The Cougar's Pawn

by Holley Trent

The woman started toward Ellery, but Mason got there first and pulled her up into his arms. “Get back.”

  The woman expelled some elegant cross between a sigh and a groan. “Ellery, tell this creature who I am.”

  She shrugged in his grip and reached ineffectually for her food.

  “Priorities.”

  “I thought I made them clear. Eat, then leave.”

  He held her back a little more.

  She stamped her foot. Fortunately, his boots had steel toes. “Who is she?” he demanded.

  “Dammit.” She sighed. “Look, I guess she’s kind of my mee-maw.”

  “Your what?” He gave the woman a long stare. She looked young. Thirty, maybe forty, but he could feel in his bones that she was much older. Incalculably old. What the hell is she?

  “Mee-maw, like my grandmother, but a bunch more generations back.”

  “As in a hundred?”

  “Could be.”

  “Your mee-maw is an immortal?”

  “Her mee-maw is a goddess,” the silver-haired woman said. “And I don’t just mean empowered woman.”

  Oh. Shit.

  She took a few more steps toward them. “Thanks for putting out that bit of power, Ell. Helped me home in on you faster than I would have otherwise.”

  Mason took a few more steps back, taking Ellery along with him. She wasn’t fighting so much as scratching up his forearms. If that was what she called struggling, she needed lessons in it. Given fifteen minutes or so, he’d heal. That was a nice perk of being born into a strong line of Cougars.

  “You’ll want to let go of her, if you’re smart,” the goddess said calmly. Her smile was as cold as the room since she’d kindly air-conditioned it for him.

  “Don’t even bother with false flattery concerning my intelligence. I picked her because my goddess told me to, and I’m not stupid enough to refuse outright.”

  “You’ve picked, have you?” Her smile was sweet, but her voice was all venom.

  Ellery stopped scratching only to slam her heel against his shin.

  He winced and moved her to his side, keeping a firm grip on her shoulders. “She’s here. Clock’s started. I’m guessing you know what that means.”

  “I do know what it means, and under different circumstances, I might have sided with you,” the goddess said, ignoring Ellery’s distress for the moment. “Unfortunately, I don’t believe you’re good enough for her. You can’t protect her. Can’t care for her. You’re just a filthy cat who isn’t worth the dirt she walks on, aren’t you? I could snap your neck with just a snap of my fingers.”

  “Go on and try it. You try and take her from me, and I’ll use what’s left of my sorry life aggravating the shit out of you, even if it’s just a few seconds. Ever had cat scratch fever? I might be able to arrange a trial of it.”

  She canted her head. “You should show some respect.”

  “So should you. I’m Alpha. You’re disrespecting me in my own home and trying to take my fairly claimed mate away from me. Who’s the one out of line?”

  Her eyes glowed white and cold energy rippled in the room. “Alpha,” she spat, curling her hands into fists at her narrow hips.

  “Yep. Never lost a fight, and I’m not afraid to pick one if I need to.” He didn’t want to, but he would. If being around for his son meant getting his hands supernaturally dirty and making nice-nice with some evil stranger, so be it.

  Ellery made a small whimper and squirmed in his grip. He stole a glance at her and found her struggling for breath, her face more gray than dark tan. He spun her around and gave her shoulders a squeeze. “Ellery?”

  “Calm your tits. Too much energy between the two of you. I’m stuck in the middle of it. You’re sucking all the air out of the room.”

  Gods. He closed his eyes and gave his head a hard shake. Simmer down, cougar.

  The goddess sighed and pulled in some of that cold power. “I’m sorry that you’ve picked her, Alpha, but she’s needed at home.”

  Ellery turned, but couldn’t go far. He pinned her against his front and tucked his chin atop her twig-strewn hair. Calm down, witch.

  “What’s going on, Agatha? Everyone at home okay?”

  Agatha grimaced. “For the moment. Claude may have found a way to wake up his father. Needs another witch to even attempt it, and naturally, there’s no one else he can trust.”

  “Let go of me, Mason. Don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing. Keep that Cougar energy to yourself.”

