“Sorry, princess,” he soothed, rising up to cradle her against him. “I couldn’t resist.” Tweaking his mate was only fun when she enjoyed it too.
Her stiff shoulders relaxed. “I do want to know, Anthony. If you’ll tell me. Why aren’t you in a Pride with other weres?”
“My father led our Pride for many seasons, he was a fine warrior, and a cunning leader. He died when I was sixteen…a car accident of all things.” Anthony shook his head. His father met so many challenges during his reign, invaders, wars and a world speeding headlong into a technological age. He adapted and thrived. “He was decapitated.” An injury no tiger could recover from.
“I’m sorry.” She wrapped her arms around him, offering comfort. Cats thrived on touch and Anthony was no different. He pulled her closer, sealing her body to his. The contact kept him grounded.
“It was a difficult time, made more so by my belief that as my father’s eldest son, I should be Alpha.” An assumption many in the Pride shared. Many, but by no means all. “My mother didn’t want me to make the claim, she asked me to let it go. To let others…to let the older males sort it out. True leadership can be found anywhere, and I was still untested and unblooded in battle.”
Her lips pressed against his shoulder, the lightest of kisses. It eased the sting he knew to be coming. The telling of it once eluded him, but his soul quieted, ready to unbind the wound in his soul.
“I didn’t listen. I wanted to be my father’s heir, I wanted to be as admired and as fierce as he. I wanted to know that when I walked in the room, all eyes would turn toward me and that they’d listen when I spoke.” Arrogance and pride were his chosen poisons. “I threw my name into the ring. Only a handful sought the mantle of leadership. But no sooner did I announce my claim than my uncle announced his.”
His father’s brother never indicated any interest until that moment. Old resentments surfaced and Anthony ran his hands up and down her back, in part to remind himself where he was and in part to soothe.
“What happened?” It didn’t matter that the answer was obvious, she gave him the grace of explaining it.
“Many of the contenders withdrew when my uncle announced. He was—is still—well respected within the Pride. He is not an evil man, just…an ambitious one. Only one contender did not withdraw.”
Her quiet sigh was nearly his undoing.
“I thought I would lose face and he was my uncle, not the rightful heir. I was younger, stronger, faster. He was past fifty, I had to have the advantage.”
His Amazon leaned back until their gazes met. “Youth and skill?”
“Unfortunately, neither proved as much of an advantage as I would have liked. My uncle ordered me to stand down, I refused. He ordered me a second time…and I attacked him. My pride cost me my Pride.” His jaw flexed, she eased his loneliness, but the echo of it remained.
“But losing…losing would have just meant he led, not you.” She understood Pride politics.
Pleased, he kissed her gently. “Yes. But I wouldn’t bow to him. I refused to acquiesce the fight. He could have killed me, but out of love for my mother I think, he settled for banishing me.”
“But you were young.” She scowled. “Too young to just be thrown out.”
He expected disgust or at the very least disappointment. “I was old enough to challenge him and old enough to believe it was my right to lead. I think…I think they all hoped I would come crawling back. But if I wasn’t strong enough to take my proper place, I refused to beg for it. So I was alone in the world…and it isn’t a friendly place. I found Nalini in a zoo in Bucharest. I stole her…and I wanted to return her to the mountains, but she wouldn’t leave me. One by one, I found the others…”
“And you started your own traveling circus.” Rose shook her head.
“We’re hardly a circus.” He nipped her lower lip. “They are my Pride now. I couldn’t win the one I was born to, so I built my own. So now, you know my shame.”
Leaning back, she studied him. “Will you go back and challenge him now?”
Another uncomfortable truth, but she deserved to know. “When I realized you were an Amazon, I thought I might. Delivering you to the Pride would be quite a demonstration of strength and it could give me the leverage I need to prove my leadership in battle again.”
“And now?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know that I care enough about leadership to tempt that fight especially when I care more about you…and I’ll kill anyone who tries to take you from me.” Saying it made it real. He didn’t want to disappoint, but it was his truth.
She laughed and hit him in the shoulder. “Leadership isn’t about winning, silly cat. It’s about doing what’s best for your Pride or in my case, my Tribe. You couldn’t follow your uncle, so you didn’t stay. I get that.”
Flipping her over, he leaned down and nuzzled her throat. The slave collar tasted metallic against her skin. He found freedom in baring his soul. He needed to find her freedom next. “I have my cats…and now I have you.”
“Oh?” The arch challenge in her voice sent his blood racing. “Do you really have me?”
“I’m about to.”
She lost count of their couplings. He took her on her knees, on her back, astride him and in his lap. Everywhere his fingers touched, pulses of pleasure flashed through her.
When he moved down her body, his mouth poised at her thighs, she closed her eyes and surrendered. His third mark seared her inner thigh and she shouted his name, coming even as his breath whispered over her clit.
Finally, they were twined together in the soft grass, a breeze cooling their flesh. Her hand stroked lazily across his chest, exploring the ridges of muscle.
The faux sun had traveled through the artificial sky. Around them, the forest rustled. She lifted her gaze at the first flash of white and stared as the tigers drifted out of the mist curling across the forest floor. One by one, they gathered into the clearing, stretching out to greet Anthony and Roseatre by turns, until they were sprawled all around them.
It should have unnerved her, this display of power, of unity, of Pride, but she reached out her fingers to caress Nalini’s sweet face. The tiger seemed to almost smile, her raspy tongue swiping across Roseatre’s fingers in warm welcome.
“They know you’re mine.” Anthony’s husky voice rumbled. The tiger reflected in the cool blue of his eyes. Dear gods, she was his. The thought should have been enough to ice the languid heat still surging in her blood, but she was full to the brim with being his.
“You marked me.”
“Yes, I did. More than once.” A smirk took up residence on his sensuous mouth. Pride at his accomplishment colored his words. He was so damn male.
Her male.
Roseatre sighed. The soft sound stilled Anthony’s features, chilling the ardor of his gaze.
“Are you unhappy with it?” The question was solemn, out of place in their sensuous stupor.
“I should be,” she admitted, hating herself for the flash of pain that steeled his features. “An Amazon mating is fleeting, lasting only until we conceive.”
“But?” Her cat was wise, she’d discovered, pressing past the surface to probe for deeper answers. Answers she wasn’t always willing to share.
“But you marked me.”
His brow furrowed and he tucked a hand behind his head, stretching his magnificent chest. Did he have any idea what the motion of his muscles did to her? Her hungry gaze roamed over him. She wanted to thump her breast and scream it from the cliff top. He was hers.
“You’re crying.” He raised his free hand, gliding it over her cheek, thumb stroking away the moisture she hadn’t even realized was there.
“By marking me, you’ve staked a claim.”
“I’m aware, trust me.” His bearded cheeks dimpled. Pure masculine satisfaction swelling with each word.
