A Cougar's Claim (Charmed in Vegas Book 7)

by Jennifer James

  Helping her smooth her new shirt down over her head, Kit groaned. He couldn’t lose her again. She was bound to him, they were mates. Nothing could tear that apart. Right?

  Except, he’d done that before. Torn them apart himself, years ago.

  “So then you stay here and I’ll go after him. Some of my friends are here in the hotel and they can protect you while I’m gone.” Underneath the minty smell of the hotel body wash, he detected his own scent entwined with hers. The evidence of their mating helped calm him. He kissed her throat, the nape of her neck, her ear lobe. “You’re more important to me than Jase. If it comes down to leaving him to save you, I’m leaving him.”

  “You’re so worried this is going to be a big battle with like, rocket launchers or something.”

  No, not rocket launchers. But he had a bad feeling about that bar. With a demon on their trail, the two henchmen he’d taken out at the train station, the Wild Hunt in town, and the rumors about Inila’s mate heading for Vegas, Kit wasn’t going to let his guard down for even a second.

  Part of him wanted to order her to stay put. Let him handle it. But he knew harsh words or actions would send her running from him. Was this going to be their first fight as mates? If she was by his side he’d be able to keep an eye on her himself. “Sure you won’t stay here? My friend Daegus is a blast.”

  “I’m sure. I won’t change my mind so stop stalling. I want to be able to leave Vegas behind without worrying that Mancini is after me.” She rushed to him, kissed him once, hard and fast, and tugged him behind her to the door. “Come on, let’s get this over with. I’m dying to give you a private dance.”

  Wicked, wanton female. A purely male growl rumbled up from his chest. She had him on a leash already and he couldn’t be happier. Swinging her up into his arms, he sprinted down the hallway, passing more than one open door.

  Each framed a member of the Wild Hunt, his old friends whooping and hollering, filling the air with a reverberating concussion of sound.

  “Who the hell are they?”

  “Fae shapeshifters. My friends.” Kit couldn’t wait for the elevator, heading for the stairwell instead. “I spent a few years traveling with them.”

  “I bet they all have pierced dicks.” Rhiannon peeked over his shoulder. “Ugh. And motorcycles. Let’s make them take Jase with them. Maybe he’ll stay out of trouble that way.”

  “You obviously don’t know anything about the fae if you think they’ll keep someone out of trouble.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  The Howler mimicked an old, rustic bar like one of dozens on the Vegas strip, despite being established for only seven years. Housed inside the enormous Shifted Reality hotel and casino complex, the establishment had the requisite neon beer signs adorning the windows and walls, a huge mirror behind the bar, and a scuffed wooden floor. A large curtained stage ran from one side of the bar to the other across the back wall with the bar situated to the right of the entry. The pure predictability of the place was part of what Rhiannon loved about it.

  Rhiannon led Kit around to the left of the faux building within a building, entranced by her heightened sense of smell. She caught traces of perfume, sweat, sex, flowers, hamburgers and eggplant parmesan.

  Kit prowled near her left hip, a half-step ahead of her. She couldn’t argue with him about the arrangement as he managed to make it appear they were directly side by side. But his boot heel hit the ground moments before hers, and he’d angled his chest in a slight diagonal. If you weren’t looking for the signs, you wouldn’t know they were there.

  “There’s a back entrance for performers and staff back here.” Sniffing the air, she tried to parcel the scents into viable threads that indicated an individual, but she didn’t have a clue. Her poor nose had never been anything but decoration before in comparison to the array of information relayed by the same organ post mating. “Do you...?”

  “Yes. He’s here. Or he was recently.” Kit scanned the area around them, his gaze never resting in any one place for long. “Keep your guard up. I smell the demon as well.”

  “Fuck. What is her issue anyway?” Heart beating faster and sweat beading in her palms, Rhiannon wanted to be tough and unafraid, but the demon had almost killed her. Her cougar surfaced enough for Rhiannon to make out a pair of gold eyes and the dark tips of her ears, but that was all. The cat wanted to hide until the right moment presented itself to attack.

  Unfortunately, Rhiannon had to throw herself and Kit into more danger so a moment could present itself to begin with.

