by May Sage
“If you have a quarrel with one of them, we might not be in a position to accept you,” Ace told him. “We have kids to think about.”
Luke shook his head.
“Ajax let me go. No quarrel there. He said I was to live my life and be a reminder of what happened to those who defied him. I’m welcome to share the story - in fact, he demanded it. Which is ever so slightly deranged and plenty megalomaniacal, if you ask me, but, as it saved my skin, I’m not in a position to complain.”
No one added anything for a while.
“Well, that was rather cheery, wouldn’t you say?” the only woman left piped in. She was a pretty thing, only just taller than Ace, with dark curls and long lashes. “While I’m just here because my damn Alpha is trying to get in my pants and my Beta of a father is all for pimping me. Did I mention he’s twice my age?”
“Gross,” Tracy grimaced.
“Double gross,” Ace echoed, turning to a slender, and mostly quiet male whose keen eyes took in everything.
“What’s your story?”
“Youngest brother. Why can’t I be as dominant, as handsome, as fast as my perfect elder brother - blah blah. I need out of the family pride.”
“Oh, you’re plenty hot enough,” Tracy said, batting her eyelashes.
And he was. Compared to the muscle men in the lounge, he may very well be the slimmest, but he would have stood out in any other crowd.
“You?” Rye asked the last remaining contender, a broad man in his early thirties, like the Alpha.
“I was raised in a Lion’s Den,” he replied with distaste. Another thing Clari didn’t quite understand - she stored it in a corner of her mind; she’d ask, or research it at the first occasion. “Now that my father’s passed, the females expect me to take his place. At least half a dozen of those females are my half sisters.”
She wrinkled her nose, hoping it wasn’t what it sounded like.
“So, you all have reasons to want to be out of your current situations, and reasons to remain faithful to the pride. That’s a good start, but I need more than that. Each and every one of us is loyal, not because we need to be, but because we’re family. You need to be able to show that you want to be part of this family. We also need to decide which role you can fill amongst us.”
That sounded reasonable to Clari, yet at the same time, she stiffened, feeling quite uncomfortable. Was she going to have to pass all these tests before officially having a place in the pride, too? She bit her lip.
“So, here’s the plan. There’s a house that belongs to us a mile from here. You’re going to stay there until we know we can trust you. Pridemates, this is Ariadna, Luke, Theo and Sawyer. Welcome them, and observe them. In one month, we’ll discuss their permanent inclusion.”
* * *
Coveney took the potential recruits to Ace’s old house, leaving the pride alone.
“So, what’s a Lion’s Den?” was the first thing coming out of her mouth, and everyone groaned.
“Have you seen some nature documentaries about lions? It’s one male, a bunch of females, and their cubs. Just one male. With a lot of pussies to satisfy. Well, some lion shifters run their prides that way. Before you ask, it’s the females’ choice. These groups are run by the females. Still… it’s pretty disgusting. The poor guy they pick spends his days and night satisfying the females in heat. They’re often heavy into incest.”
She held her hand up.
“Right. Enough about it before I throw up; anyone wanna talk about something else? Anything else?”
As it turned out, someone did.
“Well, that was all rather sudden,” Ian told Rye, in a tone that was just a hair short of accusatory. “I didn’t know we were going to interview today.”
“In the light of recent events, I’ve moved our schedule up,” the Alpha replied.
Now she paid attention to him, Clari saw that he looked tired; so did Ace, come to think of it. Nothing surprising; they did just bring a little thing into the world within the last few days. She hadn’t heard Zack cry at all, but she would have slept through a storm, considering the amount of alcohol she’d ingested.
“Recent events?”
Clari saw a passing shadow before Rye nodded.
Lie, she thought. He was going to lie.
Which was stupid. How would she know? She’d always been hopeless at poker.
“Zack’s birth. It made me quite conscious of the fact that the nine of us can’t hope to patrol around the clock efficiently. I’d feel more comfortable with more men around my son.”
It sounded genuine enough. Why couldn’t she stop thinking that it wasn’t?
Chapter 14
Tomorrow
The pride dispersed after the potential recruits’ departure, Daunte, to patrol with Jas, others to return to their tasks; he knew Tracy had a deadline looming over her, which made her hide in her office and scream at her computer screen every other day.
When he came back to the pride house in the afternoon, a smile tugged on his lips as he took in the sleepy female bundled in on one of their largest sofas, not even pretending to watch TV.
“You’re okay?”
Clari lifted her head and bobbed her head, holding a hand in front of her mouth as she yawned.
“Yeah, just really tired.”
Of course she was. Cats always were.
He had so many things to tell her. I’m sorry. Don’t be afraid. You’ll be fine. I want you. He wasn’t sure she’d find much comfort in any of that.
“I have no excuse, though. I slept like the dead for a good eight hours last night after all that brandy. Do you think it’s that?” she asked, her hand flying to her throat.
The bite mark had been so shallow, made by the smallest of fangs, barely bigger than needles - it should already have practically disappeared. It hadn’t. In fact, the two puncture scars looked a little bigger than the wound had been. If it had been benign, they wouldn’t be there - Daunte tried to stay expressionless as he looked at the puncture marks.
