Page 1 of Courted by the Sabertooth (Mori’s Mementos #3)
Beal
Moonscale London
Earthside always smelled strange. Raiel was lucky I visited his ass at all over here with the planet’s air that smelled like someone tossed poison into a campfire every time someone cranked up their metal horse.
Still, he’d have no sex life without the potion.
His barbs would be out and about getting every hookup who didn’t run screaming at the sight pregnant.
That wasn’t a good look for anyone. He should’ve kept his ass home where folks knew what was what but still, he was my favorite cousin even if he came out looking more like a lion than most of us.
Some old cat at a campfire told him years ago that he’d meet his true-mate at a bar on Earthside.
So, he packed up and moved to Earthside as soon as his family could spare him.
Surprisingly the charismatic fucker landed a job bartending rather quickly. The place must’ve been desperate.
After Raiel wrangled me into helping him clean up the bar for the night, I slipped out through the backdoor of the Raven’s Perch and headed down the dark city streets back to the Other World gateway.
The trip from home to here wasn’t that much trouble if you knew which shortcuts to take and which to avoid.
A wrong step might cost a lesser cat his tail or his life if he was really unlucky.
Earthside made my cat restless. He gnashed his teeth at the air inside his inner sanctum.
I purred to him, trying to smooth down his fur without touch.
He growled and forced my eyes to shift to his.
The whole place was sad. Where were all the trees and the grass?
Some baby fruit trees grew here and there.
The poor younglings were barely taller than me.
How did such an ancient city have such a small orchard?
So young. So delicate and not producing all that much fruit either.
“I’m not giving you anymore money, Jon!”
The wind carried the annoyed voice to my ears from a few streets over as I stopped to examine a young apple tree and prune off a few bad bits with my claws. It wasn’t the tree’s fault that the dragons hadn’t stopped by to tend to it.
“You don’t have a choice!” someone hissed. “You’ll do what I say because this is all your fault!”
“My fault?” The first speaker said, his voice ticking up in volume with every word he spoke.
“Keep your voice down! Someone will hear you!” the second man snapped.
I sighed and followed the voices in case the man in trouble was an omega.
We had a few cats like that back home. They thought they could toss around their considerable bulk because they were alphas.
Usually, a few swipes from me set them straight for a while.
I never understood what anyone proved by fighting someone nature meant for them to protect.
They were like unruly children rebelling against Mother Nature herself.
Those cats weren’t even worthy to groom the dirty toe beans of the goddess we all sprang forth from the whiskers of.
“You are a lying sack of cat shit!” the first speaker hissed. “You got yourself into this situation! You did it to yourself! I loved you – I would’ve given you any bloody thing, but all you cared about was the fucking money!”
“You don’t get to say it like that!”
“I get to say it however I want, Jon! You tried to get a spell put on me ---”
“Not on you!” Jon sighed. “On me!”
“To get my family’s money!”
“You don’t know what it’s like, Nic! You don’t know what---”
“I know, I know! Eat the rich! Well, tough teats for you, because I’m not rich!
” Nic whisper-shouted. “My mother is alive and well! It’s her money!
I loved you and all you did was use me! I’m done!
Don’t follow me! Don’t call me! Don’t text me!
Don’t send me smoke signals! Stay out of my life!
Stay out of it or I’ll get Crilus to hex you! ”
“I owe them money, Nic – These guys. They aren’t good guys!”
“You should’ve thought about that before ---”
The wind shifted as the arguing exes came into view.
The frustrated one was a tall dragon whose crimson scales marked the corners of his eyes, expressing his frustration for everyone to see.
He had long dark hair that hung free around his shoulders in a cascade of waves that I suddenly wanted to bury my face in until the end of time.
The other smelled like a cheetah alpha. He also reeked of desperation.
Whoever wanted his head must’ve been bigger than him.
They probably weren’t faster, though. I knew a few sabertooth cheetahs back home.
They weren’t allowed to compete in races because their speed was unmatchable.
They had their own races where they had more fun.
