Big Bad Bite Page 13

  The worst part about this entire scenario? There wasn’t a damn thing she could do about it. If a human man had pulled this stunt, she would have beaten him bloody. If Kent had done this to her, she would have used every last molecule of her telekinetic power to pick him up and throw his body into something hard, like a tree. If Adam had handed her this outfit, she would have shifted and bitten such an enormous chunk out of his ass he wouldn’t be able to sit down for a week without wincing in reminder of how not to fuck with her. But, was she lucky enough to have one of those situations? No, of course not. No, with her enormously shitty luck she had to land one of the few people on the planet that she couldn’t out-fight physically, mentally, or even supernaturally. No, she got this ridiculous outfit from one of the few beings that she knew without a shadow of a doubt, she could not fuck with for fear he would get mad and turn her into his own kitty scratching post.

  Awesome.

  Shaking her head in disgust, Jenna stomped back into the living room where the two despicable men in question sipped bottled beers and chatted quietly. Goliath heard her coming towards them andturned his head to watch her progress with the kind of rapt fascination she’d seen your average domestic house cat watch the mouse it was toying with. Which summed it up in two words for her: highly unnerving.

  Kent tipped his beer back for a healthy swig before looking from their host to her, then promptly choked and sprayed beer all over himself. Mustering up all of the bravado she could manage, Jenna marched right up to Goliath, tipped her head back to keep contact with his eyes, and planted her pointer finger in his chest like she wasn’t terrified he could bat her around like an oversized cat toy.

  “I’m sure you thought it was amusing to dress me up like some skanky streetwalker buddy, but I’ll have you know that if you ever try to pull anything like this again with me, I’m going to break out my rifle and start hunting for a new rug to put on my Mama’s floors. You got me?”

  Kent’s head was bouncing back and forth so fast, with his mouth opening and closing like a fish, that she thought he was having some kind of epileptic seizure. Or maybe he was trying to do his best impression of a large mouth bass on meth, she wasn’t sure. What she was sure of though, was that the amused look in the tiger shifter’s eyes vanished and she was probably seconds away from becoming that scratching post she’d thought about earlier. His brows snapped down and he lowered his face until they were nose to nose. Moving backwards was out of the question. It would just be a sign of weakness, and showing weakness to a guy like this was probably the same as throwing chum in shark infested waters right before you jumped in for a swim.

  A deep growl rumbled from his chest and she could actually feel the vibrations of it resonate in hers. “Those skanky streetwalker clothes are my sister’s.”

  Oops.

  Jenna had heard of the phrase, ‘Open mouth, insert foot’, but who knew that you could say something so obnoxious that it was the verbal equivalent of deep-throating the rubber sole of your shoes?

  That pointer finger she’d so bravely pressed into the hard wall of his chest started to slowly ease away. Unfortunately, it wasn’t fast enough. One minute she was trying to figure out how to redeem herself in the tiger’s eyes without looking like a total asshat, the next minute she found herself spun around and locked in the hard prison of his arms with his chest pressed against the length of her back. Her hands were manacled to her sides; arms crossed one over the other, with his giant claw tipped hands holding her wrists tightly against her own body. She felt his head lower so that his teeth grazed her ear just before he spoke again.

  “This is why I don’t like to deal with wayward little pups. They need too much training to knock all of that arrogance out of them. I promise you though, my little mongrel, if you ever talk to me like that again I’ll give you the spanking you so deserve, and I may not use a rolled up newspaper to do it. Now, do you get me?”

  This was one of those times in life that no matter how bad being put in your place sucked, and it sucked like giant sized donkey balls, you accepted it. One of those survival skills you needed to have if you were going to make it in a world of big bad beasts that didn’t need to go bump in the night because they could chew you up and spit you out anytime of the day. She’d have to submit to the tiger shifter’s dominance for now, admit that he could actually spank her, at least figuratively if not literally, if he wanted to. That didn’t mean that she wouldn’t work towards the day she could be the badder beast between the two of them, just to take the bigger bite out of his annoying hide.

