Page 7 of Love the Way You Lion (Rise of the Resistance #3)
The Cat Roars Into The Night
TAURUS
T he night was a cocoon of silence until her body convulsed, tearing through the stillness. A sharp cry pierces the air, wrenching me from sleep. My eyes snap open to find her already in motion, an abrupt blur of limbs and tangled sheets.
“Minx!” I call out, my voice rough with sudden wakefulness.
She’s on the floor now, crouched low like a predator, her feline features contorted with alarm.
Her tail lashes violently from side to side—an obvious barometer of her agitation.
The room feels charged, a palpable current of energy prickling my skin with an otherworldly sensation.
Is she harnessing some latent electrical force?
That would be another twist in the ever-expanding enigma that is my wife’s abilities.
“What is going on?” I press, my heart pounding a staccato rhythm against my ribs. “Minx, tell me what’s going on.”
But she offers no explanation, no reassurance. There’s only the electric tension hanging thick in the air, the wild swish of her tail, and the unanswered questions swirling in the dark.
Whatever it is, it’s bad.
A shrill sound splits the air, tearing through the charged atmosphere like a siren’s call.
It’s coming from the phone on the dresser—a harbinger of bad news.
The screen flashes ominously with the label “The Maison” in bold, urgent letters.
I know without a doubt that it’s an alert I shouldn’t ignore.
The droids from her house would rather send smoke signals than resort to a phone call.
If they’re actually calling, the situation has to be grave.
My minx’s attention, however, remains fixated elsewhere.
She’s communicating in deep, guttural growls, a feral feline language known only to her and Aradia.
The latter, now fully roused, mirrors Minx’s movements, her own sleek tiger form prowling with the same manic energy.
They move in tandem, two creatures bound by instinct; their conversation a series of snarls and hisses that my human ears can’t decipher.
Feeling the sting of exclusion, I push myself off the bed.
My feet hit the floor with determination as I head for the dresser.
Someone has to answer the clarion call that beckons in the dead of night.
With a resigned exhale, I pick up her phone, preparing myself to translate whatever impending chaos is lurking into terms I can grasp.
Holding the vibrating phone with a hand steadier than I feel, I answer it with a flick of my thumb.
The screen’s ominous glow barely lights our darkened room where chaos reigns in fur and feral snarls, but the sound of panicked voices is immediate.
“Bloody hell, Nancy, you have to sodding pick up when we call! We’re not ringing your bell for our health,” The British accented voice is like a jackhammer to my eardrums, brash and unforgiving.
One of her droids patterned off of my template, I see .
I stifle the urge to hurl the device against the wall in irritation, focusing instead on my feral wife and whatever problem is causing her to shift.
Her shadowy silhouette is crouched low, muscles coiled, the primal language she shares with Aradia an undercurrent to the cacophony erupting from the phone.
“This is Taurus, you nit,” I respond, pressing the device harder against my ear as if that will bridge the gap between our worlds.
“The cat’s gone—well, catty, right now. She’s not in a human speech place.
What in the bloody fuck has you calling and her in feral mode at four sodding am?
” My words are icy with a thread of concern, as I try desperately to subdue the tempest within me.
On the other end, there’s a pause and in the silence, I heard my minx’s tail swish across the hardwood floor, an ominous sound like the crackle before a storm.
The droid’s voice, a guttering flamethrower of profanity, scorches through the phone’s speaker. “Fucking hellfire, Taurus. When the shit hits the fan, you don’t just stand there and bloody well paint with it. I’m calling because it’s a sodding emergency.”
I silently tip my hat to Victor’s programming—his creations swear with an artistry I didn’t expect.
“Are you done bitching?” I ask when the storm of continued curses ebbs. I watch my minx, her tail still thrashing in the dark like a live wire. Silence follows, heavy and thick, leaving me teetering on the edge of my patience. “Because we’re wasting time, mate.”
Just as I’m about to disconnect the call, another voice cuts through the static, the tone cool and collected as if ordering an evening cocktail rather than issuing an emergency summons.
“Look, Clone in Black,” the aristocratic tone commands, “you need to haul your fashionable ass here fast. We’ve got a 911 that will rock the foundations of this hellhole and we need you.
Grab her furry fanny and pop over here before it hits the news.
No time for explanations—the writer’s been in an accident and it’s bad. Now, mush!”
The shift in the atmosphere is immediate when I realize the gravity of what she just said.
My hand clenches the phone so tightly I can feel the plastic threatening to give way under the strain.
The voice on the other end, with its poised enunciation and slight hint of panic, painted an ominous picture.
A cold sweat beads on my brow as I consider the impact of Wilde being injured on this community full of worshippers.
Not good. Not good at all, and not only because it will upset both of my women.
“Fuck,” I murmur, the word barely escaping my lips as I struggle to get a hold of the thoughts whizzing through my mind. My glance darts back to my wife—suddenly understanding why her form is a blurred frenzy of feline instinct.
“Bring the emerald amulet, the moon-dusted blade, and don’t forget the?—”
“Enough!” I bark into the receiver as the Duchess’s exhaustive list slices through my scattered thoughts like shrapnel.
There’s no time to entertain her manic inventory, but I know my wife will be upset if I ignore the droid’s requests.
Suddenly, an image of Talia and Rafe flicker in the back of my mind.
