by T. S. Joyce
Barret ripped into a package of chocolate chip cookies and offered her one. “Cookie?” he repeated, canting his head as if he hadn’t just destroyed her ovaries with his words. She really wanted a spanking now. A spanking and a cookie. That was a first.
“You shouldn’t do that,” she reprimanded him, dropping her gaze to where his giant, meaty hand gripped the nose of her cart. “You haven’t paid for it yet.”
“But I will.”
“It’s against the rules.”
“What rules? There aren’t rules posted on how you can shop, Mystery Girl.”
She huffed a frustrated breath. “Against basic moral rules. You’re a rule breaker.”
“Ooooh, you’re a good girl then. A goody-goody. Straight As, perfect family, got into a good college, probably saved your V-card for just the right guy.”
How dare he pretend to know her life? Anger churning in her veins, she said, “Wrong.”
He called her out. “Lie.”
“What about you?”
His lip snarled up into a feral expression that chilled her blood. “Guess, Mystery Girl. See how close you can get to figuring me out.”
“Bad boy, bad cat, rule breaker, bad grades in school, cut class, didn’t care enough about any one thing so you quit on everything you were decent at because you are a self-sabotager. You talk dirty to get a reaction out of people, but that doesn’t fuel you like you wished it did. It makes you feel empty after you walk away. You break rules because you like to pretend you are above them. And you’re snarling right now because I got closer than you thought I would. Let go of my cart.”
The smirk long-gone from his face, Barret unhanded her cart and took a step back, chin lifted high, looking down his nose at her as his eyes blazed a brighter green. “Tell me your name. I want to know it.”
“Because I called you out? Nobody does that to you, do they?”
“Wrong. Everyone calls me out, Mystery Girl. They just don’t look sexy as fuck doing it. Name.” The last word came out tapered into a snarl.
She dared a smirk like he’d given earlier. “My name’s Mystery Girl. Enjoy your stolen cookies, Bad Cat.”
Eden locked her gaze on his for a second more, then primly turned her cart and walked away. Yeah, she was wearing skin-tight jeans and swishing her hips a little more than necessary in them, but there was a hundred-percent chance that sexy man was watching her walk away. She felt like she’d just won some game he’d made the rules for, and yeah, she was feeling pretty proud of herself for not backing down in front of a pushy, brash, filthy-talking, dominant-as-hell, mother-freakin’ panther shifter.
Female flight shifters were usually submissive by nature, but Kellen Brown, second of the Ashe Crew and big, badass, scarred-up grizzly shifter, was her father, and he’d done well to teach her how to posture with dominant males.
Thanks for that, Dad, she thought as she lifted her chin a little higher in the air and made her way to the pasta aisle.
She would have to tell Lynn how she bested a boy.
Lynn would love that.
****
She thought she was slick. Barret watched her shake that sexy ass of hers with every step until she disappeared around the corner. He knew the list of registered snowy owls. He’d memorized all the flight shifters. Maybe she was unregistered, but if she was a goody-goody rule-minder, she would’ve probably given her name to the public without any fight.
He recognized her scent and that floral shampoo she used. Her scent had lingered at the tree house, just faintly, and he’d memorized it. What the hell was Lynn doing hanging out with a flight shifter anyway? She was a panther. She should have more pride than that.
He should go after Mystery Girl. He should make her talk to him more. He hated that she had guessed so close to the truth, but at the same time, it had made his dick go hard to watch the mousey woman look him dead in the eyes and call him on his shit.
Long, platinum-blond hair, sky blue eyes, pale skin the color of the paper plates he ate off and, fuck no, he wasn’t that poetic so it was the best description of her face he could muster. Her eyebrows were so blond they were barely visible, but they’d arched delicately with surprise when he’d spoken, trying to shock a reaction out of her. And her tits? Those were tens. Pushed up high with a red bra visible just above the V-neck. She wore black skinny jeans with rips on the thighs, exposing sexy strips of flesh. He wanted to poke his finger into the destroyed fabric and see if her skin was as soft as it looked. And then he wanted to scratch her a little bit. Just a little bit. Just enough to get her writhing at his touch. She wore dark eye make-up shit, hooker-red lipstick, and the skull on her shirt matched the four-skull ring she wore on her pointer finger. Tough girl in a submissive body. Interesting.
