Gordon stood in the doorway, flanked by his brother and with three scruffy figures vaguely visible behind them. They clearly were not prepared for eight angry snow leopards.
Still, Gordon put on a sneering face. “What’s this?” he asked, gesturing at their group. “Your kindergarten class?”
Cal glanced over at Grey and nodded once. Grey blurred and shifted. Around him, the rest of the group did the same.
Now Cal was standing amid seven powerfully-built big, gray cats. Teeth bared. Claws flexed.
Gordon swallowed, but kept it up. “What are you going to do?” he asked. “Charge us? We can get to the human before you do, no matter how many of you there are.”
“That’s not what I’m here for,” Cal said calmly.
Gordon raised his eyebrows. “No?” He pointed at Lillian. “She sure showed up here fast after we threatened him.”
Cal shook his head. “He’s not the issue.” He took a step forward. “You’re not going to kill him, anyway.”
Gordon took a step forward too. “Oh, I’m not?”
Cal met Gordon’s eyes; they were a pale yellowish-brown, and fear lurked in them. “You’re not a killer,” he said.
He knew that to be true. He’d seen plenty of real killers, back in the Marines, and Gordon didn’t have that coldness to him.
He was a slimy little lowlife, a petty dictator who reveled in his small-time power, but he wasn’t a murderer. He wouldn’t even hurt the man beyond a little roughing, Cal would bet all his money. There’d be too much trouble coming his way from the law, if so.
“Besides,” he added, “if you kill him, you’ll never get any money from him.”
Gordon smiled a little. “That’s a problem, all right. That’s why we’re calling his wife, isn’t it?”
Cal could hear his voice sharpen, could feel his leopard growling in his chest. “That is why I’m here.”
“Oh, right.” Gordon shook his head. “She’s part of your little commune. Your peace-loving hippie pack. You snow leopards just hang out and do your own thing, don’t you?”
A growl started emanating from someone’s throat. Cal thought he recognized Teri. Then it was taken up by someone else—Zach, probably—and it spread, until he was standing in the center of a deep wall of threatening sound.
He saw it. Gordon flinched back.
“It doesn’t matter what you think about us, Gordon,” Cal said quietly, his voice carrying over the growl. “It doesn’t matter what you say. We are stronger than you are. We are more than you are. And from here on out, you will mind your own business and leave us alone.”
His voice cracked out sharply on the last word, like a whip. As if on cue, his pack’s growling evaporated, leaving his own voice the only sound ringing through the air.
From the look on Go
rdon’s face, he could tell that they’d already won. It was turning resigned.
His next words confirmed that. “And somehow this includes the lady we’ve been after, does it?”
“It does,” Cal said. Anger vibrated through his voice—how dare Gordon keep implying threats to Lillian, even while he was in the process of backing down? “Because she’s my mate.”
Gordon’s eyes went wide. Cal could hear one of the other mountain lions muttering, “Shit,” behind him.
That’s right, he thought, his leopard growling approval. They hadn’t known what sort of can of worms they’d opened, before. Now they did.
Gordon nodded slowly. “Your mate. Why didn’t you say anything before?”
Cal just stared at him.
After a minute, he dropped his eyes. “Fine. All right. Matter’s closed, then.”
His brother Wayne’s whiny voice rose up in the air. “But how am I going to get my money, then?”