“Okay, everyone.”Maddie suddenly jumped to her feet.“Put a leash on your inner beast and hold the hell up!”
“Are we sure she’s not ananimus?”Wyatt called from out in the hall where he and Rafe had exited.“Because she’s a spitfire, and I’m loving it.”
“Don’t you have a damn plane to catch?”Roan walked over to the door and slammed it closed in Wyatt’s laughing face.
Callon studied Roan’s expression as the Shaman turned his gaze back to Maddie.He glowered at her, and there was heat in that glare.But not the heat of anger.This was the burning look of a man that wanted a female but didn’twantto want her.Interesting.The momentary distraction served to allow Lola to scurry from his lap, and she now stood next to Maddie.
“Not.Yet.”Her hands rested on her hips as she frowned at him.“That’s what you said to me just a few nights ago on my fire escape.”
Heads swiveled as the door to Taras’s office opened and Wyatt’s head popped in.“Seriously?The conversation actually gets interestingafterwe leave?”He looked at Lola, his eyebrows bouncing up and down.“Did he turn down your advances, Lo?He’s a fool if he did.”
“I’m going to kill you.”Callon snarled as he got to his feet and took a step toward Wyatt.His Prime’s words were the only thing that stopped him.
“Callon, stand down.Wyatt, did you come back for a reason?If not, then get your ass on that plane, or I’ll let your general loose on you.”
“I wanted to see if we could take Drystan and Kian.”He nodded toward the two males in question.“The four horsemen can’t be the four horsemen if there’s only two of us.”
“Who calls you the four horsemen?”Maddie’s brow furrowed.
“No one,” Roan said dryly.
“He’s just mad we wouldn’t let him be in our gang.”Wyatt gave her a wink.
“Drystan can go,” Taras motioned with a dismissive wave of his hand, “but I need Kian here to help Jaxine and Zephyr do the tattoos.”
Wyatt saluted their Prime.“Sorry, K.We’ll tell you all about our escapades on the flip side.”Then Wyatt was gone, the door slamming exuberantly behind him.
“I don’t think he’s right in the head,” Maddie muttered, turning away from the door.She stopped her gaze on Callon, and he saw the light bulb that had been momentarily dimmed by Wyatt return to full brightness.“Shifting?”She nudged Lola.
Lola, whose hands had dropped from her waist at some point, now crossed them in front of her and narrowed her eyes on Callon.She looked especially cute when she was trying to intimidate him.He guessed he probably shouldn’t tell her that, at least not right now.
“I told you that I wasn’t a cat,” she started.
Callon nodded and mimicked her pose.“You did.And youwerecorrect.”
“Then you said, ‘Not yet.’”She deepened her voice in an attempt to sound like him.
Callon tilted his head to the side.“I don’t think I sounded quite like that.”
“Close enough,” Lola snarked.
“If I recall, the night we sat beside each other on your fire escape…” He deepened his voice as his eyes dropped to her lips.A lovely flush covered her marbled skin.“You told me you weren’t going to touch that statement with a ten-foot pole.”
Lola shifted restlessly on her feet.“It was a fifty-foot pole, Leo.Get your facts straight.”
“Wait.”Maddie placed her hand on Lola’s arm.“He alluded to the fact that you might become a cat, and your too-curious-for-everyone-else’s-sanity ass didn’t jump on that like a starving man snatching up a hot woman?”
“That makes no sense.Why would a starving man grab a hot woman and not a hotdog?”Lola shot back.
“Do not try to change the subject by making fun of my linguistic skills, and I wasn’t eluding to the fact that he was starving for food.”Maddie scowled.
“I knew what you meant, Mads.”Kian interrupted the two females.
Roan turned his intense frown on the last panther in the room.“Her name is Maddie.”
Kian held up his hands while trying to bite back a smile at the same time.So, he’d figured it out as well.And knowing Kian, he would now poke Roan as often as possible about the Shaman’s feelings toward the willowy blonde.
Maddie stomped her foot.“Why on earth would you not tell Stalker Man to explain himself when he tossed out so casually that you’re going to be a pussy just like him?”
