Table of Contents
Destined to the Pride (Colorado Shifters, #4)
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
One Year Later
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Strassel, Kristen. Destined to the Pride (Colorado Shifters - Book Four)
Photo by Artem Furman Cover design by Sotia Lazu
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DESTINED TO THE PRIDE
One thing is for damn sure.
I’m not going to stay on this mountain with those bitches that tried to kill me.
It doesn’t matter that Daphne and Leo love each other. Does and lions are not supposed to mate. Daphne’s herd won’t recognize their relationship, while Leo’s pride will stop at nothing to get their point across. They want Daphne dead.
Unsure if she can trust Leo’s twin brother Dylan, Daphne needs to rely on her instincts. Dylan has set his sights on Mount Deception to start a pride of his own. It’s an untamed place that might be the answer to Daphne and Leo’s problems. The mountain offers a prime opportunity to start over, but not everyone is happy about working with outsiders.
As a doe, Daphne can’t physically challenge the cougars that want her gone. But Leo is worth fighting for, and she’s determined to find a place they can call home.
Chapter One
ONE THING IS FOR DAMN sure.
“I’m not going to stay on this mountain with those bitches that tried to kill me!” I shrieked, pacing the living room. If I wasn’t beyond exhausted, there was a good chance I would have shifted back to doe. But the dried blood from the attack was still on my nose, and the bruises and welts all over my body throbbed. I didn’t have anything left to give tonight.
Leo sat on the couch, looking as drained as I felt. His head hung as he balanced his elbows on his wide knees. “They aren’t going to get away with this. Calm down, Daphne. Let Ari sleep.”
He couldn’t be serious. I jerked my hand in the direction of our bedroom. We wouldn’t be sleeping in it tonight. “Calm down? Sorry, I can’t be calm right now. That woman is the only reason I’m standing here.”
I’d never met her before tonight. Now I owed her my life. Especially since one was lost while saving mine.
“That’s because Dylan held me back,” Leo growled. He hadn’t talked to his brother in years, but tonight Dylan showed up ready for a fight. The fight that gave the rest of the pride the opportunity to pounce on me.
I knew when I opened my eyes in the forest and saw Leo that my life was going to get complicated. It was our herd’s tradition to shift when we were ready to mate, then to venture into the forest on Halloween night and find him. No one ever expected me to find a lion. In human form, we were like any other couple. But as animals, we had both Soldier Mountain and my hometown of Woodland Park in an absolute uproar.
“What are you going to do about that?” I stopped my pacing and braced myself for the answer. There was no good one. Dylan was here, spending the night in our bed with his mate, the woman who saved my life.
Leo shook his head. “He fucked things up. Bad.” He and Dylan had talked while I stayed with Ari. She’d been unconscious for hours, lost too much blood and a baby she didn’t even know she was carrying. Fucking things up was an understatement. How Leo could even reason with Dylan after all of that was beyond me. “He swears he didn’t think the girls would take it so far with you. And he had no idea Ari would fight.”
For me. Ever since I’d arrived on Soldier Mountain as Leo’s mate, the cougars of the pride had taken serious issue with me being here. Lions didn’t mate with does. End of story. And does couldn’t beat cougars in a fight. Their threats started off as passive aggressive, but the longer I stayed, the bolder they became. Even though they’d threatened to fight to my death on the full moon, which was last night, I never believed they’d have the guts to actually do it. But as Dylan challenged Leo, the girls saw their chance. One by one they turned cougar, surrounding me while I was still human. Fear always made my doe side rise, and there was no pushing this one down. I shifted.
They attacked, snarling and slashing me with their claws, biting through my fur, sinking their teeth into my flesh. The pain was enough to make me pass out, but I didn’t have that luxury. I have no claws, and my teeth weren’t made for meat. I screamed for Leo, but Dylan had him by the scruff. He couldn’t get to me. I tried to run but the cougars were everywhere. They multiplied when they shifted, I swear. They had me where they wanted me. If Ari hadn’t stepped in, I’m sure I’d be dead.
I collapsed on the couch, and Leo pulled me into him. It seemed like forever since he’d held me, even though it had been this awful night. I never wanted to let him go. The night sky began to brighten outside our window. He took the blanket off the back of the couch, draped it over me and lay back. He stroked my hair and his body rumbled with a faint purr.
“Did he explain why he did it?” I asked softly. Like he possibly could. It was too much of a coincidence that Dylan showed up on the night of the challenge. Rumors swirled around the pride for weeks that the cougars would try to lay claim to Leo on the night of the full moon, loudly enough for me to catch wind of their plan. We’d known Dylan was in town, but we’d heard nothing from him until tonight. Last night, we tried to go talk to him, but that ended badly, too.
Not as badly as tonight, of course.
Leo sighed. “There’s a lot of old hurt. I’m not innocent in this either. I was a kid, and I did a lot of things I regret. Dylan couldn’t fight for himself, and when our pride fell apart, I didn’t help him.” He stared at the ceiling. “But that doesn’t excuse what he did tonight.”
