What's New, Pussycat? (Wolf Mates Book 2) Read online

  Hector was a descendant of those damn experiments he’d told the cat about—a vegetarian werewolf who despised the hunt and refused to participate. Somehow, his DNA had been so irrevocably changed he managed to thrive without protein, yet was still able to shift.

  Derrick held his hands up like two white flags before scratching Hector’s latest love under the chin. “Hey, I stopped eating them the minute you told me you gave them all names. I stick to stuff from the supermarket. No free-range woodland creatures in this belly. Promise, buddy.”

  Hector slid bunny number eighteen at last count into the heated hut and smiled his approval. “So what are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be with your mate, you know, mating?”

  “About my mate…”

  His eyes rounded when he grinned. “I heard. We all heard. A cat, right?”

  Derrick sighed, jamming his hands into the pocket of his coat. The trouble with a close-knit family was the close-knit part. “Yes. She’s a cat. But she shifts. At least I think she does. She smells like she does, anyway.”

  Hector leaned against the hut, readjusting the night-vision goggles he always wore in order to be prepared to watch for any small animals in distress. Unfortunately, as a result of his lineage, he’d also inherited poor eyesight. Or what was considered poor for a werewolf. “So what’s the problem?”

  Derrick sighed. “She won’t shift.”

  Hector threw his head back and laughed so hard his slender shoulders shook.

  Derrick frowned. How was this funny? Okay, so maybe it was a little ironic that he’d ended up mated to a cat who wouldn’t shift, but it wasn’t damn well funny. “I fail to see the humor in this, Hector. I can’t communicate with someone who won’t shift.”

  Hector lifted his glasses and wiped his eyes. “Yeah. That’s the funny in this. You, the crappy communicator, has to somehow communicate with someone who can’t. It’s priceless.”

  Derrick fought a sharp retort. Mostly because Hector was right. Among his many flaws, he also wasn’t very good at communicating. That’s why he’d turned to Hector. Hector could talk a coon out of raiding a garbage can in ten seconds flat. No doubt he could communicate with his cat. “So any thoughts on what I should do? You’re so good with animals…”

  Hector pulled his knit cap tighter over his ears, letting his goggles drop around his neck as he shook his head. “Oh, hell no. No, no, no. I’m not getting in the middle of the mate. And she’s not just a cat. She’s a shifter cat, meaning she’s half human woman. I suck at talking to women, and you know it. Sometimes I’m glad my DNA got all screwed up because it means I’m not forced to mate. But I’ll give you a little tip—don’t yell at her. You yell a lot.”

  A lot? “Do I?”

  Hector rolled his eyes and mimicked him. “Do I?” he squawked in a perfect imitation of Derrick. “Are you kidding me? You’re always yelling about something.”

  He blustered at first, but then he gave that some thought. He did yell. Maybe it was from the years spent working in his bar in town, where he was always breaking up fights, or maybe it was from fighting for attention in a family of two sisters and an older brother. “Okay, so I’m impatient, and in my impatience, I get noisy sometimes. It’s not intentional.”

  Hector threw up his gloved hand, the fingers of the wooly material cut off. “Exactly. But we all know that’s just Derrick. We know you and your big mouth. We’re used to you getting frustrated easily. But a woman? One you have to spend the rest of your life with? You might want to reign that shit in, pal. Use your indoor voice. Cats are skittish—easily scared.”

  Derrick rocked back on his feet, nodding. “Fair enough. Any other tips?”

  “A ball of yarn? Catnip? Oh! Salmon. Bet she’d like some salmon, and maybe one of those kitty condos. You know, with all the tiers and the carpet on them? Good exercise.”

  Derrick scowled at him, his foul mood growing fouler. “Not laughing.”

  Hector shrugged with a wide grin as he made his way toward the opening of the barn. “It’s all good, dude. I’ll laugh for you,” he said, before laughing again, the echo of it scaring the birds sitting atop the bales of hay in the rafters.

  As Derrick watched Hector exit the barn, he sighed.

  A cat.

