN: 978-1-4874-0136-8
Cover art by Latrisha Waters
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.
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Devine Destinies, an imprint of eXtasy Books Inc
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Nolan
Whitedell Pride 3
By
Catherine Lievens
Dedication
To my husband, who has always supported me, even when he thought I was crazy! I wouldn’t be where I am today without you.
Chapter One
Nolan peeked around the dumpster he was hiding behind. Damn, that woman was still there, calling for him! He had been hungry, and since it was impossible for him to shift back to his human form, he had had to try and catch mice for dinner. He hated mice.
But he had no clothes, no money, no anything, and he had to eat. The snow was sticking to his fur, making it hard for him to move around the alley since no one had bothered to shovel it, but at least it didn’t take much for him to be sated when he was in his cat form. A couple of mice and he was good to go for the day, even if he hated eating them raw.
He was still hungry, though, since that woman had seen him in the alley behind the supermarket and had tried to take him. It was just his luck to be seen by a cat lady who wanted to take him home and probably add him to her cat collection. It would be fun to shift in front of her just to see her face when he did, but that was only wishful thinking. Nolan had no intentions of being caught and penned up again, not after spending the last months in that creepy laboratory. He still had the scars to prove how bad that had been.
He had been lucky one of the guards had decided he had a conscience after all and had helped him escape. Being the smallest animal in the lab had been Nolan’s good luck for once. Not only he was a dull domestic cat when he shifted, but he wasn’t even bigger than his animal counterpart, like shifters usually were. That was why he could pass for a stray like he had been doing for the days since the guard had dropped him out of his car in this godforsaken town.
Sure, Nolan should thank the man for getting him out, but was it too much to ask to be left somewhere safe? He could have taken Nolan home with him and given him a change of clothes at least, maybe even let him make a phone call. Nolan could have called home, and he would be with his family right now instead of eating mice and hiding behind dumpsters.
“Come here, kitty, kitty.”
She wasn’t going away. To be honest, that woman was starting to look good to Nolan. Maybe he could let her take him home. At least she would feed him and he could get a good night of sleep before trying to find a change of clothes in her closet and sneaking out before she woke up in the morning. Nolan was already too tired to run away, and he couldn’t do much in his cat form. It wasn’t like he could walk home all the way to Colorado Springs, especially since he was about three hundred miles away from there.
“Come on, kitty cat, where are you?”
Nolan would have groaned if he was in human form. Kitty cat? Couldn’t the cat lady find a better name to call him? Anyway, it was time for Nolan to come out and let her see him. He let out a small meow, trying his best to look cute and scared.
“Here you are!” The woman crouched beside him and tentatively reached out to him. He sniffed at her hand and immediately wanted to run away, but she caught him and bunched him up in the blanket she held in her hand. God, he could smell lynx shifter all over her! He was so going to be eaten if he let her take him home, and not only because he was a smaller shifter. Common shifters like cats, rabbits and such were looked down on by the bigger ones. They considered them beneath the big predators, even if cats were predators. It was just a size thing, really, but it didn’t mean whoever the woman knew that changed into a lynx would simply let Nolan go once he was found, even though lynx weren’t that much bigger than a normal cat.
“Sweetheart, stay still, you’re going to hurt yourself. I’ll let you go once we get home, and I’m sure you will fit right in at the mansion. God knows we have a lot of cats there.”
Another woman Nolan hadn’t noticed laughed at what the cat lady said. “You couldn’t resist, uh? Don’t you think we have enough of these at home?”
“I know, but he’s so cute! I’ve always wanted a real pet.”
“He’s a boy?”
The cat lady manhandled Nolan and he hissed, swiping his paw at her. Who the heck did she think she was, looking at his family jewels like that!
“Bad kitty!” She bundled him back in the blanket before answering her friend. “Yup, male. We’ll have to have him neutered I think.”
Oh, fuck no! Nolan started squirming, trying to fight his way out of the soft fabric that surrounded him, but the cat lady held him too tight. There was no way Nolan was losing his balls to her! What had he got himself into?
They got in a car and the cat lady’s friend drove them away from the relative safety of Nolan’s alley. He tried to find a solution and only two came to mind. Either he would have to wait until he was left alone at the woman’s home, hoping that no one would smell him and find out what he was, or he would have to shift in front of her. If she knew a lynx, she might know about shifters. From the way the lynx’s smell covered her, Nolan could guess that she was really close to the shifter in an intimate way, maybe even mated to it.
“What are you going to call him?”
“I don’t know. Maybe Fluffy?” Seriously? She was going to call him Fluffy?
