Taming the Lion Page 8

  Patch had never asked why her parents didn’t move her entire family there, because Patch had never, not for one second, suspected that their home was not one hundred percent safe. Until the day when she was ten years old and she came home from school to find the world was wrong. Broken.

  Then she’d gone to Lone Pine. She’d had to. But it hadn’t been a fairy tale anymore.

  She’d been ragged and terrified and the only thing she’d wanted was her parents wrapping their arms around her and telling her it had all been a bad dream. But it hadn’t. And the Alpha, no matter how big and strong and magical he’d seemed, hadn’t been able to bring them back.

  They’d made her welcome at Lone Pine. They’d made her safe. But nothing had ever touched the gaping hole in her life where her parents were supposed to be. Patch had lived inside a bubble of grief until the day Lila had decided they were going to be best friends forever. The bubble hadn’t popped—nothing could do that—but it had shrunk down until it wasn’t visible anymore, just a tiny balloon of ever-present grief pressing against her heart. Some days she could even ignore it. Pretend it wasn’t there. Build a life that didn’t hinge around her loss, but instead around honoring her parents’ memory by living well.

  Lila had taught her how to do that. Lila had been the water flowing over the jagged rocks of her anger and fear, smoothing them out with her infinite patience. Lila was the one who talked her father into fostering Patch, even though the Alpha didn’t typically take strays into his household. She’d been Patch’s partner in crime and only confidante for over a decade. Lila had vowed to Patch that she would never have to be alone again—and she never had. That kind of debt could never be repaid.

  And she’d made out with Lila’s fiancé last night.

  She caught sight of Lila moving quickly through the compound, pausing to bestow a smile here, a greeting there. The pride princess among her subjects.

  She had to tell her.

  Patch rushed down the stairs to intercept Lila, just in case she wasn’t on her way to her own apartment, catching her as she reached the second floor landing.

  “Hey!” Patch jumped down to alight beside Lila on the landing. “I was just about to go looking for you.”

  Lila grimaced. “I was having lunch with Roman.”

  Patch felt all the blood rushing away from her head and knew she must look like death. “Oh?” Did she know? Had Roman mentioned the kiss? “How was it?”

  Chapter Twelve

  “Awkward.”

  Patch didn’t realize she’d been holding her breath, waiting to be called all kinds of betraying bitch, until Lila’s exasperated groan set her lungs working again.

  “Excruciatingly awkward,” Lila went on. “We’re trying to get to know each other. It’s like some bizarre Victorian courting ritual where we only talk about the most inconsequential things. By the end we were actually discussing the weather. Though, on the plus side, I now know that he likes thunderstorms, so there you have it. True love is right around the corner.”

  Guilt twisted and coiled, an angry serpent in Patch’s stomach. She was glad Roman was trying to woo Lila, but also disturbingly relieved that it was going badly. She shouldn’t be relieved.

  “Come on. You need chocolate therapy.” She grabbed hold of Lila and dragged her down the stairs and across the way to the dining hall—operating under the theory that all confessions of betrayal went better with a death-by-chocolate brownie and two forks.

  The dining hall was almost empty, only one table on the opposite side of the room occupied, affording them as much privacy as they were likely to get. No time like the present for Patch to spill her guts. Any second now. I kissed Roman. Easy. Just like that. Spit it out.

  “Santiago was looking for you.” She nearly groaned at her own cowardice. Way to spit it right out, Patch. She shoveled in a large bite of brownie, hoping the soft gush of chocolate in her mouth would somehow make her less of a chicken.

  “He was?” Lila’s voice was a little too high, a little too tight, but her expression was unaffected. “Did he say why?”

  “I didn’t ask. We mostly talked about this whole calling in the outliers thing. It’s kind of inconvenient timing for me.” Lila’s chin jerked up, eyes widening, and Patch waved down her panic with her fork. “Of course I’m coming in. Set a good example. Pride solidarity.”

  “And Dad would kill you if you risked yourself.”