  “Nah. I think I want to play with it a little more. You’re nicer when you’re calm. And you know what? It wouldn’t work if you weren’t my mate. Isn’t that fascinating? Also, if I let go of you, I’ve already lost this fight. Not happening.”

  “It’s not a fight.”

  “But it is.” Agatha moved closer, stopping inches from Ellery’s toes. She cupped Ellery’s chin in her hand, turned her face to examine both sides, and then set her gaze on Mason.

  In her heels, she was nearly his height. Six feet. Didn’t even have to look up.

  He’d never encountered a goddess in the flesh before, if he could even call it flesh. Her skin seemed to ripple—to transmute from flesh to air while she stood. He was all at once terrified of her power and steadfast on his claim of the witch. His. His cougar wanted her, and the man part of him was going along with the ride. She was Alpha’s girl. Had all the makings. He was doing all he could to accept it.

  “I took her fair and square,” he said, and tried to keep his voice level and calm.

  “I’m not a thing.” Ellery’s elbow swung back toward his gut, but he sidestepped it before she could make contact.

  “Behave.”

  “Excuse me?”

  He set his gaze on Agatha. “You can take it up with my goddess if you have a problem with it. She’s the one who sent me on the hunt.”

  Agatha scoffed. “Your goddess may be your kind’s progenitor, but you are not of her blood. The woman you’ve stolen is mine. My child. One generation or a hundred makes no difference to me. I’ll gladly take it up with your goddess, although I suspect she won’t give me audience.”

  “Why wouldn’t she?”

  She adjusted a ring on her right hand and arched an eyebrow severely. “I have a reputation for solving problems with more severity than necessary.”

  “Is that a threat?”

  “Call it a warning. Now, you can either let go of Ellery so that I can take her and her friends home, or I will open a hole to Hell so deep it’ll take you the better part of a year to climb out.”

  “I like that plan,” Ellery said.

  “I bet you do. I should start calling you Maleficent, you evil little thing. I guess I should be afraid though, huh?”

  “You should be,” Agatha said.

  “Maybe if I hadn’t had the year I have, I might have been a little. After a while, you kinda stop feeling shit, including fear. So, you open hellmouths?” He bobbed his eyebrows and pulled Ellery, who was now squirming with real fervor, even tighter to his front. He didn’t even try to calm her. She’d tire herself out eventually.

  Agatha adjusted her ring some more and dragged her tongue across her lips. He couldn’t get anything off her scent—it was artificial—but he was pretty damned sure she was thinking up a lie.

  “No bullshit. Just tell me.”

  She sighed. “Fine. Hellmouths are how my kind disposes of its … ” She waved a dismissive hand. “Garbage.”

  Ellery whispered, “God … ” almost too softly to hear. There was a kind of exhaustion in her tone that suggested she may have had more experience than she liked with specific kinds of garbage. Good. They had something in common.

  Agatha took a step back, cracked her knuckles, and crammed her hands into her gray slacks. “I’ll make you a deal, Cougar. Give me Ellery, and I’ll give you something else you want.”

  “No deal. I’m not trading her.”

  “Isn’t there anything?” Agatha’s eyes narrowed. “Something you’ve w
ished for that’s been out of your reach?”

  “I work for everything that I have.”

  “That’s not true, Mason,” Ellery said. “You didn’t work for me.”

  “This certainly feels like a job, so if it’s not work, I don’t know what is.”

  Agatha moved so quickly he almost didn’t see her shift.

  Almost. He was quick, too. He was Alpha.

  He pressed his claws to Ellery’s neck and hissed, “Get back, or I will puncture her.”

  “You’d turn her without consent?”

  Never. “I don’t want to. I really don’t, but I will have my two weeks. I have no problem with sending her back to you then if she tells me no.”

  “I already told you no,” Ellery said.

  “You can’t say no to what I haven’t asked you.”

  “You’ll return her with a new fur coat and a tail, you mean,” Agatha said.

  “If necessary.”

  “I think you’re bluffing.”

  “Try me and find out.”

