Page 45 of The Mating Frenzy
“How do I know you’re not aligned with those things? Ever since you came into my life, everything has gone tohell!”
A muscle jumped in his taut jaw. Kieran fisted his hands and paced. “I am here to help you. You must trust me in this. Get in the car. Our plane leavestonight.”
No way. She wasn’t going anywhere with him. “Answers first. Why are youhere?”
The corner of his lip lifted in a snarl. “To help you! Get in the car and I will tell youeverything.”
Cats turning into humans. Crazy things that turned her mother into a Popsicle. Wizards that could vaporize a body in a minute. She’d had enough. Her parents were right. There were no such things as good magick. All magick wasbad.
Ella did a firm plant on the pavement. “No.”
“Dammit, Ella, will you get in the car and let meexplain?”
“So you can kidnap me and turn me into something like that thing did to mymom?”
But Kieran wasn’t paying attention. He fixated on the entrance to the library, the curved drive leading up to the building. “It’s toolate.”
He ran to her, pushed her aside. “Get behindme.”
More orders. She stepped aside as a late model sedan pulled up a short distance away. Oh. Him. But at least she knew this man. Although why he wanted to visit the library was beyond her. Always thought he was not the readingtype.
Except for when it came to Playboy,perhaps.
The driver’s side opened, and Ed, her employer, climbed out. Oozed out, really. The man was big, fat, and walked like a drunken lumberjack cranked up onsteroids.
“Ella. You bad girl. I should fireyou.”
“Ed? How did you know I washere?”
Two eyes glinted as he stared past Kieran, directly at her. “I followed yourstench.”
Ella’s nose twitched as she caught a foul smell coming from her employer. Not the thick, cloying cologne he wore, but something tainted and malevolent beneathit.
“You should have worked late. You’d be safe. Not in this mess with these bastards. Now you’ve forced me to hurt you. I didn’t want to hurt you.” He smiled and held up a hand. Claws emerged from hisfingertips.
Kieran snarled, and then, dear gods, hechanged.
If she’d thought the transformation of her cat into a human was enough to make her voluntarily commit herself to an insane asylum, this shift of handsome, sexy Kieran into a jaguar, with spots all over his fur, fangs exposed as his lips pulled back in a fierceroar….
Don’t faint.Ella pinched herself as the big cat rushed atEd.
But that was nothing compared to the evil thing that took over her employer, for his skin stretched and split, revealing something green and slimy beneath. His mouth widened into a slit, and his nostrils became two oblong holes. Clothing ripped and split as his legs and arms widened andthickened.
It moved, shuffling like an old man with a walker, leaving piles of green slime on thepavement.
Kieran pounced, and the Ed-thing drew back a claw, swiping at the jaguar. The jaguar ducked, and swiped the thing’s leg, but the thick, sharp claws sank into the green, pale flesh, which parted and foldedback.
It was like trying to slay green Jello, sherealized.
A big cat, no matter how fierce, could not defeat thisthing.
Instinct hummed and sang inside her. She stepped back, pushing aside all shock and horror, to study thecreature.
Though its body was slimy and a blob, the head was firm, round and not gelatinous. It would not be like this for long, for she saw the cheeks begin to take on the greenish hue, like the slick substance of the rest of itsbody.
Now. While it was stillvulnerable.
Last week the library had held a ceremony to break ground for a new garden to teach children how to grow vegetables. A shovel still rested against the tree. Blessing the forgetful soul who’d left it there, Ella grabbedit.
