Primal Song

by Danica Avet

  Ram suddenly leaned forward until their noses almost touched. “Yes, I have a mate and I fucked her long and hard last night,” he growled with a poke to her chest. “I don’t know where you come up with this shit, Daisy, but it stops now. You’re my mate. You. And I’m not going anywhere, so get used to it.”

  Daisy gaped up at him. His mane had sprouted a couple of inches during his little hissy fit and his fangs were out. She’d say something about his lack of control, but her claws were out and the tingling in her mouth suggested her own fangs were about to make an appearance. Her bear responded to Ram’s lion as if they were connected in some way.

  She rejected that thought as soon as it formed. She had a plan and lions did not factor into it. At all.

  Though she hated to appear weak, she took a step back to give herself some space. “How much do you want for it?” She was proud of how steady her voice came out.

  He frowned. She was not going to melt into a puddle because he looked adorable when confused. “What are you talking about?”

  Daisy glanced at the house, the yearning in her heart tugging painfully. “How much will you sell the house to me for?”

  Ram stared at his mate, not understanding why she fought so hard to deny him when it was obvious they belonged together. She’d looked gorgeous this morning, her dark eyes sparking with her temper, her cheeks flushed from a combination of arousal and anger. He could easily picture getting her worked up to have the pleasure of fucking the anger right out of her, but now wasn’t the time for that.

  He hadn’t liked the tension between Daisy and Monk, not one bit. There was history between the two of them. It’d taken considerable willpower to keep from attacking the other male. Just one hint that Monk wanted Daisy and Ram knew he’d kill the cougar and not think twice, but all he’d scented between them was anger.

  She crossed her arms over her chest, bringing his attention to her luscious breasts and the deep cleavage between. A sense of urgency surrounded her along with a hint of desperation. She wanted the house more than anything. He could give it to her, but then she would have no use for him.

  The harder she fought to deny the attraction between them, the more he wanted to cement the union. Ram’s lion paced, impatient to make her his, but he knew if he pushed she’d bolt and he’d likely never catch her. No, Daisy needed careful handling if he was going to keep her. The kernel of an idea formed. It was highly unethical, but then this was his future at stake.

  He had to figure out why she was so resistant and show her why she should mate him. The way Ram figured it, she was freaked out because of his celebrity status and the tales of groupies and shit during tours, but once he was mated, he’d never touch another female. He’d watched his mom become more and more withdrawn as her philandering mate added females to his pride without a care for what it did to her. Ram had vowed when he left home that if he ever mated, he’d be completely devoted to his mate. Even if he hadn’t made that promise, he knew Daisy would drain him of any urges to wander.

  She just needed time to learn more about him—the real Ramsey Reinhardt—and not the bullshit the press made up to make his life seem more exciting. Once she knew him, she’d accept him. He’d have to take things slow, seduce her. The lion snarled with impatience, but Ram batted the crazy cat back. She’d be theirs. It would just take a little more time than he’d originally anticipated.

  Decision made, Ram rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “How much are you talking about?”

  The sum she named was a third of what he’d paid, so it was easy to shake his head. “I wouldn’t make my money back.”

  Her eyes widened. “Are you serious?”

  The disappointment in her voice almost made him feel bad, but then he remembered he was playing for keeps here. “Yeah, I paid three times that for the house and while I might be a rock star, I do know how to make money.”

  Daisy looked at the house, the longing on her face heartbreaking. He almost broke down and told her it was hers if she became his mate. It would be the easiest solution, but he didn’t want her to come to him because of a house. He wanted her to come to him because she wanted him. Simple as that.

  Time to go in for the kill. “Maybe we can come to some kind of agreement,” he said.

  Her eyes flashed angrily. “I’m not sleeping with you for the house,” she gritted through her teeth.

  Ram feigned shock. “Honey, no woman on earth has a piece of ass worth that much.” He stroked his chin again, biting back a smile at her drop-jawed look. “Although…can you put both your legs behind your head?”

  “Are you out of your fucking mind? No!” Her cheeks went bright red and her fangs were fully exposed.

