Badlands: The Lion's Den

Badlands: The Lion’s Den

Copyright 2016 by Georgette St. Clair

This book is intended for readers 18 and older only, due to adult content. It is a work of fiction. All characters and locations in this book are products of the imagination of the author. No shifters were harmed during the creation of this book.

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Music blared on the jukebox, and the colored strobe lights splashed across scenes of decadence throughout the Lion’s Den.

A wolf shifter female was up on the nightclub’s main stage, bound hand and foot to a St. Andrew’s Cross. A jaguar shifter caned her bare buttocks, wrenching cries of ecstasy from her with each stroke, and the crowd howled their enthusiasm.

A male lion shifter was licking a pussy – on her neck. The female lion lay sprawled on her back on a wooden table, and as the lion nuzzled her and lapped at her neck with his tongue, a cougar shifter dripped wax on her naked, shaved genitals.

Finn Hudson stood by the bar, arms folded, surveying the crowd with eagle-eyed focus. He was watching for signs of trouble, not trying to get off.

The club, located in an old warehouse, was packed, even though it was a week night. It was the most popular nightspot in Darwin, a shifter-only town located in the state that used to be known as Wisconsin. Now it was called the Badlands. It was the only state in the country that wasn’t supervised by the Council for Shifter Affairs, and it attracted a mix of criminals and malcontents who couldn’t make it in the outside world. The mad, bad and dangerous to know. Finn’s favorite kind of people.

The Lion’s Den was divided in half, with the bar to the left of the entrance and the play area on the right. House rules said that if anyone had more than one alcoholic drink, they couldn’t go over to the BDSM play area. Alcohol and single-tail whips were generally considered to be a bad combination.

A petite, red-headed fox shifter strode by and accidentally-on-purpose brushed up against Finn, fluttering her eyelashes at him. She tilted her head back to stare up at him. “Are you on the menu?” she asked.

“Sorry. ’Fraid not.” His tone was gruff, and he favored her with only the briefest of glances before looking away again. Her face fell, and she stalked off with a sulky glower.

Finn accepted propositions from customers from time to time, but he wasn’t in the mood tonight. He kept finding himself distracted by the feline shifter at the end of the bar. She was drinking a Shirley Temple, of all things. Her figure was full and curvy. He wasn’t sure what species she was yet; he hadn’t gotten close enough to smell her.

She had chosen a seat that let her face the door at all times, and she was trying to hide the fact that she was watching the door, with a nervous expression on her face.

And Finn was trying to hide the fact that he was watching her, but apparently he wasn’t doing too well at it.

“Cat got your tongue?” Jennifer, one of the waitresses, asked with an amused glance.

“Har-de-har-har.” Finn gave her a pitying look and shook his head. “Fail.”

“Because she’s a cat shifter, and—”

“Yeah, Jennifer, when you explain the joke, it kind of ruins the magic.”

“So long as you think I’m magic,” she said with a wink, and glided away with a tray of drinks balanced expertly on one hand.

Finn sighed. He didn’t, unfortunately, think she was magic. Jennifer looked a lot like Marybeth had, sure, but the resemblance was purely physical. He’d never had those kinds of feelings for Marybeth’s little sister. His feelings for women were the kind that were located below the belt, and quickly and easily satisfied. That was fine; the Lion’s Den provided an unending supply of women who were only interested in a quick fling. It was a way to distract himself and numb the dull ache that lived inside him.

Apparently, Jennifer wasn’t the only one who’d noticed Finn’s interest in the deliciously full-figured shifter.

“You like her? She’s not your usual type.” Liam had walked up to Finn while he was distracted. Liam and Axe, Finn’s two older brothers, owned the bar and the west side of town.

Finn snorted. “Oh yeah? What is my usual type?”

Liam pretended to consider the question. “Well, female, walks on two legs…”

“Thanks,” Finn said drily. “I do have my standards.”

“And looking for a hookup. That doesn’t really describe your new girlfriend over there. You might actually have to work to get that one out of her panties.” Liam flashed Finn an enormous grin and walked away, ignoring Finn’s dirty look.

Finn found his attention dragged back to the feline, as if by some strange outside force. He wasn’t the only one who was interested, he realized. A panther shifter had sidled up and was trying to talk to her, and Finn felt his insides twist in a sudden, hard knot of anger.

