The Mane Attraction

  “Last I saw, I can still wear your boots. So watch the glass house you throw those boulders at.”

  The two friends grinned at each other but stopped abruptly as the scent hit them. Actually, it hit them all.

  And like the brazen hussies they were, Paula Jo and her Pride pulled up in her topless Jeep.

  “Hey, Sissy Mae.”

  Sissy stepped forward. “What are you doing here? Have you lost your mind?”

  “I had to make a decision.” She lifted her right hand, palm up. “My kind”—and lifted her left—“your kind.” Paula Jo, continued, shaking her head, “But in the end, it really came down to a more important decision.”

  Again, she lifted her right hand, palm up. “Southerner”—and then her left—“Yankee.”

  Sissy briefly crossed her eyes. “What are you talkin’ about?”

  “We’ve been hired to distract you. Some Yankee lion waving ten grand with a promise of twenty. We figure we can have some fun with that ten, and she can shove the other ten up her Yankee ass.” Paula Jo looked Sissy straight in the eye. “She’s here for your man, Sissy Mae. And that crazy bitch isn’t going to stop until she gets him.”

  “Hello?” Dee walked through the house and found the note on one of the living room end tables.

  Went to diner for breakfast. Meet us there or at the field for the game. —Sissy

  Typical. Heifers didn’t even wait for her. Of course, she did suddenly disappear on them, and she knew Sissy didn’t care. That’s why she made a great Alpha—Sissy didn’t insist Dee spend every moment with her like most Alphas. Sissy understood her Pack and acted accordingly.

  But Dee had heard about what had gone down between Sissy and Travis, and Dee hated the fact that she’d missed being there for her cousin.

  And Travis deserved what he got as far as Dee was concerned. He made her glad she had no brothers or sisters of her own. Sure, you could get a Bobby Ray or Sammy, but you could just as easily get a Travis or a Jackie.

  Figuring she’d already missed them at the diner, Dee decided to head on home until it got closer to game time. She went to the kitchen, and as soon as she stepped in, she caught the scent, her gaze automatically lifting at the same time as the .45 locked on her. Without thought, only years of training, Dee hooked her foot under the kitchen chair by her and kicked out, flinging the chair across the room. It slammed into the lioness, the weapon knocked from her grip.

  The lioness stared at her weapon and then back at Dee. After a moment, her eyes widened as recognition dawned. “Well, well, how far we haven’t gone.”

  Dee’s head cocked to the side. “I thought you were dead, Mary. They told us you were dead.” And that’s why Dee would never have thought of Mary as the shooter—she’d already looked into a few of her old comrades, but they were all definitely breathing and had alibis.

  “As far as they’re concerned ... I am dead. God knows, we weren’t making enough money at that job, considering what we had to do.” She flexed her gun hand, probably trying to work out the pain the chair had caused when it hit her. “So I decided to go out on my own. Make the big money. But don’t think you can get between me and my payday, little puppy. You were never that good.”

  Dee didn’t have any of her guns, and the lioness’s gun had skittered under the refrigerator. Quickly flicking her gaze across the clean counter, Dee saw the knife block and a hammer hanging beside a couple of screw drivers. She went for the hammer. Knives were a nightmare to fight with. Even though she could—hell, she’d been trained to, but she’d also been trained that it was an easy way to get a major artery cut.

  By the time she swiped up that hammer, Mary had launched herself at Dee, a hunting knife in her hand. Dee turned her body, and Mary slammed into her side. Ramming the female’s hand down on the kitchen table, Dee cracked it with the hammer.

  Mary unleashed a roar and shoved, forcing Dee into the counter. With the blade gone, the lioness wrapped her hands around Dee’s wrists. Dee slammed her foot down on Mary’s instep and slammed her head into Mary’s.

  Yanking away from her, Mary shoved Dee again, this time into the kitchen table before she charged over it. Instinctively, Dee knew she had more guns outside and scrambled after her. Mary had just reached the old screen door when Dee tackled her from behind, the momentum of it forcing them through the door and out onto the porch.

