Chapter 19

Squatch.

I was seating people at the restaurant when a redhead walked in and asked for me. The prospect at the register froze, unsure of how to answer, and I stepped to her.

“Who’s asking?”

She smiled up at me. “It’s nice to meet you. I’m Kirsten. If you can get away, I’d like to take you to Val.”

Val. Kitty. My heart raced in my chest. “She wants to see me?”

“She’s had a lot of stuff to get through, and it’s probably still too soon for her to see you, but I don’t think doing so will set her back. Is there somewhere private the two of us can go?”

I looked at all of the people waiting to be seated, and Velvet stepped up behind me. “Take her to my office. I’ll take over as hostess. I assume we’ll see you in a few hours. If it’s going to be longer, please check in.”

She was speaking for her husband. She didn’t have the authority to do so, but that was okay. She was doing it out of concern.

I walked the short little redhead into the office, and she closed the door. “I’m going to teleport us. Close your eyes and hold your breath.”

She grabbed my arms, and the temperature of the air around me changed. I opened my eyes and nearly fell, I was so discombobulated.

Thankfully, the small woman still held my arms, and she was stronger than she looked. She supported me until I had my balance.

We were on uneven ground, outside the gates to a huge fucking castle.

“We’re in Alfheim. I had to bring Val here to keep her safe.” The guards opened the gate for us, and we walked through with a contingent of men flanking us.

“They need to back off,” I told her. The wolf wasn’t at all happy with being surrounded.

“They’re my personal guard. Good luck with that. We’ll be going in a side door, through a portion of the castle, and into a semi-private courtyard. Val’s in the courtyard, and I’ll leave the two of you alone so you can talk. She knows where a few rooms are just inside, if ya’ll want more privacy.”

I walked with her at least a half-mile before we made it into the courtyard. She nodded to Kitty and left without saying anything. My kitty-cat ran to me and jumped. I caught her and held her in my arms. Damn, but I’d missed this. Her warmth. Her energy. Her arms and legs around me, holding on.

I never wanted to let go again.

I breathed in and felt more of my magic than I was used to. Kirsten had said she’d brought me to Alfheim. A different realm. Fuck, but they were serious about keeping my kitten safe.

“Why are you in another world?” And how was the little redhead capable of so easily teleporting between realms? She came off as human, but she was clearly quite powerful — not to mention having the skills to hide all of that power. But those were questions were for another time. I needed to know about Kitty.

“Kirsten, my therapist, is apparently friends with the Amakhosi, I think maybe her boyfriend, based on the way they argued. He showed up while I was exploring the forest around Kirsten’s home.” She sighed. “Technically, it’s the lands of the Homewood Pack. They’re magical, and I was enjoying my time there. Anyway, His Majesty showed up and wasn’t pleased, and Kirsten got right in his face and argued with him. She has major balls. He was of the opinion that a compromise could be reached — that I could just give them my eggs and they could let a surrogate bring babies to term! Like that wouldn’t be a big deal!”

She let go of me, and I reluctantly set her on her feet. She paced as she ranted. “My body. My life. My children, if I choose to have them!” She stopped and crossed her arms. “Kirsten grabbed me and brought me here. If he can manage to bargain someone to bring him, the guards won’t let him near me. Kirsten figures he’ll wait for her to bring me back, though. She doesn’t think he’ll come here.” She rolled her eyes, “But then she ranted about hard-headed egomaniac cats, so I suppose that isn’t a given.”

I considered whether I could help. Ember is close friends with the Dragon King and Queen, and they’re close to the Amakhosi. Perhaps Sophia might talk to him. I wasn’t certain it would help, but I’d talk to Dementor about it. Kitty pushed me onto a bench, and then sat on my lap, her legs straddling my thighs, facing me.

“If you don’t want to have this conversation, stop me. It feels awkward to even bring it up, but I have to make some decisions, and it feels like you should be part of my thought processes.”

She looked fierce, and I wanted to kiss her until she melted, but I told her, “Whatever you need to talk about.”

“Okay. First, some facts. A golden tiger cub would have to be raised in an ambush, where he or she could be kept safe. Our hair is a dead giveaway, and we’re worth millions of dollars on the rare-species black market. A golden tiger sex-slave is beyond valuable.”

“That’s why you dye your hair. Why you needed time alone after a change.”

“Right.”

“So why can’t you dye the kid’s hair?”

“Because they’d talk to classmates about it. You can’t tell a five-year-old not to tell his friends a secret. Even if they didn’t know why their hair had to be dyed, just the fact it had to be touched up every seven to ten days would make it a huge thing.”

“Okay.”

“Two apex predatory mammal shapeshifter who procreate have about an equal chance of giving birth to either of their animals, with a slight chance of the baby being human.”

“Yes.”

“Golden tigers who aren’t pure are killed by the ambush. Raising a golden tiger who has anything besides a golden tiger mother and father in an ambush can’t happen.”

“So, if you and I have a baby and it’s a wolf, we’re good to go. If it’s a tiger, we’ll buy land and put a huge fence up, and figure out how to homeschool. Or we might be okay at my house in the spa compound, though we’d need extra fencing between the houses and spa.”

