Cat on the Fence (15 page)

Karabi’s head shot to her father then her mother, then back
to her father. “You know about Rao?”

“We know a lot about you,” Rohini said. “You are our
daughter, and we love you. We check up on you all of the time.”

“What? How?”

“Cats have eyes and ears all over the city. You know that.”

“So you’ve had me spied on?” Karabi felt her temperature
rising again but then she fully thought this over. “Did you have one of your spies
watching me that night of the zoo’s masquerade ball? Is that who the stranger
was in the alley that helped chase those Werewolves away?”

Rohini and Sree glanced at each other in a silent exchange.
Then Sree looked directly at Karabi for the first time since he sat at the
table. “It wasn’t a spy. It was me.”

“You? That was you in the alley? On the roof?” Karabi’s
mouth fell open. “With a
gun
? Since when do you own a gun?”

“Well, I-I had heard that there was a rash of Werewolf
attacks on young Queens lately. And when I heard you were going to a party at
night, alone and without an escort…” His voice trailed off and he averted his
eyes as he shoved some more food into his mouth so he wouldn’t have to say
anything to incriminate himself further.

“Your father insisted on checking up on you himself,” Rohini
said. “I told him it was dangerous, that he wasn’t a young Cat anymore.”

“But I was fine,” Sree interjected. “Scared those canine
bastards off good, all by myself.”

Karabi couldn’t help but laugh and soon all three of them
were giggling at the table.

“So, I’m curious,” Karabi asked. “What did you think of Rao?”

“Useless and pathetic,” Sree said. “Not worthy of your
time.”

“I’m surprised you did not like him at least a little,”
Karabi said. “He was Indian. And he wanted lots of babies.”

“He was human. And now he’s a rabid Werewolf, if he
survived. We heard he led Werewolves to the encampment in Starved Rock and got
himself bitten. A failure all around.”

“I thought he was okay,” Rohini said. “Just far too clingy.
But so is some other Indian man I know.” She winked at Sree and he dismissed
her with a hand. “But why talk about Rao anyway?” Rohini continued. “You were
never serious about him. Not like you are about Alex.”

Karabi spit a pea back out onto her plate. “How in the world
would you know that? I didn’t even know that.”

Rohini shrugged. “It’s simple, really. You were seeing Rao
for two years, and we had to spy on you to find that out. You brought Alex here
to meet us after just a month or so.”

Karabi snorted. “I didn’t bring him home to meet you, I
brought him here because he needed help!”

“You went to the Pride because he needed help,” Rohini said.
“When for ten years, you wouldn’t even go to the Pridefor
yourself
.
And then when that failed, you brought him here. When again, you wouldn’t have
even come here for
yourself
.”

“I personally don’t care why you brought him here to meet
us,” Sree snorted. “The fact remains, you finally brought someone here. Someone
you obviously care about as much as he cares about you. That’s good enough for
me.”

“I know you’re not asking for our approval, dear, but we
approve of Alex,” Rohini said. “I wouldn’t have suggested he go down to the zoo
and apply for a job if I didn’t already think he’d be a good match for you in the
first place, you know. Just don’t play games with this one like you did all the
others.”

Sree chuckled. “See, Karabi, this is why I always told you
that a smart Indian child would let her parents pick out her spouse for her.
Good parents will always know how to find the right match for their child.”

Karabi sat in her chair, staring back and forth between them
both. Dumbfounded. “Who are you people, and what have you done to my parents?”

“No, who are
you
, woman? And whatever did you do to
my quiet, soft-spoken, obedient little angel?” Sree said with a cheerful grunt.
“You became a teenager and suddenly you wanted to challenge us all of the time,
on everything. You’re the one who changed.”

“Our little girl grew up, that’s what happened to her,”
Rohini said, her face aglow with happiness. “Maybe we weren’t ready for it yet.
It just took all of us some time to get used to seeing each other through a
different perspective. All that matters now is that our family is whole again.”

Karabi smiled and shook her head.
A different
perspective, indeed
, she thought.
What else have I been looking at
wrong?