  “You can let me go now. I thought you were trying to get your cheap kicks while you could since this outfit has less material than the clothes I wore during my last undercover job posing as a prostitute. I promise not to insult your sister’s fashion sense anymore if you keep your paws off me. We’ll call it even from there, okay?”

  He snorted in amusement, “I think I’ll keep the newspaper idea in mind just in case.” The moment he released his hold on her she sprung away from him to stand next to Kent.

  She waved her hand in the air in frustration, “Can we just get on with doing what we came here to do?” Propping her fists on her hips, she glared at the two men.

  Kent was wiping the remaining beer specks off his chest that hadn’t yet absorbed into the fabric of his shirt.. He was also doing a super shitty job at hiding his amused grin at her expense. She chose to ignore it rather than give into the urge to punch him. The quicker they got on with the information hunt, the faster she got back to her Uncle and to planning out their next step.

  Finally finished with cleaning off his shirt, Kent looked up at their host. “Right, so Jenna I’d like to introduce you to Gage Ivanov. As you’ve already figured out, Gage here is a shifter, tiger to be exact. Between him, his no good bruiser of a brother Alec, and his annoyingly highly guarded sister Lulu, they hear about the majority of what’s going down in the Other community around here. If that weren’t enough to help us out, well let’s just say that Gage has a particularly intriguing job that includes some highly resourceful coworkers.”

  Jenna cocked an eyebrow towards her partner at his last comment. “We work on the SWAT team,” she shoved her thumb in the domineering tiger’s direction, “and you say he’s the one with the interesting job? Would either of you care to elaborate about that?”

  Kent looked to Gage, who had pursed his lips, although it wasn’t so much in a serious thoughtful context, more like an exaggerated ‘should-I-indulge-the-little-people’ afterthought. The tiger looked to Jenna with mischief dancing eyes and proceeded to say something so insane, it shocked her speechless.

  “Would you be willing to become my personal love slave for the next fifty years or so? For me to tell you about my job I’d have to make sure that you were literally under my thumb, and in my control in every way. That would probably be enough time for certain things to become unclassified to make it okay if you accidentally let my job description slip. I was thinking about retiring somewhere around that time frame too. So yeah, if you’ll be my little love slave, move into my home where I’ll put cuffs, chains, and a collar on you, never let you leave the house for the duration of your time served, and sever all contact with anyone you know on the outside world, then I’ll tell you. But only after you sign a contract that says you agree to be my willing slave that I can use in any capacity that I desire, since I would inevitably not only have to provide for you, but have to take care of and train your crazy little ass too.” Ignoring Jenna’s jaw dropped expression, Gage looked to Kent with an expression of curiosity, “How many rolled up newspapers do you think I’d need over the span of fifty years, Kent? After her tiny temper tantrum earlier, I’m guessing that number would be on the high side.”

  She sputtered in indignation, “Forget it, Mr. Kitty. You’re never coming near my ass with a rolled up newspaper. I don’t care what you do for a damn living. I am curious though if you have to handle any kind of weaponry while you do your job. Cause you
are bug-fuck nuts! If you get to handle a gun or something like that, then I think whoever hired you out should be put out of commission for allowing someone as crazy as you within a thousand feet of even a bendable paper clip!”

  Kent slapped his hand over her mouth to shut her up, “Anyway, I came out here to see you, my ever so resourceful good buddy, to ask about two things. One, have you or your siblings heard anything about any out of town shifters coming into Wilmington with the intent to cause trouble?”

  When she couldn’t pry Kent’s hand off her mouth, she did the only other thing she could think of. She bit him. Her partner swore a blue streak so colorful; Jenna looked at his bloody palm with a sense of pride. This all went on to be ignored by the contemplative tiger.

  Gage had crossed his arms over his chest while stroking his chin with one hand in thought, “Well, I just got back in town a week or so ago, so I haven’t heard anything like that. Lulu stopped by the house just yesterday and didn’t mention anything either. I haven’t seen Alec yet though. Tell me what’s going on, and then I’ll decide if it’s worth tracking down my pain in the ass brother to ask him about it.”

  “You see the news about that hostage situation the SWAT team just handled? The one with the three senators?”

