His Purrfect Mate

by Georgette St. Clair

  Bullets flew, silver bullets landing in the flesh of Demon-Sophronia’s bodyguards, and they fell on the ground, screaming in agony and then convulsing in their death throes.

  The bear shifter who’d been sitting at the table rushed over to Chloe and Hilary, protecting them with his broad body. The human woman from the table ran over to them, kneeling behind them. “One minute!” she called out, fumbling with Chloe’s copper handcuffs. “Okay…got it!” And the handcuffs fell to the floor, followed by Hillary’s handcuffs.

  More people were pouring in from the other room, shifters, humans…one of them was a panther…

  Kenneth. Kenneth was there.

  There were more shots, and roars of rage as the demon-Sophronia’s bear shifters fought with wolves and coyotes, and, bizarrely, a crocodile shifter. The crocodile lunged at one of Sophroni’as bear shifters and ripped its intestines open. Then one of the soldiers shot the bearwith silver-colored bullets and it fell to the ground with a mighty thud, screaming in agony.

  Sophronia lay curled on her side, motionless, her arm drenched in blood. Chloe couldn’t tell if the empty shell of her body was even breathing any more.

  A little cheetah shifter ran into the room, and shifted into a human boy. “I missed all of the fun!” he complained.

  The crocodile shifted back into human form, and grabbed a folded tablecloth from the top of a wooden bureau, neatly tucking it around herself like a sari. She grabbed another one and handed it to the young boy. “That is quite enough, Reggie,” she said severely. “You are not to be in a room where there is gunfire.”

  “Yes, Gopika,” he sighed.

  The room fell silent, as the last of Sophronia’s servants writhed in his death throes on the floor. Kenneth shifted back to his human form, and threw his arms around Chloe. He had what looked like a bullet wound on his arm, she noticed. It was mostly healed; shifters healed faster than humans.

  “You got my message!” she cried.

  “Of course I did. The day that you misspell a word – well, there will never be such a day. Are you all right? I’ve been worried sick!” He hugged her so tightly she could barely breathe.

  “Hey,” she gasped. “Oxygen. My ribs. Okay, that’s better.” She sagged against him. He always felt so warm and comforting.

  “Did they hurt you?”

  “No, they were saving that for later. I am fine. I’m also thoroughly confused. I am so, so confused. How did you get here?”

  “Private jet, of course.”

  “You’ve been shot.”

  “The plane had to land outside of the city. There were bandits between here and the city,” Kenneth shrugged. “We outran them.”

  “And you…bought a crocodile with you? And a child? This hardly seems like the place to bring a child.”

  “That is a very long story. The child got here first; he managed to outsmart several of my employees-” Kenneth shot a severe look at the coyote shifter, who hung her head and looked ashamed – “and stow away on their plane when they came here. The crocodile is his nanny; she insisted on coming here with me to make sure that he was safe. She flew out to Italy right as I was headed over here.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake, it could have happened to anyone,” the coyote shifter muttered. “I’d love to see you outwit the little monster. It can’t be done.”

  Reggie beamed with pride. His nanny shook her head with exasperation. “These shenanigans are nothing to be proud of,” she scolded. “You could have been killed, my dear. I will be keeping a much closer eye on you in the future.”

  The female human shook her head in exasperation. “Good luck with that,” she muttered.

  “Please,” Kenneth said scornfully. “You were outwitted by someone who plays with Transformer toys.”

  “Hey, the Transformers are cool. Put your clothes on, will you?” The female coyote shifter had already pulled on a long, flowing robe, and she tossed Kenneth a pair of pants that she’d pulled out of a black duffel bag. Clearly she’d come prepared.

  “Is that man Kenneth Chamberlin?” Hilary asked.

  “The one and only,” Chloe said.

  “Why is he here? Why did they stage this elaborate charade? I don’t understand,” Hilary said, looking baffled.

  “I think I do,” Chloe said. “They had to lure the demon-servant here, and get her to bring the statues here. The only way for them to do that was to pretend that one of the guardians of the statues had become possessed by the other demon-servant, and was going to betray his family. They had to stage this whole scene so she’d be willing to bring the statues in the house.”