  He needed to get to his mothers and grab some cans of tuna. Hopefully he’d be able to get in and out before she began the inevitable round of questions and answers about his mate.

  His mate the cat.

  Christ.

  Chapter Four

  Martine spent the afternoon wandering Derrick’s home, familiarizing herself with the nooks and crannies in case escape was necessary. Hopping onto his bed, she lay down on the pillow where he rested his head every night, because it smelled delicious. Like musk and pine and Derrick.

  She was hoping as she settled into her new surroundings, the tingle of her shift would somehow magically appear and if nothing else, she could explain to Derrick how she’d gotten stuck in the first place.

  Escobar. That’s how she’d gotten stuck in cat form. How Escobar had found out about her, or from who, was still a mystery. She’d lived a life almost entirely magic free until Escobar. Free from the crazy that was this world of paranormals she wanted no part of.

  Free from her ugly past.

  She’d made it her mission to only shift when her body couldn’t take the bone-crushing pressure not to do so any longer, and even then, she took a quick run, flexed her kitty muscles, and she was back in human form pronto.

  She hid from everyone and everything supernatural, and she’d planned to keep right on hiding until Escobar had come along.

  Since she’d left home at the tender age of eighteen, she hadn’t looked back. She’d made a niced life for herself. Gone to college on a scholarship, found a good job, saved until she’d almost put Ramen Noodles out of business then began a journey into self-employment. But most of all, she’d avoided all messy entanglements.

  Life had been damn good until Escobar showed up.

  Now that she was out from under his thumb, somehow out from under the spell he’d cast on her, dooming her to the confines of his condo in Manhattan and that crazy catio he’d locked her up in, she should be able to switch forms.

  So what the what, universe?

  She’d heard him spew the spell with her own ears and it had involved tethering her only to his condo. So what was the hell was taking so long, and who’d confiscated her from Escobar’s and dumped her at a 7-Eleven?

  As she scratched her back on Derrick’s sheets, she pondered this predicament, weighing the pros and cons.

  For the moment, she was safe and free from captivity. It didn’t appear as though Derrick was going to harm her, and while he was less than thrilled about her being here, he wasn’t booting her out in the cold either.

  Check one in the column of things to be thankful for.

  However, she had a life she wanted to go back to—to resume, if that was still possible. A life she often wondered if anyone even knew she’d left. In her effort to keep from engaging in messy entanglements, she’d also done a great job of isolating herself.

  Speaking of messy entanglements—this certainly would qualify.

  This death-sex thing… She’d heard a lot of batshit crazy in her time, but death-sex?

  Check one for the get-me-the-hell-out-of-here column.

  So now what, Martine? Where to go from here?

  A nap. That’s where she was going from here. A nice, long, rejuvenating nap.

  Stretching out, she settled into the patch of buttery sun sprawling across the bed and snuggled down against Derrick’s pillow with a sigh, letting the silence seep into her bones.

  Okay, so there was something to be said for the peace of the country. No one was blaring an episode of Cops from the apartment next door and the guy across the hall wasn’t practicing his squeaky rendition of Oklahoma on his trombone.

  All other things aside, she could get used to the quiet.

  * * *

>   Derrick tried to sneak into his mother’s house in order to avoid the inevitable falsely cheerful spin she’d attempt to put on finding his life mate. He didn’t want to talk about love and happily-ever-after when it was forced on him.

  This wasn’t like JC and Max and their love story. This wasn’t going to be some great romance where love conquered all. It was going to be him, forced to do something he didn’t want to do, forcing someone else into a situation that was unfair at best.

  This was him doing something he didn’t believe in.

  He especially didn’t want to talk about it with his mother, who still burned a candle for his father, a man who’d up and left them when they’d needed him the most, leaving Max and Derrick to handle everything.

  Max didn’t believe it—he still held hope someday their father would walk right back in the door he’d walked out of. But Derrick called bullshit.

  Brock Adams had left. End of.

  “There’s my boy!” Faith Adams squealed just as he was sneaking out of the pantry with some extra cans of tuna for his cat.

  His. Cat. Jesus.

