by May Sage
“Oh, he most certainly is in deep shit.”
They all tensed and turned away from the view and towards the beautiful, singsong voice, startled, because none of them had felt or heard anyone approach, even though Rye had been on high alert.
Fuck.
Rygan had a hard time staying focused; the moment he saw her, his entire attention was captured by her.
The brunette who’d appeared on the porch of the elegant home was petite, delicate, and dangerous. Her aura said so. The way she moved said so. The way his tiger clawed to the surface, urging Rygan forward, definitely said so.
His tiger had never paid any attention to a female before. Never. He didn’t form any words, but Rygan understood his feeling completely. Usually, when Rygan looked at women he found appealing, his animal was bored, finding them unworthy of its attention. Pitiful. Weak. He told him, play with it if you must, but don’t get me involved. Problematic, as no shifter could hope to form a relationship if their animal didn’t approve.
Right now the dumb tiger, who should have bared its teeth, jumped up and said chase the pretty kitty.
Shit.
Daunte echoed his curse, holding his hands up, “Look, I can explain.”
He actually didn’t finish the last word, as her foot was kicking him ten feet back. The woman had effortlessly jumped to him from the porch, and she kicked again, one of her knees colliding with his jaw, while the other wrapped around his neck. She did a flip that turned his Beta flat on the ground, all in a few seconds.
Jas was stepping forward, ready to defend her pridemate, but Rygan held her back. Normally, because of their difference in size and muscle mass, females fought females and males fought males, so it was understandable that the Enforcer felt like intervening; but Daunte wasn’t letting the woman win out of courtesy. He was trying to push her, struggling to get up. She’d just beat his ass, fair and square, without breaking a sweat.
What. The. Hell.
“He told us to stay back,” Rygan reminded Jas, and the woman’s head snapped to his.
She’d caught his tiger’s attention immediately, but now she had his.
Damn. She was a fucking wet dream. Those fiery golden eyes turned cat - narrow irises and all - that pretty face, and every sinful curve her yoga pants and t-shirt weren’t hiding got him hard; almost as much as her display of dominance.
She narrowed her eyes as her gaze crossed his, and he couldn’t exactly place a word on what transpired there. He only knew one thing: she was hot. Very, very hot. He wanted her so bad it was almost painful.
Cutting their staring contest short, her head snapped back to Daunte, making Rye want to roar in protest. He’d never been so easily dismissed. Most females, dominant or not, would have nodded to him, at least.
He didn’t like her indifference to his status or his vibes. Not. One. Bit. His tiger heartily disagreed, seeing it as a challenge.
“You told them to leave us alone? Wise,” she sweetly said to his Beta, “What else did you say about me?”
Her knee dug harder into his Beta’s throat, and Daunte croaked, “Nothing, I swear. Dammit, Aisling, I didn’t have a choice. We have cubs. A witch, a Seer, and five others. One of them is two.”
While she kept Daunte on the ground for another ten seconds, she then got up, letting him go.
“Talk.”
“Wolves. We fight them, but some of them stay back and aim for the weaker members of the pride. They never make it. Our Seer’s just nine, but she’s gotten stronger and stronger over the last three years - what she sees happens unless we change our decisions. I just thought for one second that we could stay here for a while, and she saw we were safe if we did that. Do you really think I would have come to you if I had any other choice? I don’t actually enjoy getting my ass kicked.”
The woman glared, but the glow of her eyes slowly faded; they reverted back to her natural human gaze, an amber which was a little more normal, and just as mesmerizing.
“You could have called,” she grumbled, turning back towards the house without another word.
Rye looked - of course he looked. Fuck, she could walk away from him any day with an ass like that.
Daunte got to his feet and smiled, yelling after her, “We’ll be here a week, tops - downstairs, no one will go upstairs. Then, we’ll get a place nearby. We’ll stay out of your way.”
He wasn’t asking permission, and to everyone’s surprise, the woman he’d called Aisling just shrugged indifferently.
