The Runaway Cat (Book 2 Cloverleah Pack Series)

by Oliver, Lisa

  When Griff tilted Diablo’s head to kiss him, with one hand plunged into Diablo’s hair and the other firmly on his lower back, Diablo’s surrender was pure perfection and the crowd around them went wild with catcalls and whistles. But Griff didn’t care. With his mate in his arms and their lips joined in passion he was in heaven and nothing was going to stop him enjoying the moment. When the two men finally broke for air and stared into each other’s eyes Griff could see Diablo’s promise - the promise of forever. And that made him a really happy man.

  Epilogue

  Ten Days Later

  Griff and Diablo were packing up their bikes, finally getting ready to leave on the road trip that Diablo had been so looking forward to. First they were going to visit Diablo’s mother and then they were going to wend their way through the states finally hitting New York in three weeks time where Angel Bandures would marry Derrick Franklin. Diablo had tried to talk Griff out of the ceremony. A human marriage meant nothing to shifters and Tony was more than capable of producing the documents necessary to show that Angel and Diablo were married.

  Griff held firm, however. He wanted to go through every type of ceremony possible to bind his lover to him and while he wasn’t overly keen on the idea of having to go through the marriage as Angel he really didn’t have a choice. Derrick Franklin couldn’t marry two men at the same time and they did need the cover of those documents to help in their work with the FBI. Kane and Shawn along with Tony had already promised to fly up and meet them in New York for the ceremony and Griff had arranged three days for them all at the prestigious St. Regis hotel. He wanted to give his mate a honeymoon that he would remember and besides, the FBI was footing the bill.

  The men were just securing their possessions on their bikes when the rumble of other bikes came up the road. Within seconds the rest of the pack had arrived to see Griff and Diablo off. Diablo’s bike had needed a major refit after Diablo had been kidnapped and the man was quick to thank the men of Custom Rides for their good work. Kane, Shawn and the rest of the pack had all worked tirelessly to not only ensure that Diablo’s prized possession was safe to ride, it looked good too. Even the paintwork had been restored and Diablo touched the wolf on his tank fondly. Griff’s bike now hosted a panther on his tank, just as the man had promised.

  “So are you all set for the trip guy’s?” Kane asked.

  “Yep, all packed and ready,” Griff replied. “Hey thanks for keeping an eye on the place for us while we are gone and all that. It’s really appreciated.”

  “Hey Griff, you know I would do anything for you old friend. I really want you and Diablo to have a hassle free and relaxing holiday. Lord knows the pair of you deserve it,” Kane said fondly.

  Just then the sound of a cell phone ringing startled all of them. Shawn patted his pocket and pulled out his phone, frowning at the screen. Moving closer to Kane, he said, “It’s Lucius,” and answered it, putting the phone on speaker so all of the men could hear.

  “Hi Lucius, what’s up?”

  “Oh man, I am really sorry but there is some shit headed your way and it is all our fault,” Lucius sounded really anxious over the phone.

  “What do you mean, what shit?”

  “Look you don’t have to worry. Damien is on this personally. We are heading down now and should be there no later than tomorrow. He’s bringing six of his enforcers so you will be fine I promise.”

  “What shit, Lucius, explain yourself,” the harsh tone of Shawn’s voice shocking the men around him.

  “Fuck, I knew we should have killed him. It’s Bruce, the bear shifter. He’s out and he has caught up with two other shifters and they are on their way to Cloverleah to take out you Shawn and grab Kane. Damien is really sorry about this…”

  “How the hell did the man escape? Damien gave me his word that he would be killed.”

  “Look Shawn I am sorry. What can I say? Damien wanted to give the families of the subs that Bruce had injured the right to fight and kill Bruce themselves. But the two families started fighting between themselves about who had the most right to the kill and so the challenge just kept getting put off. Bruce managed to soft talk one of the guards into giving him a blow job and while the man was distracted Bruce knocked him out and escaped. We have been tracking him for days but it is clear he is hell bent on getting to Cloverleah and will probably would have been there by now except he keeps taking diversions, probably to drum up more support for his mission. He wants all of you to pay for what you did to him Shawn.”