  Gage stopped stroking his chin to nod his head, “Yeah. You going to start preening like a peacock cause you got your picture in the paper?” He jerked his head in Jenna’s direction. “Cause I wouldn’t if I were you. I enjoyed her picture much more.”

  Jenna suddenly had the overwhelming urge to fill that reporter with bullet holes. She was never going to live down that damn picture of her in her sports bra!

  “Up yours, Ivanov. We all can’t have a rack like my partner here to lure innocent reporters into her web of camera hog-ism. Although, I have to tell ya’ Jenna, if I did have a rack like yours, I’d probably play with them all the time.”

  Totally disgusted with the lack of male maturity between the two supposedly grown men in the room, she used her hand to swat Kent upside the back of his head. “Focus, you pervert.”

  “Alright, alright already. Anyway, Ivanov, yeah, it’s about what you saw in the papers. These were not your run of the mill idiot criminals. These were eight criminals of the Other variety. Wolf shifters to be more precise. We’re trying to figure out why they would do something so brazen to draw attention to themselves. Even if we hadn’t killed them during the rescue, and if they had managed to escape the hundreds of cops surrounding the restaurant, the minute their wanted pictures were released to the media, they would have been recognized and issued death sentences.”

  The playful, lazy demeanor had disappeared from Gage and he was now one hundred percent focused on what was being said. “Do you know what pack they were from or if they had a pack?”

  She’d been quietly fascinated by the immediate change in fur ball’s attitude while he listened to Kent’s rundown of events, but now she jumped in before her partner could answer the question. Making sure she made eye contact with Gage so she could catch the full range of whatever reaction he might have, she answered, “The Corvus Pack.”

  His brows shot up to his hairline in obvious surprise; she had a feeling that this was a man who was not surprised easily. After a moment, which Jenna had spent watching what she could swear were literal wheels turning in the tiger’s head, he murmured, “You’re absolutely sure about that?”

  Jenna nodded her head as Kent answered with a low, ‘yes’. The quiet that descended the house as she and Kent waited for his response was consuming. In fact, it was so quiet she could hear crickets starting to chirp in the yard around the house, an extremely relaxing sound. So when a loud ‘thwack’ hit the glass set of French doors closest to them, she damn near jumped out of her skin. Looking over, she saw an orange tiger with one paw against the doorframe holding its body upright while its face was pressed against the glass so that its nose was smashed up too.

  Gage’s growl of frustration made her jump again, “Come on Babushka! You’re getting nose prints all over the glass.” Walking over, he turned the knob on the door, and then swung it open for the tiger to slowly stroll in. Jenna could now smell that it was a female and she watched the unknown woman’s fur and muscle ripple through her body as she shifted while still walking towards them, never missing a step. That trick alone was enough for her to know that this female tiger might have the outer appearance of youth, but she was old. As in really, really old.

  Even in her limited education on Others, Jenna had picked up the fact that it took hundreds of years to be able to shift with that kind of ease. Well, that was if you weren’t her. It was one of the minor secrets she still managed to keep from everyone she wasn’t related to. However, she couldn’t shift that effortlessly while walking yet. And how much easier could the tigress have made it look when she’d so effortlessly transferred from one form to the other without so much as a hitch in her step?

  By the time the tigress was just a few feet away from Kent, standing as a naked human, Jenna thought Kent’s tongue might loll out of his head like a panting dog. She had to admit though, the tigress was utterly striking with her carrot top red hair, lustfully glittering feline golden brown eyes, and pin-up curvy body. The woman also seemed to be entirely oblivious to the fact that Gage’s eyes were starting to haze over in frustration.

  With the type of voice that Jenna could undoubtedly describe as a phone sex operator’s purr, she said in halting English leaden with a thick Russian accent, “Hello there, boy who is big. You are very hot with the smoke for one so young.” Running a fingertip down Kent’s cheek, then lightly over his lips she murmured, “Would you like a Momma filled with sugar?”

  Gage hung his head in mortification, Kent looked as if he had a winning lottery ticket, and for once Jenna covered her own mouth with her own hand to try and stop the laughter that was burning her through chest. She knew she shouldn’t remove her hand, that saying anything at all was risking the ire of the annoyed male across the room by the French doors, but she just couldn’t resist the opportunity to poke at his obvious humiliation after he’d needled her so badly earlier with his sister’s clothes.

