Serengeti Heat (4 page)

Landon parked the jeep in front of a small cluster of bungalows. Hers wasn’t one of them and his was on the opposite end of the ranch, but she wasn’t about to argue the point with him. At the moment, she needed to get away from him. Fast. Before she started blubbering all over his upholstery.

Ava threw open the door and launched herself out into the night, running toward the nearest familiar bungalow, Zoe’s. She managed to get the door firmly closed behind her before she collapsed to the floor in an undignified heap and burst into tears.

In retrospect, bursting into Zoe’s one room home with her clothing in shreds and collapsing into hysterics was not the best course of action. After Ava brought herself under control, it took a long and embarrassingly detailed explanation to calm Zoe enough that she stopped threatening to bring in Ava’s brothers. Or worse, her own.

Ava sprawled on the one item of furniture in Zoe’s place, a low, sturdy, king-sized bed, and watched her friend prowl the floor. Ava didn’t know why Zoe’s five-ten Viking goddess appearance didn’t intimidate her, but for some reason the former-nomad was the only lioness in the pride she felt completely comfortable with.

Too alphic for Ava’s preferred method of strategic retreat, Zoe stalked across the room attacking the problem head on. “He said you were unsuitable? That was the word he used?” Zoe questioned, no shock or outrage in her tone, just a need to get the facts straight.

“Unsuitable,” Ava repeated, trying to distance herself from the pain of the word. It hadn’t been said to her, she told herself. She was just recounting the experiences of some unknown third-party, talking about last night’s TV drama. It wasn’t
real
, this hurt she was feeling.

Zoe shook her head, frowning in confusion. “That doesn’t sound like him. He’s always said that cloistering the women who weren’t ‘pure’ enough to breed was barbaric. Just like tossing perfectly strong males out of a pride when they matured because of the threat they posed to the Alpha.”

“He tossed out Leonus and Kato,” Ava reminded her.

“Who ran this pride like their own private harem before Landon challenged them for control. Half of the lionesses hated them. Those two were not the type to take their defeat lightly. If he hadn’t banished them, they would have ripped the pride apart. But he didn’t throw your brothers out, did he?”

“Neither did Leonus and Kato when they took over. Too afraid of them.”

“Which is why the Bastard Coalition never bothered you, but that isn’t why Landon keeps them around. He likes your brothers.” Zoe tipped her head to the side, pausing in her pacing to consider some new angle. “Which might explain why Landon felt so guilty for jumping on you in the jeep.”

“Fear of my brothers?”

“No, respect for them. And exposure to their idea of you. They talk about you like you’re fifteen, Ava. And while you may look like a mature young woman, you’re small enough that Landon probably thought he had come this close to raping a baby.”

“I clearly wanted him,” Ava protested.

“You’re in heat. He thinks you don’t know what you want, that you can’t control your body.”

“I’m not howling and scratching the walls yet,” Ava snapped.

“Of course you aren’t, and I’m not suggesting you will. It’s my brother who had a hormonal lobotomy tonight, not me.” Zoe began pacing again, her long-legged stride eating up the room. “What did he say exactly?”

“I don’t know,” Ava hedged, as though the words had not been seared into her mind, leaving a ragged scar in their shape. “Something like ‘There’s a reason
unsuitable
females are sequestered.
Any
male who smelled you would have lost control.’”

Zoe turned toward her sharply, tossing the hip-length mass of her dark golden hair over her shoulder. “He said he lost control?” she asked eagerly.

“He said anyone would have,” Ava corrected.

Zoe waved away the clarification, smiling smugly. “You made him lose control!” she crowed. “Of course, you did, he destroyed your jeans. Oh, this is
good
. Big, bad Alpha can’t keep it zipped around sweet little Ava. I love it.”

“I’m glad one of us does,” Ava grumbled, hugging her knees to her chest.

“Don’t you see, Ava? This is fantastic.”

Ava grunted, not sharing Zoe’s enthusiasm.

“Landon
never
loses control. He’s too busy playing master of the universe. But,
you
, Ava. You wrangled an alpha in a rage out of a bar fight, no mean feat. And then you incited him to jump you, without even trying. You
ruled
him tonight.”

“Then why did he stop?” Ava blurted, blushing furiously when Zoe laughed throatily.