  Shawn looked at Kane who had gone silent, his expressionless face not giving a hint to the turmoil that Shawn knew his mate was feeling. Bruce had given Kane an almighty scare and if there were more than one bear shifter involved this could turn into a nasty fight.

  “All right,” he snapped into the phone. “We will expect you tomorrow but you can tell Damien from me I will tear strips off his hide when he gets here.”

  “Yes, he expects you too, man. Again we are all real sorry and we are already on the road. We will be there as quickly as we can be.” Shawn didn’t even bother to reply and simply snapped his phone shut, moving forward to give Kane a huge hug. Giving his mate a tight smile, Kane shrugged him off and went over to Griff and Diablo who were sitting on their bikes.

  “Okay, well you guys have a good trip and we will see you in New York in three weeks,” he managed to get out.

  Looking at Diablo, Griff got off his bike and seconds later Diablo did the same, grabbing their bags and going back to the house.

  “Hey, what you guys doing? Don’t let this little bear problem stop you from going on your trip. You heard Lucius. Damien is bringing six enforcers with him - we will be fine,” Kane tried to keep his tone light with Griff even though he was really worried. He knew how important this trip was to both men.

  “Nothing doing Kane. Even if you weren’t my Alpha you are still my cousin and my very best friend. We’ll go on our trip when all of this business is finished with. Shouldn’t take more than a couple of days, right?” Griff said firmly.

  “No,” he continued as Kane opened his mouth to speak. “Diablo and I are both agreed on this. You guys come first. As long as Diablo and I are together we don’t care where we are. So give us five minutes to sort out a bit of gear and we will head down to the shop with you.” As Kane started to protest yet again, Griff overrode him.

  “I mean this Kane. Until this Bruce is dead we are not leaving you on your own. It’s a pack thing as well as a friend thing, so shut up. Don’t argue with your best friend and head off down to Custom Rides. Diablo and I will be right behind you.”

  “I’m not having anyone but Shawn in my bed man. We might be close but we are not that close,” Kane tried to joke.

  “And we will be in the room next door to yours, so keep the noise down,” Griff said smugly.

  “Same goes for you two,” Shawn quipped as he and Kane went back to their bikes.

  As Kane and the others took off on their bikes, headed towards town, Griff pulled Diablo close.

  “I am sorry my lover, but I promise I will make it up to you.”

  “Don’t be sorry for being a good friend and pack mate, Griff. Your caring for others is just one of the many things I love about you,” Diablo said softly.

  “Hmm, what else do you love?”

  Eyes glinting with mischief Diablo said, “Well there is that you melt in my arms when I do this,” as he raked his long canines up the length of Griff’s neck. Yes Griff melted.

  “And then you shudder when I do this,” as he reached down and cupped Griff’s erection through his jeans. Griff did shudder but then he was always blown away with just how intoxicating Diablo was.

  “Shall I finish explaining what else I love about you in the bedroom my lover,” Diablo purred quietly. Griff spared a quick glance down the road in the direction Kane and the others had taken but then thought, to hell with it, and raced towards to the stairs of the porch. Yes there was a rampant bear shifter coming, possibly m
ore than one. Yes Damien was worried enough to travel down to Cloverleah with six of his enforcers. But all of that was tomorrow and right now if Griff couldn’t give Diablo the trip he was promised then he could at least give him one hell of a ride.

  Sneak Peak of Book Three Cloverleah pack: When No Doesn’t Cut It

  Damien, Alpha of the San Antonio Texas pack was angry. No strike that. He was angry, frustrated, anxious and horny as hell. The anger, frustration and anxiety he could understand. Here he was in bum-fuck Cloverleah chasing down a bear shifter who should have been dead a month ago. Thanks to the politics of his huge pack Damien’s word to Shawn and Kane, that the bear would never leave his pack lands alive again had been broken and he had just spent the past hour trying to apologize to the two men for allowing shit to come onto Cloverleah pack land.

  That explained the frustration and anxiety. Damien prided himself on keeping his promises. Bruce the bear should never have been allowed to leave his cage. Ha, strike that too. The bear should have been dead a month ago when Shawn had got his hands on him. But no, Damien wanted to get retribution for the two sub’s families that had been hurt by the wannabe dominant bear shifter and had been so cocky about his own security set up and the enforcers in his pack that he gave promises that he didn’t keep.

