by May Sage
Rygan smiled, smoking his cigar.
“That makes two of us.”
He’d cracked a skull or two in his time.
“If we get the house, we’ll need to purchase it under the umbrella of one of Ian’s companies, or a fake name. The wolves will find us eventually, but let’s not make it easy for them.”
He didn’t always understand the details of Hsu’s visions, as the images flew too quickly, but there was no doubt that a battle was still coming; when she’d seen what happened here, though, the result of the battle was everyone coming home, battered, exhausted, but alive. The kids, Ola, and Christine were also fine. Something had made a difference in Lakesides; perhaps there was a hide-out the wolves wouldn’t find.
Doubtful. Wolves were the best trackers; their damn noses were naturally better than any feline’s. Rye was missing something.
“You look worried. I mean, more than usual.”
Rygan sighed.
“I think Hsu’s vision might make us complacent. Now we know what’s after us, I don’t see any reason why the pride should be safer here than anywhere else, so we need to be vigilant.”
Daunte looked like he might want to say something but, after a second, he just nodded.
“I’ll patrol, if you want to go back to bed. You’ve barely slept for days. You need a few hours in a row, Alpha - not twenty minutes here and there.”
Rye nodded, thankful, and headed inside.
Daunte was right, he wouldn’t be any good to the pride completely sleep deprived, so he went to the small bedroom and dropped on the twin bed. He was asleep before his head hit the pillow.
Rye was awoken by one of the most pleasing sensations in the world, a soft hand running along his cock, a wet tongue lapping at it, but something was wrong; he knew it before opening his eyes. Instead of feeling aroused, he was revolted, and also pretty confused.
“What the fuck are you doing?” he yelled, pushing Kim's hand away.
It didn’t make a bit of sense.
Okay, so maybe he’d been stupid, years ago, when she first joined his pride; he might have screwed the woman once or twice, but he'd made it absolutely clear that he was done a long time ago, and she had seemed okay with it. She’d just gone to the rest of the males in the pride to satisfy her needs - Daunte, Ian, and Coveney had all obliged; sometimes together, from what he’d heard. The woman had three holes and knew how to use them.
Rye hated the term, but, for lack of better words, she really was the pride whore. She had no other use.
What she’d done now wasn’t going to fly. He wouldn’t have minded if she'd just made a move on him; he would simply have rejected her, and that would've been that, but touching him while he slept, without his consent? That wasn't acceptable. They didn’t have that sort of relationship and she damn well knew it.
“I see you looking at me,” she purred, batting her long lashes. “I came to give us what we both want.”
Right. So the woman was delusional.
“What was that?”
He was just dumbfounded. If he ever looked at her, it was with contempt.
Ten years ago, he'd been young and restless, as well as overwhelmed with all the duties suddenly entrusted to him, so he’d welcomed the distraction. Pounding the hole between her long legs had given him an outlet for a few minutes here and there, but he’d since realized just how pitiful and self-centered Kim was, and she had completely lost her appeal. Plus, he didn’t judge the others for doing it, but he’d never fuck a woman who’d gone through all his pridemates.
“I don't know what you’ve been smoking, but I don't want you. Never have, actually; you were just there.”
Cruel, but she'd gone too far when she’d come to his room and put her fucking hands on him without permission. It was past time to make it clear what her place was. By that, he meant that she had none. She hadn't taken any duty in the pride, she didn't even cook or clean; she just hung with them, using their resources like a damn parasite. He put up with it because Jas, her twin, did far more than her share, but enough was enough. He wasn’t going to let Kim get away with this sort of shit.
A lot of prides, and packs, kept official sluts onboard, both male and female - shifters weren’t shy about sexuality, and it wasn’t always easy to meet their needs outside of their territories. Having one or two members ready to fuck when they needed to made things simpler.
The notion was old fashioned and, as far as Rye was concerned, disgusting. Animals also licked shit off their peer’s ass - it didn’t mean that shifters had to do it.
He mostly ignored it. Kim was more than willing; she’d reduced herself to being their whore voluntarily, and he knew his Enforcers had never crossed the line - they never even went to her, she was the one doing the seducing.
She looked confused, which in other circumstances might have been fucking hilarious; he hadn’t exactly minced his words. Anyone with any self-respect would already have been out of the room, but there she stood, with a pot of makeup on her face, too much perfume, and her huge tits hanging out of her negligée.
She was surprised, because shifters weren’t prudes - they loved sex, and her advances were probably welcomed whenever she bestowed them.
“It’s about her, isn’t it? The loner.”
A growl formed in his throat.
“No, Kim. It’s about you having screwed every single male in the pride. It’s about you not pulling your weight, and it’s about me not being into you.”
And perhaps it was a little about Rye wanting Ace so much his somnolent appendage, repulsed by Kim’s hands, twitched as he thought of her.
“I’m going to go take a shower. Get out of my room before I come back.”
Chapter 12
Played
Now they had a better idea of what was going on, finding more details about their enemies wasn’t hard for Coveney.
He looked into the Vergas Pack, and came back with a somber expression. He explained the basics.
