She’d known she was leaving it undefended when she’d stolen, or rather borrowed, the jeep and driven off the ranch. But, at the time, she hadn’t planned on ever coming back.
Still, just because she’d walked away without a backward glance and hadn’t been home for seven months didn’t mean she was okay with someone else sleeping in her bed.
“You actually intend to stay?” Caleb asked.
“I have unfinished business.”
And she’d been so lonely outside the pride; she’d discovered that homesickness could actually make you physically ill.
This was her home. She wasn’t about to let some undersized bitch and the undersized bitch’s demented Alpha lover run her off.
Caleb must have seen her resolve in her expression. He sighed heavily, the poor put-upon Hercules, and turned to walk toward the ranch. “Come on,” he called over his shoulder, not even glancing at the bags piled into the back of the jeep.
She grabbed the knapsack she’d packed with the absolute essentials and moved quickly in front of him, putting an extra little twitch in her walk just for his viewing pleasure. As she strutted toward the only place that had ever been home with the only man who had ever tied her up in knots marching along behind her, she thought she heard him mutter something under his breath, but she must have been mistaken. It had sounded a lot like, “Today’s as good a day as any to commit suicide.”
Chapter Two
Caleb had told her he wasn’t suicidal, but there was no other explanation for what he was doing.
Shana was back. And he was taking her toward the ranch. Where she would be staying. Indefinitely.
He groaned aloud at the thought.
She looked like hell, but Shana looking like hell was still Shana—still hot enough to have him half-hard from the second he’d scented her in the night.
Caleb shot off a quick prayer of thanks to whatever unnamed gods were listening that he’d been patrolling in human form. Facing her for the first time in seven months stark naked after a shift was not an experience he ever wanted to have.
She sashayed along the rutted drive leading to the ranch’s main compound, swinging her tight little ass. Her long red hair was loose, the ends flicking around her hips like tongues of flame. Most lionesses were blonde, their hair perfectly matching the color of their pelts, but Shana had to be different in every way. She stood out like a fire in the desert, unique and untamable. And dangerous as all hell.
The memory of those flame-red tresses tangling around him as they slept rose up in his mind, but he shook it away.
She was a viper. No matter how lush her body was. No matter how intoxicating her scent or how wicked the things she could do with her tongue.
Caleb barely bit back another groan. If only memories were as easy to fight as enemies.
She never once glanced back at him as they walked, but he knew she was aware of him. Unfortunately, the feeling was mutual. He’d always been hyperaware of her. His body had never cared that she’d become a soulless, manipulative bitch.
The entrance to the ranch’s residential compound rose in front of them. There was nothing ostentatious or distinctive about the low, open gate bordered by a cattle guard. Nothing to indicate there was anything extraordinary about the group of families who lived and worked at this particular ranch.
None of the nearby landowners or businessmen in the small town twenty miles down the road had any idea the residents of the Three Rocks Ranch could take the shape of menacing predators. Through the constant vigilance of the pride and with the help of a few technological gadgets Caleb didn’t pretend to understand, no one in their little corner of Texas had any idea fifty lion shape-shifters lived among them.
Fifty-one.
As Shana swung her ass through the gate, she turned her head toward the large tree where the gate guard would be perched in lion form. Caleb saw her flash a small feline smile in the guard’s direction and give a little shimmy.
The sound of claws scrabbling for purchase on wood sounded from the tree a fraction of a second before a young male lion with his mane not fully grown in hit the ground with a thud.
Shana gave a low, wicked laugh that was like claws scraping up Caleb’s spine. The juvenile male leapt back into the branches. Caleb closed the distance between himself and the troublemaker, making a mental note to talk to Landon about giving young Ryan a less critical post if he was going to be felled every time a lioness looked his way.
Caleb ignored the fact that he would have probably fallen out of the damn tree too, if he’d seen Shana walking through that gate again after seven months.
He caught her arm and nudged her toward the mess hall, where the rest of the pride was likely still gathered after dinner. The Three Rocks Ranch had originally been built as a summer camp and the communal dining arrangement worked well for a lion pride.
Shana slid her arm out of his grip and headed toward the hall. Caleb let her go, his fingers tingling from the touch of her bare skin, even as he wondered what kind of a fool wore a tank top in a snowstorm. Their body temperature might be a couple degrees higher than a human’s, but that didn’t make them impervious to cold. She could come down with hypothermia just as easily as the humans she looked down on.
Not that he cared. Not that he was concerned for her. She’d done far too much to kill any feelings he’d ever had for her.
The mess hall was by far the largest building on the compound. Light and the raucous sounds of the pride spilled out of it into the night through windows kept open, even in a snowstorm.
He knew Shana too well to expect she would betray any sign of hesitation. She didn’t disappoint.
She strode up the steps and threw open the double doors, head held high, the queen returning.
The reaction to her entrance was instantaneous. Silence rippled out around her until the only sound was the scrape of chairs as those in the back of the hall stood, craning for a better look.
She slammed her hands onto her hips and scanned the room, aggression in every line of her body. Caleb tensed, ready to tackle her to the ground if she went for his sister’s throat, but her eyes passed right over Ava, dismissing the Alpha’s new mate.
Instead, her eyes locked on the more dominant females, who bristled under her challenging glare. One or two dropped their eyes in submission, but more than would have dared only months before met her eyes head-on.
“That’s right,” she snapped. “I’m back. Now, which one of you bitches stole my house?”
Shana kept her eyes locked in prepare-to-have-your-ass-kicked fashion on the three most likely bungalow thieves. She heard the door shut behind her and felt Caleb’s heat as he crowded behind her—doubtless so he could take her down before she could rip out any throats—but she didn’t blink.
Loralee finally dropped her eyes, but Shana made note of the fact that the uppity little bitch had dared question her dominance for as long as she had. Mara didn’t last nearly as long, which left only Zoe.
Shana felt a growl start low in her throat. She should have known it would be Zoe who’d stolen her slot in pride dominance. The Alpha’s bitch sister had been asking for an ass-kicking for too long.
Shana hadn’t challenged Zoe when she and Landon first joined the pride, because she’d been trying to butter up the Alpha and snag the slot as his mate. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t take the Viking bitch down. The blonde may be just a fraction bigger and stronger than Shana in her lioness form, but Shana was fast and she fought dirty. As Zoe was about to learn.