Lindley grunted. “Most. Not all.”
The slight awe in her voice stroked down his spine like a soothing hand. After a hard day and an even harder night, he wanted to sink into it.
He scowled at the road instead. “Look, I want to apologize for the others.” And himself, not that he’d admit it. He didn’t want to give her any ideas about where they stood. They weren’t friends. She was just an unwanted hitchhiker who’d thrown herself and her quest at him. “They’re not used to having strangers around. I’ve thought about getting them a copy of Miss Manners, but they’d probably just use it for kindling.”
Kyla turned to him with a tiny, knowing smile. “Don’t worry about it. They were fine. Better than what I’m used to dealing with.” Her smile broadened. “I liked them a lot, actually.”
His hands tightened around the steering wheel as his lion growled in his head. What he wouldn’t give to throttle each and every asshole who did assholish things to her. Not a long-term solution, but a step in the right direction.
Until then, she wasn’t safe. He didn’t like the idea of taking her off the ranch and into parts unknown. That she’d—again—accused him of acting just like their old pride was the only reason he didn’t have her locked down somewhere.
Fuck, he was going to go insane with the competing urges to shove her far, far away and prove her ideas about him wrong.
Amusement filled the cab of his truck. Kyla huffed a laugh, then asked, “Remember those etiquette classes the whole school did before the winter dance every year? All hundred of us crammed into the cafeteria to learn not to chew with our mouths open or put our elbows on the table? Sage always took it so seriously. She even stayed seated, back straight, when that group of seniors started a food fight one year.”
Lindley shifted in his seat. He remembered. He’d sat two tables down with other lions, silently keeping guard over his sister. That’d been a constant throughout his childhood. While his father focused on terrorizing the pride into obedience and his mother worked to manage Roland’s moods, keeping an eye on Sage fell to him. And invariably, where Sage went, Kyla followed.
“That was the time same year we snuck out to go to Kevin Walcott’s house party. You two were so pissed the other was there that I hardly saw you in the same room together.”
Damn right, he’d been pissed. They were supposed to have been studying at Kyla’s, not at a party meant for the graduating class. But that was where Kyla’s memory failed. He’d kept a room apart because he hated watching his little sister get hit on. He’d also watched Kyla take a sip of cheap beer and set it aside with a grimace. She’d spent the rest of the night quietly tidying up after the rest of the partygoers.
His lion had liked her even when they were kids, but that was the first time the beast truly focused on her. She wasn’t just the extra that came packaged with his sister, which was what everyone else saw. She was Kyla, a bright, shining attraction in her own right.
Which was a whole fuckload of impossible. She was two years younger, which mattered less and less as they got older. But his sister’s best friend? That was asking for a world of trouble.
Still was.
Kyla tucked her hair behind her ears. A faint blush colored her cheeks. “Then there was the winter dance—”
“Stop,” he snarled. Lindley bit the insides of his cheeks and swallowed back the noise rattling in his throat. “Just… stop,” he continued in a gravelly rasp.
He didn’t need more to know where she headed. The sweet apple scent thickening around him was enough without the delicious pink on her skin. The night he’d kissed her was a memory he tried not to touch.
Kyla shrank back against her door. “What did I say?” she asked.
“Nothing. Everything! Fuck.” He scrubbed a hand down his face. “Those aren’t good memories for me.”
He’d gone to the damn dance to keep an eye on Sage and all the other young lions mingling with the humans. Or not, as it were. The Levine pride kept mostly to themselves even then.
Sage had her choice of dance partners, but not Kyla. Shy, awkward Kyla looked up anytime someone approached where she sat, then glanced back down again when they inevitably passed.
He’d gotten more and more pissed as the night wore on and she stayed in her seat. When the last dance was announced, he’d crossed the cafeteria. She’d pulled the same up and down move with her eyes until he stood right in front of her. He’d had to ask twice if she’d dance, and even then she’d followed it up with a half-hearted joke about getting the Carrie treatment.
