Or, if she was lucky, maybe he’d be gone by the time she got back.
As she was leaving the house Spot, her cat, was trying to get in.
“Oh, you poor thing!” she whispered. “Mama forgot to let you in last night.”
She’d have to remember to feed her when she got back. Nydia reached down and petted the cat on her head and let her go inside before she gently eased the door closed.
Walking down the front porch steps and heading for her car, Nydia stopped in her tracks when she saw the huge dent on the front hood and blood smeared all over the bumper.
“Lord, they’re going to think I killed someone with this thing,” she muttered to herself. Moving down the walkway onto the concrete pad, she peered down at the damage.
She couldn’t drive into town with all of that blood on her car. It was bound to raise some suspicions.
“Deer,” she said, thinking to herself. Unless there’d been another hit and run reported, she’d probably get away with that excuse.
She’d have to head to a car wash first thing.
Her unexpected guest was piling up all sorts of costs for her.
Nydia would have to take her car to the shop in a few days and have the dent pulled out. It was too late to get that done today. Most shops were jammed up right before Friday and closed down on the weekend.
Another expense. Her insurance might go up.
“Dammit,” she said. She waved her hands in the air. “I just won’t report it.”
Opening the door, she slid into her seat and realized he’d on the upholstery of the passenger seat. “Great. That’s just brilliant. Yeah, I hit a deer and then put him in the car. Everyone will believe me.”
The phone buzzed as it vibrated. Nydia picked it up and saw yet another call from Richard. Why hadn’t that asshole gotten the message yet that she didn’t want to talk to him? She was done and that was that. Plus, she had bigger issues on her mind at the moment—like not going to jail.
Nydia planted her face against the steering wheel, gripping it with tense hands. Lies were piling up and she hadn’t even left the driveway yet!
She supposed he couldn’t help messing up the pristine interior of her car, but it was annoying just the same. Aiden had crashed through her well-ordered world.
Now she’d have to get the car detailed and deal with looks from the staff over a bloody hood and interior.
If she could keep them from reporting her to the police as a murderer, she’d consider herself a master storyteller.
***
Aiden woke with a rumbling in his stomach. His heightened senses told him immediately that Nydia was no longer in the house. He sat up and glanced around. The little house was quiet. He saw the note left on the whiteboard and smiled just a little.
Then he got to thinking that the note might simply be for his benefit. She may have gone to tell the authorities on him. He hoped his insinuations that she would be charged with a crime would stop her from doing that, but he couldn’t be certain that it would.
He really didn’t need the authorities asking a lot of questions. So far he had been able to avoid the ones that Nydia had about the incident by using the guilt she felt for hitting him.
He’d told the truth about wanting to avoid the cops. Their involvement tended to make a bad situation worse—something he needed to avoid at the moment.
Shape shifters, like other creatures that man didn’t truly understand, did everything they could to remain off the radar of the government.
It went without saying that normal people probably couldn’t handle the reality that shape-shifters, vampires, fairies, goblins, and other supernatural beings lived amongst them.
They’d lived in the shadows for eternity, revealing themselves to humans only on the rare occasions that it was necessary, or when a human got in their way and managed to get either killed or infected.
Aiden had been infected so long ago, he’d long since forgotten what year it had happened. Sometime in the 80s when their town wasn’t even a dot on the map, and certainly well before the internet and cell phones.
He expected he’d live to see other radical changes to his environment.
If Lee Riker and his gang didn’t kill him first.
Aiden thought about all of the news he had heard on television where people accused each other of being prejudiced and how so many people swore that they weren’t prejudiced against others who were different.
Aiden snickered. If they only knew what dwelled beneath the surface of their society, they’d all band together to hate the supernaturals.
At least they might not be hating on various ethnicities and genders anymore.
Maybe it’d bring about world peace.
“Yeah, right,” he muttered.
Aiden stood and flexed his muscles. He bent from side to side to limber himself back up a little from sleeping too long on the couch and pretending to be injured.
He’d had a close call with Nydia wanting to check his wound. He’d managed to open the scar left by the silver blade before she could see it was healed.
Maintaining his façade was growing wearisome. He hoped he could make contact with his brethren soon so he could stop the charade and get free of this woman.
He left the sanctity of the living room and went into the kitchen. The soup smelled good despite his reservations. He stirred it with a spoon and dripped the contents back into the pot, watching as the chunks plopped and spattered.
“Bleh! Vegetables,” he said. He was a wolf, dammit. Wolves needed meat!