  A look of horror flashed across Hilary’s face.

  “Chloe! It’s getting up!” Hilary shrieked, pointing at Sophronia. “The demon! It’s not dead!”

  Sophronia was, indeed, sitting up, with a dazed look on her face. She looked around the room in bewilderment, clutching at her bleeding arm.

  “It’s all right,” Karesh said. “The demon is gone, trapped inside the statue. The human inside her has re-awakened now that the demon no longer controls her body.”

  “Wait. The statue – that’s the statue of the servant. Isn’t there already one demon-servant trapped in there? The one that you were pretending to be?” Chloe asked.

  “Yes. Now it contains two. No telling how they’re getting along in there.” He allowed himself a wicked smile.

  “Where am I?” Sophronia was looking around the room in a daze.

  Her confusion was quite understandable.

  There were dozens of humans and shifters milling about. Abdul’s family was picking up furniture and putting it back in place, smoothing down rugs, replacing pictures on walls. There were dead bear shifters lying on the floor. There were soldiers pushing big crates out of the room. The coyote shifter was now hugging the wolf shifter and they were kissing very passionately.

  The female human who’d freed Chloe from her handcuffs smacked the coyote shifter. “Bobbi! Tone it down! There’s kids in here! Jeez, get a room, you freaks,” she scolded them.

  Sophronia slowly climbed to her feet. A woman from the El-Debar family walked over to her with a bowl of water, and a towel. “Let me help you,” she said, and began washing off the wound. When she’d washed off all the blood, she made a bandage from napkins on the table.

  Chloe and Hilary stood by, watching warily. It was hard to get used to Sophronia as an actual human being, not a hell-thing that wanted to drain their blood for food.

  “Barrett,” Sophronia said suddenly, looking around in bewilderment. “Where is Barrett?”

  “Uhhh…” Chloe glanced at her mother.

  Sophronia’s gaze lighted on Kenneth. “You…you look like Barrett…You look so much like him you could be his brother. But he doesn’t have a brother. Who are you?”

  Chloe and Hilary glanced at each other, and winced. “I…I have to tell you something, and it’s not going to be easy for you to understand,” Hilary said.

  Sophronia stared at both of them, her eyes growing huge. “Who are you people? You look just like me. I feel as if I’ve lost my mind. How did I get in this house? I was in the storage room…”

  “I’m your daughter Hilary,” Hilary said hesitantly. “And this is your granddaughter, Chloe.” Her face brightened. “She’s very successful, you know. She’s a world-famous professor, and now she’s going to marry a handsome panther billionaire. That one. Right there.” She pointed at Kenneth.

  “Mother!” Chloe’s cheeks flamed red with embarrassment. Of all the times to brag! And who’d said anything about marriage? Could her mother maybe let Chloe date the man first, for heaven’s sake?

  “She’s right,” Kenneth said.

  “I don’t have a daughter, and that wouldn’t even make sense,” Sophronia said, clutching at her wounded arm and looking at them suspiciously. “You’re older than me.” Hilary looked hurt. “Although you look very good for your age. Whatever that is,” Sophronia added.

  “I know this is going to be d
ifficult to believe, but when you were handling those statues, you accidentally cut your arm and released a demon, which took over your body, and sent you into a kind of dreamless sleep for many decades. It’s 2013,” Chloe told her. “The demon married several times, while in your body. One of those men was Hilary’s father.”

  Sophronia went pale and backed away from her. “No. That isn’t possible. Oh, God, I remember it taking over my mind. We were staggering, falling around the room, it was controlling my body and I was fighting it. I remember it calling out to Barrett, in my voice, and then everything went black. It happened, didn’t it? Oh, no…Barrett? Where is Barrett? What happened to him?”

  Chloe, Kenneth, and Hilary exchanged dismayed glances. Sophronia’s eyes filled with tears.

  “Tell me!” she cried frantically. She grabbed Hilary’s arm. “He was my fated mate! I have to know! What happened? Did I kill him when I was in demon form? What happened?”

  “Nobody killed him. He isn’t dead,” Karesh said.

  Chapter Fourteen

  His words struck Kenneth like a thunderbolt, like a physical blow. His grandfather was alive?

