Taming the Lion

by Vivi Andrews

  Some days being the Alpha’s heir was a shitty job.

  A trio of laughing lions entered, holding the door for a pretty little lynx who fluttered her lashes at them before darting away. How much longer would the flirting last when they heard the news? It was only a matter of time before tempers and resentments flared.

  A pair of young leopards slid into seats in the back row, looking distinctly uneasy as a stern middle-aged lion dropped down beside them. Lone Pine was the only lion pride in North America—hell, maybe the world—that accepted non-lion shifters. These two leopards were among the newest arrivals and obviously not yet accustomed to mixing with the big cats.

  And speaking of big cats…

  Whiskey paused on the threshold, her dark eyes scanning the room and somehow finding him in the shadows. She gave him a tight nod, then surprised him by moving toward Rajan, the pride’s only other full grown Bengal tiger, who was riding herd on his two young sisters, Anjali and—Raina? No. Riya. The young one was Riya. Roman tried to make a point to know the name of every pride member, but lately with all the new arrivals that was becoming more and more of a challenge.

  The pride’s four Bengal tigers moved deeper into the room, sticking close together. They would be upset by tonight’s announcements—they were cautious and liked to keep their distance, those four, their hackles always up, even after they’d found refuge at Lone Pine. And they weren’t the only ones.

  Dozens of the shifters who’d come here for sanctuary would be rattled by tonight’s news. Disappearances in the south…the threat of exposure to the humans…pride members’ independence restricted for their own safety…

  More shifters filled the room until the buzz of conversation built to a dull roar. Inevitable with over a hundred bodies packed into the space. Mostly lions, as this was still first and foremost a lion pride, but a good selection of leopards, jaguars, cougars, lynx and even the odd bear. Quite the eclectic assortment, his pride.

  His. These people were his to guide, as their next Alpha. His to shelter and protect. Even when that meant curtailing their freedoms for their own good.

  “You ready for this?”

  The deep voice at his side, thrumming with contained power, belonged to the man who was single-handedly responsible for making this place Roman’s home. The current Alpha. Gregory Fallon.

  He was still as tall and strong as a man twenty years his junior, but the lines on his face marked him for the fifty-something man he was. Laugh lines and sun lines, but also lines from stress. Guiding the pride for twenty years hadn’t been easy. Roman had lines like those to look forward to in his mirror. If he was lucky enough to live so long.

  “Are you sure about this, sir?” Roman asked softly—and Greg smiled, since they both knew Roman only called him sir when he thought the Alpha was being a damned idiot.

  “I don’t keep secrets from my pride, Roman.”

  He ignored the softly spoken reproof. “It’ll cause a panic.”

  “Don’t underestimate our people. We can handle a little danger. We’re all hunters at heart.”

  “Exactly. Which is why we should be hunting these bastards. A small hunting party—I’ll lead it, take maybe five or six men. We’ll determine if there’s any truth to these rumors, confront those troublemakers from the Texas pride. No need to upset our people with this bullshit. A quiet mission—”

  “I’ve made my decision, Roman.” A small smile softened the next words. “You aren’t Alpha yet, boy.”

  “No.” But tonight was another step toward cementing that role in the future.

  Greg clapped him on the shoulder, then climbed up on the stage, taking his place beside his regal mate, though he didn’t yet call the meeting to order.

  Traditionally, the Alpha position in a shifter pride was held by force—which didn’t necessarily create leaders who knew what the hell they were doing running the pride. Greg was trying to do things differently. He’d hand-picked a fifteen-year-old Roman to be his successor and had been grooming him for the position for the last seventeen years.

  The plan was for Roman to transition to Alpha when Greg was ready to step down, without any of the usual challenges and fights to the death. It seemed the best way to ensure pride stability—but that was assuming no one objected to the new way, assuming no one challenged Roman, or challenged Greg before he was ready to step aside.

  Roman was reasonably certain he could hold the pride by force if necessary—assuming none of the tigers or bears decided they’d like to try their hand at ruling—but challenges were always hell on pride morale, and if he could avoid a rocky transition, he would do whatever he could to prevent it. Whatever it took.