  “I don’t think she’ll be an issue. After she tried to strangle you, I ripped her throat out.” Kit waited near the side entrance, his attention focused outward.

  Rhiannon blanched. “You’re so casual about it, like it’s no big deal to kill someone.”

  “She tried to kill you. No one harms what is mine.” The beast swam to the surface in Kit’s eyes, his face hard and unapologetic. “I screwed up the first time she attacked. No demon will ever get that close to you ever again.”

  “Aren’t you afraid the police will arrest you? Oh God Kit, you shouldn’t have killed her,” she hissed under her breath. “Let’s just go. They could be searching for you right now.”

  “Lilith was a demon. There’s no law against killing a demon.” He towed her in close, held her cheek to his chest, and kissed her head. Sucking deep breaths, she let his scent wash over her and calm her. “She mentioned a price on Jase’s head. My guess is she wanted to get paid. She was a bounty hunter and a demon. If that meant she took you out in the process of getting him, she didn’t care as long as she got paid.”

  “I wish Inila didn’t have such strong feelings about eating ogres. She could munch Mancini and I wouldn’t be having these issues.” Rhiannon punched in the number code to unlock the door and pushed the heavy steel slab open. “Plus she’d have the fun of taking over a mob family. I’m actually kind of surprised she hasn’t thought of it on her own.”

  “She has. She told me to tell you to take a deal with her. I knew you’d refuse.”

  “Damn skippy. She’s my friend, but...” Rhiannon let Kit slip past her.

  He smiled at her, the expression filled with approval and damn if that didn’t warm her up from the inside. “She’s a dragon.”

  “Exactly.”

  Alcohol and the astringent nostril burning reek of cleanser wafted into her nose. Preceding her into the dimly lit hallway that ran behind the stage to a small employee lunch room, the communal dressing room, and some storage areas, Kit took her hand and tucked her fingers into the back of his waistband.

  “So my hands are free,” he whispered in her ear.

  The brush of his lips sent tingles cascading across her skin, almost the same as when they were teenagers.

  With cautious, measured steps, they crept through the lunch room. An array of food wrappers and empty take out cartons littered the space. Liquor and beer bottles rested on every surface in the room and the garbage cans overflowed.

  Oh, Jase was definitely here. The man had an ability to create disastrous messes everywhere he went. It was his magic power.

  Well, that and getting women naked and wrapped around him in under a minute.

  Continuing to follow her mate, Rhiannon prodded Kit forward to the communal dressing room. They peeked in, spotted two couples passed out on the floor in a happy foursome, naked limbs entwined and the thick musk of sex in the air.

  Kit chuckled. He choked on the reaction when he spotted Rhiannon’s expression. She glared and stomped to the door to their left.

  “What?” The crunch-crumple of a cellophane snack bag under foot. “Looks like they had a hell of a time.”

  “Yeah. And I bet your cousin is here somewhere buried in a mountain of pussy. Now, normally I’d get out the instant film camera and start snapping—Charlie and Nick back there can’t stand each other because Nick’s mate Clover used to date Charlie and Charlie’s mate Hannah instantly hates anyone who used to date Charlie. But t
here they are, all smooshed together like a big happy sex sandwich.” Rhiannon walked backward a few steps, stumbling over a discarded men’s sneaker and a spatula. “Hannah’s a mega bitch.”

  “So what’s the matter then?” Kit maneuvered his way ahead of her. “I really don’t think there’s any danger here.”

  “The problem is that your cousin is or was here and he has a hundred fifty grand I owe a loan shark who’s going to try and make me be his harem girl. His own little fuck toy. Or did you forget?” Frustration and annoyance curdled her stomach, sent her fingertips tingling. She wanted to smack the idiotic look off Kit’s face. “I have a bad feeling my money funded this party.”

  “No, I didn’t forget about Mancini.” In the dim illumination provided by some emergency lighting high on the wall, Kit managed to appear chagrined. “That back there was unexpected, that’s all. Cougars don’t tend to congregate in big groups like this.”

  “Ah. Well, welcome to your first orgy.” Smirking, she brushed him aside. Rhiannon strode for the main bar area, managing to avoid the worst of the mess scattered across the floor. With the front of the building that faced the rest of the hotel/casino windowless, they hadn’t gotten a peek inside before.

