Chapter 3
"Damn, tiger. What the hell did you do? Besides getting shot, that is."
In his tigard form, Wren opened his eyes to see Dev coming into his bedroom. He glanced at the clock on his nightstand to see that it was just after noon-too damned early for him to be up and about, especially when he hurt this much.
He was actually amazed that the bear was awake and in human form, barging into his room. Most of the Katagaria had a difficult time maintaining human form until after nightfall. So as a rule, they were mostly nocturnal.
Not to mention, the occupants of Peltier House knew that tigers didn't like to be disturbed, especially not from a sound sleep.
Without changing his animal form, Wren lifted his head from the pillow to watch Dev walk over to his dresser. Wren growled in warning at the bearswain, who paid no attention to him as he placed an extremely large flower arrangement on top.
Wren started to shift on the bed, but his wound was too tender. Instead, he roared threateningly.
"Calm your tiger-ass down," Dev said, his tone irritated. "If anyone has a right to be pissed, it's us. Notice I'm the one in human form and you're not? You think I want to be awake and looking like this at this unholy hour of the day?"
The bear had a point.
"And do you know why we're up?"
Like he cared. If Wren were in human form he'd be staring drolly at the bear.
Ambivalent to Wren's mood, Dev barely hesitated before he answered his own question. "Because we all thought that these were for Aimee. You've never seen bears move so fast as we did when Maman told us there was a truck loaded with flowers that were to be delivered here. We were getting ready to open a can of whup-ass on some local when the delivery guy said they were sent to you."
Dev moved to the bed and pulled a small card out of l the back pocket of his jeans. "It says 'thanks for last night.'" Dev gave him an amused smirk. "So what? Did you finally get lucky and find someone desperate for a quick lay?"
Wren snapped at Dev, forcing the bear to jump back from the bed.
Dev's eyes narrowed on him. "You better knock that shit off or else we're going to go round. I don't care if you are wounded, I don't play."
"And neither do I, asshole." Wren sent the words to him mentally.
Dev stared at Wren in amazement. "Wow. Multiple syllables and a whole sentence from the tiger. Who'd have ever thought it? Whoever she was, she must have had a lot of talent to make you speak. Next thing you know, she'll have the dead walking. Quick, call a Dark-Hunter. I'm sure some of them would like another resurrection."
Wren growled, but before he could lunge, more flowers were brought in by four of Dev's brothers. Lots more. Within a few minutes, the whole room looked like a funeral parlor.
As soon as they had the flowers stacked around the bed and dresser, all the guys left except for Dev and his younger brother Serre.
Serre shook his blond head as he paused by the foot of the bed to stare at Wren. "Man, Wren. I'm impressed. No woman ever sent flowers to thank me."
Dev snorted. "Don't be that impressed. I'm thinking she didn't send flowers to thank him. One flower says thank you. This many says she thought he was dead. Or that she killed him." Dev glanced about speculatively. "Hmm... I'm thinking, put a tiger in her tank and that didn't quite rev her up. What she needs is to go hunting for bear."
Wren lunged at Dev, but before he could catch the bear, Serre pulled his brother back out of range.
"Knock it off, Dev. You definitely don't want to come between the tiger and this woman."
"Why not?"
Wren rose into striking position on the bed. This time, he wouldn't miss.
"That's why," Serre snapped. He shoved Dev out the door, then turned back to Wren. "Go on and rest, tiger. We've got your back."
Wren settled back on his bed as Serre shut the door. Even so, Wren could still hear them out in the hallway.
"Good God, Dev. Have you completely lost your mind? Don't tease the psychotic tiger. He's getting all angry and frothing at the mouth. Someone's going to think he's rabid."
Dev scoffed, "Yeah, but teasing him is like throwing meat at Kyle. It's highly entertaining."
Serre made a disgusted noise. "Yeah, and I wish you'd stop throwing meat at poor Kyle in the bar. He can't control himself with that. Next thing you know, he's shifted into a bear, Maman is having a fit, and all of us are left to control the crowd and keep them from remembering that they just saw a kid become an animal. It's a pain in our collective asses."
"Yeah, but I can't help myself."
Wren heard Serre growl threateningly at his older brother. "You know if you don't learn to, Papa's going to kill you one day."
"But until that day comes, I'm going to have a lot more fun with the whole lot of you."
Serre sighed. "Until then, do us all a favor, and lay off the tiger. I know you've done everything on two legs... then again, you've done most everything on four, but this girl is different where Wren is concerned. For once, turn the libido off and go after one of your usual lays."
"What are you? Insane? I'm not interested in Ms. Preppy Uptight Sloan Ranger. Jeez. I'd get khaki between my teeth. Can you imagine? I've never been in khaki and I never want to see a woman out of it. It scares me."
Their voices drifted out of hearing range. Wren collapsed back on the bed, relieved to know Dev was just being his usual asshole self and didn't really have any ambitions toward Maggie. That alone had saved his life.
Then again, Wren shouldn't have any ambitions toward Maggie, either. What was it about her?
Not that it mattered. He wasn't going to see her again. He might be crazy, but he wasn't suicidal. Nothing good could come of him spending time with a human. Nothing.
As soon as she was out of her last law class, Marguerite headed back to the French Quarter. She'd blown off her study group for the afternoon in lieu of going to see Wren. She really wanted to give him a proper thank-you face-to-face for saving her.
It was the least she could do.
By the time she reached Sanctuary, it was just after six in the evening and already dark outside. Glancing around the dim interior of the bar, she saw a tall, dark-haired man who was bussing the tables. Not particularly attractive, he had stringy hair and was marked all over his body with colorful tattoos.
As she continued to look around the thin crowd, she couldn't find a single trace of Wren, but she did spot the waitress from the night before, who was walking over to a table with a tray loaded with drinks.
Marguerite headed over to her as the woman un-loaded the drinks to the men who were ogling her.
"Hi," Marguerite said as the woman left the table. "Is Wren working tonight?"
The waitress frowned at her as if she were the worst sort of creature. "You're that woman who was here last night with the dickheads."
Marguerite blushed at her words. "Yes, and I'm sorry about that."
"You should be. You got Wren into all kinds of trouble."
Her stomach shrank at the waitress's words. "I didn't mean to. Please tell me you didn't fire him for it. It wasn't his fault. I had no way of knowing they were going to act like that."
Still the waitress eyed her warily.
"Look, I'm really sorry about it." Marguerite held up the present in her hands. "I just wanted to give this to Wren as a small token, okay?"
"Token for what?"
Marguerite's heart sank as she realized the waitress wasn't going to help her. No wonder she was shy. It was hard to be otherwise when people could be this rude and off-putting. It was so much easier to be alone. "Just, please, see that Wren gets this."
As she turned to leave, the woman stopped her. "Hey, were you there when Wren got shot last night?"
Marguerite went cold at the question. Did she hear that correctly? "Excuse me?"