She glanced at the man and shook her head. The man persisted, leaning in too close.

She scooted her chair back, moving away, and he followed her. Now he had a big scowl on his face. Finn shot across the room in a blur of motion, elbowing startled customers out of the way.

“Hey,” Finn growled as he muscled his way up to them. “Is there a problem?”

“No problem,” the panther shifter slurred, sounding annoyed, “Ek-shept you’re interrupting me and my lady friend here. Buzsh off.” He didn’t even bother to look up at Finn, just moved closer to the feline until she was backed up against the bar.

Her eyes were an icy, inhuman blue, and her hair was pale and silvery, with black streaks. She scented like some kind of lynx shifter, with a hint of cinnamon perfume. And her curvy, generous figure looked even more delicious up close.

Finn inhaled again. Canadian lynx shifter.

Tasty.

“We’re not friends,” she protested, raising her voice to be heard above the music. “I’m terribly sorry, but I’m not actually looking for companionship right now.”

I’m terribly sorry?
First day in the Badlands, that was for sure. Any of the local girls would have just punched this guy right off his feet. And then the bouncers would have tossed him out back into a dumpster.

“Sho what kind of drink am I buying you?” the panther leered, ignoring her protests.

She tried for a polite smile. “I already have a drink, and I told you, I’m waiting for someone.”

“Well, too bad for him, cuzh he’sh not here and I am.” The jerk exhaled a cloud of beer fumes mixed with halitosis as he slurred his words.

She fanned the air with her hand and slid farther down the bar. “Excuse me, I said
no
.” Now she had an exasperated edge to her voice.

“Hey, why you gotta be sush a bish—owww!” he howled as Finn grabbed his arm.

The man finally turned to look at Finn, who stood a good six inches taller than him, and his eyes widened in fear. By then it was too late. Finn picked him up by the collar and carried him, legs kicking and arms flailing, over to the front door.

He stepped outside into the cool night air, still holding the guy aloft.

“He’s eighty-sixed,” Finn said to Jose, one of the three bouncers standing by the front door. That meant the guy was permanently banned.

Jose nodded.

After Finn dropped the guy on the ground, he actually turned around and, comically, tried to run past Finn back into the club.

Finn grabbed him by the collar and spun him around, dropping him once more. He planted a boot on the drunk’s ass and pushed. The guy went sprawling, face down, and then scrambled to his feet and hurried off, head hanging low, without looking back.

Several blocks in the opposite direction, Finn heard loud shouts, and then a clattering sound that made him start, and he froze where he stood.

He’d been home for almost three years now, and it was still the same. Loud, sudden sounds set his heart racing and sent adrenaline shooting through his veins, and just like that, he was thousands of miles away and it was happening all over again.

The heat was pitiless. The sky was a burning, saturated blue, the light glaring off the superheated sand. The baking air was dry in Finn’s throat…and tinged with the unmistakable scent of blood. Sweat trickled down his temples, gluing his hair to his brow, and his tongue felt thick and clumsy in his mouth. His thirst was almost physically painful, but his canteen was empty.

The village was remote and poverty-stricken, but the locals had shared what food and water they had with the squad. Just as well, as they’d been down to a single MRE a day, and there was little to hunt out here in the middle of Bumfuck Nowhere, even for an all-shifter squad. The nocturnal desert rodents were fast, and didn’t go far to fill empty bellies. But the last of the villagers had fled now, terrified by the rumors that insurgents in the area were planning an attack.

Now the ramshackle buildings lay abandoned, eerily silent except for the sharp report of gunfire and an occasional bark of command. Their transport was useless, the engines clogged with sand, even if they’d had any fuel. Their comm units were out of range of any other squad. There was no prospect of reinforcements. It was do or die.

Finn leaned his shoulder against the weathered wooden planks and peered cautiously around the side of the building, flinching back as a bullet buried itself in the sand inches from where he was taking cover with one half of the squad. They were battered and battle-weary, but there were no soldiers anywhere he’d rather have at his back. They’d been to Hell and back together. And here they were again. Hell.

“Finn!” Jose barked at him, and Finn realized that the big, scarred wolf shifter had been calling his name for the last minute.

