“You’re right,” Jonas’s voice entered my ears. “I like taking you, and I love seeing you on your knees before me.”
My body reacted of its own accord. My traitorous chest began to purr, and I wished I could stop myself. I shouldn’t like hearing him talk to me like that, but I did. I hated it, I loved it, just…ugh. Stupid. So stupid.
Jonas went on, “And you like being on your knees for me, don’t deny it, Mate.”
Mate. He still couldn’t call me by my name, and I closed my eyes, willing things to be different. For him to be less of an animal and more of a person, to treat me like I was someone important to him and not just a body to be used.
I remained quiet, lost in the feeling of his huge, muscular body behind me, the way his warm, rough hand still held onto my neck. I ached in places I’d never ached before, both tired and wanting more.
Jonas was silent for a few moments, his nose pressed against my hair as he breathed me in. I wondered what I smelled like to him. “Do you like my present?” His chest rumbled as he waited for me to respond. My nod seemed to placate his growling, and he quieted. The hand around my neck loosened somewhat, and I breathed in deeply.
“Why did you do it?” I asked, wanting to know the answer. The truth, harsh as it was, was that he didn’t owe me anything. He didn’t have to give me a TV or have cable installed while I was away with Nikolas.
Really, he didn’t have to do anything for me.
The room was filled with noise from the TV, and for the longest time, I wondered if I stepped over the line. If my question would cause him to take it back. I was looking the gift horse in the mouth, after all—er, the gift leopard.
It was a long time before he answered me, and his answer shocked me into silence: “Because it would make you happy.”
I didn’t know what to say to that, mostly because it was the last thing I expected him to say. What did he care about my happiness for? He sure had a strange way of showing that he cared. Get me a TV, some cable, to make me happy, and still treat me like nothing more than a mate he owned.
I wanted to turn to look at him, but I was nervous about what I’d see, so I simply murmured, “I didn’t know you cared about that.”
He held me tighter against his chest, knocking the breath from my lungs and letting out a growl that put me in my place. “I might be an animal,” Jonas whispered, baring his teeth to the side of my head, “but you are my mate. Your happiness is my happiness.”
I didn’t see how that had anything to do with it, but I didn’t press him on it. No, I decided to ask a question that danced a different line: “Are you happy, Jonas?” I thought I knew the answer, but it was hard to predict what would come from my mate’s mouth.
Jonas buried his face in my hair, and I shivered when I felt his nose graze the back of my neck. It was almost like…well, almost like Jonas, the biggest and surliest of my mates, was hugging me. “With you,” he whispered. Two words, two words that weren’t really an admission of happiness, and yet how else was I supposed to take them? How else could he have meant them?
Those two words warmed my heart in ways they probably shouldn’t, and I found myself slowly rolling over to face him. The hand holding onto my neck let me roll, and within a moment I lay facing the other way, meeting his jade eyes, spotting a seriousness there I couldn’t deny. A solemnity, and a sadness that resonated with me.
I trailed a hand along his scratchy jaw, my nails catching on his stubble. He watched me with an expression I couldn’t read, and I felt something inside my chest tug. My heart? This one made both my heart and my body hurt.
“I was happy, once,” Jonas whispered, his forehead leaning against mine.
“When you were young,” I said, already knowing. What I didn’t know, however, was the middle. I knew the Jonas of today, and I’d seen the Jonas of yesterday. What I’d missed was the Jonas in between; how he’d gotten from there to here, why he was so closed-off to everyone today.
“I grew up with human parents,” he stated, eyes moving to the side. When he broke eye contact, I could tell he lost himself in his own head. What a dark and lonely place it must be. “I grew up thinking I was human, feeling different from everyone around me.”
I couldn’t imagine it. Sure, I’d grown up around humans, but I’d always known I was different—at least, when I was old enough to not blab my shifter truth out to everyone I met. Growing up with human parents, thinking you were human until you suddenly realized you weren’t…it must’ve been hard.
