Bounty Cats (Reboot)

Book One: Chapter 3

Rei let out a contented sigh as the Green Snake salon attendant gently massaged her calves, meticulously filing and buffing her claw-like nails into glistening ebony points. Even with their financial empire crumbling around them, there was no way she was going to let her signature feline looks go to seed.

Beside her, Luna purred softly in pleasure as another reptilian hybrid technician worked her deft, scaled hands across her sister's delicate feet. Despite their debt crisis, the twins had insisted on keeping their usual twice-weekly pampering appointment. Image was everything in their line of work—they couldn't afford to look anything less than impeccable, creditors be damned.

Rei stole a sidelong glance at the chrome chronometer affixed to the salon's curved, mossy wall. Just thirty more days until the dreaded repo droids showed up to strip them of their remaining assets, their hard-won career reduced to ashes. The familiar knot of anxiety twisted in the pit of her stomach.

She closed her eyes, trying to push the worry from her mind. Instead, her thoughts drifted back to the previous night's encounter with the ruggedly handsome—albeit somewhat unconventional—bounty hunter. Rally Hunter... even his name oozed a roguish charm that made her shiver with an unfamiliar tingle.

His feral, piercing gaze had fixated her from the moment he'd stepped out of the crowd, all coiled menace and lean, muscular danger. And the way he'd moved, with such fluid, predatory grace as he'd neutralized that hulking rhino thug...

Rei felt a flush of warmth bloom across her cheeks as she imagined running her fingers through the soft, thick fur of his powerful chest, exploring the wiry ropes of muscle rippling beneath that battered leather jacket. What would his calloused hands feel like caressing her lithe, feline body? How would his blazing eyes smolder as he—

"You're drooling, sis," Luna's teasing voice sliced through Rei's heated reverie like a vibro-dagger.

Rei's eyes snapped open to see her twin regarding her with a sly, knowing grin. "Still thinking about your hunky knight in dented armor, are you?"

Flustered, Rei shot Luna a scathing look as she snatched a plush towel and blotted furiously at the corner of her mouth. "I don't know what you're babbling about."

Luna laughed, rich and lilting. "Uh-huh, sure you don't. And my fur's not iridescent." She leaned in conspiratorially. "Seriously though, you really should have gotten that guy's contact code before he swaggered off into the night. Imagine the look on the 'Screamer's face when their dream 'cat showed up with a wolfen stud on her arm."

Rei opened her mouth for a biting retort, but her mind stuttered to a halt as a new idea blossomed, bright and tantalizing. Her eyes went wide as she stared at Luna in a sudden epiphany.

"That's it..." she breathed.

Luna frowned quizzically. "What's it?"

"The answer to our debt!" Rei exclaimed, gripping her sister's hand with almost painful intensity. "We need to become bounty hunters!"

Luna recoiled as if someone slapped her, her delicate features contorting in disbelief. "Bounty hunters? Are you completely michin? That's the most perilous, cut-throat job in the city!"

"Exactly!" Rei pressed on, her excitement building. "If we can just nab one big score, a huge bounty on some heavy hitter, it'll be enough to cover our debts and get the repo sluts off our tail for good!"

Her sister stared at her as if she'd grown a second head. "But... we don't know the first thing about being hunters! It's way too dangerous, we'd get our tails chewed off in a second!"