The pain was the first thing I noticed when my eyelids lifted heavily from my longitudinal pupils. It pulsated through my muscles and joints in jarring bursts, cutting right through bone. My blunt whiskers scrunched into a grimace over my eyes when my mashed in cheeks healed to fill out my round scull. Bone shifted with a burning pain from where it had jutted out beneath my pelt to mend my small ribs and spine. My tail flicked and I gave a grateful sigh. It was a blessed relief as far as recovery went, but it still hurt too much to attempt hopping to all fours.

I meowed piteously.

Observing the curbside through glowing feline eyes, I didn't dare move as my broken body attempted to knit itself back together again. Colorful spots flashed across my vision. I tried to breathe through the burning pain that radiated from the points of my mangled ears to the end of my white-tipped tail.

A car backfired about a block over, breaking the monotony of the early morning hum. I rolled over onto my squat legs and hissed when the cracked pads of my paws met the ground. Son of a bitch. Picking myself up from the blood stained asphalt hurt.

There was a flash of pink tongue as I licked at my jowls, desperately wishing for a drink of water to wash the metallic taste from my mouth. I gave a barely perceptible shake of my head to clear it. This wasn't the first of my nine lives lost, but being roadkill was an entirely new experience and rated far worse than being drowned in a bucket.

It was the life of a typical string-bean-scrapper – knocking over trashcans and coughing up furballs – and I hated every second of the seven lives I had already lived and died this way.

I gave my matted coat a disgusted shake. Switching my tail from side to side, my ears, one of which half was missing, stood alert for any unusual sounds. Navigating by way of aromas, I stalked through the surrounding neighbourhood with slink, despite the pain jostling my bones and the fact that I was sporting an obviously new limp. This was my territory. This was where I would prowl and hunt as if I were a born mouser, attacking anything that dared infringe on my turf.

I raised my nose to the sky and pushed forward with an uneven trot. The limp was here to stay. I knew that. There was always something in the way I had died that didn't heal right when I was brought back. My fur had turned thin and bold in the pronounced spots over my ribs and shoulders. The mangled ears. The scars. There was always some new disfigurement or disability to adapt to in my next life. With each life lost this body deteriorated a little more. There was nothing I could do about it. Nothing except break the curse that had turned me into a damn cat in the first place.

But it was never that easy.

I knew the spell Grimelda had used to place this wretched feline curse on me. Knew it by heart, I did. It was my spell and the thieving bitch couldn't have gotten it more wrong. I had been a prolific inventor of poisons, spells and curses. Some in print, more in old parchment I had barely ever touched.

None had bested me in magic until that thwarting day. I had thought myself adept at reading the intentions of my coven sisters, but the painful memory of their betrayal still burned fresh and raw inside me.

My nose twitched as I made my way through the slowly awakening streets. I could still smell the noxious fumes of the curse that had sent me fleeing. Perhaps I ought to be grateful my fate hadn't been to end up as fertilizer in the coven's herb garden, but the treachery of being displaced as head-witch couldn't be excused by being turned into a cat instead.

Maybe if I had still been able to dissolve into shadows or had access to any manner of magic, my thoughts wouldn't have been quite as pessimistic. As it were, my body was weakening even as my mind remained sharp and I had all but given up on someday breaking free from this wretched curse.

I had been fighting against the coven's practice of the dark arts for decades before they had finally turned on me. I should have known better. Should have foreseen that they would turn on me in their desire for power and control. They had only been practicing magic for their own betterment. They had always taken an unhealthy amount of pleasure in abusing it to cause pain and death.

And Grimelda, the young witch I had once taken as my apprentice, had seen to my total destruction. She had taken to controlling the behaviour of the other young witches. Using their puzzlement and fear, their naivety and willingness to learn, to her advantage and ultimately, against me.

I hissed when I stepped in a shallow puddle outside the entrance to The Inferno, one of the better nightclubs in this part of town. There was some storage crates and boxes in the back where I had taken shelter multiple times before, curled up in a box with my nose tucked on my tail. That was where I had been headed now when someone burst through the doors, failing to hail a cab before staggering down the street in the almost-dawn light.

