CHAPTER 7
August couldn’t think straight. Not surprising really given what he had heard. Maya was leaving for another pride, and he knew enough about prides to know what that meant.
She was going to become someone’s mate.
He lifted his third beer to his lips and drank deep, hoping to kill the part of his brain that wanted to roar whenever he thought about another male touching her.
Gods, if only he could drown in beer.
That would be grand.
He lowered the glass and stared at the amber liquid as the coloured lights above the bar rotated, shining down on him, and the thumping rock music made the beer ripple.
Amber.
Like her fur.
He squeezed his eyes shut and growled through clenched teeth as he pushed his hands through his red hair, shoving it back.
Damn it.
She was beautiful. Gods, she was more than beautiful. She was perfect—strong, curvy, a little confident and courageous when she needed to be—but whatever pull he felt towards her, it couldn’t have become anything anyway.
It was better this way.
It was better it ended now before it had even started.
Cavanaugh had given him the pride, and that meant he couldn’t go around doing as he pleased.
He definitely couldn’t take a mate from another species.
No matter how fiercely he craved her.
He had to set the example by finding a suitable female within his own species or, even better, finding his fated one among them. Hell, it wasn’t as if he wanted to settle down anyway. He wasn’t looking for a mate. He really wasn’t.
He was just all shades of fucked up because of the stress of running a pride. Being away from it was loosening the hold that stress had on him, made him feel his worries were hundreds of miles away, and he was free. That was the only reason he wanted Maya. It really was.
Shit.
He knocked the rest of his beer back and pushed the empty glass away from him. It left streaks of water on the black bar top and he stared at them as the coloured lights played across them, making them shimmer. When they turned orange, he saw her eyes, the way she had looked at him in that room, and how bright they had been when they had been fighting, tangling with each other.
She wanted him.
Fuck, he wanted her.
Cavanaugh stopped near him. “You okay?”
No. He was leagues from okay. He couldn’t even see okay in the rear-view mirror.
He nodded. “Fine.”
The look Cavanaugh gave him said he could see through the lie to the truth—that he was falling apart.
Because of a female.
This wasn’t like him.
It was just the stress. It was.
It had nothing to do with how beautiful she was, how she fired him up and had him out of his mind with just a look, just a damned glance in his direction.
“Just get me another beer,” August muttered.
His cousin’s sensitive ears picked it up over the loud music and he took the glass and moved away, returning a few minutes later with a full beer.
August grabbed it, raised it to his lips and drank it down in one go.
It still wasn’t enough to kill the part of his brain that was fixated on Maya and that she was leaving.
Leaving.
He slammed his fists down on the bar top, ripping startled shrieks from the nearest females and earning a black look from his cousin.
Fuck.
August shoved the glass away from him. It toppled and spun, before rolling towards the edge of the counter. Cavanaugh caught it before it fell, and set it back down.
“I’m cutting you off,” his cousin growled.
August wanted to growl right back at him, wanted to ask him not to do it, but he didn’t have the energy to do either of those things. He stared at the bar in a stupor, an image of Maya dancing through his mind, a replay of fighting her and how good it had felt.
How right.
Shit. The more he drank, the more that stupid part of his brain tightened its hold on him, dragging him down.
He let his head fall forwards and didn’t even flinch as his forehead hit the bar.
He was starting to see why Cavanaugh had ditched the pride in exchange for his freedom, and the freedom to choose his female.
August rolled his head to one side, so he could see the females to his right as they lined the bar, vying for the attention of Cavanaugh and Kyter as they all tried to get served at the same time.
He had the freedom to choose his female.
It wasn’t as if he wanted to be tied down to just one of them.
He wasn’t Cavanaugh.
He studied their faces and picked out the beautiful ones. He could have any one of them. All he had to do was turn on the charm. What he felt for Maya was the same as what he felt for any female he desired. It was lust. Plain and simple. She had just been the first female to stir that in him after five months without sex.
She had just been the trigger.
