by Tate James
“Hey, Bo,” I said, patting his back and using the nickname I’d heard both Maeve and Sean call him. “Sorry I disappeared on you like that.”
“What the hell happened?” he demanded, pulling back far enough that he could see my face but not far enough that my feet could touch the ground again. In fact, he turned and walked with me into the house, just freaking carrying me like I weighed nothing. It was kinda hot. So strong. Mmm.
He finally plunked me down on a barstool at the breakfast bar and placed his hands on his hips. “Where have you been? Where did you go? How did you do it? Where’s Axle? How did you get away? How did you find us here? Do you have any idea how worried we’ve been?” All of his questions came out in what seemed to be one long breath, and I briefly feared for his lung capacity before he paused, presumably for a response.
I opened my mouth, getting ready to answer, like... at least one of those questions. But I barely even got a sound out before his lips were on mine, and he was devouring me in a hot, dominant, possessive kiss that sent tingles all the way to my toes.
Fuck the explanations, I was all for this.
Gripping the back of his neck, I pulled him closer until my legs draped loosely around him and his hands roamed my body like he was memorizing me. Our tongues wrestled and teeth nipped, and it took all of my self-control not to climb him like a tree. Curse my better senses, but we were in Sean’s house and I was pretty sure he was still standing somewhere awkwardly nearby.
I peeled my face away from Boden’s and opened my eyes.
Yep, there was Sean, standing in the doorway and trying really hard not to look at us while we mauled one another.
Talk about awkward.
I cleared my throat and gently pushed Boden back a little bit. “Are, um, are the other guys here too?”
For a long, heated moment, Boden just stared at me. His gaze was heavy and full of... something I was too emotionally disconnected to really identify. He took his sweet-ass time, pressing one more lingering kiss to my lips before stepping back and running a hand over his face.
“Hunter’s in the shower. Raze...” He grimaced. “Hang on, I’ll tell Hunter you’re back. Wait here.”
He disappeared out of the room faster than I could respond—because my brain was slightly fried and my mouth was swollen from kissing him.
Glancing around the beautifully decorated house, I gave Sean a smile. “You have a lovely home.”
He smiled back, shaking his head and heading towards the counter. “I was just making coffee when you arrived. Would you like one?”
I beamed. “Love one!”
Sean went about grabbing another cup and pouring the coffee, all the while shooting me sidelong glances. “I won’t ask where you’ve been,” he announced, handing over my beverage. “I’m sure you’ll tell us in a minute. But the curiosity...”
I nodded my understanding. “Explains that weird look on your face.”
A clatter and crash from down the hallway interrupted us, and seconds later Hunter appeared. Dripping wet and totally naked.
“Cleo-babe!” he exclaimed, grabbing me up off my chair and hugging me tight enough to crack my back. My coffee spilled, and as he jostled me, the cup fell from my grip and smashed on the floor. Not that Hunter gave two fucks. “Where have you been? Do you know how worried we were? How—”
“Hunter,” I yelled, cutting him off before he repeated all of Boden’s questions verbatim. “Can you put me down? You spilled my coffee.”
That seemed to snap him out of the panicked frenzy he was in, and he dropped me. I mean, literally dropped me. Luckily he had catlike reflexes and caught me again right before my ass hit the floor.
Unluckily—I guess, depending on how you look at it—the way he caught me landed my face straight in his naked crotch. Yep. I just got slapped in the face by Hunter’s wet dick.
Good thing I was sexually attracted to him, or it could have been a whole lot more awkward, that was for sure.
“Hunter, for the love of claws,” Boden snapped, picking me up and extracting me from the compromising position I’d just sort of frozen into, like a deer in headlights or some shit. “Put some clothes on. Cleo doesn’t need to be mauled by a horny cat the second she walks in the door.”
Hunter ducked his head, embarrassed as he hurried back to the bathroom—I assume to find clothing—and I arched a brow at Boden.
“Hypocrite,” I murmured quietly.
He gave me a cocky grin. “We all have our faults.” He stole another quick kiss before shifting me out of the coffee and broken mug mess to help Sean clean up.
