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DELICIOUSLY MATED
CHAPTER1
Eagan Masters crossed his arms, rolled his head back on his shoulders, and said a prayer for patience all while managing not to roll his eyes.
Gold star for Eagan! Whydon’twe get gold stars around this joint anyway?
He stared at the high ceiling of the kitchen, tracing one of the fan ducts across the room with his eyes. It was dusty up there. He should have their handyman, Renner, get someone in to clean it. If there was one thing Eagan didn’t tolerate, it was a dirty kitchen.
“Are you fucking listening to me or what? You need me to yell louder?”
Eagan’s head came up to stare blandly at the panther shifter ranting beside him. “No. No, I definitely don’t need that.”
So Magic was mad. That was clear. The leader of the Ouachita clan of big cats was no gentle creature. As a general rule, he remained pissed at all times, and over the past couple years, he’d actually become pissy-er. Eagan had a feeling it was due to losing two of their people to matings.
Well,losingwasn’t the right word for it. Technically one of their females, Tana, had only changed clans. She’d joined the Dirt Track Dogs pack after mating one of their wolf shifters. She was still alive and kicking though. That was more than they could say for most female cats that mated. They were either alive or kicking. Never both. And miserable to boot since a mated female often ended up as little more than a baby factory.
It was fact. Mating destroyed females.
It was no good for the males either. Their animals were always left floundering, unable to settle. Unable to have the true bond they wanted.
But Renner, who was in charge of the lodge’s construction and day-to-day repairs, he’d mated and he was still around. No loss there.
Still. Magic didn’t like it. He tolerated Renner and his human mate, Bethany, because… because…
Well, who the hell knew why. Maybe just because they were so in love you could hardly worry about Renner straying like other male cats did. His panther seemed fully committed which was something Eagan had never seen before. Nevertheless, Magic had made it clear to the clan that no more mating was to take place.
It was mate or clan. You couldn’t have both.
Eagan had agreed to the pact because he desperately didn’t want to end up like so many males of their kind. He didn’t want to be a cheating asshole. He didn’t want to betray his mate, whoever she was.
Sure, many of them considered it their right. Mate was important. Themostimportant. If she had needs, it was the male’s duty to fulfill them, to keep her safe and protected, along with any young he gave her. And in return, he was free to bed as many as he wanted. As many as his cat demanded. The fool animal was the part of them that couldn’t commit.
It was the way their animals lived in the wild. Big cat females didn’t have permanent mates, but their males provided for them and perpetuated the race. As shifters, their animals struggled with the idea of monogamy, and the human in them lived with the fall-out from that behavior.
Many of Eagan’s generation saw the pain this way of living caused, and wanted something different for their future. But Magic was living proof that wanting things to be different doesn’t necessarily override a werecat’s given instinct to prowl. And because of his past and what happened when he’d tried to mate, he watched Bethany even more closely than Renner did. If she ever showed any hint of distress, he’d skin Renner and hang him by his toes from the nearest tree.
But today, Magic wasn’t just pissy. He was angry.
“Tell me what’s been taken from the kitchen,” he barked, hands gripping the edge of the prep counter as if he were depending on the stainless steel to keep him from murdering Eagan.
“I already told you—”
“Tell me again.”
Eagan ground his jaws together. His jaguar didn’t like this. He wasn’t a beta. Or a submissive of any kind, but sometimes his clan seemed to mistake his kitchen duties as a symbol of weakness.
Fuck that.
Hadn’t they ever heard of GordonfuckingRamsay?
Eagan liked to cook and he was good at it. Sometimes they needed their little sexist asses whooped, that’s all. Designing meals for his clan took a lot of hard work, and he wouldn’t let any of them get away with talking him down.
Not even Magic.
“A sack of potatoes, damn it,” he snapped. “There were five. Now four. Add it to your fucking list and quit bitching at me.”
Magic’s nostrils flared as he pursed his lips.
