Serengeti Heat (8 page)

Shana wasn’t trying to hide though. She very much wanted her presence to be known.

One of the few lions Ava had ever seen whose hair didn’t match her pelt, the tall, muscular redhead stood in front of Ava’s vanity. Gilded by the sunlight streaming through the window, Shana was breathtaking, statuesque and completely self-assured. She toyed with a piece of jewelry, unconcerned by the threat of the white lioness crouched only a few feet away.

“Oh, don’t stop on my account,” Shana said, waving a hand magnanimously. “By all means, change.”

As Shana did not seem inclined to give her privacy, Ava didn’t see much of an alternative. She shifted into her human form, straightening the kinks out of her spine that always seemed to accompany the shift, and turned to pull a sundress out of the closet and over her head. She turned back to Shana, clothed, but by no means comfortable.

“What do you want?” she asked bluntly.

She realized her error as soon as Shana’s eyes flared with surprise. “My, my, look who’s finally grown some teeth.” Shana let the pendant in her hands drop to spin at the end of the chain. “Are you so certain your lover will protect you, little Ava? He isn’t known for being steadfast. Trust me.”

Ava fought not to wince visibly. It had been foolish to hope no one would know about her night with Landon and downright idiocy to think the other females vying for position with him would not respond to her implied threat to their aspirations. She should have known that Shana would come to take her down a peg. She just hadn’t expected the reminder that Landon had slept with the gorgeous redhead to sting quite so viciously.

“No comment? Don’t tell me you’ve lost your courage already? Poor little Ava.”

She continued to spin the pendant and Ava’s eyes flicked down, attracted by the movement, then held by recognition. It was hers. Ava had bought the green-gold stone in town less than a month ago on impulse. The setting was simple, the stone itself not particularly valuable, but Ava hadn’t been able to put it down.

It was the exact shade of Landon’s eyes.

Apparently, Shana had recognized the color as well, rifling through Ava’s meager jewelry box as she waited for her to return.

“Quite pretty, this,” she remarked, too casually for Ava’s comfort. “I think I might borrow it. It would flatter me, don’t you think? Maybe I’ll wear it tonight.”

“Tonight?”

Shana laughed, not kindly. “Little Ava, don’t tell me you’ve forgotten. Tonight is the Midsummer Hunt.” She gave a feline smile. “I know he hasn’t said anything, but speculation has been going around that the Alpha will name his mate tonight.” She held the pendant up against her throat. “I’ll look fetching standing beside him wearing this, don’t you think?”

Ava couldn’t speak. She knew Landon hadn’t given Shana any reason to think she would be his consort, but the larger lioness’s acid-tipped words brought home the reality of the situation. She knew better than to stand up for herself and try to take back the pendant. Shana was bigger and stronger and never turned down a fight, no matter how petty.

A wave of defeat swamped her. Ava couldn’t even keep possession of one worthless little pendant. How was she supposed to keep order in the tribe as the Alpha’s consort?

Landon would choose another. And apparently, he would do it tonight. In time for his new mate to lead the Hunt.

“Well, I’ll be off then,” Shana said brightly. “You don’t mind if I borrow this, do you.”

It was not a question. Ava kept her head down, as the larger, notoriously temperamental and aggressive redhead stalked out of her home, spinning the “borrowed” stone pendant in her hands.

After the fantasy of last night, reality’s brutality stung. Ava curled up on the floor beside her twin bed, determined not to cry.

***

It was galling enough when Landon realized he didn’t know where the woman he wanted to make his mate lived. Doubly so when he had to go knocking on his little sister’s door to get directions.

Zoe opened the door on the first knock and leaned against the frame, scraps of shredded denim dangling from one finger. “Missing something?”

Landon felt an unfamiliar heat rushing to his face when he recognized Ava’s mangled jeans. He snatched them out of Zoe’s hand and shoved them behind his back, though that did nothing to lessen his sister’s knowing smirk. “I need you to tell me which bungalow is Ava’s.”

Zoe shot him the look she had perfected as a toddler. The how-is-it-possible-I-share-a-genetic-code-with-this-moron look. “You don’t know where she lives?” she asked incredulously.

