by Nikki Winter
Beastly Desires
by
Nikki Winter
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced electronically. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced electronically or in print without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews. This is a work of fiction. All references to real places, people, or events are coincidental, and if not coincidental, are used fictitiously. All trademarks, service marks, registered trademarks, and registered service marks are the property of their respective owners and are used herein for identification purposes only. eBooks are NOT transferable. Re-selling, sharing or giving eBooks is a copyright infringement.
© 2014 Beastly Desires
Editor: Katriena Knights
Cover Art: Marteeka Karland
Books are NOT transferable. Re-selling, sharing or giving eBooks is a copyright infringement.
Dedication
To my own Iya, the strongest lioness I know, thank you. It makes me mental when people compare us but if I had to be like anyone, you’re definitely in my top 5 as a choice. Kidding! Mean it! Love you! To my pride—two people who roar in outrage when I find myself hurt or discouraged—you may not know it, I may not say it often, but you’re a part of what anchors me when I need it the most. And to my readers, with every positive response and every not-so-gentle prod—I’m looking at you, Fantasyland—you make me push myself harder than I ever have before. I can’t put a value on you all but I can tell you that I wouldn’t continue what I do without your support. –Nikki Winter
Kamali Oriade is in over her head and terrified for both herself and her son. After watching her father murdered before a significant portion of her pride was wiped out by a merciless rogue lion, she soon finds her terror transforming into cold, unerring determination to survive. Not just for herself but for the cub who means everything to her. Her son is wanted dead and she’s wanted as a trophy for a man who craves taking everything her surname is attached to. Just when her battle begins and running seems to be the most viable option she stumbles into the presence of one pushy, overbearing, food obsessed tiger who doesn’t seem too interested in letting her go…
Kaisal Verochka is a typical pride male. He torments his sibling and younger cousin, pisses off his parents and sleeps when he isn’t hunting or listening to classical music to stem his baser…urges. With a shadowed past full of mistakes that haunt him daily, he never expects for someone—least of all a lioness with an itchy trigger finger—to come along and silence his demons using only the power of her smile. He never expects the laughter of a cub to lift the weight of regret from him. And he never expects one chance encounter to leave him so in tune with two individuals that he can’t find it in himself to separate from them. But it happens. It happens, and he refuses to give up that smile, that laughter. Even if it means massacring those pursuing what he now considers his…
Contents
. 1
One. 6
Two. 11
Three. 22
Four. 29
Five. 35
Six. 44
Seven.. 56
Eight. 66
Nine. 76
Ten.. 87
Eleven.. 100
Twelve. 111
Thirteen.. 124
Fourteen.. 134
Fifteen.. 142
Sixteen.. 154
Epilogue. 162
One
San Antonio, Texas…
“Do you really believe yourself to be that good of a shot, Kamali?”
The voice behind that question was smooth, calm—arrogant. But he didn’t understand, did he? He didn’t truly grasp that he’d toed a line that should’ve never been crossed. He was a part of something that bordered on genocide. All because of one male, one leader.
Kamali Oriade’s hand remained steady, the sawed-off she held unwavering. When would her kind learn that being a predator didn’t mean you couldn’t become prey? When would they understand that an over-inflated sense of self-worth was what had gotten their species hunted down and gutted over and over again? When would they realize that the most foolish decision anyone could make—human or shifter—was to get between a mother and her child?
“Kamali, sweetheart,” another voice coaxed, the owner of it grinning, his canines in clear view. “Nico will forgive you if you just hand over the cub and come back.”
Clearly the answer to her questions was never. They’d never learn. Shifters had a natural affinity for reckless behavior. Having the ability to become a literal weapon contributed to that. It was easy to laugh at a perceived threat when an animal prowled just beneath your skin. But what they didn’t seem to comprehend was that she wasn’t just a perceived threat, she was the threat. And if they took another step, covered anymore ground between herself, the cub currently whimpering as he clung to her leg, and the shotgun in her grip, they’d die. They’d. Fucking. Die.
“You,” Kamali stated mildly, “are out of your goddamned minds if you honestly believe you’re going to drag me back to that son of a bitch. Fuck you and fuck him.”
The man in her peripheral moved from one foot to the other and she knew what he was doing. “If you charge me, I’ll splatter your head before you can even get within a foot. Be still, Russ,” she calmly announced.
“You’re making this harder than it has to be.” The one facing her dead on said. “You have to know that what you’re doing right now will not end well.”
A low growl rumbled up from her gut. They were stupid, so very, very stupid if they thought this wouldn’t result with half their heads missing and her driving off into the night.
