Chapter Twenty-Two

Wade hadn’t been quite prepared for how small a town Blue Valley really was when the helicopter they’d commissioned to take them from the airport in Chapple landed behind the high school in the middle of the football field.

“We’re looking for a lioness named Heidi Jennings,” he asked the pilot as he shut off the engines, “do you know where we can find her?”

It was almost dusk now, and he really didn’t want to waste another second before they could get to their mate and straighten this entire mess out.

“The lion Alpha’s girl?” The other man looked wary … and then suspicious, “Sure, everyone in Blue Valley knows where Alpha Jennings lives—but them lions is awfully protective of that little gal. Why do you want to know?”

Goddess save them from hillbilly shifters.

“She is our mate, and we’ve come to claim her.” Mason stated before extending a handful of hundred dollar bills, enough to make the other male’s eyes go wide. “Now, the address please?”

The guy took the cash and gave up the address, but the way he muttered something about ‘city cats’ under his breath as they walked away made Wade think that there was no way their arrival would be unannounced. He also wondered why she didn’t mention that her father was the lion Alpha here when she spoke about where she was from.

The Alpha’s house wasn’t much of a walk from the high school, and they cautiously approached as the sun finally set. It was very quiet on the street—too quiet. The driveway wasn’t lit, and for some reason the porch light was out, making him wonder if there was even anyone home … or if that bastard pilot had taken their money and given them the wrong address.

Then suddenly, the hair on the back of his neck stood up and his tiger went on alert—they’d walked right into a trap. Before he could even get a warning out to Mason, the bushes behind them rang out with the rumbles of disgruntled large cats and then he was tackled to the ground.

“Did you think you big city cats can just come here into our town and buy your way to my sister?” The lion with a huge head of long blonde hair grappled with him, trying to get the upper hand.

Ahhh, so these were Heidi’s brothers then? Well, that explained the hostility. That little fucker at the school had indeed ratted them out.

Wade glanced over at Mason, who was currently punching one big blonde male, while the other hung on his back like a tick. Finally, he was able to kick the huge lion off and got back to his feet, but this male must be an alpha himself, as he was strong as hell. The punch square to his face almost leveled him once again. Wade was trying to hold his claws back, as he didn’t particularly want to maim his mate's brothers—but they didn’t seem to be having the same crisis of conscience.

****

The roars and loud yowls from the front yard pulled Heidi out of a restless sleep. She’d just drifted off on the couch in front of the TV, and was damned pissed that her ridiculous brothers had awoken her by making some kind of spectacle in the yard.

“What the hell are those idiots up to now?” she grumbled as she met her dad in the hallway in front of the door, getting ready to give them a piece of her mind.

“We just had some big city tigers come into town, poking their noses where they shouldn’t, is all.” Her dad tried to shoo her back to the couch. “Go on back to the living room, kitten. I’ll take care of it.”

Big city tigers? Tigers—oh, my Goddess! Was that Mason and Wade he was talking about? And what the hell were her brothers doing to them to make all that noise?

She darted past her dad and slammed open the front door, flicking the lights on at the same time, only to see the two men who had broken her heart in a full-on cat fight with her brothers. Not to mention the fact that Julie’s car had just pulled up into the driveway, and she was standing there gaping at the scene as well.

“Daddy! Make them stop, I know those tigers!”

Her dad’s face scrunched up in suspicion, “How do you know those tigers? Bob flew them in here and he said that they were spouting crazy claims about you being their mate—is that true, kitten?”

“Yes—no … well, I thought they were,” she stammered out, and the sound of clothing ripping meant they were only seconds away from having five very large, very angry predators fighting on the lawn. “Daddy, can you please just tell them to stop and I can explain after!”

He looked back at her for a moment and then conceded. “Let them be,” he said, just loudly enough that her brothers got distracted, but still didn’t let up on Mason and Wade.

“He said stop this right now!” she yelled out, her lioness adding an uncharacteristic roar to the end. She would have slapped her hand over her mouth in shock if she hadn’t been so mad. Heidi had never roared at her brothers before.

Instantly, all five of the fighting males stopped, their eyes going wide and staring at her. It would have been comical if she wasn’t so furious that her own brothers would attack her mates—or the males she had thought were her mates. Whatever. Her lioness was pissed, and that’s all she knew.

“Holy balls! This is one helluva cat fight,” Julie’s voice broke the silence. “Lions and tigers and—oh, wait … the bears are on their way—I just called the cops. Oh, my.”

“Dammit, Julie,” Hector sent her a disapproving look. “Get in the house. We have this handled. You didn’t need to call those damned bears.”

“Heidi, we need to—” Mason tried to speak, but her father abruptly cut him off without even looking at the other man.

“Stop. Julie, get in the house. You boys, take those tigers and settle them in the den while I talk to your sister.”

She looked up at Wade and Mason’s faces as they walked past her, following her father's instructions, even they knew the tone of an Alpha when he’d had enough. Everything in her still wanted to go to them and never look back. Was she still so pathetic?

“Kitten, look at me,” her father’s voice cut through her inner turmoil and she looked up to see a gentle look on his face. “What’s going on?”

She bit her lower lip and tried to stop the tears from welling in her eyes, but when her dad pulled her into the warmth of his broad chest, she couldn’t hold them in any longer. She cried and he held her, not saying a word, until, finally, she was ready to tell him.

“I met them on the cruise the first day, and everything was just so overwhelming and wonderful daddy, I thought that they were my mates,” it all came gushing out of her, “and they said that they were … but then there was this awful woman who told me that she had been with them and that it was all just a lie. That they were just playing with me—it just hurt too bad … so I left.”

“And did you see them with this woman?” he asked gently, but she could see the rage in his eyes, no doubt thinking about the men who had hurt his only daughter.

“Well, no…”

“Did you confront them about her accusations?”

“No…” Heidi’s nose scrunched up as she looked at her father and saw that the previously angry look on his face was now one of resigned patience.

“Kitten, I don’t know these tigers—and yes, my first instinct is to rip them limb from limb because they hurt you,” he sighed, “but the fact that they showed up here, risking their lives to come and see you, makes me think that they are, in fact, serious about you. You owe it to yourself to at least hear them out and listen to their explanation for what happened. If you still want them gone after that? Then your brothers and I will gladly get rid of them—permanently. But, baby, what if they really are your mates? Trust me when I tell you—if they are, they’d move heaven and earth to be with you, and they are the only true happiness you will ever find. Even if I only had a short fifteen years with your momma before she passed, I wouldn’t trade a second of them.”

“But … what if it hurts?” she whispered, knowing it was childish, but no pain had ever come close to what it’d felt like to leave them behind the first time.

“It’s worth the risk, kitten.” He hugged her once again. “And we’ll always be here to catch you.”