Present Day, London

When I woke up again it was afternoon. Thom was still wrapped around me, curled up in a pool of sunlight like the cat he’d been the night before. He was beautiful, ethereal even, his feline nature obvious to me now in every angle of his face, every curve of lean muscle. I still didn’t understand exactly what he was, a cat who could pretend to be a human, the other way around, or something else entirely? 

“Are you going to stare at me all day?” Thom asked and I laughed. His eyes glowed in the light when he opened them, his expression settling into something so smug and satisfied that he suddenly reminded me all too much of someone else. 

“I might,” I said, tracing a path over his brow until I reached the patch of white in his hair. “You’re not hard to look at.”

Catching my hand, he frowned and turned my arm to get a better look at it. “I hurt you.”

Confused, I tried to remember anything we’d done the night before that would have left a mark, especially in that part of my arm. The memory came back to me when I saw the red streaks across my forearm and realized it hadn’t happened during sex but when I’d been tending to what I’d thought was a stray cat.

He kissed the scratches lightly, licking over them gently until the contact stung. I flinched and pulled my arm away. “I’m sorry,” he said with regret. “When I’m in my true form I don’t always have control over my instinctive reactions.”

“Your true form,” I repeated thoughtfully. “So you really are a cat? And you just pretend to be human? No wonder you’re so beautiful. You designed yourself to be that way.” 

“Wouldn’t anyone?” Thom shrugged. 

“Wait.” I frowned, wondering if it could be considered bestiality to have sex with an animal if both parties presented as human. “Does that mean I slept with a cat?”

“I am as human as I can be right now.” He reassured me with the stroke of a palm over my hair. “Don’t ask me how it works. I don’t know. I’ve just always been this way.”

Humming under my breath, I pursed my lips. “My father was fascinated with the Unseen. He traveled all over the world researching the creatures he met. I have his journals now but I’ve never seen anything in them about a cat that can turn into a human.”

Thom chuckled. “Then he wasn’t very thorough because there are quite a few of us.”

“Us?”

“Grimalkin.”

Squinting at him, I asked, “Are you their king?”

“So, you’ve heard the story?” Thom snuggled deeper beneath the covers with a laugh. “A ridiculous children’s tale, but it contains a grain of truth. The grimalkin in this country organized generations ago and set up a line of succession for their leader. I hear there are similar hierarchies in other places, but ours is one of the oldest. I inherited the crown a few years ago. Since I was last in the litter, I hadn’t expected to inherit, but stray cats don’t have the best odds in the city.” Thom didn’t sound particularly broken up about the loss of his siblings, but I supposed family might have a different meaning for him.

Sighing, he continued, “King is a bit of an odd fit these days. Then again, maybe it’s more appropriate in a place like England, where royalty is more of a symbol than a true authority. It’s my duty to protect my subjects from the things that most threaten them.”

I rubbed my knee against his thigh under the covers and slid a little closer. “And that threat is Walden Construction?”

He hesitated, and I sensed there was something he wasn’t telling me as he allowed me to fill in the blanks myself. “It isn’t the only threat, but it’s the one currently causing the most turmoil.”

“I suppose all the construction makes it hard for cats to survive on the streets.” I glanced at the apartment around us. “But you don’t have to survive on the streets. You’re better adapted to modern life than most of the Unseen. You can blend in entirely if you want.”

Thom’s expression darkened and he went still for a moment before withdrawing with a stiff smile and sliding out of bed. Completely unashamed of his nudity, he stretched in a pool of light like the cat he was, his arms reaching high over his head and back arching as he yawned. “I’m hungry. We should get something to eat.”

The suggestion of food was enough to make my own stomach growl and I found myself agreeing without complaint. 

We ordered Indian food and lounged around in the living room pretending to watch trash television while feeling each other up and making out during commercial breaks. Now that I’d given into the urge to sleep with Thom once I knew it would be nearly impossible to refuse him again, and before I knew it he was proving exactly how skilled he was at using his tongue and I was making a mess of his pristine leather couch. Dinner arrived, we ate and then we fooled around some more, this time ending with my mouth on Thom and his hands gripping my hair so tightly I was afraid he might have some hidden claws even in his human form.

