Page 14 of Courted by the Sabertooth (Mori’s Mementos #3)

Beal

Moonscale London

“There’s Clarence!” Nic hissed in my ear.

We’d followed a pack of guards who were searching door by door through the neighborhood. Up until now we hadn’t seen claw nor scale of the Moonscale Dragon Flight’s leader.

“I’ll go,” I said.

“He knows me and—”

“No, he knows you and thinks you have something to do with it.”

“And you’re the cat who is attacking people and stealing their body parts,” Nic spat.

“Mate, let me do this,” I growled.

“Is this about the third courting gift thing?” Nic asked.

“No, this is about I’d rather have you alive and me dead than the other way around.”

“I’m not that sort of omega. I’m a dragon,” Nic shook his head.

“I’m very aware of that but they’re probably looking for you too. They don’t know what I look like. They’re looking for you and a giant cat. I’m not currently giant cat shaped.”

He opened his mouth to retort but I leapt from the roof and landed flat against Clarence’s back.

He fell flat to the ground, his fingers shifting to claws as they slammed into the street.

He grunted and the guards fell all over me, trying to hold me down while I kicked and bit and held onto Clarence with both arms. If Nic was smart, he’d use this time to get to his mother and since he was my mate, he had to be clever, right?

“Stop it!” Clarence bellowed after about sixty seconds of trying to buck me off. “STOP IT!”

The guards stopped mid-action as if not believing their ears.

“If he was an assassin he’d have done something by now except hug me like he wanted a fuck,” Clarence swore.

“I don’t want to fuck,” I said, not loosening my grip on him.

“Good, because my mate doesn’t share,” Clarence said. “Beal, I’m guessing?”

How did he know my name? How did he know anything?

“The gateway guards were kind enough to assure me that you didn’t eat Nic.

They were pretty sure you two had true-mate responded.

I wasn’t sure I’d see either of you any time soon.

I was trying to get this worked out before Nic came back.

He doesn’t need to know his mother was the one who left all that stuff for him to find. ”

“What?” I blinked but didn’t volunteer any information.

“Yeah. She left a letter saying that she took Jon’s paw and the beaver’s tail but then decided it wasn’t enough because it didn’t get enough of a point across. So, she took their heads and was going to carve out the heart of a hyena named Tops.”

“What did you do with her?” I asked.

“I’m not having this conversation while your half-naked ass is hugging me,” he growled. “I’m finished with this whole scene. Body parts. Killer mums. You practically humping me in broad daylight and getting the guards all riled up.”

“I’m not letting you up until you say you’ll leave her alone.”

“What do you think we’re going to do to her?” Clarence asked, trying to push his way up but the magic inside me was heavier than whatever was under his scales and I wasn’t budging.

“She’s a murderer and you—”

“Shut up,” Clarence said. “Shut up and get up! I will not tell you again! I’m trying to be civil because you’re Nic’s mate but I’m running out of patience.”

“I ran out of that a long time ago,” I said.

“We have their text messages. We know what they were up to. She’s a cancer patient in remission. Do you really think we want her to have to do all this herself? We’re not totally bloody useless, you know.”

I let out a deep breath and let Clarence up. He smelled like he was telling the truth as he righted his clothes and smoothed down his dark hair.

“Clarence!” someone shouted from up the street.

“She’s got him and gone. She took the heart!

The neighbor’s video surveillance picked up fucking Sharon Claudis creeping around back.

I don’t think she hurt her. I think she watched her murder that hyena.

I can’t figure out how either of them left but his house is empty except for his corpse sans the heart. ”

“Someone find that lady and get her to the hospital! She’s overdoing it!” Clarence yelled and I breathed a sigh of relief.

A second later Nic was by my side, and I caught him up to his mother’s version of the story very quickly. I wasn’t sure why she took credit for my gifts, but I didn’t care if the others thought I was a good provider or not.

“Nic! There you are!” Clarence said, pulling my mate into an awkward hug. “Can you go home and wait for your mother to show up or call?”

“Huh?” I blinked before the question sank in.

“Did Medwin put you up to this or something?” Nic whispered.

“Up to what?” Clarence asked and then shouted an order at one of the guards.

