Bad Blood Panther (Bad Blood Shifters Book 4)

by Anastasia Wilde

  He turned her around so she straddled him, the tip of his cock teasing her entrance. “Is this what you want?”

  She ran her fingers through his hair, scraped her nails over his muscular shoulders. “Yes.”

  He plunged into her, hot and hard, filling her so completely she thought she’d never want anything else. “This. Just this.”

  She pushed against him with each thrust, wanting him all the way inside her, filling her, giving her that sense of completeness she’d never had with anyone else. Her chest started burning, and she gasped, desperate for more. She didn’t know what, but she needed more, all of him, something to make that burning stop…

  He was plunging deeply into her now, panting, and she was frantic for him. He flicked on the vibrator once more, and slipped it between them. The rush of sensation was so exquisite that she cried out from the intensity of it. He leaned her back, supporting her, moving his hips in small circles while he teased her clit with the vibrator, bringing her to heights of pleasure she’d never reached before.

  She gave a feral yowl, and the burning place in her chest felt like it ripped open. White heat burst through her, and she shattered around him.

  Xander laid her back carefully on the lounger, covering her face and chest with kisses. “You okay?” he whispered.

  “Yes. No. I want—”

  “This?” Still hard, he slid inside her once more. Body to body, skin to skin, heart to heart. She could feel his beating as fast as hers, but his movements were slow and gentle. He stroked her hair back from her face, then tangled his fingers with hers, laying her forearms back on either side of her face.

  Lips touched in slow kisses; tongues tangled together. He moved slowly, deeply into her, bringing her to one more crashing climax he matched with his own.

  Chapter 16

  Afterward they lay on the lounger, talking. Xander ran his finger lightly over the scar across her left cheek, and kissed it.

  “Why do you always do that?” Jenny asked drowsily.

  “Because you think it’s ugly,” he said. “I’m trying to find out how many times I have to kiss it, to make you think it’s pretty.”

  “It’ll never be pretty,” she said.

  “You are, though,” he said. “With or without it. You’re beautiful.”

  That made her heart turn to moosh. How did he keep making her fall so hard for him, over and over?

  He added, “I don’t know everything that’s going to happen with us. And I suck at being a good…well, anything.” He kissed her scar again. “But I still want to try to be a good mate to you, like I said. I want to talk to Flynn about you officially joining the Bad Blood Crew. If you want.”

  Oh, God. She so wanted that. But she couldn’t let him talk to Flynn without knowing about Brandon. “Xander,” she started, “there’s something I have to tell you.”

  “What?” He propped his elbow on the bed and rested his head in his hand. “You can tell me anything.”

  Somewhere on the floor, Xander’s phone rang—the opening tribal call to the Lion King. Xander rolled over, groping for it.

  Dammit. She needed to get this out, now. She’d waited too long as it was.

  “Let it go,” Jenny begged.

  Xander shook his head. “Can’t,” he said. “That’s Flynn. And he knows we’re having a special fuckapalooza here. He wouldn’t interrupt unless it was important.”

  The call had gone to voice mail by the time he snagged his shorts and dug his phone out of the back pocket. He hit the button and called Flynn back, putting him on speaker.

  “Incoming,” the alpha said. “Two, maybe three. Coming by the road.”

  Damn, Jenny thought. Surely not Broken Hill. They’d come for her with more than two or three people.

  “Hostile?” Xander said.

  “Not friendly,” Flynn replied. “Grab a weapon, just in case.”

  “Ten-four.” Xander began scrambling into his shorts.

  “What’s going on?” Jenny asked. Not like she hadn’t heard everything he’d heard, but she couldn’t help herself.

  “Not sure. Flynn can sense unfriendlies in our territory, and he says we have a couple on their way in. All hands on deck.” He stopped to give her a hard kiss. “You stay here,” he said. “Until we know who they are and what they want.” And then he was gone.

  Through the gap in the tent flap, she saw him lean over the tiki bar and come up with a handgun. He stuck it into the back waistband of his shorts, and jogged for the main clearing.

  Jenny sat for a moment, arms wrapped around her knees. Then she grabbed her clothes and started getting dressed.

