Serengeti Storm

Chapter One

The jeep’s engine coughed and sputtered as the wheels locked in place on the rutted dirt road.

Shana Delray swore and stomped on the gas. When the engine screamed in protest, she slammed the clutch to the floor in a last-ditch attempt to keep the damn thing running. The abused jeep just gave one last bone-jarring hack and died.

“Fuck.”

She cranked the key, but got no response other than a pathetic whinny and a puff of smoke from the direction of the engine block.

“Double fuck.”

So much for her majestic return to the ranch.

Shana breathed warm air onto her freezing hands and glared out the window. The winter night stretched cold and dark around her. Clouds heavy with the threat of snow hung low, almost completely concealing the moon and throwing eerie shadows across the plain.

Shana had never been afraid of things that go bump in the night. Hell, she was one of the things that went bump, a born predator, a lioness shape-shifter. But that didn’t make the prospect of walking the two-plus miles to the ranch compound any more appealing. Especially not lugging her bags and her wounded pride.

She kicked the door open and stepped into the night, shivering even though it was barely a degree colder outside than it had been in the jeep. The heater hadn’t worked for days.

The jeep she’d borrowed seven months ago had survived a desert, a flood, and LA traffic, only to die within miles of home. The radio had met its maker at the county line, dying with a pathetic moan immediately after a report on the Blizzard of the Century about to hit west Texas. Throw in the flat tire she’d gotten a hundred miles back and it looked like the Almighty was bitching at her from on high.

If she believed in signs, she might take it as an omen that her current plan was ill-advised and reverse course.

Shana gritted her teeth. The signs could go suck it. She was here for revenge and she wasn’t leaving until she got what was coming to her.

Flipping down the tailgate, she dug into her bags, shuffling things around. She’d take the essentials now and send someone back for the rest. There was no way in hell she was gonna show up carting all her possessions on her back like some damned beggar girl.

The icy wind shifted direction, swirling around her and teasing her nose with the familiar scents of the ranch. Earth and hay and that subtle, sexy musk of male lion… That scent…

Shana spun to face the wind, crouching defensively and snarling as she scanned the horizon. Her heart drummed wildly as a dark figure slowly straightened out of the tall grass along the side of the drive, no longer bothering to hide now that she’d scented him.

“Caleb.”

She’d meant his name to sound like a biting epithet, but it caught in her throat, emerging on a hoarse whisper instead.

Why did it have to be him patrolling the land tonight?

Her memory had betrayed her. He looked even more edible than she remembered. Dammit.

Caleb Minor stalked toward her through the grass with a deliberate, feline grace belied by his extreme size. He was massive. Six-and-a-half feet tall with broad, heavily muscled shoulders. He could have easily looked like a gorilla, but the rest of his big body balanced the impressive strength so obviously on display in those shoulders. He was built like a Mack truck, but a very sexy, proportional Mack truck.

In spite of the cold of the night, he wore only a paper-thin, long-sleeved shirt that hugged the contours of his chest and a pair of khaki drawstring pants. The clothing was designed to be quickly discarded should he need to shift and fight. Shana dragged her thoughts away from other reasons he might need to get naked.

His hair was shaggier than when she’d last seen him, but still as dark and thick as a mane. It looked black in the night, but she knew when the sun hit it, or when he shifted into his lion form, streaks of red and brown would thread through the black, drawing the eye and making her fingers itch to bury themselves there.

He stopped in front of her, too close for human comfort, but still oddly distant for lions who traded touch so casually. She’d straightened slowly from her partial crouch as he approached and now met his gaze with a mocking arch of one eyebrow.

“Well, if it isn’t little Shana. Back to cause more trouble, princess?”

Since that was exactly what she was back to do, Shana ignored the question as rhetorical. “Well, if it isn’t big-assed Caleb. Still the Alpha’s loyal lapdog?”

He bared his teeth on a hiss—no lion tolerated being called a dog. “At least I didn’t run off in a pout because things didn’t go my way.”

Shana bared her own teeth. “I do not pout, Fido. And you have no idea why I left.”

He snorted. “Oh, I have a pretty good idea. My baby sister married the man you were trying to wrestle to the altar and you ran off to lick your wounds. Stop me any time this starts to sound familiar.”

“Marriage.” She spat the word. “Such a ridiculously human word. Is your pint-sized sister too squeamish to claim Landon as her mate?”

Caleb folded his thick arms across his chest. “Actually, it was his idea. The Alpha’s trying to humanize us. Didn’t you hear his plan? Oh, no, that’s right. You were too busy running away.”