  “That too.” Though the Alpha tried to allow her independence, she was still his pseudo-daughter and he’d never been easy with the idea of her living off the pride lands. He was probably overjoyed at finally having a legitimate excuse to keep her here. “But honestly, I’d rather be anywhere else.” Especially right now. She muttered under her breath, “Of course I get to go into heat in the middle of the freaking pride.”

  “What?” Lila leaned forward.

  Patch repeated louder, “My heat is starting.”

  “Oh.” Lila blinked, and Patch watched as the penny dropped. “Oh.”

  “Yeah. So not exactly the time of year when I want to be hanging around a ton of shifter males. In fact…” Say it, Patch. I kissed him. Man up. Just spit it out. “I kind of—” Holy Hades. How hard was it to say three little words? “I kissed Roman last night.”

  Her stomach dropped to her knees. There it was. The truth was out.

  “You what?” Lila’s brow furrowed, more in confusion than accusation.

  The words poured out, driving out on a tidal wave of guilt, trying to explain it into insignificance. “I kissed Roman. Or he kissed me. I don’t know. There was leaning and then it just sort of happened. I was drunk—” Not that drunk. “—and with my heat starting soon—” Stop making excuses. “It didn’t mean anything. I swear to God, Lila, it was nothing.”

  And God, she wanted that last statement to be true, she wanted that truth so badly, but it felt like the worst lie of all.

  “No, I understand.”

  Wait, what? Patch went still, shock rocking through her at Lila’s words. She understood? Patch didn’t even understand. “It will never happen again.” No matter how good it was. “I promise.”

  “I’m not mad, Patch,” Lila drawled. “By all means, have at him.”

  “What?” Patch gaped. She’d known that Lila wasn’t madly in love with Roman—any idiot could see that—but she’d certainly never expected to be given carte blanche to have at him. This was Lila’s future husband. If he’d belonged to Patch, she would have cheerfully clawed the face off of any girl who laid a liplock on him.

  “It doesn’t count, right?” Lila said. “Anything that happens before the wedding—any accidental kissing of other people—that’s just sowing wild oats, right? Just a little pre-wedding fling. Totally normal. No harm done.”

  No harm done. It didn’t feel like no harm. It felt like the foundations of the world shuffling and reshaping beneath her feet. It felt like a fuse that had been lying dormant her entire life had been lit. But no harm done. Right.

  Lila’s expression shifted, darkening into concern. “Patch… You’ll be careful, won’t you? Roman can’t—”

  “He’d never let himself be permanently attached to a cougar. I know.” It would kill his chances of ever succeeding as Alpha. She couldn’t do that to him. No matter how badly her hormones and her adolescent fantasies might wish it could be otherwise.

  Lila stretched across the empty brownie dish, squeezing her hand. “He’d be lucky to have you. Any man would. But with him as Alpha…even if he were willing to overlook all the other obstacles…”

  Obstacles like his wedding to Lila. Talk about hopeless.

  “I know, Lila. It was nothing. And that nothing is never happening again.” No matter how badly she wanted it to.

  “Good,” Lila said with genuine relief. “Now, if you wanted to have a fling with Kelly…”

  Patch knew her friend just wanted to keep her from getting hurt, but she had a feeling the death of all those silly fantasies and what-ifs was g
oing to hurt on their wedding day, even if she never saw Roman again. Sometimes life just hurt and there was nothing you could do about it. She’d learned that lesson long ago.

  But she still had to tell him about the shifter’s scent. All business. It had nothing to do with the desire to see him again that had been pushing at her since she woke up this morning, hungry for another touch. She’d talk to him, get it over with and then avoid him until the wedding. It was better that way.

  Roman’s head snapped up at the knock on his office door. The last of the afternoon sun slanted through the blinds he’d closed to keep out the glare, blocking his view of whoever was banging on his door. He opened his mouth to invite the knocker in, but the words caught in his throat at the thought that maybe it was Lila again.

  Crap. He needed to get over this aversion to seeing her. She was a great kid. Lovely and charming…

  And they had absolutely nothing in common.