That little joke drew a snort from him that made her laugh, then they’d cracked up while the rest of the dance melted away around them. Every sway, every spin, had wound them tighter and tighter together that it was a shock when the music died and the overhead lights flicked on.
Sage fell asleep on the drive back to the territory. He’d stopped at Kyla’s first, then shot out of his door to help her down so she didn’t tangle herself up in her dress. The slow slide of her body against his, eyes locked on each other, had felt like another touch of magic. Neither dared breathe when he bent slowly and pressed his lips to hers.
Lindley shook off the memory and the flash of sendings from his inner lion. The beast wanted more. More of her scent in his nose, the feel of her in his arms, the flash of warmth when their skin touched. He wanted her.
“I don’t like living in the past,” he gritted out.
One heartbeat thudded into another. Kyla relaxed enough to straighten in her seat. “You’re so different from what I remember,” she said with a touch of sadness in her tone. “I don’t know who you are anymore.”
Lindley glowered in her direction. “I can say the same thing about you.”
Her eyebrows shot together. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You didn’t fight! You just let that asshole tackle you to the ground. The Kyla I knew would have at least tried.” A growl worked itself out of his throat. “You asked me why I didn’t stay. Why did it take you so long to leave?”
“You think I don’t ask myself that all the time? Do you really think it was just fun and games since you left?” Her eyes flashed gold with her irritation. “It was fear. Day in, day out, constant, stagnating fear. And not just the fear for my family, for Sage, or for myself and not knowing what could happen to us in the next minute. Whole families have just disappeared in the night, Lin. Gone. That shakes you to your core.
“The worst was the fear of what happens on the other side. What do I do now? Where do I go? My parents are still back there and I have zero idea what’s going on with them. I don’t know if they’re dead or alive. I don’t know if I’ll see them again, and if I do, will they try to rope me back in? In a way, I’m still stuck there because I still don’t know what’s going to happen in the next minute.” She lifted her chin and turned fierce eyes on him. “That’s my excuse. What’s yours?”
Lindley watched her carefully. Stuck. She didn’t know how right she was. He’d been stuck in that quagmire even while he went through the motions elsewhere. The worry for Sage—and Kyla—stayed with him.
“No one really knows what’s coming,” he said with a wince. Hollow, stupid words, and nowhere near the answers she wanted.
“You’re right. We don’t know each other anymore,” she said stiffly.
She turned away from him. Lindley’s lion sliced through him with sharp claws and salted the wound with sendings of the words she’d hurled at him before.
What happened to you?
Just another Levine male.
Her scent swirled with disappointment and anger and a whole mess of other emotions he’d need an eternity to pick apart. He wasn’t who she remembered. The longer he spent with her, the more trouble he had reconciling his past with the man he’d become.
But she didn’t drop her eyes.
Chapter 11
Kyla stewed in her thoughts. Lindley was the embodiment of frustration. And not just because he was built like a cove
r model on the books her mother had hidden away deep in her closet. No, he had to be frustrating in every interaction. Couldn't a girl throw herself in front of a moving vehicle and get some dang, clear answers?
He switched on and off, open and closed, hot and cold faster than should be possible. It was a wonder he didn’t have whiplash—and not from their little accident.
She’d been thrilled—thrilled!—when he started up his truck. An almost giddy enthusiasm bounded inside her. That moment had been the start of a journey. A proper one, too, not the kind where she ran for her life. She felt empowered for the first time since her world blew apart.
They’d even started to get along! His pride was crazy, but the good kind. She could even see how he fit with their brand of madness.
And he’d taken it all away with just a few words.
She’d worked herself up to turn back to him and demand to know what sort of superpower he possessed that sucked up all her excitement at actually doing something to help Sage when he slowed and turned down a gravel driveway.
Set back from the road was a two-story cabin with a curl of smoke rising from the chimney. Logs were set apart from the house as a marker for parking spots and, Kyla guessed, a border for landscaping in the warmer months.