“What about Felix? He looks a bit like the cartoon character.” Okay, that was slightly better. After all, Nolan did look like that cat, since he had dark fur with a bit of white around his mouth.
“No, I like Fluffy better. Look how cute he is!” Cat Lady started cooing at Nola
n and he just couldn’t believe he was going to be named Fluffy. He just hoped his litter mates would never find out about it, because they would never let him forget it if they did.
The car stopped and Cat Lady got out, heading for the door. Damn, the house was huge! It looked more like a mansion than a real house, somewhere a lot of people could live together. Dread filled Nolan’s stomach. If the lady was mated to a lynx and the house was this big, it could mean that a whole pride of lynx lived here! They were definitely going to have Nolan for dinner tonight!
Nolan squirmed, hissed and scratched, but the only result he had was to be squeezed even more by the cat lady.
“Damn, I hope he doesn’t have rabies or something. He scratched you good.”
Nolan wasn’t even listening anymore. He was sniffing the air, and what he smelled confused him. Cat shifters sense of smell was very good. It didn’t work on judging the distance, but rather on the types of shifters. Nolan could usually tell exactly what kind of shifter someone was by just sniffing them, and here he could smell not only lynx, but also lions, tigers and other big cats. It looked like they all lived together, and as far as he knew it wasn’t a common thing. Shifters usually stuck with their species.
As the women went up the stairs and turned in a hallway, Nolan caught a particular smell. It did smell like big cat, probably cheetah, but the most important thing about this scent was Nolan’s reaction to it, because it calmed him instantly and his heartbeat slowed. The scent was citrusy, clean and fresh, and Nolan suddenly realized he was purring. Purring! He never purred, for anyone. Well, maybe for his mother, but that hadn’t happened since he was a kitten. But why was he purring for this scent then? Who could this person be to make him react like that?
That was when the truth hit him. The scent…he smelled his mate.
* * * *
Casey smiled as Soren bitched at the onions he was chopping.
“Are you sure you need onions for this, Isaiah?” the white tiger groaned, tears streaming down his cheeks.
“Chili without onions? Blasphemy! Come on, tiger, chop, chop!” Isaiah answered with a laugh. It was his turn to cook for the pride, and since there were twenty-eight adult members living in the mansion right now, he needed a lot of onions. Poor Soren was on onion duty and he was crying his eyes out.
“Don’t worry, you’re still as manly as the rest of us, even if you’re crying,” Casey teased, earning himself a growl.
“Why don’t you come and help me instead of sitting there?” Soren asked him, tossing bits of onions in his direction.
“Oh, no, I’m not on cooking duty today, so I’m relaxing.”
“Can’t you go and relax somewhere else?”
“Why? I’m having so much fun here.” Casey ducked as another piece of onion flew at him, passing over his head.
“You want to be on cleaning duty too, Soren?” Carl asked behind Casey. He turned around and smiled at Carl’s human mate, Marian.
Soren grumbled from his place at the counter but stopped throwing smelly vegetables.
“Do you think I can take a little bit of that meat, Isaiah?” Marian asked.
“Why? Are you cooking too?”
“No, Marian brought a pet home,” Carl answered with a sigh.
“A pet?” Weren’t there already too many animals in the house?
“I found a kitty when I went grocery shopping.” Isaiah gestured to Marian to take the meat and she passed next to Casey.
Casey went stiff, a musky scent surrounding him as the woman stopped near him. Leaning in, Casey couldn’t believe what he was smelling. Marian, a woman he had known since he had become a member of the pride fifteen years ago, smelled like Casey’s mate. Without thinking, Casey grabbed the woman’s arm and tugged her closer, scenting the air around her. He knew she couldn’t be the one smelling like that, so it had to be someone she had come in contact with recently. Carl growled behind him and grabbed his mate back, pulling her behind his back as if Casey was dangerous.
“Mine!” the lynx growled, and Casey realized what he had done.
“Of course. I’m sorry, Carl, Marian. It’s just that I smelled my mate on Marian and I wasn’t thinking.”
“What do you mean you smelled your mate on me?”
“Just what I said. I know it’s not you, since I’ve known you for the past fifteen years, but you smell like my mate. Who have you been in contact with today?”
Casey couldn’t believe he had finally found his mate. Well, not really found, since the only thing he had was the man’s scent, but still…it meant he was near. Oh god, it’s a man, right? Casey wasn’t sure he would know what to do with a woman’s bits and pieces.
“No one, Casey. I went grocery shopping but no one touched me except Judith and Fluffy.”