“Maybe.”
If maybe meant, yep, definitely.
“You know, with everything going on, I don’t think anyone took the time to ask you how you felt about all that. Possibly becoming furry, you know.”
Clari surprised the shit out of him when she broke into a smile.
“Well, that very much depends on what type of furry I turn into. I can deal with being a badass cute little munchkin like Ace.”
Daunte chuckled, trying to imagine his sister’s face if she’d heard that. The Alpha female loved Clari, but she might very well challenge her for the offense. She was just a little sensitive about the fact that she turned into a tiny little lynx-like cat, barely any bigger than a domestic cat.
“I can totally deal with being big and scary, or super fast. But if I turn into an overgrown sphinx submissive, I demand a redo.”
He smiled indulgently, shaking his head.
“I read up on it. You’ll turn into something similar to your maker - or a feline associated to his bloodline. That means, a Cross, or a Wayland. I don’t think either of our families is weird enough to produce anything close to a sphinx. As for the submissive thing, that won’t be determined by your change. You’ll stay you. If you’re a submissive now, you’ll stay submissive.”
She lit up at that.
“Ace thinks I’m very dominant. Unless she was just being nice.”
She grimaced at the thought, and he wouldn’t have that.
“She wasn’t. Ace doesn’t see being submissive as a flaw - none of us do. Do you think we’ll think about any of our children as defective, if they grew up without the will to throw their dominance about? There’s a certain balance in the world, thanks to submissives. Without them to keep the peace, to be the voice of reason, and to give us a reason why we shouldn’t jump into a fight and leave them defenseless, we’d constantly be at war.”
Clari seemed to think it through, and nodded.
“I see your point. And ye
t, your pride is full of dominants - everyone except Christine, right? And she just seems to stay to either take care of the kids or cook and tidy up. She doesn’t seem to mind, and there’s nothing wrong with that, but it’s not me. And when you opened up new places, you only called for fighters.”
He saw how she could have jumped to that conclusion, with a limited understanding about shifters.
“There’s eight children in our pride, and just ten adults. That’s nine members we need to take care of, and nine members trained to fight,” he explained. “We’re balanced. As for the try out today, Rye only called to the fighters, yes. Because, for one, it makes sense to measure them against their peers. But soon, we’ll also be seeing the non-fighters. I looked through the applications, and amongst the ten people we’ve selected for that round, three of them are dominant. They can take care of themselves, but, then again, all of us can. Including the children. Including Christine. Try to pinch some food off her before she sets the table, you’ll see what I mean. Her submissive status just means her first instinct isn’t to jump at someone’s throat.”
He could tell he’d given Clari a fair bit to think of; there was a cute little wrinkle between her eyes. Daunte had a hard time resisting the urge to drop his lips on it.
“Fair enough,” she conceded. “I guess it wouldn’t be so bad, then.”
As she’d come to respect both positions, he decided to put her out of her misery.
“Good. But Ace was right, you’re dominant.”
Humans, like every other mammal out there, could exude dominant vibes - they just couldn’t feel them on a conscious level. He’d felt Clari’s just fine, each time he’d been an ass and ignored her. She hadn’t liked it, and her glare had been accompanied by distinctive pushes of her potent power, clearly stating, “try to piss me off any more, just try it.”
And yes. That had made him so fucking hard. Each time. She had no idea how much self restraint he’d needed to exert to give the impression of indifference.
She shot him that smile, the one she reserved for those who’d earned it, the one he’d fucking hated, because it was never directed toward him. Her chocolate eyes shone, brightening the entire room.
“Tell me more,” she asked, and he did.
He told her about the various ranks in prides, the authorities in place amongst the shifters, the systems humans had to keep them at bay; he even spoke of the time before either of them were born, when the sups had emerged out of nowhere - as far as humans knew, in any case.
Clari knew of the dark days - the Age of Blood - but she’d heard about it in a human perspective.
Vampires had been the first to come out. Some said they’d been selfish to reveal themselves that way without consulting other races, but Daunte wondered if they’d done it because they were some of the strongest creatures out there; they’d done it so that the entire paranormal community could have a chance to exist in harmony with humans.
Of course, it hadn’t been all flowers and rainbows. At first, humans chose to attack - and they lost, almost overnight. Vampires ruled the lands, for a time, and, slowly, other sups revealed themselves; shifters were amongst the first.
The reign of vampires only lasted three decades; they earned a peace amongst witches, humans, and their kind, and swore to leave the rule of the world to mortals, as long as each race had a say.
“Technically, we’re still under an oath. If humans take it too far, or if witches try to rule us, there’s a good chance that the vampires will come back. Our dad fought in New York during the Age of Blood, and he says that’s why he couldn’t bring himself to shift back for a time. There are memories haunting him; vampires aren’t evil, but they are cold, and the world was a dreadful place during their time.”
Clari nodded.
“My aunt and uncle won’t speak of it. They were young, and lived in the country at the time, so they can’t have dealt with the witch war, like your dad, but they still refuse to tell us about it.”
Daunte could imagine why.