The music that escaped with his departure made my synapses jump like rice in a tin. It was all nineties and achingly familiar, even though it had been close to twenty years since I had the body to enjoy it.

I liked this place.

It brought back pleasant memories of the few times I had let loose, crazy times dressed in sequins and moving to the beat under the disco ball light.

"Are you lost, little one?" a rough voice penetrated my nostalgia, right before I was scooped up from the ground and held against a very muscular chest.

I froze.

Suddenly unreasonably afraid that the muscles from the man's strong arms would pop right out to suffocate me. I couldn't remember the last time I had any real human contact and this guy's biceps were about five times the size of my head. My mind was shot. But not frigging shot enough. The instinctive fear of humans wasn't enough to squander my fascination with this particular specimen.

Something just told me he wasn't your regular Joe Schmoe. The feline in me wanted to curl up on his lap and purr to be petted. Whereas the woman, however dormant, couldn't refrain from wondering if his abdominals were really sculptured half as perfect as they felt pressed against me.

His fingers ran through my shaggy fur as an amused chuckle vibrated through his chest. "You're a friendly little thing, aren't you? And pretty too," he drawled as he stroked his large hand across my spine and all the way down to the tip of my tail before starting at my shoulder blades again. "A bath and a meal and you'll be good as new."

My eyes narrowed into slits. Bullshit.

With a coat the colour of rotten pumpkin squash and more scars than I had whiskers, I had to have been the ugliest cat he had ever seen. He would also realize the moment he tried to bring me anywhere near water, I would be the least domesticated too.

I had lost a life to drowning and hadn't considered any part of it fun. Neither would he when I unsheathed my claws and carved my vengeance into his face. I huffed at the human disdainfully, but the effect was lost to a loud rumble from my belly.

"Don't worry, kitten," he soothed and cuddled me close. "We'll fill that tummy right up."

I found myself caught between a purr and a scowl.

He wasn't treating me like a stray. Something told me that even if my belly had been swollen with worms and my skin crawling with flees, his reaction wouldn't have been any different.

I tilted my head back in an attempt to catch a good look at him as he carried me into the club. The music and strobe lights had been turned down, leaving the expanse of the floor covered in a soft yellow artificial glow. The human weaved through the tall round tables and upside-down chairs with me still firmly pressed against his hard chest.

I couldn't see much past the reddish brown facial hair that covered his prominent lower jaw. Only that it climbed his face thick and neat. Not like those straggled looking beards that resembled a garden broom's bristles sticking out in every odd direction. From the little I could see and the gentle expression of his voice, he didn't sound half bad. Maybe I was being a little biased, but just the fact that my Good Samaritan wasn't trying to run me over, automatically made him the best thing since sliced bread in my book.

Walking into a red and black gothic themed office, he carefully lowered me to the smooth surface of a large desk and gave me a gentle pat on the head. "You just sit tight, kitten. I'll be right back with something for you to eat."

I sat delicately waiting with my tail tucked when he disappeared through another door. While I waited I gingerly licked at my sore paws and rubbed at my short whiskers. I was aware that I must stink of garbage and this was the closest I would come to a wash. I watched the door from the corner of my eye as I quietly marveled at how broad his back had been. Twining cords of muscle rippled beneath the fabric of his short sleeved shirt, right down to his bold jean clad thighs and calves.

My gaze fell on the Chinese takeaway box he held in his hand when he returned and my stomach growled in hunger. I lifted my nose with a raspy meow and that was the first time I saw his face. His eyes. They were a mesmerizing green with dancing flecks of brown and gold. From them shined an honest intensity that made you look right into his soul.

I felt it then. A tug in my chest that stole the breath from my lungs.

"What the fuck?" he heaved as the food slipped from his numb fingers and crashed to the floor.

I didn't even react when the prawn chow mein spilled from the carton like a tempting buffet. I had finally found the man that carried the other half of my soul inside him. My curse breaker.