It couldn’t be Judith, so that left…Fluffy? “Fluffy?”
“Yes, my new pet, the one I found earlier.”
“Where is he?”
“In our room. Why?”
“Casey thinks the cat is his mate,” Carl told Marian, and understanding lit up on her face.
“You mean my cat is a shifter?”
This was taking too damn long. Assuming the cat was in Marian’s room, Casey stood up and grabbed Carl’s arm, dragging him toward the stairs. “Come on, take me to your room. That’s where he is, right?”
“Yeah.”
Casey ran up the stairs, Carl following him. He could still hear Soren’s snickers from where he was standing in the entrance. “Weren’t you going to relax, Casey?”
Casey ignored his friend and followed the hallway. He stopped in front of Carl’s door, waiting for him to open it. “Go on inside. I’ll let you two alone, but if you’re going to…you know, mate him, could you maybe do it in your room?” Carl asked with embarrassment. The man thought Casey was going to fuck his mate in Carl’s suite?
“Of course. We’ll come out as soon as I tell him I’m his mate. I’ll close the door behind me, don’t worry.”
Casey opened the door and entered, stopping near the coffee table. “Umm, hi. Where are you?” He felt ridiculous talking to someone he couldn’t see. Hell, he didn’t even know if his mate was in the living room or in another room. When he didn’t hear anything, Casey headed for the bedroom, scenting the air. He could definitely scent his mate here, but he didn’t know where he was exactly. He hesitated at the bedroom door. He didn’t want to invade someone else’s private space like that.
“Meow?”
Casey jumped, swirling around. A small black cat was sitting near the coffee table, looking up at him. “Hey.”
The cat didn’t move. Casey waited for him to shift, but he stayed there, watching Casey and making him wonder if something was wrong. Was his mate stuck in cat’s form? “You’re safe here. Marian didn’t know you were a shifter when she picked you up, but she knows now. I smelled you on her and I just knew you were my mate. Can you…can you smell it?” Casey knew he was rambling, but he was nervous and his mate was still watching him. He didn’t want to scare him, but they couldn’t stay like this forever.
Casey stepped toward the cat, ready to lift him and take him back to his room, but it seemed his mate had other ideas. As soon as Casey got near to him he ran to the door, which Casey had left open, and darted into the hallway.
“Damn it! Come back here!” Casey swore as he went after his mate. It would have been easier in his cheetah form but he didn’t want to scare his mate, so he ran on his two feet.
Casey saw a black tail disappear around the corner to the stairs and ran after it, following as the cat rushed downstairs. It seemed like the whole pride was there in the entryway, laughing as they watched him going after his mate. Soren was the one who laughed harder, leaning against the wall to avoid falling.
Casey shot him the bird as he passed him, Soren’s laugher ringing in his ears as he turned in the hallway that led to Dominic’s office. He had no idea where his mate was. He had to be in one o
f the rooms in this hallway, but it would take a while to check them all. Sighing, Casey was opening the first door when he heard Dominic behind him.
“Is this yours?”
Twirling around, Casey found himself in front of his Alpha. Dominic held the cat by his scruff, offering it to Casey.
“Yeah. He’s my mate.” He took the cat and held him close to his chest, not wanting him to run away again. His mate fought for a bit, trying to get down, but after a while he settled against Casey’s chest and began purring as Casey stroked his fur.
“Why don’t you come in my office? We’ll try to make him shift.”
Casey followed Dominic and shut the office door before putting the cat down on the couch. They scowled at each other and Casey could already tell that his mate was as stubborn as a mule and would bring him problems.
“All right, we don’t have the whole night, boys. Why don’t you be a good kitty and shift so that we can have a talk? I’m the Alpha of the pride, and I can assure you that you won’t be hurt.”
The cat seemed to think about it for a few seconds before jumping gracefully from the couch. The air around him shimmered and Casey found himself looking in the warm brown eyes of his mate.
He took Casey’s breath away. His mate wasn’t very tall, probably around five foot six, but he was gorgeous. His russet brown hair was short and sticking around his head as if he had just woken up, sending a jolt of lust to Casey’s cock as he pictured it in his mind. The man was lovely, his face delicate and his lips a deep pink. His body was lithe and slim, the skin perfect, even with the scars he could see on it. They made Casey want to hit something. It was obvious they were recent, since some of them still had the stitches in, and Casey just knew they had been done in a lab.
He decided to push everything away for now and looked back at his mate’s perfect face, wondering what he had done right to deserve the man in front of him.
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