"Because I am begging you for mercy," Drusilla answered, stepping out from the crowd with her head held high but her eyes down. "I know that what Peter has done is truly unforgivable, but he's all that I have left. I've already lost one child tonight. Please do not ask me to stand by and watch while I lose another."
Kitty heard the pain in the older woman's voice and felt a surge of pity. It didn't matter that Drusilla had tried to drive her from the pride a short time ago. She could almost understand why Drusilla had done it. After all, she had been trying to protect her children even then. Maybe they hadn't been in danger of being killed, but in Drusilla's mind they must have looked like they were in danger of being supplanted in their father's affections.
It all seemed so silly to Kitty. If any of them had bothered to stop and ask her, instead of going on the attack from the very beginning, she could have told them that they had no reason to worry.
"You had nothing to fear from me," she said, stepping forward and ignoring Max's rumbling protest.
Kitty could see she had nothing to fear from Drusilla, and she wanted to try to make the older woman understand. It wouldn't change what had happened, but maybe it would help her to understand that whatever feelings Martin had held for his legitimate children had not been diminished by his meeting with Kitty.
"I had no intention of coming between your children and their father," she said, her gaze locked with Drusilla's as if it would somehow convince the woman of her sincerity. "Martin was their father, not mine. I wanted to meet him because I needed to know about this side of my heritage, but I never intended to come between him and his family. I didn't ask for an inheritance, and I don't intend to accept one. I don't want his money. All I wanted was to be able to look him in the eyes and ask him why he left my mother and me in the first place. And I got that. That was enough for me."
"My God, you're pathetic," Peter sneered. "I wish our father were here now so he could listen to this sentimental bullshit. That would have made him change the will right back. He always admired drive and ambition. Listening to you go all 'very special episode' on him would have made him sick."
Kitty turned and bared her fangs at her half brother. "You know what's pathetic, Peter? You are. If you had the kind of drive you think Martin admired, you wouldn't be content with flunking out of college and waiting around to inherit a fortune you didn't earn. You'd be building a name and a fortune of your own." Sneering, she turned her back on him dismissively. "I guess that's why he made Max his baas and the president of his company instead of you."
When she'd first met him, Peter hadn't impressed her with his keen intelligence, but never had she thought he would be so stupid as to attack her with Max sitting just a few feet away.
She'd misjudged Peter.
He hit her with all the enthusiasm of an amateur blackjack dealer, catching her by surprise and sinking his fangs into her shoulder before she had time to react. She screamed in pain, bucking like a rodeo horse, trying to get him off of her, but his superior mass crushed her protests as if she'd limited herself to a polite, Please stop.
Distantly, she heard a noise like the fury of hell, but the pain had gripped her too tightly for her to wonder at the source. Desperately trying to shake Peter, she turned her head and snapped at his flank, but it was no longer there. She saw a blur of coffee and caramel and felt her half brother's weight lift off her. Sinking weakly to her uninjured side, she saw a quick, fierce battle raging between Max and the young Leo he obviously meant to kill.
Kitty screamed.
"Max!"
She doubted he heard her. With a powerful lunge, he knocked Peter off his feet and slammed a heavy paw onto his neck, pinning him to his side in the dirt. She saw Max rear back and bare his fangs and knew in another minute she would see those fangs sink into the vulnerable flesh of Peter's belly.
"Max! Damn you, stop it!"
He froze, his mouth just inches from the other lion's underbelly. Pushing painfully to her feet, Kitty limped over to his side and butted her head against his.
"I swear to you right now, Marcus Alexander Stuart, if you spill so much as one drop of this boy's blood, I will never forgive you."
Max kept his heavy paw planted on Peter's neck to prevent his escape and stared at her in abject confusion.
"But he paid someone to try to kill you. He attacked you. He hurt you. You're bleeding!"
"Yes, I had noticed that. I'm rather observant that way," she snapped. "That's not the point."
