Hunting the She-Cat (3 page)

If she was indeed Tryth’s daughter. Her
mother had been a widow, her first husband a professor as her
mother was also. Tryth had taken over her life shortly after her
mate had died. Hell, maybe he caused the accident that killed the
man. All Lugar knew for sure was that Misha’s mother and she had
traveled here to Earth with Tryth.

Tryth’s nephew, Gald, was much like his
uncle in nature and avarice. Now that he was making a bid for power
via membership to the Judicial Tribunal, only this lost female
stood in Gald’s path.

One way or the other, he would not see
this female used by Gald for his own power hungry, selfish
ends.

* * * *

“What’s up with you today?”

“Hmmm?” Misha mumbled.

“Your mind is not with me, friend.
You’ve got that distracted air people get when they’re only half
paying attention. Or less.”

Sala, her friend and landlord for the
six past years and more recently her legal client in real estate
matters, stared at her with a deep question in her lovely cocoa
brown eyes.

“You’re not your usual sharp,
attorney-on-the-move-self today. You’re distracted, distant. Your
mind is definitely not on my real estate deal, that’s for
sure.”

“No, I’, ah … I’m, ah,
fine.”

“Yeah, I can see that by the hunted
look in your usually calm and pushy eyeballs. Have anything to do
with that piece of man that strode out of here as I was coming in?
What a handsome guy, if you like the big, tall, lanky sexy type.
And, oh, yeah, I remember. Every woman with blood in her body
does.” Sala grinned shamelessly. “I thought your taste in men ran
more to the slick, metro types like your Bronson.”

“True. Of course,” she nodded too
vigorously for believability. “They do. Bronson and I are in a
serious relationship.”

Sala raised a doubtful eyebrow but said
nothing to refute the statement.

“The man just now was an unfortunate
case of mistaken identity. That’s all he is to me. He wasn’t even
supposed to be here. Had no appointment. He was looking for someone
else. I need to speak to Mildred about allowing him in.” Especially
since she thought there for a second he planned to murder her in
her own office.

“Hmmm, hmmm. Oh, he has your number
now, whoever he came here to see today. I saw the way those
otherworldly green eyes fixed on your ass when you turned away from
him and asked me to come in here. Did he come to see Liz? The sexy
chick in the next office over? That the identity
mistake?”

“Something like that.”

Sala’s tone became hushed. “I say keep
him if you want him. Good old Bronson is not that into you. That
boy needs someone to surprise him, shake him up a little, I
say.”

“Sala!”

Her friend threw up her hands. “I’m
sorry to say it. You don’t pull your punches on legal matters with
me. I owe you the truth in personal matters. Hell, I’ve wanted to
tell you for a long time now. Especially important now with Mr.
Alpha cat sniffing around you. Don’t want you to miss out on that
ride. Your Bronson never looks at your ass like that one did. He’s
not clicking right with you, hon. Bronson isn’t that into you. No
sparks.”

Misha frowned. “No sparks?”

Sala nodded her head up and down
slowly. “Mr. Sexy there had only eyes for you. Didn’t even see me
and we both know I’m the prettiest.” She laughed to soften the
blow. “A little meatier, too.”

Sala was a classic dark beauty. Most
men were fascinated by her. She worked at it and loved the
attention from men.

“It’s not like that. The man is a total
stranger to me.”

She just went on. “So if you have a
chance with a better male, I say give old Bron his walking papers
and check it out with the other one. See where it goes. He has
‘give me a passel of little ones, woman,’ written all over
him.”

Misha shook her head no. An emphatic,
definite, no. The big male who’d just left had scared the living
hell out of her. “He’s too, too--”

“Male?” Her brazen friend
asked.

“Too bossy, too damned
arrogant.”

“Too protective, too much a street
fighter in modern clothes? Hmm? That’s what you mean?”

“Why did you refer to him as a cat?”
Misha asked, knowing she should not do so, but feeling driven to
hear the answer.

“I did?” Sala shrugged.

“You called him Mr. Alpha Cat. Not dog,
cat.”

“I did? I have no idea why, hon. Maybe
the way he stalked out of here, all long-leggedy grace and
strength. Did you see those wide shoulders? Oh. My. Jesus. And his
muscled legs? And better than all of that, he looked half-wild to
me. Sort of feline with that dark skin and those hypnotizing
eyes…”

Well, damn, she had the answer and
agreed completely but she said, “Crazy talk. Who wants a wild
man.”

Sala threw back her head and laughed, a
throaty, tinkling sound. “I speak only the truth, my friend. You
asked.”

Desperate for a little understanding
and frustrated at getting none, Misha plunged her hands in her
hair.

“He frightens you, chickie,” Sala
whispered solemnly, her eyes sympathetic. The good matches always
do.

“No. No, that’s ridiculous.”

“Oh, come on, Mish Mash.”

It measured her love of her friend Sala
that she allowed her to call her that goofy nickname and live.
“Fine. You’re right, Sal. Okay. He does, dammit. Scares me to
death, I mean. I have to leave here. Now. Before he returns. I have
to escape. I have to run from him. Tonight.”

Her friend’s eyes turned sad. “Yes. I
recognize that reckless, trapped-too-long-in-a-cage look you get
from time-to-time, hon. In that way, you remind me of a cat too.
Where to this time? Riding huge river rapids somewhere? Big ass
sport horses in Ireland?” She sighed. “I’ll be glad to water the
plants on your rooftop garden for you again.”

“You know me too well.”

“For a woman that will stand up to any
criminal or any DA in Chicago’s court system and back them down
into submission, you are not all that brave in a personal crunch
time, are ya?”

“I … ” She closed her eyes. “I know.
I’m not. I need to see Uncle Joe.”