The look he shot her was icy with condescension. Scathing and contemptuous.

No man looked at her like that. Shana was a goddess. She was what all men desired but could never deserve, not some pathetic creature to be pitied.

She refused to explain herself to him. Goddesses did not explain.

“Get my bags, Alpo. It’s cold. I don’t want to spend all night listening to you embarrass yourself with your ludicrous theories.”

“You think I give a shit what you want?”

She ground her molars. Men did not swear at goddesses. Even rough-edged men like Caleb Minor. It was time to remind him that she was not a creature to be pitied. She wasn’t that lost little girl anymore, begging him to save her.

Hell, she could use that reminder herself.

Shana drew herself up to her full height. She would have towered over an average female, and most men, but she still had to tip her head back to meet Caleb’s chilling gaze. She tossed her long, flame-red hair and arched her back, thrusting out her breasts and seeing his gaze flicker down for just a fraction of a second before locking again on her eyes. Caleb was all about discipline, but he was far from immune to her. She wet her lips and lowered her lashes, searing him with a sultry, melting look.

“You used to care what I wanted,” she reminded him throatily, drenching the words in sex. “You used to beg to be allowed to please me.” She traced one finger over the tightly flexed muscle of his forearm. “Don’t you remember how good I can make it, lover?”

“You’re a praying mantis,” he growled. “I don’t have that suicidal urge anymore.”

She stroked down his stomach to brush her fingers across the rock-hard ridge growing beneath those drawstring pants. He may not be suicidal, but he definitely had the urge. “Oh, honey…” she purred, “…you know I’m always very careful with my teeth. I would never bite the head off.”

His fingers closed vise-tight around her wrist, jerking it away before she could press against his erection like she wanted. “Still the slut, I see.”

Shana flinched in spite of herself. Why did it always hurt when he said it? It was just a word. She’d been called worse and the words just bounced off, but that word, in Caleb’s gravel-deep voice, and she wanted to run to her Momma and cry like a baby. As if her Momma wouldn’t say exactly the same thing. And worse.

But she was going to change that. Claim her rightful place. The place of respect she deserved. Prove to her mother and Caleb and all of them that she was more than the camp slut.

“Still an asshole, I see,” she mimicked acidly, jerking her wrist out of his hold, or trying to. For a heartbeat, Caleb held on, his strong fingers tightening fractionally around the fine bones of her wrist, as if to prove he didn’t have to let her go if he didn’t feel like it.

An unexpected jolt of heat shot down to pool at the base of her spine. She wanted to squirm with it, wallow in his possession and his strength, but she held herself regally still. It had been a long time since she’d been in the presence of a man she couldn’t physically best—ever since she’d walked away from the ranch seven months ago, in fact—and she’d forgotten how much she loved the challenge of it.

As if he sensed her mounting excitement—the bastard could probably smell it—Caleb released her suddenly. He leaned away from her to put more distance between them and rubbed his hand on his pants as if she’d left her cooties on him.

In spite of his all-too-apparent disgust, his voice was still a little rougher than normal when he growled, “What are you doing here? Crawling home with your tail between your legs?”

Shana’s lip curled in a silent snarl. Goddesses didn’t crawl. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” She let her nails shift into claws and stroked over his arm with the vicious tips. “You’d just love to see me on my knees, wouldn’t you, Cale?”

“I’d love to see your ass…” he drawled, “…walking away from this ranch, never to return.”

“Aw, honey, you don’t mean that,” she purred. “You’d miss this ass too much.”

She patted the body part in question and his eyes tracked the movement of her hand hungrily. Oh, yeah, Caleb Minor would miss her, all right.

“Tell me what I can do to get you to leave.”

Shana planted a hand on her hip and pushed her face into an exaggerated pout. “All this talk of leaving is going to hurt my poor wittle feelings, sugarbear.”

“You don’t have feelings.”

The pout morphed into a feline smile. “You make an excellent point. But if I had feelings, I’m sure they’d be very hurt right now. I’d be poor, wounded Shana. Would you take care of me then? Protect me like the big, strong man you are? Or is your docket for damsels in distress all filled up at the moment?”

She reached to run her claws across his stomach again and he slapped her hand away. Shana didn’t bother to pretend the smack had hurt. He wouldn’t have been fooled. Maybe that was why Caleb had always been her favorite of all the asshole bullies in the pride. He’d never been fooled by her.

Or, more accurately, she’d only been able to fool him once. And that had been years ago, when they’d both been little more than cubs and too naïve to know better.