* * * * *

Alex rolled around in a beam of sunlight that came through
the tops of the trees. Never in a million years would he have imagined himself
having this much fun outside, frolicking in the dirt and grass. When he was
done sunbathing he licked his paws and used them to clean off the back of his
head. The one thing he still couldn’t quite grasp was how easily cats made
cleaning themselves look. In reality that shit was hard, and it required a hell
of a lot of flexibility to reach one’s own back. Finally being able to lick his
own penis and testicles turned out not to be nearly as fun as he’d thought it
would be either.

Thinking about licking himself made him think of the last
time he was licked by someone else.
Karabi
. A month and a half had
passed since he’d last seen her and she’d turned him down for lunch. Damn, he
missed her so much. Not just sexually but in every way. Never had he met a
woman before who challenged him so thoroughly yet also submitted herself to him
at the same time. He was used to being the one playing Captain Hero but Karabi
was a woman who was just as capable of rescuing him as he was her. How many
times, and in how many ways, had she saved him? Changed him? Challenged him?
Soothed him?

She’d also hurt him. Sure, he knew that he had been pressing
her buttons with all of that talk about commitment, family and the Pride. But
he hadn’t been able to help it. He wanted what he’d wanted and he couldn’t hide
it from her. Didn’t want to. But in the end she’d felt just as smothered by him
as she’d felt about everything else. And if there was one thing he’d learned
during his brief time at the zoo, it was that a caged tiger still dreamed of running
wild.

Run wild, that’s what Alex needed to do to clear his head.
There was no use in depressing himself thinking about Karabi right now. The
private grounds outside Forest Gardens included almost four acres of thick
woods, surrounded by a wall six feet tall. Alex sprinted through the grounds as
fast as he could for a short distance, bouncing and leaping over obstacles in
his path, just for fun.

When he stopped to rest, a scent in the air snagged his
attention. He recognized it but only vaguely. He was still getting used to how
different his sense of smell was now without the Werewolf toxin in him. He
followed the opposite direction the wind was carrying it and found himself at
the tall, thick tree that he’d left his clothing near. Looking up, he spotted a
cheetah relaxing on one of the branches, her long, spotted tail dangling
lazily. For a second he thought he knew this cheetah. Could it be—

Alex raced up the tree to get a closer look and sniff,
careful not to actually go out onto the limb with her, certain that it would
break with his added weight. This cheetah was wearing a collar like one from
the Pride’s Claiming Ceremony. It couldn’t be who he thought it was.

But then he blinked and when he opened his eyes, Karabi
Minstry was there in place of the cheetah. Nude and glorious and grinning at
him deviously. The collar with the Leo zodiac pendant that was on the cat was
now a necklace on the woman.

“What are you staring at, tiger?” she asked. “Haven’t you
seen a cheetah in her natural habitat before?”

Alex sat himself on the branch and then shifted to a man.
“Um, no I haven’t, actually. This is my very first time seeing a cheetah in the
wild.”

Karabi wiggled her butt in the air at him. “Do you want to
come investigate me further? You’re welcome to take a whiff.”

Seeing her lying on her stomach like that, naked, outside,
in a tree, wiggling at him—Alex’s cock immediately started to stir. He
chuckled. “I had no idea cheetahs could be so provocative.”

“I feel the same way about tigers,” she said. “Can we talk?”

Alex looked down and then back up at Karabi with wide eyes.
“Mind if we do it on the ground? Where it’s safe?”

Karabi laughed. “Still a big baby, I see! Come on, tiger.
It’s not warm enough yet to be sitting out here in human form naked, anyway.”

They shifted and climbed down the tree. When they got to the
ground Alex had a hard time not staring at the claiming collar she was wearing.
He shifted and got dressed, watching her curiously as she did the same.

“So what brings you here?” he asked her.

“I live here.”

Alex felt both of his eyebrows shoot up. “You do? Since
when?”

“I just moved into the last unit on the east end on Friday.”

“Really?” he said. “Does that mean that you’re talking to
your parents now?”

She smiled and nodded as she pulled up her jeans. “Yeah. I
am.”

“Wow.” Alex was incredulous. “What brought that on?”

“Maybe I got a little jealous that you were spending so much
time with them, when I wasn’t.”