“Kitten, if you want a spot in my brother’s bed, that isn’t a problem. But if you want to be his mate, his partner, the love of his life, rule the pride and breed little Landons off him, then you’re going to have to grow a spine and get ready to fight tooth and nail, fang and claw, for him, because no matter how much he wants you, he isn’t going to make you his one and only unless you can prove that you aren’t a submissive little doormat.”

“Little being the operative word,” Ava snapped. “I can’t just run around challenging the female alphas, Zoe. Some of them have a hundred pounds on me in their human form. I wouldn’t last five seconds.”

Zoe smiled, a purely feline curve of her lips. “There’s more than one way to skin a cat, Ava-dear. Just because you can’t take them in a fight, doesn’t mean you can’t dominate them.”

“I don’t think—”

“Then I guess you don’t want Landon,” Zoe cut her off brutally, frustrated by her prevarications. “Because until you stop meekly obeying every order, bowing down to your bullying brothers and the bullying cats angling to be Landon’s mate, you will never be strong enough to deserve him. If you want to mate the Alpha, you need to be the biggest, baddest kitty in the pride.”

“But I am the smallest,” Ava wailed.

“Physical size doesn’t mean shit,” Zoe snapped. “Size is a state of mind, kitten. And yours is only microscopic because you are too damn scared to go after what you want.”

“I can’t—”

“I don’t, I can’t, I won’t.” Zoe threw her hands up in the air and stalked to the opposite end of the bungalow. “I wash my hands of you. You need to change your attitude, but if you don’t want it for yourself, let alone for darling Landon, there is nothing I can do.”

“Zoe…”

“I’m done,” she said, her voice sharp and dismissive. Then she turned and her face softened at Ava’s stricken expression. “I’m glad you’re home safe,” she said, much more gently. “It just drives me crazy when people are too frightened to go after the things they want. You play it safe and all you end up with is a lifetime of should-have-beens.”

Zoe turned to look out the window, once again dismissing her.

Ava climbed off the bed, tugging at the wraparound skirt she had borrowed to replace her massacred jeans. “I’ll return this tomorrow.”

Zoe waved away the comment without turning from the view. “Keep it. It’s too short on me anyway.”

“Zoe…”

“I’m not mad at you, Ava,” Zoe said, still without looking at her.

Ava knew Zoe couldn’t stand indecision. Everything was black or white to her, but Ava couldn’t seem to stop seeing the grays in every situation. She waited for Zoe to go on, but the silence stretched. “’kay,” she said finally. “Good night.”

“Night, kitten,” Zoe said, her tone affectionate even though she continued to gaze out the window. “Bite those bed bugs back.”

Ava laughed softly and slipped out into the darkness outside. There were no floodlights in the compound and the moon had long since set, but Ava could easily pick out the shadowy shapes of the bungalows from the dim, distant light of the stars.

She set off across the ranch toward her own little one room house, stepping silently so as not to alert the sensitive ears of her pride members. The midsummer heat was still stifling, even so long after sunset, but Ava didn’t mind the weight of it on her skin. Lions were often nocturnal hunters, active in the coolest part of the night, but the itch along Ava’s spine was not the urge to shift and run after game. She had prey of a different sort on her mind.

Landon’s jeep had disappeared, presumably back to his own bungalow, but for all she knew he was off sating himself with some “suitable” female. Ava clenched her teeth against the flood of angry jealous that welled up at the thought.

Who he slept with was none of her business. He didn’t belong to her. He never would. In fact, in days, weeks at most, he would select his mate and then he would belong heart, body, and soul to someone else. Someone big and strong who Ava would be afraid to go up against. If she even stared at him too long, his mate would be within her rights to take her down a peg.

She sighed. Even her fantasies had an expiration date.

Ava stalked through the night, her skin slick from the heat, both external and internal. She’d been in heat before, but it had never felt quite like this. Landon’s presence, in the jeep, in the bar, over the last few weeks around the ranch, had amplified everything.

Her skin felt two sizes too tight. She walked fast because if she slowed, even for a moment, the slow, writhing pressure would take over her limbs. Her breasts were heavy and tender, the flesh between her legs swollen and wet. She’d had precious little satisfaction in the jeep. Just enough to drive her even further into this madness without providing any relief.