The way he reacted to her didn’t come as a surprise either.
She was forbidden fruit, promised to another.
That was the only reason he wanted her this badly.
She was beautiful, forbidden fruit.
And he wanted a taste.
It was the only reason he wanted her more than he wanted the females around him, but that feeling would pass if he started the ball rolling, flirting with one of them. He would get over it. He would.
He pushed himself up and straightened out his appearance, neatening his red hair and undoing one more button on his black shirt to show a little more muscle.
One of the females at the bar glanced his way and flashed a flirty smile in his direction.
It was working already.
He smiled right back at her and looked her up and down, a slow leisurely glide over her body. Her tight black dress emphasised wicked curves and breasts that would more than fill his hands, and her pouty cherry red lips promised to feel great around his cock.
So why the hell didn’t he feel anything as he looked at her?
Why the hell was he thinking about Maya?
Maya in that dress, looking like a present ready for him to unwrap.
Maya’s lips painted red and lush, ready to wrap around his aching shaft.
Maya’s amber eyes flashing at him in that way that said he was going down, that she was going to make him submit to her.
Fuck.
He glanced at the clock on the wall to his left above the optics, and growled when he saw it was already gone midnight.
Maya was leaving today.
August shoved away from the bar and froze.
What the hell was he doing?
He sucked down a hard breath.
Growled low when he caught the scent of cinnamon and snow.
He was hunting Maya.
No fucking way he was letting her go.
He rounded the end of the bar. The female who had been flirting with him stepped into his path, her smile bright. He walked straight past her, tracking Maya’s scent. She was here, in the club. Another growl curled up his throat. If a male was so much as looking at her, he was going to rip them to shreds.
He prowled through the heavy crowd, need twisting tighter inside his chest, making it hard to breathe as he searched for her.
He needed her.
He needed to see her again.
Would go mad if he didn’t.
His fingers flexed and clenched at his sides as he stalked her, unaware of what his body was doing, aware of only a crushing need to find her.
A group of males pushed across his path, scattering the people ahead of him.
Revealing her.
Gods. His breath left him in a rush.
She stood at the edge of the dance floor with her profile to him, a creamy-gold dress hugging her breasts and flowing from beneath them to conceal her curves and cover her thighs, her sleek long black hair a contrast against it.
A fucking angel.
She glowed in the bright lights, seemed to shine as he stared at her, absorbing her beauty as she watched the dancers, a look of fascination on her face.
He had never been much of a dancer, but some stupid part of him wanted to get onto the dance floor and bust some moves so she would look at him like that.
As if he lit up her world.
She didn’t notice as he slowly approached her, his heart beating harder with each step closer he came to her, rushing so fiercely he genuinely feared he might pass out. What was it about this bewitching female that had him ready to fall at her feet?
Ready to beg her to accept him as her male?
He shook that ridiculous need away. It was just lust. She was beautiful forbidden fruit.
“What are you doing here?” he hollered over the loud beat of the music.
She tensed and whipped around to face him, her amber eyes wide and lips parting with the shock he felt ripple through her. Those entrancing eyes leaped around the room, swiftly taking in her surroundings. Looking for someone?
It dawned on him.
Her brothers.
She wasn’t meant to be in the club.
“Don’t… don’t tell them.” She stepped towards him, which did all kinds of crazy shit to his brain, and his body. Holy fuck. He inched his left leg forwards, so she wouldn’t see just how badly she had affected him with something as innocent as her moving closer to him and speaking to him. “I just needed this.”
He looked around at the club, trying to act nonchalant when she had him fired up to the point of pain already and she hadn’t even done anything. “What is this? It’s just a nightclub.”
She moved another step closer. He bit back a growl and curled his hands into fists at his sides, and then jammed them into the pockets of his black jeans, stopping himself from reaching out and grabbing her as he wanted to. Gods, he wanted her in his arms. He wanted to feel her pressed close to him.
“I’ve never been to one before.”
Her words were so quiet he almost didn’t catch them above the music.
