A Lion’s Mate by Eve Langlais

Chapter Nine

She said, “I need,” and Zach bought her the most impractical shoes ever. A few reasons for that, the top-most being that he couldn’t say no to those big eyes.

Damnit.

It didn’t help that the heels looked damned good on her feet. Strangest thing, though? She could actually walk in them. She strutted as they headed back for the house, each of them carrying a bag in one hand, the others linked. He could argue that it was so he didn’t lose her, but the truth was, he kind of enjoyed it—which he didn’t care to analyze. Probably fatigue and residual effects of the drugs. He’d decided to give them the rest of today to fuel up and rest before they took off. He needed to be alert while on the road.

Only it didn’t look like he’d get his nap.

As they neared his dad’s place, he saw the car parked across the end of the driveway, blocking the Impala—which his dad had pulled out of the garage and freed of its dust wrap. Dad babied the Monica.

“Something is wrong,” he said, driving past without slowing down.

She craned to look behind them. “Joe.” With one word, she pinpointed his worry.

“Yeah. Joe.” He sighed as he parked the car at the corner. “Stay here?” It came out as a question because he already had a feeling he knew her reply.

She grinned and shook her head. “I can help.”

She possibly could. Or she could get shot or taken, and he’d be in trouble. But what about his dad?

“We’re just going to check things out. Maybe it’s not as bad as we think.” The question being: Go in on the sly, or boldly?

“Joe’s in danger.” And, apparently, that was a big deal to her. She bolted for the door, slamming it open and yelling, “Joe!”

He could go in behind her, or… He ran down the side of the house, vaulted the chain-link fence, and landed within a step of the side door. So old that even when locked, a hard yank would open it.

Except for today. A second too late, he noticed the gleam of new metal.

Dad had changed it?

The new lock clicked, and the door opened, the muzzle of a gun aimed at his face. The guy holding it had pockmarked skin, his hair cut military-short. “Get inside. We have some questions for you and the woman.”

Questions? Sounded better than dying now.

He followed, but upon entering the kitchen, a nasally voice demanded, “Check him for weapons.”

A human, notable for his peach fuzz growing in patches, ran his hands over Zach’s body. While that happened, Zach took in the situation. Dad sat in a kitchen chair, a gun held to the back of his head, swelling making his left eye shut. His nose showed signs of earlier bleeding.

Fuckers.

His dad had fought. Zach saw the scuff marks on all of the home invaders’ bodies. Pockmark, Fuzz, plus two more henchmen he mentally nicknamed Bandanna, and the Fonz.

Fluffs stood by the hall entrance, arms held high given the guy holding a gun on her. She hadn’t shifted or done anything crazy. Not yet. But he could see the look in her eyes.

Four humans against three shifters.

He liked those odds, except for the guns. These didn’t look loaded with tranquilizers.

“For fuck’s sake, Dad. I left you alone for an hour. ‘I can handle it,’ he said, ‘I’m not too old.’” Zach started complaining and caught his father’s eye.

“Ungrateful whelp, bringing trouble home all the time. How many times must I clean up your messes?”

“My messes?” Zach didn’t have to pretend as this argument was an old and familiar one.

To add to the bizarre argument, Fluffy chose to suddenly shake her shopping bag, suspended from her fist as she announced, “I have tiny undergarments now.”

The Fonz muttered something along the lines of, “Nobody wants to see that.”

Not true. Zach did.

“Shut it. All of you,” Pockmark yelled.

“Or what?” Zach cajoled.

Bandanna was the one to shout, “Or the cat gets it.” His foot rattled a lidded bin sitting on the floor. Zach heard an angry yowl.

Someone threatened his baby?

“Don’t worry, Neffi. Daddy’s here,” Zach cooed then glared at the home invaders. “I’m going to give you three seconds to get out before I make your mother wish she’d been on a protein diet and swallowed.”

“Do anything, and the cat gets it.” Bandanna lifted the lid on the bin and aimed his weapon. Rowr. Neffi hissed and swiped.

Fluffy dropped her bag. “Don’t hurt the kitty.” She shook her finger.

“Tell us where the box is, and we won’t,” Pockmark said.

“Over there.” She pointed right away.

Pockmark glanced as if he could see and then frowned. “There, where? I need a place.”

“She can’t give you one,” Zach interjected.

“Liar. Our boss said you and your little friend know exactly where it’s gone.”

“Who is your boss?” Zach asked because they’d yet to figure out who was in charge of the never-ending stream of human mercenaries—although these were less professional than expected. More small-time thug.

“Our boss is none of your fucking business. Tell us where it is.”

“I don’t know.”

Whereas Fluffy yelled, “Vancouver.”

He glared at her. Was it in Vancouver? The Rockies were close by.

She shrugged as she crossed her arms over her new shirt, printed with the skyline of a west coast city.

“So, you do know where it is.” Pockmark shook his gun at them, and Zach was annoyed.

He’d also given them way more than the promised three seconds. “Time’s up.”

Zach saved Neffi first, tackling Bandanna around the knees. They hit the floor, hard enough that Bandanna yelped and began rolling, holding himself.

Zach popped to his feet, ducked a wild blow from Fuzz, and snapped a few quick jabs at Fuzz’s face until his eyes rolled back.

Bandanna took that time to recover and went to charge Zach, only to scream as he clapped his hands over Bandanna’s ears. That took him down for the count.

