Serengeti Storm

Chapter Four

Brenna Delray’s bungalow stood on the outermost edges of the residential compound, secluded and dark. There were no lights on inside, but Shana knew better than to think that had anything to do with whether anyone was home.

She knocked on the door sharply. A small, cowardly part of herself she hated to admit even existed hoped Brenna wouldn’t be awake. Or had already passed out for the day, even though it was only mid-morning. Anything to keep her from having to walk through that door.

“Shana, honey? Is that you?” A thin, reedy voice floated through the door.

Shana closed her eyes for a second, slumping in on herself. She only allowed herself a heartbeat. Goddesses don’t wallow. Then she snapped her spine straight and pushed open the door. “Hello, Mother.”

All the shades were drawn, but Shana saw her mother clearly enough in the dim light.

Brenna never left the house, unless alcohol was being served in the dining hall. She hid behind her former position, using it as an excuse to ignore the unwritten rule that everyone contributed in the pride. The pride had its own doctor, carpenter, schoolteacher and mechanic, making it as self-sufficient as possible. Those who chose to worked in the nearby town or found opportunities to work online, like Shana did, to bring money into the pride. They weren’t work-obsessed—Shana had never met a lion who defined himself by his day job or cared more about fancy cars than his afternoon siesta—but everyone pitched in.

Except Brenna.

She sat in a threadbare armchair, curled in a ratty knit shawl, with both hands curled protectively around a tumbler glass filled with amber liquid.

If it’s Tuesday, it must be Scotch.

The air was musty and thick in Brenna’s bungalow, or Shana’s lungs were closing off, she never could quite determine which. She shoved a stack of Star magazines off a chair and perched on the edge. She was always on edge here. Her mother might be cheerfully buzzed now, sweet and docile as a lamb, but Shana knew better than to get comfortable. She knew what was coming at the bottom of bottle number two.

“How’ve you been, Mother?”

“Me?” Brenna batted her hand at Shana playfully. “Oh, you know me. Same old, same old. Did you hear about Brad and Jen? Breaking up like that? Isn’t that sad?”

“That was years ago, Mom.”

Brenna didn’t respond to Shana’s words. She just sipped her Scotch and sighed, shaking her head wistfully. “She was such a nice girl, that Jen. Not like that hussy, Angelina.”

Shana braced herself for the inevitable comparison. She must’ve heard a thousand over the years. “No one respects a trollop, no matter how many African babies she adopts.” “You know better than anyone how a slut like that thinks.” “A skank is as a skank does, wouldn’t you agree, Shana?”

But Brenna wasn’t quite that drunk yet. Still in her friendly first bottle of the day. Instead of the biting words Shana was braced for, she just shook her head and gave a misty smile. “So sad.”

“Yeah. Sad.” Shana said nothing more. Words weren’t power with her mother. They always seemed to become weapons that would boomerang back to her, slicing her open. So she said as little as possible as her mother finished her drink and poured herself another with hands that were surprisingly steady.

“You went away, Shana-bay,” her mother cooed. “You left me.”

Shana swallowed back the guilt that rose like bile, involuntary and unwelcome. “I thought you’d understand why. You were always talking about the proud tradition of the lions. You said without tradition we were nothing. That we had to honor Leonus as the Alpha, even though he killed…” She paused and cleared her throat. She knew better than to say her father’s name. She’d already said too many words. Too many weapons getting ready to spiral back on her. “I thought you’d hate the direction the new Alpha is taking the pride.”

“Of course I hate it,” Brenna said with a vacant smile. “That’s why you needed to stay. A strong mate can turn the Alpha’s head whichever way it needs to go. Why, when your father was Alpha, I don’t think he ever made a single decision without consulting me first.”

Except the decision to accept a younger, stronger lion’s challenge and get himself killed. He did that all on his own. And then the pride belonged to that bastard Leonus. The words itched to jump out of Shana’s mouth, but she kept them tight to her chest.

Now was not the time to speak out. Her mother’s nostalgic drunkenness came right after friendly drunkenness. And right before the worst part. At the rate her mother’s glass was emptying and refilling, the worst part wasn’t far away.

“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.