Diaries of an Urban Panther (17 page)

The pummeler, the one doing a number on Chaz’s torso, looked over at me with a grimace and I flinched. It wasn’t that he was ugly, but his animal was right on the surface, seemingly right under his skin, and the canine features were pushing against his lean face.

I vowed I would never look like that as I stepped fully into the alley.

“Violet,” Chaz breathed, trying to threaten me again.

“Sorry. Terrible with instructions,” I apologized.

He shook his head and left it down. His fight was gone. Mine wasn’t. These were the bastards that chased me. These were the mutts that had me on house lock down. As I watched them, smelled them, watched as they licked their lips, every muscle in my body tensed and then I relaxed. I could hear Iris,
“Embrace your beast and it will set you free.”

“You’re the one we wanted anyway,” the closest one said as the wall of a man turned slowly towards me.

The magic he invoked danced in the small space of the dark alley as he reached for his animal.

I remember him coming at me with lightning speed I knew I could beat.

I remembered catching him mid-step, mid-leap, mid-shift as my nails dug into the flesh around his throat and into his abdomen.

I don’t remember screaming into the night as I slid down into the darkness in my chest and let the panther take hold.

Chapter Sixteen

O
nce there was a very lonely fairy princess who couldn’t sleep. For when she slept she had dreams of great adventures, but when she woke, there was no one to go on an adventure with. So she sulked around her castle looking for playmates. She asked her mother for a little sister, she asked her father for a little brother, she even asked her maid for a dog. But no one could give her what she needed.

So she ran away. As most princesses do at some point.

She walked as far as she could and when her feet were tired she took a rest on a stone by a lake.

“Why don’t you have a drink?”

The fairy princess looked around and finally looked down to the surface of the lake to see a young face in the ripples of the water.

“Who are you?”

“Just a boy in the water. You look tired. Take a drink.”

The water looked cool and refreshing. She looked back at the long road that she had taken and the long road ahead of her.

She reached her hand out and dunked it under the surface of the pond. Just then a cat came out of the reeds and, teetering on the rock next to her, the cat scratched her hand.

“Ouch,” the fairy princess cried as she clutched her hand to her chest. Little drops of blood fell into the water.

The water rippled fiercely and the face of the boy pressed against the surface. The cat scratched at the face. Bubbles poured out of the mouth in a silent scream and the face sunk into the darkness.

The cat sat pleased on the rock next to her. “He tried to pull you in.”

“What?”

“If you went in, he could come out.”

“I’ve never heard of that.”

The cat sighed. “I supposed that you have never heard of a hagfin or a liger, either?”

“What’s a liger?”

The cat shook its head. “I suppose that I’ll just have to protect you then.”

The princess jumped off the rock and looked down at her hand. The scratches were just small pink lines now. The sting was gone.

“I don’t need a silly cat to protect me!” The princess balled her hands up into little fists and stomped away.

“That’s the way you came,” the cat said casually as she licked a paw.

The princess huffed and turned around sharply to head in the correct direction.

The cat lazily jumped off the rock and began to follow the princess.

“Stop following me,” the princess yelled.

The cat simply followed the girl down the road.

When she settled in to sleep, her body exhausted from the adventure of that day, she said “I don’t want a cat. I want a real friend.”

“But who will protect you from water dragons and reedwasps?”

“You’re making them up,” the princess said as she curled tighter into her pillow of grass and weeds.

The cat curled up in the folds of the princess’s dress and slept. As she had never been this close to a cat, her mother and the cook had always shooed them away as foul beasts, she looked down at its sleeping form and smiled. The princess fell into a peaceful sleep, lulled by the soft sound of purring.

I
sat up quickly, naked as usual. Surprisingly enough, I was okay that. The mongrels were all face down on the blacktop of the alley. I could make out the shreds of the black dress that had only been worn once. Does it still count as one hell of a date when you wake up naked surrounded by burly men?

Quickly, I drug the nearest body closer and pulled off his long trench coat. Ignoring the offensive smell, I wrapped it around my bare shoulders. I reeked but I couldn’t be picky.

I stood and looked around. There wasn’t much blood, couldn’t smell any, which was good. I cinched the black trench coat tightly around my waist and stepped over the bodies and the shreds of my new cashmere coat. Damn it.

Tidbits of what happened floated behind my eyes, feelings of it ran up and down my skin. I remembered Chaz cornered and then I shifted. I remembered grabbing someone’s throat and backing someone against a wall and something about a brick but it was still fuzzy. I remembered only three, but as I counted, there were five bodies on the asphalt. Go Chaz.

When I found Chaz, I ran over to him, my bare feet splashing through the puddles in the alleyway. I had been out long enough for it to have rained.

He was unconscious as well. I knelt down by him and curled my fingers underneath his head. It was wet and warm, and when I drew my hand back, it was covered with blood.

I gulped. Blood meant a concussion and concussions usually meant hospitals and I wasn’t sure I wanted to walk into a hospital wearing only a trench coat.

I reached down with my clean hand and touched his skin, ran my fingers across his bruising cheek bones. I could see the model features in the shadows of the alleyway.

His long lashes began to flutter and I pulled my hands away quickly, folding them together on my lap.

Chaz opened his brown eyes and looked up at me.

“You’re naked,” he whispered, in sing-song voice.

“You’re funny,” I said as I helped him to a sitting position.

He reached up the back of the head and came away with blood on his fingers as well. “Not good,” he muttered.

“Do we need to go to a hospital?”

“Nah,” he countered quickly as he began to stand.

His knees nearly gave underneath him, but I was able to catch him. Extra strength really came in handy sometimes. And I felt extra strong. Nose was on overtime as I caught a full whiff of Chaz’s sweat and blood.

