The Bid (21 page)

On the plus side, they were completely ignoring Hanna. They would regret that. On the negative? These guys knew nothing about stealth. And not too much about fighting either, Jhon learned quickly as the first one reached for him with a roundhouse. Idiot. Jhon dodged and let him overshoot his balance from his missed momentum, then grabbed hold of his head, kicked his feet back out from under him, and let him land face first in the questionable stickiness of the tent alley ground.

Someone grabbed him from behind.

Someones. One wrangled him around his neck, hanging down his back like a monkey and two others grabbed his arms and pulled back until Jhon felt straining on his shoulder sockets. He tried to brace his feet, but the simian around his throat was swinging back and forth like crazy, shifting his weight and bending him back.

Until a fist shot past Jhon’s cheek, missing him completely and landing soundly in someone else’s face. That was when he realized it was Hanna standing that close to him, her arm extended past his cheek.

“Excuse me, lover,” she said with a playful purr and a wink, coming just shy of kissing him as she gripped hold of the simian and hauled him right over Jhon’s head.

“Thanks, babe,” he shot back, able to plant his weight now and plan his escape. He almost wanted to stay there a minute and watch the beauty of that sleek sexy body kicking the shit out of the guy she had hold of.

But…

Two other bodies came crashing into the melee. One struck Hanna in the back, sending her sprawling onto the ground in a tackle with her foe lurking large on her back. The second rammed Jhon in his exposed belly, knocking the heartbeat right out of his body.

“Can’t fight back, slave boy, or you go night-night and we have fun with the lady after we tie you up so you can watch.”

The taunt was…unwise.

Between the threat and seeing Hanna go down, Jhon reached a point where a little something clicked over in his brain. All cautions, all acts, and everything not connected to his immediate survival shut down and became nonconsiderations. The warrior burst forward and on the way it melded with that new part of him: the predator, the protector, and the ruthless animal instinct that was pure cat.

Jhon’s fingers opened and flexed, his nails growing in wicked curves. He vocalized as his body crouched inside of itself, a low growl of threat and imminent attack.

“Jhon,” he heard Hanna whisper, her fear a palpable thing. He could taste it on his tongue and it infuriated him. She was his mate! She was cat! She should not fear what they were.

His strength and speed, cat and warrior combined, could not be matched. Hanna watched in a stunned sort of horror and pride as his huge body contorted to free itself, throwing off one man and turning viciously on the other. She saw him grab the man by the neck, heard the little pops as his claws punctured the soft flesh they found. By the time he had ripped out the man’s larynx, she was growling in excited support.

Blood was on the air.

Hanna reached back and raked her pointed nails down her attacker’s face. He drew breath for a scream as he fell away from her, but she never forgot that silence was their only savior at this point. She seized his throat and cut off his air single-handedly, hissing with low fury as she rolled him beneath her body. His eyes were wide with terror at what he saw, the woman upon him whose face flickered between person and vicious cat. He bore witness to her secret…for all of twenty seconds. Then she grabbed hold of his head and broke his neck with a powerful double snap of bone.

She rose into a crouch, her hair whipping hard as she turned her head sharply to find her mate. Hanna wanted to scream when she saw the mass of men beating on him and trying to tear him down, but she knew she had to resist. Instead she satisfied herself with a chilling growl as she rushed into the mix of men. She entered the fight just as Jhon was plowing a fist up under the rib cage of one of the bigger men. Unable to tell his race or the location of organs, he had no specific target. He just grabbed and pulled and used his free hand to punch the guy in the throat so he wouldn’t scream.

His friends were grasping the direness of their situation, however. They were no longer trying to fight, but trying to escape. Hanna and Jhon exchanged looks and they agreed. There could be no survivors. No witnesses. Three were dead, and three would join them. Hanna took the next kill, putting her fist hard enough into his spine to silence him for good. The two remaining started to keen and wail, screeching about monsters and trying to scrabble away on the ground like the rodents they were.

The mated couple pounced on them as one, dispatching them with a slit throat and a broken neck. Hanna then looked at Jhon. Both were breathing hard and splattered with blood. She realized her mate preferred to make his prey bleed, when she could give or take it. He was new to the cat, feeling the fever of it for the first time, so she understood. He was staring at her hard, his eyes shifting over her restlessly, and she knew why. His adrenaline was high; the beast made demands. He smelled the excitement on her through the rusty tang of blood.

But they had six bodies around them, and she had to think of consequences.

Jhon saw her looking around at the carnage, and the haze of his bestial self lifted slightly. He knew her fear. Her worry. He had to make this right for her.

“Hanna,” he said, his voice little more than a rough cough. “Go home.”