“Dylan couldn’t fight for himself?” I picked up my head, wrinkling my nose. He was taller than Leo by a couple of inches, and solid muscle. “I find that hard to believe.”
“He was the runt.” Leo and Dylan were twins, and while they shared similar features, they were by no means identical. Leo was in amazing shape, basically a professional athlete, but he was leaner than Dylan. Leo’s shaggy blond hair was curly, and Dylan’s was darker, long and wavy. They both had the same hazel eyes. “He was small, skinny, and unsure of himself. I was ashamed of him. The cubs in the pride picked on him, and I made things worse. When the attacks started in our pride, our parents sent us away. He wanted to stay with me. I said no.” The last word broke.
“This isn’t your fault.” I couldn’t imagine Leo being a bully, even though that’s what he was claiming. He always treated everyone with kindness and respect. Well, except for those crazy cougar bitches. They got what they deserved. “He’s an adult now, and he shouldn’t have come up here with his claws out.”
“Right. He says he wants to make things better and be in my life, but after tonight’s stunt, I’m not sure what he really wants,” Leo said, his eyelids fluttering in a fight to stay open
.
It made perfect sense for me to tell Leo to forget about his brother. But it wasn’t that easy. I had three little sisters. They were much younger than me so we never fought, but I couldn’t imagine turning my back on them for any reason. Leo had already done it to Dylan once. I couldn’t suggest he do it again.
Ari, Dylan’s mate, was the only cougar willing to fight for me. That meant more to me than I even had words for. I didn’t want to walk away from her. She wouldn’t be welcome on Soldier Mountain anymore, either.
And I meant what I said. I wasn’t staying on this mountain. Leo may have learned his lesson about loyalty late, but I was his claimed mate. He was coming with me.
Chapter Two
“WHY DID YOU DO IT?” I asked Ari the next morning. Leo was already gone. After little more than a cat nap he had to go to work. I begged him not to go, but he insisted. He thought running away from his job was letting the cougars win.
I wasn’t exactly comfortable being alone in the cabin with two strange lions, even if one of them did save my life.
Ari still hadn’t totally recovered from the fight. Her skin was sallow and she had dark smudges under her eyes. A deep scratch on her cheek marred her otherwise pretty face, and an ugly bruise had blossomed on her arm. Both she and Dylan wore Leo’s clothes. She took a sip of her tea before answering me. “Because once they were done with you, they were coming for me. For the same reason.”
“But...” I wasn’t sure what to say. The cougars argued Leo couldn’t claim me since we couldn’t have kids. That wasn’t the case for Ari, or it hadn’t been before last night.
“Daphne, I’m forty.” She nodded when my mouth dropped. Her blonde hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and even though she was far from her best this morning, I would’ve never guessed that. Leo was twenty-five, which meant Dylan was, too.
Her hazel eyes darkened before she continued. “I didn’t know if I could still...” She bit her lip and Dylan rubbed her back. He looked like he was going to cry, too. After a deep breath, she found the strength to finish her thought. “And everyone in the pride knew it.”
I sat down at the table and put my hand over hers. Ari stared down at her mug, and I locked eyes with Dylan. I hadn’t meant to, but they were so similar to Leo’s it startled me to see them in someone else’s face. He didn’t look away, either. We both had a lot of questions about each other.
“Why do these women think they can claim other people’s mates?” I wasn’t sure how active Ari was in the pride that called Soldier Mountain home. She wasn’t anything like the rest of those lunatics. Her sister had been cordial to me when we brought Ari back here, but I couldn’t be sure if she’d been in on the attack. In their cougar form, all the women looked the same to me. “In my herd, the mate is forever. Whether we like it or not.”
That got Ari to smile. “There’s more women than men in our pride. It makes things competitive, to say the least. I never got involved in that stuff, I always knew that my mate would come when the time was right.” She turned to Dylan, and the look they shared gave me butterflies.
Dylan was far from my friend, but I knew he couldn’t be all bad.
There was never going to be a good time to ask Dylan why he did why he did, so I went for it. “Why did you hold Leo back last night?”
I took a deep breath, knowing there was little chance I was going to like his answer.
“It wasn’t his fight.” Dylan met my eyes again, but they were darker this time. He was a beautiful man, even when he was exhausted and sad, with a scruffy beard and long hair pulled up in a top knot. He wasn’t my Leo, but I certainly wasn’t going to get sick of looking at him any time soon. “It was between you and the pride. At first I agreed with them. I don’t anymore.”
Ari gasped, and my heart leapt into my throat. “You thought their pettiness was worth me dying over?” I could barely get the words out. Dylan didn’t back down from his statement. “Maybe you got what you deserved last night.”
I regretted those words as soon as they came out of my mouth. Ari’s face fell and Dylan’s jaw set in an angry line. I wouldn’t apologize, to him anyway.
“Maybe we both did,” Dylan rumbled. I nodded, it was as close to a truce as we were going to get. “I didn’t come back here to fight, Daphne. I came back because it was time for me to have a pride again. And I wanted Leo to be a part of it.”
