Kaci

“This is where you live?” Dustin glanced around the property as he drove us onto the Lazy S ranch through the arched gate, beneath the emblem—the letter S turned on its side. “I didn’t know you were a farm girl.”

“I’m not.” Yet there was a lot Dustin didn’t know about me. A lot he would never know.

Gravel crunched beneath his tires as we rounded a shallow curve in the long driveway, and the big red barn appeared on our right. “Damn.” Dustin whistled. “That’s straight out of, like, some old painting. You got horses in there? Or cows?”

“Nope. No animals.” No farm animals, anyway. The local wildlife had been known to drive horses into a panic. Then into a heart attack. “This isn’t a functioning ranch.” It was more like a compound. The capital of a political authority Dustin would never even know existed.

“So, the barn’s basically abandoned?” Dustin turned to the right, and his headlights glinted on flaking red paint and slightly warped barn doors. He gave me a comically suggestive eyebrow waggle. “I bet we could get into a lot of trouble in there.”

“That’s a virtual certainty.” Chances were good that he mistook the anticipation in my voice for lust. Human guys tend to give themselves credit for more than they deserve. I suspect the same goes for shifter guys, but the truth is that I wouldn’t know.

“Let’s go in.” He slammed the gear shift into park and turned to me with excitement glowing in his eyes, reflected in starlight shining through the windshield.

“I don’t think so. The ranch backs up to a national forest. We get a lot of predators skulking in the shadows.”

“Don’t worry, Kaci.” He got out, then leaned down to peer in at me with a smutty smile. “I’ll protect you.”

I nearly choked on laughter. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you…”

Dustin rounded the front of the vehicle and pulled my door open. I let him tug me out of the car because if there was one aspect of human behavior I still understood, after five years of observing it from the other side of the species divide, it was that if you tell a guy he shouldn’t do something, he won’t even be able to think about anything else until he’s done exactly that.

Was it unfair of me to push that button? Probably. But I learned at a young age that life isn’t fair. Why should Dustin not have the benefit of that same experience?

He closed my car door and led me toward the barn in the glare of his headlights, where I straightened my skirt while I watched him struggle with the old doors.

“They’re a little warped,” I said as he pulled, tendons standing out in his neck from the effort.

“I got it.” He grunted and pulled again, and I looked up to enjoy the warm, clear summer night. There was no moon, but the stars were all out, and they were more than enough light for me to see by. Though Dustin probably wasn’t as fortunate.

“You want a hand?”

He tossed an amused look my way. “This thing’s really jammed. It probably hasn’t been opened—”

“Since last weekend.” I pushed him aside and jerked on the right-hand barn door, one handed. It swung open with a squeal of rusty hinges, and Dustin gaped at me. I shrugged. “There’s a trick to it.” Showing him up was one thing. But if he knew I was actually three times stronger than he was, he would get back in his car and peel out of there before I’d had any fun.

And I was in desperate need of a little fun.

Mollified by my explanation, Dustin grabbed my hand and tugged me into the barn, where he stumbled over a large rock right in front of the door, which he obviously couldn’t see. “Shit!

I laughed as I steadied him, and he took the opportunity to slide his hand over my ass. “Think that’s funny?” He murmured against my neck as his hands moved up my back, beneath my blouse. “Maybe I tripped on purpose, so you’d grab me.”

He hadn’t.

“Maybe I meant to hit the ground, with you on top of me.”

“The ground’s filthy,” I whispered as his lips trailed down my jaw toward my mouth. “But there’s a bale of hay over there…” Right where I’d put it.

Dustin walked me backward toward the hay bale, steading me with both hands while his mouth fed from mine as if I were the only source of sustenance on the planet, and I had to admit, the guy knew how to kiss. Hay scratched the back of my calves and I sat.

He didn’t even notice the blanket spread over the bale. But then, that was for my comfort, not his.

I leaned back and Dustin crawled over me, one knee wedged between my thighs, pushing up my skirt. His hand wandered beneath my blouse again while his lips traveled down my neck, and I threw my head back, giving myself over to the moment. To the adrenaline and to the need building low inside me.

So what if I’d only met him a few hours ago? So what if he thought I was a college junior partying her way through a degree in business management.

The less he knew about me the better. For his own good.

