Werecats and Werelocks (Collection) Read Free Page B

around in her cotton-filled head.
    Then the blond head tiger Luke showed up the next day. She'd never forget the look on his face when he began to retell her about this pending sexcapade while handing her a tissue.
    "You haven't fully changed,” tall, strikingly rugged and high cheek-boned, Luke explained from her doorstep.
    "Yeah, this is what I hear. I'm not sure if I'm grateful or pissed he didn't finish the job,” she sorta joked. Pushing back her heavy length of hair and hacking up more gunk from her lungs, Charlie gasped for breath.
    Luke smacked her back, his smile grim, while his brother stared at his feet. “We think, or at least we hope that's why you're suffering from these allergies—because you haven't shifted totally. Your body's at war with itself trying to adjust and I don't know that if you did fully shift, if you wouldn't end up more miserable. We can't take that chance."
    "What worries me here, oh Striped One is this—what if we do this thing and it doesn't work? What if my body likes war?"
    Luke closed his eyes and took a deep breath, clearly seeking patience. “I know the reversion works."
    "Ahhh,” she chuckled the word. “So you're a watcher like grandma too?"
    He rolled his tongue along the inside of his cheek. “No, I didn't watch. I did see the aftermath and everything was right as rain. So let's just count ourselves lucky Quinn didn't bite you on the full moon.” He made a face at his brother. “If we don't do this before the full moon fully rises and you shift completely, you're in like Flynn. Sunk, to be precise, but we can fix this. If you mate with my brother Quinn, the numbnuts that bit you because he's a jealous, spiteful hothead who's into public brawls, you can revert back to your human form with no trouble at all. But I can't impress upon you how important it is to do this just before the full moon rises."
    Naturally .
    "Any particular reason this full moon shit makes so much of a difference?"
    His jaw clicked when he cracked it. “The full moon is a shifter tradition. Our entire pride participates in the rise of the full moon, but no, I don't know why on a full moon you're totally turned and any other day you aren't. It just is."
    Of course, she couldn't see if the moon was full because her eyes were always watering since she'd been nipped. She might have been more flipped out over the sex thing if Grandma Juanita tiger hadn't already warned her about it. She'd had some time to catch her breath, figuratively speaking anyway, since yesterday.
    "Care to explain that? Juanita didn't get too detailed yesterday because she said you had to handle this as pride leader. So hit me with the goods, Tony the Tiger. Because this could just be some cheap, albeit elaborate way to get into my pants,” she remarked dryly.
    Luke grinned that stunningly disarming grin again. “It's an old legend. A kind of remedy for those who were never intended to be bitten—courtesy of my grandmother, whom you've met.” He nodded in the direction of his brother, thumbing a finger at him. “Tell her, numbnuts."
    "Quit calling me a numbnuts!” he hollered. “It was a mistake and I'd like to explain. Travis Barker and I go way back. We've never gotten along, but when he slept with my girlfriend—"
    " Ex -girlfriend,” Luke interrupted, his eyebrows, thick and darker than his hair, knitting together.
    Quinn narrowed his liquid brown eyes. “'Whatever. He didn't have to tell the entire pride, did he? Anyway, I was chasing the redneck who slept with Tasha. I had him cornered too, but then we slammed into Charlie and she got pissed—rightfully so. She got between us and Travis got nasty because he's a drunken asshole. I wasn't going to stand there and let him insult an innocent woman, Luke. So I intervened."
    Charlie nodded her head in agreement. “He definitely did defend my girlie-ness."
    Quinn ran a hand through his light brown hair and shrugged. “I really wanted to smash the shit out of his face, but