  Their “date”, such as it was, had been an exercise in discovering all the ways they weren’t compatible. She’d brought him lunch—which made him feel like an ass for having already eaten. Luckily, with his shifter metabolism he was always hungry, so he’d eaten again as they tried to get to know one another.

  She’d been nervous and jumpy—but she hadn’t immediately accused him of molesting her best friend, so he supposed that was a positive. Thank God Patch had decided to keep their little indiscretion to herself.

  They’d agreed to be loyal to one another once they were married—and that was about the only thing they’d agreed on. She really was one giant girly cliché. She liked romance novels, movies with fairy tale endings, sunny days and long walks on the beach—and had even expressed an interest in honeymooning in Tahiti, as if they’d ever be able to get that much time away.

  Roman preferred nonfiction, thrillers, thunderstorms and thought long walks on the beach were a waste of time that he didn’t have. But this was his bride, so he’d sucked it up and invited her to join him for a movie of her choice later in the week. That was as close to wooing as he was likely to get.

  The knock came again and Roman kicked himself out of his wanderings. It was firm and direct, that knock. Nothing like Lila’s unobtrusive scratch. “Come in,” he called.

  “Sorry to disturb you.” The words preceded her into the room, and just the sound of her voice was enough to make his blood heat.

  He’d told himself he would stay away from her and here she was, temptation walking through his door.

  “Patch.”

  Her lips twisted in a semblance of a smile, but she wouldn’t meet his eyes. “I’m sorry—last night—that kiss—”

  “It was the heat,” he cut her off before her words could conjure up the memory—and another hard-on—his tone a little more forceful than he’d intended.

  “Right. Of course. But—”

  “If anyone should apologize, it’s me.” He leaned forward, steepling his hands on his desk, grateful for its presence between them.

  She blinked. “You?”

  “I should have more control. The future Alpha can’t go crazy every time one of the females has a breeding cycle.”

  A blush rose to her cheeks. “Yeah.”

  “I can assure you it won’t happen again.”

  “No. Of course not.” Her eyes still skittered away from his.

  Perhaps that was the most frustrating part. That his stupidity the night before had shattered the forthright, easy way she’d spoken to him and turned her into this nervous, evasive creature. “You’ll be happy to know I’m wooing Lila. Getting to know her a little.”

  “Very happy.” She studied the prints on the side wall of his office. Large black and whites of the mountains and streams around the pride. Did she like them? Would she suspect that he’d taken them himself? Lila hadn’t even seemed to notice the artwork.

  “I know what kind of books she likes now,” he heard himself bragging. As if discovering she didn’t read Mein Kampf in the original German was worth gloating over.

  That brought Patch’s eyes up to his, a flicker of irritation sparking in their dark depths. “I don’t really want a play-by-play of your relationship, Roman. That’s not why I’m here.”

  “Then why are you here?” He heard his voice go gravel rough as images of why she might be there flashed graphically through his brain.

  “Did your bird shifter wake up?”

  “What?” Roman rebooted his brain, dragging his thoughts out of the deliciously dirty gutter they’d found their way to. “No, he’s still out. Why?”

  Patch strode over to the sideboard, running her fingers over the smooth wood. “Yesterday morning when I was up in the Absoarkas guiding some hikers, I caught a weird scent—like a shifter, but with something wrong and sort of medicinal over the natural scent. Then last night when we were…ah, when I was close enough to you to smell…the scent was on you too.”

  “You’re sure it wasn’t just my scent? It can be hard to tell—”

  “No, I know your scent.” Patch blushed, and her eyes flicked back to the pictures for a moment before returning to meet his. She turned, rubbing her hips against the sideboard and he wondered if she realized she was scent-marking his place, staking a claim he shouldn’t have allowed. “I thought it must have been that bird shifter and that if he didn’t wake up, we might still be able to track him back to where he came from if we move quickly, before the trail is completely gone.”

  Roman came out of his chair as the possibilities moved rapidly through his thoughts. “You think you could find it again? Take us back to the spot?”