  And now he was here, in Cloverleah. Trying to play nice with Kane, the Alpha when all he really wanted to do was head home and sink into the nearest willing sub. It was bad enough that Shawn had rejected his advances almost a year before, but to find him here now, mated to Kane and the pair of them so sickly in love was enough to make him growl.

  The other two mated men in the pack, Griff and that gorgeous looking cat shifter Diablo didn’t help either. For goodness sake they were supposed to be working out how to catch the bloody bear shifter and Griff had his nose in Diablo’s neck. Kane and Shawn weren’t much better. Damien scowled at the two men. Shawn was sitting on Kane’s lap where he had been since they sat down. Kane obviously wasn’t comfortable with Damien being around his mate and hadn’t let go of him since Damien and his enforcers had arrived.

  “Look,” Damien said more forcefully than he would have liked, “Can you guys stop playing sucky face and concentrate for a moment. My enforcers and your three guys should have been back to report by now. What’s keeping them?”

  Kane lifted his head slowly from where it was nestled in Shawn’s hair and smirked at Damien before sitting upright and back in his chair, his arm still clasped possessively around Shawn’s waist.

  “Sorry Damien,” he rumbled softly, even though he wasn’t at all. “We are all newly mated as you know. Somehow the thought of having to fight off bear shifters that shouldn’t be in this area anyway tends to make an Alpha a little possessive. I’m sure you will feel the same way when you find your intended.”

  Damien growled in warning because yes damn it Kane was smirking at him again. The dig about Bruce and his friends didn’t help either.

  “Even if I did find my mate I wouldn’t be as sloppy as you four men. I’d be taking care of my responsibilities like keeping track of my men when they were out on patrol,” Damien snapped out angrily, the insult in his words intentional.

  He stood up and paced towards the French doors, looking out over the wide grassy area that preceded the forest area. Stepping through the doors he walked across the wide porch and leaned against the porch rail trying to get control of his emotions. He had been out of sorts since he arrived and this lack of control was not something he was used to.

  Hell’s teeth he was Damien, Alpha of one of the largest packs in the United States. He was known for his icy control, his calm manner and deadly efficiency. But ever since he had walked into Kane’s pack house and caught a whiff of a delicious scent that permeated the air he had been edgy, angry and yes, still horny.

  “Damien my friend, what’s really wrong. You are not usually like this.” Shawn’s soft, deep voice beside him nudged him out of his thoughts. Sighing heavily, Damien turned his head to look at the man beside him. Damn Shawn still looked good. His lithe 6’ 2” frame had filled out a bit since Damien had seen him last but his lean face, startling ice chip blue eyes and long straight black hair was still the same. The confidence was a new thing though, as was the calmness and peace that Damien could see in those eyes. For a split second he was ashamed of himself that he could still feel something for the man beside him. Finding his true mate had allowed Shawn to grow into his power, face his family and be the man slash Shifter Guardian he was meant to be.

  Shawn had been more than a piece of eye-candy to Damien. He had been a true friend. Someone who could see Damien for more than his position as Alpha or the owner of the largest BDSM club in the States. Shawn treated Damien like a man first and everything else second. There weren’t too many people in Damien’s life that were like that. Shit if he was really honest, there wasn’t anyone else like that in Damien’s life. And because of that Damien owed his friend the truth.

  “I don’t know what to tell you Shawn. It’s like, from the moment I walked into this house this smell just hit me and I have been edgy and frustrated and angry ever since. Okay the situation with Bruce was bad enough, same with meeting your lover for the first time. But fuck it, there is something in your house that is driving me crazy. Shit what do you use for floor polish here anyway?”

  “Smell, ha?” Shawn grinned and sniffed. “A smell that makes you horny no less. Is there something about one of your enforcers you haven’t had the time to acknowledge as yet?”

  “Shit no.” Damien was emphatic on that score. He had known his enforcers for years and had never felt anything for any of them. “Besides,” he said, “if it was one of my men I would have felt something like this before, and honestly this is the first time ever that I have felt this combination of lust and angst. Like, standing out here I can barely smell it and that is making me more edgy than ever. I don’t know what is happening to me.”

