Here Kitty, Kitty!

Epilogue

“I blame you for this, little sister.”

“I was trying to be helpful.”

“Oh, you were helpful all right. I’ve got bare-chested, overall-wearing hillbillies on my goddamn front porch because of you.” A porch Zach never even wanted. “I thought I’d only have to deal with one. But for some unknown reason his brothers keep coming.”

His sister cleared her throat. “That probably has nothing to do with me.”

“Oh, you are so full of shit.”

She laughed. “You still sound happy, though.”

“They’ve pulled out banjos. Exactly how happy can I be?”

“You can’t bullshit me, Zacharias. I can hear it in your voice. You’re happy whether you wanna be or not.”

“Whatever. So when are you coming back to the den?”

“Um…ya know. Soon…I guess.”

Zach watched his least favorite Pack member, the one who broke his baby sister’s heart, head out on his Harley. Zach didn’t like most people, but there were very few he actively hated.

“I could kill him, ya know. If you want me to.”

“Don’t give him the satisfaction.”

“Well, you’re going to have to come home sometime. You’re going to be an aunt in a few more months.”

“How are you doing with that anyway?”

“He would be better off breeding with the right hand of Satan.”

“Damn, Zach,” Nessa chuckled. “Tell me how you really feel.”

“You’ll see…when you come home.”

“If you’re ordering me home—”

“I wouldn’t do that. I know you need time. Take it. But at some point, you’re going to have to face him.” Zach pushed himself off the bike he leaned against, heading toward the house. “And when you do, I’ll be here for you.”

“Thanks, big brother. That means a lot to me.”

“Good. And you’ll get rid of the hillbillies, right?”

“You may be on your own with that one.”

“Selfish bitch.”

“Back atcha, mighty bro.”

Zach walked up the stairs of the newly installed porch. He looked at Aleksei Vorislav. “You wanna talk to my sister?”

The man’s face lit up as he held his hand out. “Yeah!”

“Oh.” Zach flipped his phone closed. “She just hung up.”

Alek’s eyes narrowed and Zach glared back. He didn’t like the two of them being friends when his sister was in college, and he definitely didn’t like the fact that the man now wouldn’t leave.

Alek reached into the front of his overalls and pulled out his cell. He punched one number and waited, staring up at Zach. “Hey, Nessa darlin’! How y’all doin’?”

Zach growled low, debating whether Angie could ever forgive him for killing her brother-in-law—probably not. He looked at Ban. “Seen Sara?”

“Not since they came back from huntin’ a little while ago.”

“Thanks.” Zach walked into his house, stopping briefly to look into the living room. Miki, at least six months pregnant now, lay comfortably between Conall’s legs, the big man’s body cushioning her from the hard arm of the couch. His long arms looped around her, his big hands resting on her stomach.

“We are not naming any child of mine Eunice!”

“I think it’s a lovely name.” Miki smiled. “There’s something so 1946 about it.”

“Why don’t we tack a big sign on her ass that says ‘my parents hated me so please feel free to mock’.”

“No need to get tense. I have a list of other names.”

“Such as?”

“Cerulean Blue.”

Zach shook his head. He knew the vicious psychopath was just fucking with the man. Last he heard from Sara, they—yes, they—had all decided to name the future Víga-Feilan, Kendrick. Ricki for short. Which Zach knew Conall would be more than happy with. Of course, the evil wench seemed to be having way too much fun torturing his friend to bother telling him that yet.

As Conall let go with a volley of curses, while at the same time tickling Miki’s neck so she hysterically began to laugh, Zach headed back toward the kitchen. He found it empty, so he went out to the back porch.

The porch now surrounding his house was at the insistence of his mate. She’d asked him about it once. He said no. Yet the construction guys showed up the very next day.

Zach stood at his backdoor, staring at what now lay across said porch. This keeps getting worse.

He stared down at the seven-hundred-pound tiger sprawled across the wood. Big tiger head resting on enormous paws. Of course Zach had a tiger on his back porch. Why wouldn’t he? This is what you get when you mate with a nut.