“No!” she hissed. “If you get caught you need me to defend you!”

He didn’t want to argue with her. He stripped off his shirt, wiping himself free of as much of the violet-colored blood as he could. Her pants were obviously stained, and his were even worse.

“I have an idea.” She ran two steps and leapt into the Otherside, the cat landing with a graceful soundlessness. Her clothing fell to the ground along with her hair ornaments. He looked into her eyes and immediately knew what she was planning to do.

“Hanna, no! If you get captured or…you could get killed!”

In this crowd?

She had a point. The stampede of people alone would protect her if she was careful. The bodies would be explained away as victims of the wild bellcat that came into town inexplicably…or it would be blamed on Hanna’s House and her collection of cats.

Acceptable risk.

A tactician’s term. It was the only choice. He quickly gathered up all clothing and evidence of their presence, and found a spare piece of canvas to wrap it up in, tucking it under his arm. They needed to hurry out of there before they were discovered. Jhon moved to one of the splits between the tents and crouched low, waiting as Hanna prepared to run out into the crowd and start a panic that would allow him to run undetected as he blended in with the stampeding people.

She shook herself hard, fluffing out her dark coat to make herself look bigger, then bared her fangs in a wicked smile as she leapt free of the alley. He watched her jump bold as hell onto a display table, a massive roar shuddering out of her. There was total shocked silence for all of a heartbeat, and then pandemonium broke. He waited for a minute, and then bolted into the crowd of runners. Troublemaker that she was, Hanna chased after him and the crowd, getting close enough that he felt her nip playfully at his ankle. Then she reeled and tore off in another direction.

The streets were full of screaming shoppers pouring out of the bazaar. Sentries came hurrying to the source of the panic, leaving the way clear for a bare-chested, blood-smattered slave to sneak his way home from shadow to shadow with no one the wiser.

When Jhon ran into the house looking the way he did, he thought Najir was going to have a medical fit right on the spot. He rapidly explained what had happened and they both rushed to aid in the deception. Jhon burned everything they had worn. Najir dropped a dress over the wall of the enclosure where no guards walked. There wasn’t a need for guards by the enclosure when nine wild bellcats made their home there. Hanna would smell the dress easily then change and put it on so she could simply walk into her home.

V
ejhon paced for a good hour, his stomach in knots for leaving her, his eye on her brother. If anything happened to her, her brother would shift out of the Otherside. When the door opened and she stepped into the large foyer, Vejhon tackled her right off of her feet, his body nailing hers back against the door and his mouth fastening to hers with ferocity.

I thought the worst. I need you. We are safe.

The jumble of thoughts had no discernable origin. They were as melded together as their mouths and just as emotional. Jhon was breathing so hard from relief of fear that his breath heated her face. She slid her fingers through the white waves of his hair and held him to the passion of his kiss.

The dress she wore was short skirted and both his hands ran up her legs beneath it until he had a firm hold of her ass and was pulling her forward into the press of his hips. They devoured each other’s mouths, the heat and intensity blinding them with the sensuality and need of the moment. She lifted her leg and hooked it over his hip, her calf crossing over his tight backside as she pulled him between her legs.

Vejhon could feel the heat of her radiating through his clothing and he reached to shove her skirt out of the way and to release his penis from its cruel cloth prison. He needed her. He would always need her. But now, now he needed her around him pulsing and alive. Safe. His. He guided himself between her moist folds, following the increasing wetness as he rubbed over first one clit, then the other, making her gasp into his mouth both times.

“Yes,” she cried when he hovered right at her entrance. “Now. Now!”

He agreed. Now was not the time for pause or patience. This was a time for heat and raw need. He plunged into her, gritting his teeth when she thwarted his thrust yet again in that pleasurable, frustrating clench of muscles.

“Relax,” he murmured against her mouth. “When you do, I’m going to fuck you until your juices run down your legs. I’m going to make you scream, Hanna.”

She couldn’t possibly relax after a promise like that, and his evil little chuckle told her he knew damn well she wouldn’t. But luckily the vice inside her body worked on different commands than the rest of her and he was sliding up hard with a bump into her cervix.

“Oh…I felt that,” he notified her with a grin.

“Feel this,” she whispered against his cheek. She consciously put every ounce of focus on reclamping her vaginal walls around him. He jerked and let out a gruff groan. She smiled sweetly and relaxed. “Now you can fuck me,” she instructed.

Jhon laughed and did exactly as ordered. He rammed up into her again and again, putting all the power of his legs into each thrust as the door held her in place. He freed a breast from her neckline and bent to suck the rigid nipple. Hanna squealed loudly as the voracious sucking shot up along those same nerves being stimulated by his constant rhythm across her clit and over her G-spot. She grew dizzy, pleasure swimming over her until all focus and control faded completely away. She began a cadence of low husky moans, timed to his thrusts into her. They grew in volume, spurring him on, turning him on. Jhon was nowhere near done with her, though, so he just reveled in her sexy cries.