  Whoever was out there, she wasn’t hiding in the shadows anymore.

  Xander hit the clearing just ahead of Sloan, who was carrying a rifle. He saw a flash of white wings as Caitlyn ghosted overhead in owl form. Flynn was on the front porch, leaning against the railing, but Xander could glimpse the AK-47 resting barrel-down by his right leg.

  By the time the truck pulled into the clearing, Lissa had come up from her cabin, shotgun in hand. Xander could see Tank’s huge bulk in the woods, in bear form, circling around to block their exit if necessary.

  Tank’s bear could upend a two-ton pickup singlehanded, if he got pissed off enough.

  It was an unfamiliar truck—black crew cab, tinted windows, all jacked up. Flames were painted down the sides—the cheesy kind only a tiny-dicked self-important asshole would have on his ride. The hackles went up on Xander’s neck. He heard himself growling, and he didn’t even fucking know who was in the truck.

  Or maybe he’d known the whole time. Because the passenger door opened, and a sexy blonde with big tits stepped out. She was fully made up, wearing a tight, short-skirted dress and stupid-ass stiletto heels that sank immediately into the damp earth. Wavy hair cascaded down one shoulder.

  Cindi.

  Memories flashed into Xander’s mind, blood and rage and flat-out homicidal insanity.

  Attack! Hurt, bite, claw…

  Fuck.

  Xander growled louder, and the world whirled like a kaleidoscope. His hands flexed, claws coming out and receding over and over. A snarl ripped out of him.

  “Xander.” Flynn’s voice wasn’t loud, but his alpha dominance rolled out over the clearing. “Don’t Change.”

  It helped. Xander forced his cat back, swallowing hard. Don’t kill her. Don’t kill her. Jenny would be upset.

  He focused on the guy getting out of the driver’s side. Big. Panther-y looking. Somebody Xander had met, but his brain was too fragmented to pull out a name, assuming he’d ever cared enough to learn it.

  Cindi’s new fuck-toy? Or just some muscle?

  Cindi shook her hair back and took in the clearing. Her gaze lingered on the cabin. “Well, now,” she said. “This isn’t quite as low-rent as I thought it would be.”

  “Nobody here gives a kangaroo’s ass what you think, Cindi.” Xander’s voice was still gravelly, one step from panther, but at least he could make words.

  She gazed around at the hostile faces of his crew. “Then why are they looking at me like that?”

  “I told them all about you,” Xander said. “Probably they’re deciding whether to rip you into little tiny pieces, or if they should let me do it.”

  Cindi’s eyes narrowed. The muscle shifted his weight, his hand sneaking to the small of his back. Probably kept a piece back there.

  As if that would save him, if the Bad Bloods decided to take him down.

  Xander sighed. “What the fuck do you want?”

  She looked around, then drawled in that sweet-as-honey voice of hers, “I’m looking for Jenny, of course.”

  Oh, hell no. If she thought she and this goon were enough firepower to take Jenny back if she didn’t want to go, she had another think coming. “Leave Jenny alone.”

  “Happy to,” Cindi said, her voice hard. “But she left something important behind when she ran away from Broken Hill, and I just thought I’d bring it along.”


  Xander frowned. Broken Hill was over a day’s drive from Nashville. No way she was just stopping by on her way somewhere.

  “What is it?” But his hackles were rising again, prickles running up and down his spine.

  He somehow knew what was in that truck was going to change everything.

  The muscle opened the back door of the truck and reached inside. After a moment, he lifted out a small boy, maybe two years old, with unruly dark hair and a smudge of something brown and sticky next to his mouth. He set him on the ground.

  The boy scowled, clutching a little stuffed animal in his arms. “Don’t like twuck. Want mama.”

  Xander felt like his mind was turning inside-out. “That’s—Jenny has a son?”

  “Oh, she didn’t tell you? Well, isn’t she a secretive little bitch.” Cindi tapped her finger on her cheek, as if thinking. “Or maybe she was just planning on shacking up here and never coming back for him.”

  “That’s not true.” Jenny’s voice rang out from behind Xander.

