Bad Blood Leopard (Bad Blood Shifters Book 3) Read online

  “No taking him away from his crew. Stick close to him during thunderstorms. And if you break his heart, I’ll kill you.” He frowned. “I think that’s all of them.”

  “All of what?”

  Xander rolled his eyes. “The rules,” he repeated. “For mating with Sloan.”

  Caitlyn choked on her sangria. Xander thumped her on the back until she caught her breath. “You have to watch out for those little fruit bits,” he said. “They’re sneaky. Now, where was I?”

  “I’m not Sloan’s mate,” Caitlyn gasped. Holy hell. Was that what they thought? Was that what Sloan thought?

  Xander scowled at her. “You’re not?”

  “No!” Was she? Now she was confused. And the room was getting fuzzier. “I don’t think so. How do you tell?”

  Xander rolled his eyes again. “Warm mushy feelings? The desire to fuck all the time? Inability to keep from buying him every tiny little thing he wants? Desire to fight in a cage and turn into monsters together?”

  “Ah.” She concentrated. “That would be… maybe, none of your business, no, and no.”

  “So, fifty percent chance of mating.” Xander wrote that down.

  “What?”

  Xander was perusing his notes. “You’re a shifter, right?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “What kind?”

  “That’s none of your business either.”

  “Shit, the kinds that don’t talk about it are the worst.” He sighed. “Dragon? Ki-rin? Don’t be one of those, they’re ugly. Serpent heads.” He paused. “Don’t tell Kane Colton I said so, though. He’ll beat my ass.”

  “Who’s Kane Colton?”

  “Big deal Enforcer. Silverlake wolf pack.”

  “Is he a ki-rin?”

  “No, a wolf. Sheesh. Keep up.”

  He started writing. “Not… a… ki-rin…” He looked up. “What are you, then? Gryphon? Unicorn? That would be kind of awesome. They poop glitter. Glitter poop would be fucking excellent prank material.”

  “Unicorns poop glitter?” Her head was starting to spin. She took a big gulp of her sangria. Her glass was empty, so she poured herself more from the pitcher.

  “Sure,” Xander said. “Everybody knows that.” He stopped and gazed at her, eyes wide. “Oh, fuck, please tell me you’re not, like, a field mouse shifter. Or a guinea pig. Because I’m not going to be Uncle Xander to guinea pig babies.”

  “You,” Caitlyn said, shaking her glass at him, “are freaking crazy. And I’m going away now. To… somewhere.”

  She stood up, and the floor suddenly tilted.

  She turned on Xander. “Did you make the floor do that?” She glared at him. “It tried to pull my feet right out from under me. Floors aren’t s’posed to do that.” She transferred her glare to the floor, which was sitting there looking completely innocent. “Bad floor.”

  “Oh, shit.” Xander picked up her glass and sniffed. “How many of those did you have?”

  “I don’t know.” She thought back. “It was just always full. Like a magic glass.”

  “Shit,” Xander muttered again. “Don’t move. I have to find Sloan.”

  He disappeared. Huh. That wasn’t nice. She wasn’t going to stand here all alone with this sneaky floor. Air. That’s what she needed. Air always made her feel better, because she knew she could fly away.

  She made her way unsteadily to the side door and stepped out onto the patio. The air was cool and damp, and it felt good on her face. She checked the ground underneath her feet, but it was still there.

  Good. Good ground. Stay still.

  She was leaning against the patio wall when Sloan found her. “Hey,” he said. “You okay? Did Xander say something obnoxious and possibly terrifying?” He sighed. “Never mind, of course he did. I hope he didn’t scare you too much.”

  “Xander isn’t scary,” she informed him. “Xander likes me. He said it’s good I’m not a guinea pig, and that my poop is all pretty and glittery.”

  Sloan gave a snort of laughter. “He said what? Why?”

  “Because of, he said I’m prob’ly a unicorn, and unicorns poop glitter.”

  Sloan was still laughing. “Don’t laugh,” she said. “My poop is mag…nificent.” She started her little dance. “Go Caitlyn. Go Caitlyn.”

  The floor moved again, and she almost fell. Sloan caught her by her upper arms, steadying her. “Whoops,” she said, putting her hands on his chest for balance. “Bad floor. It keeps moving.”

