Jacob had a look on his face, a lost look. “Maybe you can bring our beasts, but if you do we’ll fall on each other and either fight over you, or both fuck you. Either way we might not hear the other phone calls. We might miss calling off our shooters on your other men. They might kill them not because we want them to, but because we missed the call.”
Nicky breathed against my hair, “Put your beast in the deep freeze, Anita, please.” He was holding me tight enough that I knew his body was happy to be pressed against mine. He meant the please.
My skin felt so hot, but it didn’t feel bad like a fever; it felt wonderful. Part of me wondered what it might be like to finally give in and shift, but not today. I couldn’t afford to think that today.
Jacob’s phone started ringing as if on cue. He looked at me. “I have to get this, and you have to regain your control.” He kept his grip on my face, but used his other hand to get his phone out of his pocket.
He watched my face like he’d memorize it, but spoke: “Stand down, just follow and observe.” He started to put the phone away, but it rang again. “Yeah, no, just observe, just follow. Stand down until further orders.”
I realized that was three calls. All of them were safe unless Jacob called back and told them to shoot them. Him dead or unable to phone would fix that.
“Chill,” Nicky said, “chill, damn it.” His words made sense, but he was starting to nuzzle my hair. The lioness had slowed and was sniffing the air. I ground my hips into Nicky just a little bit. He made a soft wordless sound.
“Shit,” Jacob said. He moved his free hand along my neck until he found the hilt of the big knife under my hair and jacket. He got a handful of my hair, moving it out of the way as he drew the knife out. Nicky moved back enough for him to do it. The size of the blade put more of a damper on their amour than anything I could have done.
Jacob held it up to the light. It gleamed, and the edge was as sharp as it looked. “This is as big as her forearm; how the fuck did you miss it?”
Nicky blinked up at the blade. “I was searching her when the lioness did its thing. My bad.”
Jacob sighed, and lowered the blade. I couldn’t read the look on his face. It was partly sad and partly something else. “It’s okay, Nicky. You’ve never been around a Regina when she’s in heat. A pride can tear itself apart before she picks a mate.”
The lioness rolled onto her back, rolling on the ground like any cat. It made me writhe against Nicky, and he didn’t exactly fight the sensation. I was going to lose control, and sex would be the least of what we might do. I tried to think.
“My first pride died that way, because the Regina wanted the strongest Rex, so she waited for the winner. I promised myself I would keep my men away from shit like that.”
Nicky changed his grip, letting me have my arms, picking me up around the waist, lifting me off the ground. My hands went to his arm, holding on, but not fighting. I was out of weapons. What would help me? What would help me stop them? I mean, I was good at sex, or so the men in my life told me, but good enough to make them turn down a shitload of money and betray their other men? I wasn’t that good. No one was that good. If sex wouldn’t help me, I had to stop what was happening. Chill, he had said. I tried to call my necromancy, like I had in the restaurant, but the lion was too loud in my head. I could smell lion. I think it was Nicky, but it was as if the world were drowning in the thick musk of it. I couldn’t breathe past it. I didn’t want cold blood, I wanted hot.
Nicky collapsed onto the leather couch with me under him. The height difference meant that he wasn’t lined up for anything, but his hands slipped under my skirt, and I struggled out from under him, spilling myself to the carpet. Nicky stayed on the couch, staring at me with one wide eye, his breathing labored.
I crawled backward away from him, and he let me, but I’d forgotten about the other lion. It was too careless for words, but I wasn’t thinking clearly. The lioness was eating what made me me. I understood in that moment that I didn’t have to shift to lose myself. I crawled into Jacob’s legs and started forward, but he reached down, grabbed my arms, and pulled me to my feet. I was suddenly staring into his face from inches away as he bent that tall body down to me. He said, “Oh, God.” It was more a cry for help than a sound of passion.
I felt his other arm move and went to block it without thinking. My hand traced down his arm to find my knife. “Is this really what you want to stick in me, Jacob?”
He swallowed so hard it sounded painful. “Don’t do this.”
“You first,” I whispered.
“What?”
“Call off your cats, don’t earn the second half of Bennington ’s money.”
He shook his head. “You aren’t my queen yet.”
Nicky came behind me, hands sliding over my back. Jacob growled at him, but the younger man said, “We don’t have to fight. She shares just fine.” He ground himself into me from behind, shoving me against Jacob. I was suddenly held between both of them, and they were both hard and ready. I couldn’t help but react to it, writhing between the two of them. It was Jacob who pulled me back from the other man, and said, “I’m Rex of this pride. I don’t share.”
“That’s what destroyed your first pride,” Nicky said. “Didn’t you learn anything from that?”
“I learned that if you are king, then be king.” He kissed me, hard and fierce, so that I had to open my mouth, let him inside, or he’d have cut my lips on my teeth. He was all hands and mouth and need. My lioness didn’t like him. She snarled inside my head. He didn’t share; the pride was all about sharing. My life was all about sharing. The group mattered more than anything else. The group had to survive.
I pushed him back enough to break the kiss. I snarled into his face. “I rule myself! I don’t need another king.”
Something crashed into him, and I had a breath to realize it was Nicky, and then they were rolling on the ground fighting for real. I didn’t stay to watch. Jacob had dropped my big blade. I picked it up and ran for the door that Bennington had gone through. If he died, the job died with him. That worked for me.
A lion roared behind me, and I didn’t look back to see who it was, but I used the speed that my beasts had given me and ran. I had the speed but not all the senses, so I had a second before the door opened and I was staring at a tall, dark-haired man. He smelled like lion. The blade struck out in a blur of silver. Action was so far ahead of thought that I had sliced him from ribs to belt, and was starting to bring the knife back for a second blow, as his fist struck out at me. I was able to move back a little, but the speed was too much, and I was too committed to moving forward. His fist blurred out and hit me in the face. It was like being hit by a baseball bat: pressure, momentum, no pain, just a stop. The inside of my head just stopped like my brain had run into a wall. There wasn’t even time to think, Oh, he hit me. It was just the blow and I was down. The lights went out and so did I.
The first sensation I had was of bare dirt under my hands. The ground was cool against the backs of my thighs through the hose. I could feel walls around me, that enclosed feeling, but there was a thread of wind as if there were a window open somewhere. The wind smelled of trees and grass. The dirt smelled fresh and cool. A few night insects called, sluggish in the unusually cool summer temperatures. I drew in a bigger breath, and smelled soap and af tershave, and under that the nose-tickling scent of lion. That made me open my eyes to the sloping roof of a shed. The window above me was partially broken, and there were plenty of gaps between the boards on the walls, so the wind eased through at will. I heard the wind in tall trees high above us. It was blowing harder higher up. I’d expected whatever werelion was guarding me to say something, but I had to turn my head slowly to find Nicky sitting beside me in the dark. He had his knees drawn up to his chest, hugging them, his cheek resting on them so his good eye could see me. The moon was bright enough through the broken windows to let me see him clearly. The brightness of it reminded me that it was only two days until full moon. That might have been one reason they had so much trouble with my beast. The closer to full moon, the harder it was to control your beast.