  He forced a sigh. “Well, that might have been worth it.” He had to look away before he started laughing. The look on her face was fucking priceless. “Maybe we’ll have to work something else out. I’ll have to think about it.” He started for the house and stopped on the porch to look back at her.

  She stared at him as if she expected his head to start spinning. Considering she already looked at him as though he were the devil, Ram decided it was a vast improvement. Things were already looking up.

  “Why don’t you stop by tomorrow and we’ll talk about it. I need to get settled in,” he called out to her with a bright smile. The shock in her eyes gave way to anger. God, she was gorgeous when she was pissed. “I’ll see you later, Daisy.”

  It took everything he had to walk in the house as if he didn’t have a care in the world. His lion scratched at him to turn around and grab their mate. But they had to think of this as a hunt. A very important, life-changing hunt they couldn’t screw up.

  He closed the door behind him and leaned against it with a sigh. The portrait of Fleur Lebeau seemed to taunt him, as if she dared him to tame her descendent. Ram tipped an imaginary hat at the long-dead woman.

  “She’ll be putty in my hands.”

  *

  Two days later Ram stepped through the doors of the Hair Shack with a feeling of dread. He’d seen a couple of nondescript vehicles on the road on the way to town that made him wonder if the press had found him after all. He’d called Clint on Sunday evening to have him stall any reporters who wanted to interview Ram about the tour. He didn’t want any distractions while he wooed his mate.

  The truck he’d ordered had finally been dropped off the day before and he’d driven to the tiny town of Maison Rouge because he knew damn well Daisy wasn’t going to come see him. He’d waited, but Sunday and Monday rolled around with no sight of her. Now he was a lion on a mission to hunt down his wayward mate. First though, he needed to learn more about her, but that wasn’t his only reason for coming to the Hair Shack. His mane was driving him insane.

  He had to keep it cut. Feeling the long strands sticking to his face during his morning runs and getting it caught in his eyes when he was trying to do something irritated the shit out of him. If he thought he could cut a straight line, he’d have taken a pair of shears to himself and called it done. However, he did have an image to uphold and a botched haircut wouldn’t do him any favors.

  The Hair Shack looked exactly like what it was called—a shack. It was an old wooden building that had apparently started off as a shed, but had been expanded over the years. It wasn’t fancy, yet it was full of clients who all stopped to stare at him.

  He recognized a few of the women from the welcoming committees. At first he’d been wary of the females, convinced they were there to gather information to give to the press, but they had something more important to see him about. It seemed they all thought he’d starve without their help. Over the last week he’d received more food than he could eat. Gumbos, bulging pans of jambalayas, desserts, and even a block of something dubiously named hog’s head cheese. He liked that the women wanted him to feel welcome in their town, but wasn’t sure he could put a dent in the pile of food crowding the fridge at Red House.

  Unnerved by the attention, but doing his best not to show it, Ram sm
iled at the room. “Hi, I need a trim and a blow dry.”

  A woman stepped forward. She looked older than the other women in the salon, but the scissors in her hand and the bubble-gum pink smock she wore over her clothes identified her as one of the stylists. She looked him over, even going so far as to sniff him.

  “Cher, I don’t know what’s wrong with you, but lions do not cut their manes,” she told him firmly.

  Beneath her stern regard, he felt a blush trying to form. Ram hadn’t blushed since he was a teenager and he damn well wasn’t going to do it now. Instead, he studied his adversary, ignoring the gaggle of females staring at them. The woman in front of him looked familiar, but he couldn’t place where he’d seen her before. She was tall like Daisy, but hadn’t been one of the women to welcome him to town.

  “Ma’am, I was told this was the best establishment in the tri-parish area, but if you don’t think you can handle trimming my mane, I understand.” He purposely spoke loud enough for everyone to hear.

  Of course he hadn’t heard any such thing. If anything, everyone he’d called had said The Hair Shack was the only salon or barbershop in an eighty-mile radius. He was stuck unless he went out and bought a pair of clippers to shave his head.

