Access, too, was heavily controlled. Over the last two years, she’d been forced to give up her job. Sage lost the dance studio she used as an escape. Guards were placed on any female traveling outside the territory.
For protection, of course. Because humans and other shifters couldn’t be trusted.
She could pinpoint the moment everything began to change. The night the Bad Years flipped over like a new page on a calendar to the Worse Years. Sage lost her mother that night. And her brother.
Kyla’s lioness shivered inside her. Hurt and resentment sliced through her whenever that male’s face popped into her head. She didn’t dare whisper his name. He’d been erased from the Levine household as surely as his mother, but where she’d been replaced, Lindley left behind a huge crater in the middle of the world.
Kyla missed the old days. They weren’t perfect, no. Sage frequently spent the night to escape the yelling and fighting of her parents and the entire pride had days where they brawled more than spoke. At least back then, the sense of dread in the air wasn’t thick enough to choke on.
Sage’s hand on her arm brought Kyla back to the kitchen. She added a carving knife to her tray. With a roll of her eyes to Sage, she pasted her smile in place and stepped toward the dining room.
She made it three steps before stumbling to a stop as a big male blocked her path. “Move, Ricky,” she hissed.
Forkballs. She tried to squeeze around him, but the hallway was too narrow. And of course, he wouldn’t be the one to get in trouble for holding up the main course. Oh no, she’d be the one facing the consequences.
Ricky canted his head with a smirk. “I’d love to see you hold some other meat, Kyla.”
“Piss off, Ricky,” Sage grumbled behind her. “We all know you have a shriveled weenie for a dick. It’d be downright inconsiderate to make anyone touch that.”
Ricky glared over Kyla’s shoulder, but didn’t say a word. Lip lifted in a silent snarl, he shuffled out of the way enough for them to slink past.
Dangerous look, that. Sage was untouchable, but she wasn’t. And Ricky wouldn’t let the shot to his ego stand for long.
Still, Kyla threw her friend a grateful glance. If everything went as planned, she’d never need to worry about Ricky’s shriveled weenie dick or shrimpy personality.
“That’s why it’s important to maintain close ties. We’ve spent years building up our alliances. The right mating here, ensuring the proper lion takes the throne there, well, you understand,” Jasper said as she entered the dining room. “Our consortium of prides—independent, but working toward the same goal—will be far better off once we have control of the enclaves. Then we will control who enters and who must leave.”
The dark-haired woman had already set her dishes on the table. Kyla hurried forward to place the roast at the center while Sage added potatoes and gravy to the other side.
Roland downed the rest of his wine and blindly held out the glass. Sable, his mate, rushed forward to refill it, then slunk back to her spot in one corner. “And Bearden is the first? Are we sure?”
“Absolutely,” Jasper rumbled, taking a long look at Sage. “We must send a message to the dregs of human society and their sympathizers. The first enclave to lower their barriers will be the first to put them back into place.”
“About damn time!” Roland grinned broadly and slammed his fist against the table. “Our kind has gone soft. A return to the old ways will be welcome.” His excitement faded as he fixed Sage with bright amber eyes. “Well?” he growled.
She didn’t say a word. Neither did Kyla. They both disappeared back into the kitchen.
Crowded together as far from the doorway as possible, Sage dropped her voice low. “I heard Jasper lost half of his own pride. That has to be why he’s making the rounds now. He needs to make sure everyone is still under his thumb.”
“I don’t think he has to worry about the Levine pride straying.” Kyla had scented the anticipation when Roland talked about the old ways. That was the problem with wild, untamed males. They weren’t happy picking on someone their own size. Who better to push down easily than those who couldn’t defend themselves easily against claws and fangs?
The old ways was just code for open season on humans. Accidentally wandered into shifter territory? Dead. Discovered a shifter through trust, a wrong place-wrong time situation, or nefarious undertaking? Dead, dead, dead.