  “I think so. I’m not sure. The scent was on the breeze. I can get you pretty close, but as for the exact location… Still, it’s worth a try, right? Even if we can just determine his heading, we might have a shot of figuring out where other captured shifters are being held.”

  “If there are other captured shifters.”

  “Roman.” His name was a low reprimand on her lips. “We have to try.”

  He caught her gaze, coming around the desk. “We will.”

  He told himself he just wanted to touch her to comfort her. She was distressed by the talk of shifter disappearances. He’d want to extend the comfort of the pride to anyone. It was natural to touch. Shifters were tactile and soothed by physical contact. It wasn’t just the urge to feel her skin beneath his fingertips that lured him toward her. Closing in. Five feet. Three.

  Her color rose, eyes widening, but she didn’t retreat. She really should have retreated.

  “I want to be in the hunting party when it goes,” she said softly, the sound too intimate with her eyes still holding his.

  “You aren’t combat trained,” he reminded her, coming to a stop in front of her. She stood with her hip braced against the sideboard. It would be so easy to lean in, pin her to it, lift her onto it, spread her out like a feast.

  “So train me.”

  “No.”

  “Excuse me?” Her eyebrows flew up, as did a hand to slap against his chest to stop him when he listed toward her.

  They both froze with the contact. Shit. The comfort of the pride wasn’t supposed to feel like a lightning rod.

  He didn’t know where his refusal had come from. Some deep, instinctive part of his brain that hadn’t felt the need to check in with logic or propriety. She wasn’t going to endanger herself. He wouldn’t allow it. But he couldn’t explain. “You aren’t going.”

  “I am perfectly capable of learning to kick ass, thank you very much,” she argued, though there was still a breathiness to her voice. “And strategy? Leadership? Who do you think is quarterback of every goddamn pick-up football game that is played in this pride?”

  “I’m sure you’re very tough.”

  “Don’t you placate me, you oversized ass. You may be all big and muscly, but I can take you any day of the week.” Her other hand slapped up to join the first, pressing against his pectorals. His nostrils flared as he sucked in her scent, lemon spice and lust.
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  He pushed into her hands, leaning over her, refusing to be budged.

  Bad idea. Get it together, Roman.

  But his better judgment was on hiatus.

  “You think you can take me? I can practically fit you in my pocket, and in some things, believe me, baby, size does matter.”

  “Spoken like a man,” she growled, sending him back a step with a surprisingly hard shove.

  He snarled, immediately closing the distance between them again, smacking his hands onto the sideboard on either side of her hips, his claws snicking out to sink into the wood. “Don’t test me, kitten.”

  “Don’t underestimate me, champ.”

  He growled and she matched the sound, calling his hackles to rise, muscles clenching.

  They were toe to toe. Nose to nose. Her claws were out, but just resting against the fabric of his shirt while his dug slowly deeper into the wood of his antique sideboard. Their breathing had synched up—too fast and close, sucking in each other’s oxygen. Her face was flushed and her pupils huge, the black consuming her golden-brown eyes, but it was her mouth he couldn’t stop staring at, her luscious, perfect lips. And her scent. It wrapped around his cock in an invisible fist.

  Fuck. He’d told himself it wasn’t going to happen again.

  He really shouldn’t lie to himself like that.

  Another growl ripped up his throat as he bent and snared her lips. She met him with a throaty purr and a nip of her teeth. He had to capture her mouth, contain it, best her for control of the kiss—and the challenge of it was so fucking hot it sent a rush of undiluted need straight to his groin. He released the table long enough to grab her ass and lift her onto it. As soon as her butt hit the table her legs locked around his waist and she jerked him forward with her ankles, tighter against her, so they fit perfectly together, his hardness against her heat.

  He growled against her lips—couldn’t seem to stop making those noises, his animal riding him hard—and thrust his tongue into her mouth, clutching her head to hold her for his kiss. Her claws teased the back of his neck and he wanted more, harder. Now. He didn’t bother with finesse, just took hold and ripped her shirt cleanly down the back so the soft expanse of her skin was unobstructed for his hands. Perfection.