  The room fell completely silent, all eyes on Karesh. Chloe and her mother gaped with astonishment.

  “What did you say?” Kenneth’s voice went ice cold. “Excuse me?”

  “Karesh, you had no right!” Abdul yelled at his son. “I am the leader of this family! You have overstepped your bounds!”

  Kenneth whirled to face the man, his eyes blazing with anger. “Abdul. You son of a bitch. My grandfather is alive, and you have knowledge of this?”

  Kenneth had flown into Turak and contacted Abdul the night before, and they’d devised this plan to lure in Sophronia. They’d talked for hours. Abdul had sat there and looked him in the face and shared dinner with Kenneth and the bodyguards he’d brought from California, and introduced him to his family, and never said a word about his grandfather.

  Abdul took a deep breath, and appeared to be struggling to control himself as he glared daggers at Karesh.

  “There is no longer need to keep the man a prisoner,” Karesh said coldly. “All of these people know of the statues now. The secret is out.”

  “I know that,” Abdul spat out his words as if they tasted bitter. “I would have released him. But that was my decision, not yours.”

  “Would you have?” Karesh’s voice was scornful. He turned to Kenneth. “My father is no longer the man that he once was. I think that he has been influenced by the demon.”

  “Karesh!” an attractive older woman cried out, sounding shocked. He shook his head at her sadly.

  “I’m sorry, mother. We all live for our duty, and we all know that it is more important than anything, including family. Father’s actions lately have been…questionable.”

  Kenneth’s arm slipped from around Chloe’s shoulders, and he whirled with fury on Abdul, grabbing him by the throat and slamming him against the wall.

  “Tell me,” he growled. “Where is my grandfather?”

  “Make him tell you!” Sophronia cried out. “Where is Barrett?”

  There were shouts from the soldiers, who were working for Abdul, and from Abdul’s family.

  Kenneth had Bobbi, Jax, Heath, and Pixie on his side, and had bought two dozen of his own men with him from the Shifters, Inc., firm. Within seconds, everyone in the room was bristling with anger – the shifters, literally bristling – and pointing weapons at each other.

  “You must understand,” Abdul choked out. “We are not monsters. After we tried to buy those two statues from him, he kept coming around here, asking questions. He was asking everyone in town, stirring up curiousity, and he would not give up. Year after year he came back to Turak. He risked exposing us. Finally we staged the plane crash and took him prisoner.”

  “Of course he kept coming back; he was trying to find out what had happened to his fated mate. You’ve held my grandfather prisoner for fifty years. You made his family think he was dead. I can’t think of one good reason not to kill you.” Kenneth tightened his grip and Abdul gasped for air, his face reddening.

  Kenneth was so angry that he could barely breathe. Maxwell had only been ten when Barrett disappeared. Kenneth had never had the opportunity to meet his own grandfather. All these years, the man had been held a prisoner, like a condemned murderer without even the right to trial? Kenneth’s grip tightened even more, and Abdul’s face went purple.

  “Don’t kill him! Please!” Abdul’s wife cried out frantically. “This is our duty, our destiny! You do not understand what could happen if the demon were freed.”

  Kenneth loosened his grip slightly. “And I don’t care. I just want my grandfather back, you son of a bitch,” he snarled at Abdul.

  “You don’t care because you don’t know what this demon is capable of,” Abdul wheezed, sucking in air. “My ancestor, the great sorcerer-priest Garesh, made the same mistake. He was the one who summoned the demon Lashkallu and his servants from the demon realm, thinking he could control them and conquer all of the cities in Sumer. He found out very quickly, nobody can control the demon. The demon laid waste to entire cities, including Garesh’s city, killing thousands of people, making their blood boil like hot lava inside their bodies.”

  “Who defeated the demon?” Chloe asked. That was Chloe, ever the academic, Kenneth thought.

  “Garesh did, at the cost of his own life,” Karesh told her. “He built the statues as vessels to trap the demon, and its two servants. The only way to summon up a spell powerful enough to trap the demon and its servants in the statues was to sacrifice his own life by spilling all of his blood. Before he did, he made his two oldest sons vow to split the statues up and take them to different parts of the country, so they would never reunite. They were to be walled up in two separate tombs, where they were to remain and be guarded forever. My house is built on top of one of the tombs.”

