03 - You Only Live Nine Times Read online

  “When you’re not doing either of those things, I think you’re a great agent,” said Isis with a sniff before sticking her tongue out at Avery.

  Erin placed her hand on her heart. “Oh my god, mark the calendar everyone – Isis just gave me a compliment! It was preceded by two insults, but still.”

  “Christ, Isis compliments are rarer than leprechaun gold,” chuckled Wayne.

  “Fuck you, all of you,” sassed Isis with mock sweetness.

  Erin shrugged and snagged a prawn cracker. “Back to your question, I just generally leave the foot chases to the shifters and I do my thing.”

  “Rightly so, let Diaz get shot or trampled to death in your place,” grumbled Gunner.

  “Diaz is my team leader,” explained Erin, while giving Gunner a censorious glare. “Be nice, he’s a good guy.”

  Cutter grunted in disgust, and Lucie and Erin gave each other knowing glances before shaking their heads. Okay, apparently there was a problem with a guy named Diaz, but before he could find out what, Jessie suggested that he try and guess what kind of shifters they are.

  “Ah, I’m not sure…”

  “No, come on, it’ll be fun.” Isis gave his thigh another squeeze, and he would have pretty much done anything she said at that moment. If she’d asked him to rob a bank he’d be out the door procuring a ski mask. “I mean, don’t you think Avery looks like an otter?”

  Avery growled. Otter seemed very unlikely.

  “Ah, maybe it’s better I don’t guess.”

  Wes slapped him on the back, and Raf tried not to squeak in pain. It would have been very unmanly. “No, c’mon, we won’t be offended. Start with Avery.”

  “Okay, ah, I guess… leopard?” He had no idea. Honestly, Isis seemed like a perfect tigress, but would he have been able to guess her species if she hadn’t told him? Probably not.

  “Hmmm, warm,” murmured Avery. Isis’ grip on his leg tightened, as did the smile on her face. Could his tigress be jealous of her friend?

  “Cheetah?”

  “Because she looks like the dopey cartoon on the Cheetos packets, right?” snapped Isis, a little more forcefully than expected. And honestly, she was almost cutting off circulation to his leg. He placed his hand over hers, to try and ease her grip. She quickly laced her fingers with his, and the unexpected affection in the action made his heart stutter. Jealousy over someone playing with her new toy was one thing, but the move hinted at tenderness she hadn’t shown before that moment, and he regretted that they weren’t alone so that he might explore it further.

  “No, but you’re in the right area,” teased Avery, batting her eyelashes at him – more for how much it pissed off Isis than anything. Sure enough, the tigress was now almost crushing his hand.

  “Lion,” he ground out, praying the bones in his hand didn’t break.

  Avery’s face lit up as the others nodded in approval. “Wow, yeah, spot on, how’d you know?”

  “Ugh, lucky guess,” he admitted in relief as Isis relaxed again.

  “I’ll bet it’s because of her big butt,” jeered Isis, “lionesses have big butts.”

  Lucie bounced in her seat. “Guess what I am next! And FYI, my big butt won’t give you any clues!”

  *

  “I like your friends.”

  “Yeah, they’re okay. Most of them.” That definitely didn’t include a certain blonde-haired feline who kept giving him bedroom eyes. Ms. Kitty snarled. Slut. Okay, so maybe it was the kind of thing Isis would have done to men Avery had been interested in, but it wasn’t the same at all! Couldn’t she see Raf was hers? Okay, maybe she was still kind of denying the whole mate thing, but she was coming around to it. She was even contemplating – gulp – actually dating him. That was a big step for her, and the last thing she needed was a lioness poking her oversized butt into it.

  “What was that about a guy called Diaz?”

  Isis waved her hand dismissively as Raf drove her home. “Oh, it’s nothing. Just male shifters being male shifters. Diaz hit on Lucie and Erin before they mated their big lugs, so the lugs don’t like him.”

  “So because he hit on their future wives…”

  “Mates,” corrected Isis.

  “Future mates, they hate him?”

  “Shifters are very territorial – particularly males.” She was momentarily forgetting the death glares she had been throwing Avery all night, just for being pretty, single and there. “They don’t care whether their mates’ past boyfriends are merely distant memories, they still hate them. Erin’s afraid to tell Gunner about her past partners in case he gets it into his head to track them down and do something a bit unfriendly to them.”

