Page 4 of Bad Blood Panther

Everybody hooted. “Yeah, gotta watch out for those vicious attack stairs,” Brody said.

Xander casually flipped him off. “Especially if I throw you down them.”

“It counts,” Flynn said in his deep voice. “Throwing somebody down the stairs is a recognized form of assassination.”

He was slouched low in his chair, his tangled black dreadlocks fading into the shadows. “Tits,” he added, for his turn.

That was a new one. Xander might even let it count, because of extra points for creativity and sexual innuendo.

“You can kill somebody with tits?” Caitlyn asked, eyes wide.

Flynn grinned. “I can think of a few sets that have almost done me in.”

That got another a general laugh.

“You must have been absent for the ‘death by tits’ class in spy school, Spook,” Xander said. Caitlyn had once worked for the Shifter Intelligence Agency. “I volunteer to go to the makeup class in your place, though.”

Xander and Flynn fist bumped.

“Pervs,” Caitlyn said, blushing.

By Xander’s standards, that was not even a 1.0 on the Perv Richter Scale, but Caitlyn had grown up in some kind of bullshit snowy owl clan that didn’t believe in sex, or drinking, or any kind of fun, really. So she was endlessly easy to shock.

Sloan whispered something in Caitlyn’s ear, cupping his hand around her neck, and she blushed even harder.

The pheromone rush at the table made Xander feel itchy. Want mate, his panther murmured inside his head. Mate love sexy want why leave hurt kill goback find hate evil why?

Which was about as much sense as his damn cat ever made. It was less like words and more like a rush of feelings and images, gut-deep and laced with rage and longing.

Two-inch claws sprang from his fingertips, and he dropped the rib he was about to put in his mouth and hid his hand in his lap, clenching his fist until the claws ripped his skin.

Next to him, he saw Flynn’s nostrils flare, picking up the blood scent. “You okay?” he asked quietly.

Xander willed the claws back in and took a swig of beer. “Sure, I’m good,” he said.

Maybe for tonight. But he was getting worse. Way too soon, he was going to have to make a choice. 1) Stay with his crew until his damn psycho-panther went completely around the bend and killed one of them.

Or, 2) leave, and let the grief and loneliness drive him insane instead. At least that way, someone else would put him down, so Flynn wouldn’t have to.

‘Cause there sure as hell wasn’t going to be a fated mate waltzing into his life to straighten his shit out.

Xander Fierro was just not that damn lucky.