“Muffy, I can’t go, and I’m not mating with you.”
“But you need a mate,” she persisted. “Your ascension is coming. You can’t take over the pride alone. We’re perfect together.” She closed a little more of the distance between them, her hand lowering to rest on his abdomen.
Dario flinched, trying to halt her progress with a firm hand on hers. Shit! Last time I answer the door in a towel.
He captured her arms, stilling her hand from daring to reach for more. Bending to make it clear, he bit out the words. “I found my mate, and she’s here. Now get the hell out of my house!”
A gasp snapped him straight, his vision raking from the side entry of the front door toward that sound of shocked horror. The pain on Sheridan’s face made his stomach plummet to his ankles. “Sheridan!” She whirled for the deck, the robe she wore flapping in her haste. Good, maybe he’d get a chance to explain it all. There was nowhere to go if she went outside again. He didn’t even know how much she’d heard.
With a less than caring grip on Muffy, he opened the door and launched her through it. “Get out! I’m not going. I’m not your mate.” Hell at the moment, he was ready to dust his hands of the whole fucking pride!
* * * *
Stripping out of the robe as if it were on fire, Sheridan shot off the deck, running on four feet before she even thought it completely through. She just knew she had to get away. Damn it! She’d almost told him she loved him! Almost started to tell him the truth about her wolf!
We’re perfect together.
Sheridan wanted to vomit. She hadn’t meant to intrude, but she had to cross the hall to go to the bathroom. Then hearing a woman’s voice, she’d peeked. Oh, how stupid had that been? They were practically on top of each other. Dario held the other woman close while she all but climbed him. It looked like he was on the verge of kissing her, they were so tight together. And her hand was in his damned towel! Sheridan closed her eyes, blocking the wave of pain, but the image remained.
She should have known better. How many times did she have to be taken to realize she would never be good enough? It didn’t matter how sweet they talked, or what they promised, they all lied.
She hiccupped, refusing to let the tears blurring her vision make her stop running. Maybe if she was lucky, she’d actually run herself into exhaustion.
* * * *
Dario clutched the robe he’d found tossed on the deck in a shaking fist, confused and worried. The robe had been easy to spot, but there was no Sheridan. “Sheridan?” Searching the immediate shadows of the tree line, he couldn’t see her, and she was nowhere outside. She hadn’t come back in either. “Sheridan!” His voice carried, but there was no answer.
Where did she go? She couldn’t have gone far. She was as naked as he was. Dressing in the robe, he tied it with a hard yank, pacing. Waiting. But when a half hour became an hour, and an hour, two and she hadn’t returned, he began to fear for her.
She was vulnerable. Sheridan didn’t know the land, and being naked… How far could she have gone? After an hour of pacing, he took a chance to let his cougar free in broad daylight and shifted, jogging to and fro, searching for any sign of her. Her clean scent literally disappeared only yards from his home, frustrating both his cougar and himself. If there wasn’t even a faint trail, he could comb the entire forest and miss her by yards. She couldn’t have done a ‘Beam me up Scotty’. So where did she go?
Should he call together a search party? What could he tell them? That they’d had a fight? He knew as the afternoon dragged on that it was going to become a matter of necessity, not choice, to find help to search for her. Creeping closer to the point when common sense had to be obeyed, he dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, silently praying for her to return.
Around four in the afternoon, the gate called his home. “There’s a Mr. Rush Donovan here to see you.”
Giving the okay, Dario continued to pace, unsure why her brother would be there, unless he was looking for her. Dario didn’t want to be the one to tell the man he’d lost his sister.
The knock on his door was loud, almost a pounding. He’d barely opened it when pain exploded across his face. The next conscious moment he was blinking, staring at the vaulted ceiling, cold tile chilling his shoulders. Rolling jerkily to a knee, he cupped his nose. It didn’t feel broken, but it throbbed until he was seeing stars. Shaking his head, he sought upward with a blurred gaze. “What the hell?”
“Get me Sheridan’s things.” A fierce scowl added weight to the demand.
“Where is she? Do you know where she is?” Dario stumbled trying to get to his feet. He reached for a wall to steady himself. A drop of blood on the back of his hand proved the man had cocked him a good one. Grasping the hem of his shirt, he stuffed it under his nose, uncaring of the shirt itself.
“Get me her things before I break your fucking neck!” Rush roared. He must have shut the door after he’d introduced Dario to his fist. He hadn’t moved from in front of it.
Swallowing, Dario sucked air. “No. I have to know where she is.” He didn’t care how foolish it was to face off with her brother. If he knew where Sheridan was then he had to tell Dario.
Rush snarled and stomped past him with a cold shove.
“Wait!” Dario whirled, ignoring the queasy wrench of his stomach with the movement. Doors slammed against walls as Rush searched for her things. Dario found him in his room bent on a knee, stuffing her belongings into her overnight bag. “Please. Where did she go? Is she all right?” He sounded muffled, his voice jacked up with his sinuses closed solid. Stopping in the doorway to try to breathe through his mouth, he said, “Please, is she safe? I searched for over an hour and couldn’t find a trace of her.”