She couldn’t give one good fuck about any threat their pride leader had made before sending them off to find her. She wasn’t going back. She’d never go back. He’d slaughtered half of her pride, slit her father’s throat in front of her face, and he now expected what? For her to stand by and watch him kill her cub so he could wait for her to go into heat and impregnate her with his own? He was off it, and so were the males before her. Rogues. Roving males looking for a pride to take over, looking for a dominant leader weak enough to kill. That had been Kamali’s pride. That had been Kamali’s father. Nico Traore was a monster in every sense of the word and if she went back, if she ventured onto what was previously Oriade land, the last of what she loved—protected—would be taken. She wouldn’t allow that, couldn’t.
Russ’ chuckle caught her attention and she realized she’d been shaking. He probably thought it was fear but she knew better. Her beast was very close to snapping its leash but she couldn’t shift. Since both males were bigger, it’d give them the upper hand, and Kamali would be left vulnerable. That wouldn’t happen again. They were traitors, both of them. They’d apparently helped Nico plot this for months, and those who hadn’t died tonight had stood with him.
“If you give him a female to replace the boy, he may overlook your…offenses.”
She felt her eyes slowly bleed into that of her beast’s as fury began to take hold. They spoke of her son, her Callum, like he was trash; something disposable instead of a living being, instead of the very thing that made her rise in the morning. Kamali gritted her teeth. “I will not bargain over my son like he’s a kitten I picked up on the side of the road. My advice is that you turn around and go back. Go back to Nico, go back to what you stole.”
Russ’ head tilted. “We understand you have an attachment to the child—”
Her lids lowered. “Attachment?” Kamali whispered in disbelief. “Did you just say attachment? He’s. My. Son.” Her finger played around the trigger as Callum trembled, his small hands digging into her denim-clad thigh. She couldn’t comfort him at the moment; her main concern was his safety. “T
he only way we’re going back is if I am dead, and rest assured that even then I will find a way to fight.”
The small cry her son let out sent all self-control shattering. “Callum, go get in the truck.” He simply held to her that much tighter. “Callum, if¹, I need you to move like Mommy said, now.”
“But—”
“Callum!” she barked as the air around her got denser, foreshadowing the shift Russ was about to make. When her son jumped she hated herself but what she was doing, what she was about to do, was for him. She felt his little fingers unfurl from her leg and listened as he did as she demanded.
She’d managed to get miles and miles away from the compound on foot before they’d found her. As much as a selfish bastard as her father had been, he’d always told her to have a way out—a method of escape should she need it. This was the one time in a handful of occurrences that she’d listened. Kamali had sequestered a part of pride land where she kept a truck with supplies and enough cash to tide her over for months. As soon as Nico’s massacre had begun—under the guise of a dinner proposal to join her father’s pride—she’d grabbed Callum and ran for that very place, never looking back.
Nico clearly hadn’t anticipated that and thought his allies would be sufficient enough to catch her. He was wrong.
Russ shook his head this time. “We didn’t want it this way.”
“But we guess this is how it has to be done,” the other male added.
They made the inaccurate assumption that they were faster, stronger. Inaccurate because Kamali had been training with different forms of weaponry from the time she was old enough to properly use a butterfly knife. She could hit a target from two hundred yards, and with her enhanced senses, that particular talent simply multiplied ten-fold. It was necessary when your father was considered shifter royalty and you were marked as a meal ticket to those on the outside. Their supposedly swift movements looked sluggish and disjointed to her eyes and, without much thought, she ducked low and pulled the trigger twice, blowing a hole in Russ’ gut and hitting the other male in the knee. They went down roaring.
Standing, her breath coming out in pants because of the adrenaline rush, Kamali tried to get control of the beast. It was clawing, roaring, demanding blood, demanding that she finish this as it desperately tried to get loose. Its outrage at the attack on her cub grew with every passing second but she controlled it, she bottled the rage and sucked in a deep breath to calm the hammering of her heart.
With icy detachment, she watched Russ choke up blood as the other rolled back and forth, holding his damaged leg. If she let them go, they could make it back to the compound in time to get treated and heal. If she let them go…
“Iya!” Callum’s voice rang out from behind her, followed by the sound of his palms colliding with the glass of the window.
Kamali didn’t turn around as she spoke in the most melodic tone she could muster. “Almost done, if¹. One minute.”
She closed the distance between herself and the wounded lion males, pumping the sawed-off once more. “I should draw this out,” she whispered. “I should make you scream to whatever higher being you worship, skin you, and wear you for my own amusement. But I won’t.”
Neither even twitched, their chests heaving with the effort to breathe. “He is everything to me and you tried to take that; he tried to take that.” Kamali pointed the gun between Russ’ eyes. Hysteria was beginning to steadily overwhelm her rationale. “I’m going to return the favor.”
“Don’t…” Russ gurgled.
Her lip curled. “Tell me why? Give me a valid reason why I shouldn’t leave your festering carcasses here to feed whatever comes along?”
His mouth opened and closed.
