Page 66 of Whiskers on Kittens

After a brief moment of thought, I decided to play the succubus’s game, directing my most lecherous leer his way. “But what if I want to be really bad?”

Then, knowing it would snap something in his little cop brain, I bolted for the hallway, pausing long enough to blow him a kiss loaded with sass and temptation.

TWENTY-ONE

“Not just a failure, but a grand failure?”

While Easton failed to catch me, I recognized the moment he decided he wanted to play to win. The kittens waking up for lunch ended the pursuit, and as the victor, I strutted across the penthouse, pleased with my conquest. His determination to catch me contented my virus and gave me something to look forward to.

He needed to want me as much as I wanted him, and he needed to get a full picture of what he was getting into with me. I could—and would—run him around in circles. One question remained: would he like it?

Time would tell.

Lunch proved to be equally as perilous as breakfast for the kittens, but prepared for the reality of their fear and the conditioning they endured, I managed to coax them into eating everything and requesting extras without more than a sniffle and the threat of tears.

I determined Mollie led the emotional charge, and her brothers felt if she could cry, so could they. Sometime after seeing them home, I would need to praise their parents for teaching their boys emotions were real and they were allowed to display them.

True to the succubus’s word, the kittens wanted to play after lunch, and as Mollie tended to be the colony’s little leader, I initiated a game of hide and seek with her, promising we’d give her to the count of a hundred before we hunted for her.

Her delighted squeal heralded in the pitter-patter of little feet fleeing the dining room overlooking the city.

Then, aware of how often little children couldn’t count to a hundred without help, I settled in to coach the boys on making it all the way up to a hundred before sending them off to find their sister.

“I’ll be surprised if Lucifer’s penthouse is still standing after a flock of kittens gets done with it.”

I giggled at the wolf’s commentary. “Colony, clowder, destruction, clutter, glaring, nuisance, and kindle. There are others, too, but those are the predominant ones. We do not fly, so we do not go by flock.”

“Chickens don’t fly and they gather in flocks,” the wolf replied.

“Well, technically, chickens can fly a short distance, but they’re not going to fly far or high. Apparently, they can go about ten feet up for maybe forty feet? Something like that. I was trying to figure out if my yard might house a chicken or three. In retrospect, I decided I wouldn’t try it. They could fly over my wall. Add in the fact they’re delicious and it would have been a grand failure.”

“Not just a failure, but a grand failure?”

“There would have been feathers everywhere.”

Easton laughed at me. “How long are you going to let them run around the place unsupervised?”

“Until something crashes, it becomes suspiciously quiet, or someone starts crying,” I admitted, going to work gathering the dishes to ferry to the kitchen. “If they can’t find her in half an hour, we’ll put our noses to the test and see which one of us is better at locating hidden kittens.”

“You’re being lazy,” he accused.

“Duh, Easton. I’m a cat. What were you expecting from me?”

“Criminal mischief comes to mind.”

“That’s only a problem when being lazy leads to boredom.”

With Easton’s help, we restored the dining room to rights within ten minutes, dodging the boys as they bolted around the penthouse calling for their sister. According to my nose, the children loved the game. I would continue to monitor them, as joy could easily morph into terror if the trauma of their kidnapping surfaced.

Twenty-five minutes after leaving, Jerod found his sister in the salon doing her best to merge with Belial, who sat on one of the cozier chairs. I laughed at their antics, plucked the girl up and settled her on my hip, and praised her for having thwarted her brothers for so long. As the one to capture his sister, Jerod got sent off to hide.

Mollie hugged me and rested her head against me.

Like before, I helped the kittens count to a hundred, setting the little girl on her feet so she could join the hunt for her brother. Once they tore off, I attempted to stare Easton into submission.

“You can’t keep any of them.”

Bastard. “We could set up a visitation agreement where we steal the kittens for a weekend here and there.”