The Felidae 1: Laithe’s Pride
Jade Buchanan
All rights reserved.
Copyright ©2007 Jade Buchanan
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ISBN: 978-1-59596-627-8
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Publisher:
Changeling Press LLC
PO Box 1046
Martinsburg, WV 25402-1046
www.ChangelingPress.com
Editor: Connie Alberts
Cover Artist: Bryan Keller
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Dedication
Laithe and his pride would still be sitting inside of my head if it wasn’t for the support and encouragement of my friends and family.
Thanks go to Laura, Nik, Joy, Melissa and all the ladies at JR, my sister Sarah, my parents, and my friends for listening to me at every step of this journey and for encouraging me to reach high and attain my dream. And finally (and most importantly), Changeling Press for giving me this opportunity and my editor, Connie, for putting up with my mistakes and teaching me to be a stronger writer.
Chapter One
Rowan Brandt had never felt lower than at this particular moment in her life. Her day-to-day life consisted of trudging through the crowds, bypassing people who could care less if she lived or died, and she felt alone. Strange to feel alone while surrounded by people, but the truth was, she’d never really felt anything other than alone.
But this day in particular just happened to be worse than most. Like fate had decided to step in and give her a big kick in the ass.
This morning sucks big time.
Her day had started out well enough with the most fabulous dream. She couldn’t remember much about her dream man, but she remembered his deep, penetrating, amber eyes. It was like he’d looked right into her soul with those eyes. He seemed so familiar for some reason -- like she knew him. He felt so familiar, so comfortable, she’d instantly relaxed in his presence.
She couldn’t remember anything else because just at the moment she thought he would speak -- they were rudely separated by the sound of her telephone ringing.
A phone call telling her she was late for her dentist appointment sent her into a panicked frenzy. Twelve minutes later, after getting ready in record time, she was hurrying for her bus.
Running down the five flights of stairs in her apartment building -- she could never depend on the outdated elevator actually coming when it was called -- she was already out of breath.
Rounding the corner of her building, she realized that someone had cut out a section of the sidewalk ahead of her. Veering off the path, she squished down into the mud lining the side of the pavement. It looked like the landscapers hadn’t finished laying the sod yet. Rowan fumed as the black muck oozed around her foot.
When she pulled up her foot, her left shoe remained firmly stuck in the mud. A fitting analogy for her life, but nevertheless, the last thing she needed this morning.
Grabbing the shoe, she quickly hopped back over to the sidewalk, managing to put on the mud-caked remains before continuing toward the bus stop a block over.
By the time Rowan was nearing the stop she could see her bus just coming up the road. Fearing that he’d go right past her, she began running to get to the stop in time.
Huffing, she frantically waved him down, gasping for breath as the bus pulled to a noisy stop beside her. Flashing her bus pass at the bored driver she began moving to the back of the bus.
Plopping down beside an older woman Rowan tried to calm her breathing, attempting to take in slower breaths. Holding her large bag on her lap, she leaned her head back and closed her eyes.
“You know, if you lost just a little weight, you wouldn’t have trouble breathing, dear.”
Her eyes popped open at the words coming from the woman beside her. Smiling tightly, Rowan did her good deed for the day and neglected to tell the woman to shut up and mind her own business.
Twenty minutes later, and exactly forty-two minutes late for her appointment, she entered the dentist’s office.
“You’re lucky we aren’t going to charge you for your missed appointment.”
“I’m so sorry, I don’t know what happened. I know I set my alarm, so I’m no --”
“Right, I’m sure you did,” the woman at the front desk said, interrupting her apology. “Please sit down and we’ll get to you when we have an opening. It may take some time,” she said with no apology and a hint of impatience in her voice.
“I’m sorry, I understand completely.” Rowan apologized to the back of the woman’s head after being summarily dismissed.
God, what a wonderful way to start a Monday. I can’t believe I overslept again.
Looking down, she realized her dress shirt wasn’t quite tucked into her pants. Glancing at her feet, she realized her socks were different colors. And yes, I’m wearing two different colored trouser socks. Fantastic, could this day possibly get any worse?
Resigned to waiting, she was pleasantly surprised when her name was called and she was brought into the back of the office. Directed to sit in a chair, Rowan leaned back as the hygienist applied the topical anesthetic to her gums, chatting about nothing.
Rowan nodded at all the appropriate times. It was pretty hard to answer back when she had a Q-tip stuck in her mouth.
“Would you like to watch a movie?”
Rowan nodded and was promptly handed a set of earphones and a remote. Flicking through the channels, she found a movie that she wanted to watch and settled down to lose herself in it.
“Ummm, I’m sorry but I can’t hear anything,” Rowan said around the Q-tip.
“Oh, the earphones aren’t working?” the hygienist asked.
