This week you’re getting a longer snip. Well, slightly longer. If you recall, we left Kit curled around Olivia, waiting for her to wake up so he could make love to her.  In the cat culture, making love isn’t the same as it is for wolves.  Luckily, they are interrupted before Kit can do what he intends. Or maybe Olivia has gone from the frying pan to the fire!  I hope you enjoy it. 🙂

“Kit?” She craned her head to peer over her shoulder at him in the dim light. Yes, she could see traces of the lion man who had kidnapped her. The dark blond hair that fell past his shoulders and his strangely bright yellow-green eyes were familiar. The wide mouth with the gently curved lower lip and the soft shape of his face were not.

“Yes,” he said, sounding pleased. He bent his nose to the nape of her neck and inhaled deeply, just the way Uncle Taye did to Aunt Carla sometimes. “You slept such a long time.”

His tongue touching the side of her throat, licking up to her jaw, made her scramble to get away from him. “Let me go!”

The happy pleasure died from his face, replaced by something dark. His arm clamped painfully over her waist, yanking her back. “No,” he said flatly.

“You have to! I’m freezing.”

“I’ll give you sex. That will warm you up.”

“No!”

She kicked and clawed, trying to get free, but it was hopeless. He looked slender, but he was as strong as a wolf warrior. He wrestled her face first into the blankets and crushed her beneath him. Her flailing arms failed to hurt him no matter how hard she tried to strike the body on top of her back. When he spoke his voice sounded regretful.

“You prefer rough sex? But you’re so easily broken. Wouldn’t you rather cuddle?”

“No! Get off me!”

Her voice was muffled against the blanket. She struggled to buck him off, but she couldn’t budge him. Were his hands actually trying to pull her panties down? She clamped her knees together, hooking her ankles together with all the strength she had. How did he dare to treat her like this? She had never felt a man’s bare body pressed against hers. Even Rob hadn’t taken off her clothes in his father’s stable. It made her feel horrifyingly vulnerable, and that helpless feeling made fury surge through her.

“Stop!” she screamed. “Kit, stop it right now!”

His teeth fastened on her shoulder near her neck with a growl that vibrated through her like a drum in a parade. Or maybe that was her heart pounding? His teeth hurt, but the pain was drowned by rage.

“Stop, Kit!”

Olivia found fresh strength, enough to allow her to throw him off her back for almost three whole seconds. He pounced back on her, but this time she was ready, and chopped the edge of her hand into his windpipe just as her uncles had taught her. He tumbled back a couple of feet and sat on his bare haunches, glaring at her and breathing hard. Olivia saw, by the state of his arousal, the fight hadn’t dampened his enthusiasm. The skin and muscle of her shoulder throbbed where his teeth tore her skin. Where was her knife? She didn’t dare take her eyes off him to search for it.

A shadow blocked the sun from the front of the cave. Kit turned in a silent bound that put him between her and the cave mouth. Olivia jerked her panties back up and fumbled to pull one of the blankets free to wrap around herself to hide her nakedness. Kit didn’t seem bothered by his nudity, but it was clear he was bothered by the faceless, black silhouette at the front of the cave. He snarled something in that slurred language, his voice so distorted by his rage Olivia couldn’t decipher the words. The shadowy figure said something in calm reply. Olivia blinked with surprise at the feminine voice. When Kit snarled again, the woman’s voice rose to a whiplash of command.

“You braw a female tuwa pride?” the woman demanded.

“Mahmade.”

Kit’s voice was a low, dangerous growl, his body crouched as if ready to spring. Behind him, Olivia looked frantically around for her clothes. Her jeans and shirt had never seemed to be protection before, but right now she was agonizingly aware of being vulnerable without them. She saw them folded a few yards away, and her knife was a beautiful thing, peeking from under her shirt.

“You, human girl.” The woman’s voice was as confident and commanding as an Alpha’s. Was she the cats’ Lupa? “Come here.”

“No!” screamed Kit. “Mahmayde sday wid me!”

He was nuts. Only a crazy man would scream at his Alpha female like that. Olivia edged toward her clothes, flicking a cautious glance between Kit and the woman, desperately wanting to be dressed before the Lupa exploded.

“Girl! I said come here.”

“Yes, ma’am. Just let me get dressed.”

“Right now, bitch,” the woman snarled.

When Kit let out a bone rattling roar, the woman snapped in perfectly spoken English, “Shut up, Kit. You brought her to the Pride. She’s my business now.”

“She dresz furz.”

Olivia didn’t wait for the Lupa’s permission. As she rushed to fumble her way into her pants, she was transfixed by the sight of Kit growing several inches and hair sprouting over his back. His change was nothing like her brothers’. When the Wolf Clan let their wolves out, it happened in a blink. This took transformation took over ten seconds, and the thin noise that came from Kit’s throat was pained.

The shadowy figure of the Lupa moved forward, emerging from the glare of the sun to reveal a woman as tall and broad as Aunt Glory, but with waist-length black hair and dark eyes in a harsh-featured face with thin lips. Her jeans and shirt were very tight, showing a lush body. She glared a cold challenge at Kit.

