brothers do all the moving parts I don’t like while I get to struggle, this sounds like moving won’t be as bad as it usually is.”
“We’re lycanthropes, Wells. If you want rope and a struggle, I’m happy to provide the rope and will thoroughly enjoy your struggles. And I’m tired of being a good, patient lycanthrope, and I can’t help but notice you have not rejected me or ejected me from your personal space.”
“I have a week worth of spa and bounty hunting ahead of me, during which you can convince me I should investigate all ways of making you roar. But I’m not giving up annoying you into making you roar during business hours. That makes it worth putting up with you when I’m working.”
“If I had known all I needed to do to keep and hold your attention was roar at you, I would have yanked your tail a little more before indulging you, to make you properly earn those roars. Then again, I probably would have caved early, as a cranky Wells is a lot more of a pain in the ass than a purring one.”
“For the record, I will be purring while my brothers try to kick your ass, but then I’ll go from purring to snarling and yowling as soon as they do kick your ass. We’re cats. And I mean, we’re really cats.”
“As you did an excellent job of subduing your target without injury to yourself, I have decided you can pick what you have for dinner for two nights. Truth be told? That was flawless.”
I showed him where I’d poked my finger. “I did cut myself.”
“You were testing the shears for their viability as a murder weapon, and it would be wrong of me to use that against you. I realized I gave you an unfair option, as you might have wanted great chicken instead of steak. But really, pick what you want. You did that job as cleanly as I could ask for. Actually, I thought you were gonna dance around the point for a while before killing him.”
“I had the shears, she gave me the code, he matched my intel on him, so I saw no reason to give him a chance to surprise me. He deserved it, although he got off a lot lighter than he should have for being such an asshole.”
“Well, it looked like you probably severed his spine with your first hit. I wasn’t really sure why you decided to stab him so many more times, but I’m giving you full points for being thorough.”
“I wasn’t sure of the kill with the first hit, so I kept hitting him until I was sure of the kill.” I gestured to my wet shirt. “I got chicken all over my shirt when my parents inevitably ask why my shirt is wet. But because my shirt is wet, dinner should probably be takeout or fast food. We can do something nice on the way to the spa—or once we get to the spa. It’s a lycanthrope-friendly spa.”
“Will your shirt still be wet by the time we get to your parents’ place?”
Hmm. “I really don’t know. But I would totally wash my shirt in a bathroom sink because I got chicken grease on it, so they won’t think twice about it.”
“Or lycanthrope blood.”
“Chicken grease, lycanthrope blood… close enough.”
As I didn’t want to shame myself or Sebastian with my wet shirt problems, we hit up a fast food joint and got enough to tame our stomachs before heading to my parents’ house, arriving a little before midnight. We could have gotten there faster, but I had needed an hour to convince myself to finish the final twenty minutes of the drive.
“This is the first time you’ve brought someone home to see the family,” the lion guessed when I pulled into the driveway and parked the truck at the end of the line of vehicles, of which there were many. “Honestly, I’m surprised there aren’t more cars and trucks here.”
“A lot of the litters share vehicles, especially the ones who are just learning to drive. It keeps costs of insurance somewhat down. And my brothers end up having to buy their own vehicles. It’s expensive enough feeding the dependent kittens. Anyway, my family usually brings men home to meet me, they run away because of my face, and I pretend I don’t cry or get mad, somebody gets beaten, and it goes to hell in a hurry. If you’re carrying the sewing machine,