  Her eyes narrowed, and he decided that this goddess was perfectly willing to do so, and he might just lose. If he were going to lose, he’d get something out of the deal. “You want to trade? I’ll give you Ellery if you close off the hellmouth about a mile from here.”

  Ellery stopped squirming in his arms and craned her neck to look at him. Her eyes were wide and mouth agape.

  Indignant? Had the idea of her being a pawn really hurt her feelings?

  He filed that reaction away for later.

  “The hellmouth opened up this year after forty or fifty years without activity. You want Ellery back? Close the hellmouth and give me seven days with her.”

  Agatha scoffed. “No way. No deal, Alpha.”

  “Because you can’t or won’t?”

  “Can’t. Most hellmouths are self-sealing. I suspect yours opened because of … an event.” Her ancient cheeks were flushed with red.

  Is that guilt? Another reaction to file away and process later.

  “Agatha … ” Ellery said through clenched teeth. “Are you seriously bartering me away?”

  “No.” Agatha straightened her spine and jammed her hands into her blazer’s pockets. “I can’t close your hellmouth, Cougar. It takes three angels to close the sorts that don’t seal on their own.”

  “Should be easy as pie to find three angels, huh?” He grinned at her. He knew how he must have looked—like a jubilant predator about to pounce on his first meal in a week. He confirmed as much with one long draw of breath through his nose. Ellery was scared. Her adrenaline had spiked and he could smell her sweat. He didn’t want her to be scared. He’d meant it when he’d said he wouldn’t hurt her, and that meant her feelings, too.

  He eased off his grip a little. If she ran, he’d take the risk and give chase, even if he had to go through Agatha to get to her. “Should I take your silence as a no?”

  “Ten days,” Agatha countered.

  “No!” Ellery said. “I’m not staying here. I’m not an item up for auction.”

  “Honey, I wouldn’t even be at the auction if you were,” Mason said. “I told you, I don’t want a mate.”

  “So why are you negotiating for me?”

  “Because I don’t see where I have a choice. I have to try to make this work, or my son’s not going to have a dad. I’m sorry for the inconvenience, but he’s important.”

  “And I’m not.”

  Mason gave his hair a yank. “For fuck’s sake. Can you throw me a stinkin’ bone?”

  Ellery narrowed her eyes. “So, we close the hellmouth, right? Then what?”

  “I’ll let you go. I keep my word.”

  “But you’ll still have the really short end of the stick. If I leave, you’re screwed.”

  “Yep, but at least my mother wouldn’t have to deal with demons.”

  “And your brothers, I presume.”

  He ground his teeth. He loved his brothers to death, but he had even less faith in them talking their mates into staying than he had for himself.

  Ellery looked at Agatha. “Odds?”

  The goddess scrunched her nose. “We usually rally when it’s important. I think we’ll be successful.”

  “Yeah, we usually do.” Ellery pressed her lips together and studied her shoes.

  Was she really considering it? Maybe it was a bad deal, but it was better than nothing. He wouldn’t regret it.

  “Okay. We’ll close it, and you’ll let me and my friends go.” She held out her hand as if to shake.

  “No deal. Just you. I can’t negotiate for my brothers, and seeing as how your mee-maw probably had something to do with it opening up like it did, I don’t think you’re really in a position to ask for so much. In fact, I see it as grounds for a challenge. I’m within my rights to name time and place, and I can set it exactly two weeks from now.”

  “Dammit.” She ground her palms against her eyes.

  This time he held out his hand and waited for her to look. “Shake on it? Either close the hellmouth or spend two weeks with me, fair and square.”

  “We’ll figure something out, Ellery,” Agatha said. “We always do.”

  Ellery let out a breath and put her hand in Mason’s. “Fine.”

  “Don’t go trying to call in the cavalry,” he said to Agatha. “This is Cougar business and it needs to stay private.”

  “I know the rules, cat.”

  “Good. Don’t forget them.”

  “If anything happens to her—if so much as a hair on her head is harmed—”

  “I’m not going to let my mate get hurt.”

  “I’m not your mate,” Ellery muttered.

  “Unfortunately, for the moment, you are.”

