Page 32 of Catnip

When he made it, Ava was standing naked in the middle of the forum, holding a stranger hard in her little arms. He was in an equal state of undress and bloodiness. It pissed Coveney off for all of two seconds, before he saw the tall, muscular shifter’s violeteyes.

Richard. That was herbrother.

He forced himself to stay back, to let her have hermoment.

There were various body parts at their feet, bird andhuman.

“You do know some of your avian friends came from China for this, right?” Knox mused outloud.

He didn’t seem to mind being thoroughlyignored.

The siblings finally turned to them, both grinning from ear to ear. The moment they did, Coveney let his animal pounce and rub himself all over her legs to make sure she was really there, really in oneplace.

“Richard, this is my mate,Coveney.”

He narrowed his eyes, zeroing in on the whitetiger.

“Acat.”

Coveney roared in response. Would itkillthem all to say ‘tiger’instead?

“Oh, no, don’t you start being a pain, brother. Maybe if you’d looked at other breeds of shifters, you might have found your ownmate.”

Richardsnorted.

“See this?” he pointed to the bodies. “Mess up and you’llwishI’d just dismemberedyou.”

“Threaten him and you’ll justwishI didn’t have incriminating pictures of you,” his mate defended him as he shiftedback.

His tiger had needed reassurance, but so did he. Pulling her towards him, burying his head in her hair and inhaling all her sweetness, he finally breathedeasily.

“Whathappened?”

“Everything went asplanned.”

She was lying. He couldtell.

“Ava…”

“She was reckless,” Richard filled in. “Hurt herself on her way down and found herself surrounded by enemies, with a bad arm. Which was lucky for them, or it wouldn’t have been a challenge. She’d managed to blind that one,” he waved towards a corpse, “and bite that one’s finger off when I made it. Gave her a second to shift. Then, well,” he winced, then shrugged. “They startedit.”

Fuck. He wanted to ask how whatever they’d done had resulted in so many bits and pieces of people, but thought better ofit.

Rye couldn’t help himself, though. “How the heck did you get a dozen full-grown eagles? I mean, they did take yourflock.”

Ava averted her eyes. Again, her brother had no issue spelling things out. “We lost, last time, because none of us thought to fight. Our parents were too shocked, our siblings were too freaked out. I flew out immediately to try to findAva…”

“And I’d run,” the woman filled in, darkly. “We lost because I was too cowardly to stay andfight.”

It was more than that, though. In a few days, he’d seen a shift in her. He didn’t know her as well as he wanted to – not yet – but he’d peeked at her insecurities, her belief that she wasn’t worth as much as the rest of her siblings, when he’d first met her. Perhaps thanks to Knox, or to the Alpha eagles who’d chosen to follow her, that was gone now. And what was left was a powerful, determined, dominantleader.

Coveney smirked. Yeah. He was going to be the bottom for the rest of hisdays.

The Alphas she’d called to her aid were watching, visibly uneasy at what they’dwitnessed.

“Sorry, I did genuinely think I needed help,” she toldthem.

Her brother ruffled her hair, calling her anidiot.

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