Hanna came with a low-register scream that turned into pleasured grunts as her head fell back and her nails bit into his shoulders. Jhon felt heat and wetness rushing down over his pumping cock, the sensation maddeningly divine.

“I know what you like,” he whispered against her throat between hard breaths. “I know what makes you come.”

He shifted, drawing her leg off his hip and tilting her hips back toward the wall. He was thrusting into her a little shallower than before, but he was also stroking over both of her clits now. She gasped wildly again and again, already too sensitive from barely finishing her first orgasm. He tore her dress, ripping the neckline open so he had better access to both breasts. Now he bit and licked and sucked at them both, feeling her body jolt every time he sent those bolts of pleasure down the same group of nerves.

She opened her eyes and stared into his as tears flooded her vision. They were triggered by the overload of the orgasm that tore through her, shredding every nerve she had into little pieces. She felt him jerk her leg back to his hip, felt him deepen his stroke and quicken it. He was close. She sensed it. Even as overwhelming darkness tried to steal her away from savoring his release, she held on with everything she had as she listened to him rasp out her name over and over again, her name becoming his moan of pleasure. He slammed up into her and froze like time standing still. She loved this part, where the recoil of pleasure was too much for his body to handle so everything just paused for an instant. Then it released in a blinding rush that made him shout and swear because he felt himself turning inside out for her.

Hanna let go.

Vejhon had barely caught his first breath when he felt Hanna fall in a dead weight against the wall. He held on to her a moment, giving himself time to gather his senses. He leaned forward and kissed the side of her neck, and then her shoulder, little worshipping touches that she wouldn’t know about, but would be left on her just the same. He eased away from her just far enough to repair his state of dress with one hand while holding her against his side with the other. He tried to tidy her up a little, but he’d done too much damage. He scooped her up in his arms, turning her close to his chest, and moved toward the stairs.

At the foot of the steps he suddenly stopped, his senses refocusing and picking up the fresh familiar scent of someone else in the room. Jhon clenched his teeth together, blaming himself for his haste and need that had had him taking his mate in so public a venue. But he would deal with the watcher later. Now his only care was Hanna. Jhon wasn’t satisfied until she was safe and comfortable in her own bed, with himself tucked up tightly behind her.

It was many hours later when Hanna flew lightly down the stairs, her bare feet hardly touching the cool mosaic tiles. She hurried to the door and activated the scanner. It opened to reveal a group of official-looking persons.

There were two sentries, their uniforms a distinctive white. A City Official, one of those in charge of investigating crimes. And two Masters. Or rather, one Master and one Baron. Just by the makeup of the group and the grimness in their eyes, it was obvious to Hanna immediately that their purpose in being there was to oversee the examination of one of their own.

Hanna instantly bristled, unable to hold back the reaction when she saw Majum on her doorstep. She realized that she must allow the group in to appear as guiltless as possible, but she would be damned if that murderer would cross her threshold.

“Gentlemen, what may I do for you today?”

“Master Drakoulous,” Master Fusut began, “you may or may not have heard, but a large jungle cat was seen loose and wild in the bazaar yesterday. It mauled six men to death and caused a panic that destroyed a fortune in goods, not to mention those who were injured running away from the thing.”

“How terrible,” she said with total honesty. She had not intended to harm so many and it pricked at her conscience to think anyone would suffer from what she had had to do in order to save herself and Jhon.

“In point of fact, Master Drakoulous, you are the only one with a collection of wild cats in her gardens,” the Baron spoke up, his dark eyes studying her intently. “You will be held responsible for all deaths and damages, my Lady.”

“If it should be proven it was one of your cats,” the other Master hastened to add. “We will need to come and inspect your enclosure.”

“Gentlemen, as you are well aware, that enclosure has housed a great many cats over a great many generations, and never once have they escaped. I treat my cats like family and would never see them set loose on society where they could harm or be harmed.”

“Let us in, my Lady,” the Baron said, stepping forward to crowd her, “or forfeit all of your animals to the city at once.”

Hanna’s nostrils flared as she picked up all the vile little scents clinging to the Baron, from his obnoxious cologne to the remnants of another male’s ejaculate. She could even smell blood. And why not? The man was stained to his soul in the stuff.

“Baron Majum, I advise you to step back,” she said coldly.

“That’s it then, gentlemen, you see she refuses!” Majum was just shy of gleeful as he became excited at the prospect of seeing her strong-armed.

