Page 7 of Shifter Mate Magic
“It’s uncommon. Mine isn’t much.” He pointed to a wide shoulder on the road, meant for slow farm vehicles to pull over to let traffic pass. “We could stop there for a bit.”
She nodded, so he slowed the truck to a stop and turned off the engine. If it got too cool for her, he could turn on a heater.
The moonlight lent her beautiful face exotic mystery. Her complex scent filled his senses and sent desire thrumming through his veins and blood toward his dick. He sternly told himself to stand down, or he’d be no better than the drunken coyotes.
“I work… used to work for a Houston accounting firm. One of my coworkers is… was part fairy and thinks all magical people should be friends. She introduced me to a rich real estate developer named Barry Wills. My mom told me about shifters, so I knew they existed, but he was the first one I actually met. He’s a spotted leopard. He liked me right away and let me know it. Romantic gifts, glitzy parties, gala openings. I fell for him hard. He found me so unbelievably sexy, even in a room full of much richer, prettier women.”
Trevor only barely managed to repress a growl from his bear, who didn’t like Jackie thinking of herself as anything less than stop-traffic gorgeous. He also didn’t like the thought that a sneaky leopard had been in her bed, but he couldn’t say he’d been celibate all his life, either.
“Barry said I was his mate, but whenever I wanted him to go with me to visit my mother in east Texas, or I asked about his family or pride, he’d tell me it was worse than a soap opera and change the subject or avoid me for a few days.” She shook her head. “My boss sent me and a couple of coworkers to a CPA conference in Las Vegas in February as a reward for our hard work. Barry came with me because he loves the nightlife.”
She rubbed the top of her thigh a couple of times. “Now we get to the part where I only know some of what happened. The first night, Barry’s condom broke, and I didn’t think anything of it because I was on the pill. I wasn’t going to raise a child alone like my widowed mother had to, and Barry was allergic to any talk about marriage. He said only humans cared about that. The second night, we had a fight, and Barry went partying without me. The third night, he prepared a romantic bubble bath for us in the spa tub with two-hundred-dollar-an-ounce perfume and vintage champagne and told me he was sorry. Afterward, I was sleepy, so he carried me to the bed.” The breath she blew out almost sounded like hissing. She looked away, then met his eyes again. “The next thing I remember, someone was slapping me awake. I was buck naked in an old, tiny windowless room that smelled like stale cigarette smoke.”
He couldn’t help the growl that rumbled in his chest. He clenched his hands together.
She gave him a sour look. “Save your growls, cowboy, ’cause it don’t get any better from here.” She crossed her arms over her breasts. “It was an illegal auction house in the basement of an older casino. Seems I have ‘shifter-mate potential,’ which makes shifters of any species drunk with lust and want to have babies with me. Thank heavens it repulses vampires. The auction house put me up for sale within hours because they knew something I didn’t: I was pregnant. The lion shifter who bought me for his pride should have noticed, too, but I still smelled like knock-out drugs and perfume. Roehm—who turned out to be the pride’s leader—spent all his time feeling up the younger girls he bought instead of inspecting the women.”
Trevor cursed. “Where exactly is this casino?”
Her expression turned wary. “What will you do if I tell you?”
Remembering his promise not to go off half-cocked, he took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Sorry. I’ve heard rumors of an auction, but I didn’t believe it.” He let his determination show on his face. “I do now.”
“I was only there for a day, but I saw males and females of half a dozen species chained on the auction block. Right out of that Roots mini-series. Most of the ‘shifter-mate potential’ group were like me, kidnapped and clueless. Our bidders were shifter outfits. I could smell the odor of corruption, even through the gazillion suppression and concealment spells all over.” She shuddered. “Roehm bought six of us. The auction house shot us with tranq darts, and we woke up in a former motel complex outside Pagosa Springs. It’s in southern Colorado like you thought.”
“Lion pride?” he asked.
