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Steve rubbed her clit, loving the way she said his name as her pleasure mounted. When she climaxed on him, he almost came with her, but he had other ideas. He held it, knowing he’d have his chance, and it would be even better for waiting.

Allowing her only a moment to stretch out the first climax, he rolled them over and repositioned them on the big bed. She was under him—a place he’d wanted her since he’d first seen her. And now, here she was. Ready. Primed. His cock already deep inside her. A dream come true.

Steve began to move, watching her responses for the minutest change. Within moments, she was with him again, her body straining under his, her breath hitching in time with his thrusts.

“More!” she cried out as he ratcheted up the tempo, straining toward release. It would be a big one this time, taking them both to the stars and beyond. He just knew it.

Steve reached between them and played with her clit, holding her gaze as her eyes glazed with passion. He breathing was fast and harsh in the quiet of the room, as was his. Never before had a woman driven him to such heights, and Steve knew his life would be different from here on out. He had a mate now. Sex would never be the same. It would be better.

He increased his pace, something primitive driving him to claim, to possess. Trisha didn’t seem to mind as she made his name into a litany of passion that drove him higher, harder, faster.

Until the tension burst in a blinding flash of rapture that made him groan even as she screamed his name, her body convulsing in pleasure around his, drawing out his climax. They shot to the stars together, dancing among them for long, long minutes of the most intense sexual satisfaction he had ever known.

Damn.
It was even better than he’d imagined. Having a mate. Fucking her brains out. Wanting to do it all again. Always. With love. And respect.

Having a mate was a magical thing and the fact that his mate was Trisha was the most magical thing of all. His heart expanded and he wasn’t surprised to know she now lived within it for all time. As far as he was concerned, Trisha was it for him. He’d never love another.

A phone call woke Steve early the next morning. It was so early, in fact, that the sun wasn’t really up. He fumbled around for the cell phone he’d left on the night stand, finally snagging it on the second or third try. He wasn’t normally so uncoordinated, but a certain little water sprite had taken most of his energy, he thought with an inward grin.

He looked over at her sleeping next to him. The phone hadn’t disturbed her slumber and he was glad. She needed her rest after everything she’d been through in the previous twenty-four hours. Steve could use a little more sleep, but cats were mostly nocturnal anyway. And shifters didn’t need much shut-eye compared to their human counterparts, so he was alert and awake enough to deal with whatever the ringing phone at oh-dark-thirty meant.

He rolled out of the bed and padded barefoot across the carpet. He didn’t want to disturb Trisha if he could help it. He went into the hallway and pushed the door to the bedroom until it was only open about an inch—through which he could clearly see his sleeping mate still snuggled in his bed.

“What?” he finally answered the phone with only a bit of impatience. Being with his mate had definitely already mellowed him a bit.

“I just got a call from Tony.” Grif’s voice came through the earpiece of the phone clearly. An early morning call from the local Master vampire couldn’t be good news. “Somebody staked Jorge a few hours ago. Tony had already heard about your run-in with Jorge last night, and wanted to know what he’d done to earn a conversation from my second-in-command.”

Steve trusted his older brother to know just how much information to give the bloodletter. The truce between
were
and vampire in this part of the country was a little stronger than in other places, but there still wasn’t a lot of trust between the two supernatural races.

“Where?” Steve asked. He tried to keep his side of the conversation both low in volume and short in duration. He didn’t want to wake up his mate if he had a choice.

“A few blocks down from the club. In an alley,” Grif reported. “Nobody would’ve known but for a minion of Tony’s who’d been following Jorge on Tony’s orders. He wasn’t kidding when he said he was taking care of the situation. The last time I talked to him was to lodge a formal complaint about Jorge harassing some of the young female wolves. He propositioned them, hoping one would be foolish enough to agree to let him drink from her. Shifter blood is like a drug to vamps. I think Jorge was looking for a fix, and I warned Tony about the potential problem. No way was I going to let that bloodsucker prey on our people.”

Steve had known about the incident with the young wolves, but he hadn’t been privy to the details of the conversation between the two leaders until now. He was glad to know that Tony had taken Grif’s words seriously enough to have his own man watched. Such actions boded well for the ongoing relationship between Las Vegas’s shifter and vamp populations.

“The tail didn’t see who got Jorge?” Steve asked in low tones.

“Got there too late. Whoever did it was fast and silent. Which I think is why Tony called. He probably half-suspected you, or one of our other Clansmen seen at the bar, had done it. I assured him that all our people’s movements were accounted for. To convince him, I had to tell him about the humans being drugged.”

“What was his reaction?” Sometimes a lot could be gleaned from what the vampire
didn’t
say, Steve knew. He’d had his share of dealings with Tony since moving to Las Vegas.

“That’s why I’m calling. He said he’s seen something like what I described before. Apparently one of the younger vamps was given wine laced with something similar two weeks ago. She got very sick from it and only just recovered a couple of days ago. Tony questioned her and discovered she’d been approached a few days before she fell ill, by a warlock who knew exactly what she was and wanted to know more about her magical abilities. She didn’t tell him much, but they flirted. Apparently, the warlock appealed to her and she considered drinking from him but decided against it after their conversation turned odd and began to make her suspicious.”

“Did he get a description?”

“Yeah. She drew him. Luckily, she’s something of an artist. I already have a copy of the sketch and I just emailed it to you. Take a look. I’ll wait.”

Steve turned his smart phone over and brought up the image on the tiny screen. It was enough. He cursed under his breath as his jaw tightened. He held the phone back to his ear to tell Grif what he knew.