She wasn’t too bright, though. Mystery Girl didn’t know she was being hunted. It was almost too easy. Pity she wasn’t a male like he’d expected to be sniffing around Lynn when she was this close to a heat cycle. He’d been prepared to murder a male, but he would have to go easy with Mystery Girl. His inner animal had very few morals, but critters with vaginas got a free pass. It was irritating having his anger cool so fast over a trespasser in Red Havoc territory. He blamed those Grade-A tits. God, they would fill his hands, and his hands were big. Looked soft as water balloons peeking out from her shirt. Red was now his favorite color on earth, not because of the Red Havoc Crew, but because of the way her bra had looked so sexy against her pale skin. He wanted to fuck those titties. Maybe bite her, too. Bite her? A purr rattled up his throat, and he swallowed it back down. Shut up, Murder Kitty. God, he was crazy.
When he bent just a little, he could see Mystery Girl through the shelves of cookies. She had her back to him and was humming. Humming? She had a pretty voice, and he took an involuntary step closer to the shelves that separated them just to hear her better. She was humming one of those Beck Brothers songs in a pretty alto, complete with pitch-perfect vibrato and everything.
Marney used to sing like that. Dad used to call her his songbird—
Stop it! Fuck. The memory of his step-mom the last day he saw her battered his mind, and he winced away from Mystery Girl.
Angry, he jerked the cart toward the checkout lines and refused to look back. Fuck her for bringing up things he’d buried long ago. Pretty voice. Pretty voice. My songbird.
Barret shook his head hard and started slamming the food on the conveyer belt.
Sleep my boy
For I am here
To ease your fear
All safe and warm and mine, my boy…
“Stop it,” Barret snarled.
The cashier was a high school kid, maybe eighteen, freckles and acne and a deep well of confusion pooling in his eyes. “Are you okay, sir?”
Sleep my boy
For I am near…
“No, no, no…” he murmured, panicking.
And when you wake…
Barret bolted. Fuck the groceries. He was going to Change if he didn’t escape this place and flee from Marney’s pretty voice in his head.
He’d done so good to stay dead inside, and numb, and what had Mystery Girl done? She’d leached his interest with her damn mysteries, and then she’d sang, just like Marney used to do. Same voice. Same tone.
The only way he ever felt better was defending territory. By protecting his people. And since Red Havoc was his crew, protecting those mountains and the people they housed gave him purpose. It gave him drive because, yeah, that girl had been right. He self-sabotaged on the regular, but he would be damned if he did that today. Not because of her. Not because of the soft voice in the back of his mind begging him to remember things that would kill his human side and bring on the panther. But because he was better. He was as good as he was gonna get, and he wasn’t going back. No spiral into darkness. Not this time.
That snowy owl was conjuring a Hell named Barret Turgard.
If she dared to trespass in his territory again, he was going to set her fuckin’ world on fire.<
br />
Chapter Three
Gah, this hunt was too easy. It wasn’t even satisfying since Barret had such an easy mark. This wasn’t like when he’d hunted down the people who broke him. Mystery Girl was pitiful. It was like she had no instincts at all.
Barret made a pissed-off tick sound and lowered his shotgun. Yep, he was crazy enough to bring one of his guns, and nope, he didn’t give a single shit what that said about him. He’d been planning to wait until she Changed and clip her in the wing, chase her from the territory and revel in the fact that it was going to take a long damn time for her to repair her wing-arm before she could fly again. That would teach her to fuck with panther territory. Instead, the pretty snowy owl shifter was marching up the stairs with two bags of groceries cradled to her chest without even scanning the woods, like she felt safe here.