“Mixed, and males only. Roehm’s a mean-looking white guy and an African lion. Claims he’s five hundred years old, but he doesn’t know shit about history, so I think he’s much younger. The two lazy-ass litter mates who paid Roehm for me—Ricardo and his brother Ruben—are regular leopards. The pride has three more leopards, a jaguar, a tiger, a cheetah, four lynxes, and eight mountain lions. Something wrong with every damn one of them.”
He tilted his head. “Wrong?”
“Crippled, feral, addicted, weak, fat, you name it. The lynxes are orphaned litter mates, barely out of the den, and don’t know any better. I can’t prove it, but I think Roehm murdered the old pride leader, then drove off or killed anyone he couldn’t dominate. He’s the one-eyed king in the land of the blind.”
“What did they do when they discovered you were pregnant?” He knew he wouldn’t like the answer but needed to hear it.
“Slapped me around like it was my fault. Yelled a lot. Tried to get their money back, but the contract said the ‘livestock’ was sold ‘as is.’” She snorted. “Who’d have thought illegal auction houses selling creatures of myth and magic would use mundane contracts?”
Trevor nodded. “Signed in blood, I’ll bet. Makes it easier to exact magical penalties.”
“That makes sense. The staff were all wizards and sorcerers. Anyway, Ricardo and Ruben couldn’t stand to be around me because I smelled like vomit from non-stop morning sickness, and because I carried another leopard’s child. Ricardo boasted about being civilized because they planned to sell the baby to the auction house. Before Roehm took over, the former leader made the pride abandon any non-pride cubs in the high mountains.”
Trevor passed beyond shock and into dangerously angry territory. Shifter offspring were not accidents or commodities. His bear roared in his head. Someday, he promised himself, there would be a reckoning. He took two deep, long breaths and blew them out slowly to rein in his temper. “Go on.”
“Since I had to live in their pigsty of a mobile home, I spent the first two weeks cleaning it, because the stench made my morning sickness even worse. My mother cleans people’s houses for a living, and I used to help her.” She jutted out her chin in an unspoken challenge, as if daring him to judge her.
He’d had a similar chip on his shoulder growing up. “My aunt takes in laundry and sells put-up vegetables from her garden that the county food inspectors didn’t know about.” He crooked a corner of his mouth. “When I was a wild and restless teenager, looking for trouble, she had me shift and use my big claws to rototill her garden and chase off the nocturnal pest animals at night.”
She looked startled, then returned his smile. “Smart woman.” She shook her head. “Roehm sends the pride out to sell illegal drugs and guns, and steal cars, but Ricardo is obese and lazy, and Ruben is skinny and lazy. I gave them the idea to sell my cleaning services to the other pride members.” She wrinkled her nose. “You’d think shifters couldn’t stand eye-watering smells from filth. And don’t get me started on their personal hygiene. Anywhere outside is their cat box.”
It took him a minute to realize why she’d volunteered to be the maid. “You became invisible. No one notices the help.”
She waved her hand. “I didn’t think of that at first. I just wanted information, like where the hell the compound was, and how soon could I escape.” She shivered. “Luckily, I’ve always been an over-planner, or I’d have been eaten by the near-feral tiger guard that Roehm keeps chained at night or burned to ash by the magical wards they paid a wizard to install on their perimeter, or beaten to death for trying to steal one of the pride’s cars.” She shuddered. “Or dead from a failed forced change like poor Dale.”
Trevor was so wrapped up in Jackie’s story that he almost missed the far-off glint of headlights at the intersection about a mile in front of them. He used his alpha magic to borrow night vision from his bear. He pointed out the windshield. “Pickup truck with two men in it. Two shotguns in the rack behind their heads.”
“Maybe we should find that motel you mentioned.” She made a wry face. “Or at least a public bathroom.”
He started the engine and turned on the headlights. “There’s a file box under your seat. The map of Nebraska is on top. Use the flashlight and see where you want to go. I mark motels with a letter ‘M’ if they’re decent.”