“I didn’t find out I was a shifter until my real father came back to town.” Jonas’s jaw clamped shut, a muscle in his forehead bulging. “My mother had an affair. She didn’t know he was a shifter. The man I’d grown up thinking was my father found out, blamed me, I guess. He kicked me out the minute I turned eighteen, although he made sure to make my last few months living in that household terrible.”
“And your mother?” I was afraid to speak, fearing that once I did, Jonas would revert back to his normal, jerky self. Fortunately, this time he didn’t.
“She let him,” Jonas said simply.
“So your father took you in?”
“No, he sent me to the Pride, not wanting anything to do with me. The Pride sent me here. I lost my family, my human friends—everything.” Jonas let out a sigh, and his breath was hot on my face. I moved in closer to him, burying my face against his chest.
Being kicked out was a completely different thing to going willingly. I might’ve lost my old life, but I knew what I was getting into. I couldn’t imagine how it must’ve felt for him, finding out he wasn’t human, realizing the man he thought was his dad wasn’t actually his father—and then having him hate him for no reason other than the fact he was someone else’s son. It was horrible.
Cruelty wasn’t only a shifter trait. Everyone was capable of it.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered against his chest, feeling the urge to console him, to try to make him feel better even though his wounds weren’t fresh. He was thirty years old, not fresh out of the house. These things happened over a decade ago, and there was nothing I could do to make him feel better.
“I didn’t tell you so you could feel sorry for me.” He sounded irritated, as if I’d pried this information from his unwilling lips. I hadn’t—he’d surrendered it to me on his own.
I wanted to ask him then why did you tell me, but I knew I’d only upset him further, and that was not my goal. Not at all. My goal was…heck, at this point, I wasn’t sure. All I knew was that I didn’t want to fight the man near me, didn’t want to poke the monster when he was resting. Still, I found myself whispering, “I don’t pity you, if that’s what you’re getting at.”
He let out a warning growl, and I moved my head off his chest, feeling the hand on my back dig into my skin. Yet another warning that I tiptoed the line.
“Your past makes you who you are,” I clarified, “and you’re unlike anyone I’ve ever met. You might be wilder than most, but that’s what makes you you. Call me stupid, but I like you, Jonas. I like you, even if you don’t like me.”
God, I sounded stupid. Like a girl confessing to her crush—a crush who she knew didn’t like her back—and expecting the world.
He stared at me for a while, his mouth pursing. He looked dour, mean and menacing, and yet I still felt weak to him. “And what makes you think I don’t like you?” Jonas whispered.
“I…” I trailed off, not knowing what to say. Was this his way of admitting that he liked me? Was this him telling me that he actually felt something real for me, beyond the mate thing? It was too much to hope for.
“Shut up,” Jonas growled out. “You talk too much.”
I was about to tell him that he was the one who’d shared his past, but he effectively shut me up by pressing his lips to mine, taking my mouth and igniting a fire deep within me. He kissed me like he wanted to forget, to lose himself in me, and as our bodies changed positions on the couch, I let him. This man made me weak, and I was her
e for it.
I was here for his scars, his roughness, the way he commanded me like he owned me. I was here for every part of him, and I only hoped that the glimpse I saw of the real Jonas was indeed the real leopard, the part of him he kept tucked away behind his prickly outer shell.
Honestly, all three shifters held my heart in their hands. This place was starting to look more like a home with each passing day.
The TV helped a lot with that.
Chapter Twenty-Four – Holly
The days passed in blurs of sex and contentedness. I was actually happy here, with my three mates, even though warm weather was a thing of the past. The only problem was I still couldn’t shift. Nikolas, Aster, and Jonas took me out to the lake to try to instill the shifter side of me to take action. Daytime, night time, even under duress—my shifter side never emerged again.
And I was always so cold, too.
Something wasn’t right. My inner leopard didn’t want to come out. Maybe she’d gotten so used to being hidden away, locked inside the cage of my mind that she didn’t quite know how to get to the surface on her own.
Still, you’d think I’d be able to do it.