“Are you defying me, boy?” she asked.

Instead of an angry growl, the tone was gentle. So gentle it made Olivia shiver. When Uncle Taye spoke in that tone enemies died. But he never used that tone within the Pack. Did this woman treat her own people like enemies?

“Mah madte.” Kit sounded less angry, but still stubborn. “Oleeya mah madte.”

“Girl, are you finished dressing yet?”

Olivia scrambled into her shirt, shoved her feel in her boots sans socks, and surreptitiously patted the hilt of her knife on her belt. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Follow me.”

This next section in Kit and Olivia’s story doesn’t have a lot of action, just a bit of information from Kit’s point of view. The cat pride is very different from the Wolf Clan, as you’ll learn. Enjoy!

Kit climbed the steep slope to his lair, carrying his mate tightly against his chest. His cave was a hundred yards from the rest of the Pride. They all knew he preferred to be alone. He brought his kills to the Pride to share, and sometimes went to them to give sex to one of the queens, but rarely did any of them come closer to him than the bottom of the slope. He would still share his kills with them, after he had set aside a portion for his human female, but he wouldn’t be giving the queens sex any longer. He had a mate of his own now, like Justin. He wondered how Justin was doing living with his mate’s human pride. Kit could never live under such confining conditions. He was a cougar for all that he couldn’t make a full change. Living in a human pride would kill him. Even if his human mate begged him to join her pride he would refuse.

In his arms, Olivia was still deep in the sleep he’d laid on her. He walked into his lair and paused to inhale her scent. His. His mate. That scent made him want to roll around in it. He needed to have her scent on him, marking him as hers. He wanted her to smell of him. Gently he put her down on the tangle of woven wool blankets he habitually curled on to nap. When would she wake? When she did, would she want him to service her immediately? He put his nose close to her crotch to sniff. She was human so he couldn’t tell if she were in heat. Often Maria, Tricia and Juanita demanded sex even when they weren’t in heat. She smelled good there. It was a happy scent. That is, her scent made him happy. He growled in anticipation.

What should he do until she woke? She needed grooming. The small cuts from his claws still hadn’t healed. That was something he could do for her. Carefully, gently, he licked over her face. She tasted of tears and her throat shamed him with the old blood from where he had accidently cut her skin with his claws. He hadn’t meant to hurt her, but she had tried to deny him. He would have to learn to control himself around her. As a human, she was frighteningly fragile. His clawed fingers fumbled a little with the buttons on her shirt, but he was able to remove it and the thick undershirt she wore beneath it. He stared in confusion at the strips of fabric she had wrapped around her chest. Was it a bandage? He sniffed cautiously for blood and decided it must be something she used to protect her teats. He wanted to lick her there. Maria loved to have her teats licked and nipped. He left her chest wrappings alone and carefully groomed her belly, shoulders and back with slow swipes of his tongue.

How long would she sleep? Any of his pridemates would have thrown off his compulsion by now. Humans were weaker that cats. Maybe it would take her longer to wake up. He would wait for her to wake to service her, but he wanted her right now. At least he could rub against her and absorb her scent while he waited for her. She wore boots and socks and heavy pants with a belt and a knife on the belt. He approved of the knife. As a human female she had neither claws nor strong sharp teeth with which to defend herself. A knife was a good thing for her to have. He removed her pants, socks and boots, but decided to leave the cloth she wore around her hips in place too. He would love to groom the pink flesh between her legs, but she might be angry if he did that without her invitation.

He pondered that. Did he have to wait for an invitation? She belonged to him. When he’d first found her she had tried to deny him. Now that she was here, in his lair, wearing his scent, she would realize that she must submit to him. But he should at least wait until she woke. Females could be moody and unreasonable when it came to sex. So he satisfied himself with sniffing the rich scent from her female place and cleaning thoroughly between her toes and along the arch of her slender feet.

After he had finished grooming her he realized that with the sun down his lair was cooling rapidly and her body was chilled. She was human and would feel the cold more than he did. He had never had a fire in any of his lairs before, but he’d never had a weak human female either. A small fire would be good for her. He could put her clothes back on her too, but he didn’t want anything between their bodies when she woke and demanded sex. His pants joined hers on the floor beside them. Was she like Maria who liked her lover to be rough and screamed at him to go faster, thrust into her harder? Would she buck against him, trying to throw him off to force him to dominate her? Or was she like Juanita, who liked to play during sex and cuddle after? Or maybe was she like Tricia who indulged in the act only when her need was riding her hard, and clawed the males away as soon as she was satisfied. He hoped she liked to play. She was so delicate he might break her if she demanded he be rough with her. It was in his nature to take control during sex. Maria loved that. For her, sex was a battle. Playful would be good. He liked to play and he liked cuddling, too. Cuddling Olivia was something he would love to do.

“Wake up, Olivia,” he breathed into her hair. “Wake up, mahmadte.”