Free PrimalFlavor by Danica Avet Page B

might not be as big and fancy as
St. Patrick’s in Maison Rouge, but her cousin took his duty to his
congregation, and family, seriously. She marched across her house and snagged
the sweating pitcher. It worked to break up fights between domesticated cats
and dogs, didn’t it? The ice cubes she’d thrown in before her shower clinked
softly against the sides of the pitcher as she carried it across her kitchen
and out of her house.
    Stomping down the steps to the halfway mark, she looked over
the shifters still fighting and snarling and throwing fur all over her carport.
They were both bleeding, but the more she studied them, the more she realized
the wounds were superficial, as though they didn’t want to hurt each other too
much. Her blood pressure shot through the roof. While they didn’t seem to want
to kill each other, they didn’t seem to mind destroying the things she used to
make her living. The crab traps were flattened mounds of wire and Styrofoam,
her battered truck was more battered than before and she was almost positive
the piling holding the very center of her house was listing even more than it
had a few minutes before.
    The fuckers.
    Colette hefted her pitcher and waited for the perfect
moment. Condensation from the ice melting in the sticky heat dribbled over her
fingers to splatter on the wooden steps beneath her feet. But still she waited,
willing the idiots to roll in her direction.
    As though they heard her, Zach did a kick with his hind legs
she’d seen housecats do, sending the strange wolf hurtling in her direction.
Luckily for her, and them, the canine caught himself before he hit the wooden
steps. He hopped to his feet and waited for the tiger to come to him, almost as
though he was taunting the cat. Zach, of course, answered with a muted snarl.
The minute the two males tangled up together right beneath her, Colette leaned
over the railing and emptied the bracingly cold water over both of their hot
heads.
    * * * * *
    Really, he shouldn’t have been enjoying himself so much, but
it’d been a while since Zach had a fight as perfectly balanced as this one.
While he’d never go so far as to say the wolf was a tough opponent, he would
admit that the canine didn’t give up. He outweighed the wolf by at least a
hundred pounds, but no matter how many times he swatted the wolf away, the
canine would bounce right back to his feet and come back for more. It was as
though he had some stake in the outcome, as though this fight was for a mate.
The thought wiped out any feelings of camaraderie he might have felt for the
wolf. The ball-licking bastard could just forget about going near Colette.
    He had no idea how long they fought, only that once in a
while he caught the strong, drugging scent of Colette, which only fired his
blood even more, fueling his strength when he might have tired. This fight, it
was for her. She’d probably never know the lengths he’d go to protect her, to
make her safe and to mark her as his. And that was fine with him. The fight
didn’t matter. It was a small step in the direction his tiger demanded he go
and Zach was damn tired of fighting the cat.
    Pinned under the wolf for a moment, he kicked out at his
opponent’s belly, flinging him across the carport. Unfortunately, the bastard
still didn’t give up, scrambling back to his feet. Zach had to admire the wolf’s
spunk. There weren’t many who’d go up against him in his cat form and keep
bouncing back like a Weeble. But that didn’t mean he would just let the wolf
taunt him, the way it was doing now. Zach read it in the cold, blue eyes, the
clear, smug fuck-you attitude that had kept this fight going longer than
normal.
    He was tired of it. Tired of the fight, tired of this wolf
thinking he had some kind of right to be here and he was damn tired of being
down here when the luscious woman he smelled was upstairs. He hadn’t come here
for this. He’d come here to somehow get that woman in bed, not play with
wolves. It