Rush slowed, but he didn’t stop. “She’s safe.” Dropping her purse in the bag, he then stood. “Is this everything?”
Dario nodded. A headache was forming between his eyes. Not all that surprising, he supposed. “Yes, that’s everything.”
Rush stalked through the room. Before he could get past Dario, he blurted, “Rush. I love her. I don’t know what happened, but I think I know what she thinks she saw. I need to fix it.” He leaned on the doorframe, the pressure in his head feeling as though he’d been holding onto a jackhammer. He rested his hand protectively over his nose. “And a bag of ice. You hit like a bastard.”
Rush frowned. “I don’t know what she saw. She didn’t tell me.”
Dario wondered if he could get Rush on his side. Closing his eyes and sagging harder on the door, Dario doubted he had a chance. Whatever she’d seen had blown any trust he’d earned to smithereens. “How did she get to you? Don’t you live on the other side of the college?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
Dario followed Sheridan’s brother as he marched out of the bedroom for the front door again. He was right. At least she’d made it safe and was where she could be cared for. Dario’s shoulders slumped as he trailed after the other man.
“Rush?” Dario was ready to beg. He had to find her. Had to tell her the truth, let her know she was wrong. He didn’t give a shit about Muffy. He just didn’t know if he’d get the chance to even begin to explain it.
The other man halted in front of the door, slinging the bag over a shoulder. He squarely met Dario’s gaze. “Wait a few days. She’s not going to hear anything you tell her until then. Don’t make me regret letting you have a second chance. She’s been hurt enough.”
With a grim acceptance, Dario clung to that chance like a life preserver.
Chapter Thirteen
Dario didn’t go to work on Monday. Being able to breathe was kind of a necessity, and until his swollen sinuses loosened up, he was taking things easy. By Tuesday, he’d made up his mind as to what he was going to do.
He waited in the conference room where most of their meetings were held, strumming the table as he leaned back in the head chair. He waved a hand when his uncle and father walked in, offering them seats. They shared a bewildered look. Dario usua
lly gave the head chair to his dad.
“What happened to you?” his dad asked, promptly sitting to study his son. Dario knew his left eye was seriously blackened, though it was healing.
“Nothing that hasn’t been taken care of.” Dario wasn’t going to bother to explain that part of his weekend. He had a much larger purpose to this gathering.
A moment later, Muffy walked in.
“Shut the door,” he ordered. After she did, she turned, smiling. He had little doubt she saw the meeting as the first steps to claiming her in front of the pride alpha. Fire filled his veins, an anger so intense he wanted to strangle every single one of the people in the room with him. “Sit.” It was a barked demand, ice off his tongue.
Muffy blinked, but hurried to take a chair, primping her skirt high on her thigh. She had the gall to smile and wink at him. He wanted to throw her in a pigsty and let her play with the livestock, but refrained from being so rude as to say it. He’d never treat a woman that way, but after Sunday, she deserved what she got. It was her damn fault he was in this mess. Hers, and he was positive, his uncle’s.
Dario stood, perusing each in turn. “Let me make this perfectly fucking clear. Do not ever make arrangements for me again. Do not presume to plan my life.” He leaned on his knuckles, flat on the table, glaring at each in turn. “I don’t know which one of you thought it would be okay to railroad me into attending the ascension meeting Sunday, and I don’t care. Because of your fucking interference, my mate,” Dario pinned his gaze on Muffy when she sniffed in utter dismissal, “yes, my mate thinks I’m cheating on her with this twit!”
Muffy gasped, her cheeks flooding with outrage.
“Now, wait—”
Dario roared. A literal, ‘shut the fuck up’ roar.
Antonio fell back into his chair, his jaw loose.
“I have found her, and I love her. If you—sorry to have to include you in this Dad—if you interfering assholes can’t get it through your heads then I’m going to withdraw from the pride.”
“Dario!” His father, Pietro, finally interrupted, his stunned expression dissipating.
Dario shook his head. “I’m not done.” What came next was entirely for his uncle. He turned to the man on his right, pinning him down with his words. “I know why you chose Muffy to be Matriarch, and honestly Antonio, I don’t give a flying shit about what you consider a proper match. Sheridan will be Matriarch. If you cause even a hint of discourse, I will leave. I won’t challenge you. I will just leave.”
“You don’t mean it,” Pietro stuttered, shocked.
Turning to his dad, Dario said succinctly, “Try me. This is no game. Whoever encouraged Muffy to come to my house Sunday deserves my wrath.” Pietro looked absolutely perplexed. It was as Dario figured. Antonio had gone against his wishes and sent her anyway. He stood and straightened his jacket with a firm tug to his sleeves. “And don’t think holding my job over my head will make me crack. I have options.”