The charming sight fell flat when Kyla hopped out of the truck and into the unmistakable air of other lions.
She twisted around to Lindley, but he’d already trudged up the short steps to the porch with a small booklet in his hand. He didn’t even knock before the door swung wide open to reveal a woman with brown hair and a suspicious look on her face.
Well, who better to talk about lion bullpoop than other lions?
Kyla hurried to catch up, reaching the door just as Lindley stepped inside. And holy moly, they weren’t alone. Three other women stood beyond the door.
The woman who’d answered the door took a long look at her. Her nostrils flared. “Another lioness?” Her eyes narrowed as even more suspicion dumped into her scent. “What pride do you belong to?”
“No pride. Not anymore,” Lindley answered.
“Levines of Nevada,” Kyla said over him.
Scowls on every face froze her in the doorway.
“What is this, Lindley?” the woman demanded. “You bring one of theirs here?”
Lindley shook his head. “She’s not one of theirs. Not anymore.”
Her frown deepened. “You vouch for her?”
“I do.”
Kyla shivered as he took her in with a quick glance. The copper of his eyes raised fine hairs up and down her arms. Something about them drew her further inside the cabin, only to jump when the door shut behind her.
"Kyla, this is Linnea." Lindley gestured to the one who'd answered the door, then pointed out each of the others with rapid-fire introductions. "Maya. Gretchen. Annalee."
Linnea eyed her up and down, then turned her attention back to Lindley. “Where is Hailey?”
Lindley pressed his lips together in a thin line. “She couldn’t make it. This couldn’t wait.”
“What does Hailey have to do with this?” Kyla asked softly.
All eyes in the room snapped to her and she had the distinct impression that she’d been momentarily forgotten. Under their intense scrutiny, she almost wished they’d dismiss her again.
“She doesn’t know?”
“Like I said, this couldn’t wait. We didn’t have time for a fireside chat.”
Tension filled the air. Thick, choking, and stinking like old sweat. Her lioness sank down inside her, carefully watching the others. Lindley stayed on her radar, too, a bright blip of constant awareness.
Linnea blinked first. She made her way further into the room and took a seat in front of the fire. “We belonged to Jasper Crowley,” she said finally.
“Unwillingly,” another added in a mutter. Maya, Kyla thought.
Linnea canted her head in acknowledgment and stared into the flames. "He took us as bargaining chips to keep his alliance of prides in line. We were to be mated off as he saw fit. Hailey helped set us free. We owe her our lives."
Lindley backed her up, hand almost touching her waist as he guided her to a chair in the corner. Kyla tried not to notice how close they were. Or inhale his thick scent. Or feel the heat blasting off his hand and arm and chest.
Her lioness noticed. The big cat rolled to her back and flashed her belly in complete delight.
Idiot animal. He wanted nothing to do with them. Chasing after him like some lovesick little cub would only make an awkward situation worse.
“Sit here,” he told her.
“Was that why you didn’t want to bring me?” she whispered. “You didn’t want them to know about me? Or me, them?”
The second hurt worse. She could understand the lionesses not trusting her. Imagining that he didn’t think she could be trusted with their location, that she might relay it back to the very monsters they’d escaped, sliced her open.
Instead of answering, he gave her a stern look and turned back to the others.
Kyla studied them as Lindley unfolded a map on their table. Linnea was clearly in charge and the others let her speak for them. Even so, she kept a healthy distance between herself and Lindley.
Maya and Annalee were almost mirrors of each other on either side of the room, each with crossed arms and averted gazes. For all their posed uncaring, they tensed every time Lindley shuffled a step to flatten out the map.
Gretchen seemed the most agitated. She kept her back to the wall near the stairs, far enough to give herself a quick escape while still technically staying in the room. Her eyes never stayed still, bouncing from Lindley to Kyla to the others, then back again.
