I shrugged my shoulders. “I’ve only tried chicken and tuna as a human so far,” I told him. It was probably a good idea to slowly expose myself to human food. Right now, I still didn’t know what kind of long-lasting effects human food would have on me as a cat.
“Oh! I know what's perfect!” Elex excitedly exclaimed before he grabbed my arm and pulled me from the apartment. His energy seemed to be infectious because once we were on the street, I felt excited to see the city with him. The places Elex went would be different from where Anselm went. And unlike Anselm, Elex kept up a flow of chatter. There didn’t seem to be a topic he wasn’t comfortable sharing, and I did my part to keep up even though there wasn’t much about my life I could tell him.
“What do you do for a living?” I asked Elex when there was a break in conversation. He had to do something to be able to afford an apartment in the same building as Anselm and me. Our neighborhood was high-end. The apartment wasn’t cheap, but Elex could afford it. And like almost everyone in the building, he seemed to come and go at the strangest of times too.
“Oh. Uh. I’m a . . . paid companion,” Elex explained, rubbing the back of his neck.
I stopped in my tracks as I gazed at him. “Like a whore?” I asked.
“Like a mistress,” Elex corrected me.
“Isn’t that just a whore?” I countered, trying to wrap my mind around it.
“A very well taken care of one, thank you very much,” Elex retorted.
Had I offended him? I hadn’t meant to imply anything bad. I still liked him even if he was a paid companion. I was just trying to understand it all.
“I thought you had a boyfriend,” I stated. Wasn’t a whore someone who was sleeping around for money? But Elex had always been adamant that he had a boyfriend. Was he the guy I saw around from time to time or . . . someone else—a client?
“He is my boyfriend. I am dating him. In turn, he takes care of me,” Elex explained.
It sounded like a sweet deal. He got to live in a nice place, and clearly, he was well taken care of and all he had to do was date someone.
“I’m just a freeloader,” I said.
“You’re not dating Anselm?” Elex questioned.
My eyes widened as my cheeks burned. “I’m a cat! At least I was one. How? Why would you even think that?” I asked, wanting to curl up in a ball or maybe just go and die somewhere. Even though secretly I did wish Anselm and I could be in that kind of relationship.
Did he really think I was dating Anselm? How would that even work?
“What?! Weirder things have happened! And he’s always carrying you around, and petting you, and being you know . . . extra attentive. I thought you were dating! I don’t judge. Don’t judge me!” Elex exclaimed.
I shook my head, and the bell around my neck jingled. “Anselm found me when I was first turned. I died momentarily that first night he found me, but after I came back to life, he took me in. We’ve been together for a hundred years.” I reached up and touched the bell he had given me. “But I’m sure he doesn’t feel that way about me.”
Even if I had once been a man, I’d never thought I would be one again. I’d never imagined that I could have feelings for Anselm that went beyond friendship. I had loved him as a cat, but it was only when I’d turned into a human again that I’d realized maybe I loved him in a different way too. My new feelings wouldn’t get me far. I wasn’t supposed to have them at all. Soon, I would be a cat again.
“You like him,” Elex whispered.
I blushed and averted my gaze. “That doesn’t matter either way. I’m a cat.”
“Oh! You like him. You like him. You like him,” Elex chanted, bouncing around me and clapping his hands. People turned to stare. I groaned softly. I was starting to regret coming outside with him. He was a little embarrassing.
“You’re so cute. Did he give you that?” Elex asked, flicking the bell around my neck.
I nodded and smiled a bit. “He had a witch enchant it, so it’ll fit no matter what form I’m in.”
“Jeez. That is so sweet. And you’re not dating? I’ll take him off your hands after my arrangement ends,” Elex said. I could hear the teasing note in his voice, but something hot and ugly flashed through me at the idea.
“No way!” I yelled. Anselm was mine. Not even Elex could have him.
“Aaah! You’re so adorable when you’re being possessive,” Elex teased, grabbing my hand and dragging me along with him.