  Raf flicked her a dubious glance. “Gunner seems so… so, in control.”

  “He is, apart from when it comes to Erin. Didn’t you notice the way he taste tested all her food for her?” Yep, to Erin’s increasing irritation, Gunner hadn’t let her have one bite of anything he hadn’t checked out first. Apparently, Gunner had watched a documentary about the dangers of undercooked food on the human body and was now paranoid about his mate and unborn baby.

  “Yeah, that was pretty weird.”

  “I’m telling you; you can’t reason with a male shifter when it comes to his mate. Don’t try to figure it out – it’s irrational. I mean, exes are no big deal, right?”

  Raf shrugged. “Course not, we’ve all got them.”

  Isis almost bounced up and down in her seat on hearing him say that, while Ms. Kitty nudged her, asking ‘isn’t he wonderful?’. “Exactly. I know shifters are pretty open about nudity and sex, but I think that humans are more enlightened about relationships. I mean, Erin doesn’t even mind that Gunner and I had sex.”

  “You did?” asked Raf, quietly.

  “Sure a bunch of times.”

  “Unh hunh.”

  Isis felt a sliver of worry creeping down her spine, and her tiger snarled in warning, but she plowed on regardless. Hey, she was not ashamed of her past, anymore than Raf should be of his. “It was ages ago before he even met Erin, and it was just sex. I mean, it’s no big deal, right?”

  “Yeah,” he agreed softly. Too softly. Ms. Kitty whined, worried that their budding relationship had shifted slightly. No, she hadn’t done anything wrong – there was nothing to worry about.

  Raf wordlessly pulled up outside her apartment building. She cleared her throat. “Okay, so, tomorrow, you want me to drive?”

  “I, uh, I don’t know.”

  “So you want to drive?”

  “Maybe,” he muttered.

  “Okay,” she breathed, trying to hang onto her temper – and failing miserably. This passive aggressive bullcrap was not going to fly. “I tell you what, why don’t you think about what you do want and don’t bother calling me until you find out!”

  She jumped out his car and slammed the door, enjoying the way it rocked. As she stomped up to her apartment, her tiger chuffed in disappointment, and Isis was only a little peeved that he hadn’t bothered to chase after her. Well, maybe more than a little.

  *

  “No, no, no, no, no! Not good!”

  Igor frowned. “Doctor?”

  The doctor sighed and told him it wasn’t working.

  “Oh.” Igor managed to hide his delight at that fact.

  “Maybe we need to replace more. You know what we have to do, don’t you?”

  Igor shrugged. “Give up?” he suggested, gleefully.

  “No, we have to go back to the cemetery tonight.”

  Igor scowled. It was going to be a long night.

  Chapter Eleven

  “What’s wrong, honey?”

  “Nothing, mom,” growled Isis, ignoring Ms. Kitty’s pathetic whine. “Go back to haunting the attic or something.”

  “Honey, you don’t have an attic.”

  “Yeah, that’s the only thing wrong with my mom haunting my apartment – the fact that I don’t have an attic.”

  She gave her three cats each a token head scratch
and lay down on the couch. She flung her arm over her face and sensed rather than felt her mother leaning over her.

  “I slimed your kitchen today,” said Cleo. It was a little-known fact that ghosts actually oozed a bit of ectoplasm now and again. Isis had found that out the hard way after falling on her ass in the bathroom. She had not been pleased.

  “Okay,” she mumbled beneath her arm.

  “Jeez, you really are upset,” said her mom, in stark worry. “What happened?”

  “Nothing,” she ground out.

  “Man trouble?”

  Isis vaulted up off the couch. “Stop it. I’m taking a cold shower.” Because her oncoming heat was in no way sympathetic to her misery and decided that her body needed to be on fire. She pointed a manicured finger at her mom. “And you better stay out.”

  Lucifer rubbed against her leg, perhaps sensing the cause of her woes. Out of the three cats, Lucifer had always been the most romantic. The sleek ginger cat had spent many a night howling her frustration that a certain tomcat from two apartments over was more interested in the tabby feline who hung around the buildings dumpsters. Dumpsters for hell’s sake!