He just hoped he’d won out with Nydia and she was getting him some real food. The thought that she might have caved in gave him a superiority complex and he strutted to the pantry to look inside it again.
The contents really were pathetic and limited.
He frowned. No wonder the girl was so skinny. Who wouldn’t be living off of all this rabbit food?
Aiden continued his snooping in the living area of the small home.
He’d been amused by her trying to hide her dildo from him. The flush she’d gotten all over her body had made her eyes look wild and fevered. He imagined she looked much the same when getting hot and bothered and ready to fuck.
Thinking about it made his cock get hard.
He frowned again and rubbed himself. Fucking a human wasn’t on the agenda, least of all one like Nydia. The girl was a little too OCD to be with someone like him. He didn’t consider himself a slob, but he was a man and a little beastly at times.
She struck him as the type of person that didn’t like to get dirty. And he was the kind of guy that liked getting a woman dirty. Very dirty.
He went into the bedroom and started to look through drawers when he heard something that wasn’t a growl, but it was guttural like it came from the throat of an animal.
Mildly alarmed, Aiden turned slowly and saw a cat glaring at him and making the growling noises in the base of its throat.
Aiden froze and stared at the cat.
The cat’s short white fur stood on end in a streak up its long sleek body. On the top of its head was a single black spot the size of a thumbprint.
The cat stood like you would expect a guard dog to stand, shoulders up, on the tips of its toes, slightly curved, with its tail looking like a fat bottle brush.
Aiden watched the cat, listening to the mean little bastard growl at him.
He took one step forward, and the cat launched from its position, landing on Aiden’s chest with every claw extended.
Aiden couldn’t help the scream that erupted from his throat.
The claws of the cat felt like knives when it ran them over Aiden’s bare chest.
“Ah!” he hollered, knocking the white beast off his chest.
The animal made the guttural sound again, and then launched for another attack, hissing and sputtering and spitting.
Aiden retreated, hitting his back on the bedroom wall as the cat tore at his legs and ran up his pajamas.
“What the h
ell!” he yelled, shaking his leg to knock the monstrosity loose and making his own low guttural noises to warn the animal off.
The cat landed on the bed, twisting and landing on its feet in an impressive, fluid move.
Aiden bowed up at the thing, growling to scare it away. “Get out of here!”
The cat acted like it was anything but scared of Aiden.
Sometimes, running was the better part of valor. Aiden determined he would lock the animal up in the bedroom until Nydia returned.
He just had to dash out the door and shut it before the cat could chase him down.
Aiden eyed the door twelve feet away from his position.
Piece of cake.
He took a step forward, making a retreat.
Out of the corner of his eye Aiden saw the cat as a blur in motion. Realizing at once that the damned thing wasn’t going to let him get away so easily, he raised his arms to protect his face from the animal and to his surprise it bit him on the leg rather than leaping back onto his chest.
Aiden yelled and lifted his leg, trying to shake it free. Dagger like teeth sunk into his ankle.
“Fuck! Ow!”
The cat wrapped its arms around his calf, tearing into his leg before he managed to dislodge it and launch it away from him and onto the bed. The creature stood on all fours and bounced across the bed on its toes, hissing and spitting.
He needn’t have worried about hurting the little bastard. Its reflexes were faster than his.
Aiden glared at the animal and dared it to attack him again.
Aiden had never seen a cat like this one. It acted more like a dog than a cat was supposed to. He surveyed the room and decided his best course of action was going to be to get into the bathroom where he could close the door between him and this creature.
Aiden slowly started walking sideways, watching the cat watching his every move. Bastard knew it had won.
Aiden hated to admit he’d been bested by something so small, but it wasn’t like he could do anything violent. The animal was obviously her pet. He couldn’t hurt the animal, even if it’d attacked him. It was just naturally defending its turf from an intruder.
The cat crouched with a glare in its eyes, its haunches wiggling as if it might leap at him again the moment he let his guard down.
Just as Aiden reached the point in his maneuvers where his back was to the bathroom door, and the cat was no longer between him and safety, the creature shot up at him for another attack. Aiden leapt backwards with a yelp and slammed the bathroom door shut.
“Jesus Christ,” he muttered. Behind him, he could hear the cat meowing at the door.
He kicked the base of the door, hoping to scare it away.
The master bathroom was really quite large for such a small house. A cherry vanity with a freestanding sink hugged the front corner with a framed and lighted mirror above that. At the back stood a roomy claw footed tub with a plush towel draped across the back. And in the opposite corner stood the toilet and a small glass enclosed steam shower.