A growl rumbled through the dark from the rear of the barn.

Dustin froze above me, but I pretended not to hear the threat as I slid my hands over his tight stomach beneath his shirt, then over his chest. “Touch me,” I whispered.

The growl rolled over us again, too loud this time for me to reasonably ignore, but I ignored it anyway.

“Kaci.” My name was little more than a deep grumble of syllables from the shadows near the last stall.

Dustin backed off me and stood, squinting into the dark, eyes wide with the quiet kind of fear that makes deer freeze in oncoming headlights. “Kaci?” he whispered. “Something’s in here with us.” Which was when I realized his human hearing couldn’t distinguish my name from the growling.

I shrugged as I sat up, straightening my blouse. “I told you. Predators.”

“Seriously. Let’s go.”

“She’s not going anywhere.” Marc Ramos stepped into the glare from Dustin’s headlights, and even I had to admit that he looked kind of scary. “But you have ninety seconds to vacate the premises before I rip you into several pieces and toss them into the incinerator. The police will never find your body.”

“What the hell…?” Dustin backed toward the open barn doors. “Is that your dad?”

I snorted. “He’s old, but he’s not that old.”

“And she just graduated high school,” Marc growled.

Dustin turned to me, brows arched in question. “You said you were in college.”

I gave him another shrug. “I passed five AP tests, so technically I’m halfway through my freshman year. And people tell me I’m an old soul.”

“Seventy-five seconds,” Marc growled. “Then I start breaking bones.”

Dustin turned and ran for his car, hay flying beneath his shoes. He started the engine and slammed the gear shift into neutral by mistake, and I could see sweat popping up on his forehead in the three seconds it took him to understand the problem. Then he reversed onto the driveway and took off toward the gate, gravel grinding beneath his tires.

I collapsed onto the bale of hay, laughing. “Thanks. That was awesome.”

“This isn’t a game, Kaci.” Marc tugged me up by one hand and snatched my blanket from the bale.

“Of course it’s a game. But it would have been a hookup, if you’d respect my right to a little privacy.”

“The only place you’re guaranteed privacy is in your room.”

“But I’m not allowed to have guys in my room. So, you can kind of see my dilemma.”

“No, you’re not allowed to have boys in your room. You’re not allowed to have grown ass men anywhere on the face of this planet. So, you can kind of see my dilemma.”

“I’m eighteen, Marc.” I snatched the blanket from him and shook it out hard enough that the material snapped against itself; Faythe said she’d skin me alive if I clogged up the dryer vent with any more hay. “That means I get to make my own decisions.”

“You’re also a member of the South-Central Pride. Which means you have to follow the rules. There’s a reason you’re not allowed to bring your dates to the barn, or the woods, or anywhere else on this property except right through the front door of the house.”

“Yeah, I can’t quite remember why that is again.” I folded the blanket in half, then in half again as I left the barn. “Can you please tell me for the millionth time?”

“I’m serious, Kaci. A formal introduction is necessary to keep from triggering territorial instincts. There are six enforcers on this ranch, at least two of them patrolling the property at all times, and if they scent a strange man out here with you, they will overreact.”

“As opposed to this classic under-reaction I’m getting from you?” I gave him an impatient wave, trying to hurry him out of the barn, and when he finally stepped outside, I shoved the doors closed, rusty hinges squealing, and reiterated a truth that only he and Faythe seemed unwilling to believe. “The guys don’t care who I bring home.”

“Bullshit. If Faythe had snuck someone into the barn while I was an enforcer, I would have lost my shit. Every time I saw her with some other guy, I had to fight the urge to rip his head from his shoulders.”

“I’m not sure whether that’s psychotic or sweet. Either way, there is no parallel to be drawn between you and Faythe, and me and our current enforcers.” I clamped the folded blanket beneath my arm and headed down the starlit driveway toward the house, where Faythe’s office window was still lit up, though it was nearly ten p.m.

Up all night with the baby. Up all day with work. She hadn’t had a full night’s sleep in years.

Marc jogged to catch up with me. “Look, I understand that you’re not interested in any of our guys, and that’s fine.”

I stopped walking to stare at him. Did he truly believe the problem was that I wasn’t interested in any of them?

“But it isn’t fair to parade a series of human dates right under their noses and rub it in,” Marc continued.