She was the opposite of safe! He was murder! He was vengeance! He was Barret the Barbarian, and now she was pissing him off even more. Why? Because all he had to do was scare her into Changing and shoot her in the wing, but instead his stupid traitor eyeballs were trained on her ass as she climbed the stairs. God, it was perfect. Round and big and more than a handful, and his hands were big. He wanted to bite it. No. He wanted to bite one side and grab the other so hard it left a red mark that everyone could see. That’s if she walked around pantless like he did on Naked Saturdays. Mmmmm, she would look good swishing around his cabin in nothing but one of those thongs. Hot pink. Push-up bra. Also hot pink. No. No bra, titties swaying when she walked, but thong, perfect. He hoped she had big nipples. Her skin had hardly any pigment, probably like her white feathers when she was Changed. Her nipples were probably light pink. Fuck, he had the biggest boner right now. Stupid Mystery Girl. He pulled his phone out of his back pocket and took a picture of her so he could stare at it later.
He was supposed to shoot her, not bone her.
Irritated, Barret sighed a snarl and removed the shells from his shotgun, then laid it on the ground. He wasn’t even fucking hiding. If she had turned around at any point in her travels up to Lynn’s tree house, she would’ve seen him clear as day.
Probably lived some cushy life where she was never in danger. Must be nice!
Oh good, now he was turned on and jealous at the same time, and he hated everything.
Maybe he could bang her like…one time and then shoot her.
His inner panther growled.
“Well, what?” he muttered out loud. “This hunt is for you, you stupid-dick-cretin. You’re the one who requires blood all the fuckin’ time.” He crossed his arms over his chest. Time to compromise with the cat. “Sixty-nine and then shoot her.”
Another snarl rattled up his throat.
“Fiiine. She blows me, or maybe gives me a hand job, and then I shoot her.”
When pain blasted through his center with the next snarl, he doubled over the burning sensation in his stomach. It felt like he’d swallowed a bonfire. He groaned and rocked as if that would keep his shattering pieces together.
“Are you okay?” a soft voice asked.
Barret jerked his gaze to Mystery Girl, standing ten yards off, looking concerned and so fucking pretty he wanted to go back to negotiating sex before he clipped her wing. In the sunlight, her eyes weren’t just blue like he’d thought in the store. They were a light bluish-gray color he’d never seen, and her blond hair had even lighter highlights in the sun.
“Stay back,” he growled. Stay back? Why the fuck was he protecting her? If the panther got a hold of her, great. Boring hunt complete. But the thought of her snowy owl between his teeth made him retch unexpectedly. “Something’s wrong with me,” he croaked out.
The woman shifted her weight from side to side and scanned the sky. The sky? No, darlin’. Keep them eyes on me. That’s where the real danger is. I’m the danger. Hesitating only a moment more, she padded over to him and knelt down in front of him.
Her gaze drifted to the shotgun on the ground, and her face froze in a mask of worry. “Why do you have that?”
“To shoot your wing, Trespasser.”
Fury washed through her eyes, and then, like she’d done it a million times, the woman picked up his weapon, cracked it open, checked the load was removed, and then snapped it back together. She laid it back down in place, barrel carefully angled away from him. And then she took the two discarded shotgun shells and shoved them in her pocket. “If you would’ve shot me, you would’ve had the blue dragon here within the hour, burning your precious territory and eating your ashes.
“The blue dragon? Damon Daye?” he asked. Well, that was unexpected. He knew all the registered snowy owls in Damon’s Mountains, and none were female except for one Rebecca ‘Beck’ Croy, mate to the Beast Boar and mother to Air Ryder.
“You knew at the store, didn’t you?” she asked, squinting her pretty eyes in anger. “You knew who I was and you pretended not to.”
The ache in his middle had gone away the closer she’d gotten to him, and now she was sitting on her folded-up legs right in front of him like she wasn’t afraid of him at all. Her instincts were broken—that was for sure and for certain.
“You should leave.”
“No. I’m here to help Lynn.”
“Well, Lynn doesn’t need your help. She has me and Greyson.”
“Peanut butter sandwiches and frozen burritos won’t mend her soul, Barret.”
