by Renee George
He nodded his approval. “I’ll see you both later.” It took every ounce of control not to reach out and draw Madeline’s body back to his—to kiss her and hold her, mark her as Cage had done, to mark her for claiming as their mate. Her staying wouldn’t be his choice, as her going wouldn’t be Cage’s. Madeline would make the final decision. This was the last night before they left for the next county. After the show, he would ask her about her plans. Would she travel with them or go her own way? He couldn’t force Cage to accept Madeline, but given time...
With Madeline, they might not have much time.
Before he could walk away, Madeline reached out and took his hand. He gazed down at her lovely face, unable to decipher her expression. “What is it?”
She opened her mouth, just as a small lion cub came barreling around the corner, leaping up to his chest. Madeline jerked away with a startled shout as Adam used both hands to wrap the cub to him. Zaria instantly transformed back into his beautiful, little niece. Adam pinned her with a hard stare of disapproval, but Madeline’s shaky words drew his attention away from the child.
“It’s real,” she whispered, stumbling back a few feet from him.
Adam grimaced. He’d planned to reveal who and what they were to Madeline, but only if she wanted to stay. This wasn’t the way he’d wanted her to find out. Not like this. “I can explain.”
She’d stopped moving away then, cocking her head sideways. He could still scent her fear, but now it was matched by her curiosity. “Lion kings.” She took a slow, hesitant step forward. “Just like the dreams.”
Adam froze in place, afraid that any movement he made would startle her away. He swallowed, pondering her words. Just like dreams. Had she dreamed of him as a lion, not just a man?
“How is this possible?” Madeline said. “There’s no such thing as...”
Adam closed his eyes when her hand touched his cheek. “It is possible.”
From the opposite direction, a roar sounded. Madeline gasped.
Adam snapped his gaze up in time to see Cage lope around the corner in full lion form. Son-of-a-bitch. Upon seeing them all, Cage stopped. He paced back and forth then transformed, before standing to his full height. The muscles in his cheek flexed as he glared at Adam. “This isn’t right,” he growled.
Adam shook his head. “Calm, brother.”
Madeline started back again, and Adelaide reached out to grasp her arm.
“No,” Madeline said. “No. I need to think. I need to...” And with those final words, she ran.
Adam turned on Cage, his anger tearing at his finely tuned control. “Are you happy? We’ve lost her now.”
9
ADAM Michaels roared his frustration as he watched Madeline take off. His sister Adelaide fled from the scene, dragging her daughter Zaria around the corner of the dressing trailer—her fear of Adam’s reaction heavy in her sharp cloying scent.
He stared at his stubborn, idiotic brother.
Madeline had been calm, curious even, when Zaria had shifted from a cub into a little girl. Adam had held his breath—even as he held on to hope—when Madeline stopped backing away and reached out toward the little girl.
Then Cage had ruined it. He’d wanted Madeline out of their lives from the beginning, and shifting from lion to man in front of her had accomplished his misguided goal.
And now she was gone.
“You chased her away,” Adam said, the agony of her absence thickening his voice. He held his hands out, palms up. “We had a chance, you and I. We were given a second chance, maybe our last, and you chased her away.”
“No,” Cage muttered. “It’s not true. She’s not true.”
Adam gripped Cage by the arms. He squeezed until his brother’s burnt umber gaze met his. “She is, brother,” he said with all the conviction he felt. “She is...or she should have been...ours.”
“Clary was ours.”
“Yes, but Madeline is different. I know you feel it, Cage. I know it’s not just me. Our connection to her is instinctual, primal.” He felt the pain of his guilt acutely now. He’d loved Clary, but his love for her had been an extension of his love for Cage. She’d been good for him, good for them, but he hadn’t felt instantly connected to her. Still, he’d accepted her as their mate, and he could have been happy had she lived. But now that he’d met Madeline, he knew in his heart Clary had never been rightly theirs. Not a true mate like Madeline could’ve become. Adam had only felt that instant connection with one other person in his life. He stroked his fingers through Cage’s hair—a comforting and forgiving gesture. “Do you remember when I rescued you?”