Turning around, it was to see Pockmark gaping, probably because Dad had gone all lion and slobbered on him.

As for Fluffy, she remained humanish and had her attacker on the floor, pinned by the neck, her calf arching nicely in her new shoes.

Trust his dad to notice and ogle.

In less time than it took for his dad to get some coffee going along with a heated plate of cookies, they had their assailants tied to chairs.

Four of them, and the Pride sending a team to pick them up for questioning.

Fluffs grumbled. “Maybe they wouldn’t keep attacking if we chewed on a few on them.”

“Send a message. I like it,” his dad said, serving the cat some flaky tuna from the fridge.

“People kind of frown on that,” Zach reminded.

“Meat is meat. You got no problem buying a steak and eating it,” his dad argued.

“Different.”

“How?”

“Food doesn’t talk,” Zach explained, not for the first time.

“Mine sometimes does,” Fluffs added to the conversation.

“You know talking fish.”

“Is a walrus considered a fish? And I only ate him because he wouldn’t leave me alone. Seemed a shame to let him go to waste.”

“You ate a walrus shifter?” Walrus as in a big seal-like dude. He rubbed his face. “Nope. Not ready for that.”

“How many are the Pride sending?” Joe asked. “Doesn’t matter. I better make more coffee.” His dad limped off, but Fluffy stayed behind. Neffi chose that moment to show she’d finally noticed his arrival. She arrived to twine around his ankles. He gathered her in his arms and drew her to his chest for a snuggle that had her purring.

“That’s my sweet baby.” He nuzzled his suddenly very loving cat.

It ended the second Fluffy put her hand on his arm.

Neffi swiped and hissed.

Fluffy hissed right back. With a glare, Neffi dug in her claws and leapt from his arms.

“I promise I’ll make this up to you,” he hollered after his retreating cat.

“Are you sure it’s not food?” she asked.

“We don’t eat pets.”

“Not my pet.” If she’d not grinned, he might not have caught the jest.

“Bad Fluffy.” He smiled too, lest she think it a rebuke.

“When do we go?” she asked. She knew the attack had moved up their timeline. They couldn’t wait until morning now.

“Just waiting for someone to grab my dad and Neffi.” He wasn’t about to leave them unprotected. “So, not long.” It would depend on how fast a team travelled, or if they could find someone local who might arrive shortly.

“Bad.” She glanced at the tied men, none of them dead. Although the guy who got the heel in his throat? He might find talking difficult for a while. Eating, too.

“Yeah. Bad. I didn’t expect them to strike that quickly.” Almost as if they had somehow known his movements. Impossible, unless…he fired a message off to tech support. Possibly being followed. Hacked? Going off-grid.

He destroyed his phone and anyone’s ability to track him. It only took one person to betray, much as he hated to think it.

“I’m sorry,” she apologized.

“Don’t. It’s not your fault. We knew they might come after you. We’ll lose them once we hit the road.”

“I’m ready,” she announced, both her shopping bags in hand.

“I have a box packed in the fridge,” his dad said, returning to the kitchen and heading for it.

It was only because he tracked his dad’s path that Zach’s gaze happened past the kitchen window, just in time to catch the rock as it hit the pane and shattered the glass.

“Son of a gun,” his father exclaimed. “Wait until I get my hands on them.” His father whirled and headed for the side door, but Zach was still watching and yelled, “Fire!” Because a flaming bottle soared for that open hole.

He reached for his dad and yanked him out of harm’s way, shoving Fluffy ahead of him into the hall. He heard rather than saw the whoosh as glass shattered, spreading flaming alcohol.

His father yanked free. “My kitchen!”

Zach turned to see it already engulfed. The men tied to the chairs were its first victims, although he wasn’t sure how much they felt given they all foamed at the mouth.

Why was someone so psycho about making sure they couldn’t be questioned?

The fire alarm went off, and Zach knew they didn’t have much time.

“We have to go, Dad.”

“Go?” His father appeared to not comprehend as he stared at the spreading flames.

“It’s bug-out time,” he said.

The familiar words said often to Zach growing up, wiped the confusion from his father’s eyes.

“We better grab the bags.” Zach knew better than to argue about snaring the bug-out bag his dad kept in case of the apocalypse. He grabbed the army green camo one from the front hall, along with the gray tone version kept packed for Zach. He noticed a third one in there, bright pink with a sparkly crown. Neffi now had her own.

Fluffy had a tight grip on her bags as she sailed out the door, and his cat followed on her heels.

“Where’re the keys?” he asked his father as they raced for the car.

“Here.” His father dangled them. “I’m driving.”

Zach paused long enough to glare. “Don’t you fucking start now. You know I’m trained for this.”

“Fine. But don’t you scratch her,” he warned as he slapped the keys into Zach’s hand.

“I’ll do my best.” Although that would be quickly challenged given the vehicle blocking them in.

They piled into the car, Fluffy and his dad in the back, his baby Neffi in the front. He started the engine, a big rumbly beast. He remembered riding with pride in this car as a boy, knowing he was cruising in style. He’d only rarely driven it.

Smoke billowed from the front door of the house as he reversed, making his dad yell as he drove onto the front lawn and then thumped over the curb, avoiding the car blocking the drive.

Only once they’d left the sirens and smoke behind did he say, “Well, guess there’s only one place to take you now, old man.”