by T. S. Joyce
RED HAVOC BAD CAT
(RED HAVOC PANTHERS, BOOK 3)
By T. S. JOYCE
Other Books in this Series
Red Havoc Rogue (Book 1)
Red Havoc Rebel (Book 2)
Red Havoc Bad Cat
Copyright © 2017 by T. S. Joyce
Copyright © 2017, T. S. Joyce
First electronic publication: April 2017
T. S. Joyce
www.tsjoyce.com
All rights are reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded or distributed via the Internet or any other means, electronic or print, without the author’s permission.
NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR:
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental. The author does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for third-party websites or their content.
Published in the United States of America.
Cover Image: Wander Aguiar
Contents
Other Books in this Series
Copyright
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Up Next in this Series
Newsletter Sign-Up
Want More of these Characters?
More Series by T. S. Joyce
For More Books from this Author
About the Author
Chapter One
Barret Turgard narrowed his eyes at the quiet woods that surrounded the old tree house, then looked up into the branches of the ancient oak in front of him. “Lynn?” he called out, hoping to God she was in her human form. Her panther was just as psychotic as She-Devil.
The only answer was the soft rustle of fabric up in the little cabin someone had built into a tree long before Ben set up the Red Havoc Crew here. She wasn’t answering. Typical female, makin’ shit difficult.
With an irritated sigh, he placed the bag of groceries on his hip and made his way up the narrow staircase to the front deck of the house, up high in the canopy. It was covered in dead leaves and debris, and he kicked a couple of fallen branches out of the way of the door. The tree house was built between three white oaks that had grown in a triangle shape. A large porch surrounded the entire small one-bedroom tree house. The wood had gone gray with age, but it was holding together. And whenever a board rotted, he or Greyson just replaced it and kept the tree house viable. For reasons he couldn’t explain, this place had always felt important to maintain. And now lookey here…Lynn had made it her own little Castle de Crazy.
Knocking was for the well-mannered, so Barret just barged in like he always did.
Lynn was sitting exactly where he knew she would be, in front of the back window, in an old neon-pink plastic lawn chair, staring at the tree branches outside.
He hated coming here, hated it. Hated seeing the girl he’d once known to be strong and capable like this, but it was necessary. He wasn’t protective over much, but Lynn had been destroyed by what her last mate had done. Barret wished he could kill Brody all over again.
“I brought food,” he said gruffly.
Lynn turned slowly in her chair. She’d always been a pretty woman, but now her cheeks were pale, her eyes hollow, and her smile empty. Her panther was tearing her apart from the inside out. Sometimes wrecked mating bonds did that. He’d watched this before, and Barret knew what was coming. Someday soon, Benson Saber, alpha of the Red Havoc Crew, would have to put Lynn down.
Barret busied himself with unloading the groceries into the small pantry and mini-fridge off the kitchen, but stopped when he thought he heard a whisper. Lynn hadn’t talked much lately, so Barret frowned at the back of her head. “Did you say something?”
Lynn’s voice came out scratchy from disuse. “My bird is back.”
“You taking up bird watching now?” Huh. At least she was showing interest in something. “That’s real nice, Lynn. I don’t know jack-squat about no birds, but it’s probably not as boring as watching curling, or turtle races, so that’s cool.” Maybe he could pick her up a bird guide in town on his way home from work tomorrow.
Light footsteps sounded on the stairs of the tree house, prickling his sensitive ears. Was it Greyson? He could’ve sworn it was his week to feed Crazy Lynn. But no, that wasn’t right. Greyson might be a big cat shifter, but he was heavy-footed. Whoever was coming up those stairs was too quiet to be Greyson.
“Bird,” Lynn murmured, staring out the window. Indeed, there were birds chirping and hopping on the branches outside. “I called to my bird and she came.”
Footsteps were on the front deck now, crunching across the leaves. Who the fuck would be visiting Crazy Lynn besides him and Greyson? The fine hairs stood up all over his body. Something was wrong. A snarl blasted from his chest as he bunched his muscles defensively.
“You used to be fun, but you’re different now,” Lynn said without turning around. “I remember you in the beginning. At first, you hid your demons so well. You weren’t so dark. Now they’re scratching at you. Scratch, scratch, making you no fun.”
The footsteps on the porch faltered and stopped.
“What do you mean?” Barret asked low. Lynn was creeping him the fuck out right now.
“You should be fun again.” Lynn turned enough so he could see her profile. Her eyes were rimmed with moisture, and a single tear streaked down her cheek. “Never fall in love.”
Barret looked around the tree house—really looked. There was a pallet on the ground by Lynn’s bed and a second toothbrush on the sink. “Lynn, who’s been staying here with you?”
It wasn’t her mate, Brody, because that asshole was cold in a shallow grave somewhere. And to his knowledge, Lynn didn’t have family close enough to lean on. She just had him and Greyson. They were the only ones she let up here. There had better not be some man up here taking advantage of her. He would rip his guts out and piss on the carcass.