He poked fun at me for the rest of the evening, but I guessed I didn’t mind.
I . . . I knew I liked Anselm, but I’d accepted my fate long ago.
Anselm
Edmund seemed to sleep more than ever since the first time he’d turned into a human. Even now, he was curled up in my bed, purring as his little paws kicked at the pillow.
I smiled softly as I watched him, but I wasn’t happy. For the last century, he had depended on me, and it wasn’t often I let him down. If I didn’t find a way to re-curse him, would he be disappointed and feel as if I’d failed him? I felt as if I was failing him. My earlier search had been fruitless.
Was he destined to spend whatever days he had left trapped somewhere between a cat and a man? He was a cute cat, though. He always had been.
A hundred years ago, when I’d found him whimpering in a dark alley, he had been near dead. His broken and bloody body had been cast into the mud after a horse had kicked him. I’d wrapped him in my jacket and carried him home with intent to heal him, but he’d died in my arms along the walk. Instead of casting his body away, I had decided I would bury him.
Even a street cat deserved that, I had thought.
He’d come awake with a fury while I’d been digging his grave in the moonlight.
I’d frozen in place, shovel in hand, and he’d run into a corner, hiding under a bush. His pitiful whine had been heartbreaking. It had taken hours to coax him out of his spot. I’d given him some of the fish my cook at the time had prepared and a warm glass of milk. He’d fallen asleep in my bed as the sun rose. For a week, we’d maintained the same pattern.
I’d fed him what was prepared, given him the milk he’d desired, and he’d slept through the days.
The first time he’d spoken to me, he’d asked why I never went out during the day and why I pressed my lips to the neck of a servant boy each night. I’d thought I’d finally succumbed to the madness my kind so often dealt with after living for countless generations. But then I’d realized he was just a talking cat—a man cursed by a witch.
We’d sorted each other out quickly, and not a lot had changed.
But now, everything was changing. Edmund was no longer just a cat. He was a man too—a man with desires. At least, that was if our interaction yesterday—after he had climbed out of the shower and into my bed—had been any indication.
The way he’d cried my name, how it had rolled off his tongue as he’d found his release, burned through me. I wanted to prompt him to say it again, wanted to encourage the same response from him. It was a bad idea. He was a cat. He wanted to be a cat. If all went as intended, he wouldn’t be a man for much longer.
There was no sense in getting caught up in things that could not be.
It was better for us both if things settled quickly.
I’d had no luck finding a dark witch, despite the fact I’d spent most of the night searching. I’d looked everywhere—not only through occult shops but in the other dark places people like me liked to hide.
Those who wanted to help whispered the same name over and over—Cassius Ruda.
But I didn’t want his help.
We had run in the same circles for a time—until Sunday, September 2, 1666, when the little bakery he had set on fire because a man had pissed him off had started a blaze that burned for days through London. If not for that fire, we probably would still be friends.
We’d been a pair of outcasts in a world that, at the time, hadn’t known we existed.
Most of the world knew now or su
spected, in any case, that the monsters they didn’t want to believe in did, indeed, exist. Things had changed. The world had changed. I had changed. Cassius had probably changed as well. It had been a long time since we’d spoken at length, since I had asked for his help. It was because of his foolishness that our lives had taken separate paths long before I’d known Edmund. But now I needed Cassius again.
Would he come to my aid? Or would he shun me as I had shunned him for so long?
I sighed, pushing my fingers through my hair to draw it away from my face.
Edmund rolled over, his tail thumping the bedsheet. I pulled the blanket over his body and reached for my phone on the nightstand. Unlocking the device, I looked through my contacts and found the name I was looking for. I was thankful that Grey Davis had given me the number, despite the fact I’d told him I didn’t want it and would never have a need for it.
I pressed down on Cassius’s contact number and waited. The line rang and rang and rang.
“Hello,” the soft voice of a stranger spoke.