  Hence, the Other Matter.

  Roman scanned the crowd again, this time zeroing in on the blonde seated next to the far aisle. Lila Fallon. The Alpha’s only daughter. Roman still had a hard time seeing her as anything other than the little girl with ribbons in her hair she’d been when he met her—especially since she still favored girly dresses and ribbons in her curls—but he’d have to start adjusting his opinion of her soon. Since they were getting married in three months.

  He swallowed around a sudden dryness in his throat.

  Initially, the timing had seemed ridiculously bad to him—the wedding a distraction he didn’t need when there were potential threats coming at them from the south—but he hadn’t been able to argue with the Alpha’s mate when Lucienne had pointed out that a distraction would be good for the pride, give the rank and file something positive to focus on rather than their intangible fears.

  Not to mention further cement his right to succeed Greg, giving the pride greater stability at a time when more and more nomads were fleeing the south to join their ranks. Nomads who might have delusions of grandeur and the idea of challenging Greg’s right to rule, especially when his attention was focused on the vague threats from the south.

  The wedding was the right move. Roman knew that. Marrying Lila had been the plan for years—hell, over a decade—and it made sense, he couldn’t deny that. Besides, he liked Lila—what he knew of her at least. It was hard to find anything not to like in a girl so dedicated to pleasing everyone she hardly had a personality.

  Roman kicked himself for the unkind thought. That was his future wife, after all. Soft, sweet Lila. She was sunshine and light. And if he’d always been more drawn to shadowed intensity—well, he’d just have to adjust his desires.

  “Engagement jitters?” a bass voice rumbled beside him.

  Roman turned his head to regard Hugo, the Alpha’s best friend and the first bear shifter to join Lone Pine. He’d been part of the pride longer than Roman. He was also Lila Fallon’s godfather. So Roman did the intelligent thing. He lied.

  “Who could be nervous about marrying Lila? She’s perfect.” And since it was always wise to pepper political lies with truth, he added, “It’s everything else I’m worried about.”

  Hugo grunted, sounding exactly like the bear he was. “It’ll pass. Things have been stirred up like this before. Every few decades seems like there’s some new pack or pride that thinks we ought to come out to the humans.”

  Roman’s attention sharpened. He hadn’t heard of anything like that before. “And what happens?”

  “They decide to fall in line and keep their mouths shut or they disappear.” He said it casually—as if entire prides being wiped out was nothing to bat an eye over. “There will always be shifters willing to kill to keep our secret.”

  But it was harder now to keep those who wanted to speak up from being able to get the truth out. Information was so much easier to spread now, with the Internet in every home. If the Three Rocks Pride down in Texas decided to come out to the humans, even without majority shifter support, he wasn’t sure anyone could stop them.

  “What about the other disappearances?” Roman asked. “The ones rumored to be caused by human scientists kidnapping shifters to experiment on them?”

  “The key word in that question is rumored,�
� the bear rumbled.

  “We’ll never discover the truth of the rumors if the Alpha won’t let us go investigate.”

  “He’ll send someone when he’s sure the pride is protected, but you’ll never be the one who gets to run off to investigate. The Alpha stays with the pride and circles the wagons, protecting his people, and that’s your place too.”

  Roman flexed his hands, feeling his claws pricking out, rebelling against the restraint. He wanted to lead his people from the front, not from the safety of the pride lands. But it wasn’t his call yet. And even as eager as he was to get out there and discover the truth behind the rumors, he could see Hugo’s point.

  He had a role to play and part of that role was comforting his people by staying here, staying calm, and embodying strength and stability.

  And marrying Lila Fallon. No matter how much he’d rather be leading a hunting party south. Life was sacrifice and compromise. He’d learned that lesson long ago. But just because he’d learned it didn’t meant he never felt that itch, that niggling feeling that beneath the layers of duty there was the potential for something more. For something like happiness.