“Who?” he repeated.
Lynn gave her attention back to the window. “The bird.”
Chills blasted up his skin. Her words were foreboding, as if warning him of ghosts.
Lynn was bat-shit crazy, but right now, she couldn’t protect herself. If it was a fucking Cold Mountain lion staying nights in the tree house, he was going to murder him right here on the front deck and leave him for the crows to eat. With a snarl, he strode for the door and yanked it open, ready to light into whoever was trying to take advantage of Lynn while she was down.
No one was there, though. The deck was empty except for leaves, branches, dirt, and a single brown and green tackle box. Feeling watched, he scanned the entire area, but he was alone out here. Slowly he bent at the knees and opened the tackle box, but what he found inside made no sense.
The little compartments were full of girl shit—eyelid glitter, face pencils, ten shades of pink lip slime, and in the bottom was at least twenty nail paints in different colors of the rainbow.
“Ew,” he groused, letting the lid fall bac
k into place. It created a breeze that lifted something soft and white into the air before it settled back on top of a pile of crisp, dead leaves.
Barret narrowed his eyes and pulled the small white feather in front of his face. No wild birds around here were this color. He’d seen this before—a snowy owl shifter, and that explained how Lynn’s “bird” had escaped so quickly.
This fucker was messing with Lynn, and yeah, Lynn was a nut-job, but she was also crew. And as much as Barret pretended to dislike Red Havoc, being crew meant something to him that he would never admit to the others because they would pity him. He fucking hated pity. Pity Kitty. Fuck that. He was tougher than all of them. He’d had to be to survive.
He stood and made his way to the railing and locked his arms on the splintered wood, scanned the branches for the trespasser. Whoever he was, he wasn’t here. Coward.
In a monotone, Lynn repeated, “Never fall in love,” through the open doorway.
Barret wanted to laugh. She wouldn’t worry if she got a peek into his fucked-up head. All he could think about was the trespasser in Red Havoc territory and a dozen different ways to murder him.
He wasn’t planning on falling in love.
He was planning a bird hunt.
****
Eden Brown closed her eyes tightly and hoped to God that scary-sounding man didn’t see her. He’d growled so loud she could hear him plain as day through Lynn’s door.
Right now, she could feel his gaze boring into the tree she was hiding behind. Could he see the edges of her feathers? She pulled her wings in tighter and held her breath. Was he coming this way? Lynn could be scary quiet, so maybe he was too. It was the panther in Lynn that made her a good stalker. She’d always played sneak-attack on Eden when they were kids. That man had to be one of her crew. Greyson maybe? Or Barret?
Lynn didn’t talk much anymore but had told her the only people she let into her tree house were the single panthers in the crew—Greyson and Barret. She hated the mated ones. Her panther would fight them. She didn’t used to be like that. Before Brody, she’d been funny, light, and smiled all the time, and she was in control of her animal.
Brody had broken her, but Eden was determined to put her back together.
A limb snapped right under her tree, and terrified, she eased her eyes open. She expected to see the scary man staring up at her with gold eyes, the same color Lynn’s got when she was about to Change or anytime Eden asked her about Brody or her baby daughter, Amberlynn.
The man was down there, but he was walking past her tree. Eden’s heart drummed against her breast bone, and her feathers ruffled up from the shock that zinged through her body. She watched in awe the tall man with the graceful strides make his way past her. His short hair was a chestnut color, but when he walked through the sunlight that speckled the forest floor, the light threw shades of copper throughout his hair. But it was his face as he strode by that held her attention. It was all sharp angles, a cleanly-shaven jaw, and a hard set to his mouth. He was the most striking man she’d ever laid eyes on, but from here, it looked like he had no smile lines at all. Pity. He lifted his nose to the air every few steps as if he was scenting it. Three steps, scent, three steps, scent. He wore a black T-shirt that hugged rippling muscles. His shoulders were as broad as a doorway, and his waist tapered to a sexy V-shape. His jeans hung low on his hips as though he didn’t wear a belt, and his old work boots were all scuffs and dust. Something about him reminded her of home, but that made no sense. She’d never seen the man before. It was probably the work clothes. He would fit right in around Damon’s Mountains.
In his hand was something small and white. Eden’s vision was impeccable in this form. He was holding one of her feathers, but why?
As he walked away, his chin lifted time and time again, as if he was checking the branches above him. Oh, that growly man had her ticket. He knew there was a flight shifter in these woods. Maybe she should just flit down to the forest floor, make a smooth Change, and introduce herself.
But just as she had almost convinced herself to greet him, he turned suddenly, showing his profile. His lip was snarled up in aggression, and his eyes were glowing a surprising green color instead of panther gold. They were almost as bright as Beaston’s from the Gray Back Crew, and were just as terrifying, so she kept still, praying he wouldn’t turn all the way around and see her.