“You won’t be able to stay in the Taja community,” Antonio pointed out, as though it held weight or mattered to Dario.
“In that, you’re wrong,” he smoothly overrode him. “But if it comes down to it, I will gladly leave behind all of this manipulative bullshit. The job, the house, all of it.” Facing his uncle one last time, Dario gave him a toothy snarl. “Because I know exactly who to name in front of the council if I lose Sheridan completely. And driving a mate away from their match is a crime even you don’t want to be charged with, Antonio.”
Looking briefly at his father then his uncle, he ignored Muffy. “Think carefully about whose life you want to interfere with again. I can guarantee when I take over for Dad, if I hear a whisper about this kind of bullshit happening, everyone involved will be permanently banned from the pride, and that will only be the place I start. Do I make myself clear?”
“You can’t threaten me!” Antonio started to leap from his chair, but Pietro met him halfway.
“Basta! My son has spoken.” Pietro braced his frame on his palms, eye to eye with his brother. “As head of the Taja pride, I am saying it is enough,” he intoned with rolling authority. “Dario has shown incredible tolerance, and I can’t fault his decisions.”
Drawing a calming breath, he stood before Dario, saying, “I, for one, am glad he found his mate to love.” With a hand on his son’s shoulder, he gripped him warmly. “If you need any help in clearing this,” he gave a flat glance across the table, “let us know.”
“Thanks, Dad. But I think I can handle this. She’s no one’s fool.”
“Then I look forward to meeting her.”
Glad for his father’s support, both with Sheridan and as his successor, he nodded once then left the room to his next mission: claiming Sheridan for his own.
* * * *
Sheridan sat on her couch, huddled under an afghan even though it was ninety-two degrees outside. She still felt frozen inside. She hadn’t changed out of her thin sweats since the night before, when even she realized she needed a shower and couldn’t stand the sight of herself in the mirror another day. An oversized t-shirt was the balance of her slumming it at home look. What did it matter? No one was going to see her. No one was going to give a damn one way or the other. She didn’t have the energy to care yet, either.
A knock at her door should have surprised her, but it didn’t. For the last four days she’d received—and rejected—a flower delivery.
“Go away! I don’t want them!” She almost screamed it, yanking the afghan tighter around her shoulders.
The doorbell rang this time. Twice. Groaning, she tossed the afghan over the back of her couch. Her TV was off. She couldn’t bear to look at it. The movie they’d watched that night sat on the console, lazily forgotten in the rush of the week, and then Mona and Brant’s wedding. She couldn’t deal with any of it.
The doorbell buzzed again.
“I said I don’t want it! Give them away!”
“Sorry, ma’am. I can’t do that.”
She ground her teeth together. Fine, he wanted to send them, she’d throw them away. Sheridan yanked the door open, ready to lambast the person behind the largest bouquet of pink roses she’d ever seen in her life. All she could see was his hands on the vase. It wasn’t all that surprising, she guessed. The deliveries had been growing by monstrous proportions daily.
“This is heavy. It might be a good idea if I set it down for you.”
“Only if you can throw it in the trash,” she retorted. When the delivery person didn’t move, she stepped clear of the door. “Fine, put them down on the bar.”
The crystal vase was gorgeous, she conceded. Maybe she’d keep that simply because it looked valuable. He held it carefully, positioning it just right. Then he turned.
“You!” She almost shrieked her outrage. “Get out!”
Dario cleared the distance between them, fighting the door from her pinched fingers to swing it shut. “Not until I’ve had a chance to explain. If you still want me to leave after, I will, but I deserve a chance to clearly explain what it was you saw.”
His lips thinned and he crossed his arms. The man wasn’t budging.
“I know what I saw! She had her damned hand down your front. Did you enjoy the free feel-up? Or was she next on your list of women to sleep with?” she bit out tightly. The image of him bent down to kiss the woman burned her eyelids. She clenched them, refusing to cry over him.
He raked a hand down his face. “She didn’t, but I’m not saying it didn’t look that way. My uncle Antonio has been throwing Muffy at me for almost a year, since my dad announced he was ready to step down and let me take his place as head of the Taja pride.” Spinning slowly on a heel, he walked the other way. He couldn’t go far. He dug his hands into his slacks pockets.
“Sheridan, I realized it over the weekend. I love you. I want to be with you. Muffy has been chasing me, prodded by my uncle. I thought their bullshit would cease when I found my mate, but my uncle chose to ignore it. He’s been grooming Muf
fy to stand with me, and she is just as convinced that she’s the next pride Matriarch.” Rolling a shoulder, he let out a breath. “In the prides, if a feline doesn’t find their mate by a certain age, they’re encouraged to take a spouse to keep the prides inclusive, even if they never have children.” Lowering his voice, he added, “Even if they don’t love each other. I’m not nearly old enough to even have to begin to worry about it, but Muffy was willing to marry me simply because she’d gain the status.”
Sheridan shook her head. “Pride?” She couldn’t be hearing him the way he meant it.
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