PrimalDesign (13 page)

“Ms. Chambers, Ms. Chambers, is it true that you’re using
fur in your upcoming fall collection?”

“Ms. Chambers, is it true you’re seeing a local who you once
dated?”

“Are you moving back to Maison Rouge?”

“Murderer!”

The word was barely spoken before a tide of something red
and wet was launched directly at Kitty. She only had enough time to close her
eyes before a wave of red paint splashed over her. She could hear the horrified
gasps of the tourists, the frantic shouts of the S.H.A.F.T. members, and the
continuous clicking of cameras as everything was caught for the public’s
entertainment.

Reaching up, Kitty wiped the paint from her eyes and blinked
at the roiling crowd in front of her. Several of the locals who hadn’t come to
the party grabbed the activists, holding them while sirens wailed in the
distance. The reporters were torn between keeping an eye on the struggles of
the locals and the activists, and going for Kitty’s blood.

With the combination of her earlier scare, her bruised heart
and being accused of using
fur
in her designs, Kitty had had enough.
“You want to see my fur coat?” she shouted to the crowd.

Everyone turned to look at her and Kitty let her bear come
out. She saw eyes widen in shock seconds before she fell on all fours, letting
out a roar of rage. People scattered. The shifters in the crowd, especially
those with S.H.A.F.T. shirts on, shifted and ran for their lives. The humans
ran for vehicles.

Kitty lumbered down the red carpet, her head swinging from
side to side as the sense of being watched came over her again. The bear snorted.
Of course she was being watched. The reporters had only gone far enough away
that they could still run, but her keen ears picked up the sounds of cameras
clicking and voices talking into microphones. Let them report that she’d gone
rabid. She didn’t care. Everything in her life was ruined.

She stopped and roared again, this time from anguish. The
bear wanted to go back through the gym doors and track Monk down, mark him as
hers and have cubs with him, but Kitty yanked on the beast before she could follow
through. She hadn’t lied to Monk. She couldn’t trust him not to hurt her again.
Especially since she knew the love she felt for him now was a hundred times
more powerful than it’d been when she was a teenager. If he betrayed her, it
would destroy her. Coming home had been a mistake because all it did was show
her how empty her life was without him in it and despite her independence and
self-confidence, she still didn’t have the balls to go after what she really
wanted. She was a coward.

Ignoring the clicking cameras and the whispered voices all
around her, Kitty shambled across the parking lot heading for the woods. She
needed to be alone. The farther she moved away from the gym, the quieter things
became until the only sounds were those of the smaller animals scurrying
through the undergrowth around her. She scented their wariness of her, but they
weren’t of any interest.

A bear with a lot on her mind, Kitty roamed the woods,
winding her way in a circular route to the spot where she and Monk had first made
love. She’d been so stunned to find out he’d bought the property after she
left, she hadn’t known how to react. It had seemed so much easier to keep
things physical between them, but she should’ve known she wouldn’t be able to
hold out against him for long. Monk had always been her weakness from the
moment they met when they were in elementary school.

Pushing through the thick brush surrounding “their spot”,
Kitty trundled into the clearing where she’d spent so much time with her mate.
And he was her mate. She plopped her heavy ass on the ground and snuffled. His
scent was all over this place and it soothed her bear somewhat. Stretching out
on the cool ground, she rested her head on her paws. There was no use denying
it. She loved the man and her bear loved the cougar but she had to be
practical.

A, if she mated him, Monk freely admitted he might try to
kill any children they would have. Her bear huffed at the thought, protective
instincts rising to the surface. He was right that she’d kill him if he tried,
but it would destroy something inside her to do it. And it would leave her to
raise their cubs alone. He might have faith that she was strong enough to bear
it, but Kitty doubted she could go through something that traumatic and come
out sane.