Apparently, the pack was humongous, with over five hundred adult members overall; it practically took over a whole town down in Texas. No wonder they had no issue fighting the pride on two fronts.
“So far, they haven’t sent their full force, presumably because they haven’t confirmed Lola is the kid they’re after. They’re targeting a few different prides and packs with children fitting her description. For all we know, it could be that she isn’t the hybrid.”
Rye wasn’t so sure; after Ace had pointed out their toddler had a faint lupine scent, he’d been able to notice it, too.
“Not all of them are fighters, though, right?” Christine asked, but Coveney shook his head, pushing another stack of printed pictures in her hand.
The submissive gasped and let the pictures drop to her feet.
The details he’d printed made everyone sick to their stomachs. What the fucking hell was that?
“Are those… skeletons?”
It was hard to tell, because they’d been burned to a crisp and stacked together, but Coveney nodded.
“They kill their own members, the ones they see as useless. As far as they’re concerned, only the strongest have the right to live - the others are lesser beings. They don’t want them to reproduce, so they take the problem out of the equation. So, only the fighters survive.”
“They murder the submissives?” Ola sounded lightheaded, faint.
“Not all of them. Those pretty enough are kept and used as slaves, if anyone wants to claim them. They see it as the survival of the fittest.”
How fucking barbaric. It didn’t make a bit of sense, no animal in the world acted that way.
This pack of degenerated fanatics had to be stopped, but how? They had considerably more members than the pride, and that was without considering the fact that the pack might have some allies who’d join them in an open conflict.
“If we talk at the Fest, we might find other prides who want to join us against them,” Tracy suggested.
Rygan shook
his head. It might have been an option, if the next summer gathering wasn’t months away. They didn't have the luxury of time, not while those monsters were on their trail, hunting their youngest, most vulnerable child.
“We can't wait,” he replied.
“How about contacting the Alphas we know online?” Dante proposed.
Rye nodded his agreement; that was a viable option. There was a fair chance that his father might even agree to help them, given the circumstances…but he didn't have the best relationship with his family, so he couldn't count on it.
And, frankly, even if every single feline of his acquaintance agreed to lend them a hand, they would still be outnumbered.
“We need to show this to Ace,” he decided, weirded out by the fact that he felt compelled to share the details with her.
“I can go talk to her,” the Beta offered, but Rye was quick to reject that option.
“I don't think so. I’ll go after the auction.” His answer was cold, possessiveness dripping from each word, making him uncivil towards his Beta. “Speaking of, we need to head out now.”
* * *
The house they had their eyes on was getting auctioned off in Lakesides that day.
Rye felt the gaze of everyone on him, his Beta, and his Enforcer as they walked into the town hall. They were all human, which explained why he sensed so much fear and suspicion.
He could guess what the whispers said. They wouldn’t let them win if they could help it; they didn’t want them in town. He paid the humans no mind, taking a seat at the back. He’d buy the house - that’s all there was to it. Feeling unwelcome wasn’t a foreign concept, anyway. It wasn’t like there was a better alternative elsewhere - according to recent censuses, there were about two hundred humans for every supernatural creature out there. That meant there was no place where his pride would really be unanimously accepted.
Some people kept it civil, nodding towards them - he returned the greeting. Those who openly glared, he ignored.
All of a sudden, the atmosphere completely changed; it almost felt like everyone in the room sighed in relief. As for Rye, he felt the corner of his mouth curve up. He hadn’t expected Ace to come.
A middle-aged man, slightly rounded around the edges and with graying hair, greeted her with enthusiasm.
“Aisling, dear. Are you here to bid on the house? It’s a beauty. I had it done up by the best of the best.”
The owner, then.
There was an eagerness to his words; he was clearly hoping that the group of newcomers he didn’t trust would find some competition.
Ace smiled sweetly, dazzling the poor unsuspecting human, and playing him like a damn violin.
“I’m not,” she confessed, “I’m just here to see if my friends get it. Come, let me introduce you.”
She entwined her arm with the older man’s and made him follow her to the back of the room, where the pride members had chosen to sit.
“Guys, this is Andrew Turner. He knows everything there is to know about Lakesides’ history, if you have any questions.”
The man lifted his chin proudly.
“Andrew is the mayor of this town, and the owner of the house you would like to buy.” She looked up at him, her big amber eyes shining as she batted her long lashes. Fuck, the woman was lethal. “These are a few members of the Wyvern Pride. They’re a new pride of feline shifters - like me - and they’ve encountered some trouble. You see, they adopt orphans, and it turns out some people want to harm one of their children.”
Rye wasn’t exactly happy that she’d divulged their affairs so openly, but the mayor frowned.
“Children?” he repeated, turning to the pride.
Rygan nodded. “They’re after a two-year-old.”
The other humans, who were shamelessly eavesdropping, gathered around them; the glaring had stopped, replaced by curiosity, and, if Rye wasn’t mistaken, protectiveness. Holy fuck. Humans were being cool with shifters. What the hell was happening with the world?