Grateful that I didn’t have to work that night, I cleaned up the leftovers from dinner while Thom took a shower and did my best to return the couch to its virginal state even though I knew it would be impossible to restore its innocence. It had been a long time since I’d had this much sex in one day and I was feeling both tired and hungry for more by the time I took my own shower, thinking that it was probably a waste of time to clean myself up when I was likely to get dirty again before the night was over. 

Drying my hair off and walking out into the living room in nothing but my boxers, I paused when I saw Thom fully dressed, looking sharp in a finely woven black sweater and charcoal slacks.

When he looked up at me I could tell something was wrong simply by the tautness around his eyes even though he was doing his best to act relaxed. “Hey there,” he said with a smile, tucking his phone into his pocket as he stood up and sliding a hand around my waist. “I have to go out for a bit,” he said against my cheek. “I might be late.”

“What happened?” I asked, pushing him back a step and studying the way his expression faltered. 

“Nothing.”

I rolled my eyes. “Is it connected to what happened last night? To how you got hurt?”

He sighed. “You’re too perceptive. I can’t fool you.”

“No, you can’t,” I agreed. I’d seen too much to miss when someone was lying to me, especially someone as bad at lying as Thom. I’d spent years working for Jang Yun Seo, the best liar I’d ever known, and even he couldn’t fool me very often.

“I got a call from Walden. He knows what I did last night.” Thom rubbed the bottom of his palm against his hair as if to ensure it was in place but it looked like a nervous habit more than a conscious gesture. “He wants to meet.”

“What did you do last night?”

Thom shook his head. “I thought you didn’t want to get involved.”

I sighed, remembering how strongly I had felt about staying out of Thom’s troubles less than a day ago. “Are you going alone?”

“Of course. That’s the deal.”

I scoffed. Thom may have been many years my senior, but he was obviously still a baby when it came to shady business deals. Worry mixed with exasperation in my voice as I asked, “Are you meeting in a public place?” 

“Yes,” he replied with a frown. “Some swanky hotel restaurant.”

“Then I’m coming with you.” I walked back toward my bedroom and he followed in a rush.

“You can’t.”

I pulled a gray button-down shirt out of my closet and shrugged into it. “Why not? He doesn’t know who I am. I’ll pretend to be on my own, but you need someone watching your back.”

“When I asked for your help, this wasn’t what I meant.”

Stepping into a pair of khakis, I turned to face him. “Then what did you mean? You seemed to be handling the graffiti part just fine on your own. I’m not sure what you got up to last night, but I don’t know what made you think I would be helpful with that.”

“I was running on scaffolding and it collapsed underneath me,” Thom said with a wince. “I got hurt making a clumsy mistake, that’s all. Luckily, when I’m a cat, I always land on my feet.”

I nodded. “And what were you doing before you fell?”

“Nothing I would have asked you to participate in,” Thom said dismissively. “I thought maybe you could help me figure out how to stop Walden through human means. You seem to know quite a bit about people like me.”

I paused halfway through buttoning my shirt. “Human means,” I echoed. “Like with a legal loophole or something? I’m not a lawyer, and even if I was, I don’t know anything about local law.”

Thom brushed a fingertip over my sternum and let his hand settle near the base of my throat, his thumb stroking over the notch at the middle of my collarbone. “Maybe not, but you understand how the human world works. Better than me anyway.”

“Let’s get you through tonight alive first, and then we’ll see.”

Thom smiled. “Walden isn’t going to try to murder me or anything.”

“You think.”

Shaking his head, Thom breathed, “What the hell kind of thing were you involved in before that you would jump so quickly to a conclusion like that?”

I sighed and turned away so that I could finish buttoning my shirt. He reached around my waist and helped me tuck my shirt into my pants, his touch so sensual that I groaned. “Stop that or neither of us is going to make it to this meeting.” 

He rested his chin on my shoulder as he zipped up my pants, managing to avoid touching any other sensitive areas although it was obvious by the way he exhaled afterward that he had wanted to. “You don’t know how much I would prefer that.”

“Let’s just get this over with.”