  She smashed her foot against his shin, and it took everything he had to swallow the swear bubbling up in his chest.

  “Can I bring you anything?” Agatha asked her.

  “Clothes. Maybe my spell book.”

  “Nope,” Mason said. “I’ll get her everything she needs.”

  Excluding the spell book. If she did have access to a nut-shriveling spell, he’d like to keep her separated from it at least until he’d convinced her of the many virtues of his private parts.

  “Take the cat with you when you go,” he said.

  Agatha laughed. “Cat stays here. It’s her familiar and she doesn’t trust you. She’ll keep trying to get here, and even without supernatural assistance from a goddess, I’m almost certain she’d figure out a way. Take care, precious.” She planted a kiss on Ellery’s forehead. “I’m sorry. This is mostly my fault, I’m sure.”

  Ellery sighed. “Shit happens. Usually to me, sadly.”

  The goddess vanished.

  Mason let go of Ellery.

  Ellery smacked the ever-loving shit out of him.

  He couldn’t say he didn’t expect it.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  “What kind of crack are you smoking?” Ellery spat at the stunned Were-cougar in the corner.

  “That hurt.” He rubbed his cheek and made doleful eyes at her—the same ones Pumpkin Pie tended to make when she’d been caught eating out of the trashcan. Apparently, he did feel some things after all.

  “I wish I could make it hurt more. You keep expecting me to be gracious. Are you forgetting I didn’t come here of my own accord?”

  “No, I haven’t forgotten. It’s the Cou—”

  “Yeah, yeah. The Cougar way. I get that. I just don’t agree with it.” She pushed her chair back up to the table and sat in front of spaghetti that had to be cold.

  He crossed his arms. “So, it’s true? Is Agatha responsible for the rise in paranormal activity out here?”

  She shrugged. “I believe there may be a connection.”

  “What happened?”

  “Long story.”

  “I’d like to hear it.” He sat in front of his plate, but pushed it away and put his elbows in its place.

  “Fine.” She picked up her fork and twined some noodles on
to it. “If I gloss over anything it’s because I wasn’t there personally and am simply relaying what I know. My sister is married to a witch whose father was, or is—I’m not sure at this point—a demon. Not of the gaping-maw noncorporeal sort, but a fallen angel who turned. He goes by the name of Gulielmus.”

  “Fallen angel. Wow, the company you keep … ”

  “Shush.” She shoved food into her mouth, chewed, and swallowed without even tasting it. Her belly didn’t care. “Guilelmus is a man with many enemies. Suffice it to say, there was a battle, and during it, my sister was threatened. Agatha saw to it that the entity that tried to harm my sister would never see the light of day or anything else ever again. In the process, she may have roused the attention of certain gods.”

  “Those gods opened the hellmouth?”

  “No, I think the general increase of supernatural power in this realm may have weakened the barriers enough for the creatures on that side to break through them.”

  “So Agatha is on the run now?”

  “Hell no. Agatha wouldn’t run from shit. If something picks a fight, she deals with it.”

  “And I imagine she gets into a lot of fights.”

  Ellery grunted. “Mostly with demons and malevolent spirits sent by gods from a distance. They wouldn’t fight her one-on-one.”

  “She that powerful?”

  “She’s a wind goddess. Hurricanes can destroy entire cities, so what do you think?”

  “Point taken. Do you think she can find three angels?”

  “Sure.” She scooped up some more spaghetti and hoped he didn’t notice how badly her hands were shaking.

  Agatha could certainly find three fallen ones. If they had enough remaining power—which really depended on why they fell and how they were punished for it—they could probably do the job. The issue would be getting them to do her the favor. She’d burned a lot of bridges in her long life.

  Ever since Gulielmus had gone into his supernatural coma, ex-angels had been coming out of the woodwork to advise his sons. At the time Ellery had left for her ill-fated camping trip, none had seen before the particular phenomenon afflicting Gulielmus, and therefore could offer no guidance in how to wake him.

  “Talk about something else,” she said, “or nothing at all.”

  At the sound of scratching behind her, she turned and watched her familiar defile the corner behind the back door.