  She raised her head and his gray eyes met hers, suddenly serious. She loved his serious face. His hands still held her upper arms, and she could feel how warm and strong they were. His chest was warm too, underneath her palms, and there were all those pretty muscles.

  She moved her hands, feeling the muscles, stroking them because they felt nice. His eyes closed halfway, like a kitty being petted, and he made a little growly sound.

  That made her look at his lips, and then she couldn’t stop looking at them. They looked warm and soft and yummy, and he smelled really, really good. She decided she was going to kiss him. Yes. Kissable. She reached up and pulled his lips down to hers.

  Mmmm. He tasted like fruity drinks and sexy Sloan. She loved his lips. They were soft and warm, and whoa there was his tongue and she liked that too.

  She didn’t have much experience kissing, but hoo boy, this man could lead like a champion ballroom dancer. All she had to do was follow along. His arms went around her and he moved his tongue and his lips, kissing her like he was tasting every part of her and he liked it all. Her skin went all tingly, and there were wild butterflies in her stomach and a tiny supernova in the middle of her chest near her heart that felt like it was exploding.

  Was this what kissing was supposed to feel like? Because she was probably going to just keep kissing Sloan until they both ran out of air.

  Chapter 9

  Holy fuck. Sloan knew there were about twenty reasons why he shouldn’t be kissing Caitlyn, but right now he couldn’t remember any of them. She tasted so sweet, and her curves fit against him just right, and she was kissing him with a kind of innocent abandon that he’d never experienced before.

  Except, shit. She was drunk. That’s why he’d come to find her. And there were rules about taking advantage of a woman who was drunk.

  He pulled his lips reluctantly away from hers.

  Caitlyn sighed. “You kiss really nice,” she murmured. “It’s too bad I’m a unicorn.”

  Sloan let out a little huff of laughter. Unicorns again. “Why?” he asked, stroking his hand up and down the curve of her back.

  “Unicorns are virgins,” she said dreamily. “Aren’t they?”

  Sloan tried to bring the mythology to mind. “Um, not that I know of. They can sense virgins, and are attracted to their—”

  His mind did a quick backtrack. “Wait. Did you say you’re a virgin?”

  “Mmm-hmm.” She was rubbing his chest again.

  Sheeyit. Of all the girls in all the South American restaurants, he had to fall for the one who had never had sex with anybody? He should have followed his first instinct and stayed the hell away. She was too innocent for his world.

  “No fucking way,” he said before he could stop himself.

  Caitlyn drew herself up, trying to look very serious, but listing slightly to the left. Sloan righted her.

  “Of course I am,” she said with great dignity. “I’m a good girl.” She paused, frowning. “Oh, wait,” she said. “I’m not. Because I was kissing you with my tongue.”

  Sloan was pretty sure that tongue-kissing was barely a blip on the bad-girl radar. “I won’t tell,” he said.

  “Good.” She put a finger to her lips. “Because of, where I’m from, all the girls have to be goody two-toes. I mean shoes. They don’t shilly-shally around with hot-looking bad boys and their pretty butts. They wait for their pledged mates.”

  It was all Sloan could do not to kiss her even more senseless than she was. She was so damn cute when she was drun
k. “That doesn’t sound like that much fun,” he said.

  “It is not,” she informed him. “Especially because most of our pledged mates have a fucking stick up their asses.” She stopped, eyes going wide. “I said fucking. Out loud.”

  Sloan tried his hardest to keep a straight face. Wasn’t happening. “Yes, you did.”

  “In front of a man.”

  He frowned at that. “That makes a difference?” he asked.

  She nodded, squeezing her lips together. “Oh, yes. We’re all supposed to be perfect proper virginal drone girls who never argue or talk back. Or say dirty words like fuck.”

  Damn. What the hell kind of repressive shifter clan did she come from?

  Caitlyn furrowed her brow. “Fuck,” she said experimentally. “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck off. Fuck you. Fuck you, stick-up-your-ass mates. Fucking fucktards.” She giggled. “I like this word. Can I fuck you?”

  What?