Ava rubbed at the tension in her neck, the touch transforming into a caress sliding down the throat, the softness of her own skin teasing her fingers. She flung her hands out, fighting the temptation to touch herself, and stopped on the darkened path in front of a bungalow, breathing too quickly after her walk.

She looked up, confused to find that her feet had not carried her home. That instinct had been overridden by the clamoring of her body. The shadow of a figure within stalked past the lit window.

Landon.

Ava shuddered at the sight of him. She could never be his mate, that much was clear, but Zoe’s challenge to go after what she wanted still rang in her mind. She might not be able to have him forever, but she could have him tonight. This may very well be her one chance to be with Landon before he irrevocably belonged to another.

Her skin was about to crawl away without her and only Landon would do to scratch her itch. No other male, man or lion, had ever made her feel this spiraling insanity of lust.

Any
male would lose control if she went to him, in heat, and waved her tail in his face.
He
would lose control. And if he didn’t…did it even matter? She’d already embarrassed herself—ripping his clothing off him, begging for more. Why not go for full-fledged humiliation?

She shook away the thought. She wouldn’t be humiliated. Tonight she wasn’t weak, passive Ava. Tonight she was a feline goddess, hopped up on hormones and irresistible to men.

Ava tipped back her chin, feeling purpose blazing through her. Tomorrow, she would be invisible Ava again, but tonight, she was
his
.

Landon prowled across his room, the spacious bungalow feeling like a cage, as thoughts of Ava chased him. The memory of her fleeing from him, sprinting into the safety of Zoe’s bungalow, burned in his mind.

He didn’t blame her for her fear. He’d been a beast, feral and uncontrolled, attacking her like that in the jeep. Was it possible she really hadn’t realized she was in heat? How could she not have known what her scent was doing to him?

Landon growled low in his throat as he stalked the room, the blind need she had ignited in him still burning in his gut. He should have dropped in on another lioness or two before coming back to his own place. Shana had made it clear on numerous occasions that she was always available to him, more than willing to crawl into his bed whenever he would allow her there. She was an ambitious minx, but he knew exactly what he was getting with her. She would never make him feel unhinged and out of balance the way Ava did.

Shana was strong and fast, aggressive and manipulative. She would make an excellent consort, but Landon hadn’t been able to bring himself to declare her so. Some instinct had always held him back. But at the moment, those same instincts were screaming for him to track Ava and brand her as his own, body and soul. So perhaps his instincts with the females of this pride were not to be trusted.

Landon turned and paced. Paced and turned. The bungalow in the ranch compound designated for the Alpha’s use was second in size only to the Great Hall where the pride gathered for ceremonies, but it felt microscopic tonight. The high ceilings with rough, exposed wood beams seemed to press down on him. And even the natural wood floors, nicked and scarred by the claws of his predecessors, taunted him with everything he could not allow himself to do.

He couldn’t shift. Not tonight. When he took his other form, the animal in him had too much control. He would not be able to stop himself from hunting Ava down and proving his ownership of her in the most primitive way. He couldn’t risk running on all fours through the acres of private land belonging to the ranch. Even that freedom was denied to him tonight.

The creak of the step outside his door sounded unnaturally loud to his heightened senses. Landon spun to face the door, falling into a crouch, his lips pulling back in a snarl. He knew better than to expect Ava to come to him, but second to her presence, the one he wanted the most was that of a threat. Someone he could decimate. His heated blood would eagerly boil over into violence.

The step creaked again. The intruder didn’t knock. Landon’s eyes locked on the door, watching the knob as it turned, inch by inch, waiting, ready to spring.

“Landon?”

Her voice, husky and scratched, was a blow to his composure, cracking the façade of his inhuman control. She already sounded as hoarse as if she’d been screaming his name all night.

Ava pushed the door open a few inches and peered inside. When she saw him there, crouched for attack, she froze with her hand on the knob.

Ava eyed him hungrily. He was barefoot and bare-chested, wearing only the snug blue jeans he’d had on earlier, the partially buttoned fly straining over his erection. She dimly recalled ripping his shirt off earlier and silently thanked herself for her foresight. The muscles across his chest and shoulders stood out prominently in his tense stance, his tan skin gleaming in the golden light of the lamp.