Jupiter (Were Zoo Book 2) (8 page)

He chose a few pieces of wood and set
them on the fire, then donned the leather pants and joined her on
the fur.

“
It takes about forty-five
minutes to cook,” he said as he settled behind her, his long legs
on either side of hers and his chest against her back.

“
What happens
now?”

The pride settled on the ground across
the fire and Caesar said, “Now we wait.”

Jupiter nuzzled her throat with a purr
and said into her ear, “When I’ve proven my worth to you, sweet
mate, then I’m going to take you home and show you how happy I am
that you’re mine.”

She shivered and chuckled, resting her
hands on his bent knees.

“
I’m really happy you’re
mine, too.”

Chapter 7

Jupiter watched his mate sleep. After
their long night outside, hunting for her and then feeding her his
kill, he’d carried her home where they made love until dawn. He was
tired himself, but he’d only slept a few hours before waking. His
cat was anxious for what the night would bring. He’d been surprised
by how close he felt to her already. When he was hunting the
rabbit, he’d been torn between not wanting to be away from her and
continuing the tradition. It might’ve been the fastest he’d ever
hunted. Pride had filled him as he used his claws to strip thin
pieces of meat from the skewer and then fed her by hand. He was
proud of her for not being entirely grossed-out by the process. It
certainly wasn’t normal in her world.

His phone buzzed and he grabbed it off
the nightstand. A text from his dad told him that the pride wanted
to eat lunch together as a group, the start of a new
tradition.

He texted Caesar that Celeste was
still resting, but they would be ready in two hours for the group
lunch. Setting his phone down on the nightstand, he settled back
against his mate, curling around her and inhaling her
scent.

Although he didn’t fall back asleep,
he did spend the time thinking about the future. When Celeste woke
up, stretching with a squeak and blinking still-sleepy eyes at him,
he smiled and kissed her forehead.

“
Hey,” she said, her voice
still rough from their pleasurable night.

“
Hey yourself,” he said.
“We’re supposed to meet the pride for lunch, but you can sleep a
little longer if you’d like.”

“
I’m good,” she said,
yawning as she turned into him and rested her cheek on his bicep.
“Please tell me I can take a shower.”

He laughed. “Only if you let me help
wash your back.”

“
Is that all you want to
wash?” she asked, peeking up at him, her lovely blue eyes
darkening. He kissed her and then scooped her into his arms,
climbing from the bed and carrying her into the
bathroom.

“
Eager?” she teased as he
set her on the floor and pushed the shower curtain back.

“
To see you wet and naked?
Hell yes.”

After they made love and washed each
other thoroughly, he gave her one of his long-sleeved shirts to
borrow and she put on her jeans, tying his shirt at her waist and
running a brush through her long hair.

“
So what happens today?”
she asked as she took his hand and they left the house.

“
Lunch first, and then we
need to harvest some items for tonight. The park is open today, of
course, so we’ll be on our own until after it closes, and then
there will be a ceremony and the pride will leave us alone
topside.”

They walked to his dad’s house, which
was slightly larger than all the rest. Jupiter knocked once and
opened the front door, leading Celeste to the kitchen where a large
table had been set. Platters of roasted meats and vegetables were
lined down the center of the table, and the nearby island was
filled with bowls of side dishes and pitchers of drinks.

“
You guys have big
appetites, huh?” Celeste asked after greeting the pride, who were
milling about in the kitchen.

Lucius laughed. “Definitely. But it’s
a special meal, so we went all-out.”

Jupiter pulled out Celeste’s chair and
then scooted her close to the table, taking the seat next to hers.
Everyone waited until Jupiter had filled her plate first, ensuring
that she – as the newest pride member and his soulmate – had the
best of everything.

“
Are you sure that’s
enough?” he asked her.

She looked at him incredulously. “The
plate is piled high. I’m positive I couldn’t eat more if I had a
gun to my head.”

“
There won’t be seconds
with this group, so I’m just making sure,” he said, eyeing the
thick steaks and wondering if he should set one aside for
her.

“
No, I swear. I don’t need
anything else.” She smiled, happiness dancing in her eyes, and he
nodded.

“
I just want to make sure
that I take care of you first.” It was possibly the truest
statement he’d ever made. In the span of a day, she’d come to mean
more to him than he ever thought possible, and his own happiness
hinged on hers.

Her brows wiggled, and even
though she didn’t say anything, he could tell exactly what she was
thinking – that he
did
take care of her first.

Loading his own plate with two
porterhouses, he handed the platter to Amadeus. While the pride
filled their plates, they talked about the VIP tours that would
happen the following weekend. Since not only Jupiter had found his
soulmate, but also Zane, expectations were high that more of them
might find their mates.

“
What would happen if you
were working in the park and found your soulmate?” Celeste asked.
“You assume that your soulmates will be on the VIP tour, which
makes them more of a captive audience. But what if you’re working
security and you happen to…smell your soulmate?”

Everyone went quiet. Even Jupiter
wasn’t certain what to say. It hadn’t happened before. No one in
the park had ever scented their soulmate from a random park
visitor.

His dad said, “We would be able to
scent our soulmate in our human form as well, but it hasn’t
happened. I suppose that we should add that to the list of things
we need to discuss with the alphas.”

“
What other things are you
discussing?” Jupiter asked.

His dad’s brow arched. “How to better
handle the soulmates. You nearly tore the fence apart because the
wolves were too close to your girl.”

Celeste snickered.
“Now
that
would
have been interesting!”