“I don’t think so. I’ve tried to increase the volume on the set but it won’t work.”
“Well, it looks like you might not be watching that movie. Let me see if there’s something I can fix.”
Rowan sighed. How typical.
“Hello, Rowan. How are we this morning?” Her dentist came into the little room followed by his overly cheerful greeting.
“Fine.”
“I bet you’ll feel better once I get these fillings done. Of course, we wouldn’t be here if we’d been flossing, now would we?”
“Sorry,” Rowan mumbled. No, we wouldn’t be here if we had a choice.
“Okay, let’s see what we have here. Open up.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Rowan could see him gather his needle. Although, she couldn’t feel anything when he placed it against her gums and began to insert the anesthesia.
Closing her eyes, she tried to find her center, to take herself somewhere else. She slowly started to relax, breathing deeply, imagining her body sinking into the chair under her. With every inhale and exhale, she concentrated on letting her muscles release. Starting with her toes, and moving up her body until she was completely loose.
“How is that numbing coming along? Can you feel that?”
Rowan shook her head to let him know she couldn’t feel her lip anymore.
“All right, I think it’s fine to start.”
> Over the sound of the drill, she could make out the dentist and hygienist talking about their weekends. She winced when he started to drill into her tooth, feeling the rush of cold hit her exposed nerves. Jerking her head back with a grimace of pain, she tried to signal to the dentist that it hurt.
“Oh, looks like we aren’t numb enough. Hold on a minute, Rowan.”
Rowan sighed as the dentist pulled back to get out his needle again. At this rate, she wouldn’t be able to feel her face if he numbed her tooth any more.
A few minutes later, after the corner of her left eye went completely numb, the dentist returned to his drilling.
* * *
Laithe Gatti had never been more infuriated than he was at this particular moment in his life. He stalked the corridor of his warship, The Shahnaz, bypassing his pride as they made themselves scarce. His ears lay flat against his head, a strong indication of his poor mood. A low, rumbling growl could be heard when he strode toward the stairs that would take him to the bridge.
Laithe’s day had started out well enough with the most fabulous dream. He was in the presence of a beautiful woman, not like his kind, but she possessed the most appealing scent reminiscent of the nawra flowers on his home planet. He stared down at the light russet pelt covering the top of her head, fanning out into a mane around her hairless face. She had the softest brown eyes with tiny flecks of green like the color of the grasslands where he made his home.
And then she was gone, an infernal racket interrupting the two of them. Laithe reared up in surprise, roaring his displeasure when she disappeared.
Something had happened to wake her out of a deep sleep. He’d lost his connection to her but he could still feel her faintly, almost like a low buzzing in the back of his mind. Her panic made him pace in agitation. His hair stood on end, his mane bushing out while he continued to utter soft growls.
Stomping onto the bridge, he pulled up a grid of the territory they were patrolling. Using the faint connection he could still feel to the unknown female from his dreams, Laithe pinpointed her location.
He sensed she was the one. She has to be the one. He had never felt this connection with any of the females he had been in contact with. Of course, as an unmated male, he was never allowed near the unmated females, but he would have linked to his mate by now if she was present among his kind. The very fact that he could enter her dreams and connect his mind to hers told him that she was the one.
He just needed the little female to relax into a calm state again and he would have her. Until he could merge with her completely during their first mating, he would only be able to connect to her when she let her mind rest.
He was positive she was the one. The one destined to be his mate and the mate of his pride.
Ah, there you are, little flower. Laithe grunted in pleasure, their bond strengthening when his mate’s mind relaxed. A minute later, he was roaring in fury at the pain he experienced through his connection to the female. His mouth ached, a shaft of pain running along his gums, making his head pound from the pressure. He heard some instrument of torture running in the background and when her mind slipped further into his control, Laithe could hear the voices of her two attackers. She was uncomfortable. He sensed her body was tense, flinching from the sound of the instrument.
Her face was numb and they were holding her down in a chair, inserting an instrument into her vulnerable mouth.
A loud, snapping roar sounded again. Laithe called to his pride, his anger ripping through the vessel, vibrating the ship with an intense echo.
Seconds later, his pride rushed up the stairs, his brother Asad leading the way. The rest of the men ran in behind him.
“Brother, what is the matter?” Asad asked.
“They have her. They have my mate and they are hurting her,” he snapped out. “We go hunting. Now.”
A variety of grunts and snarls filled the bridge when his pride let out their displeasure. Returning to their stations, the men worked in synchronized harmony, guiding The Shahnaz toward the coordinates Laithe entered.
“She is here,” he snapped.
Catan, the Lynx from Kanad, sidled up to him, his body shaking when he rubbed his muzzle against Laithe’s neck and face, licking a line along his jaw.