  Her eyes went round. “Did I ask if I can fuck you?” she said. She pursed up her lips. “I meant can I say fuck to you.” She frowned in confusion. “I think that’s what I meant. But maybe I meant the other thing. I might be turning out to be a very, very bad girl.”

  Sloan couldn’t stop laughing. “You are a very, very drunk girl,” he said. “And I would like to fuck you very much, but not unless you have some clue what you’re asking. Which you don’t.”

  Caitlyn suddenly got a strange expression on her face. “I feel sick,” she said.

  Oh, shit. Sloan pulled her over to a stone bench. “Here. Sit down.” She did, putting her elbows on her knees and her head in her hands.

  Sloan facepalmed. “You’re a bar virgin, too, aren’t you.”

  She nodded, head still in her hands. “I think I might barf.”

  Xander came out while Caitlyn was deciding whether barfing was in her immediate future.

  “Shit,” he said to Sloan. “What did you do to her?”

  Sloan gave him an evil glare. “What did I do to her? What did you do to her? Five minutes alone with you and she’s drunk off her ass. Probably for the first time in her entire life.”

  “Not true,” Caitlyn muttered, between her hands. “My friend Tiffany and I shtole my parents’ brandy this one time. It was acshully a lot like this, come to think of it.”

  Xander shook his head. “I’ll go get her a wet towel. Or something.”

  Sloan sat by Caitlyn, rubbing her back.

  Xander disappeared and returned with a cool damp towel, and Sloan put it on the back of Caitlyn’s neck. It seemed to help.

  After a few minutes, she sat up. “I am totally and completely mortified,” she announced. “I think I better go home now.” She looked around, then frowned. “Where’s my car?”

  Xander rolled his eyes.

  “Your car is at the Bearcat shop,” Sloan said. “I brought you here, and I’m sure as hell not letting you drive home. I’ll take you. Where do you live?”

  “I don’t live anywhere,” Caitlyn said. She was shivering, and Sloan instinctively put his arm around her, rubbing her upper arm gently. “I ran away.”

  Well, hell. If they didn’t believe in sex or swearing where she came from, he wasn’t surprised. He thought back to her job application. “Are you staying in a hotel?” he asked.

  She thought hard. “I think so.”

  Xander heaved a sigh. He picked up her purse from the bench next to her and searched through it until he came up with a key—an actual key, not a key card—from a motel. Shit, Sloan thought. Real keys said the place hadn’t been renovated in a couple of decades. The address on the key fob bore that out. It was a very bad neighborhood.

  Damn. She really did need money. And apparently, she needed looking after.

  “Xander, can you drive Caitlyn’s car back to her place? We’ll drop you by the shop to get it.”

  Xander sighed. “You all keep wanting me to do nice things for people,” he complained. “All that happens is it drives my homicidal side underground, and then it pops out without warning.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” Sloan said. “At least she lives in a really crappy neighborhood. Maybe you’ll see someone there you can kill.”

  Xander brightened. “There’s always hope.”

  They drove up to Caitlyn’s motel, Sloan getting more and more antsy as the neighborhood grew worse. Caitlyn dozed in the front seat, her head against the headrest, a brown paper takeout bag clutched in her fist in case she needed a barf bag.

  She needed more than that. She didn’t belong in this neighborhood. Sloan’s cat was awake inside him, pacing. Neither of them liked the idea of leaving Caitlyn here. For once, he and his animal agreed about something.

  He turned into the parking lot of the motel, Xander right behind him. He parked near Room 117 and helped a sleepy Caitlyn out of the truck. She leaned against it while Sloan unlocked the door and flicked the light switch.

  Nothing happened. The room remained dark. At the same time, he heard a tiny movement inside, and caught a whiff of a man’s scent.

  There was someone in the room.

  Sloan’s cat eyes adjusted quickly to the darkness, and he could see a dark, bulky form. He dashed forward and leaped into a flying tackle.

  This guy’s reflexes were fast. He moved to the side, and Sloan’s weight only knocked him off balance instead of taking him down. He smashed an elbow into Sloan’s face, jerked free of his grip, and ran.

  Outside, Sloan heard an angry snarl. Xander. He hoped to God he wasn’t shifting. Not here.

