by Moira Rogers
Zola's Pride
( Southern Arcana )
Moira Rogers
Zola spent years traveling the world, studying with supernatural martial-arts masters. Now, as the only lion shifter in New Orleans, she enjoys freedom from politics as well as success in running her own business - self-defense training for psychics, spell casters and other shifters.
Only one man knows why she left home at nineteen - Walker Gravois. He was there when her Seer mother, her mind twisted by magic, exiled Zola from the pride. More to the point, he stayed behind, shattering her young heart in the process.
When he appears on her doorstep after ten years of silence, Zola is nowhere near ready to trust again. But with Walker's life in danger - and the passion between them burning hotter than ever - she'll have to choose between the safety of solitude and the risk of opening herself to others once again.
Zola's Pride
Southern Arcana - 2.5
by
Moira Rogers
Chapter One
He was going to get the cops called on him if he wasn’t careful.
Walker Gravois dropped his second cigarette, crushed it under his boot and turned his attention back to the wide window across the way. Fluorescent light streamed through the glass, doing more to illuminate the narrow street than the lamp over his head. Inside the dojo, a woman with chocolate skin blocked a punch, then paused to correct her assailant’s form.
She didn’t have to be facing him for Walker to recognize her. Zola. Every line of her body tugged at memories he thought he’d banished years ago, and he couldn’t help but compare the woman before him with the one he remembered.
She’d been thinner then, just as strong but not as curvy. The wicked flare of her hips drew his gaze, and he licked his lower lip to ease the tingle of curiosity.
Walker checked his watch with a quiet curse—half past ten. He’d been standing there for close to an hour. In this part of the Quarter, it wouldn’t take long for someone to phone the police about the pervert loitering outside the dojo, watching the students kick and lunge in their tiny T-shirts and Lycra sports bras. Unfortunately, the neat letters etched into the glass window that listed closing time as nine o’clock seemed like more of a guideline than a rule.
And he desperately needed to talk to her.
He’d just begun to entertain the notion of simply walking in when Zola stepped to the front of the room and turned to address her gathered students. Clearly, she was preparing to dismiss them, so he shoved his unlit third cigarette back into the pack and crossed the street.
Man up, Gravois, he told himself. She’ll either hear what you have to say...or she’ll kick your ass clear across the river. The hell of it was that he had no idea which she’d choose. Normally, he wouldn’t worry—he could handle whatever fury Zola unleashed on him—but he had more to think about now than himself.
So he’d let her scream at him, get out whatever lingering old hurts plagued her, and then he’d make sure she heard him.
He could do this.
He had to.
The evening class had run long again.
Zola never minded. Friday night was reserved for her private class, the class made up of girls and women who walked among the supernatural denizens of New Orleans as daughters, sisters and wives. Some had powers of their own, like Sheila, a gangly, sweet-faced wolf on the cusp of womanhood, all arms and legs and uncertain strength. Some were psychics and some were spell casters, witches and priestesses who twisted magic and read minds.
Some were human, and they were the most vulnerable of all.
The soft murmur of feminine voices drifted through the dojo as the last few students lingered in the warmth of the building, catching up on the latest gossip or making plans to meet later in the week. February had brought an unseasonable cold snap, the kind of chill that settled in Zola’s bones and made her long for the unforgiving deserts of her childhood.
The floor creaked behind her, and Zola looked up from rearranging a stack of punching targets to catch sight of Sheila’s reflection. The teenager had a jacket zipped up to her chin and a knit hat pulled low over wild corkscrew curls, leaving just her pale face uncovered. “Zola?”
She looked worried, and Zola tensed. “Yes, Sheila? There is a problem?” Even after all these years, English didn’t come naturally. The words tumbled out in an order that always made others laugh, but she’d spoken too many languages in too many countries to worry now.
Sheila was so accustomed to Zola’s linguistic oddities that she didn’t blink. She did, however, speak in her own nearly indecipherable dialect. “There’s a guy lurking outside. I mean, he's hot and all, but the lurking is pretty creeptastic and a little pervy.”
Zola didn’t need to understand the words to decipher their meaning. She turned and squinted through the broad windows, her vision hampered by the darkness outside and the glare of the dojo’s lights. Even a shapeshifter’s enhanced senses had their limits.
“Stay,” she murmured, already crossing the room. The hardwood floor was cool beneath her bare feet, but she ignored it, just as she ignored the bite of freezing air against her uncovered arms as she pushed open the door.
The scent of the French Quarter hit her in a rush, a hundred smells that would take hours to untangle. Strongest was the coffee from the shop next door, rich and bitter, undercut with the sweetness of freshly baked cookies.
Then the wind shifted, and she smelled him.
Shock held her frozen in place, a statue of ice that might shatter at any moment. Cigarettes. Leather. Lion. Male. His musky cologne should have changed in ten years. The way it heated the blood in her frozen heart should have changed.
Zola turned to face the women who had fallen silent and watched her now, wary and uncertain. She opened her mouth to reassure them and French came to her tongue, so easily she almost bit the tip to keep the words from rolling out.