B, her work, the only thing that had kept her going, was
back in New York. Yes, she could work from Maison Rouge if she had to, but it
would severely limit her resources. Or would it? Her furry face scrunched up in
thought. She was well-established, not a household name by any means, but she
was getting there. Maybe she could expand her business, open a boutique in the
area to sell her designs here as well. Her plans to get her designs to more
people wouldn’t have to change. She could travel back to New York if needed, or
her contacts could fly to New Orleans. It wasn’t as though it was impossible to
work from her hometown.

Which brought about C. She missed being near her family.
Monk wasn’t the only reason she was tempted to stay in Maison Rouge. Coming
home again after all this time, being surrounded by family and friends and
reconnecting with her culture made her realize how much she’d sacrificed to
follow her dream. Which meant if she stayed without taking him up on his
tempting offer, she’d have to deal with seeing Monk frequently and trying to
deny how much she loved him.

And finally D. She’d burned any hopes she had of having him
even if she wanted to take a chance of mating and having cubs. She’d flat-out
rejected him. She’d thrown his love back in his face and walked away. Yeah,
he’d be so ready to accept her if she tried to take it back.

She heaved a long sigh, her bear rumbling with discontent.
There was no easy fix to this except leaving and she was tired of running. She
missed being home, missed everything about it from her family, to Monk, to
being able to shift when she wanted to. Back in New York she had to pay a
yearly fee to the city in order to shift and that was only allowed at certain
times of the month and in designated places, which meant every shifter in the
area crowded together to let their animals out. It was nothing like the freedom
she had in Maison Rouge.

The fur along the bear’s back rose as the sense of being
watched returned. Lifting her head, Kitty searched the shadowed bushes on
either side of the clearing, but saw nothing. She sniffed the air, but whatever
watched her was downwind. Unease made her bear cranky and she lumbered to her
feet, a warning growl escaping her.

She turned toward the bushes she’d run through, intent on
looking for the intruder. She’d taken no more than three steps when a soft hiss
sounded and something pierced the thick fur of her hindquarters. Roaring in
anger and surprise, she ran for the woods, ready to take on the fucker who
thought to attack her, but her body moved sluggishly. She made it to the edge
of the woods where she caught the faint hint of cat before crashing to the
ground with a grunt.

Male. Cat. Those were the only impressions her bear was able
to make out before darkness swirled around her, sucking her down.

* * * * *

Monk groaned and rolled over, sunlight sending shards of
pain straight through his skull. He draped an arm over his eyes to shield
himself and smacked his lips. His mouth was dry, his tongue felt thick and
nausea swirled in his stomach. All he could smell was the sickly sweet scent of
strong liquor as it oozed out of his pores. Yup, he’d gotten shitfaced last
night. He remembered a bottle of champagne, which he’d finished before prowling
into Daisy Lynn’s party. He’d had a little bit of an altercation with the
bartender, which he’d won, leaving him to bring liquor back to the booth. The
scotch had stung and the whiskey had burned. Then he didn’t remember anything
else he might have polluted his body with. But what the hell had sent him on a
bender?

He racked his brain and remembered with sickening clarity
Kitty’s face as she told him “I can’t” after he’d bared his fucking soul to
her. She couldn’t trust him again. Him, the man who’d given up his happiness to
protect her. At the time he’d said to hell with her, he didn’t need her. This
morning though, he felt like an idiot. He loved that woman and he wasn’t about
to let her go traipsing off into the sunset without him.

Yeah, they had some things to work out and it was probably
completely unfair of him to expect her to monitor him in the future, but they
would make it work. Failure wasn’t an option.

Monk scratched his chest and yawned. He needed to take a
shower, take a few painkillers, and find his Kitty-Cat before she did something
crazy, like run again. His cougar was not happy with him this morning, clawing
at his mind as if it were a scratch post. It wanted to find her now, not later,
but Monk wasn’t sure he could move just yet.

Something moved on the bed next to him and his eyes popped
open in surprise. Turning his head on the pillow, he spied Kitty lying next to
him, her eyelashes fanned closed. Her lips were parted, letting out a soft,
whispery snore. Why he hadn’t heard it before could be blamed on the pounding
in his head, or rather the sound of his blood rushing through his brain. The
alcohol he’d consumed the night before had prevented him from smelling her.

