by Vivi Andrews
Michael hung the keys on their hook and crept toward the door. Maybe he’d hide out for a few days. Kane could handle the maintenance tasks around the ranch without him for a while. He could use a break. He didn’t know what he’d do with his time, but maybe a day or two to himself would bring things into focus.
Michael shook his head, flinging away the thought. Crappy idea. He needed to work. Like Tyler. Twenty-four-seven. If he was busy, he wouldn’t think about Mara and the way she’d ripped his still-beating heart from his chest and taken a bite.
“Hey, Mike.”
Michael winced before turning to face his oldest brother. So much for solitude.
Tyler prowled out of the shop and past the pride vehicles lined up in the garage. He was taller than Michael, though not quite as heavily built as their other brother Caleb. He moved gracefully, like the cat he was. Tyler could take you down in a fight, and he wouldn’t hesitate to do so, but he wasn’t a bruiser by nature. Michael was more likely to get a disapproving frown than a smack upside the head, but tonight he would have preferred the smack.
“Where’ve you been?”
Tyler was as much a father to him as a brother, but the question still rankled. He wasn’t a fucking child. He didn’t owe anyone an explanation. “Out.”
His unflappable brother didn’t twitch an eyelash. As a kid, Michael had wondered if Tyler had used up more than his fair share of the control genes and there’d been none left over for him.
“Out,” Tyler repeated. “At two a.m. The Cherokee’s LoJack showed you took it off pride land. There a reason you went to see the humans in the middle of the night?”
“What? Do I have a fucking curfew now? Like a cub? I’m twenty-four fucking years old. If I want to take my girlfriend out for a drink, whatever the hour, there’s no law against that.” Michael’s temper rose with every calm word his brother uttered.
Tyler held his gaze steadily, his voice low and unruffled. “It isn’t about your age. You know that.”
“What do you want to know? If I shifted? If I exposed us all? If the villagers are on their way out here with pitchforks? Well, rest easy, big brother. No one saw us.”
Tyler’s chin slowly lowered an inch. “No one saw you. So you did shift. Where?”
Inside Mara. Somehow Michael didn’t think that answer would go over well. “I didn’t shift. Not all the way. We were at the Bar Nothing. Everyone there was falling-down drunk, so no one saw a thing. There wasn’t even much to see.”
Nothing to see. Right. As long as no one saw him pin Mara to the side of the Cherokee. Michael tried to hold his brother’s gaze without flinching, but his eyes flicked over to the Jeep, returning to the scene of the crime.
Tyler frowned, more a tightening around his eyes than a full facial expression, but it was ominous all the same. He glanced over his shoulder, following Michael’s gaze to the claw marks he’d gouged in the metal frame. Tyler turned, walking slowly over to the Jeep and running a finger along one particularly deep divot.
“Subtle.”
Shit. Michael grimaced. Now he was in for it.
Why did he have to be such a terrible liar? His sister liked to tell him it was one of his best features, but he’d never had her appreciation for the lack. And now it looked like Tyler was gearing up to rip him a new one.
“I don’t suppose you’d like to tell me why you thought the Cherokee would make a good scratching post?”
Michael locked his jaw, sticking to his original defense. “No one saw us.”
“Ah.” Tyler still didn’t look at him, continuing to study the damage to the SUV. “So you lost it, in a public place, and went feral enough to leave your ride looking like it’s been attacked by a bear, but that’s okay because no one saw you. Is that it?”
He was twenty-four freaking years old, but Tyler could still make him feel like a cub who’d just been caught clawing the furniture. One silky-smooth question was all it took to send shame and embarrassment spearing into his stomach.
Michael didn’t remember their father. The bastard had left the pride when Michael was three and Ava two, leaving his mate and all five of his kids behind. Tyler had become the man of the family. Their mother wasn’t dominant. She protected her cubs, but Tyler was the head of the household from the time he was fourteen. He had been mentor and disciplinarian. When he was little, Michael had wanted nothing as badly as he wanted to make Tyler proud.
