Poisonous Desires Read Online Free PDF Page B

have been in the thick of things; it would’ve been a wonderful distraction, and it would’ve gotten her home sooner. It was also too bad she’d lied to Isy when she’d called. Nadia told Isy that she’d had some sort of drunken ménage, when in reality she’d knocked out several security goons to get some dirty pictures back for a high-ranking Feline Quorum member. That had earned her five figures and a debt that she intended to call in in the future. All of that led to her missing out on helping Isy , making brownie points with Torger , and getting the scoop on Isy’s relationship with the alpha werewolf.
    Nadia needed to send Isy a gift basket or some kind of expensive gift both as an apology and a bribe for gossip. It wouldn’t make up for not being able to help Isy , but at least she was here now. And maybe Isy could help her with the Katnip issue. Maybe. With the Council race, Evanson’s death, and the Werewolf Summit, the news station must be in frantics right now. No time to talk about real issues like a possible drug problem in Draven’s Crossing’s feline-shifter community, as it should be, at least in this case, until they could nip the problem in the bud before it became an epidemic.
    This assignment was a lot better than the last few she’d gotten. Zerik had had her running around picking things up and dropping things off, not that exciting. She suspected that it had something to do with the new laws the Council had been trying to press upon feline-shifters. The feline community had wanted to be treated as equal to werewolves. Feline-shifters lacked some of the basic fundamental rights that werewolves had. Since the public had more familiarity with werewolves they gave them more leeway, more freedom. Feline-shifters were given a wide berth, labeled as dangerous and unstable, and were often frisked and arrested for doing nothing more than standing on a corner. Zerik was doing everything in his power to try to change that perception. Whether he was winning was based on the deals he managed to make, not on public perception.
    How police identified a feline-shifter was still a mystery; they had no outer markings that indicated shifter status and looked very much normal in human form, but more of her kind were in the system than werewolves. Throw Katnip into the mix, and things could get dangerous. The drug was something new. It had been on the market for over five years. For humans, it had been originally used as a way to soothe patients who suffered from stress-related issues. How it had landed into the hands of the feline-shifters, no one knew, but she’d seen the fallout firsthand. Her sister Milena had ended up in rehab, but not before she’d almost died after taking a small dose. Milly was allergic to gluten; the drug had been cut with flour. Now she had her chance to stop more people from dying. Nadia needed to check in on her little sister. This case was already starting to rip at the seams of the carefully constructed walls around Nadia’s emotions and life.
    She felt buried anger and helplessness welling up in her psychic and emotional wounds. Phantom pain shadowed her body in pangs and echoes of past trips to the hospital. Her eyes burned with unshed tears. Nadia refused to cry over what her father had done. The one thing her childhood had going for it was that her cat pard had tried to interfere time and again and protect Nadia and her sister, but her mother refused their offers of sanctuary and seeing how Ephram had been head of the pard , it put them all in a difficult position, but Zerik had made sure that Ephram’s power was limited in what he could and could not do. And soon the pard would be choosing a new leader, thankfully. Her family and the pard had suffered enough under his rule.
    She sucked in a deep breath and exhaled. Nadia could feel the pressure building up inside of her again. Nadia couldn’t indulge a sexual outlet, the physical release she needed, or a way to ground