“Sit down, Cleo,” Sean suggested. “We all need to debrief a bit, I think.”
That sounded like the most sensible course of action, so I sat. All the while I wondered... where the fuck was Raze?
Chapter Twenty
Part of me had been pretty confident Raze was there in the house, but just really pissy and in such a foul mood that the guys didn’t dare bother him with my return. Or maybe another part of me thought he was so cut up and distraught by my disappearance that he was sobbing into his pillow upstairs.
But it was neither of those options.
“Gone?” I repeated, dumbfounded. “What do you mean gone? How is that even a thing? Have you seen the freaking size of him?”
Hunter and Boden exchanged a look, and Boden sighed. “Yeah, we know. It’s a bit hard for even us to understand. From what we’ve worked out, you surprised Axle before the rest of his crew were expecting you. After the two of you... uh...”
“Went poof,” I supplied, and he nodded.
“Right, after you went poof, the other cultists freaked out, and fight started up. We were, as you can imagine, in a bit of a panic. We thought Axle had done something to you, and things got a little, uh, out of hand.” Boden cringed, and I suspected he was downplaying the whole event somewhat.
Sean cleared his throat. “What Bo means is that there was some magical clean up to be done afterward. It was during that time that Raze went missing.”
I arched a brow that them, urging them to continue. All these dramatic pauses were making me want to strangle someone.
“We’re guessing there was another group of Bastites that stayed out of the initial fight, and they somehow managed to overpower Raze and sedate him. We received this by email a few hours later.” Boden clicked open a video on Sean’s laptop and turned it to face me.
On the screen, Raze was locked in a cage in a dimly lit room, and he was pissed. His loose hair just added to the wild ferocity as he snarled and hissed at his captors. All kinds of obscenities flew from his mouth, but the words I latched onto, which he said over and over, were the ones that squeezed my heart until it hurt.
“What did you do with her?” he bellowed. “Where is she? Where’s Cleo? If you hurt her, I will skin you alive! Every Bast-damned one of you!”
“Well shit,” I breathed as the video cut off. My eyes were damp, and I swiped them with the back of my hand. It wasn’t exactly the most romantic declaration I’d ever heard, but from Raze? It was pretty damn close. Threatening to skin someone alive... for me? Things just didn’t get much more serious than that.
“So how do we get him back?” I looked to Boden and Hunter. I mean, yeah, Sean was helpful and stuff, but this was our mission and Raze was our responsibility to save. “How do we find out where they’re keeping him?”
Hunter grimaced. “We already know. They took him to Texas. You know those kittens you were on your way to save?” I nodded, confused. “Well, it turns out that ‘shelter’ was a trap laid to draw you in. The amulet is tied to cat shifters as your guardians, and a side-effect of that is that it’ll push you toward all cats. Especially those in need.”
“Wait, so the kill shelter in Texas was a front for Bast’s cult? And that’s where they took Raze?” I blinked at them while processing this information. “How come you’re still here? If you know where he is, why haven’t you already gone to save him?”
&
nbsp; Boden scowled at me. Actually, so did Hunter.
“Because you were missing too, Cleo. We knew where Raze is, and he’s a big enough kitty to handle himself for a while. We didn’t know where you were, and that was infinitely more troubling than Raze being locked in a shift-proof cage.” Boden sounded almost offended that I would suggest they wouldn’t still be here looking for me.
“Well, sure,” I said carefully, “but you didn’t know when I’d reappear... if ever. So wouldn’t it have been a good idea to go rescue Raze? I’m just saying...” I shrugged. I mean, I freaking loved that they’d hung around looking for me, but I hated the idea of Raze in a cage. It was so totally against everything he was... He must be going crazy.
“We knew you were here somewhere,” Hunter informed me with a confident nod. “We could sense you were somewhere nearby.”
I nodded. “Sort of like how my amulet led me here, I guess. Magic.”
There was a short pause during which no one spoke.