Now that ingrained urge dug its claws into him again, bringing with it a surge of angry bitterness that he would never be good enough, controlled enough. Tyler would never consider him an adult because until he could control his shifting, his brother would see him as nothing more than an oversized cub.
His animal ran close to the surface, but in all other ways he was a man. He couldn’t go away to college, but he read everything he could get his hands on to ensure he was just as educated as anyone else in the pride. He couldn’t hold a job outside the pride, but he worked twice as hard as anyone else at the work he took on at the ranch. He may be emotional, but that didn’t mean his brain didn’t work. That didn’t mean he wasn’t a thinking, productive, adult member of the pride who deserved to be treated as such.
He wasn’t a fucking cub to be taken to task for staying out too late at night. He was a man. Why couldn’t anyone else see that? Not Tyler, not Mara. None of them.
Michael’s breath came in short pants, the urge to shift a tight fist in his gut.
“Mike? Take a deep breath. Let it out slow.”
“Fuck off, Tyler. I’ve heard all the Zen bullshit before and not a fucking bit of it helps.”
Tyler was as unfazed as ever by his explosive temper. “What would help?”
“Respect,” Michael snarled. “I know my control is bad. I know better than anyone what a threat it is to our security to shift in public. I’ve had it drilled into me. I may be trapped on pride land for ninety-nine percent of my life because no one trusts me enough to leave for even an hour—in the middle of the night, when no one saw me—but that doesn’t mean that during the time when I am here, on the pride, not threatening exposure to anyone, that I deserve to be treated like a fucking child. I’m not four anymore, Tyler, and you aren’t my father. So back. The fuck. Off.” His claws were out, his teeth sharp, and his shoulders hunched under the urge to shift, but he fought it back and managed to stay in mostly human form.
Tyler watched him with expressionless passivity. At least he stopped petting the damn claw marks on the Jeep.
“Respect is earned, Michael,” he said in a quiet rumble, the growl in his voice the only indication that his animal was up too.
“I’ve earned it,” Michael snapped. “The only thing I haven’t done is what I’m not able to do. In every other way, I’ve been a full, adult member of this pride for six years. All I’m asking is to be treated like one.”
Michael didn’t give his brother a chance to get in the last word. He was done listening. He slammed out of the garage and ran across the ranch compound to his bungalow. He forced himself to stay in human form, if only to prove that he could. He focused on the heat and the feel of sweat against his furless skin, the beat of his soft-soled shoes against the dirt path. It was pure ornery stubbornness, but he refused to let the lion out. Denying the shift was like ignoring a piece of his soul. He wanted to punish it, even if it was punishing himself. The lion was destroying his life, taking Mara away from him, stealing the respect he deserved.
Michael ran into his bungalow. He kicked off his shoes and stripped off his shirt, but still he didn’t shift. Instead, he pressed his hands against the door, concentrated on the wood grain beneath his palms, and forced the animal back.
Chapter Five
“Momma!”
Mara’s heart lurched as the pigtailed girl streaked across the schoolyard. She flung herself into the air with a blind certainty that her momma would never let her fall. Instinctively, the muscles in Mara’s arms contracted, preparing to catch that squirming bundle of eager y
oung shape-shifter.
But she wasn’t that momma. She wasn’t anybody’s momma.
The momma in question looked more like an escapee from cheer practice than anyone’s mother, complete with pink streamers in her high ponytail. She tossed her little girl, Sanka, high into the air and caught her giggling, squirming form.
A savage pang of jealousy squeezed Mara’s heart. This was why she was leaving the pride, why she’d put Michael through that awful fight last night. So she could be someone’s momma and cuddle that precious baby against her heart whenever she wanted. So she would never again have to experience the jabs of bright green envy when her charges’ mommas and daddies came to fetch them at the end of the school day.
It wasn’t fair. Tria could skip a birth-control shot at seventeen, get knocked up at the first dirty look from a randy lion, and name her child after a crappy decaf coffee, while Mara devoted her life to teaching and nurturing other shifter’s children, was the prototype for a responsible, stable parent, would never name her child after food or drink, and yet she didn’t have a child of her own. How was that for justice?