She sat back a little, looking at my face, breathing in my scent. “You want kids?”

“Eventually, yes. Any more facts I need to know?”

She shook her head. “I don’t think locking a child away without other kids to play with is workable.”

“Me either. If it’s a boy, we keep his head shaved. If it’s a girl, we’ll dye it. If they only see other kids on weekends, we don’t have to correlate the hair thing with going out, and when she’s little we can just call it washing her hair. She’ll call it whatever we do. She can do dance classes or gymnastics or softball or karate or... whatever, and there are kids around for the daytime part of our parties. Same for a son, but we’ll have the option of dying his hair or cutting it really short.”

“Contacts, too. I keep colored contacts in. Our eyes are a brilliant blue. Too blue to be natural.”

I cupped her cheek in my hand and she leaned her face into my palm. “It doesn’t feel like now is the time, but I need you to show me all of you.”

I pulled her into me and held her small, strong, supple body in my arms. Embracing her without holding her, though I have no idea how I managed it. There wasn’t a doubt in my mind that if I tried to hold her, she’d run.

Which I suppose is a typical cat, but this felt like more than that.

“Give me a minute to organize my thoughts,” I told her. “Just a few minutes like this. Please.”

She leaned into me and relaxed. She was giving me the time I’d asked for.

I knew I eventually wanted kids. I didn’t want them in nine months, but maybe two years? So, wait a year and I’d be good with watching the love of my life grow with a child in her?

The love of my life.

Yeah. And if I were honest, I’d be good with her getting pregnant right then.

I’d always envisioned helping my wolf son through his first change, helping him learn to control the beast within. Sometimes, it was a daughter, and there were also visions of destroying any boy who looked at her like he wanted her.

I could be just as happy raising a tiger.

Hell, Frost had kind of taken on surrogate wolf pups, and that was an owl and a lynx part-time parenting a tiny little pack of wolves.

I took a breath, squeezed her a little tighter a few seconds, and sat her up on my lap.

“If you want to ride me bareback and make a baby right now, I’m up for it. Ideally, I think we’ll have a little more time with just the two of us, but I love you. I want you in my life. I want to raise kids with you, and I don’t care if they’re wolf, tiger, human, or adopted deer. If you want to get started now, we will.”

She wrapped her arms around my neck and held tight. Now it was her holding onto me. I held her with one arm and rubbed her back with the other hand. “You and me. Together, we’ll deal with your family. I know we’ll have help — Brooke, your therapist, my brothers. We can do this.”

The magic in this place let me feel her more. Her heart was over mine, and I felt them beating together, their energy joined. Our energy joined.

“There are things you need to know,” she told me as she sat back on my thighs again. “Kirsten wants me to tell you with her present. She says we still have some work to do, and that if she can help me find some answers while I tell you my story, it will help.” She stood and went to the door, but turned back to me before she opened it. “She might just pop into the room. Don’t let it startle you.”

She opened the door and a guard turned to look at her. It was nice to know Kirsten was making sure Kitty was safe.

“Can you let Her Majesty know we’re ready for her, please?”

The guard nodded and she closed the door. “She doesn’t want us using royal titles with her in private, but I’ve been doing so around other people.”

“Her Majesty?” I asked.

“She’s Queen of Alfheim. How crazy is that?”

I shook my head to argue that it didn’t make sense, and the little redhead popped into being on the other side of the room.

She looked at both of us as if taking in what had happened since she’d been gone, and smiled. “That seems to have gone well?”

“Yeah,” Kitty told her. “We’re good. Better than good.”

Kirsten met my gaze. “She has things to tell you that are going to be hard to hear. Your job today is to support her while she tells you. Righteous anger has a place, and there will be time for that later, but Kitty gets to decide what to do. Not you and not me. In this, we follow her lead.”

I’d stood when Kirsten arrived, and I sat back on the sofa and told Kitty, “I’d prefer you in my lap so I can hold you, but I’ll understand if you need your own space.”

She shook her head and climbed back on my lap, straddling my thighs, sitting on them. I’d assumed she’d bury her face in my chest to tell me the hard stuff, but no, she was going to face me. No one would ever call my kitten a wilting violet.

However, less than ten minutes in, I was the one who pulled her to me, cradled her in my arms, her head to my chest, her words vibrating my skin. My gaze met the therapist’s and she nodded. She approved.

Throughout it all, I had to keep reminding my wolf we were here to support Kitty. The wolf and I both wanted to find her uncle and father and tear them limb from limb. Who trains a fucking sixteen-year-old to deep throat? And a seventeen-year-old to take it up the ass? If the boy she was promised to had been old enough, she’d have been given to him on her sixteenth birthday. As it was, they were waiting for him to turn thirteen.

Fucking thirteen.

Girls need to have reached the age of consent, since they’ll be listed on the birth certificate. Boys, however, only need to be old enough to produce sperm when they ejaculate. In Utah, if both parties are a minor and both consent, it isn’t likely any branch of government will care. The tigers have an ambush in Utah, and teens from all over the country are sent there to have sex. She would be instructed to refuse to name the father on the birth certificate, when she gave birth.

No wonder my kitten had figured out how to flee her family.