Kyla shifted in her seat. Agitated, jumpy, no trust for strangers… they were a glimpse of her possible future if her old pride forced her back into the fold.
Her stomach turned into a hard stone. Sage could be turning into them that very moment.
“I want to go over names and locations,” Lindley said finally, lifting his eyes from the map.
“We’ve been over everything. What good do you think will come from this?” Sadness filled Linnea’s scent. “We just want to forget and move on.”
“They have my sister.” Lindley scrubbed a hand down his face and let off a harsh sigh. “I need to know where she might have been taken.”
“You ask too much. We’ve already lost friends and family. Mates.” Gretchen objected from her spot across the room. She swallowed hard, scent burning with fury and loss. “We won’t be part of another war.”
The others nodded their agreement.
“I’m not asking you to fight. I’m just asking you to give me some idea of where to look,” Lindley said testily.
All four flinched. Linnea recovered quicker than the other three, casting a look of reassurance in their directions before snapping her eyes back to Lindley. Wary anger brewed in her.
“Please,” Kyla interjected before the woman could open her mouth. “Sage is my closest friend. We grew up together, laughed and cried together. We don’t share blood, but she’s like a sister to me. Anything you can think of, any scrap of information you might have heard, please. Tell us. Wouldn’t you do the same for your friends and family?”
“You think we wouldn’t?” Maya snapped. “Not all of us made it out of Jasper’s pride. We don’t even know if some of them are alive. So don’t tell us what we would or wouldn’t do to know they’re safe.”
The grief in her voice rang clear as a bell. Kyla felt it echo in her own chest. Voice soft, she asked, “Who did you lose?”
Maya rolled her eyes and turned away. “It doesn’t matter.”
“It matters to me.”
Across the room, Lindley tilted his head to the side and watched her. The deep brown of his eyes warmed to a soft rum with a healthy dose of interest and pride that pleased her inner cat. Kyla fought to keep her chin high. She’d earned that look. She didn’t want to reject it.
Maya tightened her arms
around herself and chewed on her lower lip. "Her name was Priscilla. She took me under her wing the day I arrived. Told me who I didn't need to watch and who to avoid. Baddest bitch in our whole house." Her small smile faded. "If she's still alive, they probably snapped her up again."
Kyla’s eyes flew wide. Oh, oh, of course! They were Jasper’s pride. They weren’t the only ones she’d been in contact with. Or scolded by.
“Tall? Dark hair? Sharp nose?” At their nods, she continued. “She didn’t give a name, but I think I saw her. She came with Jasper the night he collected Sage.”
“She’s alive?” Maya breathed.
“As of a week ago, yes.”
Quiet expanded in the room, rolling over everyone and everything in its path. The former Jasper pride lionesses exchanged long looks before Linnea stepped closer to the table.
"As we've said before, they kept us away from the meetings. Even moving between prides was done in windowless vans," she pointed to a spot just south of the red circle marked Bearden, "and almost entirely overnight. Once, we left after dark and arrived before morning. The driver took one pit stop not long before we arrived at our destination. I remember seeing part of a sign when he opened the door. Heatherglen? Heatherwood?"
“Forest? Heatherglen Forest?” Lindley asked, tapping a spot on the map a little further south.
“Maybe?” She shrugged dejectedly. “It smelled like trees. Other lionesses joined us,” Gretchen paled and nodded behind her, “then we went back to the camp you dismantled.”
Annalee cautiously stepped next to Linnea and held open her hand. She added circles to the map. “Vandalay, Zarro, and Romero prides are all working with the consortium. They’re basically a straight shot south to the Levine pride.”
“Romero pride?” Lindley mused, “I thought they were dead.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. They call themselves Zombies for a reason. I was taken through there ten months ago.”
“I’m sure a headshot will put them down permanently, just like anyone else.” Lindley snorted, then frowned. “The straight line is a nice theory if Jasper is still operating around Bearden. We don’t know for sure where he’s at.”
Savage Claim: Lion Hearts Book Two Page 7