“Everyone copes with life’s emotional
rapids in their own way, hon. You go ahead and run and then return
home later all relaxed and better.”

“Yes.”

“I can’t help but wish you’d stay
around and let the sexy new man take you out on the
town.”

“I’m going home this time. Tell no one,
please.”

“Not even Mr. Alpha? I only want to
tell him, no one else. For your own good, you see.”

Misha knew Sala was teasing her. She’d
never tell a soul. “No. No. Especially not Mr. Alpha.”

“Huh. Too bad. Oh, Mish?”

“What?”

“Have you forgotten about your big
party for Bronson tomorrow night? Can’t go yet.”

“Shoot. Shoot.”

“Another twenty-four hours in Chicago
with Lugar on the prowl,” she whispered. Sala’s laughter filled the
room again.

She could do that.

She could survive it. But the fight or
flight response pounded through her blood.

“That would be a yes, then?”

“I’ll stay until after the
party.”

Chapter Three

“No, no, no.” Misha jerked awake that
night. A nightmare from her childhood long forgotten, jerked her
straight up in the bed, covers fell to the floor. She grabbed them
back up, tossed herself over to her other side and pounded her poor
pillow into submission. Not another nightmare from her childhood.
No, no, no. They’d gone away. How long had it been since the last …
? Years and years.

The scene from three hundred years ago
came to her mind now even in waking. The running, the desperate
hiding. First with her mom and a man, running from the indigenous
men with exploding musket guns. But it had not been the stalking
humans who’d killed her mother.

The man of their kind, the one that
traveled with them, had murdered her mom.

She took a deep breath. After losing
her mother, she’d been a terrified and lonely child. Survival
instincts had kept her away from the ones her mother called the
‘new American immigrants’, the ones with the guns. The man who’d
killed her mother had disappeared. What happened to him, her memory
was fuzzy on that as if averting from the knowledge every time she
tried to recall.

She sighed and reached for the bottle
of water by her bed. She called Bronson. She needed to hear his
normal, male voice.

A flash of memory came as she dialed.
Bleeding. Someone bleeding. God, there’d been so much blood and the
stark finality of death and loss. A black wall slammed into place
as always. She remembered no more of the violence. A better memory
usurped the others, the sweet voice of her mother singing her to
sleep.

Just as well she remembered only fuzzy
images. Her instincts told her it was by far best left in the
past.

Bronson’s voice mail kicked in. She
sighed. After today’s excitement with the strange male, she did not
know how on earth she could accept Bronson holding her in his arms,
kissing her ever again. Accept, funny word to chose.

Lugar had used the same word, referring
to her accepting him. She pounded her pillow again. Maybe Sala was
right, not much love from Bronson. He was a decent man but not that
interested in her. Truth was, she’d noticed him watching Sala on
more than one occasion.

He was comfortable with their
relationship, like an old raincoat, that’s all. He liked having her
handy for free legal advice, she added cynically.

The stark sexual pull of Lugar simply
emphasized what she’d already known all along. Dates with Bronson
were about convenience and habit. No future there.

And maybe the big stranger was right;
it was time to find answers to her past, to seek understanding of
her mysterious cat side. The animal she fought so hard to suppress
and hide.

She’d lived without questioning the
existence fate gave her far too long now. Perhaps answers waited
for her in the deep piney woods of home.

She couldn’t sleep anyway so she got up
and booked e-tickets on her laptop.

* * * *

“Who are all these others with you,
megisha?”

Startled, Misha put a hand to her neck
and found the necklace her mother had given her, absently stroking
it for comfort. “Dammit, Lugar, you frightened me. What on earth
are you doing here?” The party was going full tilt inside, laughter
drifted through the open windows.

Only moments earlier, Misha had stepped
out to the balcony to get a moment of air. All the people, although
friends and coworkers, stifled her, smothered her. She had to force
herself to be their congenial hostess tonight. Entertaining was a
necessary evil associated with her work. This dinner party had been
planned months ago.

“It is Eliavan work I do, not your
Earth’s. I informed you I would come to you again, did I not?” He
waved a hand carelessly and walked toward her with an impossible
arrogance in his stride. “Tell them all to leave so we can talk.
Say this is an urgent matter that can’t wait until
morning.”

“You are crazy if you think you can
enter my home and order me about like this, with that know-it-all
look on your face. I --”

“As I said.” He lifted one large hand
in a clear signal to stop. “I gave you ample time to think. But
instead of doing as I instructed, you waste time with
visitors.”

Misha closed her eyes, sought the iron
railing to steady her self, regain control on her temper, which
flared hot and fast. “How did you get up here?” she demanded. The
shadowed darkness of the night made him hard to see, even with her
excellent eyesight.

“The steps are there.” He waved toward
the fire escape.

“Huh. Yeah, they are. Suspended twenty
feet off the alley. So you used your cat … er … form to climb into
my apartment, didn’t you?”

“Shhh. Those in there may hear you. You
were right yesterday. We must keep our shapeshifting nature to
ourselves.”

“Or we will end up on a stainless steel
table at Area 51. Or in the X-Files. I know, I know.”

“Where is this? Area 51?”

She forced herself to let go of her
necklace talisman and relax her posture. “Scientists in white
coats, experiments, needles, and lots of poking and needless
prodding would happen to us.”

His eyes fired hot. “Have they harmed
you this way before?”

“No. No. It’s folklore,
fiction.”

“Plausible fiction.”

“Oh, never mind all that. How did you
get here? How did you find me? My address is unlisted.”

“How I found you again is of no matter
at the moment. I am here.”

“You shifted and followed my scent,
right?”

He smiled wryly. “I did. Worth the risk
of white coats and needles. The scent of you on my senses is like
no other.”