Kamali full-on smiled. “I didn’t think so.” She pulled the trigger twice and felt a resounding echo of nothing. There was no remorse, regret, or fear. Just. Nothing.
Turning around, she headed for the truck and opened the back passenger side door. Callum tumbled out and into her arms. She pressed her face to his neck and ran a hand down his small back, biting back a sob at the way he wrapped himself around her.
“You’re safe, if¹. You’re safe…”
***
Nico stared down at his two dead pride members and felt the slow boil of rage start to roil through him. “That bitch...”
Rave Okal—now Nico’s new second—tsked behind him. It had taken a few days but they’d finally found Jared and Russ’ bodies after catching the scent of death miles off pride territory. “That bitch was smart. She clearly predicted what the rest couldn’t.”
Nico took in a deep breath and then another and another. He kept inhaling until the urge to kill depleted and looked at Rave. “I don’t give a fuck if you’ve gotta chase her from here to the third ring of hell, I want her brought back to me alive.”
“And the cub?”
He waved a hand. “Kill him. This time she won’t be able to save the little bastard. And once that’s done, I’ll have more than enough fun reminding her who reigns here now.”
Rave’s brows rose but he made no objections. “As you wish.”
Two
Morrison, Colorado…
Irritating. That goddamn buzzing was like a beacon just asking him to kill; kill a lot. It might’ve been his sensitive hearing or the fact that he was trying to quietly, happily, curl up and sleep. That was all he wanted—sleep. Why were others against the basic principle of rest? Why was it illegal for him to go on a mass-murdering spree when said others displayed their complete disregard for said rest? And why wouldn’t his goddamn phone stop all its goddamn buzzing, pushing him just that much closer to crushing it in his goddamn hands?
Kaisal Verochka finally stopped his unsuccessful attempt to sleep and rolled over toward his nightstand. With a small growl, he swiped the screen on the device and quietly said, “If this is not an emergency, please prepare yourself for the onslaught of my fury.”
There was a snort. “I cannot even begin to describe how frightened I truly am. I think my balls just tucked themselves away,” Kaisal’s brother Naresh stated just as softly. “Would you like me to put the phone receiver just beneath my thigh so you can hear their screams of terror for yourself?”
He sighed, then sighed again. Once he felt that was sufficient enough as a response, Kaisal hung up, snapped his phone in half—uncaring that it cost damn near the same price of rent in a townhome—and tossed it. That done, he rolled over, taking his sheets with him as he pulled them over his head and closed his eyes. The lulling sensation of his own natural heat soon took over and he could feel himself falling. At least until his fucking landline just about screamed.
“Son of a cock!” Kaisal snatched the phone off its base. “What?! What?! What do you want?!”
Silence followed right before, “Why are you such an angry person? What made you this way? Who hurt you?”
“Naresh,” he snarled. “I can swear to you that I am going to shove my hand through your chest, take your ribcage and play my own rendition of ‘Silent Night’ while using it as a xylophone if you don’t get to the black bottom line of this call. Are you understanding me? I am threatening to use parts of your vertebrae as an instrument.”
“Well, if you’re going to be a dick about it…”
Kaisal pulled back the phone, sucked in a deep breath and roared. His nightstand rattled as well as his bedframe and the rest of the furniture in his bedroom. The small screen on the landline cracked but it fazed him none. The second he was finished, he put it back to his ear. “You were saying?”
“So,” Naresh casually stated. “I think I need to go to the ER now.”
“Why do you hate me?” Kaisal questioned. “Is this about me super gluing a trail of cans to your tail? Because we can work that out in therapy. I’ll allow you to hit me with a foam bat and everything if you just. Let. Me. Sleep.”
His brother grunted. “My plan of vengeance is larger than me interrupting your naptime, oh sibling of mine. You know that syst
em we just put in a week ago for the Monahan pack house?”
Tugging at the hair at his nape, Kaisal waited for the rush of endorphins that followed. “There’s no way to possibly forget that we entered the gates of hell and were introduced to what Satan clearly had a hand in creating.”
“Are we talking about the pups again? Because really, you were warned that they had their fangs already.”
“I was attacked!” he cried. “I have scars! Wounds! Trauma!”
“One pup nipped you,” Naresh softly answered. “On the finger…playfully.”
“I required stitches.”
“You required an iodine pad and a Dora Band-Aid.”
“I feel like you’re trying to call me dramatic, and I don’t really appreciate it,” Kaisal replied as he got to his feet and stretched. Sleep was a distant memory now, and it was no surprise that work was the interruption. As a software designer for a security operations company that he, his brother, and their frightening cousin ran, he was used to late nights and long days. It was something he’d adapted to as a SEAL, and it was now something he had to adapt to as the leader of his pride and proprietor of a business that catered to the most irrational, emotional, animalistic species to ever walk the earth—shifters.