  The brown eyes staring at him twinkled at the challenge in his tone. “Well now, it looks like you came to the right place,” she murmured. She closed her scissors with a snick and stepped back. “We’re a little short-handed today, but we’ll get you fixed up. I’ll give you your trim.” She looked around the shop. “Do any of you girls have time to give him a blow job?”

  *

  “Possible 103R and 82 in progress at the Hair Shack,” the dispatcher squawked over the radio. “Daisy, your mama’s involved, the sheriff’s already on his way.”

  Daisy threw her lunch in the passenger seat, clipped her seatbelt into place and tore out of the shade of an oak tree. Her heart pounded the entire way to her mama’s beauty salon. Prostitution and a riot? God, she prayed her mama wasn’t hurt.

  She saw her dad’s cruiser parked haphazardly in the middle of the parking lot and pulled in next to him. Daisy had her door open before she came to a stop. She threw her car into park and leapt out all in one smooth motion. She ran up the familiar steps of her mom’s shop and flung open the door.

  Women were everywhere. They all wore capes. Some wore towels over their hair, some had aluminum foil sticking up all over their heads, and some were all fixed up. They stared at the center of the room where Daisy’s mom stood with her dad and a very familiar figure.

  Two clients stood off to the side, their faces reddened and bruises shadowing their jaws. Three of her mom’s stylists looked even worse with bloody scratches, busted lips and tangled hair. It looked as if they’d gotten into a knockdown, drag-out fight and Daisy knew of only one person who could bring friends to blows. Ramsey Reinhardt.

  His mane was even longer than the last time she’d seen him and her fingers itched to sink into the silky-looking strands, maybe guide him— Her mother called out to Daisy, breaking into her X-rated thoughts.

  She shot Ram a glare as she headed over to her mom who was tearfully trying to explain herself to her husband. “I don’t understand, Thomas! I was just setting up this fine young man’s trim and blow dry and everyone went crazy!”

  Her dad comforted his wife and shot dark looks at the much taller Ram. “Now see here, son, I don’t know what kind of place you come from, but inciting a riot in the middle of my wife’s place of business is frowned upon.” He caught sight of Daisy. “Deputy Picou, arrest this man.”

  “But that’s not what happened,” Ram countered with a wild look in his eyes. “I came in here for a trim, wash, and a blow dry and this lady offered me a blowjob.”

  Daisy stopped in mid-step as if she’d hit a solid wall. Her dad’s mouth opened and closed in shock, but from the corner of her eye she noted that most of the women in the place were nodding. She glanced at her mom, who wiped her nose with a piece of tissue and nodded.

  Daisy closed her eyes and prayed for patience. Her mother wasn’t stupid, she was naïve. Their birds-and-bees talk when Daisy was fifteen had come with a lot of blushing and stammering and fanning until Daisy finally told her mom her Aunt Francine had told her all about sex— or “relations” as her mother called it. Daisy’s theory was that her mother tried so hard to ignore their illustrious connection to the notorious Fleur Lebeau she shunned anything sexual in nature. It was a wonder she’d managed to have a baby.

  Daisy gave her dad a resigned look. He gently clasped his wife’s shoulders in his hands and raised his head to look her in the eyes. “Honey, do you know what that is?”

  She shot him a dark look. “Well of course, I’ve only been a beautician for forty years, Thomas Paul Picou.”

  He shook his head. “C’mere,” he muttered and tugged her closer for privacy.

  Though he whispered, nearly everyone in the shop was a shifter of some kind and they all heard very clearly as Thomas described what a blowjob was to his wife. Claudette gasped as a tide of red crawled up her throat and settled in her cheeks.

  “But—I—” Her mouth opened and closed as dawning horror darkened her eyes. She looked at Ram, then at the five women who’d been fighting and her blush deepened. She crossed herself and gasped, “Cher bon Dieu!”

  Her knees sagged and Daisy leapt forward to help her much smaller father catch her mother. She shouldn’t have worried because Ram was there, his face gentle as he caught her swooning mother in his arms.