Aiden concluded she must own her home and had invested on remodeling her bathroom to bring the spa experience home.
The woman liked being clean, obviously.
Aiden stepped in front of the mirror and looked at a reflection that he hardly recognized. He looked disheveled and in great need of a bath and a shave.
He rubbed a hand over his scruffy chin. Maybe the look wasn’t too bad—if he wanted people to think he was homeless and had no way to clean himself up.
His normally fast growing beard was going to be in full blossom by the afternoon if he didn’t tend to it now.
Sighing, Aiden started opening drawers until he located some razors and shaving gel. The pink gel smelled like the floral perfume of a retiree. He got a hand towel from the rack and turned the faucet on in the sink.
He splashed water on his face and applied some of the shaving gel. The gel lathered well and Aiden proceeded to remove the beard that was attempting to take over. He swore that his beard grew faster than kudzu.
He put the stopper in the tub and started some warm water running in it. The bathroom was like every other inch of the home, impeccably clean and organized.
On a shelf beside the tub were an assortment of shampoos, conditioners, and body wash containers. He shook his head as he noticed that the labels on the bottles were all turned in the same direction.
Aiden chuckled.
This girl had a serious neatness problem.
Aiden peeled the too short pants off, and stepped into the tub. Lowering his long form into the steaming water, he gave a blissful sigh.
Reaching to the knobs, he adjusted the water to the point that his skin reddened everywhere water touched it.
Shape-shifters might be fantastic healers, but it didn’t prevent them from feeling pain or residual soreness after injury or exertion. He supposed the fact that he was still sore a day later had something to do with being poisoned by silver.
Aiden knew the other shape shifters would be relentless in their pursuit of him and their objective. Getting rid of a rival leader and acquiring their clan and territory made a pack stronger and harder to dispose of. Aiden had known there were others like him in the area, but had chosen to let them live in peace rather than make war. In his mind, they weren’t animals and should be able to live in their own areas without causing trouble.
He regretted not wiping them out earlier or at least finding out how many they had in their numbers and what strengths they possessed. Being inbred didn’t necessarily mean they were weaker. Thinking back, he remembered that some of those guys were some big sons-of-bitches.
Maybe he wasn’t cut out for this leadership business after all. He’d inherited the clan from his father just a few years ago. Everyone seemed agreeable to the shift in power to him, but that didn’t mean he was right for the job.
Aiden sighed.
His lax attitude would be the death of him.
When the tub filled a few inches from the top, he turned the tap off and stretched out in the tub to soak. He wet the wash cloth in the hot water and placed it over his eyes to allow the heat to steam some of the ache away.
Sleep crept into his consciousness just as the bathroom door opened.
Chapter Eight
Nydia got her shopping bags out of the car and went to the kitchen door. She unlocked the door and quickly looked to the couch in the living room, hoping Aiden would still be asleep there. To her dismay he wasn’t.
Nydia sat her bags on the counter and poured food into Spot’s bowl. The cat ran into the kitchen at the first tinkling sounds of cereal hitting the ceramic bowl.
She petted her cat, who purred her approval, then started down the hall. The guest bathroom and bedroom were both empty.
Which left her bedroom.
A strange little thrill shivered down her backbone.
She wanted to call it annoyance at having her peaceful domain violated by his presence. Inside her bedroom, she found an open drawer on her bureau, and the sheets were slightly rumpled.
Had he been in her bed?
For some reason, the thought didn’t make her angry.
She walked to the bathroom and opened the door slowly.
As the door swung wide and silent, Nydia was greeted with the sight of her houseguest lounging in her tub, as if he had every right to be there. She was inside before she thought better of it, standing halfway inside the bathroom and torn between the desire to see more and escape before he noticed her.
He was naked except for a clear coating of steam and water. Droplets frolicked down his hairy chest and the happy trail that led to the playground at the end of the rainbow. Oh, and a wash cloth covering his eyes.
Yeah, that hid enough that he couldn’t see how shocked and bothered she was by seeing him in there.
Nydia’s mouth went dry. She swallowed, forcing moisture into her mouth to free her tongue from the roof.
She planted her feet and plunked her hands on her hips. “
What are you doing in here?” she croaked.
He sat up in the tub, dropping the cloth with a wet plop between his legs. The look he gave her spoke volumes…and looked infinitely inviting.
“I thought it would help my injuries to soak a while. You just have a shower in the other bathroom.”
“Are…are you feeling…better?”
Savage Instinct Page 7