“Yes,” Cage said softly. His eyes took on the distance of memory.
He could still see the young man, barely sixteen, and crouched naked and filthy in a cage that barely fit his already muscular frame. A lesser person would have been broken, defeated, but not Cage. The fire of fight, the will to be free, lit his eyes like a beacon. Adam shook his head. “The moment I saw you, I knew we would rule together. I knew you’d be my brother, my other half. I also knew that I would give my life to protect you.”
Cage let out a derisive snort. “You almost did.”
Adam nodded, a sad smile on his lips. He’d opened the cage without hesitation, even though he’d known there might be a chance the young lion could turn on him. But when Joe Armando, the older of the Armando brothers, owners of the circus that had been Cage’s prison, attacked Adam from behind, Cage had torn from his cell and ripped Joe apart with vicious savagery.
Cage was so lost in his need to protect Adam, it had taken Adam nearly half an hour to calm him down and convince him that Carl and Gus, who’d joined him on the rescue were friends who meant no harm. The young lion had been prepared to kill everyone who might threaten Adam.
“We pair-bonded. We’ve become so closely connected that you begin where I end, and I begin where you end. We are two parts of a whole. Or at least I thought we were.”
“What are you saying?”
“Calm, brother. I only mean, I think we’re two thirds of a whole, and I believe Madeline is the third part. The part that completes us.”
“I feel the bond, Adam.” Cage’s eyes shined with raw emotion. “I feel it so strong in my heart, my gut. It’s my head that won’t let go.” He rubbed his beard with both his trembling hands. “It feels like a betrayal.”
“Why?” Adam asked. “Clary would want us to be happy. She wouldn’t want us to wallow in our grief. So, why can’t you let yourself live what you know is true?”
A growl of frustration and agony tore from Cage as he yanked himself out of Adam’s reach and raised his fists. “Because I want her more! Oh God,” he said, his eyes going wide at his confession. “God help me, I want Maddie more, need her more. I can’t get her out of my mind. When I try to think of Clary, it’s Maddie I see. How could I...” His voice trailed off as he dropped his hands to his side.
“We never pair-bonded with Clary,” Adam said. He wrapped his arm around Cage’s shoulder. “She was never our true queen. That doesn’t take away from our love for her. If anything, it makes her love a powerful thing. Our human halves loved Clary, and we made her happy, just as she did for us. But Madeline... She’s...”
“Our queen,” Cage said, finally accepting the truth.
“Yes.” Adam rubbed Cage’s arm. “And she’s left us.”
“Brother.” Cage’s voice, thick with self-recrimination vibrated Adam’s chest. “What have I done?”
Now that Cage understood what his actions had cost them, Adam didn’t want to punish him anymore. They’d learned to live with loss once before, and while it would be difficult, they would learn to do it again.
PRIDE, anger, and guilt choked Cage until his breathing was shallow and uneven. Adam’s words cut him deep. He’d allowed his grief, and his denial of his own feelings—instinct, drive Maddie away. His lion had taken over when he’d held her in his arms. He rubbed his hands together, still remembering the way his skin had felt. The more h
e’d fought his desire, the more his animal side forced the shift. He’d ran away before Maddie could see his beast
... but then he’d come back.
Cage had shifted into a man right in front of her. What had he expected her reaction to be? How could she be their mate, their true queen, if she couldn’t accept what they were? Shapeshifters. Not human.
He shook his head. No. He’d wanted to put distance between Maddie and them. Revealing his lion hadn’t been a test for Maddie’s acceptance, but designed to frighten her off.
His heart pounded in his ears. It had worked. God help them. The chance for true happiness had escaped them, and Cage could only blame himself.
“We will find her.” He stood, rubbing his palms against his thighs. “We’ll bring her back.”
Adam shook his head. “It has to be her choice, Brother. We can’t force Madeline to stay, any more than we could have forced Clary.” His jaw flexed and clenched as he glared at Cage. “It’s her choice,” Adam said again, though the implication was clear.