“Okay, so we’re heading to Texas then?” I looked between Boden and Hunter, waiting for them to do something. What? I had no idea. Call up the private jet and make plans? Respond to the Bastites and be all, “Yo, we’re on our way!”
Hunter just dodged my gaze, while Boden looked stubborn. Something told me they weren’t on board with my stellar plan.
“What?” I demanded when Boden’s jaw tightened to the point of his cheek ticking.
He shook his head firmly. “We’re not taking you to Texas.”
My brows shot up. “Excuse me?”
“You’re not going to Texas, Cleo,” he said, his tone brokering no arguments from me. “You’re exactly what they want; we’re not going to just march in there and hand you over on a silver platter. Raze can handle himself.”
I frowned in horror. “You’re just going to leave him there? To do what? Free himself? You just said he’s in a shift-proof cage! Do you know what that means?”
“That he can’t shift,” Hunter supplied, and I gestured wildly with my hand.
“Exactly!” I bellowed, “That he can’t shift! How do you plan on him saving himself when he can’t fucking shift, Boden?”
I was getting all kinds of worked up, leaping up out of my seat and gesturing wildly. Something about the way Raze had screamed at the camera, the way he’d threatened bodily harm on them if they hurt me... it brought out that desperate need to protect. The same one I’d felt when I heard about cats in kill-shelters, except way more extreme.
“Cleo,” Boden snapped, just as worked up as I was. “You’re not going to Texas; it’s not safe.”
Now, I got where he was coming from. I really did. But here’s a crash course in how to handle Cleo.
1. Don’t tell me what to do.
2. Don’t imply I’m a helpless damsel in distress.
“Where the hell do you get off, telling me what I can and can’t do?” I seethed, glaring daggers at him. “You’ve known me all of one fucking week, and all you do is boss me around. Well, newsflash, sir commander sir, I’m not in your fucking army, and I don’t have to do what you say! I’ve been rescuing cats just fine all on my own before you arrived, and I can do it again.”
“Cats,” Boden shouted back, “from kill shelters. Not cat shifters from crazy ancient goddesses and their cults! Big difference, sweetheart.”
Somehow he made “sweetheart” sound like an insult, and my anger stoked higher. This condescending ass-face had nothing on Raze right now.
I opened my mouth to unleash the wrath of Cleo on him, but Hunter jumped between us. “Guys, cut it out for a minute. Sean has something to say.” He indicated to their scientific friend, who had his finger raised in the air—as though either of us were going to notice that over our screaming match.
“What?” Both Boden and I snarled the word in unison, then glared at each other. Our argument was far from over.
Sean licked his lips and adjusted those silly, fake glasses of his. “If I might interject, I think I can put an end to this disagreement?”
Boden shot me a smug smile, then nodded to his friend. “By all means, go ahead.” He turned back to me, folding his arms over his chest like he’d already fucking won. Arrogant prick.
“Ah, yes,” Sean started, shooting me a look, to which I glared death back at him. “So, Cleo is right, and she does need to go to Texas.”
“See—” Boden started to say, then it must have clicked what Sean had actually said. “Wait, what?”
“Hah!” I jeered at him. “Suck shit, cat-boy. Sean just said I was right, which means you’re wrong.”
“What?” Boden demanded of Sean. “Have you lost your damn mind? Bast herself is in Texas. The goddess herself. The one who has been trying to steal the Amulet of Light for three and a half millennia. The one who will kill Cleo without a second glance. That Bast.”
Sean sighed and polished his glasses on his cardigan. No joke, he was wearing a cardigan.
“I’m aware which Bast is in Texas, Bo,” he replied with an edge of sarcasm, “but unfortunately, you don’t have final say on this one.”
Boden snorted, and Hunter made a pained groan and muttered something along the lines of, “Oh geez, here we go.”
“Oh no? Tell me who has higher jurisdiction than me in this situation, Sean?” Boden challenged his friend, who looked totally unfazed. Maybe Boden’s temper tantrums weren’t just a byproduct of hanging out with me?
Sean arched a brow and sighed. “The oracles, Bo. The oracles have higher jurisdiction than you in any situation, and you know it.”