  Roman shook away the thought. He had more important things to worry about. Like how to keep his pride from rioting when they learned they were losing some of their freedoms in the name of safety.

  Chapter Three

  Patch ducked into the back of the Pride Hall with three minutes to spare, instantly assaulted by the scent of far too many cats packed inside. Uncomfortable awareness shivered along her nerve endings, but her hormones seemed to be reasonably under control at the moment—which was the best she could ask for, really.

  The usually spacious Pride Hall was cramped with way more bodies than it had been designed to hold. Mountain lions weren’t exactly social creatures. She tended to avoid crowds and pride meetings when possible, but this summons had come with the word mandatory—and when the Alpha said mandatory, he wasn’t playing around. Patch was just lucky she’d gotten back to civilization in time to get here—even if she wasn’t dressed as Lila might have wished.

  She scanned the room for Lila with no luck. Maybe she should just find a place to stand at the back and find Lila after. The Alpha would be calling the meeting to order soon. But even the standing room seemed to be taken.

  Patch veered to avoid a pair of juveniles showing off for a pretty teenage tigress and bumped into something—or rather someone—hard. There were bodies everywhere. She mumbled an apology and looked up when hands reached out to steady her.

  “Oh.” She forced a smile. “Hey, Santiago.”

  Santiago Flores loomed against the back wall, tall, dark and surly as ever. Patch wasn’t exactly a social butterfly, but she did have a few friends in the pride and the jaguar at her side was among their limited number.

  “Patch,” he mumbled, looking as pissy as she felt.

  “It’s a zoo in here today, isn’t it?” She wrinkled her nose at the overwhelming scent of too many shifters pressed into the room, knowing a fellow loner like Santiago would understand exactly how she felt. Well, maybe not exactly, since the males didn’t go into heat. “Have you seen Lila?”

  He jutted his chin toward the far aisle. “Over there. Flirting with everything that breathes.”

  “That sounds like Lila.” Cats weren’t exactly known for being prudish. Half the room was using this little gathering as an excuse to flirt. She swayed forward, shoved by the crowd. The pride seemed to have grown since the last time she was here. Perhaps that was the reason for the meeting. To discuss the crazy overcrowding. “Do you know what this is about?” The traditional Harvest Hunt had been the previous week, so it couldn’t be that, and even if the timing had been right, the Hunts were typically a lion-only affair, not All Pride.

  “I have a couple ideas.”

  When Santiago didn’t elaborate, she looked toward the stage. “I guess the Alpha will tell us soon enough. I’d better find Lila before it’s time to start.”

  She craned her neck to see Lila, blond curls swinging as she laughed and preened under the attention of the lions around her. Patch plunged back into the crowd, threading and shoving her way toward the far aisle, and having a bit more luck now that she had a definite heading.

  It was with an overpowering sense of relief that Patch swept the cowboy hat off the chair next to Lila and sank into it. She tossed the hat back to its owner, the dimpled charmer currently occupying the seat on Lila’s other side, as Lila turned to greet her.

  The lioness’s smile fell into a groan. “Oh, honey. What are you wearing?”

  Patch arched a brow. “Clothing?”

  Lila—perfect, fashion-plate Lila in her frilly white dress with her makeup perfectly made—raked a glance over Patch from hiking boots to sloppy topknot and sighed. “You look like a river guide.”

  “I am a river guide.”

  “But you aren’t supposed to look like one. Not tonight. We’re going to the Den after this for drinks. You agreed.”

  “Did I?”

  “You didn’t call me back to object. Agreement was inferred.” Lila looked her over once more. “Though I suppose your choice of clothing could be considered a formal protest.”

  Patch couldn’t take offense—Lila had been on a mission to make the world pretty for even longer than the fourteen years they’d been best friends. And Patch had been a tomboy, disappointing Lila’s fashionable expectations, just as long. “It’s only the Den.” The pride’s shifter-only watering hole wasn’t exactly high end. “There won’t be anyone there who hasn’t known me since I was ten.”