When the meal was finished, Jupiter
left Celeste and Jenni chatting over cupcakes, and went to speak
with his dad and brothers.

“
The good news about Zane
and Adriana is that she’s accepted that they’re soulmates and
they’re mated now,” his dad said.

“
What’s the bad news?”
Jupiter asked.

“
The alphas agreed that
because Jesse broke three laws in attacking Adriana, he would be
punished with the Flayer for three years,” his dad said.

Jupiter whistled. The Flayer was a
collar that had hooks on the interior. When it was placed on a
shifter’s neck and locked, the hooks embedded into the flesh and
prevented shifting. It was a punishment reserved only for the
gravest offenses, and in Jupiter’s mind attacking a soulmate just
for kicks as Jesse had was deserving of such a
punishment.

“
He was a crazy asshole
before,” Lucius said. “If he survives being unable to shift for
three years, he’ll be a complete lunatic.”

“
I don’t think he
will
survive,” Amadeus
said.

“
We’ll need to be on high
alert in case he does something,” Jupiter said.

“
The gorillas changed their
security codes, and Jesse is under house arrest as well,” his dad
said. “We’ll want to monitor his friends, too, just to ensure that
no one tries get revenge, but I don’t see that
happening.”

“
Better to be safe than
sorry,” Jupiter said, “especially where mates are
concerned.”

Jupiter took Celeste to the greenhouse
at the far corner of the lions’ private area. The glass enclosure
was the size of a large shed and held tables and hanging shelves
filled with plants that were important to their people. Lifting a
wicker basket from a hook by the door, he handed it to her and
said, “First we’re going to cut flowers for you. I’ll show you how
to weave them into bracelets.” He led her to the back of the
greenhouse, where a long table held rows of carefully cultivated
lilies.

“
These are impala lilies,
and they’re native to Africa. We plant them in such a way that at
any given time there are enough blooming for the mating ceremony.
Before greenhouses allowed our people to harvest them at any time
of the year and not only when they naturally bloom, they would use
dried petals.”

He lifted a pair of shears off a hook
hanging from the row, and began to cut the stems. “The number of
flowers relates to the members of our immediate family. Both sets
of our parents are alive, and including you, my brothers, and me
that means we need eight blooms for each bracelet.”

She took the stems from him and laid
them carefully in the basket. “It’s kind of like having our parents
here even though they’re not.”

“
My mother wouldn’t care to
come even if I could contact her. She had no interest in staying in
touch once she found another male to mate.”

Celeste laid her hand on his shoulder,
and he looked down at her. “I’m sorry.”

He snipped the sixteenth stem and gave
it to her, putting the shears back on the hook. “There’s nothing to
be sorry for. In my father’s generation, the males and females
would often get together for the sole purpose of having cubs. If
the couple weren’t soulmates, one or the other would raise the
children alone, no hard feelings.”

“
It’s unfair that you
didn’t have both parents. Even if they weren’t
soulmates.”

“
You’re thinking like a
human.”

“
Well,” she said with a
chuckle, “I am one. I don’t understand everything that you have
going on, but I do know that whenever we have kids, I’m thankful
they’ll have both of us in their lives.”

He hadn’t ever thought he’d missed out
on anything by not having his biological mother around. But now, as
he looked down into the beautiful, determined blue eyes of his
mate, he was very certain that whatever he hadn’t had as a young
cub, his children would never be without.

While they harvested the sweet prickly
pear, he explained the ceremony that would happen later and the
need for his cat to mark her physically.

She rubbed absently at her neck.
“It’ll probably hurt, right? I’m not a masochist, so pain is not my
friend.”

He chuckled. “It will hurt, but I
promise that you’ll be really happy before I mark you, so you won’t
be too aware of it.”

She hummed appreciatively. “Happy?
Like lots of orgasms happy?”

He nodded. “I wouldn’t want you to be
truly hurt by the marking, and although it will sting and you will
feel it, the idea is that you’ll be concentrating on the pleasure
and won’t be as affected by the mark.”

“
You’re just lucky I don’t
have fangs. I’d bite you so good.” She clicked her teeth together
with a grin, and he kissed her.

“
You’re too precious,
little love.”

They left the greenhouse and headed
back to his home so he could show her how to safely peel the thick
outer skin of the prickly pear and prepare it for their ceremony.
When the fruit was cooling in a bowl in the refrigerator, he and
Celeste sat on the floor of the family room and braided the lily
stems into bracelets for her to wear for their ceremony. Their
fragrance enhanced her naturally sweet scent, and the pretty
red-and-white blooms looked lovely against her creamy
skin.

When the bracelets were
finished, Celeste climbed into his lap and cupped his face. Peering
down at him, she smiled wickedly and said, “I hope that there isn’t
a
no touching
rule before the ceremony tonight.”

He wrapped his arms around her and
pulled her flush to his chest. “I wouldn’t care if there
was.”

* * *

Jupiter donned the leather pants he’d
worn the night before, and Celeste wore the black shirt she’d
fashioned into a sexy dress. He carried the bowl of prickly pears
under one arm and held her hand with the other, while she carried
the bracelets. His cat was purring uncontrollably. After tonight,
she would be his mate in truth, marked and mated in the traditional
way. When they first started out on this VIP tour experiment, he
hadn’t thought it would work. Now he was thankful that no one had
listened to him. If he could find his soulmate, then anyone
could.

She was quiet as they walked up the
stairs, through the storage building, and out into the pride’s
paddock. In the distance he could see the bonfire glowing. “Are you
okay?” he asked.

“
Just thinking about
tonight.”