The Cougar's Bargain (21 page)

“Hey, I keep telling you.” He pushed open the door and slapped the light switch. “I am so,
so
good at aiming things.”

“So I'm learning.”

“Yeah?” Steven said.

Sean let Hannah fall backward onto her bed and watched her brother crouch beside it, squinting at her.

“Just how much
learning
have you been doing in the past few months?”

She stretched her arms over her head, yawned, and then shrugged. Her energy might have been nervous before, but now that she was in the enclosed space again—one that had probably started to feel like something of a cocoon in the past couple of days—she relaxed. That seemed to agitate her brother all the more.

“So much learning,” she said.

Steven had murder in his eyes when he looked at Sean.

Sean shrugged. “Most of it was rated PG. She has seen me naked more times than she can easily recount, though. She tries hard not to look, but no one can ignore a cat who really wants to be seen.”

She sighed and draped her arm over her eyes. “Ugh,
très
scandal,
très
OMG
.
”

Steven folded his arms over his chest and leaned against the wall. “If I were on duty for my day job right now, I'd probably call for backup and try to get you held for a psychiatric evaluation.”

“Before the end of the night, you'll be the one thinking you need one,” Sean said.

No use belaboring this
.

He was used to undressing quickly to shift when there was some sign of danger, and he certainly put that skill to work. Shirt and shoes off all at once, and his jeans halfway down before Steven could complain.

“Wait—”

“Don't worry. You're not my type.” Sean cupped himself, and rolled his shoulders back a few times. He always did that before shapeshifting, kind of like a boxer warming his muscles before a fight.

Taking a long draw of air, he pulled the beast him up as if from his toes to his heart, and let the change reshape him, reform his bones, and yank at his skin.

He was good at it—at doing it quickly and keeping his more human consciousness at the front of his mind—though that seemed harder to do at the moment.

As he fell onto four legs, Hannah sat up and scrambled off the bedside.

She's running from me. My mate is—

“Oh, dammit. Mason's gonna kill me. Stupid!
Stupid
.” She thunked the side of her head with her palm and snatched her phone off the dresser. “I was supposed to keep him from shifting.”

Steven stared, agape, and kept on holding up that wall with his back.

The cat part of Sean was less patient than the man part of him at the moment. He wanted attention and freedom from obstacles. His mate's brother could be an obstacle. Sean didn't need any more of those. She was his. They both knew it, but the newcomer didn't. He didn't understand.

Sean stalked toward him, fur bristling and fangs front and center. No one was going to keep him from his mate. He'd endured too many roadblocks already and his goddess had given her to him.

He was
not
in the mood to play.

“Ugh.”
No time for a conference.
Hannah set down her phone, knelt in front of her brother, and put her hands up pleadingly at the stalking cat.

Her beer-addled brain wasn't quite working at optimal speed. Normally, she might have known the best thing to do—the thing that would be least bruising to her pride—but pride had gone out the window as far as Sean was concerned days ago. Steven was another matter.

She stole a glace back at her brother and watched his hand inch toward his waistband.

Almost too slowly, she hit his shin with her elbow. “
No
. Don't draw a weapon on him.”

“Maybe you didn't see what I just saw. I saw man and a few seconds later there was a big frickin' cougar where he'd been standing.”

“That's Sean.”

“It's cute that the cat has a name.”

“Quit it. This is what he wanted you to see.”

Sean hissed. Whether it was at Steven, Hannah, or both of them, Hannah couldn't guess, but she knew one thing for sure. She had to try to talk to him and bring him down, even if the words were silly.

Ugh, beer is Satan's greatest con.

She closed her burning eyes, rubbed her temples, and tried to tap into the wilder part of herself—the inner cat she wasn't so good at listening to.

“Get him back upright
,” she seemed to say.

It seemed obvious, but
how
?

“Dangit.”

Sean stopped about three feet from where Hannah knelt and cast a look at Steven that needed no interpretation. He'd maul him if he could. He saw him as some kind of threat. Steven
was
a threat, and she didn't want to give him a chance to get his wits about him enough to do anything that would bring the already high tensions in the room up a notch.

Touch him.

She knew she had to, just like before when they'd been locked together in his basement. Like him needing her to cling to him during a long drive through the desert.

She knee-walked toward him, keeping her hands up where the cougar could see them.

Such a big cat.
She'd known that he was, as were all the Foye men. She'd seen Sean shift dozens of times before the curse fell on him, but at that moment—in that small space—she was reminded of how dangerous he was. On two legs, he was a different kind of dangerous. He could break her heart, sure, but he probably couldn't tear a motel room down to its studs without a single tool.

“Um.” She extended her hands, slowly, tentatively, and let her fingertips graze the edges of his ears.

“Hannah—”

“Shh! He's not going to hurt me.” At least, she didn't think he was. She wasn't the threat.

She sat back on her heels, and dragged her thumbs lightly across his forehead and down his nose. Then she glanced back at Steven over her shoulder and canted her head toward the door to Sean's room. “Maybe go in there.”

“No. I'm not going anywhere.”

“You're making it worse.”

“Maybe it's you who can't see how bad this actually is. You've got the face of an apex predator in your hands.”

“I can fix this.”

“How, Hannah?”

“Because I'm like him.”

Steven scoffed and dug the heels of his palms against his closed eyes.

“I'm not kidding. I can shift.”

“Sure you can. Hannah Welch from Knightdale has a flesh-rending kitty cat inside who's just dying to be let out.”

“I don't have to prove anything to you.”

“Well, obviously
that
guy did.”

“And yet you still seem to be in disbelief. I swear, I can't do all your thinking for you.”

“I think just fine on my own. Get him to shift back.”

“I'm trying. This isn't an exact science, and it's … my fault, kind of, that he's like this.”