  “Ah, but you’re forgetting all the new faces,” Lila said archly, pointedly not looking around with a mischievous smile quirking her lips.

  Patch glanced around, noting once again exactly how full the Pride Hall was. There were an awful lot of new faces mixed in with the familiar lions and tigers and bears.

  Roman climbed up on the stage, catching her eye, his large form moving with his trademark muscular grace. Oh my.

  Need spiked in her gut in a hard, ruthless jab. Her toes curled in her boots as lust spread through her body on a wave of fire. Patch cursed internally, squirming in her chair. She’d had her heat under control until she’d seen him. Big, golden Roman had always been able to fire her up like no one else—though she would deny it to her dying breath. He was going to marry Lila, for crying out loud.

  Someday.

  Probably.

  Though neither of them seemed very interested in rushing toward matrimony—which had always made Patch wonder if maybe they never would. If maybe Lila would fall for someone else and Roman would be in need of a little comfort, a little sexual healing…

  The sudden flush of her oncoming heat retreated, and reality crashed down as her brain took control of her body back from her hormones.

  Even if Roman somehow wasn’t pseudo-taken by her best friend—who didn’t seem to share Patch’s fascination with all those bulgy muscles—he was the future Alpha. Future Alphas did not fool around with stray cougars—especially those with a distinct lack of sex appeal. A lack Marcus had been eager to remind her of.

  For all she knew, Roman might already have someone in place to comfort him. He was so circumspect about his sex life that even in the gossip-hungry confines of the pride, no one had learned about the friends-with-benefits thing he had going with Whiskey until it had been over for six months. And even then it was only because Whiskey drunkenly confessed to Patch one night that Lila was in for a treat when she finally decided to take that walk down the aisle.

  Patch had barely contained her flare of jealousy at the thought—and Lila had been just as oblivious then as she was now.

  “You aren’t the only mountain lion any more, my pretty,” Lila said archly, and Patch remembered they were supposed to be talking about the new arrivals in the pride, not her inconvenient lust for her best friend’s pseudo-betrothed.

  Since she didn’t want kids, she’d never felt Lila’s need to keep romance
strictly along breed lines, but she was as curious as the next cat. “How many mountain lions have joined?”

  “Five, total. A family of three and two single males.” Lila grinned like she was telling Patch she’d just won the lottery. “I don’t know which ones they are—there are so many new people it’s hard to keep everyone straight—but I’m sure they’re hot. Most of the nomads coming in are freakishly gorgeous.”

  “Hey,” Kelly Mather, with his All-American cowboy charm, protested from Lila’s other side, giving up the illusion that he hadn’t been listening in. “Don’t go giving them the advantage just because you didn’t know them when they were awkward teenagers.”

  “Don’t worry, Kelly. You’re still the prettiest boy in the pride,” Lila assured him—and it wasn’t even a lie. Kelly was a certifiable heartbreaker—even if they had known him when he was pimply and awkward.

  “Thank you.” He mimed tipping his hat, tugging on his forelock since his Stetson sat hooked over one knee, and flashed them both a million-dollar smile, though his emerald eyes held none of the interest for Patch that they’d had for Lila. “Hey, Patch.”

  “Hey, Kelly. Broken any hearts today?”

  “Not that I know of. But the night is young.”

  She smiled for him, then sobered as she caught movement in the corner of her eye—Hugo moving toward the back to shut the door so the meeting could begin. “Do you guys know what’s going on?” She leaned around Lila to include Kelly. “Any ideas why there are suddenly so many new people petitioning to join the pride?”

  Lila wrinkled her perfect little nose. “That’s part of what the Pater Familias has called everyone here to talk about.”

  For the first time, Patch noticed the tension in the way Lila was sitting, the way her smile seemed a little too forced, her voice just a little too high and strained. Patch mentally replayed the message Lila had left for her, trying to remember if she’d sounded the same way then. Too bright and chipper. She’d immediately started griping about Patch’s clothes as soon as she sat down—so Patch wouldn’t ask her how she was and see the lie when she answered?