Tria bounded over to her, a puppy in a Playmate’s body. She bounced her daughter on her hip and flashed Mara a sparkling smile—equal parts eager and vacant. Whatever Tria’s failings—and Mara was petty enough to mentally list them whenever the opportunity presented itself—the girl really did love her daughter and was fiendishly invested in her education.
“How’d she do today? Did she, like, get that L, M, N and O are all separate letters? We’ve totally been practicing,” Tria vowed, as if Sanka’s ABCs were right on par with World Hunger and Nuclear Proliferation in global importance. Which, to Tria, they totally were.
“She’s doing great,” Mara soothed the nervous mommy. “Sanka’s developing right on schedule.”
The four-year-old squirmed until Tria set her down, and then launched herself across the schoolyard to tackle a boy three years older and a solid thirty pounds heavier than her. Sanka may look like pigtailed innocence, but even though she’d only joined the preschool group last month, Mara had already learned that dimpled grin camouflaged one of the most devious minds in the pride. She must have gotten her conniving from her father, because Tria was an open book—probably a picture book, colorful and pretty and not too intellectually challenging.
Mara kicked herself for her nasty thoughts. This was why she had to leave the pride. Her petty jealousies were starting to interfere with her teaching and that was unacceptable. She would go off, find Mr. Forever, and Michael would get over it. Though why he had anything to get over in the first place was a mystery. They were just about sex. Weren’t they?
“Miss Mara?” Tria bounced on the balls of her feet. “Did you hear me?”
Mara shook away her preoccupation. She had plenty of time to obsess over Michael later. “I’m sorry, Tria. What did you say?”
“I’m preggers!”
The words were like a mule kick to the stomach. “Congratulations,” Mara gasped.
“I know! I’m, like, totes glowing, right? Duncan was all, it’s official, Tria. And I was all, what? And he was all, you’re my mate for, like, life.”
“What?” The question came out more sharply than Mara had planned. Duncan was the prototypical alley-cat lion. He’d sleep with anyone who waved her tail in his face and now he was settling down? With Tria?
“It’s totes serious.” Tria blinked her big green eyes solemnly. “At first I thought he was messing with me and I was all, seriously? And he was all, seriously. We’re gonna be, like, a real family. How sweet is that?”
“Sweet,” Mara repeated numbly.
She was going to be sick. How would Tria react if she regurgitated her PBJ sandwich all over those cute little sandals?
Duncan was older than Mara. She’d always known he was Sanka’s father—secrets like that just didn’t get kept in the pride—but she’d also seen him with a dozen different women in the four years since Sanka’s birth. Sure, he spent a lot of time with Tria, but what guy wouldn’t want to spend time with a sweet, bubbly, uncomplicated and notoriously flexible cheerleader?
Men wanted Tria for fun. That was all the single men in Mara’s age bracket seemed to want. Fun. A good time. Nothing serious.
Mara was too serious. She’d never lied about the fact that she wanted a family. She wanted a partner. So those middle-aged children who had avoided mating into their bachelor thirties steered well clear of her and her serious-relationship vibes.
Then, while they were having fun with someone like Tria—frivolous, twenty-one year old Tria—they decided they really did want forever and happily ever after. With a pubescent bimbo.
It wasn’t fair. Lions were promiscuous. Mara understood that. She accepted that. She just needed one—one—who was like her daddy. Steady and true.
Why was it they could only be faithful family men with stupid little cheerleader sluts like Tria? Did Mara really have to be a twenty-year-old trollop to land the man of her dreams? Was that how it worked? Because if it was, she was wasting her energy going to another pride. She was never going to be Tria. She didn’t want to be Tria, adored by every man she met. She just wanted to find one man who would love her for herself.
Michael’s face flashed in her mind, as she had seen it last night, lined with anger, and a frisson of unease slithered along Mara’s conscience. He had reacted so unexpectedly. Almost as if she were breaking his heart. Which was ridiculous.