  “Oh, there you are,” Cindi said. “How is everything here in trailer park heaven? Did we wake you from your drunken stupor?”

  “Mama!” The kid’s face lit up, and he made a beeline for Jenny. Cindi grabbed the strap of his little overalls, and hauled him back. The stuffed duck fell in the mud.

  Jenny strode forward, shouldering past Xander. “Get your hands off my son,” she snarled.

  The crew growled simultaneously. If there was one thing they couldn’t stand, it was anybody mistreating a kid.

  Not that this one needed their help. He turned and bit Cindi on the wrist. She jerked back. “Ow! You little monster!”

  He picked up his toy off the ground. “You pull my clo’es. Make Mrs. Ducking all dirty.” He hugged his stuffed toy. “Hate you.” He stomped over to Jenny, who swept him up in her arms.

  Xander heard a snort of laughter from Flynn.

  Jenny was shaking with anger. “Don’t you ever touch my son again, you hear me?” she snarled.

  Cindi laughed. “Oh, so now you care about him? Too bad you didn’t think about that when you dumped him with your grandmother and took off to find your old fuck buddy Alex.”

  Jenny gasped. “What did you do to Anthea?”

  Cindi waved negligently. “She’s fine. Just a little bump on the head. She’s probably conscious by now.” She shook her head. “You never think, do you? All the magic in the world doesn’t help if you just let people walk in the front door.”

  Xander found his voice. He knew Anthea—he’d met her once or twice when he and Jenny were friends. She was a good lady. “She trusted you,” he said to Cindi. “And you turned on her. Why am I not surprised?”

  Cindi snorted. “You always were way too sentimental, Alex. I should never have bothered to Turn you. You don’t have the guts to be a warrior.”

  The whole crew growled again, louder. That got past even Cindi’s oblivious self-centeredness. She backed up a step.

  “Why did you do this?” Jenny said. “You had no right.”

  “You know why.” Cindi sneered. “Alton’s seer told him that Broken Hill will be restored to its former glory, and his son is destined to be the next alpha. He was going to make that kid his little prince.”

  “Over my dead body,” Jenny said.

  “Well, lucky for you,” Cindi said, “I made it so it doesn’t come to that. Because my son is going to be the next alpha, not yours.”

  Jenny stared. “Alton got you pregnant?”

  Cindi put her hand on her still-flat stomach. “As far as he knows. And when my son is next in line, I’ll make sure I’m Alton’s chief consort. Something you didn’t manage to pull off, even with all your lies.”

  Jenny said, “You’re deliberately going to pass off your cub as Alton’s? Are you crazy?”

  “Why not?” Cindi said. “If you can do it, I can.”

  Jenny’s eyes went wide with shock, and she glanced over at Xander.

  Xander felt like he’d been slammed in the stomach.

  “What?” Cindi said. “You think I didn’t know whose kid that was? That apple didn’t fall far from the tree.”

  She walked back to the truck. “I let you and your brat live, because we used to be friends. So stay here in your trailer park and be dysfunctional. Join this loser crew. Because if I see you back at Broken Hill, messing up my plans, I will kill you.”

  Xander couldn’t stop himself. He lunged at her, claws coming out. Flynn’s voice cut across the clearing like a whip crack. “Xander!”

  The alpha energy stopped him in his tracks. He crouched on the ground, still human, panting.

  Flynn said to Cindi, “Get out. Leave the kid’s things and get the fuck out of my territory before I tear you apart personally, pregnant or not.”

  The muscle/fuck toy growled, and all the Bad Bloods except Flynn took another step forward and growled back.

  “Stand down, asshole,” Flynn said to the muscle. “If you’ve hooked up with her, you’ll have enough fights in your life. You don’t need this one. Now get the kid’s stuff.”

  The guy pulled a small suitcase and a battered backpack out of the truck and set them down.

  Cindi shook her head at Xander, still crouched on the ground, trying to pull himself together. “Pitiful.” She got back in the truck. “Better get your shit together, Alex. It’s time to welcome your son home.”

  As they drove away, she called out the window, “Happy Father’s Day.”

  Chapter 17

  What. The. Actual. Fuck.

