Page 36 of Brandon’s Mate

Brandon’s truck wasn’t there.

She hoped her Brandon radar wasn’t broken, and he really wasn’t being tortured or assassinated.

Kitty turned the car off and got out slowly, sniffing the air. It was quiet here, the trees straight and almost cathedral-like, with very little underbrush.

Her wolf still liked it. We belong here, she said.

Kitty figured Brandon would have something to say about that. He’d been really anxious to keep her out of whatever he was into. Someone had already been killed—his friend—so the danger she’d sensed was real.

But that was a reason for her to stay, not for her to go. And since Brandon had tried to abandon her yet again, the only solution for her was to stick to him like the burr she’d told him she was.

She got her suitcase out of the Catalina and carried it up onto the porch. It was a wide verandah that wrapped around half the house, and Kitty fell in love with it instantly. The part near the front door had been repaired, and it was decorated redneck style—a ripped-up, saggy old couch strong with Brandon’s scent, next to an equally ancient refrigerator.

The refrigerator was working and full of beer, with a couple bottles of whiskey on the bottom shelf. It was clear where Brandon spent his time. Kitty uncapped a beer and tried the front door.

It was locked, which meant Kitty had to put down her beer and dig her lockpicks out of the top of her boot. Once inside, she flipped on the light switches and found herself in a huge vaulted entryway with a staircase that looked ready to collapse any second.

To the left was a large room with a few pieces of tattered, broken furniture. Huge swaths of flooring and wallboard had been hacked out of it, and it held the faint smell of old blood.

And a very, very bad vibe. Kitty shivered.

On the right, what had probably once been a parlor, dining room and kitchen had been roughly converted to an open-plan great room. Walls had been cut out, but there were still electrical wires hanging and gaps in the flooring.

In the dining area was a card table with folding chairs, and a couch that was the twin of the one on the porch, except smelling like rodents instead of Brandon. The kitchen with its huge island had been last remodeled in the 70s and decorated with a frightening amount of avocado green and harvest gold.

Behind the kitchen was a small bedroom and a bath. Probably it had originally been a maid’s room.

Kitty walked inside and was enveloped in the scent of Brandon. She closed her eyes, soaking it in, and then checked the small closet and the bathroom. This was where he was living—sort of. His clothes were here, and the bathroom was clean and so was the dresser top, but the bedspread had a thin film of dust.

He clearly wasn’t sleeping in here. Outside on the porch, maybe? Or did his cat roam the woods all night?

She didn’t explore the rest of the house, but she knew it was empty. Her wolf would have sensed another presence.

Instead, she went back outside and sat down on the white-trash porch couch.

Brandon clearly spent a lot of time on it; his scent was all over it—musky and woodsy and warm and furry. Her wolf wanted to curl up right where the scent was the strongest and never leave.

Stop acting like a fifteen-year-old, she told herself. She actually had swiped one of Brandon’s shirts when she was fifteen, wearing it to bed every night so his scent could soothe her to sleep.

That’s how pathetic teenage Kitty had been. Crushing so hard on a guy who thought of her like a baby sister.

She’d believed she could make him see how good they’d be together. Even though he was a cat. Even though he was emotional and volatile and restless and wild. She’d believed their connection proved they were meant to be.

She knew now that even true mates didn’t always work out. Sometimes one person didn’t want the bond.

And the other one…

Well, the other one most likely turned into a crazy lady with seventeen cats, all black, and a Hostess cupcake habit that even her shifter metabolism couldn’t overcome.

Or she just turned into Monster Wolf and bit people a lot. That could work.

She was so caught up in thinking about Brandon, it took her a minute to realize there was a stranger standing by the Catalina, staring at her.

Chills went down Kitty’s spine. She should have sensed him coming. She should be able to scent him now—the wind was from that direction—but she was getting nothing but a whiff of something cold and bleak, like a hint of snow.

He looked like Sasquatch—over six and a half feet tall and dressed in nothing but leather leggings that looked homemade. Not even any shoes—his enormous feet were covered in mud.

He was also holding her bag of snack cakes from the car.