Still, he couldn’t get her out of his head. Her scent. Her eyes. He got chills just thinking about the look she’d given him at Hogshead near the two week mark of her arrival. A week later, and he wasn’t any closer to figuring out how she’d been able to pull him off a fight, or why his beast wanted to get close, or even what he was supposed to do with that urge.
Fuck, had it been nearly a month since he first spotted her? Frightened her, more like it. In the aftermath of dismantling Jasper Crowley’s pride of assholes, he’d marched right for Trent and the others. Covered in blood and high off the victory, he’d stopped dead in his tracks when he caught the scent of the woman cowering behind Lindley.
Fear and sweat had almost hidden her from him. Baked earth of too many lions had clouded the air, too. But under it all, the thin thread of juniper in the moonlight after a passing storm made him pay attention in ways he hadn’t thought possible after losing Hannah.
Rhys didn’t know why his animal had latched onto her. He’d had a mate. He wanted to return to the years and life he’d lost, but they’d been stolen with the blast of a rifle.
Nothing had made any damn sense in the six years since, but the last three weeks topped even that.
His lion growled and tried to fill his head with sunshine and rainbows and frolicking baby goats, but he knew the truth. He didn’t have a happy ending waiting for him. Thinking otherwise was proof of how far off the path he’d wandered.
The distant sound of engines kicking to life buzzed in the air. The sound grew stronger, and the crunch of wheels on snow joined the mix. Rhys rolled his shoulders when the first truck came into view.
Game time.
He hated the first meetings after Trent let him out of the cave. Didn’t matter if he spent the night or lingered there for days, slowly losing his shit with every damn exhale, they always went one of two ways.
The first, the others nagged and pestered and mostly acted as if he hadn’t snapped and tried to rip their heads from their bodies. He didn’t mind those so much. Depending on how long he’d been left in isolation and the way the wind ruffled his inner lion’s mane, he could even dish out his own serving of shit and play along.
Seeing them cast long looks in his direction set his teeth on edge. Those glances from the sides of their eyes made him feel like a rabid dog released in their midst. If they stayed still long enough, maybe they’d get out of the encounter without a bite.
They weren’t wrong. He was fucking crazy. He spent enough time locked behind bars to call the cave a second home. Sometimes he wished they’d blow the entrance with him trapped inside. Better that way. Safer for everyone. His claws would finally be kept out of innocent hides.
Trent needed to put him down. If he had any decency left, he’d either ask for it himself or disappear in the middle of the night.
He wanted a drink. Or ten. Maybe a fight. Or twelve. He needed to ground the restless agitation coursing through his entire body before it broke out of his control.
“Aw, shit,” Dash called out as he dropped out of his truck. A quick wince passed across his face as he landed—a souvenir from Lindley’s teeth the night Kyla was stolen out from under their noses and returned with Sage. “Who let this chucklefuck back into the world?”
“Probably some asshole morally obligated to believe in second, third, and five thousandth chances,” Lindley griped with a slam of his door. “Wouldn’t know anything about that, eh, Trent?”
Trent lifted a middle finger. “Not me. I’m hoping he eats you for real next time. I’ll take silence over the nonstop complaints of how he almost gnawed your arm off.”
“Gladly,” Rhys swung his attention to the pride’s second, and flashed a grin with too many teeth.
The others barked laughs as Lindley scowled. Rhys tried to relax, but wishing away his irritation never worked. Fuck, if he could do that, he’d never spend another night in that damn cave or wake on four feet after his lion stole his skin.
His inner beast snarled over the whispered memories of lessons on owning his shit and knowing when to eat crow.
Fuck that. He’d eaten actual crow before. Gamey, foul birds. Too smart for their own good. Bones stuck in the back of his throat, just like Dash’s would if he didn’t keep his damn mouth shut.
That was his existence. Distilled down to nothing but bones and tallow, he was fury. He jumped from one annoyance to the next, snapping more often than not. All the lessons on knowing when to use the carrot or the stick were so deeply buried, they might as well have been a dream of another life.
Just like the blue eyes that haunted him.
The door of Trent’s den banged open and three more figures sauntered into the chilly winter evening. Hailey, at the head, twiddled her fingers and jumped down the stairs. “Hello, pretty kitties,” she called with a smile. “We thought we heard you pull up.”
Behind her, Sage stepped outside. Or rather, Kyla guided her with their arms linked at their elbows, but he wasn’t focused on Lindley’s mate. The tall, auburn-haired woman with green eyes she kept glued to the ground held his entire attention.
She looked absolutely gorgeous.
She’d braided her hair that day, one of those fancy ones that pulled strands from the top of her head. The end result was a rope as thick as his wrist that hung over one shoulder. Tight jeans clung to her thighs. The green of her sweater brought out the red in her hair. That, too, fit snugly against her curves. He dragged his eyes down her tall frame, then right back up again, not
