Bad Kitty (8 page)

"She'll be healthy?"

"As healthy as you or I."

"But will she shift?"

The bed jostled around her. "I don't see why
not. She's already shifted several times and lucky for her that
seemed to work on the internals. It's just the skin where the
poison lingered too long that's going to be a problem. I do need to
change the bandages though."

"Go on home, Doc. I can do this."

"You sure? If she wakes up you're likely to
have a hellcat on your hands. I have a feeling she isn't going to
like the fact you shot her full of enough sedative to knock her out
for days without telling her."

"I'll live. It won't be the first time I've
managed to piss off a woman."

The second man laughed. "Rafe, when do you
not have a woman ticked off at you? I've never seen any male so
capable of riling up a woman's anger more than you."

Kitty tried to listen to
the rest of the conversation between the two men but their voices
faded and she still couldn't move. Whatever the bastard had given
her did more than knock her out
.
The drug paralyzed her.

Pretty soon even the faint sound of their
voices disappeared and the quiet engulfed her. Silence wasn't her
thing. It unnerved her. In Kitty's life total quiet had always been
a precursor to something very bad so she always made sure there was
something going on. She kept to crowded places or used radio or
television noise to fill the background, whatever it took to keep
the silence at bay. Silence in her world equated to the cage in the
basement.

With her mind on the verge of a break down,
the bed shifted around her and a hand brushed against her. The
pressure of the bandage on her arm lessened, evoking a whimper of
distress from her.

"Is the pretty kitty awake?"

She could hear the mocking
smile in the tone of his voice but she couldn't answer. When he was
obviously satisfied she still slept, he went back to work on her
bandages. For a few moments her head ached and she fought to open
her eyes. While her attempts were futile
,
the strangest thing happened. The
man next to her began to hum. An old country rock
tune
,
if she
wasn't mistaken.

One by one he worked on all of her bandages,
only moving her when he had to it seemed. All the while he hummed
that damn song and even sang a few lyrics now and then. The animal
inside her yowled in appreciation and relaxed one muscle at a time.
The pain had faded to a minor irritation and her body had grown
heavy with a need for sleep. Now her secondary half tugged at her
consciousness, pulling her down. It always amazed her when the DNA
inside her shifted and she made out her distinct halves. One human,
the other cougar. What in the world would a cougar do with a
wolf?

Kitty smiled to herself.
She'd have to think about that later. After she killed him for
drugging her. Some of what happened to her was coming back. With
the sound of Rafe's voice in her ear and the cat purring in her
head she had no other choice but to succumb to the lull the sounds
created. Without warning a warm finger traced from her eyebrow to
her mouth. Little tingles of sensation electrified her skin from
her head to her toes. Not to mention the warmth growing low in her
belly. His deft touch disarmed her of some of the anger she
harbored on a regular basis. Instead
,
her mind began to calm and she
reveled in this strange man's touch. For a wolf he didn't act at
all like she'd expected.

Of course, a little sympathy for an injured
woman meant little in the light of day once she healed. There were
consequences to everything...

Once whatever he gave her
wore off enough for her to wake up
,
she'd come up with a plan to get free. She'd
never gone down without a fight before and she wasn't about to
start here. For now
,
the wolf's den would have to do. God help him when she got
her strength back and remembered this shit. Whatever he gave her
made her a sappy weak kitten with no backbone.

The cat yowled.

Yeah, yeah. You like him.
Whatever
.

The scene around Kitty dimmed as the fatigue
wrestled control.

Don't get used to this
because there's no way in hell we are keeping
him
...

Rafe wandered from room to room with no
clear direction. Kitty had slept through the night and the entire
next day with no more than a few whimpers and some tossing and
turning. In that time her wounds had healed enough for him to
remove the gauze they'd been wrapped in. The severe scarring had
not improved and that worried him.

First, he had no idea how she'd react and
second if Tanner ever reclaimed her it would not go well. A more
vain wolf he'd never met and he wouldn't take kindly to finding out
what he'd hoped would be his new toy, was now disfigured.

Drawn to the sleeping form
on the bed, Rafe stepped close to examine the puckered skin on her
face. The angry red streaks of a fresh wound were still visible
around the edges
,
but the skin had closed and it was easy to see what the
results of her injury would now be.

As if she sensed his
closeness, she twitched and turned in his direction. He held his
breath and waited for her eyes to open. It had been too long since
he'd last seen those eyes staring into his with a mixture of fear
and defiance. When moments passed with no more movement, he
exhaled. Despite the injuries
,
he'd barely been able to take his eyes off of
her. In sleep she appeared peaceful, almost content. A far cry from
the smart mouthed woman he'd bantered with.

Rafe smiled. Not that he minded that woman
either. Her feistiness drew him to her as much as the animal
instinct did. Long inky lashes fanned below her eyes, inviting him
to observe more. The small, pert nose that fit her profile
perfectly, to the lush lips that whispered words he couldn't make
out the more she slept. Her lush mouth kept giving him fantasies
that were wholly inappropriate. Not that the idea of being
politically incorrect ever stopped him before.

Rafe tore his gaze from the soft pink skin
of her lips and continued his perusal. The stubborn chin she kept
raised in the air and the graceful column of her neck led to the
best set of... Fuck. He had to stop thinking like that. Doc had
allowed him to help bath and bandage her in a purely professional
manner in the midst of a medical situation. And God knows he'd
tried to keep his thoughts pure and his eyes off things he wasn't
meant to see. Rafe blew out a hard breath and scrubbed his chin.
He'd taken care to dress her in one of his long sleeve t-shirts so
she'd be more comfortable. Uh huh. The more skin he kept covered
the less likely anything inappropriate would occur between them.
Who was he kidding? Fabric or no fabric the image of her tanned and
silken skin had been burned into his brain and it wasn't going
away. On the contrary, it had taken up residence and burrowed so
deep into his psyche he saw naked flesh when there was none. And
his dick had betrayed him as well by staying hard all day long. It
served as an uncomfortable and constant reminder of everything he
wasn't supposed to be thinking of.