Cage had made the choice for her.
“We leave in the morning,” said Adam, “and that will be the end of it.”
Cage had never seen him so defeated. Clary’s loss had devastated both of them, but Adams strength had given Cage the will to go on. But that strength was absent now in Adam’s eyes, and it scared Cage more than anything he’d ever experienced before.
They would find Maddie. The way she’d melded against his body, reacted to his touch, tasted on his lips—Madeline fit like no other woman, he realized with a pang. Not even Clary. And he and Adam would do whatever it took to convince her that she was their mate—she was the very heart of them both.
“No,” Cage said. “She hasn’t made a decision. How could she?” He gripped his brother’s shoulder. “We can’t give up. Not now.”
10
MADELINE Granger fought to catch her breath as she ran toward the copse of trees. Seeing the child change had startled her, but seeing Cage shift from a lion into a man before her eyes, brought reality crashing down around her ears. Her visions, her dreams, they were real. In some deep recess in her mind, she’d always known, but it had been easy enough to deny. She could tell herself that she’d overheard the secrets she dreamed about, or that a person’s body language had given away their most intimate desires.
But dreaming about lions that turned into men, and then having it be real—well, there was no way to rationalize the revelation. Maddie wasn’t just different. She was a metaphysical Peeping Tom! The horror of her ability clawed at her guts. She’d shared the most intimate and horrific moments of people’s lives—their triumphs, their joys, their pains, and their losses. And never once, had she considered what an invasion or intrusion it had been. Why would she? But now, she couldn’t shake the feeling of overwhelming guilt.
She’d done the same to Adam and Cage. The fact that they could turn into lions, that they were magnificent creatures, wasn’t the part that freaked Maddie out the most. Yes, it was crazy and unreal. But their truth, their existence, was also beautiful and magical and more extraordinary than she could have imagined in this ordinary world.
She was so ashamed.
She had invaded their most private grief, and had used it to get close to them, whether she’d meant to or not. How could she face them now? How could they trust her?
Even if Adam and Cage could forgive her, would they ever be able to see past Clary to her? Or would she be a cheap imitation of their real love? They desired Maddie as much as she desired them. She could feel it whenever they were near, but she questioned now whether their desire was merely an extension of how they’d felt about Clary.
As she wandered out past the trees and across the highway, she felt the strong pull again, the insistent tug that had brought her to the carnival in the first place. The pain of loss and longing to return nearly crippled her. She kept walking, clutching her stomach to stave off the pitting ache, until she found herself at the El Rancho once again. Her Woody was still parked in front of room 103. The relief was small, but real, that the motel hadn’t had her station wagon towed.
The driver side door was unlocked, and her fuzzy dice and sunglasses were gone, but it didn’t seem like anything else had been taken. She pulled the window crank off the inside of the door and jimmied the panel loose, breathing a heavy sigh of relief when a wad of cash dropped to the pavement. At least she’d have enough money to pay the motel bill and get her clothes and her car keys from the room—if they hadn’t thrown her stuff away.
She went to the small lobby and tapped on the bell. An older man with short, slicked-back hair, and wire-framed glasses entered from a side door and raised a brow at her.
“I’m sorry,” she started. “I’m in room 103, but I’m afraid I’ve been away for several days, and I’d only paid for one, and all my things...” She could feel the tears wetting her eyes as her breathing grew quick and shallow. “I don’t know if there’s a chance--”
The man’s expression softened. “Calm down now, Miss, and tell me what you need.”
The intensity of her emotions were disproportionate to the situation, and the lanky clerk’s kindness made her feel even more exposed. “I... I...” She sniffled. “I want to get my things, if I can. I’ll pay for the days that I missed.”
“One-oh-three, you said?” He pulled a ledger from under the counter and opened it up. “Madeline Granger?”
She nodded as a big fat tear rolled down her cheek. She wiped it away with the back of her hand and flushed. “That’s me.” Her voice sounded as weak and pathetic as she felt.