“Is some other hot teenage kitten sneaking into your bedroom every night?” she asked, calling up the memory of the time when she’d had him wound so tight around her little finger he’d nearly cut off the circulation.

He stiffened, his big muscles tensing deliciously before her eyes. Oh, yeah, he remembered. And the memory was apparently just as unpleasant for him as it was for her. Shana hoped it burned like a bitch.

“After you fuck her senseless, do you whisper how you’ll do anything for her? How you love her and will protect her from the big, bad world?” Shana fought to keep the bitterness out of her voice. Cynicism was allowed. Cynicism was a barrier. Bitterness revealed pain and pain was a weakness.

Weakness was an anathema in the pride. Or at least it had been, before the dumbass Alpha had passed up his chance to make Shana his queen and taken Caleb’s weakling sister, Ava, instead.

As she recalled why she’d come here—to take what she deserved back from puny Ava—anger and purpose washed away the insidious traces of bitterness and hurt. The anger was clean, powerful. She smiled viciously. “Or can you even get it up anymore? Did your master have his favorite dog neutered?”

He growled at her and Shana laughed. Men were so pathetically predictable. Attack their virility and all they want to do is snarl and bang their chests to prove their masculinity.

“I’m only going to ask you one more time. Tell me what to do to get you to leave quietly.”

Shana pursed her lips and cocked her head. “That wasn’t asking. That was demanding.” She stepped forward until her front brushed his. “Lucky for you, I like demanding men,” she purred. “Unlucky for you, I’m not going anywhere.”

When he didn’t immediately shove her away, Shana crowded closer, inhaling deeply. Goddess, he smelled fantastic. She wanted to wallow in his scent. Did all lions smell this amazing? Had she just been away from her kind for too long? Or was it him?

She leaned in, rubbing her body against his. It was a platonic gesture among the pride, the casual touching, cuddling and petting, but Shana’s nipples were hard enough to cut glass and she was close enough to feel that Caleb’s reaction to them pressing against his chest through two layers of cloth was far from platonic. Hello, lover.

“You’re freezing,” he growled, grabbing her by her upper arms and setting her away from him.

Shana was tempted to retort that she hadn’t been freezing until he shoved her away. She’d completely forgotten about the cold, the impending blizzard. The world had narrowed down until it was just her and Caleb and heat. But admitting that would have been a confession too big to survive. So instead, she snapped at him.

“Yeah, well, some asshole is making me stand out here in the middle of a fucking blizzard when I could be at home in my nice, warm bungalow.”

Fat snowflakes had begun to drift lazily down from the sky and she hadn’t even noticed, though now she could see them melting on Caleb’s cheeks as he glowered at her. Shana tipped her head back and stared at the sky, amazed in spite of herself by the display nature was putting on. It so rarely snowed here. She’d always thought snow cold and wet and irritating, but now it fell so softly around her, it seemed the world itself was floating and she was floating with it.

“You don’t have a bungalow anymore.”

“Excuse me?” The floating sensation evaporated from one heartbeat to the next. Her gaze snapped down from the falling snow to land hard on Caleb. “What do you mean I don’t have a bungalow? I will always have a bungalow. This is my pride.”

Caleb shrugged carelessly. “You left.”

Asshole. He was enjoying this. “If your pipsqueak sister has taken over my bungalow, I’m going to enjoy kicking her ass out of it.”

He shook his head as if her mental faculties were disappointingly slow. “Ava lives with Landon now, Shay. That’s what marriage means.”

“Then who is in my fucking bungalow?”

At that moment, she almost wished he would say he had taken over her home, though she didn’t care to examine why that thought was so appealing.

He shrugged again. “I don’t know. Somebody. It’s a nice place and it was empty. You know how things are in the pride.”

Shana ground her teeth. She knew. Oh, did she ever know.

Possessions were community property in the pride. If you wanted something to be yours and yours alone, you had to be strong enough to keep it, fighting off all comers. Clothing, bungalows, mates—the best of everything went to the strong. At least, that’s how it used to be.

“I thought your precious Landon was going to change our barbaric ways.”

Caleb shrugged again. Goddess, how she hated that shrug. His fucking nonchalance. As if every shift of his shoulders was more proof that he didn’t give a shit about her and never had. “We are what we are. Change is slow.”

“So some asshole just usurped my bungalow?” Her shock was feigned, but her outrage was real. She’d had one of the nicest places on the ranch compound before she left, totally decked out, complete with a fireplace and a Jacuzzi in the bathroom. And she’d had to kick her fair share of asses to get it.

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.”