Wasn’t it?
The idea that young, impetuous and uncontrolled Michael might actually have had serious feelings for her…it was too ludicrous. But the memory of his rage brought her up short. Could that possibly be the explanation? Was Michael Minor in love with her?
The answer to the question leapt into her mind as another question, harsh but necessary. Did it matter if he was?
No. It couldn’t.
He wasn’t her Mr. Forever. Mara had criteria for the man she was going to spend the rest of her life with and Michael didn’t qualify. She crushed the little voice in her head that wondered if she was doing the right thing by leaving.
There was no guarantee that she would find her Mr. Forever at the first pride she visited, or in any other pride, but she had to try. She couldn’t stay here, knowing she would never find what she needed. She needed the possibility. The hope.
Without it, before long there would be nothing left of her but bitterness and might-have-beens. Even if she failed, she had to go out into the world and open her heart. She couldn’t live the rest of her life closed off from the possibility of love.
Mara forced herself to smile at Tria as the girl gushed about morning sickness with unnatural enthusiasm. She refused to turn into a bitter old maid. If that meant leaving Three Rocks to give herself the opportunity for the life she wanted, so be it.
She was doing the right thing. The intelligent thing. She was.
Chapter Six
Michael couldn’t sleep. Restlessness clawed at him.
He still hadn’t taken his lion form since last night and he refused to. Instead, he prowled on two feet, walking the familiar paths of the ranch compound until his legs ached.
His thoughts were unsettled, out of balance. He saw the logic of Mara’s decision—he wasn’t exactly prime genetic stock—but his heart still couldn’t makes sense of it, and the clashing of emotion and logic refused to give him any peace.
“Michael?” The raspy, feminine voice was nothing more than a whisper on the breeze, but his lion-keen hearing picked it out easily.
Michael paused, waiting for the quiet footsteps to catch up to him. “Ava.”
He didn’t want company, but his little sister was the one person he couldn’t brush off. She’d had all four of the Minor brothers wrapped around her finger from the day she was born.
“I thought I heard you out here.”
Michael glanced around, taking in his surroundings, and realized he’d just passed Ava and Landon’s bungalow. For the third time.
“Always the diplomat. Did Landon send you after me?”
“My husband doesn’t send me anywhere.” Ava tossed her head, her white blonde hair catching what limited moonlight there was. “I heard you walk past, again, and came to walk with my brother. You got a problem with that?” She tipped her chin back aggressively, staring him down even though she had to crane her neck back to do it.
He snorted softly. “Not at all. Let’s walk.”
She fell into step beside him. Michael measured his pace, reining in the ground-eating prowl into something his petite sister could match.
“You wanna talk about it?”
“No.”
“Tough.”
Michael choked out a laugh. Landon had been good for his baby sister. The flashes of spunkiness that had always been part of her personality were now matched by a steady confidence she never used to have. He would have sworn allegiance to the Alpha for no other reason, but the man had turned out to actually be damn good for the pride.
When he wasn’t arranging to have Mara deported.
Michael lurched to a stop as if his feet had taken root. He fixed Ava with an angry glower. “You knew,” he snarled.
“I knew what?”
“You knew Landon was transferring Mara to another pride. He would have discussed it with you. He discusses everything with you.”
Her eyebrows flew up. “Yes, I knew Mara was leaving, but I had no idea you would care.”
Anger bubbled up, but Michael pushed it back down. He couldn’t shift now. If he shifted, he wouldn’t be able to vent his anger. “You knew we were together. It’s not like it was a fucking secret.”
“Yeah, but no one thought you were a good match.”
Michael snarled at her, baring sharp teeth.
“Michael!” Ava cried, shocked.
He hastily reined in his anger. He’d just sniped at Ava of all people. He didn’t think he’d ever been angry with her before. Now he could barely see through the rage. “Not a good match,” he forced the words out through a throat that felt bumpy and rough. “Meaning I’m not good enough for her.”