  “Well what is happening, my friend is that you are scenting your mate. The question is who it is.” Shawn looked thoughtful for a minute and then shook his head and laughed.

  “What? Stuff you, Shawn this isn’t a laughing matter. I haven’t got the time to go searching for a mate. I am trying to catch a bear shifter.”

  Shawn toned down his laughter at Damien’s words but his grin split his usually solemn face. “It’s obvious Damien. If you have felt this way since coming into our pack house then the chap you are looking for has to be part of our pack. Given that our pack is so small it can only be one of two guys - Scott or Dean and it can’t be Dean because you would have smelt it if your mate was an Omega. So that only leaves one option in this house - Scott.”

  “So where is he, this Scott person? Why haven’t I met him yet?”

  “He’s was out on patrol before you guys arrived - him and his twin, Troy and Dean our Omega. They have been out checking for new scents in the area since first light.”

  Damien growled fiercely. “He’s out there and you haven’t seen him since this morning? What if they come across Bruce and his friends? What if something has happened to him?”

  Suddenly all Damien wanted to do was shift and find this man with the tantalizing smell. Every protective urge he had ever had rushed to the surface of his brain and he was desperate to hunt the man down and make sure that he was all right before he fucked him into the ground. He tugged his muscle shirt off his chest intent on doing just that.

  “Damien, stop it.” Shawn’s voice was still quiet but it was laced with power. “Scott is just fine. The three men in our pack met up with your enforcers an hour ago and have paired off and are making their way back. Scott is with…” he tapped his head and looked up at the sky and then said, “Levi and Drake. He’s fine. They haven’t scented anything unusual.”

  “Levi and Drake? Oh fuck no. That’s worse. They are a pair of horn dogs that will fuck anything that moves. Why didn’t he go with Lucius and Vincent?”

  “Because Lucius and Vincent kn
ow how important Dean is to us and he needed the most protection if they come across the bear,” Kane’s deep voice sounded behind Damien. “Now do you want to tell me why you as a visiting Alpha sees fit to not only insult me and the way I run things, but then presume to tell me who of your enforcers is fit to be paired with my men?”

  Damien was struggling with his control and his wolf. The thought of his potential mate running around the forest with two of his enforcers, who were known for their promiscuous ways was enough to drive him over the edge. He had never felt such an urgency to get to another person in his entire life but he didn’t doubt for one second that this Scott must be his mate.

  Older than the shifters in Kane’s pack, Damien had waited for more than a hundred and sixty years to be mated with someone although he still looked like he was in his early thirties. It was his age combined with his finely honed control that allowed him to be the Alpha of the San Antonio pack despite constant challenges. But for all of his wealth, his power and his position, Damien had never had anyone in his life that was solely there for him. Now that the possibility was within his grasp he wanted to grab it, grab the man tight with both arms and never ever let him go.

  Bending down to remove his boots, Damien ignored Kane and focused on getting shifted and finding Scott. As he bent down he could hear the sound of wolves coming out from the forest into the clearing and he quickly stood up, scanning the tree line. His mate was near, he could just catch a hint of that delicious scent coming from the tree line.

  Lucius and Vincent in wolf form broke the tree line first escorting a smaller wolf, Dean. Lucius noted the men standing on the porch and headed straight towards Damien, obviously to give his report. As they reached the porch steps Dean broke off and ran straight into the house, still with four feet. Kane and Shawn didn’t seem to be surprised so Damien ignored it too.

  Max and Isaac came running up from the outer edge of the forest. They had a dark brown wolf with them. This must be Troy, Damien thought to himself, the twin. He watched as Troy and the other’s shifted and was surprised to see a tallish, well built blond man emerge from the dark wolf. Troy had a keen intelligent face, wide blue eyes, a straight nose and a full pink mouth. His sun kissed blond hair hung at shoulder length and just grazed the broad tanned shoulders that tapered to a solid six pack and strong legs. The man wasn’t pretty by anyone’s standards, but he was strong and handsome and Damien caught himself hoping that the twins were identical before he tore his eyes away and spoke to Lucius.