What was she doing here with him? Had she changed her mind?
Hope made his heart skip a beat and he cursed himself for being a pussy. What
had happened to the male who could take, or leave, any woman he wanted without
being emotionally involved? Oh right, he’d seen his mate again after fifteen
years and realized when it came to Kitty Chambers, he was a moron.

Monk turned on his side to get a better look at her and
that’s when he realized he wasn’t in his bed. Freezing, his cougar pacing with
nervous energy, Monk studied every aspect of the room he found himself in. It
wasn’t anywhere he knew. Plain to the point of being bare, the only furniture
was the bed they were on and a big chair in the corner. The walls were
untreated lumber, rough and unfinished.

Where the hell were they? He looked back down at Kitty,
seeing her bare shoulders above the sheet. He didn’t remember going to find her
the night before, or her coming to find him, so how had they ended up here
together? Wherever here was.

The pounding in his head increased as he tried to reason out
where they were and why, but as though she could smell the burning from his
gears struggling to turn, Kitty moaned softly and snuggled closer to him. He
held his breath, staring down at her lax face.

It didn’t take long for her to register someone was next to
her and her eyes flew open, revealing an unfocused gaze. And closed
immediately. She moaned, slapping a hand over her eyes. “
Cher bon dieu
,
my head hurts.”

“You got drunk too?” he asked in a whisper out of concern
for both their heads.

She peeked through her fingers at him. “What? Of course
not!” Then she frowned, her hand falling away from her face. “Wait a minute,
what are you doing in my bed?”

He snorted. “We’re not in your bed.”

Her jaw dropped and she looked around. “We’re in
your
bed? How the fuck did I end up in your bed?” She paused, her head swinging
around to pin him in place with a glare. “You fucker, you shot me!”

Monk jackknifed into a seated position, aches and pains
pushed to the side as protective fury roared to life. “Someone
shot
you?” he bellowed. “Are you hurt?” He yanked the sheet off her and ran his gaze
along her body. That fucking tattoo stood out as plain as day, but he ignored
it, more worried about any injuries. “Was it a hunter? I don’t smell blood.”

He ran his hands over her body, feeling for any wounds
before he flipped her onto her stomach to check her back but saw nothing.
Something hit the floor next to the bed, tinkling on the wood. Letting her go
only to lean over her, Monk saw something that looked like a dart. He snatched
it off the floor and sat back up, ignoring Kitty’s grumbling under her breath
as she turned over again.

Sniffing the dart, all Monk could smell was the drug used to
knock her out. It was plucked from his hand and Kitty brought it to her nose as
well. Her brown eyes glittered dangerously. Oh, she was pissed, but then so was
he.

“I can’t believe you thought
I
shot you,” he snarled
at her, the cougar just as angry.

She glared at him. “What else was I supposed to think? I
woke up next to you after we…argued, with no memory of anything after I felt a
dart hit me in the ass.”

Monk pounced on the pause. “What were you going to say?”

Crossing her arms over her chest, which only drew more
attention to her bare breasts, she jutted her chin out. “I was going to say
after we broke up, but then I remembered we were only fuck buddies.”

He winced. Yeah, he’d thrown those words in her face. She
just made him so crazy his mouth ran away from him. He scrubbed a hand over his
jaw, staring at her as if he could see inside her head. Sometimes he wished he
could avoid pissing her off, except then he wouldn’t have so much fun making it
up to her. There was something he loved about getting Kitty worked up that made
the blood rush through his veins, making him feel truly alive.

“Wait a minute,” she shrieked, breaking into his thoughts.
“If you didn’t shoot me…and I’m here with you, how the fuck did I get here?”

Monk clamped his hands over his ears. Bears were not
supposed to be able to hit those octaves, but Kitty’s pitch was bang on and his
headache returned with a vengeance. “I don’t know!” he shouted right back at
her. “I don’t know where we are or how we got here.”

“What do you mean, you don’t know?” she demanded in a hard
voice that quickly softened. “Were you shot too?”