I studied his gold-flecked gaze, trying to see the truth. “Is that really what you think I’m doing?”

He crossed bulging arms over a solid chest. “Why bring your dates back here, if you’re not trying to rile up our enforcers?”

“Okay, first of all, most of your enforcers are old enough to be my dad—”

“That’s not true.”

“My point is that you think Dustin is too old for me, when he’s all of twenty-one, yet you find it perfectly reasonable for enforcers in their late twenties to be jealous at the thought of me making out with a strange human.” I ticked my points off on my fingers. “A: That’s a double standard. B: It’s factually inaccurate. The guys wouldn’t care if I worked my way through an entire frat house, so there’s no reason I shouldn’t be able to bring my dates back to the damn barn, like any normal farm girl.”

Marc scowled, his mouth already open to yell at me for cussing.

“Hell, losing one’s virginity on a bale of hay is practically a rite of passage around here.”

His mouth snapped shut.

Mission accomplished. Marc still hadn’t figured out how to deal with his little “kitten” talking about sex. Which was why I was the only person on the ranch who could get away with cussing at an Alpha.

Not that I would ever try that with Faythe.

“Okay, but back to the factual inaccuracy,” he said, once he’d mentally pushed past my utterance of the word ‘virginity.’ “If any of the guys had caught a whiff of your boyfriend—”

“Dustin’s not my boyfriend. I just met him.”

“I don’t know whether to be relieved by that or horrified. But my point is that if any of the guys had—”

“Marc.” I stopped walking again and looked him right in the eyes. “Their ears are as good as yours. They all heard Dustin’s car turn into the driveway. They probably even heard me open the barn door. If any of them gave a damn who I was hanging out with, you wouldn’t have been the only one who showed up to scare Dustin off. But you’re always the only one who shows up. Because they…don’t…care.”

The South-Central Pride’s enforcers were just as eager as any other tomcat to snag a tabby—according to shifter law, that was the only way any of them could have kids or become an Alpha—but they were not eager for that tabby to be me.

Somehow, in a population where the men greatly outnumbered the women, I was the only eligible female werecat in the country to have no suitors.

Ever.

Faythe saw that fact for what it was, and she understood the reasons. But Marc… Well, Marc was like the father of an ugly baby who believes his unfortunate progeny is the cutest bundle of joy on earth.

Not that I was hideous or anything. I had no problem getting dates in the human world. Unfortunately, I was no longer a member of that world, which meant that any relationship I struck up with a human was pretty much doomed from the start. So, what’s a girl to do when the tomcats aren’t interested and human relationships can’t get serious?

Play the field, of course. On my home turf, so all those stuck-up tomcat bastards had no choice but to see that someone—lots of someones—wanted me. Not that I was interested in any of the South-Central men.

Not the enforcers, anyway…

“I’m sure you’re reading them wrong,” Marc said as we clomped up the front steps of the ranch-style house that was both capital of and home base for the South-Central Pride. “I’m sure the guys care.”

They didn’t. But Marc would never see that, because he was blinded by his own paternal perspective.

He opened the front door and held it for me as I stepped into the foyer. “They’re probably just trying to figure out how to approach you, now that you’re…more mature.”

They weren’t.

I shrugged. “Maybe you’re right.”

He wasn’t.

“I’m going throw this in the wash and sulk over the premature end of my date.” I gestured toward the laundry room with my folded blanket.

“Fair enough.” Marc glanced at the time on his cell phone as Faythe appeared in her office doorway, one hand on her hip. “Just sulk quietly, please. Greg’s asleep.”

“I know.” Just like I knew the little monster would be up at dawn, and Marc would be up with him, so Faythe could try to get four or five hours of sleep in a row. She looked like she was ready to fall over as it was.

The new baby slept soundly, when he did sleep, but he ate around the clock.

“Kaci,” Faythe said before I could make a break for the laundry room. “Let’s talk.” She waved me into her office, then she closed the door. “Another playdate in the barn?” She glanced pointedly at the blanket still tucked beneath my arm as she sank onto the leather couch.

“Nothing happened.” I flopped onto the sofa across the rug from her and tucked my feet beneath me with the blanket on my lap.

“And what if Marc stops showing up? What’s your plan?”