“Being nice about er…. Everything,” Nic said.

“Kid, I’m just relieved we don’t have a paranormal creature attacking innocent people.

Plus, Teal and his friends have been on my back about these guys for a while now.

They’ve been waiting for them to do something that crosses that line and I guess they have.

We wouldn’t have heard it without your mate being there but now we have their phone records and they’re gruesome.

So, can you go home and wait for her? Maybe she’s already there. ”

“Are you dying or something?” Nic asked, his brow furrowed in bemusement.

“No.” A guard shook his head. “Those texts disturbed him. They have a hit list. For a change he and Medwin aren’t on it, but some really ordinary people are. Like Jon has a list of people who wouldn’t date him that he wants to ---”

“Nope,” Clarence announced. “You’re not rattling that off. It’s in the past tense anyway. He’s dead and we’ll give the lady a medal for putting him out of all our misery if we ever find her. Any news on the Claudis witch?”

“It seems that she’s probably left the location. Unless she admired Annila’s work we have no reason why she even came here,” said another guard.

Nic looked to me and I opened my mouth ready to offer to stay and watch Clarence in case his mother was still out and about and covered in hyena blood.

I stopped short when he reached out his hand and jerked his head for me to follow him.

I let him lead me away from the crowd of guards and through some winding alleyways.

“We need to claim him. I want to know what’s going on inside that pretty head of his,” my cat pouted inside his inner sanctum. He’d always been a moody guy, but pouting wasn’t usually on his to-do list. “At least then we’d know where he was taking us.”

I had a gut feeling I already knew. Unlike Clarence, Nic shared a family link with his mother.

It was shut off earlier but that didn’t mean it was now.

Maybe he was actively not thinking about whatever he figured out so Clarence and the guards didn’t figure it out and get there before he did.

His scent said he didn’t trust them at all with his mother’s safety and I couldn’t blame him.

His mum and I had to take care of the bad guys, didn’t we?

Clarence needed more proof before he acted.

Being leader probably sucked in that way.

“I bet he doesn’t hesitate when it’s his family,” my cat chirped.

I bet he didn’t.

Nic came to a stop in an alleyway that smelled like it might have recently been a home to a colony of feral cats.

Not big cats but those little domestic cats that were all sassy and were proper assholes to the humanoids they tricked into treating them like gods.

Only feral cats didn’t go that path. I figured if I were tiny, adorable, and unable to shift I might try to hustle those of us with thumbs too.

“What are you smiling about? Do you even know where I’m taking you? If you figured this out, I’m going to have to ask how long you spied on me, Beal.”

“No, I was thinking about the cats that were here a while ago,” I shrugged.

“Oh, Colony A15. Yeah, they were fixed and most of them adopted. Those who weren’t were relocated to a better place for cats.

No, they didn’t just off them and tell the public that either.

You can go and visit these places,” Nic said.

“Mum sponsored Colony Z14 a few years back while she was sick. She wanted to make as much of a difference to the world as she could.”

“We’ll sponsor one too then, if you like.”

“One thing at a time. Don’t get spooked.”

“I’m not afraid of the tiny, clawed devils,” I laughed.

Nic stomped his foot on the ground hard – three times, then two times, then six, and then finally he jumped up and down in place nine times before repeating the whole thing two more times.

I wasn’t sure what he meant to accomplish but as soon as he finished the whole ritual for the third time some woman nearby shouted for everyone to hold their damn horses.

“Wh—” I started but Nic shook his head and pulled me back as the street below us opened up with a door.

“Oh! You!” A blonde lady who smelled like she was part bear and part raccoon rolled her eyes.

“Come on. She’s been waiting for you. She won’t let go of the heads and stuff.

Maybe you can talk some sense into her.” She glanced at me when she finished speaking to Nic.

“You the ghost cat who responded to Nila’s Nic? ”

“This is my mate. He’s with me,” Nic said before I had the chance to answer her.

“Well, I didn’t ask to suck his dick,” she rolled her eyes.

“Bring him in. Usually, I’d make you wait until after your claiming vows to bring anyone in, but we’ll make an exception for your mum.