“Yeah, what?” he rasped. He felt his heart pounding in his chest.

Jose shook his head at Finn. “It was just some garbage cans banging together, man. Stop being such a pussy.”

At that, Finn let out a harsh laugh. Jose always knew exactly what to say to him. If he’d shown the least sign of pity or worry over Finn’s flashes of PTSD, it would have been like pouring salt in a wound, but when he gave Finn crap just like any of the other bouncers, it just made Finn laugh.

“Better than being a butt-sniffing canine,” he said as his pulse rate slowed.

“Actually, I’m more of a boob man, myself,” Jose said, taking no offense. That was true. Jose’s main girl, Krystle, was no slouch in the boob department.

Finn felt a different tension in him now; a strong pull to find the feline shifter again.

He hurried back inside, heading for the end of the bar where his little feline had been sitting.
His feline? Where had that thought come from?
he scolded himself as he shoved his way none too gently through the crowd. Several patrons flashed scowls at him, but none of them dared speak up. There was his size, and he had a certain reputation.

He got to the spot where she’d been sitting. A surprisingly strong slash of disappointment burned through him as he saw that her seat was empty and she was nowhere in sight.

He glanced around the room with a scowl. He was taller than most of the people there, but the room was getting more and more crowded, and he couldn’t see her. Could she have gone out the back exit?

He leaned against one of the columns and decided just to let it go. She was distracting. He didn’t need distractions. He had enough to worry about, like holding together the fractured pieces of his sanity, getting through the night without being ripped awake by screaming nightmares, and keeping the bears on their side of town before an all-out war over territory took place.

But even as those dark thoughts raced through his head, he found himself walking across the room again, elbowing through the crowd, scenting the air, searching for her.

He found her standing by the velvet ropes that separated the bar from the BDSM play area. She was standing there, nervously clutching her oversized canvas purse like it was a life preserver and watching with a mingled look of interest and trepidation.

She was staring at a woman who was bent over the spanking bench. The woman’s legs were spread, and her hands secured with leather cuffs in front of her. Red, raised welts slashed across the ivory globes of her buttocks. The woman was being spanked with a riding crop, and from the sound of her throaty moans, she was close to orgasm.

“Newcomer to the scene?” Finn said. The woman jumped, let out a startled squeak, and spilled part of her drink on her chest. His eyes involuntarily flicked to the liquid wetting her shirt and making it cling to her ample breasts, and he felt blood rushing to his groin.

“You shouldn’t sneak up on people like that,” she chided him as she grabbed a napkin and dabbed at her chest.

He shrugged. “Sorry. Catlike reflexes and all,” he said, delivering the line with a roguish smile. The smile always guaranteed that he got a smile in return, along with a giggle and a fluttering of eyelashes.

Except for her. She just looked up at him with a frown on her face.

He cleared his throat, not quite sure what to do with a woman who didn’t melt under the heat of his gaze. After she’d stood there staring at him for several seconds, he finally decided the straightforward approach was the only one that would work on her. He stuck his hand out, and she took it and gave it a brief shake, after a moment’s hesitation. Her hand was warm and soft, and her touch sent a delicious thrill racing through him.

“I’m Finn. And you are?”

“I’m looking for Krystle,” she said. “Is she working tonight?”

She was a friend of Krystle’s? Aside from the fact that they were both lynxes, that seemed unlikely. Krystle was outgoing, foul-mouthed, and pretty damned kinky. This girl looked like a misplaced Sunday school teacher. She was wearing a big, blousy denim shirt that obscured her lush, curvy body, a calf-length denim skirt, sneakers, and no makeup.

“Where do you know her from?” he asked skeptically.

“We’re…old friends. It’s complicated.”

Interesting. The woman had avoided giving him her name and didn’t want to reveal her connection to Krystle. Either way, he wouldn’t have told her anything about Krystle or where she was. Trust was a rare commodity in the Badlands, earned only through time and familiarity.

“She’s away right now,” Finn said. Krystle sometimes worked as a Badlands guide, working with a team of security contractors who accompanied clients through the Badlands for various purposes, usually illegal. It was lucrative and incredibly dangerous. Finn did it too, on occasion.