  Isis acknowledged the show of solidarity, female to female, cat to cat, with a nod and slouched into her bedroom, where her mom was already waiting for her. Interfering spook!

  Cleo gave her a sympathetic look. Isis had to quell the urge to attack her and wipe it off her – she’d just dive right through her and hit the floor… again.

  “Oh, my little kitten, I know you’re put off relationships because of what happened to me but…”

  “No, not interested.”

  “I was very…”

  “La la la la la, not listening.”

  “Happy with your father, and I do believe that he would have come back if he hadn’t died.”

  Isis scowled. Her mom was not going to back off, and unlike Isis, she didn’t need sleep or to satiate her burning lustful needs. Her tiger was no help; the stripy beast was sulking.

  “Ugh, nothing’s wrong, okay? I met a guy, but I don’t think he’d be comfortable being with a shifter, happy?”

  “You mean he’s human?”

  Isis tapped her foot impatiently. “Yes. Are we done, the shower’s calling to me.”

  “You mean the showerhead, and don’t give me that look, I used to have urges, too.”

  “Ewww, no, gross.” Was there anything worse than your mom talking about you masturbating? The answer is yes - it was when she talked about herself masturbating. Even her tiger perked up enough to make a small gagging sound.

  “I thought you said that you didn’t like human males. That they were weak, pitiful, brainless, soft-bodied, ugly morons.”

  Isis prickled. No, those weren’t words that could describe Raf. No siree. “This one’s different.”

  “How can he be if he’s got you so dead against him?”

  “He just is, he’s… he’s…. humph.” Crafty spirit, she’d almost tricked Isis into describing him. Not that she would have any trouble – his image was etched into her mind. Where would she start? His face? His lips? That tousled hair? Those sinewy muscles… damnit, she was going to implode any second.

  Cleo moved as if to pick up some of the discarded clothes that had remained on the floor since the previous evening when Isis had a hissy fit. Her fingers passed right through them, and she sighed. “Why wouldn’t this mystery man be comfortable with a shifter? The gulf between shifters and humans isn’t so big, you know? You’re not a complete mystery to us.”

  “Fine! I think he’d freak out about my sexual past. Happy, Mom? Is that what you wanted to hear?”

  Yep, she hadn’t liked his reaction to the news that she had slept with Gunner. Wasn’t that just like humans? Pretending to be all decent and reasonable and then biting you in the ass. Dickheads. Ms. Kitty grumbled. Alright, no matter what he did, she couldn’t think of Raf that way. Instead, she could get really pissed and lash out at the nearest person – who just happened to be her mild-mannered ghost of a mom.

  “Hmmm.”

  “Hmmm?”

  “When did you meet him?”

  “Last night in a cemetery.”

  Cleo shook her head. “Dating has changed a lot since my day.”

  Isis snorted. “Knock it off, Mom. You met Dad at a séance – that’s no less weird.”

  “Don’t you think it might be too soon to start worrying? You barely know him.”

  “You’re human,” scoffed Isis, derisively. “You don’t understand. The moment I scented him I…” She stopped abruptly and gasped as Cleo’s jaw dropped.

  “Honey, are you saying you think he may be your mate?” Delight spread over Cleo’s face.

  Isis’ face screwed up in anger. She had a stupid, big mouth. Great, now she’d raised her mom’s hopes and actually made her a little happy. The hell was she thinking?

  “What does your tiger say?”

  Giving in to the inevitable irritating questions, Isis flopped onto her bed. “To hump his brains out, but then tigers aren’t always the most rational of creatures.”

  “No.”

  “Plus my heat’s coming on. I’m all out of whack.”

  “You’ve had plenty of heats before now and you’ve never gotten into knots over a boy.”

  “A man, Mom.” Yes, he was definitely a man – all male. She shivered lightly as she recalled the feel of his skin against hers as they held hands in the restaurant earlier. She’d never been one for intimacies like hand-holding, mostly she liked to skip right to the sex. But that small tender touch had done more to her than all her previous conquests put together. Her hand lazily rubbed her stomach as Ms. Kitty purred.