“You still run that bakery?” he asked, and somehow that must have been pushing his luck, because she turned, her eyes flashing gold again.
“We’ll order in bulk. Delivery. The entire pride will completely stay out of your way. That’s a promise.”
She turned again, and walk away, replying, “I’ll overcharge you.”
Daunte yelled back a, “Love you!” that earned him a growl.
Rygan wasn’t quite certain what had occurred, and apparently he wasn’t the only one, because Jas asked, “So, we have a place to stay?”
Daunte turned to her and winked.
“Yep. And more surprisingly, I still have my balls.”
Chapter 3
Sanctuary
The house was completely unexpected inside. The decor had been kept minimalistic, save for the cat furniture running along the walls and ceiling. Trees, ramps, elegant toys fixed to the wall.
Aisling was apparently the ultimate crazy cat lady, which was yet another thing to add to the ever growing list of What The Fuck about her. Shifters didn’t often keep pets, as domestic animals felt intimidated and weirded out by them, but there were at least half a dozen different cats in the house.
Rygan frowned. Most doors and windows were opened, letting them roam free. Obviously, the woman wasn’t wary of intruders. Finding himself assessing the house, he inwardly shook his head, concerned about her safety, and pissed at her for not taking it into consideration. Sure, she obviously could take care of herself, but that didn’t mean that she should be quite so careless; a burglar didn’t even need to break in as things were - he could just casually waltz inside. What if she was out of it when a criminal got in? Drunk, or napping. Most felines weren’t known for being light sleepers.
His protective instincts were working overtime, which was normal. Or so he told himself. Alphas were naturally prone to worrying, especially when half of their pride wasn’t in the vicinity.
Yep. Rygan was fully aware that he was bullshitting himself. While the statement was true, his protective instincts were only triggered by children, unprotected submissives, and his own pride members. In short, he shouldn’t give a fuck about Aisling, the stranger, the loner. And he was surprised and weirded out by the fact that, for some reason, he did.
“Is that a lynx?”
They all froze; if shifters could spook domestic cats, they completely freaked wild ones. Many shifters had been mauled by animals, in part because they always felt so reluctant about antagonizing what their cats saw as their less fortunate peers, dumber but endearing versions of themselves.
The feline, which was indeed a lynx, snarled in Rygan’s direction before running along a rope bridge leading from one wall to the next, and got out of doors as fast as it could.
“Ace runs a feline sanctuary,” Daunte explained.
Ace. It suited her. Why did it piss him off that he had a nickname for the woman?
“She normally gets wounded animals back on their feet and takes them back to the wild, but I’m pretty sure I saw that grumpy puss here last year,” he said, sounding surprised.
Then he gave them a grand tour of the ground floor, visibly familiar with the house. The bedrooms were large, pleasing, and prepared for visitors.
“Kitchen, bathroom, second bathroom, bedroom - we’ll have to share, there’s only three downstairs.”
It didn’t really bother him; they’d slept in two rooms before - the kids and the women together, and the guys had bunked together in a living ro
om - but he found his eyes glaring at the ceiling. Did the woman really have to keep the whole upper floor to herself?
But, then again, if he asked himself what would have happened had an unknown pride turned up at his door without warning, he had to sigh and concede that the woman wasn’t exactly being difficult. Still. He and his tiger, in perfect agreement for the first time today, would have preferred to sleep closer to her.
Much closer.
“Rye, you take this one,” Daunte said, pointing to the smallest of the three rooms. “The rest of us can manage.”
He didn’t mind the small room at all, but he still frowned.
“Why did you say we’d stay downstairs? The house is large and the rest of you will be crowded.”
“We don’t want to piss Aisling off. Trust me on that. We’re already abusing her hospitality.”
Rygan glared at his friend, pissed that he felt like punching his throat. He wasn’t possessive of the females he took to his bed, he wasn’t even particularly protective of the females in his pride, beyond a basic need to know they were well. He shouldn’t want to inflict damage on one of his closest pridemates.