"Of course it is!" Max roared. "He doesn't get to hurt you! No one gets to hurt you! Damn it, woman, you're my mate!"
"I'll be gone if you kill that boy." She met Max's stare levelly, hoping like hell he wouldn't call her bluff. "You stopped him, Max. You defended me. I love you for that. But if you kill Peter now, it's not about defending me. It's about revenge. And 'revenge' is just another word for cold-blooded murder. I won't live with a murderer, Marcus. Do you hear me? I'll take the first plane back to Tennessee before I will. Just see if I don't!"
He stared at her for a long moment until something different began to shift behind the blind rage in his eyes. Something softer and finer and filled with wonder.
"Does that mean you'd consider staying here? Staying with me?" he asked.
"Not if you kill that boy, I won't."
Max didn't even hesitate. He just lifted his paw from Peter's neck and brought it back down on the side of his head with brutal force. The young man's eyes closed on a grunt of pain.
"Marcus Alexander!" Kitty roared.
"What? I didn't kill him. I just knocked him unconscious. You never said I couldn't hit him."
She stared at Max, her whiskers twitching. "Did anyone ever tell you that you're a very bad man, Max Stuart?"
"Of course," he answered, leaning down to gently swipe his rough tongue over the wound on her shoulder. "But I've heard that what every bad man needs is a good woman to reform him. Know anyone who might be able to help me out?"
"I do," she answered promptly, rubbing her head against his, savoring the way his thick mane tickled her sensitive ears. "But I'm afraid that if any of them tried to take you away from me, I'd have to kill them."
"Well then," he purred, eyeing her with a great deal of satisfaction. "It looks like I'm stuck with you, doesn't it?"
"For the rest of your life," she assured him, and leaned gratefully against his strength.
IN THE COOL QUIET OF THE DARKENED GUEST ROOM, Kitty snuggled close to her mate's side and ran her hand over the warm muscles of his chest. His human chest.
They had shifted back after reaching the house, because she hadn't been able to bring herself to shift in front of the other four hundred pride members who had still been watching from the perimeter of the meeting site. None of them, she had informed him tartly, needed to see her naked, no matter how quickly it might heal the gouges on her shoulder. Instead, she'd made Max help her back to the house on all fours and get her a spare sheet to wrap around herself before she changed back and let the doctor examine her.
Dr. Reijznik had peered at and poked the bright pink scars on her back that had been the only sign of her injury by that point and proclaimed her physically fit, if slightly mentally unbalanced for having provoked her mate that way in front of so many witnesses. Then the doctor had jabbed a needleful of antibiotics into her arm—just in case—packed up his bag, handed her his business card, and left the newly official mates alone to discuss their future.
Which they might actually get around to doing, now that they lay warm and sated in each other's arms.
"I wasn't joking about beating you," Max rumbled, hugging her tight against his side. "If I ever catch you doing something as stupid as accepting a challenge again, I promise you won't sit right for a week, no matter how many times you shift."
Kitty tilted her head to look at him and lifted an eyebrow. "Oh, but I suppose it's perfectly fine for you to put yourself in danger, hm?"
"I'm a man," he said, as if that explained
everything.
As if that explained anything.
"So?"
"So, I'm bigger and stronger than you are. If there's any danger, I'll be able to handle it."
"You are so full of it," she snorted. "How exactly would you 'handle it' if someone decided to take a shot at you? Or run you over with a car? Or double-team you?"
He glared down at her. "I have lived all of my thirty-three years without any of those things happening to me, and I don't expect them to happen to me any time soon. In fact, since the only person any of those things have ever happened to, at least one of them twice, is you—and all of them in the space of one long weekend!—I believe my logic holds."
Kitty thought long and hard about her answer to that, then stuck her tongue out at him.
"Oh, very mature," he said, rolling his eyes. "Now I see what I've gotten myself into."
"A life of eternal bliss?" She batted her eyelashes at him.
