Kay paced up and down fretting.
Marlowe strode into the room. She met him not long after she was first taken. He was head of the security team, tasked with making sure the test subjects were contained and managed. Oh, how she wished he had been there an hour ago.
“What happened?” he asked in his usual clipped tone.
He wasn’t overly friendly, but he wasn’t cruel or mocking like so many of the other people who chose to be there.
“He… I don’t know. Eleven got out somehow. The cage is broken.”
Marlowe growled. He was a wolf shifter. With the exception of her and Froggett, everyone else who worked there was supernatural. The huge man who kidnapped her was an elephant. Thankfully, he wasn’t there all the time – just when there was a problem. When one of the security team had turned up drunk and almost shot one of the subjects, the huge guy came and left, forcibly carrying the guy away. No one knew what happened to him, but Kay didn’t imagine it was anything good.
“You’re not going to hurt him… are you?”
The test subjects already endured more than their fair share of pain.
“I’m more worried about what he might do right now,” grumbled Marlowe.
“In that state, he doesn’t know any better. You will find him, right?”
Marlowe unlocked the weapons cabinet and pulled out a dart gun. “Just make sure his back up cage is ready for when I get return.”
She nodded.
He paused and looked at her worriedly. “Boss won’t be happy about this.”
“No.”
Kay had never met the boss, but she already knew whoever they were, they were rarely happy.
*
Wolfman sighed as she flicked her wet blonde hair over her shoulders. Avery - the epitome of perfection, the most wonderful woman in entire creation, started blow-drying her glorious wealth of golden hair.
His wolf grumbled at him. Go talk to her urged the beast. In fact, forget the talking. Go kiss her senseless until she begs for more.
Wolfman let out another sigh, longer and more pathetic, as he clutched at his binoculars. He was perched on a rooftop opposite Avery’s apartment doing surveillance. Spying more like sneered his wolf. Doing surveillance! He just happened to be doing it in her neighborhood, and he just happened to need to be opposite the goddess’ apartment. That’s all it was – coincidence. Yeah right.
He stilled as Avery suddenly dropped the dryer. He saw her jaw work itself into a roar and a black-clad goon grabbed her, pulling her away from the window.
His inner wolf howled, and Wolfman leaped into action. No way was anyone harming his lioness.
He needed to get over there. It was time to try that untested grappling hook. He stood on the ledge, feeling more than a little queasy. Batman made this look so easy.
But no matter how ill he felt, and the potential to go splat on the street below, he had to do this. He had to save her. Because if there was one thing he was sure of, she was his. Mine!
Wolfman took a deep breath and hoped for the best…
*
“Knock it off!” growled Avery, giving one of her sisters a very hard slap.
She recognized the resulting howl as belonging to Aimee.
“That was mean!” snarled her youngest sister.
Avery and her lioness rolled their eyes. Poor Aimee had always been the weakest link - the smallest and clumsiest out of all the pride. Was it just her old pride that was filled with lunatics? Or were all prides like this?
She sensed one of her other sisters approaching from behind – Adelle she thought, though Andrea was lurking nearby. Thankfully, Abby was heavily pregnant, otherwise, she’d be there too. Actually… Avery sniffed. Nope, definitely not there.
With a great deal of ease, Avery whipped around and planted a fist on Adelle’s face, sending her sprawling into Andrea. They let out growls of dismay while her inner beast rumbled in satisfaction. Her sisters were so predictable.
Aimee seemed to be making another run at her and Avery folded her arms. “I’m not in the mood, okay? Can you we skip the part where I kick all your asses, and you go home and tell Mom I did?”
Her sister stopped and pulled her mask off. “You can’t be sure you’d kick all our asses.”
Avery gave her a deadpan look and Aimee sighed in defeat. “Fine. But one of these days… maybe…”
“Aha, all the best to Mommy dearest.”
The three of them struggled out the apartment, leaning heavily on one another while muttering curses.
She was about to resume drying her hair when she heard a thump against her window. Another bird, maybe? Happened now and again that they flew into the window. It always delighted her lioness, though Avery always disappointed the beast by taking the bird to the veterinarian to be nursed back to health. Yes, she was a predator, but she was a picky eater.
