“You have the blood of kings in your veins, Shana,” her mother mumbled dreamily, downing the Scotch like it was apple juice. “You were born to be the Alpha’s mate.”
“Yes, Mother.”
“You’re the strongest, Shana-bay. No one can take anything from you that you don’t let them take. That’s the beauty of the pride.”
Shana studied the worn shag rug to keep from responding.
Strength was the curse of the pride. Nothing was sure unless you were the strongest. And not even then. Her mother had been the strongest and look what had become of her. She’d won the Alpha as her mate and fought hard to keep him, but it hadn’t lasted. Nothing did.
Lions rarely mated for life. The strong fought for the right to the best mates. In the pride, mating wasn’t just about procreation. It was about politics and dominance. Brenna’s position hadn’t been based on the Alpha’s love or devotion, but on her ability to dominate the other females.
In her prime, Brenna had proven over and over again that she deserved to be queen. She’d ruled. And she had wanted nothing less for her daughter. Glory. Power.
Choosing a mate wasn’t about love. It wasn’t marriage. It was survival of the species. The pride’s version of a divorce was more often than not a brutal brawl that left the unworthy without mating rights. The birth control shots the pride doctor provided could be a punishment for the weak just as easily as they could be prevention for lionesses like Shana.
For the first time in years, Shana found herself wondering whether her parents had loved one another. She could barely remember them together. And from the way Brenna spoke of the old days, love didn’t matter. Tradition mattered.
The same tradition that demanded Shana honor the man who had killed her father to become the new Alpha.
She’d been spoon-fed tradition from the cradle, but it seemed only recently she’d begun to hate the word.
“Why would you leave, Shana? Why would you walk away from the pride?” Brenna’s eyes locked on hers, the sudden eerie clarity in them warning Shana to brace herself. “How dare you run away?” The words lashed out like a whip, cracking in the air. “This is a proud family. We rule this pride. We. Do. Not. Run. How could you sully your father’s name that way?”
Shana locked down, pulling tight into herself. As a teenager, sometimes she would shout back. Scream that her mother had destroyed their father’s legacy more surely than she ever could, but the shouting only seemed to make Brenna’s rages that much worse.
She’d been young when Leonus killed her father and assumed control of the pride. Only seven. She barely remembered the proud legacy her mother had dangled over her head for decades. She barely remembered a mother who hadn’t crawled into a bottle each morning.
The drinking hadn’t been so bad at first. “Just something to take the edge off, Shana-bay.” But during Shana’s teen years, Brenna had fallen to the bottom of a well of booze and never found her way out again.
“Are you listening to me, Shana? Listen to me!”
The scream was close to her ear. Brenna had launched herself out of the armchair and stood, weaving, beside Shana’s chair.
“I’m listening, Mother.”
She always listened. The words pounded like spikes into her brain, bloodily embedded there forever, but she’d never been able to stop listening. No matter how hard she tried.
“You are the Alpha’s rightful mate. You are the queen of this pride. You should be ruling and what do you do? You run away!”
“I know, Mama. I’m sorry.”
“Apologies are for the weak! Lionesses do not apologize. Queens do not apologize. But you aren’t a queen, are you? You’re nothing more than a coward and a slut.”
Shana flinched. That word again, slashing at her viciously.
“Oh? It bothers you to be told the truth of what you are? Slut. Did you think I didn’t know you lifted your tail for every lion in the goddamn pride and half the nomads to pass through?”
No. She’d never thought her mother didn’t know. They’d had this conversation a thousand times, but she didn’t expect her mother’s alcohol-sodden brain to remember that. Any more than she expected her to remember that it was Brenna herself who had urged Shana to go after most of those men. “That one looks strong, Shana. He’ll be a good Alpha. He could challenge Leonus. He just needs a little push. The right kind of push.”
“Did it make you happy to shame your father and me with your promiscuity?”
A sarcastic smile curved Shana’s mouth. “Cats are promiscuous, Mother.”
Brenna’s hand snaked out, slapping her hard across the cheek. Her head turned with the blow.
Shana pulled deeper into herself, feeling the ties to her childhood mother, that sober memory from her early years, snapping painfully tight around her. Her mother had never hit her before. She loved her. That was why she pushed so hard.
“Queens are not promiscuous, Shana. Queens are virginal and pure.”
Queens were sluts who knew better than to get caught or had the power to behead the ones who spoke against them, but Shana kept her lips closed tight over that thought. She’d learned her lesson about disagreeing.
“Are you a queen, Shana?” Brenna hissed. “Because all I see is a pathetic little slut who couldn’t get a single lion to fight for her. Did they all see what I see? Did all those men you screwed, hoping to screw them right into the Alpha position, did they all see how pathetic you are? Did they all see a little slut who wasn’t worth fighting for? They did, didn’t they?”
Enough. Shana launched herself off the edge of the chair—don’t get too comfortable, Shay—and shoved past her mother.
“You made me spill!” Brenna wailed. “Shana, get back here!”
Shana blocked out the words, wishing she could wipe her memory of every word her mother had ever said to her. She ran blindly out of Brenna’s bungalow, down the muddy path, away from the rest of the residential compound. She ran until her legs ached and the icy air burned in her lungs. And then she kept running.
Her confrontations with her mother had been bad before, but this had been worse. So much worse. Evidently, Brenna had been saving up her acid for all the months Shana had been gone, building up her vitriol into a seething mass. Shana was a disappointment, Shana was a whore—she’d heard it all before, but this time had been so much worse. No dancing around the subject, just a swift verbal knife to the stomach and a vicious twist.
Why did it still hurt? Why hadn’t she learned not to hurt like she had with all the other things that used to pain her? Why couldn’t she be immune?
Only her mother and Caleb had ever been able to make her burn like this, acid eating at her from the inside out. But with Caleb, at least it was fair. At least she knew she could hurt him back.
Shana spun, breathing hard and running harder. But now, instead of away, she was running toward something. Someone.
She felt wild and unpredictable, a loose electrical cable whipping in the wind, ready to electrocute anyone who stumbled too close. If she couldn’t contain it, at least she could control who she zapped.
He was strong. He could take it.
He was the only one who’d ever been strong enough to take her.
Chapter Five
Caleb shucked off sweaty clothes and stepped into the shower. Maybe the heat of the water could burn away the lingering scent of Shana in his nostrils. Nothing else seemed to.
He’d woken that morning on Shana’s deck with dried blood matted into his fur, but the cuts she’d given him had already closed up. He’d run back to his own place to shift back to human form and grab a change of clothes, not bothering to do more than wash the blood off.
As strong as the urge had been to return to Shana and force her to be good—whatever that meant for someone like her—Caleb busied himself instead with towing the broken-down jeep off the ranch road. When he’d checked back on her at mid-morning, she’d taken off. He could tell the bungalow was empty by the lack of her scent alone.