“Neither will girly make-up and nail polish!”
“We used to do girl’s nights. I’m trying to bring back her old self.”
“Well, her old self would’ve never hung out with a flight shifter.”
“Wrong, panther. We were best friends.” Ooooh, her voice was getting angry and her little eyes were getting even squintier.
And his boner was getting harder. She was sexy all riled up.
“You’re a pest,” he said, “and you don’t belong here.”
“Because I’m a flight shifter?”
“Because you’re a stupid diaper-baby feather-face.” Barret hissed, but swallowed the sound. “Shit. I can do better.”
“Don’t bother. Cussing me out won’t get you what you want.” She stood and strode toward the tree house but rounded on him before she got to the stairs. “I was actually worried about you. I saw you out here doubled over, and I wanted to help, but you’re a jerk! Lynn invited me. She called me. I left my life because she’s important to me, and I’m staying. I’m not getting bullied out of here by a man-child who is mediocre at swearing and probably has too many peanut butter sandwiches and popsicles in his diet.”
“Rude,” he accused her.
She jammed her finger at him and retorted, “You’re rude!”
He grinned. He couldn’t help himself. She was so fucking cute, like a pissed-off little hedgehog.
“This isn’t funny, you—you—”
“Say something scathing,” he dared her. “Make it burn.”
“Assface!”
Barret snorted. “Whose mediocre at swearing now?”
An animal screech wrenched from her throat before she spun and stomped up the stairs of the tree house.
Barret watched her ass sway until she disappeared onto the top landing, and then he grinned down at his boner. She was making him into a pervert. This was awesome.
“One blow job,” he negotiated with his panther. When a purr rattled up his throat, the smile fell from his face. “And then I’ll shoot her,” he tested.
The purr morphed into a snarl. Aw, crap. That had never happened before. His inner cat was a murder-machine only sated for short periods of time if he bled his crew members or hunted constantly. He had never once turned down the opportunity to hurt something.
His Bad Cat, as Mystery Girl had called him, was paying way too much attention to this woman. He wasn’t hunting her anymore, not the way he was supposed to. He needed to get her out of the territory as soon as humanly possible, not just for his own well-being…but also for hers.
Because no woman, no matter how m
uch they irritated him, deserved the attention of a monster like him.
Chapter Four
A stiff breeze blew in through the open window of Eden’s truck, and she looked up at the sky out of habit. No falcons. Relief. She didn’t feel safe outside of Damon’s Mountains because of Mom’s warnings. Falcons had either allies and enemies, no in-between. She’d been safe under the protection of the Ashe Crew, and of Damon Daye, but out here in the Appalachian Mountains with no crew behind her, she was exposed. There was a reason she wasn’t registered, and it had to do with a war between two sides of the falcon-shifter culture that had been waged a hundred years ago and was still being fought between the Welkin Raiders and the Crestfall Warriors. The councils on both sides that used to make decisions for the war had been killed off one by one over the past three years, including her grandfather. Only a few members of the Welkin Raider Council remained, and they were in hiding as far as she’d heard. Without leadership, chaos had blown through the falcon culture like a tsunami, and now the war had re-ignited worse than ever with only the warriors to make decisions. Eden needed to stay off the radar of the falcons.
If she was found with no protection, she could be taken into the Crestfall Warriors as a breeder because of her lineage, her mother’s bloodline, and the color of her feathers, or she could be killed by the Welkin Raiders. Safety in numbers, and out here, where she was helping Lynn, Eden was alone.
She gripped the steering wheel and frowned out the front window at the sign above the mechanic’s garage. Turgard Repair.
Why couldn’t she get Barret out of her head? Okay, yes, he was sexy as hell and set her nethers on fire for reasons she didn’t understand, but he wasn’t particularly nice. And he cussed a lot. That, and two days ago she had caught him with a shotgun he’d brought to aim at her. So why was she here thinking of excuses to see him? “To help Lynn,” she murmured out loud. Even she could hear the lie in her voice, but whatever.