  “All right, so what’s going down?”

  Mitch glanced over at Dez and frowned. “What’s going down about what?”

  “You and Sissy? Man, Smitty is pissed. He called you a using bastard. Why?”

  Sighing, Mitch stared back out the window. “Can’t you ask Sissy these questions? I’m a guy.”

  “I get along better with men.”

  “Then get it from Smitty.”

  “He stormed away, and Jess went after him. Come on!” She practically bounced up and down in the seat. “Tell me! I’m a fellow detective. You have to tell me.”

  “I can’t believe you’re throwing that at me.”

  “By any means necessary.”

  Mitch turned and glared at her. “That is not the proper use for that quote.”

  “Tell me!”

  “No. Suffer. And turn here.”

  “Fine. I’ll ask Ronnie Lee.”

  “Good. Do that.”

  “And let me tell you, the whole no cell phone thing has been making me insane. I knew something was going on, and no one was telling me.”

  “Shouldn’t you be focusing on finding my killer?”

  “You ain’t dead yet. So get over yourself.”

  Why did he like this woman? Maybe because she was strangely fascinating. Although waking up to that voice every morning ... more power to Mace.

  “The house is right up here.”

  She turned and drove the short bit down the dirt lane. “I hear banjos.”

  “Stop it. And I’m telling Sissy you said that.”

  “Rat.”

  They pulled to a stop in front of the house. Mitch looked out the front windshield. “I don’t think they’re here.” Which really disappointed him since he’d planned to take Sissy for a quickie in her bedroom or the bathroom. Whatever worked best for them in the moment.

  A noise from inside the house made it past the radio and air conditioner sounds. But something didn’t sound right. He exchanged glances with Dez, and immediately, they opened their doors. Mitch was rounding the corner of the hood when some female and Dee-Ann came crashing through the screen door.

  They landed, and the female, a lioness he’d guess, reached for the backpack that had been resting behind the porch rail. She yanked out a weapon, and Dez yelled, “Gun!”

  Mitch had started to go up there, but when the lioness saw them, she aimed at Dez and Mitch and started firing her automatic weapon.

  How the hell did everything go to shit so fast? One second, she was busting Mitch Shaw’s balls, which she’d found surprisingly entertaining. And the next, some crazy blond bitch had opened fire on them.

  Dez used the rental car door as a shield and waited while the blond shot the shit out of her vehicle. When it briefly stopped, Dez crouched and leaned outside the door, her .45 gripped in her hands. She got off three rounds before the bitch shot back. But then the other female, a brunette in nothing more than a T-shirt and shorts, was on her, a hunting knife in her hand.

  The brunette didn’t bring her arm up in a big arching move, but instead, she slashed the woman’s face. The blonde roared and backhanded the brunette, sending her crashing back into the house. Then the blonde scrambled to her feet and again opened fire.

  Dez ducked behind the car, and she could hear the female coming down the steps, the barrage of bullets breaking for the reload. Dez swung out again, still crouched, and again opened fire. She nailed the cat in the shoulder, but the tragedy with shifters—they didn’t go down easy.

  Instead, Dez had only managed to piss the bitch off. She swung her weapon at Dez. But before she could start firing, t
he brunette came charging off the porch and took the blonde down with one well-placed hit.

  The blonde went facedown, but she used her free hand—the one attached to the shattered shoulder—to reach down and dig in another pocket of her khakis. She pulled out another blade, a smaller one, and slammed it into the brunette’s hip.

  Dez cleared her weapon and dug in her back pocket for another magazine.

  The brunette barked in pain from the knife, and the blonde used the moment to draw herself up, knocking the brunette back. She stood and turned, the gun aimed at the brunette’s head.

  Dez popped the clip in, pulled back the slide, and fired. She didn’t have time to aim, but she did manage to distract the blonde.

  And then she heard a roar. They all did.

  “Mitch! No!”

  But it was too late. He’d already shifted and stood at the edge of some frightening-looking woods. He waited long enough for the blonde to see him, then ran off into those woods. And they all knew she’d follow.

