Page 3 of Kitty Cat

“Colter.”

“I take it this isn’t a courtesy call.”

It never was. They weren’t the warm and fuzzy kind.

“We’ll be moving to Oregon tomorrow. I thought mother would want to know.”

They both knew it was their overbearing, controlling father who would have caused drama if he hadn’t informed him - although Rye was the Alpha of his own pack, his dad was still acting like he was under his thumb.

“Right. Hang on.”

The sound was muted on the other end of the phone for a few minutes, and then Colter was back online.

“Give us an address when you arrive. Dad says you can take his jet.”

Rye had to admit, tiring as family matters were, they had their perks.

First Sight

Rygan lethis tiger run free at dawn, hoping to feel more settled afterwards, but the animal was on edge. Unusual. The beast he shifted into was, for a lack of better word, a complete dork. It would have been happy spending all of eternity in a box, with a rope toy and a few trees nearby. His priorities were simple, straightforward- protecting his pack, playing. Not necessarily in that order.

Today, the tiger wasn’t interested in a run, or a dip in their pool. It wanted to get on the road, so Rygan shifted back and went to help, in order to speed up their departure.

Twelve hours later, he still wasn’t in the best of moods, all of his protective instincts working overtime as he was separated from the most vulnerable members of his pride. He really didn’t like the plan they’d come up with. Following them wouldn’t be hard; they’d left a trail a mile wide.

He got Coveney to fly with Ola, Tracy, Kim and the seven cubs they’d adopted into their fold; although Niamh would probably take offense to being called that. Since she’d turned twelve, the little girl had tried to grow up too fast, not caring about the fact that her lipstick and high heels were turning his hair prematurely gray. There he was, thirty-one, going on eighty-one thanks to the millions of duties falling on his shoulders. Being the Alpha of a pride was no joke.

Flying wasn’t too much of an issue - using his father’s jet meant that the wolves wouldn’t be able to track their details, like they would have if they’d taken a commercial transit. But the rest of them weren’t as discreet. Christine, their only submissive, was traveling on the back of his motorcycle; Daunte and Ian flanked his sides, while Jas drove a SUV with their belongings behind them.

He would have breathed easier if they’d made a detour to get any follower off their trail, but Daunte was adamant that they needed to arrive before the kids, so that they might settle things with the mysterious loner.

Every passing minute, Rygan was more intrigued about the woman who made his Beta stress out so much.

“Chill,” he told him at their last pit stop before they’d made it to the place Daunte had input into their GPSs. “If you can’t sweet talk her, we can pay her off.”

They might not be the biggest, oldest, or the most fearful pride out there, but they certainly didn’t lack funds.

Rygan had been given a fair bit of cash by his grandmother when he’d become Alpha, and he’d invested it wisely. Besides, unlike a lot of shifters out there - they normally kept to themselves, finding roles within their community, and shutting out the rest of the world - most of the members of the pride had businesses.

Christine handcrafted some girly shit that somehow sold - hats, scarves, Teddy Bears and god knew what - Coveney was a wiz behind a computer and pimped his skills as a PI, Jas had a popular travel blog, Ian invested in start-ups, Tracy wrote novels. Rygan didn’t demand it but they all pitched in, dropping some of their profit in the pride’s savings account when they could. Which was often. Last time he’d looked, the amount in their savings had a lot of zeros. No loner was going to turn up her nose at the kind of bribes they could afford.

But, surprising and intriguing him again, Daunte snorted, “No. Trust me, if she doesn’t want us in her territory, there’s nothing we can say or do to change her mind.”

Daunte was adamant, but he didn’t elaborate, to Rye’s annoyance.

They finished the last leg of their journey within the next couple of hours; by the time they stopped in front of a handsome plantation built at the heart of a wild, untamed forest, Rye was imagining that they would be met by a she-bear, a fearsome witch, or maybe even a damn vampire.

“Wow. This place is beautiful.”

It was; the location, the old house with ivy crawling up the walls, and those strong, high trees surrounding it were picturesque. His cat was seriously drooling over the untamed landscape, desperate to shift. He wanted to go play. Badly. But now wasn’t the time, and Rygan told him so.

Quiet.

The tiger inside him was normally more or less amenable - he understood that Rye let him have its say when he could - but today, it felt agitated. There was… something. He couldn’t place his finger on it. He scented something that made every part of him uneasy, unhinged.

Rye had no gift, but there was a fair bit of witch blood in his family tree - his grandmother had healing powers, like Ola, his aunt was a Seer, and his mother, a powerful empath - and he knew that meant he should listen to his instincts more than the average shifter so, he stayed vigilant, ready for the world to explode.

“Do I hear a waterfall?” Ian asked, and Daunte pointed west.

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