“I wouldn’t be so sure. My father gathered everyone. Maybe he wants to show off his strength. Maybe he smells blood in the water.”
They fell quiet as Ricky wandered in and picked at the drippings in the roasting pan. He stared them down as he swiped a finger through the remaining potatoes in the mixing bowl. He went for the fridge next, taking out a beer and letting the bottle cap drop to the floor.
Kyla leaned against the counter with a sigh when he finally wandered out again. “We’ll be gone before it becomes our problem,” she muttered. Sage nodded in agreement.
The dark-haired woman leaned around the corner and snapped her fingers. “They’re finished. Clear the table for dessert.”
One round of rock-paper-scissors won Kyla the task of wading back through the dining room while Sage sliced the pie. She didn’t even need to fake her smile. She felt like skipping down the hallway. She counted down the hours until she would be free of the oppressive pride, the obscene males, and the life of servitude she’d been alpha-ordered into.
Jasper wiped his mouth and set the napkin on his plate. “Right,” he said with a clap of his hands. “Bring me my new mate.”
Kyla froze before she reached the table. Her smile slipped, but she didn’t care. She darted a glance around the room. Her mother stood in one corner, ready to refill any water glasses. Sable occupied another corner, hands wrapped around a bottle of wine. The dark-haired woman moved between the men seated at the table, gathering their dirty dishes.
All the other females were mated, though that wasn’t any guarantee for safety. She’d seen mated pairs ripped apart as a cruel punishment or simply on Roland’s whim.
Of those present, only she and Sage were without marks on their shoulders.
Kyla’s lioness cowered down inside her. She took up her own silent plea for invisibility, or a hole to open under her feet, or the magic to teleport away. Her stomach churned and roiled with objection. This wasn’t supposed to happen. She and Sage were supposed to get away before they were mated off without a choice.
Roland passed a slow look over the females, holding them all in suspense. His lids fell to narrowed slits when he reached Kyla. Her heart thundered against her breastbone and her breath froze in her lungs.
Roland bellowed, “Sage! Get your ass in here!”
Relief sagged Kyla’s shoulders before realization hit. No!
Sage glided through the door. She looked so composed. Hair twisted away from her face, eyes hooded. Graceful, Kyla overheard her mother call her once. A true pride princess.
Jasper pushed to his feet. Sage stayed utterly still as he circled her, then caught her chin between his thumb and forefinger and turned her face from side to side with the focus of a man inspecting an animal.
“She’ll do,” he agreed, then nodded to Ira. “Transfer the funds. She’s coming with us tonight.”
Panic and fear flashed across Sage’s face. “No,” she breathed. She turned to her father. “You can’t do this. I won’t go!”
Roland’s jaw clenched. “I can, and you will.”
Two males appeared behind her and latched their hands around her arms. Sage growled, eyes blazing brightly, and struggled against their hold. “I refuse!”
In a flash, one of the males snapped something silver around her neck.
Sage’s eyes widened. One blink killed the amber color and returned them to her normal green. Her fingers brushed over the cool metal around her throat.
Kyla’s stomach sank. Her cheeks felt wet, but she didn’t dare move a muscle to wipe them. Silver. Silver kept Sage’s lioness lock
ed deep inside her head.
“Take that off, and I’ll take a finger.” Jasper looked down his nose at her with a sickening smile before turning. “You were right, Roland. She has fire to her. This one will be fun to break.”
A silent jerk of his chin was order enough for the males to drag Sage toward the door.
Sage yanked her arms out of her captors’ grasp and streaked across the room. Kyla staggered back with the force of her hug.
No. No, no, no. The word echoed through her head as she wrapped her own arms around her anchor to sanity. They were supposed to escape. Freedom was just around the corner.
“Get help,” Sage spat out for her ears only. “Find Lindley.”
Then she was hauled away, and Kyla was left hugging air.