"Something like that." His tone was dry, but he hugged her again as he said it, so she just chuckled and settled her head back down on its favorite spot on his shoulder.
They lay quietly for a moment, each enjoying the comfort of the other's presence, but something was still bothering Kitty.
"What do you think Dru and Peter will do now?" she asked.
After tonight's events, the entire pride had been behind Max's decision to banish Peter as well as Olivia. Drusilla had been offered the right to stay, but she had chosen to leave with her son. As she had said, he was the only thing she had left.
Max sighed. "Dru has family in the Midwest, I think. That's where she's originally from. If their pride will agree to take her in, she'd be best off staying there. And if Peter is smart, he'll stay with her, at least until he grows up a little. If he's not smart, he'll probably go nomad until he can take over an existing pride or establish one of his own."
"I feel bad for Dru," Kitty murmured. "It must be horrible to lose a child, but to know that your other child is responsible… I can't even imagine that. I'm glad Nadalie will be buried on Red Rock land, though. Despite her failings, she should end up next to her father."
"She will. The funerals will be on Thursday, as soon as all the arrangements are finalized."
"The day after tomorrow," she noted idly.
"Tomorrow, actually. It's almost three in the morning," Kitty groaned. "Lovely. Just what I needed. Another night without sleep."
"You, you had a nap this afternoon," he protested. "That's more sleep than I've had."
"Yes, but like you said, you're so much bigger and stronger than me," she teased, making her voice high and breathy. "I'm sure you could just go days and days without sleep if you had to."
"Smart-ass," he grumbled, swatting said body part with an open hand and making her yelp. "God save me from sassy women."
Kitty smirked. "You love it."
Max only grunted, but Kitty could see his smile in the darkness and felt her lips curve in response. She was about to close her eyes and settle down to sleep when a glimpse of white on the night table caught her eye. Dr. Reijznik's card.
"I wonder why he left me that," Kitty murmured, frowning. "I certainly hope he doesn't anticipate seeing me quite so often in the future."
Max's eyes were already closed, but he answered her anyway. "He's the pride doctor. He probably thought you should have it in case of emergency."
She snorted. "The only emergency I see in my future is getting to the bathroom in time if my stomach doesn't settle down. I'm hoping that with all the excitement behind us, it will finally get back to normal."
Max's eyes cracked open. "You've been sick to your stomach?"
"Just a little. It hasn't been that bad. I mean, I haven't barfed or anything, but ever since we got the news about Martin it's been like I'm living on a sailboat."
"So it started this morning."
"You just said it was yesterday."
"After we played chase."
She gave him a look. "I might not be as big and strong as you, studly, but I'm not such a delicate flower that what we did upset my poor little system. I'm sure it's just stress."
"Are you."
That didn't sound like a question, so Kitty didn't bother to answer. But she did blink in surprise when Max sat up in bed and reached over to flip on the bedside lamp.
"What's wrong?" she asked.
He had a very odd look on his face, one she'd never seen before. One she couldn't quite define. She was trying to figure out what it reminded her of when he pulled back the sheets, buried his face in her stomach, and inhaled deeply.
"You insane man!" she squeaked, thumping him on the shoulders. "What in heaven's name has gotten into you?"
When Max raised his head, he wore what could only be described—forgive her language—as a shit-eating grin.
"I think the more appropriate question," he purred, bracing his hands on either side of her shoulders and leaning down until his lips hovered just inches from hers, "is what's gotten into you? And I already know the answer."
"Care to enlighten me?" she drawled.
"Oh, I'd be glad to. The answer to the question of what's gotten into you…" He paused to lean down and brush his lips against hers. "… is me."
"Well, that's hardly news." Kitty rolled her eyes. "After the way you announced to the entire world that you were claiming me as your mate, I doubt that was a burning question in very many minds."
Max laughed softly and shook his head. "I don't think you're fully appreciating what I'm telling you, sweetheart."