Laithe turned to the smaller man, allowing Catan to calm him while he continued to growl softly. The little Lynx had been a member of their pride for several years, but he still had not overcome his fear of the larger members of the pride. Catan had joined Laithe’s pride after a vicious attack by a rival Leo pride, leaving the Lynx without a family. He had been repeatedly raped, and his family slaughtered. Catan had been fortunate that Laithe had been passing close to Kanad -- Catan’s home world -- after the other pride had left him for dead. They had taken him in, healed him and made him a member of their family.
Laithe had never felt the same as some of his people did toward the other clans of the Felidae. While the Leo clan were the most powerful and dominant species among the Felidae, he had been raised to appreciate the differences among his people. He had been born to the Leo, but he had always felt comfortable around the other clans. His own pride consisted of his three younger brothers, of course, but the other four members of the pride were made up of Felidae from the other clans. His childhood friend Fahd was of the Pardus clan, as was Morgan. The largest member of their pride, Rajiv, was of the Tigris clan.
Laithe’s pride was the only one among the Felidae to have so many members of the clans represented and it was rare among them to intermix.
A low snarl sounded off to Laithe’s left. Turning his head, he saw his brother Asad frowning in their direction. Asad had always been partial to Catan, but recently it seemed that his feelings were strengthening. Until Catan got over his fear though, Asad wouldn’t make a move for fear of scaring him away. But in the meantime, he wouldn’t let anyone else near him either.
Catan stilled his body, freezing at the sound. Without turning to Asad, he backed away from Laithe to move closer to Usama, the youngest Gatti brother and his dearest friend. Usama made room at his console for the smaller man to sidle in close to him without turning to acknowledge anyone in the room.
Usama often became lost to everything around him when he looked to the stars. A dangerous habit, but then he was used to being in danger. Born the only white lion in his pride, Usama was fated to be at a disadvantage from the start. Lacking the natural camouflage of his kind, he had to rely on his brothers when they hunted. Laithe often thought it was because of this disadvantage that Usama was such good friends with Catan. Both young men had to deal with many prejudices growing up.
Laithe turned his mind away from his pride and focused back on his mate.
We are coming for you, Nawra. Don’t be afraid, we are coming for you.
“There she is,” Laithe commented, smug male pride evident in his voice at locating his mate.
The men around him readied themselves, unaware of exactly what they would be facing when they reached her location. She would likely be shocked at first. She lived on one of the outlying planets and it had been a very long time since their people last visited her home world. She would likely be unfamiliar with their kind.
“I believe she is in her abode. It should be easy enough to grab her and rescue her from this life. Make ready to hunt.”
Laithe was answered with grunts and a coughing roar from Fahd. The anticipation was building in all of them, although he noticed little Catan looked more nervous than anticipatory.
“We hunt my mate this night. We won’t come back empty handed.”
Chapter Two
Rowan stumbled up the last step into her apartment. She was miserable, bone- tired, and although the numbing on the side of her face had worn off, she now had to deal with the residual ache in her tooth and her cheek.
To make matters worse, because she’d been late for her appointment, she’d also been late for work, and her boss refused to listen to her reason why.
She’d ended up
having to stay late to make up for her error. The day had completely dragged, and her eyes were strained from looking at so many pages of paper. Working in a law office sounded great, until you considered her job as a photocopier.
Letting herself into the front door of her apartment, Rowan dropped her bag on the linoleum floor and kicked off her shoes. Stumbling, she pulled off first one, and then the other trouser sock, balling them up and throwing them into the laundry basket situated in the small storage room off the front hall.
She wandered into her bedroom, undressing as she went, leaving a trail of clothes behind her from the front door. Her bra and panties were the last things to drop, falling to the floor of her bedroom.
Too tired to pick any of it up, she merely left everything where it fell. Rowan grabbed a long-sleeved, plum colored shirt out of her dresser, matching it up with a pair of thin, black yoga pants. Choosing to go barefoot, she returned to the living room. Grabbing the yoga mat curled up in the corner of the room, she unfolded it onto the floor.
Turning the TV on and lying down on her back, she attempted to calm her mind, letting go of the stress of the day. Although she was new to this, she had to admit it felt good to try and influence her body to relax by releasing her mind first. Another few years of practice and she’d be able to pull up that sense of calm immediately whenever she needed it.
Stretching gradually, Rowan began to move through her poses, following the instructions on the DVD. As she moved her leg out into a lunge, she began to relax, the stress of the day starting to melt away.
She slowly pushed herself up into downward facing dog, straightening her legs and pressing her hips up and back. The stretch ran the length of her aching body, and muscles that had been tense all day protested the movement. She let out a little moan.
“Mmm, I like the look of that, Lev.”
Rowan squealed at the male voice coming from behind her, followed by several deep male chuckles. Twisting desperately to look behind her, she lost her balance, falling to her side and landing on her ass with her legs up in the air.
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