At the disappointment in her gaze, he added, “She should be back by the weekend.” That was true. Krystle also worked security at the club, and she particularly liked weekends. That was when they had the most fights.

“Okay,” she said with a small nod. “I’ll come back then.” Then she cast a glance at the BDSM side of the club, with the same look in her eyes that he’d seen earlier.

Curiosity.

Fear.

A little bit of hunger.

He felt a red-hot rush of arousal pour through him, and fur rippled on the back of his neck. He heard the hitch in her breath as she stared at the main stage. The lion was now kneeling and lapping at the woman he’d been flogging before.

“What did you say your name was again?” he asked her.

She flicked a glance at him. “I didn’t,” she said. After a long pause, she said, “Flora,” with seeming reluctance.

“Well, Flora, you don’t need to leave right this minute,” he said. “I’d be a terrible host if I didn’t offer you the guided tour.” In the back of his head, faint warning bells chimed. His reaction to this woman was so strong, so instinctive, that he should be running in the other direction.

Then again, he’d grown bored with the hookup scene recently. Hadn’t felt inspired enough even to bother pursuing any action in weeks. Well, months, if he was being honest with himself. It couldn’t hurt to get to know her a little better. Maybe she’d be up for a quick fling.

Even as he thought that, he saw a lion shifter checking out Flora’s boobs, and he felt his claws shoot out of his fingertips in an instinctive rush of anger. He forced them to retract.

One taste of her wouldn’t be enough…

Her gaze swept the club, and then she looked back up at him and nodded.

“So what do you do here?” she asked him.

“Security. My brothers own the club. Sometimes I work here, sometimes I patrol our territory.”

A cry of pleasure rang through the air, and she twisted around to see the woman on the spanking bench jerking at her restraints and shuddering in orgasm. Flora’s eyes widened in surprise.

“So, your first time inside this kind of club?” he asked.

“What?” she said, with a look of mock hurt. “I thought I blended right in.” Then she glanced down at her blousy, figure-concealing outfit. “Maybe if I was wearing something tighter. And more revealing.”

“You’re fine just the way you are,” he said. At her self-deprecating laugh, he added, with more heat than he’d intended, “That panther who was hitting on you sure thought so.”

“I think the tequila might have helped him along a little bit,” she said. So, she was a hottie who had no idea how hot she was. That made her even more attractive.

“Anyway,” he said, pointing to the play area. “That is called a St. Andrew’s Cross. We also have the spanking benches and the whipping horse – those are very popular.”

“So I see,” she said, and then flushed in embarrassment and looked away quickly.

Finn stifled a groan. He was rock hard now, and every time he moved, the friction of his jeans rubbing against his cock threatened to send him over the edge.

He cleared his throat and forced himself to concentrate on the equipment in the club.

“That is an ob-gyn chair,” he continued. He pointed at a bed that dangled from four chains. “Floating bed.”

“So what are the rules?” she asked. “I mean, are there any rules?” She was watching a woman being bent over a pommel horse and spanked with a paddle.

“Absolutely. Consent is number one. Everyone has to establish a safe word before they start a scene. At any time during a scene, if they say the safe word, anyone else involved in the scene must stop immediately. And anyone who violates that will be removed from the club, permanently.”

“Oh.” The way her breath caught in her throat set his nerves on fire. “That sounds…safer than I thought it would be.”

“Do you think you’d ever want to try something like that?” Finn asked.

Her eyes widened at the thought. “I…I don’t know,” she said, her cheeks coloring. “I mean…being half naked in front of all those people?” She glanced self-consciously down at her body.

“You’ve got to stop that,” Finn growled. “If I were looking for a woman – which I’m not – you would be exactly what I was looking for. You. Your body. Exactly like you are.” Damn. How had that spilled out of his mouth?

“Why aren’t you?” she asked, looking him right in the eye and catching him off guard. He wasn’t used to frank questions like that. The type of women who hung out at the Lion’s Den generally didn’t want much more from him than what was in his pants, and he preferred it that way.

“Why not? Well, I… Bad experience in the past. I’m just not relationship material.”

She gave him a chiding look. “That sounds like an excuse. We all have bad experiences. But anyway, that’s your business, not mine.”