“Cassius?” I asked, though I was wondering if a companion of his had answered.
“Wrong number,” the person replied. The line went dead.
I pulled the device away from my ear and peered down at it. I wasn’t surprised. If I wanted to find Cassius, I was going to have to look in the places he would frequent.
“No luck?” Edmund questioned, stepping off the bed to perch himself on my knee.
“None,” I answered as I leaned over to set my phone down. “I’m sorry.” I knew that he wanted to be a cat—to stay a cat forever—or at least, he didn’t care about being a cat or a man so long as he lived forever. I was trying to give him that—immortality as my companion without turning him into a vampire.
Why did it have to be so hard?
“We won’t give up,” he assured me, pressing his paws against my shoulder.
“You want to be a cat that badly,” I teased, running my fingers down his back. His tail twisted around my fingers as I played with it.
His reaction had been very different the last time I’d touched his tail, and I was a little disappointed.
“I don’t want to die,” he whispered, pressing his forehead into my chest.
“You can’t be sure you’re dying,” I said as I cradled him against my body.
“But what if every time I turn human, whatever clock that was stopped when I was cursed starts ticking again?” he asked, nuzzling against my jaw. I dug my fingers into his side. and his claws flexed on my shoulder.
“Would it be so bad?” I asked even though my heart squeezed with the question. I wouldn’t live in a world without Edmund. I refused. If he chose to let his life end naturally, I would end mine in the most unnatural way possible for my kind. I’d walk into the sun. I would let my body burn and whatever soul I possessed finally rest. “People are meant to die.”
“I died once. I don’t want to do it again,” he assured me, pulling back and peering up. His blue eyes danced as he searched my face. “I . . . I don’t want to leave you, Anselm.”
He’d been saying that since the first moment he’d become a man again.
“I don’t want you to leave,” I told him softly. It was something I had never admitted to him before. I wanted him with me always—as a cat, as a man, so long as he was with me for all time. We had been together for so long now, and I wasn’t ready to let him go.
“That’s why I have to be a cat,” he replied, his voice lower. It shook softly as he added, “So I don’t age and I don’t have to ask you to turn me into a vampire. It’s the only way I can stay, right?”
“I want you with me always, as a cat or a man.” But not a vampire. I would not turn him.
He almost seemed to frown as he looked up at me. “You would want me around even if I turned into some kind of immortal human-cat hybrid?” he questioned.
“Yes,” I assured him, kneading his ear between my fingers. “So long as you are with me.”
“You didn’t seem so happy about my human side before,” he noted, and admittedly, I hadn’t been happy. My initial reaction to him turning into a human had been selfish. I hadn’t thought about him in the slightest. I hadn’t considered what it could mean for him to no longer be a cat. I had only cared because I’d thought I was losing him. And maybe I was. Maybe no one could help us.
The fear cascaded over me like a wet blanket. I closed my eyes and squeezed Edmund.
“People tend to leave,” I noted. They died. Or they moved on because day by day, they got older and I never changed—never aged. Edmund wasn’t supposed to be like that. He was supposed to be immortal or at the very least have eight more lives to burn through. Now…the future was uncertain, but one thing remained the same.
“I hope you’d stay.” As man or cat.
“You can’t get rid of me,” he said, his nose pressing into my neck.
I smiled softly. “We’re going to find someone who can help us,” I assured him. If he wanted to be a man, we would ensure he was a man who lived forever. If he wanted to be a cat so be it.
“What if . . . what if they can’t make me a cat?” he asked, sitting down on my knee once more. “What if they can only keep me human?”
I touched his ear, scratching behind it. “Do you want to be human?” I asked. I had asked if he wanted to be a cat before. He’d said he didn’t care either way, but maybe he did. Perhaps he wanted more than the life of a cat.
“I don’t know,” he admitted, his head falling as his ears flattened. “I’m scared to be human. But I have to admit I like it a little too.”
