Free Dylan (Bowen Boys) by Kathi S. Barton Page B

like
pond scum.” She ordered Khan and Dylan to sit. “I’ve been shot up, beat up, and
left for dead before, but I at least knew what the fuck was going on. You
people are giving me just enough for me to feel like the rabbit down the hole
and no tea party at the end to make it fun. And I’m not happy about it.”
    “No shit,” Reed said very softly, but
she heard him and took his plate away. He looked ready to argue with her, but
she looked like she’d take him on if he did. Smart boy sat back in his chair
and glared back at her.
    “Now, this is how this is going to play
out. I’m going to ask questions and you four are going to answer them. And I
want the rip-the-bandage answers, not the millimeter–by-millimeter version. Got
it?” Everyone nodded but Dylan. “You have a problem?”
    “Yes. You’re going to get your ass
whipped when I get you alone. You don’t treat my family like this and expect
there to be no consequences.” Dylan stretched his legs out in front of him as
he continued his threat. “And then I’m going to have you apologize to them,
each of them, for this.”
    “Fuck off. If I wanted to be treated
like a five-year–old, I would have asked you to dress up like my daddy. I don’t
need this shit.” She looked at the door again, then at them. “I’m twenty-seven
years old, and single. I came into this world alone and as an orphan. My father
died of a drug overdose, so I was told, and my mother did the same a few weeks
later. I was delivered by c-section by some homeless man that had come across
her. No one wanted a drugged-up baby, and I was one until I was a year old. I
grew up on the streets as soon as I could escape the place I’d been put. You
think you can threaten me and have me tremble in my boots?”
    No one answered her, and Dylan even
looked ashamed. He started to stand up, but he was stopped when she pointed the
gun at him. He nodded once at her but didn’t threaten her.
    “You bit me, and that’s how they knew
not to touch me.” Dylan nodded at her as she hopped up onto the counter. “And
does this smell thing, will a human be able to smell it?”
    “No. Unless they have some latent abilities,
no one but another paranormal will smell it. To a cat you’ll smell like another
cat, but to other weres you’ll smell off-limits. And when another male touches
you, even human, I’ll have an overwhelming need to mark you again.”
    “Mark, as in biting again or sex?”
George felt his face heat up. She looked at him. “I’m sorry, but he started
this.”
    “You go ahead and get your answers from
us. You should have had this talk sooner. It’s partly my fault. I wanted to see
Dylan happy, and I encouraged him to see to you.” George looked at Dylan.
“Answer the girl, son.”
    “Both. The biting to mark you
physically, sex so that I can dominate you again. Not that what we did wasn’t
mutual, but that’s the way of my…our beast.” She nodded. “If Reed had hugged
you like he wanted, then I would have taken you back to the bed and fucked you
until you couldn’t walk. Next I would have sank my teeth into your cream flesh
and marked you.”
    She reddened a little, but looked at
Khan. “And what are you? You have some sort of power over the rest of them,
right?”
    “Yes. I’m their leader. Yours, too, now
that you and Dylan are mates.” She snorted again. “You will pledge to me or I
won’t be able to call you to me or you call me to you. I’m your leader as much
as I am Dylan’s. And your family, as well.”
    “Family I don’t need. They’ll get you
killed.” She looked at George. “And when you came into the bedroom as a panther
the other day, why did they all run from you?”
    “Run?” He tried to remember. “Oh no,
dear, they weren’t running. They were showing respect for the old man of the
family. They gave me a wide berth to allow me passage. I’ve retired from the
family as the leader, but they still have some respect for me.”
    “I’m