  He stumbled to his feet and followed the intruder, bursting out the door just in time to see Xander wrestling Caitlyn out of the arms of a second man, dressed in black cargo pants and a black hoodie. Caitlyn head-butted her attacker, Xander punched him in the face, and he dropped Caitlyn.

  Sloan’s man yanked on the other guy’s arm as he went past. “Abort,” he grunted. The two of them took off, ducking between the motel buildings toward the street.

  Sloan pounded after them for a few steps, but it wasn’t worth it. He went back to Caitlyn. “Are you okay?”

  She put a hand to her forehead. “My head hurts.” A knot was already forming where it had come in contact with her attacker’s skull.

  “Dammit,” Xander said. “I didn’t get to kill even one of them.” He turned to Sloan hopefully. “I could maybe still catch them?”

  “No,” Sloan said.

  “Shit,” Xander muttered. “You never let me have any fun.”

  “Now I am going to barf,” Caitlyn said, and threw up all over the sidewalk.

  Sloan flat-out refused to let Caitlyn stay at the motel. She knew she should argue. Things were moving too fast—getting the job with the Bad Blood Crew, being invited to their dinner. Xander thinking she was Sloan’s mate. And now men breaking into her room.

  Jared’s men? Or just ordinary street thugs? She didn’t even know. Her head was still spinning.

  She sucked as an operative. There was a reason she’d gotten kicked out of training. If Sloan and Xander hadn’t been there… She shivered.

  At best, she’d have been taken back to Jared and forced back into their mating contract.

  At worst… She didn’t want to think about the worst. It made her feel sick again.

  So she sat on the bed, the empty gray plastic ice bucket in her lap in case she barfed again, and watched helplessly as Sloan and Xander packed her belongings into her two battered suitcases.

  Xander paused when he got to her collection of CDs. “They have digital music now, you know,” he said to her. “You don’t have to carry this shit around with you.”

  Caitlyn was in no mood for Xander. He was the reason she was drunk. And barfing.

  “Some of it is out of print, asshole,” she said. “And it’s not all available online.” Xander grinned. Apparently being called an asshole made him happy. Well, she could make that happen as often as he wanted.

  Sloan went over to look, and whistled. “You like solo guitar?” he asked. She nodde
d. He picked out one of her CDs. “Oh, man, I’ve never been able to get a copy of this. Can I borrow it?”

  “Sure,” she said. “You know he has a concert coming up over in North Carolina, right?”

  Sloan moaned dramatically. “I know. I didn’t find out in time, though, and it was sold out in, like, twenty minutes.”

  Xander plucked the CD out of his hand and tossed it into her suitcase with the rest of them. “Fucking guitar music,” he muttered. “I like metal.”

  “Bullshit,” Sloan said amiably, pulling her clothes out of the drawers and stuffing them willy-nilly into her other bag. She winced when he got to the underwear, but he didn’t even seem to notice.

  “You just play that to annoy everyone. I’ve heard the sappy country music coming out of your trailer late at night when you’re wallowing in self-pity.”

  “It’s all I can get on late-night radio,” Xander said. “We’re in fucking Nashville.”

  “They have streaming music now, you know,” Caitlyn said evilly. “It comes over that thing they call the internet. You can listen to metal day and night.”

  Sloan winced. “Don’t tell him that. He’ll do it.” Xander gave him the finger.

  Caitlyn didn’t know what to make of Xander’s attitude. He clearly resented her potential relationship with Sloan, but he’d helped defend her against her motel room invaders. And he still seemed to be on edge, as if he could change his mind and go after her at any moment, or after Sloan.

  He didn’t, though. He just carried her suitcases out to her car and drove off. Caitlyn let Sloan help her into his truck, and they drove back to Bad Blood territory.

  Chapter 10

  When Caitlyn woke up the next morning…it was afternoon. She had a dull headache and a raging thirst, and for a minute, she couldn’t figure out where she was.

  Then she realized. Sloan’s guest room.

  She vaguely remembered pulling off her jeans and jacket and crawling into bed. There was an even fuzzier memory of Sloan coming in just as she was drifting off to sleep. Had he touched her hair? Tucked the covers around her? Or had she dreamed it?