Before he could answer her, Jennifer walked up to him. “Hey, are you and your sub going over to the other side? Looks like the whipping station is free,” she said in a loud voice, right when there was a lull in the music. Everyone within earshot swiveled around to stare at them.

Flora’s cheeks flamed red. “I’m not with him. I should go,” she said quickly, and turned and hurried off, disappearing into the crowd. Finn moved to follow her, and found himself blocked by Jennifer, who’d accidentally slid in front of him.

Finn scowled at her. Where had that come from? He’d never been with Jennifer, he’d ignored her mild attempts at flirting until she’d stopped, and she’d never acted like she cared when she saw him with a woman. She’d never pulled a cock-blocking move like that before.

“What was that all about?” he demanded.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I asked a simple question. Not my fault your weirdo friend freaked out,” she snapped, looking offended, and turned and hurried off through the crowd.

Finn was tempted to pursue her and demand an answer, but he let it go. He’d always tried to cut her more slack than he would anyone else. When she’d showed up at the Lion’s Den a few months after Marybeth’s death, he’d stepped in immediately. He’d gotten her a job and a place to stay. He’d spread the word that anybody who messed with Jennifer was messing with him.

But he’d also made it quite clear to Jennifer that he viewed her as a little sister, someone to be protected, and nothing more. She’d always been okay with that – hadn’t she?

With a growl of impatience, he hurried after Flora. What was she even doing here? She was in way over her head, both at this nightclub and in the Badlands in general.

He caught up with her at the front door. “Let me walk you to your car,” he said. “This is a rough neighborhood.”

“No, thank you. I didn’t drive here. I’m just going to walk back to my hotel.”

“By yourself?” He glanced at the clock on the wall in astonishment. It was quarter after twelve. “At this time of night? You do understand where you are, right?”

Since the Badlands were unregulated, shifters could do whatever they wanted there. Literally anything.

Outside the Badlands, shifters were strictly regulated. All shifters were required to be a member of a pack or a pride or a tribe, to ensure that they didn’t go feral. They carried identity cards and checked in monthly with the Council for Shifter Affairs.

Here, shifters went feral all the time – part of Finn’s job was to hunt down the ferals. The only law that existed was that which was created by the local Alphas, Rexes, or Warlords, or whatever the local leaders chose to call themselves. Leaders rose and fell, killed others or were killed, with the regularity of the rising and retreating tides.

This curvy innocent with the sexy repressed librarian vibe didn’t belong here.

“You can’t walk around here at night by yourself,” he said, following her outside.

“Oh, you don’t need to worry about me, thank you. I’m a cat shifter. I have claws.” She held out her hand and extended her claws, and for a brief moment her hand went flat and furry as it turned into a paw.

The fur was silvery white, shot through with black, like her hair. Silky-looking fur, he thought. He wanted to pet it.

But her notion that she could defend herself here was ridiculous. She was a lynx; even though shifter animals tended to be bigger than non-shifter animals, she’d probably weigh a hundred pounds at most in her lynx form. Could she defend herself against a pack of wolves? Or a lion? Or a bear?

Before he could answer her, she turned and walked away. Which hotel was she going to? he wondered. Wherever she was staying, she was heading out of the Hudsons’ territory.

The residents of their territory paid protection, and wore a large “H” symbol on their clothing to show their allegiance. Anyone without the symbol was fair game to the roving packs of thugs, or lone muggers, in the territory.

She wasn’t wearing an “H”, he realized now. And she wasn’t wearing any other Alpha’s or Rex’s or Chieftain’s symbol either, so she was unprotected. Did she not know about it? He hadn’t noticed before because frankly, she’d had his head totally fogged up from the minute he’d laid eyes on her.

He hesitated.

He didn’t know this girl. It was no fur off his back if she got mugged. He looked out for his own and nobody else – that was the rule he lived by these days.

His brother Liam was standing by the front door with Jose. He handed Finn a bottle of mineral water. Finn took a long swig of it.

“You going to let her go?” Liam asked him. He glanced at Jose. “That’s his new girlfriend.”

“Nice.” Jose nodded approvingly. “A step up, for you.”

Finn snorted. “What are we, in kindergarten? She’s not my girlfriend, and she doesn’t want my help. Whatever happens to her is nothing to me.”