“What’d you do to them?” he asked, looking around at the three guys on the ground.

I had to focus on walking, on the rocks in my foot, anything that wasn’t the hard line of his body pressed up against mine, to get an answer out. “I dunno. But they’re still alive. And I seem to be scratch-free.”

“Wow,” he breathed. “Remind me to send a thank you to the sensei.”

Slowly, we wove through the alleyway, looking very suspicious as a girl in obviously nothing but a man’s trench coat and an injured companion emerged from a darkened alley onto the night street arm in arm.

Chaz’s finger shot out and I nearly missed what he was pointing at. My shoes. I did take them off. I made sure he was stable for a moment, leaning him up against the brick wall and went to retrieve them, having to pick gravel out of the soft flesh of my foot before I slid the shoes on. I immediately felt human again.

I also took a moment to make sure that my borders were back. I easily slipped back behind the protection and went back to Chaz. Protected behind my walls, his body wasn’t as hot against mine.

“Why did they attack us?” I asked in a low voice as we walked out onto the sidewalk to seamlessly join a crowd of people. They shouted jokes to each other and their merriment only increased the shadow of our recent struggle as they covered our exit.

“Maybe Haverty was ready to bring you home,” Chaz whispered as they passed.

“What?”

Chaz just shook his head, which surely made it throb. His face winced in pain as we made our way back to the parking lot.

“Let’s go to my place,” I suggested. There I knew would be a first aid kit and a place clean enough to use it.

He didn’t protest and even handed me the keys to his precious car.

“This is a big step,” I said jingling the keys. “Are you sure?”

“Shut up and drive,” he grumbled, but I saw a small smile play on his lips before the pain in his ribs made him crumple again.

He was quiet in the car, looking out at the night’s skyline. I just drove. After having my first official attack and first official offense, I wasn’t sure if I was ready to talk. It’s something else when you realize that you are the power out on the streets, after so long of just being a nobody. That you are a force to be reckoned with, with your fists and not just your words.

He was still a little shaky as we got through the front door and the oddest thought crossed my mind, which made me chuckle as I threw my keys on the foyer table.

“What’s so funny?” Chaz said as I shuffled him into the living room.

“You’re not going to believe me,” I smiled as I went to the kitchen to get my first aid kit and wash my hands.

“Try me,” he responded, plopping down on the couch.

I came back out into the living room and sat gently on the edge of the couch next to him, making sure that the trench coat hadn’t exposed anything. Being this close to him made my hands shake and my skin warm. But maybe it was just the adrenaline in my system.

“You’re the first man I’ve had in my house,” I confessed.

Chaz chuckled softly.

“What?” I prodded playfully as I opened up the gauze and the peroxide.

“I don’t believe you.”

“Why not?” I asked hoping that if we kept talking about my painful love life, he wouldn’t pay attention to the fact that I was about to put peroxide on a very deep gash on the back of his head.

“Because you’re funny, and tall, and smart.”

“But my friends are pretty,” I countered.

He winced loudly as I dabbed the wound with the white gauze. I winced with him and tried to blow on it. Talking must have helped with the sting as he continued on with the conversation.

“Why should that matter?”

“I don’t know. But when we are at a bar, guys are buying drinks for everyone but me. You did. Technically you bought a drink for Jessa first.”

“Do you go anywhere else to meet . . . new people?”

“Didn’t you know? That’s why I was in the alley way that night I was attacked.”

Chaz laughed and I finished wiping off the dirt and gravel embedded into his scalp. It had to hurt but he was taking it pretty well. I could see his fists clench on his lap when I hit a particularly sore spot.

I continued talking as I still had some work to do. “And now what am I supposed to say to Mr. Right.
Hi, I’m Violet, I’m an Aries, and I go wild once a month
.”

“Try.
Hi, I’m never going to be able to finish a conversation with you because I’ve got six million people that go before me.”

“You win.”

I couldn’t tape the stupid gash because it was in his hair and I didn’t want to wrap cloth around his head. The only thing I could think of was a cap to keep the wad of bandages in place, which I excused myself to go get.

H
alf an hour later, he was resting on my couch after a few Advil and a cold beer, which I had forgotten I even had in my fridge. I was showered and dressed in lounge pants and a zippered sweater and curled so tightly in my favorite chair I thought I might actually break something.

He looked comfortable lying on my couch in his suit pants and a light gray North Carolina undershirt. “So are we going to talk about what happened tonight or not?” he asked before he took a long sip of his beer.

“I’d rather not.” I wrapped my arms around my knees. “I’d rather discuss your obsession with college T-shirts.”

He looked down at his shirt. There were a few blood spots down the front I tried to ignore. “Some people collect shot glasses from the places they visit, I collect T-shirts.”

“You’ve been all these places?” I remember Harvard, Stanford, and now North Carolina. “You get around.”

He just looked over at me with a raised eyebrow. “Just like you get around what really needs to be talked about.”

I bounced out of the chair and started cleaning up after my horrible patch-up job. Nervous feet don’t stay still.

Chaz fought a smile and licked his lips. “I was referring to the fact that you were able to shift when you needed to.”

I had, without the meditated breathing or Iris watching over my shoulder. I picked up the last of the white bits from the coffee table and jammed them into the plastic bag I’d grabbed earlier. “I guess I did.”

“Told ya you were the right girl,” he smarted as he took another sip.

I rolled my eyes at his assuredness and headed for the kitchen. I grabbed the horrible smelling trench coat. I already had plans to burn it in some cleansing ritual I was sure Chaz could get his hands on. But I noticed a weight I hadn’t before in my desperate attempt to get out of it and into something that smelled like it had been washed this century.