Sprawled face-down on top of the tiger’s back, a beautiful sleeping woman wearing ridiculously expensive four-inch-heeled shoes, denim cut-off short-shorts, and a subtle platinum band on the third finger of her left hand…and not much else.

Gold eyes looked up at him.

He glanced around. “Sara,” he whispered so as not to wake Angie.

The hillbilly motioned toward the kennels with that enormous fucking tiger-head.

He should have known. While the workmen built the porch, they also put together a wickedly nice kennel. Why? Because Sara felt Roscoe needed a girlfriend and she didn’t want to keep them all in the house.

That stupid dog now had six girlfriends.

Zach came around the corner to find his mate stretched belly-down across the grass. Normally he’d get a hard-on as soon as he saw her, but he became distracted. Distracted by the orange-and-black-striped fur ball in her hands. Since all shifters were born as human and didn’t shift until much older, what she held in her hands could only be one thing…

“Woman, is that a tiger cub?”

Sara cringed, then looked at him over her shoulder. “Oh, you’re home early.”

“No I’m not. Answer me.”

“Ban needs her to stay here for a little while. Just ’til he’s ready to move her into a rescue. He found her at a local circus and said they’d been mean to her and her mother. But the rescue could only handle the mother right now because she’s really sick. I offered to help by keeping the cub away from her until she’s better.”

“It’s a tiger cub, Sara. A real tiger cub. Not a kitten.”

“I know.”

Zach stared at her. For a woman who really didn’t want children…

“Ban said no more than six months.”

“Six months?”

“Don’t yell.”

She held the cub up, so tiny at this point it comfortably fit in her two hands. In three months or so, however, it would be the size of Roscoe. In six months it would be able to bite off Roscoe’s head.

“Look at her, Zach. Look at those blue eyes. Eventually they’ll turn gold, but right now they’re blue. How cool is that? And she’s so sweet. She just needs a little love.”

“And about five hundred pounds of meat a day.”

“Oh, that won’t be for another year or two.”

Zach sighed and rubbed the palms of his hands against his eyes.

When did his life get so out of control? He had hillbillies on his front porch. His best friend was madly in love with a psychopath. There was a half-naked beautiful woman asleep on top of one of the mightiest predators known to man. And, of course, there were tigers. He had big, hillbilly tigers in his home while his mate rubbed a full-blood tiger cub against his cheek and made cooing sounds.

He pulled his hands away from his face and looked down into those beautiful brown eyes. She smiled, causing the scar on one side of her face to crinkle up a bit. God help him, he never saw anything sexier.

Shit. Dick went hard.

“Six months and then it goes. Even if that means a tiger-headed blanket on our bed.”

Sara crouched down to let the tiger cub go off and play with Roscoe and his harem of well-trained bitches. Then she began pulling his black T-shirt out of his black jeans.

“What the hell are you doing?”

“Getting you naked so I can fuck you until you pass out.”

“Oh. Okay.”

She ran her hands under his T-shirt and Zach closed his eyes, loving the feel of her against him. She pushed his T-shirt up, her tongue licking the still-sore bite she’d given him that morning. She sighed with pure pleasure as her hands slid around his waist and she laid her head against his chest. “I love you, Zach.”

He wrapped his arms around her. “I love you, too, baby.” Then he slapped his hand over the old wound on her thigh.

“Zach!” Laughing, she tried to pull away from him. “Lemme go!”

“Not on your life, Morrighan.” He fell back on the ground, bringing her with him. He rolled on top of her, pinning Sara’s body under his. “I’m never letting you go, you crazy bitch.”

She tried to wiggle away from his hands, but he yanked her back, somehow managing to pull off her sweatpants in the process and rubbing his hand over the old wound on her thigh. He pinned her arms over her head as her body arched under his, her breath coming out in short hard pants. “You evil bastard!”

He nuzzled and nudged her shirt and bra up over her breasts, licking the already hard nipples, his grip tightening on her thigh. “That’s right, baby. Your evil bastard.”

And he’d make sure she never forgot it. Because there was no where else he’d rather be. No one else he’d rather be with or in. Sara Morrighan was it.

For life.