“This is Rygan, the Alpha,” Ace introduced, pointing to him. “And Daunte, the Beta. You’ve met him a couple of times in the past, right?”
“Aye,” a guy in the crowd said, nodding. “You came to my pub last year. Pretty good at pool, aren’t you?”
She played them so damn easily. In a minute, she’d established that the Beta - one of the highest authorities in the pride - had already come to their town without causing any trouble, and she’d also made it clear that they needed their help; something the small town people apparently responded to.
“Tracy is a bestselling author,” she added; that seemed to impress - Rye guessed the town didn’t see many celebrities. “They’ve stayed at my place this week, and they want to buy your house because of the security measures you’ve taken. The windows are reinforced, aren’t they?”
“Yes; it was originally built for my daughter, when she was single,” Andrew explained. “Only the best for my girl. The fences are electrified, too.”
When the auction started, the humans sat around them; they all glared at the couple of investors wearing suits. The pride won - they weren’t going to let this opportunity pass, even if they’d had to overpay for the house - and everyone clapped.
“You can move in today, it’s empty,” the mayor told them. “We’ll take care of the paperwork by the end of the week.”
Others said a variation of, “You got a problem, you call. No one should target kids.”
Rye just stared at Ace, dumbfounded. She winked before getting up.
“Right. I’d better get back to work - poor Clary has been alone for over an hour.”
Chapter 13
Tease
Rygan was annoyed, and more annoyed yet, because, quite frankly, he had zero reason to be pissed at all. They’d won the house they wanted, buying it for a pittance; if they left, they could flip it and make a decent profit. His keen sense of business should have put him in a good mood, but instead, he wanted someone to punch.
If. He’d thought if they left the house - when it was a question of when. They were going to leave. Thinking otherwise was just going to set him up for disappointment.
The problem wasn’t as much leaving Lakesides - although he’d taken to the quiet town and its weird inhabitants - as it was knowing that he’d leave a certain loner behind…
“What’s the matter?” Tracy asked, frowning.
He noticed that he was growling low, threateningly.
Dammit. He and his tiger had never been as unsettled as they had been since their arrival in Lakeside. The animal had wanted him to follow Ace around like a damn lost puppy, and had started to sulk when Rygan wouldn’t give in.
It was as though…
No. He wasn’t going to start thinking nonsense now. He was attracted to, and intrigued by, Aisling, no doubt about that, but attraction happened every day. Having a hard-on for a woman didn’t mean that she was his mate, his other half, shaped by nature to complete him.
* * *
Matings had been studied over the three decades since the paranormal community had revealed themselves to the rest of the world. Shifters, angels, demons, vampires, and everything in between had fated mates, and no scientist yet had come up with definite information; they just had theories, at best. Some said mates were the results of an evolutionary thing: nature picked two people who were likely to have strong children, and bound them together. That theory was destroyed by the fact that sometimes true mates were of the same sex and, therefore, unable to reproduce.
Rye didn’t care about the logic behind it. All he knew was that, as a shifter, he had two choices - getting married and blood-bound to someone he cared about someday, or waiting in the hopes of meeting that one person designed for him and sharing everything, heart, soul, and blood.
He was already stronger than he cared to acknowledge, and patience had never been his forte. Besides, he was thirty-one. Like many before him, he was more than happy to go with option one: find someone to spend his life wit
h. Find someone who wouldn’t be in his head constantly - someone who couldn’t control him. He might already have settled down if his damn tiger had been more compliant. But no, out of all the women he’d met, the stupid animal had to pick that one. The one who came with a warning label.
Still. That didn’t mean that the woman was his mate.
It didn’t. Most other feline shifters he knew were attracted to women left, right, and center. Their animals sometimes agreed with them, letting them form relationships, temporary or otherwise. Ace might have been the first that the grumpy tiger found fetching, but it meant nothing.
Nothing at all.
His head snapped left as his nostrils took in a scent that shouldn’t already be so familiar. Wood, earth, spices, currently mixed with butter and honeycomb. There she was, behind the window of a pretty, elegant bakery, giving a frosted cupcake to a little girl. Then she leaned over the counter and handed one to the human guy accompanying the child, along with her most open, dazzling smile.
He didn’t like that at all.
“Rye?”
“Go ahead,” he told Daunte. “Start packing. I’ve got to speak to her about the Vergas wolves.”
The Beta nodded and walked away. When Rye turned back, the customer and his daughter had already left the bakery, and Aisling was cleaning the counter. A tall, pretty woman in her twenties appeared from the back, and Ace gave her a few boxes, as well as a cupcake - a yellow one, this time.
He was staring like an idiotic creeper and he didn’t like it, so he shook his head and walked in.
The instant he pushed the door open, the damn woman snarled, and when she lifted her eyes to his, they were golden. Dangerous. Sexy as fuck. Take your pick.
“What are you doing here? I thought we’d agreed to stay away from each other.”
He could have pointed out that she’d been the first to ignore her own rule when she’d turned up at the auction, but he just replied, “The angry look doesn’t work on me, kitty cat. It just turns me on.”