I crossed my arms and scoffed. “You’re off to a hell of a start.”
“I went about it wrong. Leo and I weren’t exactly on the best terms the last time we saw each other.” Dylan looked down. He wrapped one big hand around his mug, and the other was still on Ari’s back. “He needed to know that I changed.”
“He told me a little bit.” Even if Dylan made some stupid decisions last night, at least now he realized if he was going to get to Leo, he had to make peace with me. We didn’t have to be friends, I wasn’t going to be unreasonable. But I knew he was looking for respect. I wanted the same thing. “Leo would’ve talked to you. He’s changed, too.”
Dylan rubbed his face. “Lions deal with things in our own way. I wouldn’t expect you to understand that.” I groaned, and the corner of Dylan’s mouth turned up. “I underestimated both of you. What you did for Ari last night, I’ll never be able to repay you for that.”
After Dylan carried Ari’s unconscious, bloody body back to our cabin, he collapsed under the gravity of what happened. Leo stayed with him, and Ari’s sister and I brought her into the bathroom. Her sister was hysterical too, so I calmed her down and got Ari cleaned up. I don’t even know how I did it, I was totally running on adrenaline at that point. Once she woke, we did our best to help her shift back. She’d lost so much blood and her shift was so slow I was afraid we were going to lose her when she passed out again. Dylan brought her back out to the couch, and I sat with her head in my lap, willing her to live. She couldn’t die because of me. I wouldn’t let her die.
“I’ll never be able to repay you for what she did for me.” I looked over to Ari, and she smiled warmly, squeezing my hand. I wasn’t sure if I could trust Dylan, but I knew Ari was in my corner.
“You can.” Her voice was soft. “What you saw last night, that isn’t Dylan. Give him a chance.”
Chapter Three
“I HATE IT WHEN LEO hunts.” I wrinkled my nose as I chopped broccoli and mushrooms for the stir fry I was making for dinner. Deer are vegan, so Leo definitely wouldn’t be bringing anything back for me. “He always comes back tasting like someone else’s blood.”
“That’s one part of being a cougar I never felt comfortable about.” Ari had stayed behind with me. I thought it was good for Leo and Dylan to spend some time together, especially in their lion form. I didn’t know what I wanted to happen, but we couldn’t stay at odds with one another. We’d already seen what it would cost us. “But that smells amazing. I’m starving.”
“Me too,” I said with a smile. It was a good sign she wanted to eat. All day all she’d done was drink tea. “I don’t think we have to wait for the boys to come back. They’re having dinner out.” I rolled my eyes.
Ari chuckled. “I’m glad they went out together. They need this. I know you don’t trust Dylan, but he’s a good man. I think now that he’s getting a chance to know you, he’ll understand why Leo chose you.”
“I didn’t mean what I said earlier, about him getting what he deserved.” I looked up from my frying pan. Her face darkened at the word deserved. “I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.”
“I know that,” she said after a long blink. “I tried to talk him out of the challenge. When the two of you showed up at our cabin, I was pissed that Dylan attacked Leo. I always planned to fight for you, Daphne.”
“Thank you.” Tears burned my eyes. “You’re so different than the rest of the cougars on the mountain.”
“Isn’t that a good thing?” Ari got up and checked the rice, taking it off the burner. “They shunned me, too. I only met Dylan last month. All this time, I’d th
ought once I found my mate, my own pride wouldn’t treat me like an outsider anymore. But they turned their backs on me. Even my own sister.”
Her pain was tangible. I hugged her. At first it was one of those awkward side hugs as we stood next to each other at the stove, but she turned into me. I almost hadn’t done it because I was afraid it would be weird, but we both needed this. “I’m sorry,” I said against her shoulder. “If I had any advice for you, I’d share it.”
“Lions are stubborn. We’re cats, and we do what we want.” I pulled away from her, and she laughed. “We don’t care what anyone else thinks of us.”
“How involved are you with the pride?” She’d said they’d shunned her, but I was still curious. Leo was an outlier, he only came here to work in the winter. Dylan wanted to break away and start a new pride. I wondered what that would mean.
“Not that much. Like I said, as all my friends mated and had kids, I saw them less and less. I work for The Park View, and I report on shifter news,” Ari said. “I actually covered a lot of your gymnastics tournaments. You’re really good. I’m surprised...” her words trailed off, but I knew what she was going to say. I’m surprised you didn’t do anything with it. I’d heard it so many times.
“I still train.” I pushed at the vegetables to make sure they wouldn’t burn, but I was too aggressive and sent broccoli flying across the stovetop. “I want to try out for nationals next year, now that I don’t have to worry about any unexpected shifting.”
Ari nodded. “You really should.”
The longer I spent away from formal training, the bigger the dream seemed. I didn’t say anything as I plated the stir fry and handed it to Ari.
“Dylan’s a personal trainer,” she added when I didn’t respond. “He might be able to help you find someone to train with.”
“The Olympic training facility is in Texas.” I sat down across from her. “My life is here now.”
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