August wanted to laugh at that. Only she was deadly serious.
“Don’t get out much?” He smiled at her, expecting her to berate him or call him an idiot or something.
She shook her head.
His smile faded.
Was she like some of the females at his pride and had chosen to spend her entire life in her pride’s village, far away from the frantic mortal world?
The look of longing in her amber eyes as they roamed back to the dancers told him that it wasn’t the case and a slow burn started in his blood.
She hadn’t chosen to stay away from the world—she had been locked away from it, held in the village against her will.
He couldn’t hold back the growl that rumbled through his chest at the thought someone had done such a thing to her, shutting her in a cage, stealing her freedom from her.
“Your family are arseholes,” he barked, his blood on fire now as he thought about her brothers, a need to find them and beat the shit out of them blazing through him.
They would pay for what they had done to her.
She glared at him.
“I’m not going to apologise.” He stepped towards her, slowly closing the distance between them. “Not for what I just said.”
He took another step.
“Not for being angry that some son of a bitch kept you locked away.”
Another step.
“Not for what I did in the gym.”
He closed the gap between them and stared down into her beguiling eyes as she gazed up into his, a trickle of fear running through her emotions. His heart beat harder, his own fear rising as he struggled to hold her gaze and narrow the world down to only her, until she was the only one in it with him.
The only one who mattered to him.
“And I’m not going to apologise for this either.”
She gasped as he wrapped his arm around her waist and lifted her up, and he swallowed it in a kiss as he claimed her lips.
August banded one arm around her back and clutched her bottom with his free hand, holding her against him as he kissed her, sweeping his lips across hers and coaxing her into moving. She remained frozen against him, and that fear began to grow stronger, whispered that he had been mistaken and she really had just wanted to fight him.
And then she moved.
Her lips twitched against his, her movements restrained at first, but she grew bolder, until she was a wild little thing in his arms, her mouth fierce on his as she kissed him hard. He groaned when she thrust her tongue between his lips, angled his head and met her, driving her back into submission as he stroked his tongue along hers, teasing her with it. She moaned, tensed the moment she loosed it, and he felt her shock.
It lasted all of a second before she was lost again, kissing him deeper, fighting him for dominance that he refused to give her. Her kiss was rough, a little clumsy at times, but he didn’t care, because by the gods, she tasted divine and felt so right in his arms.
He held her closer, sung sweet praises to his ancestors when she moved in his arms and her hands came down on his shoulders. She fisted his shirt, held it so tightly he feared it might rip apart, but he still didn’t care, wouldn’t give a fuck if she tore it right off his back right there, as long as she kept kissing him.
Her grip loosened and he moaned as she brushed her hands up his shoulders, teased his nape with her light fingers, and then pushed them through his hair. Damn. He growled, lifted the hand that held her waist to the back of her head and buried his fingers in her fall of black hair, and clutched it as he kissed her harder, deeper still.
His heart thundered against his chest, matching the beat of her own as it drummed against him.
Sweet fucking gods.
He had never felt so alive, so overloaded with feelings. It felt as if he was going to drown in them, as if they were going to keep building inside him until he couldn’t contain them, until they burst and shattered him.
He wouldn’t care, not if Maya kept kissing him.
Not if she was his.
Eyes landed on him.
August broke away from her lips and growled at the male, warning him not to look at his female, warning him away.
The male moved on, heading into the throng of people on the dance floor to his right.
He turned back to Maya, his gaze falling straight on her kiss-swollen lips.
He leaned in to capture them again.
Maya pushed out of his arms and staggered back a few steps, breathing hard, her amber eyes wild as she looked at him and lifted a trembling hand to those lips he wanted to claim.
“I… I can’t do this.”
Those lips that had just given him so much pleasure pierced him with the ultimate pain.
August growled at her.
She broke past him, her head bent, and he turned in time to see her disappear into the crowd, frantically pushing people aside as she ran from him.
Like hell he was letting her get away.