Chapter 3
Kyla stared at her ceiling and listened to the branches scrape against the roof. She and Sage used to get so scared of those noises. Hysterical, even. They would goad each other into deeper fear, whispering their darkest imaginings under the cover of the blanket fort her mother built for them.
Creepy clowns and murderous versions of leprechauns gave way to never being kissed or finding a fated mate. Teenage fears looked so small compared to the doom that blanketed her now.
Never again. Sage was days gone. And with those final moments, she’d given Kyla an impossible task.
Get help. Find Lindley.
Lindley. Lindley. Sage’s older brother, Roland’s murdering son, and her... her...
Nothing. He was nothing to her. First crush, sure. First kiss. She used to have silly dreams about mating him and becoming real sisters with Sage, but those were just dreams and reality was a harsh, cold wasteland.
He’d betrayed them all years ago, and Sage wanted her to find him? Get help from him? The man killed his own mother! In what world would he lift a finger to help now and be trusted not to stick a knife in their backs once they were safe?
Her lioness scratched at her insides. Hurting from her head to her toes, Kyla curled into a ball and squeezed her eyes closed. No matter what Sage said, Lindley wasn’t a solution. He wasn’t going to save anyone. He was a killer, not their knight in shining armor.
Which left her against too many lions to count. Alone.
A crash in the kitchen jerked her upright, ears perked. Harsh noises like angry bees buzzed through her door. She was on the verge of sinking back down into her ball of misery when she heard her mother say, “What about Kyla?”
Kyla crept out of bed and cracked open her door. Lights shined and voices whispered down the hall. She didn’t catch the mumbled words of her father’s response, but she didn’t give them the privacy they thought they had, either.
She glanced over her shoulder at her empty bed. How long would it be called hers? Whatever they discussed, she wanted to know. Needed to know. She didn't want to have the surprise dropped on her as it had been on Sage.
Heart pounding in her chest, Kyla slunk out of her room. She kept close to the wall, feeling ridiculous and like a spy at the same time. Mincing steps turned to wide lunges to avoid the creaky floorboards in the middle of her journey, then small again as she reached the end of the hall.
Half expecting her mother to come tearing out of the kitchen and chastise her for eavesdropping, Kyla sank down to the ground and peeked around the corner.
“You know she’s next, Jeff!” her mother hissed.
Her father hung his head in his hands. “It’s already in the works, Diana. There’s nothing I can do to stop it. They’d slit my throat for the mere suggestion.”
Kyla’s eyes widened. Her ears buzzed as darkness closed in on her vision. Her lioness, too, whined and crouched down low inside her.
She dug her fingers into her hands to keep from screaming. No. No, she didn’t want to be forced to mate anyone. She didn’t want to be sold off like Sage and others before her.
What other option did she have?
Get help. Find Lindley.
“We can run. There are still places we can go, people that won’t hand us back. We could start over entirely!”
“Listen to yourself. Start over? Run? You know what happened to the Norths. The Gutzmans. Have you heard from the Adlers in the last month?”
“The Adlers, too?” her mother breathed.
“They’re dead, Diana. Dead. The same as us if we try to run.”
Kyla covered her gasp with her hands. She used to babysit for the Adlers. The Gutzmans had a daughter only a year younger than her and Sage. She’d been sold to the Vandalay pride the year before, but Kyla thought the rest of the family had made it out of Levine territory safely.
“It won’t be just those who try to escape, either,” her father continued. “Roland and all the rest want a return to the old ways. They’re going to cull the weak from the pride. If they catch a whiff of this—”
“You think I’d say this to anyone but you? I’m not stupid, Jeff. You can leave that attitude at the door,” her mother growled.
Silence followed, stretching on long enough for Kyla to peek around the corner again. Her mother faced her father, arms folded and with an expression that said she’d eat him alive if he dared say one word out of line.
Three hard knocks rattled against the door, jerking her mother and father’s attention away from each other.
Kyla scurried back down the hall and into her room, leaving the door cracked.
“Stay here,” her father murmured.