  “Oh. My.” Gingerly picking her way across the floor to avoid stepping on people, trash, and overturned furniture, Rhiannon’s mouth hung open. Clothes hung from light fixtures. The reek of cigarettes and marijuana hung in a low, pungent cloud over the room.

  And the naked people. Naked people everywhere you looked. One lone couple fucked over by the far wall, with only enough stamina to move against each other with the speed of a couple hundred-year-old tortoises.

  “I can’t...I can’t even....” Moving on tippy toe to avoid crushing a man’s outstretched hand, Rhiannon went cold inside. Fury unlike anything she’d ever known seeped into her gut, into her bones, into her blood and bile and every cell of her being. Ice enclosed her. This anger didn’t burn, it encased anything in its path in the resolute grip of sub-zero temperatures and decimated all life. “He had a party. That mother fucker had a party while I was burying my mother.”

  Agony seized her. Doubled over as the force of her muscles contracting and tearing from her shattering, exploding bones, she fell to the floor. Ringing pitched in her ears, drowning out all other sound. The grit and dirt on the floor burrowed into her hands and knees. She shrieked and crumpled into a ball, the pain too great to contain in silence.

  ***

  “Mother fucker. Shit. Fuck.” Kit didn’t dare to touch Rhiannon. He rushed to clear chairs, tables, discarded clothing, and food wrappers away from her so that she did not inadvertently touch anything and add to the horrific experience of having her cougar force its way through her body from the inside. The cougar inside him wanted out, now, to help her. Scorching electricity burned his chest, the mate bond a sparking, fizzing beam of unfiltered torture. “This is way too soon for you to shift, baby. I need you to try and calm down.”

  “Oohh...f-f-fuck y-y-y-you,” she huffed.

  Concentrating on the magic binding them together, he tried to telepathically send her comfort, calm, and the knowledge she did not suffer alone.

  All around the interior of the bar, shifters stirred to wakefulness, stretching, yawning, and sitting up on the floor. Many observed them with the yellow or ice blue eyes of their wolves.

  “Who the fuck are you and what the fuck did you do to Rhiannon?” A tall, rangy, naked man with a three inch high blue Mohawk crossed the stage and hopped to the floor.

  Kit growled, flashed fangs, and positioned himself between the newcomer and his mate. “She’s my mate and she’s upset. Stay away from her or I’ll rip out your intestines and make a jump rope for our first born child.”

  A pulse of wild, unfettered shifter magic bubbled through the room, rising through the soles of his feet and lifting the hair on the nape of his neck.

  “You’re obviously a total shit ass at taking care of her. No self-respecting wolf would allow his mate to suffer like that through a shift.” Blue hair rummaged in discarded clothing until he located a pack of cigarettes, took one out, and tossed the rest to a man who silently joined him.

  Their features bore a family resemblance. Perhaps these were the brothers Rhiannon had mentioned.

  “I need Jase Barrientos out here, now.” Fangs and claws extending to lethal lengths, Kit stood over Rhiannon, his heart ripped in half as he listened to her suffer, knowing he could do nothing to ease her pain.

  Make an example of him. The cougar snarled, ready to rip the blue haired shifter’s throat out.

  “You might want to reconsider the level of hostility you’re directing at my brother. I’m Tristan, that’s Callum. We’re the alphas of this pack,” intoned the second shifter who strode across the stage. This one wore jeans and had silver bars through both nipples, his hair shocking white with purple tips. “Rhiannon is our friend, and also a friend of our pack.”

  Translation: Fuck with anyone, and he’d be ripped to shreds by a pissed off wolf pack.

  “Rhiannon trusts you, so I’ll tell you why we are here.” Kit knelt near his mate, adopting a stance that didn’t offer overt violence, but left him ready to protect his mate. Fighting tears as he observed her fierce, agonizing battle, he said, “Long story short—Rhiannon asked Jase to pay off a loan for her with Vince Mancini. We came here looking for Jase hoping to find the money but it appears there was a food, alcohol, and sex orgy here possibly funded by the money Jase was supposed to use to pay off the debt.”