“How?”

“Long story?” She moved a little closer to Sean and wrapped her arms around his broad column of a neck. The soft growl vibrating in his chest was a warning she recognized all too well. It meant
get out of my way
, and if he wanted at Steven, Sean would view Hannah as an inconvenient impediment. She rested her chin on the top of his head and tightened her hold on him. “You're not gonna hurt me, so don't even act like you are.”

He sat back on his haunches with a feline harrumph and nipped at her arm.

“If you break my skin, you and I are going to have words, bud.”

He nipped her again.

She rolled her eyes.

That was Sean in the driver's seat, not the beast.

“Stop being a dick. Come out of there. Don't make me call Mason.”

Of course she wouldn't, though. There was no way she could tell on Sean without getting an earful of alpha herself.

Sean gave his head an emphatic shake.

“You gonna be difficult?”

Another shake.

“You
can't
?”

He nipped her arm once more.

“He can't
what
?” Steven asked.

“Come out.” She groaned, and added, “Shift back, I mean. Not yet. It's usually a little easier, but I kinda … broke him a little bit.”

“You
broke
him.” He said it as a statement, not a question, while staring at her through hooded eyes.

“Don't take that tone with me. I'm a grown-ass woman.”

“One who happens to be talking real frickin' crazy.”

Rolling her eyes, she sighed and stood. “I'm making perfectly good sense. You just don't want to understand what I'm telling you.”

“Then let's start this again from the beginning. Maybe by the time you're done, I'll have woken up from this spooky nightmare and all the beer will have metabolized out of my system. I understand why now Mom calls it Satan's piss water.” Swaying just a bit, he made his way to the compact desk, pulled out the chair, and sat heavily onto it. “Okay. Now.”

Sean settled onto his belly on the floor at the foot of the bed and looked up at Hannah. Obviously, he was waiting to hear her spin the tale, too.

“You shouldn't,” she muttered. “He'll probably want to make a rug out of you by the time I'm done. And that would be such a shame. You're such a pretty cat.”

Cat-Sean blinked and made a clicking sound in his throat that seemed to be the precursor of a hiss.

She looked at Steven who was still giving her that glazed-over stare. “Maybe you'd like some water. I can get you a cold bottle out of the vending machine. Give me two bucks.”

“If I wanted water, I'd slurp some out of the damn sink like the classy asshole I am. Talk. Now.”

“You can't tell me what to do.”

“You used to say that when you were a kid. You'd stomp your foot, cross your arms, and poke your lips out, and when Dad pinched your cheek, you'd run off crying.”

“I'm not a kid, and if you pinch anything on me, I'm going to punch your lights out.”

“And I bet you're not going to cry, either.”

Not over that.

“Just tell me, Hannah. You'll probably have to explain this to me again in the morning, because obviously, I'm drunker than I feel.”

“Fine. A little over two months ago when Ellery, Miles, and I went camping, the reason we didn't go home wasn't because we decided to go on sabbatical.”

Steven dropped his chin to his chest and blinked slowly. “Yeah?”

“We were kidnapped.”

“That so?”

“By Were-cougars.”

He cut his watery eyes to the beast on the floor and slid his hand up to his hip where Hannah knew he kept a gun covered.

She'd have to watch him as much as she was watching the cat. One wrong move and both men could be hurt.

“Were-cougars, you say?”

“Right. They kidnapped us. Three of them.”

“Why?”

“Because they needed mates.”

“So, you're telling me that dangerous creature right there”—he stabbed his index finger toward Sean—“is some magical being and he's forced you into toddling along with him.”

“Uh.
No
. First of all, he's not dangerous.”

Steven pushed up an eyebrow.

“Second of all, he's not magical so much as …” She made a swirling, non-committal hand gesture. “Supernatural. He may be a little psychic, but I wouldn't call him a magic user. Leave that to Ellery.”

“Oh. Ellery too, huh?” Steven closed his eyes, and turned his head this way and that way as if he were trying to tune in to a stronger radio frequency.

“Steven.”

“Yep.”

“Are you listening to me?”

“Yep. Supernatural. Magic. Ellery. Yep.”

“Okay, open your eyes and try to keep up. A few weeks ago, I was scratched up by a shifted teenaged Cougar.” She pointed to her left cheek and the scars that traveled down her neck.

“Sheesh.”

“You can't say you didn't notice them.”

“I did, but I didn't want to make a big deal of it in case you were sensitive about them. I was curious, though.”

“Glad you care.”

“More than anyone. I always have.”

She rolled her eyes.

Sean nudged her shin.

“What?”

No words, of course, just energy. It rippled up her legs and spine, squeezed her heart, and released it. The energy's compression made her draw in some air, and then take in a little more until her breathing—which she hadn't even realized had been so erratic—stabilized.
Breathe
, he seemed to be saying.
Relax
.

So, she did. In and out, again and again until her heart had stopped racing and her pulse quieted in her ears.

“Okay,” she whispered, and raised her gaze to Steven. “I got clawed, and didn't have immunity to the virus all born shifters carry. The one that transmits the, um …” She stole a quick look at Sean.
Is there even a good word for this?
She might have been nasty about it a couple of months ago, but she knew he couldn't help what he was any more than she could help being what she was. It was just the hand he was dealt.

She turned back to Steven and let out a breath. “The
affliction
. There's no cure.” She'd asked—
kept
asking—for a week. Unless Lola had lied to her, she was well and truly stuck.

“Hannah, what are you telling me?”

She crooked her thumb toward the cat at her feet. “He was born that way. I … was made.”

Steven closed his eyes yet again and canted his head in that odd way.

“Steve?”

He gave his head a slow shake and muttered incoherently—something about “Mom” and how somehow, everything would end up being his fault.

“
Steve
.”