  She did, too. But not until she had turned back to again spray Dez’s rental car with bullets.

  Dez dived into the front seat, her hands over her head until the shooting stopped. Since she knew by this time, the blonde would be long gone, she stepped out of the car so she could help the brunette, who was busy picking herself up off the ground.

  “You all right?”

  “Yeah.”

  Dez held her hand out, and the brunette stared at it for a moment before grasping it and letting Dez pull her up. Blood still oozed from the wound on her hip, but Dez didn’t worry about her too much. Like Sissy, she looked strong as an ox.

  “Are you going to be okay? I have to go after—”

  “No. You can’t. They went in those woods. You can’t follow.”

  Dez didn’t know what the brunette meant by “those woods.” As opposed to what? Those other woods?

  Before she could ask, cars pulled up behind them. Really nice cars that sounded like rumbling tanks.

  Sissy came out of the first one. “Where is he?”

  “He led the bitch into the woods,” the brunette told her.

  Sissy took off running, shifting in midstride. It was amazing to see. Her limbs fluidly changing from human to wolf, dark black fur bursting from her skin.

  “We have to go with her.”

  Ronnie stood next to her now, and she grabbed Dez’s arm, her clutching hand like a vise. “We can’t.”

  “What are you talking about?” She had always thought Ronnie would follow Sissy Mae anywhere, even into hell, but she wasn’t moving. None of them were.

  “No one goes in those woods, Dez. No one.”

  Sissy was running blind, following Mitch’s scent. She’d warned him not to come into these woods. And she’d warned him not to for a reason. Grandma Smith owned these woods. She owned this hill. She’d infused the ground with power. Power she’d ripped from the souls and the bones of others.

  Mitch’s ancestry, those Irish pagans his kin descended from, would be a bright beacon to that old woman.

  Power was what that woman thrived on. It was what had kept her alive for so long. Now, as Sissy tore up that hated hill and deeper into those woods, she had to dig down deep and find her own power. The power her Aunt Ju-ju claimed Sissy had and that Grandma Smith supposedly feared.

  Because her Aunt Ju-ju was right ... it might be the only thing that saved her heart.

  Mitch tore up into the hills Sissy had warned him never to go in to. He ran as fast and as far as he could. But the lioness was faster. Even as human.

  And she wouldn’t shift because without thumbs, she couldn’t use her gun. One on one as cat, she’d never take him.

  By the time Mitch neared those ramshackle houses and that scent caught his attention, she was sliding in front of him, blocking his way.

  She watched him with cold gold eyes, and he knew she was trying to figure out whether it was worth killing him now or seeing if she could get him to shift. If he stayed beast, she wouldn’t have any real proof of the kill. But Mitch had no intention of helping her—and she knew it.

  She shrugged. “I just need to make sure you don’t show up to testify.”

  She raised the gun and aimed at him. He ground his paws into the dirt, preparing to leap at her. But that’s when he realized he couldn’t move. Not from fear, either. He simply couldn’t move. At all.

  And as panic was about to set in, blood splattered across his face, almost blinding him.

  The lioness’s arms flung out, and the weapon dropped from her hand. They stared at each other for a long moment before both their gazes looked down at her stomach—and the prongs from a pitchfork that had been shoved through it.

  She opened her mouth to say something, but Mitch would never know what as the pitchfork was forced further in and viciously twisted. The female’s head fell forward and blood began to pour from her. She hung on that pitchfork until she was forced off like roadkill.

  Mitch swallowed, peering up at those dog-colored eyes that now watched him. She was old. Older than seemed right. And whatever she’d been doing up here had ... changed her. Parts of her were wolf, including fur, claws, bone structure, while other parts were human. Placing her weight on the pitchfork, she limped toward Mitch. Limped because only one leg had a foot as opposed to a paw.

  He was unable to take his eyes off her, and she was less than a foot or two away when she raised that pitchfork again. He still couldn’t move. And he tried. Christ, did he try.