  Focused inward, on helping to soothe Rhiannon, he didn’t hear Tristan’s response right away.

  “If you’re her mate, touching her will help her through the change.” Tristan held up one hand to stave off any questions. “Just do it. I don’t care what you’ve been told about contact during a shift, or what you think you know. Doesn’t apply to mates. You cougars need to get out more.”

  Rhiannon cried out, her mouth caught open in a rictus.

  “If you’re wrong I’m going to beat the living hell out of you.” Hands quivering, he stroked over her hair with the tips of two fingers. She didn’t flinch away or cry out, so he tried again, touching her cheek, and throat, waiting for any sign she needed him to stop.

  Callum took a drag of a cigarette. “Not bad for a bastard fuck like my brother, eh? Jase is in the back.”

  Rhiannon quieted under his touch. Her still human skin encased misshapen bones and muscles. Kit stroked her back and kept his senses attuned to those around them. Rhiannon’s safety came before anything else.

  “Relax. I won’t let anything bad happen, I promise. Did you hear what Callum said? Jase is here. We’ll get this sorted out real soon.” Each whimper or cry from her felt like he’d stabbed himself. Cold sweat beaded on his back. Rhiannon’s eyes flashed green-gold, reflective in the low light. Lifting his head, he made unflinching eye contact with Callum. “Get him out here, or I go and find him myself and I will tear out some fucking spines if I have to.”

  The alpha wolves shared a long stare. Tristan shrugged, the movement nothing more than a twitch.

  “Barrientos! Get your ass out here. You can fuck your little wolf later.” The shout carried the weight of magic with it. Kit stared at Callum, reassessing the nude, tatted up and pierced werewolf. Powerful. Dangerous.

  Kit stroked Rhiannon’s back. “It’s too soon for you to shift. You need to find your happy place or you’re going to be trapped between forms, love.”

  “If you’re here to put a beat down on Jase, you should know the repercussions for such an act will be far reaching.” Tristan crouched down and nodded in approval at Rhiannon. “She’s getting control now.”

  Of course she was. Rhiannon wasn’t some average shifter. She was his mate, strong and smart and capable.

  “Jase is the heir to my alpha. I’m here to take him home.” And if that meant ripping a hole through this pack of wolves, he’d do it.

  “See, that’s where things are going to
get even stickier than they already are. Jase is a part of our pack now. If you listen hard, you can hear him fucking his mate in the walk-in freezer.” Callum chuckled, stubbed his smoke out in an overflowing ashtray, and unleashed a tidal storm of pack magic into the room. Around them, men and women growled, shaking sleepiness and hangovers from their bodies in response to the call from their alpha. “Guy’s a kinky fucker, but I’m not gonna judge him based on that. Rhiannon can tell you all about my collection of nipple clamps.”

  The quip rolled right off Kit’s back. He didn’t care whether or not Rhiannon had had sex with this guy in the past.

  “Shut up Callum. You’re trying to get a rise out of Kit so he’ll make a mistake, and that’s not going to happen.” Rhiannon paused every few words, her voice strained. She struggled to her knees. “If Kit bothered to release even the power he holds in his little finger, you’d find your balls on fire.”

  Offering her a hand up and coiling one arm across her back, Kit made no effort to hide how proud her confidence in him made him feel. He rubbed his cheek on her hair and kissed the crown of her head.

  Tristan’s eyes bled to the ice blue of an artic wolf. “Sorry Kit, but my brother’s correct. Jase falls under our pack’s protection now. You can’t take him anywhere if he objects. You are only one cougar in a den of wolves. You will fall if you raise fang and claw against us.”

  “Just send him out. Jase might be a member of your pack now, but he is the son of my alpha and the one meant to take over as Alpha before he mated one of your wolves and got naked with her in the freezer.” Kit kept his tone measured and calm. Sort of. Power and shifter magic leaked through his shields, agitating the wolves. “I need to know what he did with the money Rhiannon gave him. If he used it to fund this orgy you guys had going here—”

  Wood and plaster exploded into the bar from the far left wall. A bloodied and battered man-shaped body landed amid the debris, his beach ball shaped gut rising above the pile of rubble.

  “Special delivery! One lying, thieving, rapist mob boss at your disposal.”