“How come I’ve never heard of her?” he asked, or demanded, to know. “Dammit, Daunte, I’ve known you for sixteen years.”
They had first crossed paths at a Fest Daunte had attended with his mother. The feline prides around the continent kept a low profile because of their constant wars with wolves. They weren’t frightened, but, contrary to lupine packs, feline prides put the safety of their cubs above all else. Wolves had too much pride and not enough sense to think about their children when they attacked; wild cats did. But every year the leader of all feline Alphas called a meeting, for various reasons; the Alphas, Betas, and Enforcers saw it as work, but for the rest of the gathering, it was just a humongous party. Barbecue, friendly competitions, and - he learned when he was a little older - orgies, too.
Daunte had been surly, too serious for a ten-year-old kid, and his pridemates had seemed to make fun of him. Rye hadn’t been the most sociable of sixteen year olds at the time, but, on an impulse, he decided to talk to him; because of his status, singling him out warned the bullies away.
He never would have guessed he was talking to The Butcher’s son. He never would have guessed he’d earn his loyalty so easily, but he did. The moment he turned eighteen, Daunte requested a transfer to Rygan’s pride, although, at the time, it had been ridiculously tiny and threatened on every front.
As he’d met the guy every year for the first eight years of their acquaintance, and then had been his Alpha for the next eight, he was surprised, and irritated that he knew nothing about a woman he was visibly…familiar with.
He was sticking to that reason, although the beast inside him had a much simpler explanation. The usually simple, playful tiger bared its fangs and growled at their friend. Stay away from her, it said. Mine.
“Aisling and I go way back,” Daunte replied.
That wasn’t even the beginning of a vague sort of response, and Ian, who was shamelessly eavesdropping, snorted at it.
“And you went to see her less than a year ago…”
“I didn’t actually hide my vacation, Rye. You know I went away last July. You didn’t ask where.”
Rygan just glared.
“What?”
“You’re hiding things - from us. Your pride.”
“I’m not hiding anything relevant about the pride, or about me. I get that you’re curious - I would be, too. But Aisling is a close friend of mine - someone I’ve known for longer than any of you. And she wants her shit to stay private. You know better than to think I’ll betray my friend’s confidence.”
Yes. Unfortunately, they did know better. Daunte kept his words, hence why he had been so conflicted about leading them here; if he’d promised Aisling he wouldn’t, it had gone against everything he was. Rye should be thanking his Beta for putting the safety of the pride above all else - even above his honor.
Being perfectly conscious of all that didn’t stop him from glaring at Daunte, making his displeasure clear without pushing his dominant vibes to attempt to force his will on him. His Beta didn’t look away.
The rest of the pride arrived then, just in time to break their stare-off. Rygan’s priority was always his pride; he turned to the door, checked that everyone was here.
“How was the flight?” he asked his Head Enforcer.
It was a tall, willowy blonde who answered, cutting off Coveney.
“Horrid,” Kim told him, her whiny voice annoying, as always. “The flight attendants were rude, and your dad should fire the damn pilot. You wouldn’t believe how unsteady we were, I thought we were going to crash.”
Rygan ignored the dominant female, as he usually did. He didn’t think she was able to describe anything without finding cause to complain. He would never have accepted her in the pride, if she hadn’t been Jas’ twin.
* * *
Jas and her sister had been loners since their childhood - or rather, they simply hadn’t lived with a pride, but they’d had a home. They had been adopted by humans. From what Rye knew of it, Jas had been a daddy’s girl, and her military-trained father had taught her everything he knew, while their mother had given all of her attention to Kim, taking her shopping, getting her nose and tits done when she’d asked for it. Although they had been identical once, the two women couldn’t look more different now. Jas wore her dark hair short, cut like a pixie’s; her little turned-up nose and her pouty mouth made people mistakenly think she was sweet. Kim was all for the long, straight, blonde Barbie look, and she was still waiting for her Ken. Rye didn’t often pay attention to what she said, but, from what he’d unfortunately overheard over the years, she fully intended to marry well - only an Alpha or a billionaire would do.