“We will figure it out,” I promised. “And whatever happens, we’ll do it together.”
“Really?” he asked.
I slipped my hands under his front legs and lifted him. “Really,” I replied before leaning in and pressing a soft kiss between his ears. It wasn’t the first time I had done so. I supposed if he chose to be a man and only a man, it might be one of the last times we were together like this.
“We’ll just have to roll with the punches,” he purred.
I pulled him against my chest, and he tucked himself under my chin.
We would figure it out. It might take time, but we had at least some time, didn’t we?
It wasn’t like he was going to drop dead tomorrow.
“Let’s feed you. You’ve still got some baked tuna,” I said, carrying him out of the bedroom.
“You need to eat today too,” Edmund replied. He was supposed to have fed me when I’d gotten home, but he had been tucked away in bed, sleeping soundly as a cat when I’d arrived.
I shook my head, running my fingers down his back. “I’m not hungry.” It wasn’t as if I needed sustenance every day. I had long since moved past that kind of hunger. The need didn’t claw at me as it had when I’d been new, as when I’d been young and unsure of my existence. I could go longer without food now.
“Anselm,” Edmund whined, “it’s been days.”
“I’ve gone longer,” I assured him, setting him down onto the counter.
He walked along the surface, following me towards the fridge. “Fine,” he huffed, sitting down on the edge of the counter and licking his paw. “I won’t fight you—this time. Though I still think you should have eaten Matt.”
“I was far more interested in the meal sitting beside me,” I teased, putting the tuna in the microwave so it could heat.
“Well the next time I’m human, I’ll shove my blood down your throat again,” he replied.
“Sounds dirty,” I countered, resting my hip against the counter.
He bowed his head. “It could . . . be . . .”
I laughed softly. The microwave beeped. I pulled out the tuna and set it before him.
“Saved by the bell,” I laughed, kneading his ear as he pawed at his food.
Edmund
The next time I was human was two days later. Anselm had gone out to get some more food and blood, and I woke up on the sofa in my human bo
dy. Much like the first time when I’d turned, I was only just rubbing the sleep out of my eyes when Anselm walked in.
My cheeks burned as he looked at me. I was standing in the living room naked, and I could feel his eyes on me. It was embarrassing and flattering at the same time. I liked that he wanted to look, but I wasn’t sure if I should like it. It was confusing—conflicting.
“I have something for you,” Anselm said, putting down the bags. “And since you’re human, we’re going out tonight. I want to take you somewhere.”
My steps were slow but deliberate as I marched towards Anselm. “Eat,” I ordered. He hadn’t eaten in at least a week. Whatever he had gotten me, wherever he wanted to take me, it could wait. Right now, he needed to feed. Even if he wasn’t going to starve to death, he still needed blood in order to stay strong.
“So bossy,” Anselm teased, his finger pinching my chin as he tilted my head back. He leaned down, licking a line along my neck. I shivered under his touch. He was only teasing me, but my body didn’t know the difference. A desire I hadn’t felt in forever pulsed through me. My cock hardened. I could feel my heart racing as it drummed against my chest. In the back of my mind, I could hear Elex’s voice teasing me, repeating that I liked Anselm. Or even worse, thinking that we were dating when I was just a cat.
“Just eat already.” My voice was small and breathless.
“Am I not allowed to enjoy my meal?” Anselm asked, and I swallowed.
“Of course you should,” I whispered.
Did everyone he fed from feel this way? It felt like I was going to die before he even bit me. Maybe that was just because of my feelings, feelings that seemed to grow every time I took this form.
“You smell sweet,” Anselm whispered, nipping my jaw.
I twisted my fingers in his shirt, and my tail wrapped around the front of me. I swallowed my moan when the fur brushed against my hardened shaft.
“Be nice to me,” I whined, my voice strange to my own ears. He was so close. The cool heat of his body burned, setting my body ablaze.
Eight Lives (Match Made In Hell Book 1) Page 6