“You are my mate. It is right I can do so.” Thadd’s lion sounded deeper, more growly than the man.
“I haven’t accepted you,” she denied.
He gave a chuff, which she knew meant he wasn’t happy with her words.
“Alright, I think we all need to calm down and talk like rational witchy shifter beings.” Zelda clapped two times.
Torrance glanced back at the female, noticing the other was inside her enclosure with Mr. Bixley still. The traitorous little bastard had spoken. She hadn’t missed that, but he was trying to ease away from the woman who was clearly using him as a shield. “Bermashitzu, get away from my goat.” She pointed her finger at Sassy, using the wrong name on purpose because she could.
“Oh no you didn’t.” Sassy sat the goat down, her eyes going wide at the insult.
Zelda tossed her hands in the air. “We are not doing this. You”— she pointed at Torrance with a glare that would freeze most— “have enough to deal with obviously. I mean, hello, look at psycho kitty there. And you”—she glared at Sassy— “do not need to be throwing stones ‘Miss I have three chipmunk sons who are assholes’. Now I need to go check on my hot as hell werewolf mate Mac, who is probably pissed as hell, have makeup sex, and after that, I’ll check back with you two. Don’t blow anything up with your witchy powers. Have care with him when you have sex because damn, he is clearly not just a shower but a grower.” Zelda staggered forward with a yelp.
“You are not supposed to say that with your outside voice.” Sassy stared at the sky.
Her sexy, possible mate of a lion, sat down on his haunches, looking as if he was laughing. “Are you two sane?” she asked, twisting her head back and forth looking between the lion that just couldn’t be real and the two witches who oozed more power than she thought was possible. With her right hand, she pinched her left arm. “Ouch,” she gasped.
The lion was there, his huge head towering, seriously towering over her own. Torrance looked up, her hand going to her chest. Could she have a heart attack?
“Why did you pinch yourself?” he asked. His tongue came out and licked her arm.
Holy shit, that thing was a monster too. The sandpaper feeling soothed yet frightened her.
“Alright, that’s our cue to skedaddle. We’ll be in touch. Don’t bump uglies with him in his fur. That would be a bad idea.” Zelda’s eyes went up and down in a comical way.
“No shit, Sherlock,” Torrance muttered.
Sassy put her hand over Zelda’s mouth like she’d done that same thing a time or ten, winked before the two women were gone in a flash, leaving Torrance with Thadd and Mr. Bixley who she was mad at.
“Can you shift back please?” she asked Thadd.
The huge lion paced away from her. His tail swished behind him, nearly slapping her in the face. The leaf strewn ground shook beneath his hulking form. She listened for other animals in the area, wondering when Ridge and the others would be showing up, knowing the security cameras would’ve alerted him to their presence.
“They do not know we are here. The cameras have been taken care of.”
Although she felt a connection to the man and didn’t truly fear the lion, she still took a step back, instinct telling her he could kill her with one swipe of those claws. “Please shift back.” This time when she asked, she put a little demand behind the words. In a Pride, the females were usually the ones in charge.
Thadd’s huge lion shivered. The fiery red mane all but moved as if it was a thousand flames reaching for the sky. Unlike a lot of shifters, his change was smooth and magical. One minute he was lion, the next he was Thadd in a pair of sparkly silver booty shorts.
She clapped a hand over her mouth to stifle the laugh.
He looked down, then back up. “Do you like them?”
“I can see your dick slipping out the bottom of them?” She waved a hand toward his shorts, her mouth going dry.
“Yeah, a crazy dragon created these for me. Thankfully, anytime I shift from lion to human, these appear. I’ve become fond of them.” He put his hand down, attempting to cover himself.
“Um, I can help you if you’d like?” When her words registered as a double entendre, she knew her cheeks had to be as red as her hair. “I mean, with some more clothes, not...not that.” She spun away, twirling her finger in the air. “From your chin to your toes, may you be in fresh clothes. So mote it be.” She wouldn’t tell him she liked them too, nor that she’d been sure to leave them under the clothes she’d created for him as well.
“Whoa, thank you.”
“And you, don’t think I didn’t hear you talking to Sassy Bangalottamuffin.” She stomped past a grinning goat. Did goats grin?
“I was only being polite since she was trying to feed me to the lions and not just figuratively.”
Torrance came to a hard stop. Her Mr. Bixley sounded like Mr. Fucking Belvedere from an eighty’s television show. “Excuse me, but what the hello goat shit is this? Are you cultured and not a baby goat?” She’d specifically picked out a cute chocolate baby goat, the runt of the litter, because he was cute.
Her goat shuffled his feet as if he was trying to come up with an excuse. “Oh forget it. Today has been a shittastic day so far. I wrecked my LS-218, saving him from the Pride. I stood up to Ridge and am probably an outcast, which is why I’m here to collect as much as I can and get the hell out of Nowhere, Virginia, before the Mayhem Pride shows up in all their fury to kill me and this guy. And
