Cat's Wolf (A Shifter Romance Novella) Read Free Page B

doesn’t like the
thought that it would be his fault if anything happened to one of the wolves.
As far as he’s concerned, they’re his family.” Brent watched her intently,
probably looking for some sign she was warming towards Rhys or not. Kaitlin
shrugged, trying not to show any emotion. “He left after the fight and about thirty
guys went with him. He’s now in charge of a small number of us but we have a
feeling the numbers will grow. We call him the boss because he doesn’t like the
title of alpha.”
    Suddenly she understood him better;
knew why he was after an alliance with the bears. Knew why he was pursuing her.
    “Bastard!”
    Brent shot her a questioning look. “What’s
up?”
    She shook her head as she backed
away, “It’s just dawned on me why he wants me.” She swore colourfully, “He
didn’t have to make up all that crap about me being his mate, my parents and
the rest of the council would have met with him anyway.” She growled as her
anger brought her to the brink of shifting, her body twitching ominously.
    Brent ran a hand over his brow and
swore, “He really does believe you’re his mate, Kaitlin.”
    “Yeah, right!” She turned on her
heel and walked away from him before she did something stupid, like attack him.
    “Aww, fuck,” she heard him say,
“I’m going to be in deep shit for this.”
    Luckily for him, he didn’t try to
follow her or she might have shifted on him, her puma itching for a fight.
    Kaitlin threw the front door of her
parents’ home open and halted when she saw her father sitting in his favourite
chair nursing a tumbler of dark liquid. “Dad,” she murmured.
    Paul Mahone was an intimidating
man; he was six-foot-three and had an air of power about him. He was feared by
almost everyone in the cat clans—him being one of the few jaguar shifters—which
meant they left her alone too. It had pissed her off for a while, no males
wanting to touch her, but she’d found a way around it in the end.
    “Did you have a nice evening,
Kaitlin?” He didn’t look up from the whiskey in his glass as he swirled the
liquid.
    Her nape prickled in warning.
    Did he know Misha had left her
alone at the club? Or did she smell of wolf?
    “It was great, we went to a club,”
she moved towards the staircase.
    “The full moon cycle starts in three
days, Kaitlin.”
    Her eyes widened at that. Ten years
after a female’s first shift, she went into a needing period, where she would
be fertile for the few nights of the full moon period. Her needing scent would
trigger the male’s need to mate with her and she would have to pick a worthy
male to relieve the ache and possibly become the father of her child.
    “You understand what that entails?”
    Of course she did. “Yes.”
    His dark brown eyes met hers across
the room, “Goodnight, Kaitlin.”
    “Goodnight.”
    She hurried up the stairs and into
her room. Once there, she dropped onto the edge of her bed and stared into
space. There wasn’t one man she could go to, to help her with this. Unless she
went to the Crescent Bay…
    No! He’d used her. She wasn’t going
to him for help with this. Not that it would help if she did. During the full
moon she’d be in puma form, her human half shut away—quite literally for her—and
it would be the puma who decided who was worthy, not her.
    Dropping backwards on the mattress
she stared up at the white ceiling as she ran possibilities through her head.

 
    Chapter 4
     
    Kaitlin stared up at the Crescent
Bay Hotel and realised how desperate she must be to come here. The full moon
was tonight and she’d run out of options.
    She’d begun to smell the beginnings
of her needing coming through her skin this morning and it had startled her
into action. She’d briefly entertained the idea of going to Tito but he no
longer appealed to her, not after seeing Rhys. It wasn’t a good idea to be
around any other shifters at this time anyway. Her scent would drive them crazy
and they’d do