They’d joined the pride because their parents had said they should give it a try - being loners meant that shifters around them had treated them like crap. Men expected them to be for sale, women mistrusted them. Jas had turned up one day, and explained her predicament.
“We have money, so we won’t use your resources.” She’d also been completely sincere when she’d added, “My sister will be a burden, but I’ll make up for it.”
Rygan immediately took to Jas, he loved how straightforward she was. If his tiger had showed any interest, he might even have asked her out. As for Kim… everyone sighed when she walked in, wearing stilettos and a nonexistent skirt.
But her endless, generally barely covered, legs probably had something to do with the reason why he hadn’t protested when she’d asked to join. He had just been twenty-two at the time, after all.
* * *
It went okay,” Coveney translated. “There was some turbulence for ten minutes. Your dad sent one of his drivers, so we didn’t need to rent a car.”
He nodded, reassured. That meant that there was no paper trail of their whereabouts; if they created a false trail quickly enough, they might manage to stay inconspicuous a little longer.
He wasn’t delusional enough to think that the wolves would just abandon their relentless hunt - they’d find them eventually. But at least the pride had some time to work things out - time they desperately needed.
Until now, Rygan had assumed that the wolves were hunting them on principle; his status meant that beating his pride would give any wolf an extra dose of street cred. But what they’d seen in Hsu’s vision? Attacking kids and submissives? Feline or wolf, there was no honor in it.
Rygan needed to work out their enemy’s motivation and find a way to really get them off their backs, before it was too late.
“Let’s get the kids settled - only unload the essentials, we’ll be leaving as soon as possible. Once that’s done, we need to call our contacts and get to the bottom of things. The way we’re getting hunted is personal. Time to find out why.”
Chapter 4
Family
Catching a familiar scent, Ace lifted her head and called Clary from the back of h
er small bakery.
“Hey, sweet. Do you mind taking over at the counter? It’s pretty quiet.”
Clarissa had been her assistant since she’d come back from college, six months prior; although she had an MBA, there weren’t a ton of exciting jobs in Lakesides.
In many places, some would have frowned at a human working in a bakery owned by a shifter, but Ace had struck gold with this town.
It wasn’t that the people of Lakesides liked shifters - they were human, so most of them didn’t, understandably finding them scary as fuck – but, before her, they’d dealt with a guy who ran a pack that pillaged, raped, and murdered, so they’d learned to appreciate her perhaps overly sarcastic, but otherwise charming self.
Well, maybe not charming, but she didn’t have murderous tendencies, most of the time.
* * *
The townspeople had reported the pack terrorizing them, but human authorities couldn’t do much - they just told the Shifter Council, who’d demanded that the wolves fix the issue. Only, wolves weren’t organized the way feline shifters were.
Felines had a leader, a governing body, so to speak. They might not be officially recognized in the US, but they called their leader their King, and he was just that. If someone went out of line, they had the authorities in place to take care of it - so no feline messed up.
Wolves had a Head Pack, and when it wanted to act, it was lethal. However, that pack only moved its finger when someone directly threatened them. The rest they shrugged off, putting it on their To Do List for a decade or two later. Aisling was sure that, eventually, they would have come to take care of the issue, but they left it for over a year.
Aisling pitied their race. Not all of them were bad; in fact, most wolves weren’t, but their authority was so corrupted, they couldn’t do a thing about their reputation. That was the reason why there were more loner wolves than any other kind of shifter out there; in general, those who’d left their pack had a damn good reason to have chosen that lifestyle. Aisling’s cat suffered from the isolation, but not nearly as much as a wolf ever would. Their species, like their wild animal counterparts, was really meant to live in groups.