I felt useless, each and every time they took me out and tried to help me turn. So useless it hurt. Tonight we were set to try again—this time I’d be with Jonas. Ronda needed both Aster and Nikolas to work, since it was a Friday night and she had to take off.
I sat, wearing my puffy jacket, my arms folded across the bar. I sat in one of the barstools, a basket of fries before me. Jonas was coming to pick me up soon, and I heaved the night’s ten-thousandth sigh. This sucked. I hated being defective.
My mates claimed they wouldn’t toss me aside because I couldn’t shift, but I couldn’t help but feel as if they were lying to me. Why would they tell me that they were going to get rid of me before doing so? I felt inadequate, and I hated it.
“Hey,” Aster spoke, giving me a dimpled smile. He was in the process of arranging the glassware under the counter. “Everything’s going to be okay. You know that, don’t you?” His words were genuine, and still I was begrudging to believe them.
Nikolas emerged from the back, carrying a full, new bottle of some kind of strong alcohol. I wasn’t a fan, mostly because the taste was too powerful for me. Plus, technically in the States I was underage. Had to be twenty-one and all that crap.
“What’s Aster talking about?” Nikolas asked, shooting me a smile.
I shook my head the moment one of the bar’s regulars sauntered up to the counter. A middle-aged man who usually sat in the corner booth, smoking and reading the paper while taking a sip of whiskey every now and then. His head, shaved bald, reflected the dim lighting in the bar. He dressed in layers, and he generally seemed like a no-nonsense sort of man.
He stood beside me, giving me a wink. “Probably trying to dissuade your cousin here not to date that Jonas fellow,” the human spoke, tossing a twenty on the counter. He saluted us before going, and I held in my next sigh until the man had left the bar.
Yep. I was Nikolas’s and Aster’s cousin, and I was dating Jonas. Go figure. My public persona had to be one of familial ties to the brothers, while doting and lovesick to Jonas.
With the bald one gone, only a few customers remained. Within an hour, the bar would be slammed with people trying to get drunk on this particular Friday night. The weather was clear, which meant more people braved the roads.
Nikolas shook his head, not bothering to hide his smile. “You and Jonas, huh? That still a thing?” My look, which I hoped was dangerous, shut him right up. “Sorry,” he shrugged, not sounding too sorry at all.
Things between my mates had gotten less tense lately. I think they were all growing used to each other, knowing one another’s boundaries, though Jonas liked to push a bit more than he should, especially when it came to Aster. Seeing me on top of him had given Jonas some ideas, definitely, ideas that made Aster quite red in the face when brought up.
I threw a quick look around me, shrugging as I whispered, “You shouldn’t have told everyone I was your cousin, otherwise you and I could be dating.”
“Hey,” Aster said, miffed for being excluded. “What about me?”
“Or you,” I added, giving him a smile. I was about to say more, but Jonas chose that exact moment to walk through the door, dusting himself off before heading towards us. His eyes, as usual, were on me.
Aster sent Jonas a frown. “If it isn’t the devil himself,” he muttered, to which Jonas tossed a glare his way. That shut Aster up. He got back to work, acting like Jonas wasn’t around, which only made Nikolas laugh.
Jonas moved beside me, setting a hand on my back. I could hardly feel it through the puffy jacket, but his warmth had a way of seeping through no matter what. “Are you ready?” he asked, his voice low.
I nodded, slipping off the barstool as I threw a look to Nikolas and Aster—the latter of which still acted like the third man wasn’t in the vicinity. “I’ll see you guys later,” I said, waving as Jonas took my other hand and led me outside. It hurt to leave them, but I had no choice.
Jonas helped me into his truck, and we were off within a minute. I studied him as he drove, the way his jaw was clenched, how his eyes darted to me every few moments. Ever since opening up to me, things had been easier between us. He still was rough with me more often than not, but underneath that roughness there was a lingering gentleness that I picked up on. I wouldn’t go so far as to say he loved me, but we were definitely getting there.
One step at a time.