  Faith clapped her hands, her eyes bright, her smile wide. Too wide. Fake wide, like when he was a kid and he was going to have to take medicine she knew would taste like donkey’s ass, yet still tried to convince him was grape-flavored. “So?”

  Rather than answer, Derrick gave her a hug, long and hard. “How’s it going, Mom?”

  She leaned back in his arms, her pretty eyes suspicious. “I’d ask the same of you, son.”

  He held up one can of tuna, giving her a sheepish grin like he used to when he was stealing cookies as a kid. “Just borrowing some supplies until I can get to the store.”

  Now her eyes turned playful. “For?”

  “Mom…” he warned, refusing to be goaded into the life-mate talks.

  “Your cat!” she said on a chuckle, slapping him on the arm. “You, my fine boy, have a cat for a life mate. Wanna talk about how you’re feeling about that?”

  No. He absolutely wanted to avoid how he was feeling. “Not a lot.”

  Faith’s sigh was ragged and full of motherly exasperation. “Derrick, when will you learn that clamming up isn’t the way to work things out? Surely you have feelings about this you need to talk about?”

  He held his tongue for a moment, pausing to give thought to how he’d respond. “You heard she hasn’t shifted, right?”

  Faith nodded, her eyes grave. “I did.”

  “Okay, so in all fairness, how should I feel about this? We can’t have a conversation yet. So what do you want me to say?”

  Faith avoided his eyes. “That’s fair. But when she does shift, and I’m sure she will, then what? Are you going to give this half a chance or are you going to poo-poo all things romantic?”

  “I don’t know about you, Mom, but being forced to mate with someone you don’t even know isn’t exactly romantic,c nor does it inspire romance.”

  “Well, it did for Max and JC.”

  “And I’m happy for them—for Max. Really happy. But JC’s human. That’s just a bit less like the antichrist to a werewolf. In our truest form, we’re canines. Canine as in we’re known for eating cats. We’re supposed to chase them, not mate with them.”

  Faith sighed, rolling her eyes. “That’s so archaic. We haven’t eaten cats in forever, and you know it. The hunt is more a tradition than anything else these days, and with Hector, we’re all very careful about who and what we choose to chase.”

  “All that aside, Mom, this isn’t romantic.”

  “If it could be romantic for your brother, why can’t it be romantic for you?”

  His frustration with his current situation was beginning one of those slow simmers he had to be careful didn’t turn into a rolling boil. “Because I don’t want a life mate? Because I’m not a believer in happily-ever-after like you? Because sometimes I wonder if death isn’t preferable to being forcibly tied down to someone you didn’t want in the first place?”

  Faith gazed at him, her eyes intense. “Take that back now, Derrick. That you would even speak those words makes me want to put you over my knee. There will be no death.”

  He squeezed her arm in apology. “I’m sorry. That was crappy.”

  “This is because of your father, isn’t it?”

  He avoided eye contact, knowing it was definitely about his father. “Why would you draw that conclusion, Mom?” And how had he done such a piss-poor job of hiding it from her? He didn’t want to hurt her. He was just a realist.

  “Because I know how you think. I know you’ve asked yourself this question over and over. How could a man like your father, who genuinely appeared to adore his wife and family, up and leave one day and never return?”

  Okay, yeah. How did a man who Derrick was sure thought the sun rose and set upon his mother, just walk the fuck away without so much as a backward glance?

  If there were ever two people in the world he’d been sure were nuts about each other, it was his parents. So what made a man who seemingly loved his wife just leave? Dissatisfaction? Another woman? Didn’t his mother ask herself that, too?

  The moment he realized his father was never returning was the moment he realized everything could change on a dime, and he wanted no part of that. To invest all you had emotionally in someone only to have them simply toss it away? Um, no.

  His mother grabbed his chin and forced him to look at her. “Derrick? This is about your father, isn’t it? Answer the question. Answer it truthfully.”

  Rather than have a confrontation about how foolish he thought it was for his mother to pine away for his father, he plastered a fake smile on his face. “I can’t, Mom. I have a cat to feed, remember?”