He’d whispered his words of love in French, under a full moon and ten thousand stars.
She fought for English and it came out choppy and abrupt. “Time for leaving. To leave. Time to leave. Next week, I will be seeing you all?”
They flashed her confused looks but left, filing out into the dark night. Zola watched little Sheila until she met her older brother, who lifted a hand in silent greeting. Zola acknowledged him with a nod, then turned abruptly and strode back inside.
Her visitor would follow.
Follow he did, but not so quickly or so brashly as he would have in her youth. Zola had time to slip her feet into her soft house shoes and don a sweatshirt over her tight tank before Walker Gravois walked back into her life.
His scent hadn’t changed, but he had. Hazy memory had declared him beautiful, with full lips and cheekbones sharp enough to cut, a youthful warrior painted with all the colors of a clear day on the savanna, golden skin and eyes like the sky. But time had left its mark, put sorrow in his eyes and lines on his face.
Jeans and a leather jacket couldn’t hide the strength of him, and instinct twisted inside her, turned a visit from an old acquaintance into something darker. Lion shapeshifters were rare in the States, so rare that she’d carved out her own territory that spanned most of Louisiana. Walker Gravois was an interloper—and maybe lethal enough to drive her from her home.
Sometimes history did repeat itself.
He didn’t greet her, just dropped his bag and leaned against the small counter near the door where she took care of the trappings of business. “You look good, Zola.”
English. She’d rarely heard English from him, though it was his native tongue. Responding in kind would reveal her difficulty with the language, a weakness she felt too unsteady to reveal. So she replied in F
rench, short and to the point. “Why are you here?”
He followed her lead. “I came to see you. I have some news.”
She’d been so recklessly distracted by his presence that she hadn’t considered what it must mean. Walker had been the youngest of her mother’s bodyguards, sworn to her inner-circle with more than the bonds of loyalty holding him. If he was here, alone... “She is dead.”
Walker shoved his hands into his pockets. “She was killed last week. I’m very sorry.”
Maybe she truly was a woman of ice, with a heart long since frozen beyond melting, for the words stirred nothing but gentle regret and guilty relief. Perhaps surprise that it had taken so long—the madness that claimed most Seers had started its work on Tatienne’s mind a decade earlier, when she’d looked on her only daughter and had seen nothing but a rival.
Walker’s face mirrored her guilt, but there was nothing relieved about it. “That’s not the only reason I came.”
Of course not. Seers were the most powerful creatures to walk the earth—when had the death of one ever come without pain and trouble for those left in the rubble of their broken lives? “Tell me.”
He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “Is there someplace we can talk?”
She could take him next door, to the coffee shop, but she imagined nothing he had to say could be said in the presence of humans. Bringing him to her home was too trusting, too intimate—but denying him felt like cowardice.
Pride had always been her folly. “Come upstairs. I’ll make you some coffee.”
Walker had thought that nothing about Zola’s present life could shock him. She’d always been a free spirit, and he’d had to acknowledge at the outset of his search that he had no idea where or how he’d find her, which was predictable in its own way. But the one thing he hadn’t seen coming was that she might have run back to New Orleans. “I didn’t expect you to be in Louisiana.”
No one who didn’t know her would have noticed the tiny flinch, the way her shoulders tensed up and squared, a telling defensive gesture. “New Orleans is a good place for a cat. The wolves ignore me.”
“I know.” He’d grown up in the bayou, south of the city. “I guess all the stories about my old stomping ground made it sound irresistible.”
The coffee cup she’d pulled from the cupboard smashed into the counter hard enough to fracture, and she hissed her frustration. “I didn’t come here because of you,” she said stiffly as she shoved the cup aside and reached for another. “And why I am here is irrelevant. Why are you here?”
Easy enough to answer, and it still might get him kicked out of her apartment. “I need your help.”
Zola didn’t seem surprised. “Yes, Seers rarely die quiet deaths. I suppose she left a mess behind?”
That was one way to put it. “Tatienne ran into some trouble with a mercenary group in Portugal. It was bad.”
“How bad?”
“Bad enough for them to follow us.” Bad enough for them to kill most of the pride.
She turned slowly, eyes narrowed, face tight. “Why me? Why throw yourself on my mercy when not one of you had a sliver of compassion in your hearts when she drove me out? I am not a martyr, not for any man. Not even for you.”
Yes, she would assume no one had cared, because the truth was an unthinkable horror, one he would never reveal to her if he could help it. “I cared, Zola. You have to know I did.”
“Maybe.” She turned again, gave him her back—this time in a clear show of disrespect. “Maybe not enough.”
There was nothing to say, no soothing words to offer. “The pride is mine—what’s left of it, anyway—and all I want to do is keep them alive. Keep them safe.”
“You want to move them here?” Disbelief painted the words. She spun to face him, and her fingers twitched toward her palm, a warning sign that her temper burned hot. Ten years ago she would have followed through, formed a fist and struck him. Her passions had always ridden close to the surface, but maturity had clearly tempered them with restraint.
“New Orleans is the safest place,” he told her calmly. “Surely a half-dozen lions who only want to keep to themselves won’t get in your way.”