  So Mitch waited to die. Like he’d been waiting to die for nearly three years. But he wasn’t resigned to dying. Not now. Not when he’d had some of his best times with one hot little She-wolf. Sissy meant everything to him, and it struck him that part of him still hoped this would all work out. That somehow they could be together forever. Two of the biggest troublemakers making a partnership that would have their relatives—and everyone else with a brain—panicking.

  But he wouldn’t leave these woods alive—and that realization was pissing him off.

  As the farming tool began its arch down, the old female suddenly stopped.

  “My, my,” she said with a voice that was as fully human as the rest of her. “That’s a lot of rage comin’ off you, cat.”

  Her nose twitched, and she stepped a bit closer, took a sniff.

  “You reek of Sissy Mae. You’re her man?” When Mitch only stared at her, she demanded, “Answer me, boy.”

  Mitch nodded.

  “And ain’t you a big buck?” The old woman snorted. It was sort of a laugh. “Just like her momma ... dirty little whore.”

  He moved, startling them both. But her paw flipped up, and his legs were locked again. He felt nailed to the spot.

  “There was a time, boy, when your kind was good for one thing—something to hang on a Saturday night.” She laughed at her own sick joke before hefting up her pitchfork again. “But I have other uses for you these days.”

  She lifted the fork. “Yeah, pieces of you will do me just right.”

  The fork arched down, and Mitch watched it. He wouldn’t look away, wouldn’t close his eyes. He’d face his death head on.

  And that’s when Sissy ran up and over him, her smaller wolf body jumping between him and her crazy relative.

  She snarled and snapped, and the woman stumbled back.

  “He’s mine,” the old bitch hissed. “He’s on my territory, Sissy Mae. He’s. Mine!”

  Sissy bared fangs, her body tensing for an attack. But they weren’t alone. Other wolves, four of them, all female, circled behind the old woman.

  And the old woman smiled.

  “It’s just you, Sissy. He can’t break the seal. Not like you can. And them other She-wolves ... they’ll never come up here. You’re all alone. So head on back down the hill, or I’ll make you watch what I do to him.”

  Sissy took a step back. And another. She backed up until she was next to him. That’s when she brushed her head against his side, pushed her body into his, movi
ng up until their heads were next to each other. She rubbed her snout against his mane.

  Invisible chains were unleashed, and suddenly, Mitch could move, his body his own again.

  The witch looked stunned. Hell, she looked terrified.

  “How ... how did you ...”

  The other She-wolves moved back, away.

  Mitch took a step forward. Another. Another. Then he roared. The She-wolves ran, and the old woman glared, but the power she held was broken. Broken by Sissy. And she’d never forgive Sissy for it.

  “Take him then. Hope he keeps you warm when you lose your family, your Pack for betraying your own kind.”

  She made her slow way back to the lioness’s body. “You go on back down that hill. But don’t you come back up here, Sissy Mae. You ain’t never welcome again. Not here.”

  Grabbing the ankle of the lioness, she said, “And take your cat with you.” She glowered at them over her shoulder. “And I’ll be takin’ mine. I have use for this one’s bones.”

  Saying nothing else, she walked back to her hovel of a home, dragging the lioness behind her.

  Mitch looked at Sissy. He trusted her to know whether they should get the female’s body back or not. The cop in him wanted to try. The lion could honestly not care less.

  Sissy shook her head and walked off. Mitch, after one more careful look around, followed.

  Chapter 28

  Ronnie saw them first, probably because she hadn’t taken her eyes off the woods since she’d heard Mitch’s roar.

  When her friend came out, Mitch behind her, she ran to Sissy. By the time she’d put her arms around her, Sissy had shifted back. Ronnie held her and fought back tears. She’d honestly feared she’d never see Sissy again. There had been those who’d gone up the hill without invite, without permission, and they’d disappeared or they’d come back ... wrong.

  The power that old woman wielded rivaled most, and she hated everybody.

  “It’s okay. We’re okay.”

  Ronnie pulled back. “She let you go?”