Confused, I shot a look at Boden, whose face drained of color way too quickly for my liking. Shit. That couldn’t be good. A quick glance at Hunter showed me a grim expression on his face too.
“This has nothing to do with them,” Boden denied, but I could see the truth all over his face. This definitely did have something to do with these “oracles.” Whoever they were.
Sean snorted. “It does, and you know it does.”
“All right, is anyone going to explain this to me?” I asked, breaking the weird tension in the room. “Who are the oracles, and what do they have to do with me going to Texas?”
Sean turned his attention back to me with a tight, tired-looking smile. “I’m so sorry, Cleo. I forget you know nothing about any of this. Please, sit down, and I’ll do my best to explain.”
I carefully sat back down in my seat, and Sean flicked a sharp look at Boden. “I think you can go and make us some fresh coffee, don’t you?”
Boden scowled at his friend, then gave me a conflicted frown and stalked back into the kitchen to start the coffee brewing.
“Oracles?” I prompted Sean when he looked confused for a moment. Hunter moved from his seat to mine, lifting me up and placing me back down on his lap before wrapping his arms around my waist. Whether it was a show of physical support for whatever Sean was about to tell me or he was just a touchy-feely cat, I wasn’t sure. I also didn’t care; I loved him touching me.
“Right, the oracles.” Sean nodded. “I’ll try and keep this as brief and accessible as possible. Sometimes I tend to wander off into academia and confuse my audience.”
I bit my tongue to keep from making a sarcastic, “Oh, do you? I never noticed,” remark.
“As you’re now aware, there is much more to our world than just humans, yes? There are shifters—”
“Right, the Alliance,” I interrupted, subtly trying to hurry him along. Okay, not so subtly. Whatever.
Sean nodded. “Yes, but the Alliance is just the governing body for shifters. But as you also know, there are many more magical creatures in our world than just shifters.” He nodded pointedly at my amulet, and what he was saying clicked.
“Oh yes. Gods. Gotcha. So these oracles are something different from the Alliance?” I snuggled back into Hunter’s warmth. Damn, he was comfortable to sit on. Soothing, too.
In the back of my mind, I suspected he was letting a little Hunter-magic seep out into me. But i
t was helping keep me calm, so I wasn’t going to argue.
“That’s right,” Sean confirmed. “The Oracles are technically in charge of all the various species’ specific organizations, like the Shifter Alliance. They’re in charge because they’re quite literally oracles. They see the future.” He paused, pursing his lips. “Or they see versions of the future. Unfortunately, they learned a long time ago to keep their visions to themselves because too many people working to prevent too many things just winds up in chaos. Only the strongest visions get recorded for public access. The ones they’re confident won’t change, no matter how many people know or try to influence them.”
A sick feeling pooled in my stomach. “Let me guess, there’s something recorded that you think refers to me?”
Sean beamed. “Yes, how did you know?”
I sighed and accepted the mug of coffee that Boden brought over to me. “I read a lot of fantasy novels. So what does the prophecy say, exactly?”
“Well.” Sean shifted in his seat and took a sip of his own coffee. “I’d need to see the original to get the exact wording correct. These things can get a bit warped over time and retellings, but I submitted a petition for access the moment I saw your DNA results. Hopefully it won’t take them too much longer to grant permission.”
Hunter made a sound under me. “On whose time? Humans’ or immortals’?”
Sean grimaced. “Good point. It could be months, and they’d still consider it a quick turn around.”
“Okay, so what do you remember or know? There must be something specific to me, or you wouldn’t all be tripping out right now.” I glanced between the three of them, and Sean polished his glasses. Again.
“Right, so—” Sean started, but Hunter interrupted.
“In a nutshell,” my Aussie lover said, “the prophecy talks about a half human, half god who was lost in time. It makes some super vague mentions about restoring forgotten gods to their places of power in our world, and then gets super specific that she—or he, maybe it’s not you—will need three powerful guardians in order to succeed. Three guardians, and everything works out well. Less than three... doom and gloom.” Apparently, they’d already been talking about this.