Page 16 of Feral Moon Rising
“You can’t kill anyone,” I blurted, holding up both hands and ignoring the toast Blake made me.
Both of them stopped talking and looked at me after exchanging glances.
Oddly, it was Blake who answered. “Why not?” he asked politely.
I stared. “Because you can’t just go around unaliving people. That’s not how the world works.”
Gray laughed, getting up from the table. One moment I was looking at a tall brooding man who screwed me to within an inch of my life the night before. Then I stared at the blank space he had filled. At waist height I found the giant black wildcat that prowled around my barstool at the breakfast bar in the kitchen where half the shenanigans went down the night before.
My body still thrummed from all the attention and I hurt a bit too, though they both helped that ache leave with their magic saliva. But even cactus cocks weren’t able to prevent me from shrinking at the appearance of a giant cat leaping onto the breakfast bar where Gray had stood beside me a moment before.
“You have got to stop doing that,” I cussed him. “I believe you, all right? I get it. We’re mates. It’s magical. You’re a giant black pussy. It’s fine.”
Blake snorted coffee out of his nostrils and across the kitchen, then spluttered the remainder into the sink. “Fuck me, sweetness. I don’t think anyone but you would have the balls to call Gray a big black pussy. But you go right ahead and see if you don’t wear yourself a spanking shortly.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Any spankings will have to wait for another day.”
A literal shimmer and black kitty turned into a regular male again. Naked, and ginning in my face, and standing beside me this time. Let’s be honest. A grinning Gray seemed weird as all get out. Maybe weirder than the giant black pussy.
“She has spoken.” His mouth turned down as he surveyed me. “I want to know more about this ex who threw you out onto the streets.”
It was my turn to be uncomfortable. “I don’t want to talk about him.”Ever. “He was just a loser.”
That I walked away without Brad following me, stalking me as per his usual M.O. was a minor miracle in itself.
“What about your time in the alley?” he pushed. “How were you given the drug?”
That earned another shrug from me. “I don’t know, okay?” That came out terse. I softened my tone, or tried to when Blake swapped a glance with Gray and reached for my hand. I let him have it, enjoying the rough feel of his calluses, the larger, all-encompassing warmth of him.
He might be submissive to Gray, but to me he was everything. I couldn’t imagine my life without these two—black cats—whatever the hell they counted as, not now that I had found them.
I didn’t know how I would exist if they disappeared as suddenly as they arrived in my life. It was like we were all tethered together. A pull at my chest came with every micro-expression, every intonation I picked up in their unspoken exchanges.
“Sure there wasn’t something, sweetness?” Blake’s thumb rubbed back and forth across my pulse point at my wrist in a hypnotic rhythm. “A person, someone you agreed to do something for...”
He didn’t say “offer services like a whore,” but he may as well have.
A deep growl reverberated through Gray’s chest as he stalked toward me, the strings winding us together pulling in both directions at once and suddenly it was all too much.
“Stop.” I scrambled backward, pulling my hand out of Blake’s hold. “I need you to stop and not come any closer,” I warned both of them, still retreating across the kitchen. Tiled floor turned to carpet and still my feet kept moving.
Blake watched me carefully, making not a single move, though Gray leaned forward and I knew the moment I ran he'd be on me. And I couldn't outrun him. I wasn’t sure I wanted to outrun him.
A knock on the apartment door saved us all.
“Bathroom,” I muttered and broke away, trotting quickly to the main room rather than the smaller en suite the boys both used that led off the bedroom.
Right now, I just wanted to have a room to myself, sit on the floor, and panic attack all over the place without their watchful eyes bearing down on me. Perfect they might be, amazing the call to them, but also too much all at once.
I’d known them for a handful of hours. Gray had fucked me into submission along with Blake several times, and I couldn’t take much more of his attention for a while. My insides felt like they had been scraped raw, over-sensitized to the point I was afraid if I jumped up and down on the spot, I'd orgasm right in front of him if he so much as touched me.
And his kisses. Those were the all-encompassing sort. I craved Gray’s kisses like they were an addiction. Sliding my back to the bathroom door the moment I was inside, I did not need to turn on the light as the rising sun illuminated every crevasse, removing the need to hide within the shadows. I settled on the cold, unyielding tiles and rested my cheek on my knees. The tee Gray gave me—one of his after he shredded the sweatshirt Blake provided before—rose up leaving me chilled and numbed. The warmth from the boys in the kitchen dissipated with their absence. Because I chose to run from them. But here, for a minute, I could breathe.
“Lottie?” Blake knocked on the bathroom door. “Checking you’re okay, sweetness. Nothing more, all right?”
“Can’t a girl pee in peace?” I lied.
He chuckled. “‘Course you can. But you’re also full of shit.”