  Xander rose to his feet and stared at the little boy in Jenny’s arms. Brandon scowled at him.

  That was his face, Xander realized. And that was his “I fucking hate everyone” scowl.

  Terror, fury, and numb confusion converged on him like colliding ocean waves, knocking him breathless. The kid was the right age, a tiny still-rational part of his mind told him. A few months over two, maybe, and he’d been with Jenny three years ago. That one time.

  His cat had gone very still. Ours, he said. Cub.

  Sloan came over to Xander, putting his hand on Xander’s back.

  “Dude. You okay?”

  “Not even a little,” Xander said, staring at his mate and her son. His son.

  “Is he really yours?” Sloan asked.

  “Bad Cindi. Made Mrs. Ducking dirty.” Brandon glared after the receding truck. Then he caught sight of a squirrel running across the clearing. “Skerrill!” he shrieked, bouncing in Jenny’s arms. “Kill it?”

  Sloan shook his head, grinning. “Never mind.”

  Somebody took Brandon’s things out of the middle of the yard. Everyone else melted away, back to whatever they’d been doing.

  Xander just stood, frozen in place. His mate. His son. He had a son.

  And Jenny hadn’t told him. She’d come here, let him fall in love with her, promised to be his mate. And she hadn’t told him about this.

  She walked up to him slowly, still holding Brandon. He was sucking on one of his little fists, staring at Xander.

  “Xander,” Jenny said, “this is Brandon. Brandon,” she smoothed his hair back from his forehead, “this is your daddy.”

  Brandon frowned. “Not Daddy Alpha.” Fuck. He meant Alton.

  “No, baby,” Jenny said. “This is your real daddy.”

  She raised her eyes to Xander’s. She mouthed, “I’m sorry.”

  He couldn’t deal. Everything he’d been through in the last three years came crashing down on him—again. Everything he’d dreamed, everything he’d lost, all the people who’d betrayed him.

  He felt like he was going to detonate, and vaporize everything within a hundred feet of him. He heard, from far away, a muffled growling, and realized it was coming from him. His head started going crazy the way it did when his panther was caught between rage and pain and longing.

  He backed away, unable to control the noises his cat was making. Then he turned and ran for his truck. Pulling the keys down off the v
isor, he started it up and peeled out, leaving his fucked-up life in the dust.

  Jenny stared after Xander, too numb to feel any pain.

  Of course he’d run. What had she expected? She’d come here under false pretenses, ripped open old wounds, and just when he was starting to be happy, she’d hit him with this.

  He was going to hate her now. She just hoped he didn’t hate Brandon too.

  She kissed her son’s sticky cheek, and he squirmed.

  “Thusty,” he said. “Want juice.”

  “I’ll see if I can find some, baby.”

  “Hey.” She started at the sound of Sloan’s voice. “You want some help with his stuff?”

  “What?” she said. Then she noticed the suitcase and the backpack at the edge of the clearing. “I guess. But…I don’t know where to take it. I don’t know if Xander will want us in the trailer when he comes back.”

  If he comes back.

  Sloan just snorted, like she was being an idiot. He picked up Brandon’s things and headed for the trailer.

  Inside, she put Brandon down and let him run around. Luckily, there was a juice box in the backpack, so she was saved a tantrum over juice.

  Brandon threw himself on the couch and buried his face in the cushions. “Like this place. Smell nice.”

  He was picking up Xander’s scent, she realized. And it made him feel welcome.

  Sloan watched him, a bemused expression on his face. “Xander’s got a kid.” He shook his head. “I can’t believe it.” He turned to Jenny. “Why didn’t you tell him?”

  She shrugged helplessly. “I didn’t know if he’d want us. I didn’t know if he’d be capable of helping us. I didn’t know if Brandon would be safe here.”

  “What are you talking about? Of course he is.”

  Jenny dropped her gaze. “Don’t get mad at me, but…the way Xander goes crazy, and the way the rest of you brawl, just whenever and wherever…I worry he’ll get hurt.”

  “Jenny, he’s a kid. Whatever else we have going on, none of us would ever hurt a kid.”

  “I know you wouldn’t want to,” she said.