We did get the truth out of her,” she said to Nic and then turned her attention back to me.

“The next time you yank off a perfectly good beaver tail bring it to me. Don’t waste it on Mister Squeamish here, yeah? ”

She turned away before I could answer her and motioned for us to follow her.

The steps that led down were made of the same stuff the alley was paved with.

Nic stepped down toward the dark abyss and because he was my mate I followed him down.

The air wafting up smelled like magic and cinnamon.

The door slammed shut behind us as soon as it could do so without knocking us on the heads.

“Nic, you go to her. She needs you. You,” she looked at me, “come with me. I’m going to read your hand and figure out what’s going on.”

“Nic?” I asked, not letting go of his hand. Maybe this half bear/half raccoon witch bossed people around here but I had no ruler except that dragon who already held my heart in the palm of his taloned hand.

“I’ll be alright. Chinda won’t hurt you. She’s good at reading palms.”

“Is this your mum’s coven?” I asked.

“No, this is the coven who protects Shiny Butt Cosmetics. Every company worth its weight in salt has protection,” Nic shrugged. “Chinda is the one who suggested I seek out Crilus a few exes ago.”

“Well, at least now that you found this purring morsel you won’t have to do that. Ready, big guy?” she reached out for my hand.

Nic grinned at me and shrugged, “I gotta get her. If she’s still enraged, she might start eating people who aren’t dragons.”

“Eh, she can try to eat me,” Chinda shrugged. “She can try all she wants.”

I missed Nic as soon as he walked away. Chinda took my hand in hers and led me down a tight hallway into a tiny room with no windows and only the single door which we’d come through.

In the center sat a table draped in red with a single burning candle, housed inside of a chipped teacup.

The cup was white with a blue floral pattern that glowed in the candlelight.

She took her seat in one of the high back chairs and motioned for me to sit down in the other.

“Hand. Palm up, kitty,” she said, holding out her own hand.

Begrudgingly I gave her my palm, and she frowned at it.

“I expected to see more secrets in this hand,” she said after a few seconds of rubbing her finger this way and that like a child trying to follow the lines of my hand. “Not many secrets. It doesn’t talk much of your magic. That means you’re probably not a caster like most of us here.”

“I have magic,” I said, unwilling to offer more of an explanation than that.

“It’s just built into you. Some species come out with their magic built in and some of us have to learn all our magic.

Now, you could learn other magic. Goddess knows you have enough magic lines under this middle finger to learn whatever magic you wanted to.

You’ll be homesick soon too. You’ll miss so much but I guess that can’t be helped.

Annila is going to need some time off work and Nic’s the only one she trusts to run the company.

Besides, she’d be all alone if you dragged Nic back to your place.

Oohh…. You’re connected to other cat men.

Some people are going to be thrilled in the next decade or so.

Not me. Of course, not me. If you have any single cat man friends who want to hook up, send ‘em my way. Actually, anyone. I’ll go out with anyone once. Variety is the spice of it all, huh?”

“That’s why Nic made sure she knew we were his mate,” my cat chuckled inside his inner sanctum.

“You really did those things, huh?” she leaned back in her chair and let go of my hand. “You took that fucker’s hand and the other one’s tail. You’re a good guy.”

“They were courting gifts. I still have to get him another one since Tops is dead now.”

“Three? Is that a custom?” she asked, her thin eyebrows raising high on her head.

“Yes. Three to prove that we can care for our mates,” I nodded.

“Noted. I’ll remember that for the future. Is it always body parts?”

“No,” I shook my head. “This was a special circumstance. I lucked into hearing a conversation while Jon and Chard thought they were alone.”

“We’re glad to have you. I’m tired of watching people break Nic’s heart because he’s so desperate to fall in love and have that happily ever after.

That’s how he rebels against his mum,” she shrugged.

“Annila doesn’t believe in love like that.

He tries to prove it’s real. She got lucky that way.

It could’ve been drugs or gambling or something.

I’ll put the kettle on and we’ll have some tea while we wait on them.

You do drink tea, right? It’s just the black stuff. Not allergic?”

“Tea would be great,” I managed a smile for her, but I was ready to be back with Nic.