  Daisy stepped up. “Follow me,” she ordered the lion shit-stirrer and started for her mom’s office at the back of the shop. She stopped at the door and swept a look over the room. “Y’all get back to your business now.”

  She led a procession of Ram, carrying her mother, and her dad, who followed up the rear like a short caboose. Her mom’s office was free of clutter except for a small sofa and a desk. Daisy had spent nearly as much time in this office as she had the police station as a child and it always reminded her of her youth.

  “You can put her on the sofa,” she directed Ram. “She should come out of her faint soon.”

  He gently placed his burden on the cushions and straightened with a chagrined expression. “Does this happen often?”

  Daisy shook her head. “Nah, Mama’s just delicate.” Which sounded stupid since she was one of the biggest bear shifters in the area. Daisy took more after the Lebeau side of the family than she did the Picous who tended to be on the small side like their bobcat animals.

  “Mama?” Ram asked with wide eyes. He looked from the swooning Claudette to Daisy and back again. “This is your mother?”

  Daisy frowned up at him. “What? Did you think I was an orphan? Yes, this is my mama.”

  “And I’m her father, but who in the hell are you?”

  Ram glanced from Daisy to the big female on the sofa to the small bobcat and wanted to laugh, but wisely fought to hide the humor he found in this situation. Daisy’s dad was a bobcat—a tiny one at that—and her mother was the biggest female he’d ever seen except for Daisy. She didn’t look much like her mother but he could see the resemblance in the shape of her eyes and mouth.

  “I’m Ramsey Reinhardt,” he said in answer to the sheriff’s question. “I just moved here.”

  The wily bobcat squinted up at Ram, his pale-brown eyes measuring. “You’re the lion who was singing last Friday night,” he said with a nod. “Never heard so much caterwauling except when William Fonseca went courting his mate. Son, I hate to tell you, but that ain’t music.” He shook his head for emphasis.

  “We’ll just have to agree to disagree,” Ram said with a smile. It wouldn’t be the first time someone didn’t like his music. “I’m sorry about all of this, by the way. I don’t know…” He trailed off as he remembered the women fighting for the chance to give him a blowjob. In the middle of a salon. His cheeks burned with embarrassment but also a healthy dose of anger when Daisy continued glaring at him. He hadn�
�t done anything wrong. “It wasn’t my intention to cause any problems.”

  “But that’s what happens when a healthy lion male enters a community, isn’t it?” Daisy said angrily. “The females start to fight for a place in his pride.”

  Ram’s jaw dropped as he stared at his mate. “I don’t have a pride.”

  “But you could if you wanted,” she shot back, her eyes glittering dangerously. “They’re all ready to join up, all you have to do is choose. Hell, you could probably fill Red House in a matter of minutes.”

  Pissed beyond rationalization, Ram shot back, “What bothers you more, sweetheart? That you want to be at the front of the line, or that you might not even make the list?”

  Her face paled, her pupils shrinking with the direct hit. Ram wanted to take it back, wanted someone to kick his ass for being such a bastard, but it hurt to know his mate thought he could so easily turn to another female.

  Daisy looked away from him. “I’ll take statements and get back to the station. Mama, I hope you’re feeling better.” She started from the office without meeting Ram’s gaze and he wanted to go after her, but the set of her jaw warned him to give her time.

  The silence when she left was uneasy. Ram looked back and forth between Claudette and Thomas, trying to read their expressions. Thomas looked as if he wanted to tear Ram limb from limb, but Claudette seemed thoughtful.

  “I really am sorry about the misunderstanding out there,” he said in lieu of begging them to accept him as their daughter’s mate. “I’ll uh, just—”

  “Why don’t you come to supper tomorrow night?” Claudette asked before he could say anything else. He blinked at her in shock. She smiled. “I feel like such an idiot for uh…well, saying that, and I want to make it up to you. Besides, I want to know what’s going on between you and my daughter.”

  Thomas bristled, a wash of color rolling up his neck. “Claudette, I don’t know if—”