When Kitty was overcome with emotion and seemed to be breathing through it to try to hold herself together, Kirsten told her, “The Amakhosi has your uncle in custody. None of your cousins are going to be taught anything by him. New rules are in place. Nathan won’t stop the matchmaking, but he’s going to make them wait until the kids are older. The boy in Texas isn’t going to be required to impregnate someone at thirteen.” She blew out a breath. “I couldn’t tell him while we were keeping you a secret. His Majesty didn’t know that part. He does now. He isn’t pleased.”

Kitty looked to me with unshed tears glistening in her eyes. “Part of me wants to say that if they wanted to artificially inseminate me, I’d be okay with that so long as I got to raise the baby on my terms, and so long as the child got to dictate his or her own terms for who to procreate with when he or she grows up. That’d mean you’d have to raise children who aren’t yours though, and if I’m honest, I’d much rather raise children you and I make.”

I kissed the top of her head and looked to Kirsten. “You’ve talked with His Majesty since you brought Kitty here? What direction do his thoughts go?” If Kitty and I had to turn this into a fight, we would. If we could negotiate our way through and find a solution everyone could live with, that would be better.

Kirsten leaned back in her chair and swiped her hair off her face. “He’d like to see the science experiment completed. Until I explained why Kitty might have a problem with it, he didn’t see an issue with her handing over eggs to be used in a surrogate. He now understands that a mother feels responsibility to any eggs she grew in her body, and that she isn’t likely to just hand them over.”

“Thank you,” Kitty told her. “It blew my mind that he didn’t get that.”

“Yes. We had words. I suggested he provide sperm for Xaepha...” She shook her head. “Who I suggested he turn his sperm over to isn’t important, only that I believe he understands it isn’t the simple solution he’d like it to be.”

I touched Kitty’s cheek with two of my fingers, and then cradled it in my palm when she turned back to me. “If inseminating you with the Texas kid’s sperm and then raising those children as ours will make this all go away, then so be it. We’ll raise them as ours. At some point, you’re going to negotiate with either the Amakhosi or your father, and this is a bargaining chip. Maybe you’ll need it, maybe you won’t, but you have it.”

“I get the feeling that your father’s best offer is going to be something like a million dollars and your freedom if you let them harvest two dozen eggs and then have sole custody and decision making over any children,” Kirsten told us.

“And I’ll point out that the next time I disappear, it might be to a tiny town in the north of France, or in one of the ’Stans, where I’m totally off the grid. Somewhere they aren’t likely to find me again, and they’ll get nothing,” Kitty told her.

Kirsten met my gaze a few seconds and then looked to Kitty. “I tried to arrange for the two of you to talk to The Crone, but Zeta tells me since your future is bound to another realm, The Crone will not get involved.” She sighed. “Nathan has given me forty-eight hours before he takes action. At that point, a negotiation will happen, whether you are present or not, and I’m told it will be binding. It’s best if you’re a part of it.”

“Can we keep her safe?” I asked. No one was going to run off with her on my watch. She wouldn’t attend unless I could guarantee her safety.

“Brooke and Kendra can be there. You can be there. I believe we can probably negotiate for you to bring someone to watch your back” She looked to Kitty. “I’ve asked for The Dragon King and Queen to be there to watch my back. This will allow them to be part of the negotiations, but I don’t know if I’ll be able to work it so they’re included.”

“You’re going to pit Nathan and Aaron against each other?” I asked.

She shrugged. “Nathan is Amakhosi first, and part-owner of Drake Security second.”

“And where do you fall into that?” Kitty asked.

Kirsten rolled her eyes. “He’s always Amakhosi first. To date, there hasn’t been a contest between his role at Drake and his role in my life. I understand when he needs to leave me to save someone’s life, just as he understands when I have to cancel a date because someone I’ve helped is having a crisis. Mostly, it’s the same with his role as Amakhosi and my role with the wolves. We understand each other’s obligations and don’t interfere.” She looked from Kitty to me and met my gaze. “This situation is my role as therapist versus his role as Amakhosi, and we don’t have anything in place to give us guidelines. It isn’t the first time we’ve been at odds based on how he treats his cats, but it’s the first time I’ve interfered and refused to back down.”

She looked back to Kitty. “Mordecai says I should get you back to your home realm. He’s usually right about these things, but I feel I can keep you safer here.”

“My brothers in Chattanooga can keep her safe,” I told her.

Kirsten sat in a chair and seemed to be running through possible scenarios in her head. “Problems between any faction and the bikers fuck up the entire Chattanooga supernatural hierarchy. Nathan will think twice before he attempts an invasion of the downtown compound. It could work.” She met Kitty’s gaze. “Energetically, you’re better served in your home realm. Physically, you’re safer here. I think this has to be your decision.”

She sat up, still in my lap, her back to me, and rubbed her palms on her thighs. “Is there a way for me to safely have a face-to-face conversation with the Amakhosi? I’m his cat. He’s supposed to be my King. I’d like to know exactly where I stand with him before I walk into a negotiation.”

Kirsten stood, paced to the wall and back, and looked down at us. “Maybe. I’ll be back as quick as I can.”