“That’s all it takes, huh? I’m glad to hear it, though. Hmm.
Maybe I need to find a chick to spend time with, in hopes that you’ll get
jealous and come back to me?”

“That won’t work if the girl is really hot,” Karabi said.
“There’s a risk that I could become jealous of you, instead of her.”

“Gah, I didn’t think about that. Tricky bisexuals.” They both
laughed. But then Alex saw that pesky necklace she was wearing and he turned
solemn. “Who’s the lucky Cat?”

“What?”

“You’re wearing a claiming collar,” he said. “Who’s the
lucky Cat?”

“Well, the truth is…” She blushed visibly and paused to bite
her bottom lip, as if she wasn’t sure she wanted to tell him.

Alex took a deep breath to brace himself then swallowed
hard. He tried to tell himself it would be okay if she’d moved on. It’d hurt
like hell but it was cool. But he opened and closed his mouth a few times and
no words came out. Something about Karabi prevented him from being able to lie
to her. Not even when his heart was breaking.

After a moment of awkward silence she walked toward him with
her head down low. When she finally looked up at him again there was so much
emotion in her eyes, his heart clenched. He’d been through
so
much this
past five months. He wasn’t sure he could take another blow.

“Karabi, don’t—”

“Wait, listen to me, Alex. Please. I have to say this. I
wasn’t thinking clearly and fully about my life when I was with you. I was
lying to my boss and the people I work with. Sneaking out of the office.
Begging the Pride for help. For a moment I was even seriously considering
thinking about collaring you and having your
babies
,for a
moment, when we were in front of the Pride Council together. None of that was
me. I felt as though I was losing myself.”

“I know, and you didn’t like that.”

“But I was wrong,” she said. “I wasn’t losing myself. I was
uniting with you.”

“And that scared you, right? Because you felt as if you were
bending to someone else’s will, and that’s against your principles.”

“But that’s a dumb principle to have,” Karabi said. “Especially
if it meant I was fighting my own will.”

“What are you saying?”

She pulled another necklace from her pocket and held it up
to him. “I’m saying that I love you. And that I’d love for you to let me claim
you. I know we’re not Pride members right now but there are plenty of Pride
members who live here, and I want them to see that you are taken. I am taken.”

“Wait—so I’m the lucky Cat?”

“Only if you want to be.”

He picked her up, held her in his arms and she came crashing
down onto his lips. He willingly caught her by the mouth, eager to taste those
strawberry-flavored lips again. His fingers were in her hair and her arms were
around his neck as they kissed, no—marked each other with their mouths. He felt
her place the necklace around his neck, her fingers working the clasp. When she
pulled away to catch her breath she fingered the charm on his necklace
tenderly. “You have been claimed. You’re mine now,” she said.

Alex threw his head back and laughed heartily. “Damn, woman,
when you make up your mind, you make up your mind.”

“Yeah,” she nodded, smiling. “And it feels really good.”

“I love you, Karabi.”

“And I love you, Alex.”

His heart swelled. He’d already known it. But it was another
thing altogether to hear her acknowledge it. To admit it out loud. “You do?”

“Didn’t you already know that?”

“I knew it. But I didn’t know you knew it.”

“Apparently, everybody knows it. Even my parents know it.”

“They do?” Alex blinked. “So, um, do they approve?”

“They approve. They practically consider you part of the
family already. They’re already plotting what our children will look like.”

He grinned. “Does this mean I can knock you up now?”

“Whoa, slow down, tiger!” Karabi laughed. “Let me get used
to things here at level one first. Besides, Papa would
not
approve of
you knocking me up without a traditional marriage first.”

“Gah. Who knows how long I’ll have to wait before you’re
ready to marry me?”

She smirked. “You’ll just have to find out, won’t you? In
the meantime, we can still practice making babies.”

“Yes.” He nodded. “How about we start that now?”

“Like right now?”

“Why not? No way you can still try to say you don’t want
me.”

“True. I do want you.”

“Here?”

“Here.” She kissed his mouth. “Here.” She put his hand on
her breast. He squeezed it eagerly. “And here.” She spread her legs, letting
his erection press against her crotch, dry humping him ever so slowly.