They are at that house and their status is unknown—creating a gnawing concern that threatens to unravel me.
“Are they okay?” I mutter to myself, knowing full well the Duchess can’t hear me over the noise in her background.
Frantic scenarios play out in my head, each more dire than the last. If they’re unaware of the catastrophe unfolding, it’s on me to get these people to alert them—or worse, prepare for their reactions to the news.
Since they’re both involved with the git, they’ll be just as upset as my minx .
This is a bloody fucking nightmare.
“Did you hear me, Taurus? Don’t dick around—get over here now!”
“Got it,” I lie, the contents of her ramble lost to the ether.
My focus narrows on the impending storm outside and the tempest brewing within the walls of our home.
With the determination of one facing the eye of a hurricane, I steel myself for what lies ahead.
She continues babbling for another minute and I finally tire of it.
“ Philomena. ” The name erupts from my lips, cutting through her ceaseless chatter with the sharpness of a blade. Silence falls abruptly on the other end of the line, like a curtain dropping mid-scene. “Have you told Talia and Sampson yet? They’re at your house.”
The momentary quiet is shattered by a noise that booms through the receiver—a cacophony that can only spell disaster. There’s an unmistakable sound of something heavy meeting an untimely demise, followed by a resonant bellow that reverberates in my chest.
Guess they know now, huh?
My pulse quickens as realization dawns on me; whatever force sent my minx spiraling into her primal state has struck the artist. Philomena’s voice cuts through the chaos, issuing commands to her personal legion, before the line goes dead, leaving me clutching a silent phone.
“Damn it,” I mutter, the device feeling like a brick in my hand.
The darkness seems to close in around me, the weight of uncertainty a tangible presence in our room.
Whatever we’re hurtling toward, it’s just claimed its next victim.
The silence is deafening as I yank on clothes. “ Fuck . What in the hell is going on?”
My gaze snaps to Aradia, her form a shadow against the pale moonlight filtering through the curtains.
“Help me out here,” I plead, my appeal a desperate entreaty that she seems to understand.
With feline grace, she butts her head against Minx’s crouching figure, the movement both comforting and urgent.
“Easy, girl. I just need my wife to be calm enough to transport us to your house,” I murmur.
The tiger looks up at me, her eyes glowing embers in the dark.
For a moment, I see the intelligence of the familiar and her devotion to my spouse.
She’s a mere breath away from being something wholly other, and it chills my blood.
Until my wife, I’d never witnessed such a thing as a real ‘shifter’—never even considered that even though I’m a vampiric clone, there might be other supernatural beings running around the planet.
It shouldn’t surprise me that my witchy, furry woman’s animals are truly connected to her, like the stories you see in the movies or on TV.
My heart hammers against my ribs, a frantic drumbeat as I wait for the beast to soothe my wife enough to leave.
As the furry companion growls and grumbles with my woman, the tension in her recedes slowly, and she rises from the crouched position reminiscent of the feline she has inside.
Her features and tail don’t go away, but she’s standing like a human, which has to be better. Right?
That notion is fleeting when our curtains suddenly flap wildly as a gust of wind forces its way into the room, carrying the scent of impending rain.
I freeze for a moment, watching as dark clouds amass outside the window, suffocating the stars.
The shadow play of the storm promises violence, and I honestly have no idea if that’s because Deli is funneling her power from the shifter side to the witchy one.
With a sharp intake of breath, I spin around, looking around our bedroom.
Clothes lay scattered on the floor, remnants of our play earlier in the evening.
My gaze lands on the bag she left on the chair when she arrived home.
I grab it, stuffing it with a change of clothes, her favorite boots, and the oddities Philomena insisted on.
Jar of newt eyes? Check. Vial of moon water? In it bloody goes.
“Okay, ladies. We’re heading to your place to figure out how to handle the lot of you,” I announce, trying to infuse my voice with more confidence than I feel.
My hand touches Aradia’s fur, then I find my wife’s shoulder, grounding her jitters with my touch.
The air is humming audibly, a testament to the magick that simmers beneath my woman’s skin.
I know she’s doing her best to hold it back, but this is an awfully inconvenient time for her to unleash with more vigor than I’ve ever seen before.
“Time to sort this shit out,” I whisper as I grip them both. I’m ready to face the tempest that awaits us beyond the walls of our home—or as ready as I can be.
Gritting my teeth, I prepare myself for the utter insanity that will be the house where over a dozen people are losing their shit simultaneously.
A sigh escapes me, and I shut my eyes briefly, seeking a moment’s respite in the darkness.
If only the Company hadn’t rewarded that floppy haired writer with transformation after the War, perhaps he and his mate wouldn’t have been able to get such an iron grip on the members of both the Cabal and the Resistance.
Maybe both of my mates wouldn’t have ever gotten involved with him in ways that I’m certain have always been detrimental.
Maybe whatever happened tonight wouldn’t be making people lose their goddamn shit at four a.m.
Opening my eyes, I glance at the feline duo before me, their agitated states painting a surreal picture amidst the mundane setting of our bedroom-turned-battleground. “This should be interesting,” I say, a wry note of sarcasm threading through my words .
With one last look at our formerly serene home, I steel myself for whatever lies ahead. We’re about to leap into chaos, and it’s anyone’s guess what awaits at The Maison.
Time to take a leap into the hurricane.