He ignored the question, waiting and hoping she would give up the information without a hassle.

She folded her arms and frowned at him. “Why do you need to see her so badly? What did you say to her?”

So much for that hope. “I’m not in the mood for games, Zo. Just tell me where she is.” He had to find Ava and convince her she belonged with him. Preferably before her brothers returned to rip his arms from their sockets.

Zoe glowered at him, unimpressed by his demand. “It’s a game if I want to make sure you haven’t hurt my friend before I sic you on her?”

“I would never hurt her. You know that.”

“You wouldn’t smack her around or anything, but you’re still just a big dumb man and big dumb men say stupid, hurtful things all the time. Did you really tell her you thought she was unsuitable?”

Landon winced. “That was a misunderstanding.”

“And why’d she run off without telling you where to find her? Was that a misunderstanding too?”

“Her brothers showed up,” he gritted out.

Zoe’s face tightened. “Meddlesome punks. Trust them to ruin everything.” She shoved herself away from the doorframe and sent an acid glare in the general direction of the Minor brothers’ bungalows. “Ava’s place is on the south edge of the ranch. It’s that little cabin. You know, the one that looks like a stiff wind would blow it right over.”

Landon knew the place, but it had never occurred to him that anyone might actually live in the shack. Let alone Ava.

He made his way to the southern edge of the compound, giving the Minor brothers’ turf a wide berth. He drew up short when he saw Ava’s cabin—and the hot-tempered lion standing guard on her rickety front porch.

Ava’s youngest brother, Michael, snapped to attention and spun to face him when the breeze carrying his scent alerted him to Landon’s presence.

“Get away from here!” Michael roared. His hands broke out into claws as his temper called up his most predatory form.

Landon shoved the wadded up remains of Ava’s jeans behind his back and raised his other hand in classic surrender. He approached slowly. “I just need to talk to her.”

“I said get away!” Michael’s spine bowed as his lion form struggled to break free.

Landon’s own lion instincts rose in response, the urge to shift and fight nearly overwhelming. “Don’t think you can keep me from her, cub,” he heard himself growl.

Michael bared his teeth in a snarl. He tensed to spring and Landon braced himself to take the impact.

“Stop it, both of you!”

Ava appeared on the porch behind her brother, her pale gray eyes flashing.

“Go back inside, Ava,” Michael ordered without turning. “This doesn’t concern you.”

Bad call, buddy
.

All of Ava’s ire honed in on her brother. “It doesn’t
concern
me? I’m the
only
one this concerns. Get off my porch, Michael.”

Michael appeared to realize—much too late—that he had erred. “I didn’t mean—”

“I said get away,” she snapped. “I can talk to whoever I want.”

“But Tyler said…”

“Leave!”

Michael left, but not before he cast one last threatening glare at Landon.

When he was gone, Landon came forward, drawn toward Ava, until the look she shot him froze him in place.

“Just because I don’t want him around, it doesn’t mean I want you here.”

Landon thought wistfully of the woman who had curled around him so warm and accepting in her sleep. There was no trace of her in the forbidding glower of the woman on the porch.

“I come in peace,” he offered lightly, extending the tattered denim toward her.

A flicker of a smile tried to break through Ava’s glare and failed. “That’s a pretty pathetic peace offering.”

Levity hadn’t worked, so he tried a more serious tack. He met her wary eyes directly, urging her to see his determination. “We have more to say to one another, Ava.”

The expression that tried to break through her anger this time was heartbreakingly sad and utterly resigned. “I’ve said all I have to say.”

“I haven’t.”

For a second that seemed to drag on forever, he thought she would turn him away. Then she shrugged and stepped aside, nodding toward the narrow doorway. “Come in then.”

He had to duck to cross the threshold and, once inside, he couldn’t straighten fully without knocking his head on the exposed beams of the ceiling. He felt like a bull in a china shop, his shoulder nearly knocking a small framed photo of Ava and her brothers off the wall when he turned to study the space she had made her home. In spite of the shabby exterior, Ava’s cabin had a cozy, if unimpressive, charm. An unassuming hominess.

