Page 9 of Whiskers on Kittens

I allowed myself a grim smile. “Now you know why I called the vampires, Mr. Goody-Goody. They’re the best people for the job—and if the kids have been traumatized in any fashion, I’ll be armed with an entire brood of vampires and their partnering sex demons, all of who would be quite happy to dish out copious amounts of violence on my behalf.”

“I wasn’t all that worried before,” the goody-goody cop stated before he joined Ernesto in sighing. “But now? Now I’m worried. What did I do to deserve this?”

“You did a good job helping to clean up the CPD,” Ernesto replied. “But now you need to learn the game, and Kelsie can teach you—she is, after all, one of the more skilled players. Once you strip away her petty counts of criminal mischief, you’ll find angels are challenged to beat her ethics and altruism. She just doesn’t play by rules she feels are unnecessary.”

“Theft rules are not unnecessary.”

“Ah, but if my succubus had not tricked her into thinking she was just making off with a pet’s toy, it would have been an amusingly small crime, one that would make the judge and attending attorneys laugh. I mean, they were still laughing, as she had no idea she had been trying to lift a multi-million dollar necklace. Next time, take the catnip toys with you before indulging yourself, Kelsie. You’ll be more successful at your thefts that way.”

I smiled at the memory of the catnip and pixie dust high. “But it was just that good, Ernesto.”

“Next time, just steal the catnip. That way you dodge the community service.”

“Where’s the fun in that?”

FOUR

Could a cop even handle my tendency to cause trouble?

After we ate lunch, Amy brought over a bag for Easton, and the cop stared at it—and the succubus—like he might get bitten. Rather than agitate the lycanthrope, who’d already been challenged enough for one day, I swooped in and claimed my hug. “You are such a bitch.”

Laughing, Amy returned my hug, picked me up, and spun me around because she could. “I am, I am. Did Ernesto behave himself while I was running his errands?”

“He even ate his supper and helped wash the dishes,” I confirmed.

“And your new pet wolf?”

I snickered over the whole idea that everyone I knew had slated the poor wolf as my property. My virus loved every moment of it, settling down to enjoy the ride.

She hoped for a long, drawn-out battle of wills resulting in a lively departure from being single.

For the most part, we were on the same page, but I needed to see more of the cop and his general personality before I even thought about flinging myself onto a bed for an energetic and life-changing romp.

Could a cop even handle my tendency to cause trouble?

I’d find out soon enough.

“My pet wolf is coming to terms with his first impression, which was of a petty criminal trying to make off with a multi-million dollar collar… to me.”

“Beauty, grace, wealth, and power?”

“And feline.” I linked my arm with Amy and dragged her into the den, leaving Ernesto and Easton to follow. Of all the rooms on the first floor, I loved my den the most. It had a fireplace, a couch and two armchairs, following more modern trends with a focus on comfort, serving as a continuation of my library, with the room housing the majority of my romance and action-adventure collection. A bar let me serve guests a variety of alcoholic treats, and I was grateful I’d gotten one with room for four stools.

As I needed to write up a report, I wouldn’t be drinking, but I gestured to my wall rack loaded up with spirits. “If you want wine, I’ll have to go down into the cellar. The basement isn’t all original; when I bought the property, I had the basement expanded so I could have a wine cellar, a storage room, an office, and a few bedrooms down there. The bedrooms rarely get used, but I like having them accessible. Mostly, they’re places to store neat trinkets on display, fit in a few extra bookcases, and give guests a quiet place to retreat if they need space and don’t want to go to the guest house. No wine for the vampire because he owes me a bottle, and I’m not budging until I get my bottle.”

“I haven’t run a vineyard in centuries, my dear.”

“Steal grapes from your friends and make me a bottle,” I growled at him. And then because I was a cat and the vampire didn’t scare me, I hissed at him. “I’ll even buy an entire barrel worth of the wine, but you owe me a bottle of wine, and I want that wine. It’s your fault for telling me about it. Maybe if you’d get me some vines from your friends, I could grow some in my garden.”

“Those grapes are no longer available on the surface, my dear. You can’t just grow them in your garden.”

I wrinkled my nose at Ernesto’s refusal. “I don’t see why not. Are you really going to make me bust into the third layer to steal some fucking grape vines?”

Amy halted, which made dragging the succubus to the bar rather difficult. Even with my strength as a lycanthrope, I couldn’t budge her more than an inch or two. “You want to do what?”

“He keeps telling me about these grapes and how it makes the best wine, and then he told me he couldn’t make it because the grapes in question are in Chicago’s third layer. Come on, Amy. I want to try that wine.”

The succubus permitted me to haul her over to the bar, and she sat down, pointing at one of my bottles of Scotch. I snorted, as she’d gone for the throat, picking one of my more expensive offerings. I admired her taste, though—the Scotch went down smooth and warm with subtle undertones that turned drinking it into an adventure. I plucked it down, rummaged through my collection of glasses, and picked the best one for getting the full value of the beverage, dug out a chilled stone as ice would overly bloom it, and dribbled in a drop or two of water to give her the full experience before handing it over.