Chapter One
s a kid, Noah had loved Sesame Street. He’d Apla
nt his ass on the threadbare carpet of Mrs.
Miller’s living room and lose himself in the land of letters and numbers. Gone were the troubles of not having parents or anyone who gave a damn about him. Instead, he could briefly pretend he lived on that street with furry monsters and happy storeowners.
One of his favorite things about the show had been the music. One song in particular, One of These Things is Not Like Other Things. Probably because it could have been the anthem for his fucked up life. Even before he’d outgrown the Pampers and Gerbers, he’d instinctively known he was different from everyone. Somehow off. An unwilling pretender.
At first, he thought those feelings came from being an orphan and having no roots to base his life on. Then as he got older, he wondered if perhaps it had to do with him being gay. It wasn’t until nearly two years ago that he’d learned the 1
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real reason.
Boy had it thrown him for a fucking loop, too.
Okay, maybe he never expected those missing roots to be so…unexpected. Still, when he found out who he really was— what he really was—he’d never felt more different. Seriously though, how could one prepare themselves to find out that they weren’t human at all, but a feline shifter?
As if that hadn’t been enough, Noah had discovered that he had a real family out there. A family that had been searching for him. One that had the military power and training to destroy a small nation. He also discovered that his oldest brother was the leader of the feline coalition.
Another brother had a love for explosives, plus a third one had an uncanny knack for mishandling firearms and shooting innocent bystanders.
Yeah, he bet Thanksgiving was a real blast in his new home.
As he sat at the huge ass dinner table in his prodigal family’s living quarters, Noah tried his best to put on a happy face, all the while covertly studying his siblings and wondering how in hell he’d ever manage to fit in with this odd group.
Thankfully, the only ones there for lunch were he and his two older brothers, Brent and Mitchell.
Although the two large men were both from the same litter, and yes, that’s the word they used, litter. Mitchell was the one who led the coalition 2
A Wicked Caress
and ran the family while Brent was the one who liked to play with anything that went boom. Both of them had the same hair, a medium brown with darker brown speckles in it. Mitchell wore his a bit shorter, but they both had what one would call regulation cuts.
In other words, they were true soldiers—built like brick houses and with the whole don’t-mess-with-me attitude. Noah on the other hand filled out the role of thin, scrawny and weak, perfectly.
His buddy, Ranger, had once called him a twink’s twink and even though it stung, Noah had to admit he had a point.
Luckily for him, at the moment, Brent and Mitchell were talking business so they weren’t paying him any attention. That meant that Noah could continue to study the two men who were supposedly his blood relation, unnoticed.
“When are Jacyn and Logan supposed to be back from their mission?” Brent asked Mitchell.
Jacyn was yet another brother. He came from the middle litter, which still made him older than Noah. He also shared the same hair and eye coloring as the others. The only one who didn’t was Noah. While he had brown eyes, he’d been cursed with black hair. Not dark brown, but a true black. So dark that in some lighting, it almost appeared blue. When he’d asked Mitchell why he looked differently, it had earned him a close-eyed 3
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look and a don’t worry about that now.
He did worry about it though, because it was yet another thing that set him apart from the others. As he stirred his soup, he wondered if he’d ever feel like he belonged somewhere.
“They’re supposed to be back tonight. Not only that, the Alpha team should be pulling in soon, too. So, it’s going to be a busy night,” Mitchell answered.
As Noah continued to stir his soup, he had never felt more small and insignificant. Everyone would be busy, but him. They didn’t trust the weak, black sheep of the family to do anything. So the most pressing thing Noah had was deciding what car he’d be driving in Mario Kart.
A lull in the conversation brought him out of his musings and he glanced up in horror to see Brent and Mitchell looking down the long table at him. Mitchell’s face remained as unreadable as always while the corner’s of Brent’s lips were twitching. Noah let out a loud gulp. “Sorry, did I miss something?”
“Besides you singing a kiddy song—no,” Brent replied, his voice light and almost teasing. “I can’t figure out which one it was though.”