  So now Jenna was going to needle Gage back. Tucking her hands in her front pockets, she cleared her throat to get the woman’s attention, and once she had it she said, “I’m sorry ma’am, did you mean to say that Kent is a ‘big boy’ who is ‘smoking hot’ and that you’d like to be his ‘sugar Momma’?”

  The woman’s face brightened like a flippin’ Christmas tree when she smiled, “Yes, yes! Thank you tiny, pretty wolf. My Lulu, she teach me your American lingo. Such a sweet granddaughter. She said I had to work on my eater of man game.”

  Kent had started to inch closer to the insanely beautiful woman, who apparently was Gage’s grandmother although she didn’t look a day over thirty five. Kent had the look of an eager puppy ready for his treat, his hand already on the move to grab his prize, when all of a sudden there was a giant sized obstacle in between Kent and the naked man-eater-in-training of a grandmother.

  Gage.

  He bared his teeth at Kent before spitting out, “She’s off limits to you, man whore.”

  Before Kent could get a word in, the grandmother peeked around her grandson’s massive shoulder. “He is a whore of men?” Looking suddenly forlorn she added, “That is disappointment big.” Turning her head to look at Jenna she asked, “Why are all of the pretty ones always – wait what is that word, Gage? When they are the lovers of men?”

  Kent’s face turned purple and he started sputtering. Or maybe he was having one of those epileptic seizures again… it was kind of hard for Jenna to tell the difference when her eyes were tearing up in mirth.

  She didn’t bother trying to hide the body-jarring laughs that racked her body. She was laughing so hard that tears started slipping down her cheeks. Gage’s grin was so wide; his face looked as if it might split in half when he answered, “Gay, Babushka. Men who love men are gay. Now go get dressed so
we can go see Alec.”

  Carrot top clapped her hands in delight, “We go to fights, my Gage? Good, good! I’ll get dressed like bitch who is sexy and grab my purse. There will be betting at the fights, and I can bet a wad of fat cash on my darling little, Alec!”

  Jenna watched Carrot top race down the hallway before she looked back to Gage, “What fights?”

  Gage’s grin went from bright amusement at my still sputtering partner to a devious sexy smolder aimed at me. “We’re going to The Arena, sweetheart. Where every well-to-do Other goes to have a little fun, and the unsavory of us go to indulge in our vices. Ready to take a walk on the wild side with me?”

  Good gravy!

  She wasn’t so worried about that walk as she was about the unsavory part, and her being a cop and about to walk into a confirmed den of depravity. And here she was still dressed like a skanky streetwalker, too. She could just see the headline that the newspaper reporters would write on her next, after she was arrested coming out of this hellhole.

  HERO COP TURNS HOOKER

  Great. Just flippin’ great.

  Chapter Nine

  Walking through the low lit alley, Jenna watched as Gage stopped at a metal door and banged on it harshly. She had to physically stop herself from rolling her eyes when she saw a clichéd small partition slide open at the top so a pair of eerie yellow canine eyes peeked through at their group. It was like she’d jumped onto the scene of a bad gangster movie. The only thing that could make it worse was if the guy asked for a password.

  The body behind the door barked, “PASSWORD?”

  After that one word, Jenna lost the battle and crossed her eyes. Just when she’d thought it couldn’t get any worse. Gage murmured something back and the door silently eased open far enough to allow them to entry in a single file line. Gage was the first through the door with his grandmother Vera following. Jenna was behind Vera, with Kent walking so close behind her that she had to stifle the urge to turn around and tell him that she had already bought herself a new coat this year, so he could get the hell off of her back. The second Kent had stepped through the narrow opening of the door, it was slammed shut behind him and her sensitive ears could hear the numerous bars sliding into place inside the door as it locked. They stood in a small room with cement walls and floor that circulated stale air until the boorish guard stepped up to another door that was hooked up to an electronic keypad. Using his body to block the view, he quickly punched in a succession of buttons before several clicks were heard, and then the guard opened the door to wave them through.