Now that she’d found Adam and Cage, how could she leave them? How could she stay? Both questions held her paralyzed. She loved them. Or at least, she was beginning to love them. Or was it some kind of transference, a phenomenon she’d learned about in a psychology class she took at the college? Did she love them because Clary had loved them? Were her feelings a direct result of her strange connection to their dead girlfriend? Did it matter? It didn’t make her love for them feel any less real.
“Miss Granger,” the man said, penetrating her overpowering thoughts. “Miss Granger,” he said again. He had placed a small red suitcase—hers—onto the counter. “All the things from your room are in this bag.”
“How much do I owe you?”
He shook his head and smiled sympathetically. “No extra charge.”
Gratitude washed over her, and she couldn’t stop the tears as they flowed more freely. “Thank you,” she managed to finally say.
She opened her bag and found the keys to her car nestled in her wad of clothes crammed compactly inside. She closed the bag and jingled them in her hands.
The clerk nodded. “Where you headed to, Miss?”
Madeline thought about his question for a long hard moment. Where would she go? She’d spent six months chasing an urge, an itch that she couldn’t scratch. What was left for her? She pressed her palm to her chest, trying to calm her rapidly beating heart.
When she didn’t answer, the clerk held out his hand. A key rested in his palm. The plastic tag bore the numbers 110. “Before you decide, why don’t you clean up and rest some?”
Grateful, Maddie nodded and took the key. “That’s kind of you. I’ll take you up on the room. I won’t be long though.” She gripped the handle of her bag firmly as a weight released in her chest. “I’m going home.”
“YOU heard her,” Adam said. “She’s going home.”
He and Cage had travelled by foot, using Madeline’s scent to track her to the El Rancho motel. The place was a standard one-level small town inn. The siding was a shade of cerulean blue with lighter areas where the paint had chalked over the years of weathering. They’d spotted her from across the intersection, perhaps thirty yards away, and had watched her enter the motel’s front office.
They had positioned themselves around the corner of the front office and watched Madeline take the motel key from the clerk. Adam’s heart sunk when he heard h
er say she was going home.
He pulled Cage to the back wall when she walked out, room key and bag in hand. He didn’t know why he chose to hide when every instinct told him to fight for Madeline, to win her heart. But she wasn’t a part of their world, and he worried that she wouldn’t be able to accept them. If he let her go now, it would hurt less. Right? When Clary had died, Adam’s responsibilities kept him moving forward, one foot after the other, but Cage had taken much longer to recover. If Adam didn’t give Maddie the chance to reject him and Cage, losing her would be a fleeting sting--not a knife to their soul that would never heal.
Adam snorted derisively. When had he begun to believe his own lies?
Cage raised his eyebrows in question.
“We should get back. We only have two hours until the show.” The others would expect them to help prep and walk through each routine. Alice wanted to add a new element to her wire act, and she needed Adam and Cage to sign off before she could do it without the safety net.
Cage shook his head. “Uh-uh. I’m not going anywhere until we talk to Maddie.”
Adam rolled his eyes. This new determined-to-get-the-girl Cage was almost as bad as the Cage who was determined to drive her away. “Fine.”
His pulse raced as they neared room 110. Would she scream? Faint? Slam the door in their faces? Adam wouldn’t blame her for any of those reactions. She’d lived in a world where monsters were creatures of myths and fairytales, and they’d completely turned that world upside down.
Adam chewed his lower lip and stared at the blistering teal-green paint on the door to Madeline’s room. He sniffed and smelled Madeline over the prevalent rust.
Cage chuffed, rolled his shoulders forward, and knocked. When Madeline didn’t answer, he knocked harder—more insistent.
Adam reached out and stayed his hand before the third round. He leaned nearer to the door and heard the faint rush of water. “I think she’s in the bath.” He imagined her naked, the slight bounce of breasts as she stepped into the tub, the easy grace she owned in her luscious, beautiful body, and the way the water from the shower would sluice over each and every sensual curve. It made his body tense.