Every instinct in her body screamed that the man walking away from her was dangerous, and she should let him leave. But that couldn’t be right, could it? What little Lynn had said about Barret and Greyson, they sounded like they took care of her. Not emotionally, clearly, but they took care of her basic needs. A mean man wouldn’t do that…right?
But then again, her instincts on men couldn’t be trusted. Her animal could be blamed for that. Eden’s curiosity needed to stop here. She wasn’t in Red Havoc territory to befriend the local hermit crew of panther shifters. Eden was here for Lynn, and Lynn alone. Her friend needed her, and if she was going to help, if she was going to keep Benson Saber from pushing Lynn out of his crew or worse, Eden needed complete focus on her. Not on some attractive man with a predator streak.
Greyson or Barret, she didn’t care.
She just needed to get Lynn back on her feet and then get back to Damon’s Mountains where it was safe for a shifter like her.
Chapter Two
One head of lettuce, sixteen frozen burritos, seven cans of Ranch Style Beans, a dozen juice boxes, one loaf of bread, one jar of peanut butter, one spaghetti squash, and three tubes of toothpaste. That’s what the scary cat had brought Lynn to live on for a few days.
No wonder she’d dropped weight.
With an irritated sigh, Eden pushed her shopping cart up the aisle faster. She needed to get back to the tree house, but Lynn needed healthy food in her diet. Her body needed to get stronger along with her mind. Tonight, Eden was making spaghetti and garlic bread and mixed vegetables. Tomorrow was steak. She needed to ease her friend back on lots of red meat to sate her inner panther. Peanut butter sandwiches and burritos didn’t cut it.
She whipped the cart around the corner and crashed into another cart so hard the back wheels lifted off the ground by an inch and slammed back down onto the dingy tile.
“Oh!” she cried, startled beyond belief as she settled her gaze on the man from the woods. Her heart drummed against her sternum double-time as he narrowed his eyes and dragged his gaze down to her breasts, encased in one black, low-cut, V-neck cotton shirt.
He was staring, so she shifted her weight uncomfortably and then eased her cart slowly backward.
“Nice skull,” he murmured, pointing to her boobs.
Oh. Right. She did have a white skull on this shirt. Maybe he wasn’t a perv after all.
“Also nice tits.”
Fantastic. Eden cleared her throat loudly and reversed into the aisle she came from. “Sorry,” she murmured. “For, you know, running into your cart…bye-bye now.”
But the man followed her, keeping their carts nose-to-nose as she made her way backward down the cookie aisle. Without taking his eyes off her, the man reached out and scooped four packages of chocolate chip cookies into his cart, his clear green eyes daring her to say something.
Irritated now from being bullied down the aisle, she skidded to a stop and gave him her most ferocious frown—which was probably pathetic because she was completely intimidated by him. He was an entire foot and a half taller than her and nearly as wide as the damned aisle.
“I’m Barret, and I’m not made for a mate, so don’t even fuckin’ fall in love with me.”
“Wh-what?”
“I see the way you’re lookin’ at me. Like you want my dick. Well, you can’t have it. I don’t bone humans.” His eyes were too sharp on her, like he was gauging her reaction.
Poker face! “Soooo…you’re one of those shifters?”
He had dipped his attention to her lips when she spoke. “Mmm hmm. Panther. You aren’t a shifter groupie, are you?”
“Nope, not me. Well, it’s been nice chatting with you.” Kind of. He had complimented her shirt and tits, so there was that.
She made to turn her cart around, but he lurched forward and gripped the front, held it in place, and now he was too damn close. The air was thick, and it was hard to draw a deep breath with the pressure on her shoulders. Oh, he was a dominant brawler panther then, and she was in deep trouble if she didn’t escape his calculating gaze soon.
“I told you my name. Now it’s your turn.”
“W-why do you want to know my name if you don’t bone humans?”
“Because I like the way you look, and you smell like you would be a she-demon in the sack. You’re all riled up just being around me. It’s sexy. Name.”
Eden’s entire body had gone numb in the middle of his statement. She stood there like a tranquilized horse, staring at his perfect eyes, perfect cheekbones, perfect bad-boy smirk, perfect muscular throat, perfect line between his pecks as he said those filthy words. “I think you say things to shock people,” she murmured softly. Well, at least the word combination made sense, so victory. She’d been afraid she would open her mouth and all that would come out was, “Ploof.”
“You handled it well. You look a little flushed, though. I like it. I like that I get under your skin. You’re an easy blusher. I bet if I smacked your ass in the bedroom, it would make a perfect pink handprint. Wouldn’t it?”
“Ploof.”
His devil-may-care smile stretched his face slowly. Lowering his voice, he said, “You ever had a man smack your ass, Mystery Girl? Some women don’t like it, but I think you would the way I’d do it to you. I’d make it quick. Make it sting for just a second while I’m making you come. I would confuse your body. Pain and pleasure at the same time. I could make you come harder than you ever have before. Cookie?”
The last word caught her off-guard since she’d been so immersed in naughty-talk storytime.