What entertainment could be found from beating someone who had no chance of besting you? Where was the challenge in that?
I sniffed the air, discerning the likelihood of having to cross the street and smack the shit out of the cheetah.
The omega stood a foot over him but that didn’t mean he should be accosted by a conman.
My cat froze, his mouth dropping open inside of his inner sanctum, making his long, curved, ivory canines appear even longer.
My mouth dropped open too, breathing in the scent of the dragon.
The baby-fine fur on the back of my neck stood up, along with the barbs that lined my shaft.
My skin flushed with a surge of heat and my feet tried to carry me forward.
The dragon was mine. Nic was mine! He was mine and this tiny-ass cheetah man was harassing him.
“He’s holding his own,” my cat voiced into my thoughts.
“We can’t approach him without the appropriate offerings.
He needs three gifts to see that we are worthy of him.
That we are strong enough to protect him and our future cubs.
He can handle the cheetah. He’s a gnat in the grand scheme of things.
A gnat that our Nic will forget as soon as we have him in our arms. He will not need to bother to remember lesser cats from lesser clans. ”
Nic took to the sky and flew away with my heart.
He’d shifted so quickly, nearly knocking the whiny cheetah into the river that wove through the city.
I could’ve followed him, chasing after his shadow on the ground.
It shook the very muscles of my heart not to, but without the gifts having been given, I had no right to approach him.
He didn’t know me from a hole in the ground and those who had come before me sought to live off his worth without bringing anything to the cave.
Instead, I followed Jon. I had pockets full of Earthside money.
Perhaps, I could bribe the little weasel-cat into telling me more about Nic.
If he were so desperate for money, surely, he’d bite.
Jon didn’t even glance over his shoulder as I followed him through the winding streets of London, only passing a few other late-night stragglers in this part of the city.
He stopped and lit a paper pipe. The name of which in the Earthside tongue slipped my mind.
Either way, it stank. He leaned back against the bricks of a building and for a second, I thought he caught onto the fact that he had a shadow.
A second later, a man stepped out from the building and asked how things went with Nic.
The other man was a tall blonde who smelled like a rodent of some sort.
I would’ve said raccoons, but I knew raccoon shifters and they moved with more grace than this man with his beady eyes darting in every direction except mine.
“He didn’t give me a cent,” Jon sighed.
“You know what that means, right?” the other man asked.
“Don’t Chard,” Jon shook his head and inhaled from his paper pipe.
“Nic has to die. If he’s not going to be useful to us, he needs to be dead. So, that he’s not in our way,” Chard said, lighting up one of his own paper pipes. “Taps is gonna want his money. We get it by killing Nic and convincing the old dragoness that she’s next because Nic owed the money.”
“I know,” Jon frowned. “But maybe don’t say the whole damn plan out in public, eh? You know they’ve been saying that Clarence has gotten paranoid in his old age and put recording devices everywhere in the city.”
“That’s bullshit and you know it,” Chard huffed.
“I hope so because when they come for you, I’ll let them skin your beaver ass until you look like a naked mole rat,” Jon hissed. “Look, I’m done with this shit for the night. I gotta go.”
Chard nodded and Jon walked away. I skulked through the shadows, following him and making sure to get a good whiff of the beaver shifter so that I might find him later. Now, I knew exactly what I was getting Nic for his courting gifts.
My cat purred inside his inner sanctum as he sharpened his claws on a tree.
A few blocks later, I sank into the back of my own mind and let him out to play.
He was big, furry, and his field of vision had an ivory glow to it from the white of his long, curved canines.
We padded down the street, picking up speed.
Jon heard us right before we smacked into his back and started to shift.
He twisted this way and that, but everyone knew cheetahs were tiny cats.
That’s why they were faster than the rest of us.
He wasn’t even two hundred pounds in this form.
Normally, I wouldn’t have bothered to fight him at all.
There’s no challenge even when desperation comes into play.
All he could do was snarl and hiss while trying to buck me off as I took my courting gift from him.
He could keep his life for now, if he survived the harvesting of my first gift for Nic.