“Oh, are we civilized now? Are we human?” She abandoned the coffee she’d poured for him and stalked across the hardwood floor to slam a hand to the table next to him. Then she leaned into his space, filling the air with the angry sizzle of a shapeshifter challenge. “I will not be forced from my home again.”
Keeping a leash on his own reaction cost him dearly. There were few ways to react to such a challenge, and they all ended in violence or sex—neither of which was an option, not if they both wanted to keep their heads on straight. “I’m the only one left, Zola. The only one who stood by while Tatienne drove you out. And I’ll—I’ll leave as soon as the rest of the pride is settled.”
She recoiled, leaving only the lingering scent of her skin. “You’re asking me to lead.”
A frisson of irritation made him grit his teeth. “Those are your options, Zola. Lead or follow. You can’t stay alone in your territory forever.”
“I don’t—” She bit off the words and paced away from him, leashed energy vibrating with every step. “You haven’t told me enough. Why do you need to come here? Why are there only a half-dozen of you left? My mother had more followers than all of the lions in this country combined.”
The truth was uncomfortable because, willing or not, he’d been a party to it. “She did, and now they’re all dead.”
She reached the far wall and pivoted, meeting his gaze across the space that separated them. “Are you still being hunted?”
“Yes.” Walker waved to the other end of the sofa. “Sit down, and I’ll explain everything.”
Chapter Two
Zola did the only thing she could. She sat.
A half-dozen lions. At its height, her mother’s pride had numbered in the forties, lions from every continent flocking to kneel at the feet of the generation’s only lion Seer. To imagine that strength reduced to just a handful—and all strangers. No one who would look on her and see a vulnerable girl.
Perhaps she could lead them after all. If she had to. “Was it my mother’s madness?”
“I don’t think so, not at first.” Walker sipped his coffee. “There were a lot of mouths to feed, and the pride needed money. Tatienne said lions made the best warriors, the fiercest, so she started looking for underground fights.”
Bloodsport. Not the same as a clean challenge, not when magical cheats were common and death was all but guaranteed to anyone who fought long enough. It was madness, no matter what Walker claimed.
Worse was knowing whose fighting skills she would have bartered first. “You fought?”
“Yeah. Mixed martial arts stuff, but only the invitationals for supernaturals. I’m not a cheat. Some of the others weren’t so picky.”
So they’d died. But surely not so many, so quickly. “And after the fights?”
“Your mother found other kinds of work, mercenary stuff.” Walker glanced at her, his eyes tight with shame. “Mostly bodyguarding or lift jobs, sometimes intimidation. She sent a couple of the newer guys out once for what I was pretty sure was a hit, but she knew better than to tell me so.”
Morality had slipped from her mother’s grasp along with her sanity. Zola’s stomach knotted at the sheer disgrace of it. Unfair, perhaps—she could hardly be held responsible for the actions of the mother who’d driven her away—but she’d always cherished her memories of an earlier time. Of the woman whose mind hadn’t been consumed by magic, who had soothed a daughter’s childish hurts and taught her to be strong and fierce.
But the Tatienne she’d known had died many years ago. “Why did you stay with her?”
He didn’t deny that he’d wanted to leave. “By the time I realized how far gone she was, I couldn’t abandon the others.”
“How far did it go?”
“Too far.” He set his cup on the table with a clatt
er. “She was already dancing close to the edge, and Portugal was the last straw. She’d managed to move in on another group’s territory, was stealing their commissions. That got their attention, but what held it was Tatienne.”
Walker hurt. His pain dug hooks into her heart, tore at the scabs of wounds she’d thought long since healed. Words of love hadn’t been the only kind they’d whispered on long nights in the desert. She could remember all too easily the way her chest had ached as her mother turned cold, how Walker had taken her in his arms and comforted her after each argument, each fight.
Every one but the last, and that stood between them, a wall she couldn’t knock down. It wasn’t her place to touch his cheek or his hair, to give him that gift, that knowledge of belonging. All she could do was coax him to finish the story, though she could guess the end. “They targeted her because she was a Seer?”
“They call themselves the Scions of Ma’at,” he answered. “They’re mercenaries who work in basic pair groups—a shifter and a spell caster. They train together, live together, you name it. Each pair is considered one entity. One fighter. They’re all about balance and order, and Tatienne’s nature offended that.”
The name tugged at a memory, but it slipped away before she could grasp it. “But they’ve killed her. They’ve killed so many. Why are they still hunting you?”
“Because they haven’t settled the score yet. We—” Walker rose and paced to the other side of the room. “We killed even more of them.”
“And they seek vengeance?”
“An eye for an eye,” he muttered grimly. “That’s their idea of balance. Of justice. Maybe they’re not wrong in theory, but the people I brought over had nothing to do with what happened.”
And only six yet lived. “How many lives do they demand?”
He turned and met her gaze. “All of them. All of us.”
Her lips parted to give voice to the protest growing inside her, one borne of instinct and ancient feelings, not logic. Years might have passed, but she remembered what it was like to feel the familiar press of his power and know he was hers.