“I’m an adult, Faythe.”

“That’s why I’m asking. Adults have to be prepared.”

“I have condoms, if that’s what you’re getting at,” I said, and to her credit, she didn’t even flinch. Marc would’ve been hyperventilating. Or faking a heart attack to escape the conversation.

“That’s part of what I’m getting at.” She exhaled heavily, and my gaze settled on the thin white scar bisecting her left cheek, from the outer edge of her eye to the corner of her mouth. She’d slaughtered the bastard who’d cut her, and rather than a reminder of what he’d done, the scar had become a testament to how thoroughly fierce Faythe was—a tabby kicking ass in a tom’s world. Even eight weeks postpartum. “I just want to make sure you understand what could happen if one of these boys decides he’s entitled to more than you’re willing to give him.”

I sat a little straighter. “I understand that I’d break every bone in his hand and send him home to his mommy in tears.” That, I’d learned from Faythe.

But she only frowned. “Unless Marc hears him screaming and comes running, in which case we’ll have to fire up the industrial incinerator.” The only part of a cattle ranch that was actually functioning at the Lazy S. Its intended use was to dispose of dead livestock, but we always seemed to find alternative applications. “So maybe just keep that in mind while you’re exploring your sexuality.”

“Acknowledged. Would you rather that I explore off the premises?”

“No. This is your home, and you should feel comfortable here. But Marc’s right about at least one thing—no tabby has ever brought home a string of human men before. Not even me. I know you don’t think the enforcers care, but I promise you they’ve noticed.”

I rolled my eyes at her. “It’s their job to notice everyone who comes onto the property.”

“Yes. But eventually one of them is going to notice you.”

I shrugged. I wouldn’t mind being noticed, but it wasn’t any of the enforcers I kept hoping to find in the barn, ready to terrify my latest human date. Nor was it Marc.

Her gaze narrowed on me, and my heart began to beat harder. My face had given too much away. “There’s no hurry, Kaci. But if you like one of them, I could set something up…”

“No!” I could feel my cheeks flush. “I don’t need you to make some poor guy go out with me!”

“That’s not what I—”

“I’m not a social charity case.” Except that wasn’t true. I was an orphan—for all practical purposes—that the South-Central Pride had taken in as a kid. And no one had forgotten where I’d come from. What I’d done…

“Of course not—” Faythe’s phone rang, and she glanced at the bassinet against one wall while she dug her cell from her pocket. “It’s Rick Wade. Can you sit tight for a minute, Kaci? This is about Justus’s trial.”

Justus Alexander. My pulse rushed a little faster when his face appeared behind my closed eyelids, and if she weren’t preoccupied with the baby and an incoming call from the Chairman of the Territorial Council, she might have noticed my reaction.

Justus was a stray Faythe and Marc had accepted as a member of the Pride back in February, to make sure he’d get an actual trial—as opposed to a simple order of execution—for the murder and infection he’d allegedly committed in the free zone.

The former free zone, also known as the Lion’s Den. Soon it would officially be recognized as the Mississippi Valley Territory, if Faythe and Marc could muster a couple more votes on the council.

For the past four months, Justus had been sleeping on the couch in the guest house, where the enforcers lived, waiting for his trial. His older brother Titus was Alpha of the new territory—the only stray Alpha in the country, other than Marc. Maybe in the world. But Titus’s efforts to get his territory officially recognized had been complicated even beyond the council’s hesitance to let strays play in the purebred sandbox by the fact that he’d accidentally taken Robyn Sheffield, the only known female stray, from the territory—and refused to send her back against her will.

And by the fact that his younger brother had committed several crimes that could have exposed the existence of our species to the rest of the world.

Like Titus, Justus was yummy in an I-would-eat-him-for-dessert kind of way. Unlike his brother, Justus was only a couple of years older than I was, which meant that it would totally not be creepy if I—hypothetically—had a huge crush on him.

Unfortunately, he was also TROUBLE in all caps.

If enforcers were the shifter version of cops, Justus was a felon, because unlike in the human justice system, in shifter society there was no pre-trial presumption of innocence. Especially considering that we all knew damn well that he’d done it.