  Kenneth turned back to Abdul, lips peeling back to reveal his fangs as they descended. Black fur rippled over his face and hands, his ears turned rounded, and claws shot from his fingertips, puncturing Abdul’s skin.

  “Enough talk. Take me to my grandfather, now, or I swear to God I will kill you,” Kenneth rasped, voice shaking with fury.

  * * *

  “Are you nervous?” Hilary asked Sophronia as their car bounced over the cratered road.

  “Dazed, bewildered…I’m too stunned to be nervous. Can I look at your cellular telephone again?”

  Hilary handed it to her. Sophronia stared the pictures on the phone’s screen in fascination. “So there are hundreds of pictures inside this thing? And movies? And it makes telephone calls, but like a radio, with no wires?”

  “Wait till I teach you how to use Facebook,” Hillary said enthusiastically.

  Chloe groaned aloud. Her mother was a crazy woman.

  “How to use what?” Sophronia asked, puzzled, turning the phone around and examining the back. “I don’t know what I’m going to do. The whole world has changed. I don’t have a job or a home.”

  “Oh, don’t be silly. You’ll stay with me. You’ll be like my younger sister!” Hillary said enthusiastically.

  “If Barrett is alive, I should be with him. We can live right next to you, though,” Sophronia said. She stared into Hilary’s face again. “I can’t stop looking at you. I’m so sad I didn’t get to see you grow up.”

  “You know…we don’t know what kind of condition Barrett is going to be in, and he’ll be in his 70s now,” Chloe said. Kenneth was sitting next to her, and she felt him go rigid when she said that.

  “I don’t care,” Sophronia said loyally. “I don’t care if he’s a thousand years old. He’s my fated mate, and I will be with him for as long as he’s alive.”

  “Are you all right?” Chloe asked Kenneth.

  “I’ll be fine.” He grabbed her hand and squeezed it, and managed a smile, but the grim set of his jaw gave away his anger and distress. She couldn’t blame him one bit.

  Abdu
l was driving the vehicle. Karesh, Kenneth, the female human named Pixie, and four of Kenneth shifter’s bodyguards had come along for the ride.

  “There it is,” Abdul said.

  Abdul had confessed to them that Barrett had been trapped in his panther form ever since he was captured in the 1970s, at a private zoo owned by friends of the El-Debar family. The zoo owners had never known that he was a panther shifter, only that he must be kept safe and treated well, Abdul told them.

  Barrett had come to Abdul’s home demanding answers, and refused to leave if he didn’t get them. Abdul had shot him with a tranquilizer dart, and, while he was unconscious, had placed a special collar on him – a collar that had been enchanted by a powerful sorcerer, to keep a shifter trapped in their animal form.

  Then, Abdul had arranged for the faked plane crash in the mountains, with liberal bribes to the easily corruptible local police force to back up their story. They’d told Barrett’s family that Barrett’s body had never been found.

  The car swiftly headed past a giraffe habitat, past a giant aviary, over a small bridge that crossed a river full of crocodiles, and on to a lush, sprawling jungle habitat where a panther paced through high grass.

  “You see? It is beautiful! He has been treated like a prince!” Abdul’s tone was pleading.

  Kenneth responded with a stream of obscenities, and leaped from the car. They all scrambled to follow him, and Sophronia raced over to a puzzled looking zookeeper who had come to meet them.

  “Let him out!” she cried.

  He shook his head in bewilderment. “That is what my boss told me, but you do not understand. He will attack you,” he protested. “He is very vicious.”

  Kenneth half shifted, face lengthening to a snout, and he snapped at the man’s neck, causing him to stagger back and cry out.

  “I’ll show you vicious,” Kenneth snarled. “That man is my grandfather, and you’ve been holding him prisoner here. Let him out!”

  “That is not possible!” the man cried. He glanced at Abdul, who hung his head.

  “What have you done?” the zookeeper demanded. “This was a man that I kept caged here all these years?? We never would have kept him here if we’d known! This is criminal!”