She stepped into the tiny room behind him and closed the door. As soon as it clicked shut, the memory of the last time they’d been alone together rose in his mind. The room was saturated in her scent and his body reacted to it, his instincts screaming that she was
his
.

Now all he had to do was convince her of that fact. The confident temptress who had seduced him last night was gone. In her place was a meek waif who refused to meet his eyes.

She leaned against the door and fidgeted with the knick-knacks on the window ledge to her right. “So, this is the reality,” she said, waving a carved lion figurine at the room at large. “Small.”

“It suits you.” He saw her face close off and internally winced. Evidently not the right thing to say. As she continued to fidget and glance around the room, blushing and squirming, he realized with a jolt she was ashamed of her home, even though it seemed homey and somehow perfectly
her
to him. “I like it. It’s cozy.”

The look she shot him was saturated with disbelief, but she didn’t come right out and call him a liar. He wasn’t sure if that was progress or not.

“When Zoe and I lived without a pride, we didn’t have much of anything. You learn to appreciate the things that make a place a home.” He carefully straightened the photo he’d knocked askew.

She continued to fidget and he reached out to rescue the lion carving she was twisting to death. She snatched her hands behind her back when he brushed her fingers, relinquishing the carving without a fight.

The wooden figure was small enough fit in the palm of his hand, but the details were so intricate and the artisan so skilled, he could immediately identify the form. It was a miniature replica of her brother Tyler as a crouching lion.

“Amazing,” he murmured to himself. He noted a dozen similar figures, each readily identifiable, scattered on ledges around the room. “You like carvings?”

She flushed and squirmed, but this time there was a quiet pride beneath her nervous fidgeting.

Landon smiled broadly. “You made this? It’s beautiful.” He stepped toward her, brushing his thumb across her cheek. “My little Ava has a hidden talent.”

Her pleasure at his praise visibly evaporated and she flinched away from his touch. “I’m not your little Ava.”

That remained to be determined.

“Fantasy time is over, Landon,” she went on coldly. “We’re back in the real world now and in the real world I live in the smallest cabin on the ranch. Not because it’s
cozy
. Because I am the smallest, weakest, most pathetic lioness around and I can’t fight for a better one.”

She waved one arm, the gesture taking in all the little possessions that made the place her own. “These things are only mine because no one else wants them enough to bother to take them from me. And you think, what? That I’m your
queen
? Wake up, Landon.”

He caught her waving hand and linked their fingers, holding tight when she tried to yank free. “I think you’re my mate.
You
are what I need. You’re right for me and right for the pride.”

He tipped her face back with the hand that still held her carving, staring into her eyes, searching their depths for the secret key that would unlock her doubts. He wanted nothing more than to kiss away her fears, but the wildness in her eyes held him at bay. He may be the Alpha now, but he knew fear.

“I’ve lived wild, Ava, without the protection of the pride. I understand picking your battles.”

“I don’t pick my battles.” She knocked his hand away from her face and jerked her fingers from his hold. “I
fear
battles. Your mate can’t be a coward, Landon. And that’s all I’ll ever be.”

“Ava, I don’t—”

“Why are you doing this, Land—?” Her voice broke on his name. She shoved away from him and moved as far away from him as she could in the cramped space. “You can’t actually want me. Is this some kind of game to you?”

Tears trembled on her lashes. All her barriers were down. She gazed at him with a vulnerability that made his heart ache in his chest. He reached toward her, aching to pull her into his arms and protect her from everything that could ever hurt her. Even himself.

“Ava, no. Of course n—”

“
Landon!
”

The roar came from Ava’s porch, giving Landon just enough time to jump out of the way before the door exploded inward, flying off its hinges as the Minor brothers stormed into the already crowded cabin.

Michael was back. And he’d brought reinforcements.

There was no more terrifying sight, objectively speaking, than the four behemoth older brothers of the woman one had recently screwed in every way physically imaginable coming at you with murder in their eyes. Unless it was the sight of the woman you love in tears.

Landon braced himself for the beating he so richly deserved.

He was mildly surprised when fists didn’t immediately start flying toward his face.

“Outside! No brawling in my house!”