Abandoned and Unseen (Branded Packs #2)(4)

“I don’t like to speak unless I have something to say. And I like talking to you because you usually just listen.” Gibson worked on setting up his station and prepping Cole’s back. This was the second day of work on the piece. While humans would have to wait between sessions, he healed fast enough that he only had to wait a day. He could have probably done it all in one session, but that was asking a lot of the wolf who had his own duties within the compound.

“So, you never did say anything about Anya. Why does she hate you so much?” The wolf’s foot worked the pedal and he began working on Cole’s back. The buzz of the needle settled Cole’s cat and he relaxed, even as he thought about Anya and her apparent dislike of him.

“She called me lazy.”

Gibson snorted. “Well, you kind of are, but probably not for the reasons she thinks.”

“I’m not lazy.” Cole scowled. “I just don’t like wasting my energy on things that I won’t win. Or at least things that won’t be worth it if I win. The cubs wanted to play, and I didn’t want to growl at them to go. At least with me there, they were safe.

“But she didn’t see it that way. I’d say she shouldn’t have let the cubs get out, but there’s no way to stop shifter cubs sometimes. The fact that they felt safe enough to venture out tells you she raised them right. Thanks to the humans surrounding us, some shifters scare the hell out of their children to keep them safe. So much that they inherently cripple them.”

And that was the crux of it. They were shifters, not human. They had the ability to become the animal they were born with and, therefore, had to assume the responsibility that came with it. When they’d come out to the humans and revealed that there was something more to them than the others understood, shifters had been forced into compounds—collared and branded, but not forgotten. He’d been three when his parents risked their lives trying to protect him. They’d lost the battle, and he’d ended up raised by a group of shifters within the den walls who had tried to heal the orphans of their generation.

His people had lost so much, and now with each new decision brought on by the Shifter Accommodation Unit—the SAU for short—he was afraid they’d be one step closer to a new war where the casualty of peace would be far greater than the wars of their past.

Gibson worked on his back, and Cole tried to settle the deep ache in his bones that told him that peace was far from being within his grasp. He may be deemed lazy by a certain momma bear, but he hadn’t earned that description. He’d fight for what was his—bleed for it, die for it.

Only, a new age was upon them, and the three shifter Packs were forced to live with one another as punishments for crimes that shouldn’t have been deemed offenses in the first place, Cole wasn’t sure he would be able to fight an enemy he didn’t understand.

His world had changed once again, and he knew he’d have to take a stand with his Pack and with the other Packs he now lived with, to protect his people. He just prayed Anya and her cubs weren’t caught in the crossfire. He’d seen the pain in her eyes, the weariness that came from years of being on alert, tuned to the danger from those who would rise against them. He didn’t want to see that again, didn’t want to see the woman who had raised those cubs hurt because of a battle far from being won. Only he didn’t know why he felt that way, nor did he feel he had the right to.

He was only a lazy cat, a Tracker, a jaguar. Only worth the blood he put on the line.

Nothing more. Nothing less.





Chapter 2


Anya Dare ran her hands through her hair and refused to think about that damn lazy cat and his feline ways. She knew she probably shouldn’t have been so curt with him, considering it was her sons that had snuck out of her home and gone to the damn tree. But she always got flustered around him.

And that was the cause of her attitude.

She’d barely seen Cole in his human form since she was forced to take her family and move into the new compound. In fact, it seemed the only times she saw him were when he was lying about in that tree, not caring that her two boys were playing with his tail, and completely ignoring her instructions. Well, that wasn’t exactly accurate. The only times she’d spoken to him were when he was relaxing, but she’d seen him outside his tree area.

She’d caught glimpses of him around her new den. He was the Tracker for the cats, so he was always on patrol—his body on alert, though the damn man somehow made himself look relaxed, as if he hadn’t a care in the world. If she hadn’t seen the intensity in his eyes when he was watching out for a human guard patrol, she would have thought him the worst Tracker she’d ever seen. But she’d seen into those hazel depths and knew he cared about his Pack, his people.

And that bugged her to no end for some reason. Though it shouldn’t have because, hell, he was doing his duty to his Pack. But he just bugged her.

It had nothing to do with his chestnut hair that was longer on the top but cut shorter on the sides. Nor did it have to do with his beard that she knew was long enough to touch his chest if he lowered his chin ever so slightly. She was not attracted to a freaking cat.

Sure, she could admire his form—human and shifter. She was a woman, after all. He was taller than her—which at her height of five-ten wasn’t actually as common as she’d like. And he had smooth muscle that didn’t make him look bulky, just strong as hell. But admiration was all it could be. Appreciation from afar; annoyance up close. Because, darn it, she didn’t have time for lazy cats and their indolent ways.