“As if I have a choice,” her mother snapped.
Kyla heard him pad through the den. Locks turned, then the front door creaked open.
“Roland’s called a meeting,” someone said outside.
That was it. No complaints about the time, commiseration over being pulled away from home, nothing. Four words summoned him out of the house.
Kyla went to her window and watched her father and the other male walk toward the house on the hill. Other figures went to other dens, other doors, adding more bodies to the trickle already answering Roland’s summons.
Disappointment and anger swirled inside her. She wondered how many had sat at their kitchen tables and talked with their mates about the fate of others in the pride. How many secretly opposed Roland’s actions, but didn’t say a damn word? Which ones were happy with the violence and wanted more? How many families had to be torn apart before the others found enough anger to stand up and shout, ‘Enough!’
The back of her neck prickled. Her lioness hissed and curled up deep inside her, but Kyla didn’t let the beast drag her down into quiet submission.
She fingered the latch on her window and glanced behind her.
The details of her life spread out over her dresser, her walls, even next to her bed. Photos and movie stubs, notes, books. Knickknacks and mementos from a time when everything seemed… normal. She’d kept busy with school and friends and a job. The pride kept to themselves, sure, but everyone knew where they stood with each other. Nighttime raids under the banner of treason and an iron grip on mated pairs hadn’t existed then.
She’d hardly changed a thing over the years. Even her sheets were the same dark purple set she’d had as a teenager.
She’d been stuck in place for a long, long while with no option to move on. Now, she felt like she had nothing left to lose. No job, no education past high school, and her last friend had just been sold against her will.
Her mother wanted to run. Well, that had been exactly the plan she’d made with Sage. Even if her father thought it guaranteed to fail, she had to try.
She wasn’t very brave. That attitude belonged to Sage. But with her back against the wall, she was ready to give being brave on her own a shot.
Kyla dropped to her belly and worked open the loose floorboard under her bed. She fished inside for a small bag that contained her expired ID, the few dollars she’d managed to scrape together over the last two months of planning, and a change of clothes. It was all she and Sage agreed to bring to throw off suspicion for as long as possible.
Her fingers shook as she worked open the lock on the window. With most of the males at Roland’s meeting, she stood a chance of getting across the territory without being seen.
There was just the small matter of not knowing where to go, who to trust, or having money to spend.
She crushed her doubts underfoot. This was it. Do or die. Sage had a plan. She needed to see it through. Staying meant a life she didn't want with a mate she didn't choose and feeling like she was out of step every second of the day. The pride was wrong. Her mother knew it. Her father, too. Fear of consequences kept questions and challenges out of their mouths.
Kyla slowly pushed her window open and winced as the sash groaned in protest. Desert cold sent a shiver down her spine, but didn’t stop her from crawling over the sill and dropping to the ground outside.
She stayed crouched for a long moment as she listened to the night around her, then she hurried toward the edge of the territory.
Get help. Find Lindley.
Maybe she’d find him, maybe she wouldn’t. Maybe he’d help, maybe he wouldn’t. Kyla couldn’t stand idly by like her parents and the rest of the pride while Roland and Jasper and all the other jerkholes tried to control the rest of the world.
Her best friend needed help. Kyla would find a way to give it to her.
Chapter 4
Lindley pushed through the door of Defiant Dog, the bar on the edge of enclave territory. Only a handful of shifters sat scattered around the joint, mostly alone, and just one or two of those lifted their heads from their troubles enough to notice him.
Fucking fine by him. He chose the place exactly because it was dirty, rough, and quiet—the exact opposite of the human bar in the middle of town. Well, human-friendly, anyway.
His father would have hated it.
“Whiskey,” he told Hector the moment he took a seat at the bar. “Leave the bottle.”
The grizzled old bartender didn’t move a finger. His eyes narrowed. “Ain’t havin’ no fights in here tonight,” he grumbled.
Savage Claim: Lion Hearts Book Two Page 2