Bad Kitty Read Free Page A

that?"
    One of the men rushed forward and clamped
his hand over her mouth. In automatic survival mode now, she bit
him. He reared back and she screamed again before he backhanded
her, sending her flying across the clearing and into a tree. She
fell to the ground with a painful, heavy thud. Black spots blurred
her vision again as she tried to gather some shred of willpower to
get up and fight. Again, nothing happened.
    "Here kitty, kitty, kitty. You don't have to
snarl at us and play hard to get. I think you're going to like us.
Maybe if you play nice and do your job well, we'll let you live—for
now."
    Bile rose in her throat as the three men
approached her. She closed her eyes against their faces as a
massive surge of fear gripped her insides.
    Please let me die. Please let me die. Please
let me die. Anything else but this. Please.
    She knew her prayers would
go unanswered so she did the next best thing she could. She used
the fear , pushed
through the pain and agony ripping through and struggled to her
feet. The men before her grew blurry. The forest spun around her.
Her legs shook and she held out her arms to keep balanced. A loud
noise drew her attention , but her eyesight had worsened. The black edges
around her vision were growing larger and all she could make out
were fuzzy images in front of her. It was impossible to hear
anything over the blood now roaring in her ears.
    She couldn't move, she couldn't speak and
now she couldn't see. Finally her knees buckled underneath her and
she gratefully succumbed to the darkness sucking her in. It was all
she had left.
     
    ~
    Rafe Comyn entered the clearing a second
before the battered and broken woman collapsed. He tempered his
instinct to run to her assistance. The three men from his pack who
surrounded her were not his favorite people and rushing them would
send them on the attack. This was not going to go well.
    "What the hell is going on here, Tanner?"
Rafe demanded.
    All three men turned his
way and snarled. Their faces were already elongated from a partial
shift, their arms and chests covered in fur. Saliva dripped from
their mouths and for a second Rafe's stomach turned. They looked
more like a rabid group of dirty animals instead of the superior
wolf shifters they were supposed to be. The half beast form wasn't
the most attractive to begin with. On these
three , it was
downright nasty.
    "This is none of your business, Rafe. We
found her first so back off." The gruff voice of the wolf made the
human hard to understand.
    "Yeah, I can see that. You've cornered a
woman and beat her half to death. That's really something to be
proud of."
    The largest of the group broke rank and
moved toward Rafe. "We haven't touched her yet. We found her like
this, and she ain't no woman. She's a feline bitch."
    Rafe eased forward, making
sure to not make any sudden movements. He could take on Tanner and
his friends if he had to , but he might as well try and be diplomatic first.
The Alpha wouldn't take kindly to him starting a fight and right
now pack politics were tense at best. A quick glance at the woman
showed her passed out on the ground, but her chest rose and fell
just enough for him to see she indeed still lived.
    "Then why the hell do you look like wild
animals about to attack? Are you planning to eat her?" He knew
exactly what they were going to do with her.
    "We're about to claim her."
    Great, just what he
thought. They were stupid and horny, his favorite combination. Not. Rafe fought
the urge to roll his eyes against the cliché of these men. Not just
men though. They were pack, which offered a whole host of
complications he was about to step into.
    "She's in no condition to be claimed. From
what I can see she's barely alive." He brushed past Tanner and
knelt beside the woman, ignoring the warning growls behind him. He
bent down and sniffed her from head to toe. The wolf's keen sense
of smell would tell him everything he needed to know. "She needs
immediate medical