"Then what are you telling me?"
"Did I ever explain to you how Leos take mates?"
"Of course not. You were too busy taking me."
He grinned. "Right. But that was just the public formality. Think of it like the wedding ceremony. The actual mating is where two people realize they're the right mates for each other. It's more like the proposal, if you will."
"Oh." Kitty frowned, wondering where this was all leading. "So when was our mating?"
"Apparently, it was during our game of chase. The excitement afterward distracted me so much, I didn't have time to think about it until now."
"What do you mean? You just said the mating is when you realize a particular person is right for you. How can you not realize when you've realized that?"
"Because the kind of realization I'm talking about isn't a conscious choice," he explained, his copper gaze blazing with intensity. "The realization I'm talking about is a physical one."
Kitty growled in frustration. Maybe her new mate hadn't "realized" it, but he'd clearly lost his mind. "I'm sorry, are you speaking English?"
"Did you know that lions are induced ovulators?"
She threw up her hands. "Did you know that you're making absolutely no sense?"
Max chuckled, taking one of her hands in his and raising it to his lips. "Stay with me, kitten. We're almost there. Lions are induced ovulators," he repeated. "That means that the sexual act is what signals the female's ovaries to release an egg, unlike humans, where the egg is released whether or not a woman is sexually active. Leos, though, aren't quite like lions, but they aren't quite like humans, either. And that's where mating comes in."
"You're losing me."
"Once a Leo female is part of a mated pair, she ovulates on a regular cycle like a human woman. But the first time she finds her mate, she experiences an induced ovulation. Meaning that even if she just ovulated a couple of days ago, when her body realizes that it has met its mate it will ovulate again in response to his presence, especially if the couple has begun having sex."
Kitty's jaw dropped open with a thunk. She might still be in the dark about a lot of this Leo stuff, but she wasn't stupid.
"Are you trying to tell me… ?" Her voice trailed off weakly.
Max nodded and looked incredibly, immensely smug. "Like I said, kitten, I'm what got into you. Me and my cub."
The room spun crazily around her and Kitty closed her eyes as her stomach rebelled, seemin
gly on cue. "Oh, my God."
"The average Leo pregnancy is about six months. You should be due around the beginning of April."
"Oh, my God."
"Dr. Reijznik will be able to recommend a good obstetrician. I'm sure that's why he gave you his card tonight. He's a sharp one. Nothing gets past him."
"Oh, my God."
Kitty felt Max's big, warm hand settle over her belly and cracked her eyes open to see him watching her, an anxious frown on his face.
"Are you upset about it?" he asked quietly. "I know it's fast, and I know you weren't expecting it, but—"
She pressed her fingers to his lips and shook her head. "Being flabbergasted is not the same as being upset," she assured him, and as the numbness of shock began to wear off, she felt the first flutters of excitement in her chest. She was going to be a mommy.
Her hand came down on top of Max's and she twined their fingers together, pressing both into the softness of her stomach. She felt the prickle of tears in her eyes and realized she couldn't hold back the words for one more second.
"I love you."
Max blinked, his copper gaze losing focus for just a second before it shot up to her face.
"What did you say?" he demanded, his voice gone harsh and low.
"I love you," she repeated, and laughed at his look of astonishment, because she was sure she could feel it radiating off of her like starlight. "What? Did you think I agreed to stay out here with you for the healthful climate?"
He shook his head, obviously dazed. "No. No, I didn't know. I mean—I… I hoped, but I didn't know, you know?"
Kitty laughed again, because it was either laugh or feel her heart burst from a surfeit of joy. How strange, how magnificently perfect, to see this powerful man at such a loss for words. "Oddly enough, I think I do know."
"I love you," he whispered, and kissed her tenderly, reverently. "I love you. God, I can't believe how much I love you. I can't explain it. I don't know how it happened. I didn't realize…"
Walk on the Wild Side Page 27