“I’ve seen him before. Last night, at the bar, he was definitely there, but he didn’t approach the women, so I thought nothing of it until just now. And I saw the same guy on our surveillance footage of the incident a few weeks ago with the raptor girls. Remember Joseline and Fedora reported being followed by something that gave them the creeps, but they couldn’t see? They were able to shift and fly away. I got footage of the area—one of the casino security officers owed me a favor—and I studied all the faces, but I couldn’t tell from the tape who it was that menaced the girls,” Steve reminded his brother. “This guy, though, he was on the tape.”

“And in the bar,” Grif repeated, accusation clear in his tone.

“Yeah,” Steve agreed. “We need to find out who he is and why he’s preying on magical young women.”

“Well, we already know one thing. He’s a warlock. The vamps have given us that much. And Tony’s already got his people working on finding the guy. He said he’d work with us on this. Actually, he wanted our help in tracking the warlock down. I agreed. I’m even gladder I did now after what you’ve just told me.”

“Yeah,” Steve repeated. “I’ll forward the image to everyone on my teams, but I think we need to go one step further and circulate the sketch to everyone in the Clan—especially the young females.”

“Agreed. I’ll issue the warning and sketch. You handle the security teams.” Grif paused slightly. “How are things with your lady? Is she feeling all right after all the excitement?”

“She’s resilient,” Steve was proud to say, though he didn’t want to go into details—not even with his brother. The relationship was too new. Too precious to him. Steve didn’t really want to discuss his mate with anyone just yet. “She’ll be okay. She’s sleeping now, but I’m sure as soon as she wakes she’s going to want to go check on her friends.”

“They’re doing fine. Sleeping it off. I’ve been getting regular updates from Kate. She’s watching over them like a mother hen.”

“Have you slept at all?” Steve was concerned for his brother. The Alpha was, by nature, the strongest of them all, but even he needed to sleep sometimes.

“Cat naps,” Grif chuckled. “It’s enough for now. I already promised my mate a weekend at the lake when this is over. She and I both need a little break from Clan life and some time alone.”

It was odd for an Alpha werecat to have amassed such a large family of shifters around himself, but Grif had done it. Cats liked to roam and be by themselves sometimes, but the Redstone brothers had managed to keep the larger Clan together by taking turns and filling in for each other when they felt the need to let their wildcat run free.

“That sounds nice. We’ll cover for you, as usual,” Steve said automatically.

Grif chuckled on the other end of the line. “Thanks for the offer, but I’m pretty sure you’ll be heading for the hills with your mate too, once she’s out of danger. One of the others will cover for us both.”

Steve liked the sound of that. A weekend—or however long he could manage—alone somewhere peaceful with his mate. Yeah, big brother knew what he was talking about. The more Steve thought about it, the more he realized Grif was right. As soon as this situation was resolved, he was going to take Trisha somewhere. Just the two of them. Alone. Together.

It already sounded like paradise.

“Yeah, you got me there,” Steve admitted. “It’s still kind of new to be thinking in terms of having a mate.”

“You get used to it,” Grif commiserated. “In fact, you’ll begin to wonder how you ever handled anything alone, once you realize how much help a mate can be.”

“I look forward to it,” Steve said with a grin. It was a nice thing to think about—not being alone anymore. Oh, he’d had his family, but cats liked to go their own way and have their own space.

Not anymore. Now all Steve could think about was sharing each moment, each day, each breath, with Trisha.

They ended the call shortly thereafter, each off to do the tasks they’d discussed. Steve was able to send out the image and the alert to everyone on his team using just his phone. The Clan had gone hi-tech years ago and kept pace with every advancement in electronics and communication. It was a hobby of Steve’s, in particular. He had a little workshop in the basement filled with all sorts of toys and doo-dads, and he spent time tinkering down there whenever he had a chance.

As he finished up sending the message, the bedroom door opened. Trisha was standing there wrapped in a sheet, sleepy eyed and deliciously rumpled.

“What time is it?” She rubbed her eyes and then pushed her hair back from her face with one hand, holding onto the sheet with the other.

“Almost dawn.”

“Why are you standing out here playing with your phone? Someone call?”

“Yeah, my brother Grif had some news. The vampire who tried to seduce you and your friends last night was killed shortly thereafter.”

“Wait. There was a vampire? Are those things even real?” She shook her head. “Of course they are. You’re real. And so am I. Darnit all. Somebody died last night?” She looked a little unsteady on her feet and almost adorably confused, but not knowing basic stuff about their world could be very dangerous. He had a great deal to tell her about.

“Why don’t we go downstairs and I can make some coffee or something. There’s a lot to discuss.”

What followed was an hour of talking, seated at his kitchen table while she learned the ins and outs of the supernatural world. When they got down to the specifics of what had happened to Jorge, he discovered her compassionate nature, which didn’t really surprise him at all.

“I hate to think this Jorge guy was killed just because he approached us. That seems a bit extreme.” She sipped at the tall glass of water she’d refilled twice already. She certainly seemed to thrive on the stuff.

“He wasn’t a good guy. He’s been warned before about his bad behavior and that’s why the Master vamp of the area had him followed. That turned out good for us because now we know we can eliminate him as a suspect in this situation
and
—” he emphasized the word as he refilled his glass with orange juice, “—I don’t have to worry about him harassing anyone ever again. Or worse.”

“Was he really that bad?”

“The Master thought enough about our complaints to have him watched. That says something. Tony wouldn’t have acted on our words alone, I don’t think. He probably had his own feelings on the matter. Vamps don’t really move around a lot. They settle in a place for fifty years or more, usually. So the fact that Jorge had relocated several times in the past few years didn’t bode well for him from the start.”

She drained her glass and stood to refill it. “You have a filtration system on this tap, right?” she asked as she filled the glass at his kitchen sink.