Dire Warning WC0.5 by Stephanie Tyler Page B

his earlobe and clenched around him as he shot, hard, their groans mixing in the cold air as their orgasms lasted far longer than any human’s would have.
    It took at least twenty minutes for him to pull himself together. Katya was rubbing his back when he surfaced and turned his head to look at her.
    “You are not like my lions,” she told him. “They are arrogant. Powerful.”
    Vice cleared his throat, cocked a brow and pointed to himself.
    Katya laughed, low in her throat. “And yes, you are all those things too, but you are more. A mate will be lucky to have you.”
    “Lucky, yes,” Vice echoed, his voice hollow. He didn’t want to talk about it. Now or ever.
    “This thing with the humans—it really bothers you.”
    “Always has.” He stood and stretched. “Let me walk you back to your car.”
    “The Were King’s missing—Queen Cat’s wondering if we’ll have to move up farther north,” Katya mused.
    “Pack’s not leaving Manhattan. Won’t give up a hold to the trappers,” Vice said roughly.
    “Maybe the Dires should take over?”
    It wasn’t the first time that had been suggested and he was sure it wouldn’t be the last. “Linus does a damned fine job as king.”
    None of the other shifters really came to the aid of the Weres since they didn’t want their population targeted by the trappers. In turn, the Weres never gave up any other shifter’s existence and, in that way, they could get some occasional help when necessary.
    Katya liked Vice because he gave her what she couldn’t get from her pride—from any other, really. Because vices weren’t only the seven deadly sins, although everyone needed to sin in their life, to be brought out of their ordinary lives, to live out on the edge.
    Vice lived there all the time, so it was cool to have other people join him.
    Like their nonshifting animal counterparts, lioness shifters took on the bulk of the work in their pride. For the sake of protection and nondetections, the prides were shaped to look like regular families, mom and dad and kids, grandparents and aunts and uncles.
    Far be it from Vice to argue with being served every now and again, but he had a problem with the inherent set up where male lion shifters got to be lazy as shit and females were expected to do everything. Not the way it had ever worked in his Dire packs and he would never let a woman do all the hunting.
    For Katya, spending time with him allowed her to forgo all her pride stuff—she indulged lazily, allowed Vice to hunt for her. To feed her.
    Baby, it was all about her. For a lioness, that was something she would normally never allow herself to partake in. She couldn’t allow herself to be seen as weak and still maintain her place in the pack.
    When Vice first met her, she’d been too young to mate. She still hunted with her parents and sister and her youngest brother, who was about to be thrown out on his own to find a mate.
    His name was Keiran, and Vice actually liked him because he seemed to have some ambition.
    Now, Katya was nervous about being mated. She’d confided it to Vice last time they were together, and he hadn’t been sure what to tell her.
    “Queen Cat’s taking the prides under her control west for the rest of winter,” Katya finally admitted, even though she wasn’t supposed to share her pride secrets.
    By the time she returned, she could well be mated and her fun time with Vice would most definitely be over.
    He didn’t know if it was better to have had a small taste of the forbidden, knowing you could never have it again, but for him, he preferred a memory he could sink his teeth into.
    And Katya would be quite a memory.

Chapter Nine
    It took an hour to get to the house where the séance was being held. Bill insisted they take back roads to avoid the media, who was rumored to be in neighboring towns.
    It was more than a rumor. Rifter had Stray interfere a bit there, leading the media to the wrong places, but they’d stumble on Bill’s PNR