Justus Alexander was the last tom I should have been interested in. So naturally, I turned into a mumbling, sweaty puddle of drool every time he came around. Unfortunately—or fortunately?—I was stuck firmly in the friend zone. The totally platonic, “one of the guys” zone. The “watch old TV shows together without even brushing hands in the popcorn bowl” zone. It was like he couldn’t even tell I was a girl.

I shook that thought off as I stood, before Faythe could see it on my face. “Don’t worry about it. I’m just going to go to bed.”

She glanced at her phone with a frown. “Wait just a minute, please, Kaci. There’s one more thing.” But as polite as it sounded, her request was actually an order.

I wandered toward the bassinet as she accepted the call from the council chairman. “Hi, Rick. What did they say?”

Baby Ethan was out cold, and he was a surprisingly deep sleeper, for a two-month-old. I’d seen Karen Sanders—Faythe’s mother—push the vacuum cleaner right under his bed without disturbing him. But the minute the food gauge on his tiny belly tilted toward EMPTY, he would wake up screaming.

“Dr. Carver gave you a clean postpartum bill of health,” Rick Wade said over the phone, and I heard him as if he were in the room with us, thanks to my shifter’s enhanced auditory senses. “So…one week.”

“From today?” Faythe sank onto one of the couches, seeming to deflate with the news.

“Yes. I’m sorry, but they weren’t willing to put the trial off any longer.”

“And I can’t ask them to without validating their belief that I can’t be a good mother and a good Alpha at the same time.” Faythe sighed. “Sexist bastards. If you asked for a delay in order to catch up on sleep with a newborn, they’d commend you for your commitment to your family.”

Wade chuckled. “If I had a newborn, we’d be having a very different conversation. Can you make it in a week?”

“Looks like I’ll have to. But I’m bringing the whole family.”

“Good. I’m looking forward to meeting the latest addition to the Sanders-Ramos clan.”

“Thanks, Rick. We’ll see you then.” Faythe hung up her phone and set it on the end table to her left.

I gave baby Ethan’s head a pat—his mop of thick, dark hair reminded me of his namesake—then wandered back toward the couch. “So, the trial’s next week?”

“Looks like. And that’s what I wanted to talk to you about.” Faythe leaned forward, watching me carefully, which told me I wasn’t going to like whatever she was about to say. “We’d like you to come.”

“To Montana?” The hairs on the back of my neck stood up.

Justus’s trial would be held in the same remote cabin complex where Faythe, Marc, and Jace stood trial a lifetime ago. Twice, in Faythe’s case.

Okay, it had only been four and a half years before, but that was a lifetime ago for me, because that’s where they’d found me, in the woods, stuck in cat form after my first-ever shift. Alone and terrified.

And completely feral.

If not for Faythe’s trial, I might have wandered out there for the rest of my life. I might still be out there living like a cat, having completely forgotten that I’d ever been anything else.

Just the thought gave me chills.

“No, thanks,” I told her. “You don’t need me there.” And I couldn’t stand to see Justus on trial.

“You could help with the kids. No one’s as good with little Greg as you are, and baby Ethan…” Faythe shrugged.

A low blow. She knew how much I loved those kids. But… “I can’t go back there, Faythe. Too much…happened.”

“I know. But maybe that’s why you should go back. You know, exorcize those ghosts. Put the past behind you. Just tell me you’ll think about it.”

“I’ll think about it,” I told her. But that promise held about the same chance of coming true as my promises to Karen that I’d unload the dishwasher. “Can I go to bed now?”

“Yes. And try to sleep for both of us, if you don’t mind,” Faythe said with a glance at the bassinet, where baby Ethan was already starting to make fussy, hungry sounds.

“Night.” I picked up my blanket and headed into the laundry room to throw it in the washer, but I hesitated with my hand on the doorknob when I noticed light peeking from beneath the door.

Little Greg had a bad habit of curling up in the dryer when the clothes inside are warm. He liked to make a nest for himself to sleep in, like a little kitten in a box. It was the cutest thing in the world. And the most dangerous. I was kind of terrified that someone would decide the towels needed another cycle and turn the dryer on without noticing him.

I twisted the knob and pushed the door open, expecting to find the dryer standing open with a sweet little face resting on top of a load of clothes.

Instead I found one of the guys going through the pockets of his pants.

He turned, and I found myself staring into the gorgeous gray eyes of Justus Alexander.