Avery moved to the window, expecting to find a feathery little beast on her fire escape, but no, her heart thudded, and her beast howled excitedly. It wasn’t a bird. It wasn’t a plane. It was Wolfman! Los Lobos’ number one vigilante, owner of one hell of a set of lips and the star of many of her fantasies.
She threw the window open to find the masked hero groaning and clutching his side.
“Wolfman!” she breathed.
Was she dreaming? His painful moans suggested not, because, in her dreams, he wouldn’t be injured – he would already be ravishing her.
Avery dragged him into her apartment and peered around him. Where had he… Her lioness roared in alarm as she noticed the wire. He did not make his way over here with a blasted grappling hook!
He seemed to come to his senses and jumped to his feet, weaving alarmingly. “I’m here to rescue you.”
She gaped at him “You came all the way across here using that?”
He nodded while woozily peering around her apartment.
“You could have been killed. Are you insane?!” she snarled.
Oh, she thought of her poor little Wolfman splattering all over the sidewalk, and her lioness let out a forlorn meow. The hell was he thinking?
Wolfman drew himself to his full height – which was an inch or two more than Avery.
“I had to rescue you,” he rasped in his low voice.
Her eyebrows knit together. “Save me? I’m fine.”
“But I saw someone attacking you.”
There was a beep, and he ran over to her kitchen shouting and practicing an impressive karate chop, “Aha!”
“That’s the microwave – my popcorn is done.”
“Oh.”
Wolfman deflated a little, and she realized she was maybe a little ungrateful. He had risked life, limb, limb, limb, and limb to get over to her because he thought she was in danger. Her ex Daryl hadn’t even been willing to defend her when a hyena shifter tried to slap her at the movies – a fight that Daryl started by complaining that they were talking too loudly. Another reason their relationship couldn’t last – he resented the fact that Avery was a hell of a lot braver than him.
Avery softened and placed her hand on his chest.
“Ah, that was just my sisters.”
“Your sisters were attacking you?”
Yes, he was surprised – that was the normal reaction to sisters attacking each other, but in her family, it was just business as normal.
“Yeah, they’re nuts.”
“I see,” he said slowly, but she knew he didn’t understand and she really didn’t want to tell him the truth about her awful family. She could think of some much better ways to spend their time.
“Thank you for trying to rescue me. How can I reward you?”
The part of his face that was visible turned red – as it always did when she took on that tone of voice - and as usual, he was lost for words.
“Well, I ah…”
Avery snickered and grasped his head, pulling him down for a kiss. His perfect, soft lips pressed against hers and she melted against him. Kissing should not be this sinfully good. She wasn’t sure what had prompted her to kiss him the first time they met. Gratitude maybe, but honestly, she hadn’t been thinking at all. It had just felt so right, and she didn’t stop to consider that he was a total stranger in a costume. Every time with him just felt right. Her lioness let out a delighted mewl as tingles of pleasure echoed through her frame.
She pulled away from him, gently nipping his bottom lip.
“How about like that?” she asked almost coquettishly.
She flushed at her own behavior – she had never acted like this with any other male she had been with, even when they wanted her to be that way.
He gazed at her with a vague, nearly smug smile before he let out a squeak and jumped as his police scanner beeped. Avery pressed her lips together to stop herself from laughing.
They listened as they heard a report of a purse snatcher.
“That’s near here, are you going to…”
“Hmmm? Oh right, yes!”
He snapped to attention and strode to the window, his cape knocking down the Ghostbusters Lego set she had been building. Oh well, she was only one thousand pieces in – she supposed she could rebuild.
He climbed through, and she ran over to him as he struck a heroic pose. With one foot on the fire escape and his cape billowing, he certainly did look breathtaking.
“Wherever there is danger, wherever – ow! Shit!”
A bird flew into his face, and he started tumbling backward until he was on the next floor down.
Avery peered out of the window. “Ummm?”
“I’m okay,” he called up to her.
Avery gave him the thumbs up sign and reflected that really he could have used the stairs or even the elevator inside her building. She shook her head fondly as she watched his costumed form pick himself up and clatter down the rest of the stairs. What a pro.
She closed the window and noticed a small piece of white card on the floor. She picked it up and frowned as she read the text. Wolfman must have dropped it. What a strange thing for him to carry…