  She made a face full of disapproval and clucked her tongue. “You’re avoiding.”

  “Yep. I am. I don’t share your views, Mom. That doesn’t mean I don’t love you, or respect your choices or advice. It just means we disagree, and right now I have a lot on my plate I have to figure out. On that note, I’m taking my tuna and going home.” Derrick held the cans up and grinned, dropping a kiss on her cheek before making a break for the front door.

  As he stepped outside, he took a deep breath of the frigid air and let it go.

  He didn’t want a life mate. He didn’t want anyone in his life to become so important to him emotionally he’d be all torn up the way his mother was over his father.

  He didn’t believe he’d suddenly feel all the ridiculous feelings Max felt for JC. He didn’t believe, period.

  Forever didn’t exist.

  End of.

  * * *

  Martine woke from her nap with a stretch and a long yawn, rising to the surface of consciousness in slow, delightful increments. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d awakened without the ugly anxiety in the pit of her belly, without the fear of the unknown waiting to plague her all day long and well into the night.

  “You’re naked,” a deep voice rumbled, sending a ripple of heat along her spine.

  Oh, that voice. Yum.

  Wait. Naked? She was? Martine stretched again, wiggling her toes. Oh my God, she was. Now, the key was to remain calm while naked in front of Derrick.

  She propped one eye open to see Derrick in the doorway, tall, dark, strong, incredibly sexy. He leaned against the doorframe, his eyes focused on the ceiling. “Good eye,” she responded, keeping her tone casual. She didn’t mind if he didn’t.

  Clearly, he minded. He continued averting his gaze, throwing her a blanket from the chair in the corner of the room. “So, I’m Derrick Adams. I’d shake your hand, but you know, naked.”

  Martine sighed on a chuckle, sitting up and wrapping herself in the warmth of the throw before he finally gazed at her, his blue eyes roving over her face. “Pleasure.”

  He crossed his arms over his chest, his eyebrow raised. “And you are?”

  Pulling herself upward, she leaned back on her elbows. “Well, if what I’m hearing is correct, I’m the answer to all yo
ur death-sex needs.”

  Derrick barked a laugh, rich and throaty, that slithered through her body with a tingling vibration. “That’s the word on the street.”

  “You werewolves are some edgy bunch with this Russian Roulette sex, huh?” she asked, enjoying the fact that she had a leg by letting it swing off the side of the bed.

  “We have our moments.”

  “So what happens from here, Derrick?” Because if he didn’t know, she had some ideas.

  He swished a finger around in her general vicinity. “You put some clothes on and we talk about this like adults. Dressed adults.”

  She grinned at him. In the midst of all this upheaval, his obvious discomfort made her snicker. Uncomfortable was precious on him. “But I don’t have any clothes.”

  He finally entered the room, his feet padding along the carpeted floor toward a dresser. His lean fingers dug around in a drawer, pulling out a flannel shirt and some boxer-briefs and tossing them to the bed.

  “Socks, too? If it’s not too much trouble, please?”

  Derrick responded by opening another drawer and rooting around until he came up with a pair of white socks, dropping them on the bed as he headed for the door. “I’ll meet you out in the living room so we can talk,” he said, totally avoiding even a glance in her direction.

  She let the blanket fall away the moment he was gone, hopping off the bed and trying her feet back out for size. It had been too damn long since she’d walked erect. But her joy was tempered by the fact that she didn’t know how long she could sustain her human form.

  Scooping up Derrick’s clothes, she went straight for the bathroom to assess herself in the mirror. Dropping the clothes on the vanity, she leaned forward and gave herself a critical once-over.

  Thinner. She looked a bit thinner than she had before Escobar—being held hostage was the best diet ever. Holding up a strand of her hair to the light above the sink, she eyed it critically, noting the frayed ends. Her dark hair was dull, and in desperate need of a wash and trim. A mani/pedi wouldn’t kill her, either.

  Her legs, however? If she didn’t shave them soon, it wouldn’t be much longer until Sasquatch welcomed her to the fold.