  “And maybe because you’re not very familiar with relationships, you’re not very patient. But then you never have been patient – even as a child. I remember the time…”

  “No! No reminiscing,” growled Isis fiercely at the threat of anything that could be considered sentimental. “This isn’t The Wonder Years.”

  Cleo carried on regardless, as always. “You were so desperate to get to the mall, and you couldn’t wait for me to drive you. So you shifted and ran there as your tiger and then got arrested for indecent exposure!” She guffawed with laughter and wiped an imaginary tear away from her eye as Isis glowered at her.

  “Technically, I was only detained,” she grumbled. “They didn’t want to arrest a 13-year-old.” Or rather the shifter-hating cops didn’t want to have to put cuffs on an irate tiger. She was young and small, but she was already ferocious. Puberty combined with coming to terms with the first painful shifts could bring out the worst in teenagers.

  “Why don’t you give him a chance?”

  Isis stared at her mom for a few beats. She could sit there and argue belligerently all night, but what was the point? In reality, her tiger and her heart were pushing her to do just that, but it wasn’t just up to her now, was it?

  She sighed and mumbled a ‘maybe’ before stomping over to the bathroom. “I’m taking a shower.” An ice-cold, hormone freezing shower. “And so help me god, mother or not, if you come into that bathroom I am calling Ghostbusters.”

  *

  “What the fuck are we doing here again?” complained Officer Leaky. “This place is dead.”

  “Well, it is a cemetery.”

  “This is a waste of our time, we could be stopping hold-ups and joining the pursuit of high-speed chases, but oh no, the fucking boy scout has us watching a load of headstones.” Leaky was feeling pretty vitriolic this night. “He’s just throwing his weight around to impress that fucking SEA agent.”

  Collins sighed. Damn rookie. “First of all, slow down, Dirty Harry. You’ve been out of the academy for two weeks; you have to work your way up to the heavy stuff. You do the tedious stuff, and then you get rewarded. Everyone has to work their way up. Second of all, you really don’t know Detective Silva enough to call him that, and as a beat cop, don’t let the other detectives hear you talking trash about one of t
hem. They can make fun of Silva, we can’t. Ironically enough, Silva would be the only one who wouldn’t bust your ass for talking about him like that.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” huffed Leaky. “Gotta admit that SEA babe is hot though.”

  Collins grinned as he remembered her lithe form. She had just enough curves to jiggle as she walked. “Yeah, did you see her ass? Fucking gorgeous.”

  Leaky looked around furtively as if she could hear him. “Gotta watch yourself though, sleep with one of them and you’ll probably wake up to find she’s turned you into a rabbit shifter or something.”

  “Shifters can’t change people, they have to be born.”

  “Like it matters.” Leaky looked around the cemetery and let out a grunt. “This is fucking boring.”

  “You’re not wrong. Come on; let’s do another sweep of the cemetery, who knows maybe we’ll catch a zombie coming to life.”

  “Yeah, right,” he muttered. The only thing he was in danger of was stubbing his toe on one of the ridiculous statues.

  Collins shone a flashlight at him and raised an eyebrow.

  Leaky hesitated. “You’re kidding. Zombies aren’t real.”

  “I’ve never seen one, but they’re real enough. My neighbor’s, cousin’s, chiropractor’s niece went to school with someone whose great uncle turned into a zombie.”

  “Wow,” Leaky said in awe. He wasn’t being sarcastic; he really believed that Collins’ neighbor’s, cousin’s, chiropractor’s niece went to school with someone whose great uncle turned into a zombie

  Collins cocked his head. “Come on, you go that way, I’ll go this way, holler if you see anything.”

  “Sure.”

  The two officers wandered away from one another. Bored of flashing his light, pretending it was a lightsaber that he was using to save a modeling agency from armed robbers, Leaky decided to take a pee. Nature always calls at the most inopportune moment. He spied one of the trees dotted around the cemetery and placed his flashlight on the ground. Soon he was letting loose a steady, a satisfied groan escaping his lips.

  He froze as he heard a noise, a scurry of movement. Stopping mid-stream, he listened, hearing the unmistakable sound of people arguing. Squinting into the darkness, he spotted the vague outline of a huge looking figure and a smaller one climbing out of the ground.