AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Some danced. Some drank. Some talked. Some chomped on finger foods.
Laughter regularly floated throughout the space, a balm to the pride’s heart. It had recently suffered a few hits. One member had had to be executed, another was ostracized, and a third had temporarily gone to stay with family to heal from a breakup. As such, the birth of the baby wolverine had given some much needed light to the pride.
Unlike most breeds of shifter, pallas cats typically didn’t claim territories. They did, however, live close together. There was strength in numbers, after all.
The pride owned not only three apartment complexes—including this one—but a nearby cul-de-sac and every business on both sides of the closest street.
His Alpha, Tate Devereaux, had reserved one of the other apartment buildings for lone shifters only, hoping to help with the growing problem of homeless loners. Such people were regularly targeted due to being without protection. All Tate’s tenants had his protection.
Catching movement in his peripheral vision, Isaiah looked to see his fellow enforcer Deke approaching. Clinging to the tall male’s broad back was his mate, Bailey, her silver hair looking exceptionally striking while pressed against Deke’s short black strands.
Isaiah felt his brow crease, even as amusement pricked at him. “There a reason you’re all the way up there?”
“Of course,” she replied simply, but no explanation was given. Not a surprise. This particular black mamba did not live to please others. In fact, she set out to drive them insane… which made her an unlikely partner for someone as intolerant as Deke, but they fit in ways few people would have foreseen.
Isaiah’s cat tended to glower at the newly mated couple, envious at what they had. Tonight, though, the feline did nothing—he was busy brooding, having withdrawn to a corner of Isaiah’s mind.
Deke knocked back some of his beer. “Any progress with FindYourMatch.com?” he asked Isaiah.
Bailey’s dark deep-set eyes lit with interest. “Ooh, yeah, what’s going on with that?”
“I was sent the names of three possible matches,” Isaiah told them. “Each has what you’d call a basic profile and a photograph on the website, so I checked them out.”
“And?” pressed Bailey, impatient.
“One stood out for me.” Isaiah tore a strip of meat from his chicken wing and chewed it fast. “I had River do a little digging, but he couldn’t find more info on her than I already know.”
“What kind of shifter is she?” Deke asked.
Isaiah felt his mouth bow up. “A breed that will never fear pallas cats, so I knew I wouldn’t have to worry that she’d care what I am. I contacted her. We exchanged a few messages. She’s agreed to meet with me.”
Deke looked pleased. “When?”
“Soon.” Providing her Alphas weren’t difficult. “Tate will come along, as will her Alpha male. We’ll probably—”
“Dear God, will you never stop?” yelled another voice from down the hall.
Isaiah looked to see Tate’s youngest brother, Damian, scowling at his sister.
“Until the world accepts that I’m right about you and brands you the monster you are, no,” Elle bellowed back at him. “No, Beelzebub, I will never stop.”
Damian threw up his arms, his face red and splotchy. “I can’t with you.”
Her insistence on him being the antichrist had never shifted, and Isaiah doubted it ever would. All pallas cats generally struggled to get along with their siblings as children if they were close in age. It wasn’t even rare for them to attempt to kill one another. Tate and his other brother, Luke—who was also the pride’s Beta—were perfect examples of that. But such siblings didn’t always carry their grudges into adulthood. Elle was different in that respect.
His lips quirked, Deke looked up at Bailey, who’d quite clearly zoned out. “Are you in a mental world of your own again?”
She hummed as she snapped to the present. “I’m just wondering if colors look the same to everyone else as they do to me.”
Isaiah felt his mouth curve. The female often came out with the weirdest stuff, though some of it could be described as insightful.
Deke frowned at her. “What?”
“Well… we can’t know for sure that we all see the exact same thing when we look at a color, can we?” she asked. “My version of yellow could be different from yours, and we’d have no clue. And before you go thinking that our eyes can be trusted to see things exactly as they are, just note that leaves are not really green.”
Deke stared at her for a long moment. “I’d tell you to look it up, but you don’t like reading about anything that involves science.”
“Because scientists lie.” Bailey climbed down from her mate’s back and skirted around him. “They shape our view of the world with bullshit from when we’re young so we’ll miss the truth even when older.”