Catching something that seemed odd again, in the way she just mentioned her aunt and uncle when they talked about family, he asked, “How about your own parents? Do they speak of it at all?”
She smiled. “First of all, this is not a pity party. I had an awesome upbringing.”
Basically, that was the gracious way any pity party started, but he let it slide.
“My mother got pregnant with me during her summer break after high school. She’d just got a scholarship to Yale, full ride, and no one wanted her to miss out. She refused to have an abortion, though, so, she gave birth to me and her older sister took me in. The deal was, she was going to earn her degree and come back, but she’s smart. After her bachelor’s, she got a master’s, and a PhD, after that. Then, she got a very important job in a lab - we’re talking super secret, and seventy hours a week. So, I stayed with my aunt and her husband, who were awesome. My mother visits on holidays, and she’s fun. She gives the best presents, and tries to force an allowance on me. Without success, I might add. But, yeah, I guess she isn’t exactly my mother.”
He nodded, seeing that while there might be some pain and resentment lingering underneath the facade, she’d been right. It wasn’t a pity party at all.
“I get it. My mother raised Ace; they might not share blood, but she’s her mom. Like your aunt is for you. And we haven’t given birth to our kids, but they’re ours. I may just be Zachary’s uncle, but he’s mine, too. Prides aren’t blood, but they’re family.”
She smiled sleepily, and yawned again.
“I’m keeping you up. You rest,” he said. “Tomorrow will be a long day.”
She didn’t question it, thankfully. He didn’t want to have to tell her what he knew. What he smelled. What he saw in her eyes as they flashed red.
Tomorrow, she was going to shift.
Chapter 15
First Shift
Run. Run. Run faster.
Over the tantalizing smell of the woods, the soft grass under her paws, and the sound of the water running nearby, she caught a scent and bared her fangs, growling low. She didn’t recognize it. It didn’t belong here.
The feline pushed all her powerful musculature forward and shot through the trees like a cannon, until she was close enough to hear her prey clearly. Then, she climbed up a tree and waited patiently.
Stranger. Female. She didn’t belong. She might hurt the cubs.
She looked at the hairless biped and saw her for what she was underneath her pretty smooth skin; another shifter. The woman walked forward, toward their den. No! A stranger. The cubs… The feline jumped down with a roar, claws out.
“Please, don’t!” the female screeched the words when she caught sight of her.
Just before she hit the stranger, a large flying object hit her at full speed, knocking her back.
No, not an object. She knew that scent.
“Sorry,” the Beta was saying to the stranger. The feline bared her teeth. Why was he being nice to the intruder? “We’re on high alert right now, and my pridemate wasn’t expecting you. I recognise your face from our applications, don’t I? If you are here for the selection, that was yesterday.”
The stranger’s heart beat fast. She was frightened. Good. The feline was grumpy at her Beta for stepping in between her and her prey, but it was his prerogative. She wasn’t sure she wanted to obey her Beta, but if he protected the stranger, she wasn’t a threat. Plus, the fact that the pretty girl was shaking made up for it.
“You want to follow that trail down, until you reach a mini McMansion. Our Alphas are at home. Go, I’ll take care of this,” he said, gesturing to her.
Meanwhile, the feline licked her claws clean, and stretched languorously. Oh. Stretching was just the best. The feline dropped to the ground and stretched harder.
“What am I gonna do with you?” the Beta asked, laughingly.
His mouth moved, sounds came out. She wasn’t sure what it meant.
I know what i
t means.
The feline stilled. She knew that voice.
Let me help.
That was her hairless biped. Her human.
Let me out.
Clarissa. That was her name.
LET ME OUT.
The feline huffed in distaste. But she liked Clarissa. Clarissa needed to stay happy. So, slowly, she retreated to the shadows of their mind.
* * *
The bone breaking process was excruciating. She yelled. She didn’t even feel guilty for yelling so damn hard it would have raised any dead buried in the wood. When it stopped, she was crouched on the ground, panting hard.
Eventually, she managed to talk.
“Holy fuck.”
The speed. The power. The smell of everything. Every sound around her, magnified tenfold.
She loved it and it made her sick to the bone, with a migraine so hard her head was ready to explode.
“Holy fuck,” she repeated.
A chuckle got her to snap into focus, her eyes stopped flying from branches to leaves, to the skies, and the ants on the ground. They went to him. And, suddenly, the rest faded.
“Sorry, we’re gonna suck at giving you warnings.” That voice was making her clit sing. So hot. Talk again, she wanted to say. He did. “We were born that way. The good news is, you’ll get used to it. We’re proof of that.”
She still heard everything else, but the volume seemed to have dialled down. She had to focus, apparently.
“You’re right.”
Was that her voice? It sounded so clear. And what was it with the accent, damn it?
“You suck. A warning would have helped.”
But she didn’t care. She didn’t care about anything right now - her mind focused on one single thing.
“Clarissa?” Daunte asked, no doubt catching something in her eye.
Or the fact that she couldn’t stop staring at his crotch.
“Don’t take it personally,” she said, licking her bottom lip. “But I think I need you to fuck me now.”