Talk about ridiculous.

"What did you do to me?"

Rafe spun at the hoarse
words behind him. Not only had the feline finally
woken
,
but she
struggled into a sitting position. He stared at her dumbfounded.
Her blonde hair tumbled around her face and shoulders, reminding
him of a woman fresh out of bed after a long night of
sex.

Her legs peeked from underneath the blanket
and his mouth went dry at the sight of smooth, tanned flesh that
seemed to go on and on.

"My eyes are up
here
,
asshole."

Rafe's head jerked up and met her gaze. She
was not smiling. "I'm sorry. You just caught me off guard. I
thought you'd sleep longer."

Kitty shrugged. "Kind of like you tricking
me last night? If it was last night and not something crazy like
last week. What the hell was that anyway? I had some seriously
funky dreams."

"It was just a sedative
Doc wanted you to have. You needed to heal and sleep was apparently
the best way to accomplish it. It wasn't personal.
Besides
,
you were
fighting everything. Seems being here in my house does not make you
comfortable at all."

Her head shot up. "Does that surprise you?"
She waved her hands around the room. "I'm in your house. A wolf's
house. Wherever the hell that is. And somewhere out there is a pack
of feline bitches that apparently want me dead and a few more
wolves who now think I'm their property. Did I remember everything
correctly?"

"So you did listen to what we were saying? I
wondered. I wasn't getting much of a reaction no matter what I
said."

"Drugs'll do that to a
person
,
you know.
What do you want from me? Why did you bring me here and what do you
care whether I heal or not? I'm nothing to you."

The anger in her words had
begun to build until he felt the venom underlying each and every
one. She assumed she meant nothing and under other circumstances
she'd have been right. Felines from his experience were nothing but
trouble. Over the decades they'd proven to be crafty and devious
adversaries. The treaty his Alpha had negotiated might have kept
the war at bay for now
,
but that didn't mean old hatreds and fears hadn't
continued to simmer just below the surface for far too
long.

"Don't assume to know my
mind
,
little
cat." He stepped closer. "I may be known for my patience but I'm
equally known for my enough is enough attitude. And your pretty
little mouth pushes you close to the latter category.

Kitty yanked up her sleeve
and presented her mangled arm to him. "What are you planning to do
that hasn't already been done? I've been cast out, beaten, poisoned
and left for dead. Give it your best shot, Romeo
,
but don't fuck it up. I don't have
the patience."

Rafe froze mid tirade.
Outcast? He grabbed her right hand, turned it upside down and
pushed up the sleeve. Sure enough
,
at the spot where her hand met her wrist the
small witches symbol of an outcast had been etched into her
skin.

How in the hell had he not
noticed she'd been spelled as an outcast? What the fuck was the
matter with him? His dick didn't have that much control. He dropped
her hand and strode across the room. Just what he needed. One more
strike against what his animal DNA insisted on.
Mate
.

Fuck that.

Mate
.

The word wouldn't stay out of his head and
the wolf inside would damn sure reinforce it. A fresh rush of
outrage and anger boiled through his veins. A smart man would have
left her in the clearing for Tanner to deal with. Let him deal with
the penalty for keeping someone who'd been sentenced to the neutral
zone. The one trump to trespassing law.

He whirled back to face her. "What did you
do to get that?" he spat.

"Don't worry your pretty little head about
it. All you have to do is let me go and forget all about it," Kitty
snapped back.

Rafe snarled and moved
close. "You'd like that
,
wouldn't you? Just let you wander off into the
woods and back to what?" He grabbed her by the shoulders and hauled
her against his frame. "Back to Tanner and his friends or maybe to
your feline friends? Aren't they the ones who did this to
you?"

Her eyes went wide and her mouth formed the
perfect O. For a few delicious seconds he'd rendered her speechless
and it was heaven. Her body aligned against his, her belly pressed
against his rigid erection over which he apparently had no control.
Her body heat seeping into his skin seemed to entice him further.
Not to mention her scent. He got a nose full before she reared her
head back and struggled from his grasp.

"Are you insane?" She fought against him
wildly and he fully understood why they were often referred to as
wild cats. It was a beautiful sight to behold.

"No, not quite insane but pretty close. I've
been trapped in this house for days with unanswered questions and a
need for something more." He kept his tone even but he banded his
arm around her shoulders and grasped her firmly against his
bodyweight. He wasn't worried she'd reinjure herself but he didn't
want to take any chances. "Stop fighting," he commanded.

She ignored his request and instead
redoubled her efforts. His grip faltered before he whipped her
around and pressed her back to his front. The little hellcat froze.
She must have felt what all her struggling was doing to him. During
her struggle her shirt had ridden above her hips and his cock had
wedged between her soft buttocks. Rafe struggled for a semblance of
control while Kitty breathed hard in his arms. Her mussed hair had
shifted and her now bare neck called to him stronger than any siren
song. This was pure animal instinct.

Wolves took a bare neck as a strong sign of
submission and he couldn't resist this one. He bent forward and
gently grasped the tight tendon that ran along the top of her
shoulders and neck between his teeth.

Kitty jerked, the sharp scent of fear
radiating from her skin. "Rafe. What are you doing?"