“So,” Jonas broke the silence of the car ride, glancing at me as we were stopped at a red light, “is tonight the night? Is my mate going to finally shift tonight?” His question was spoken seriously, and yet I couldn’t tell if he was indeed being serious. I didn’t know him to joke much, or at all, really.
“Your mate is going to try,” I spoke dryly, “like she has been doing every night.”
He was quiet for a while, and as we pulled up to his house and he parked the truck in the garage, he gave me a long, hard look. “As much as I hate to agree with Nikolas, I think he’s right. We should contact the Pride, see if they’ve ever heard of something like this before.” He never agreed with Nikolas; this was a momentous occasion, and unfortunately it was one about me.
My gaze fell to my lap, and I fiddled with my hands beneath the sleeves of my jacket. I didn’t want them to tell the Pride, didn’t want the Pride to know I was some defective female. If I couldn’t turn, what if something else was wrong with me? What if my cubs wouldn’t be cubs and they’d just be human? What if my shifter genes were so watered-down that there wasn’t enough leopard in me?
I couldn’t be tossed aside—not only for Lumi, but for a more selfish reason, too. These guys, my mates…I liked them. I liked them a lot. They each held a place in my heart, and my heart would shatter, break into a thousand tiny, irreparable pieces if I was torn from their sides.
Would they care if they lost me, or would they be eager to find another mate, one who wouldn’t disappoint them?
Jonas spotted my obvious unease, and he stunned me by undoing his seatbelt and leaning over. He grabbed my cheek, forcing me to look at him, and before I could say anything—something stupid like I’d be fine or don’t worry about me—his mouth collided with mine in a fiery display of passion. Fast, hungry, needy, and it was over far too soon.
“Stop worrying,” Jonas muttered, releasing my face. “You’ll only make yourself sick over it.”
We got out of his truck together, heading straight outside, through the open garage door. Though the weather was clear, it was still cold, and I shivered as I shoved my hands in my jacket’s pockets. Should’ve gotten gloves, but at least I wore a hat to cover my ears. You lost a lot of body heat through your ears, apparently. It was a fact I never had to know, living somewhere much warmer than this.
“Come on. Let’s head to the lake,” Jonas said, more of an order than anything. I couldn’t say no even if I wanted
to, and at this point, I knew better. I’d been around him long enough to know that when his mind was set on something, like me trying to shift for the next few hours, there was nothing I could do or say to change it. He had a one-track mind.
We trudged through the snow. It had been packed down due to the day’s clear sun, and with the sun setting on the horizon and the moon on the rise, it sparkled in the dying daylight. The lake was still my favorite area on Jonas’s property, even if it was marred by the fact that I couldn’t shift. When the lake’s ice was clear of snow, how the crystalized water reflected the moonlight—it was the prettiest thing I’d ever seen.
After a while, we emerged from the white-tipped forest and near the lake. Though I hadn’t been in town long, this place held so many memories. The race, Jonas saving me from that bear. This place meant a lot, and if there was any place I should be able to shift, it was here.
Jonas turned to me, his arms crossed. He didn’t wear a puffy jacket like me, but he did wear boots. Snow in your socks was one of the worst things ever, trust me. “Focus,” he instructed. “Focus on connecting with your inner leopard.”
It wasn’t the first time he’d told me to do that, and it probably wouldn’t be the last.
I closed my eyes, ignoring the biting chill of the wind on the tip of my nose, trying to do as he said. We’d long stopped shedding clothes in anticipation of me shifting—that only got me freezing cold and meant we couldn’t stay out as long. The weather was affecting me too much, even after all this time.
My inner leopard was there, I could feel her, and yet when I tried to call her to the surface, when I beckoned her forth, she just wouldn’t come. Heck, maybe she was lazy. Maybe she’d spent so long purely inside of me she didn’t want to come out again. Still, it should be my decision, whether or not to turn.
“She won’t come,” I said after a long while. A long, long while. The sun had gone down completely, and the moon was on the rise, its silver light dancing across the snowy landscape and lake of ice.
Promised to the Pride: A Shifter Romance Page 17