“On the contrary,” she broke in smoothly. “You gentlemen are most enthusiastically welcome,” she said with a smile to charm the others before turning frozen eyes on Majum. “But you, my Lord, will never step foot in the house of my mother. The house of my father. The house of so many who fell beneath your boot heel. I will not desecrate their memories by allowing it.” She snapped her eyes to the other Master who was gaping at her. “And how thoughtless of the COM to send the murderer of my parents to my home to question me! I am insulted and wounded that you would be so heartless! Back away, Majum, or I promise you I will risk fifty years of banishment to see you brought to justice for the crimes you still owe in my book.”

“You dare to threaten me?” he hissed, fury shuddering visibly through his frame as she stood to bar his way. “You threaten me in front of these venerable witnesses? You all heard her!” He turned to the witnesses who were paling to the fairest of blues. “You can stand in judgment against her!”

“Threats mean nothing, Baron,” Master Fusut said dismissively. “If they did then you would have been jailed countless times by now.” The Master paused only long enough to wait for the muffled snicker of the Official to pass. “And she is right. You are only here to cause damage where you can whilst still remaining in the guidelines of the Feudal sanctions. I ought to have realized it myself when you so eagerly volunteered for this duty. Take yourself away, Baron.”

“The investigation requires two Masters for authority! To prove there is no favoritism!” Majum was so furious now at being thwarted yet again from a victory that he shoved himself up into the Master’s face physically. “You favor her and we will never gain an unbiased investigation into what has happened here! People are dead, Master Fusut. Something must be done about that!”

“I can easily call on another Master. Any number of them will be happy to stand for this investigation. You are simply inflaming the situation, Baron.”

“I believe you heard the gentleman when he said to take yourself away, my Lord?”

The prompt brought everyone around in surprise, especially the Baron. He wasn’t used to a male voice speaking for the House of Drakoulous. Women had been heirs for two generations now. When Majum saw the stoic figure of a beautiful and familiar male standing at Hanna’s back, he stood in total shock for the longest moment. His surprise broke when Hanna turned slightly to lay a quelling hand on the brute’s chest. A warning. That was what it took for him to snap to the awareness that a slave had just given him a command. Instantly his mind raced with the advantage he could turn this into. He had wanted to deprive his enemy of one of her two precious jewels, and he had failed so far. He didn’t care how she was deprived; only that it happened. There might be the added delight of obtaining him for his own purposes, the Baron thought with a rush of excitement running down his chest and into his belly.

“You dare to address me as an equal, slave?” He hissed out the sentence with a huge measure of affront, making certain everyone there felt the depth of his insult. Inside he was so delighted he could hardly think. The slave had made the critical error in front of witnesses of the highest order. If he could not use them against Hanna, he would use them against her slave.

“No, my Lord. I was merely reminding his lordship of the request already put forward by the esteemed Master Fusut.”

The heavy-handed respect and following bow made Fusut smile in pleasure and effectively beat the wind out of the sails of Majum’s advantage. He felt it wash away with a receding pull like water swirling down a drain. Worse, he knew he had been purposely thwarted. The clever bastard had done the dance on purpose and with perfectly plotted steps. And Majum had left himself open for it. For all of it.

Vejhon couldn’t resist pushing his luck and smiling. He felt Hanna’s nails pushing into his skin through the material of his shirt. He reached up and caught up her hand in his, smiling as he pressed an affectionate kiss in its palm. Her brilliant eyes slid over to him and the sly look that she shot him out of the corner of her eyes was a mixture of humor, affection, and warning.

Hanna looked back at Majum, knowing full well what he had been gearing up to do. It was as if the man had made a career of plotting against her at any and all opportunities. She had never quite understood what her family had done to earn such bone-deep wrath and hatred, but she wished it would end. She had her preferences of how she wished it would end, but any end would do at this point. She merely wanted her family to live in peace.

Unable to justify any further protests, the Baron had no choice but to turn sharply on his heel and march off in an obvious fury. The group at the door watched his progress down the drive for a long minute before Hanna cleared her throat to get everyone’s attention.

“Gentlemen, please come in. I will have Jhon gather the cats in a safe place so you may inspect the enclosure at your leisure. Master Fusut, you may use my communication system to contact a second impartial witness. Please choose someone who contests me frequently in the COM. I would not wish to be accused of any further acts of avoidance or favoritism.”

“I know just the one,” Master Fusut said with a wink and a chuckle.

“It was a terrible risk,” Hanna sighed after she had closed the door on the final visitor to her House.

“We have come through the entire incident unscathed, Hanna. It serves no purpose to rehash what might have happened.”

“And you should not have baited Majum, Jhon. I fear for your safety. For your life.”