Bass boomed from the powerful speakers, filling the air with the pounding noise of a recent hip-hop single. While awaiting a drink from the bartender, I observed the dozens of scantily clothed bodies writhing beneath a kaleidoscope of colorful club lights.

Within minutes of entering and finding my seat, the smell of sweat, perfume, and hairspray had overwhelmed my nose. Dancers packed as close as sardines on the floor and mingled their unique scents as they became one living, breathing presence rolling to the beat of the music.

Maybe I was a glutton for punishment for subjecting myself to yet another night at Club Hysteria, the hottest nightclub in Houston, because nothing called to me more than the bed I’d left behind at home. Despite an hour of waxing, primping, and preening for the evening, I couldn’t summon the energy to throw myself onto the dance floor.

Another bust. Another wasted night. I’d told the girls there were better ways to meet our goals, but of course, no one listened to me until they were bitten in the ass and needed my advice. To dull the bitter taste of disappointment, I ordered a White Russian at the bar and returned to my seat. At least Hysteria used real cream—not the good stuff Nandi used when she mixed our drinks, but it was better than thin, cheap milk. I raised the glass to my lips and let the delicious mixture slide over my tongue.

“Excuse me, baby. You here with somebody?”

A young man gripped the back of the chair on the opposite end of the table and leaned forward. His blue eyes glittered with interest beneath a shaggy mess of ash brown curls, and when he smiled, one of his cheeks dimpled. The short sleeves of his fitted T-shirt revealed a tight, muscular body and a tribal tattoo sleeve on his left arm. He looked like a frat boy, the kind of kid who chugged booze and mainlined Everclear for kicks.

Way too young for me, the sensible aspect of my conscious whispered.

Probably energetic and frisky though, my inner lioness purred.

Most likely half my age and still in college, Miss Prissy disagreed.

Thankfully, I didn’t look my age. No shifter ever did. As a lioness shifter from South Africa, the fountain of youth had been imprinted in my genes, a natural part of me I could never shake.

Maybe the hunt was back on after all. “Mm, no unfortunately.”

“That’s a damn shame, pretty lady like you here all alone.”

At least he hadn’t used a totally cheesy pick-up line. That was one point in his favor, I supposed. I smiled and pushed aside my empty glass. “Not so alone anymore, am I? I’ve got you here to keep me company. So what do I call you?”

“I’m David.”

“Sasha.”

“Wanna dance?”

“Sure.”

With David guiding me by the hand, we navigated a floor swarmed with glossy, perspiring bodies until we reached a pocket in the crowd. The music filled me, and I moved to the beat, letting the pulsing rhythm guide the sway of my hips. A twist put my back to his chest, and we ground close.

By the end of the song, every male eye within the vicinity had darted toward us.

Maybe the night wouldn’t be wasted after all. Maybe I’d have a conquest to drag back to Nandi and Isisa the way wild lionesses took home their kills. The girls—my girls—loved it when I brought home a tasty dish for them to sample. And we hadn’t had a delicious man in months. Sometimes Isisa only watched, because that was her thing, but what mattered most was that we were all fulfilled in some way.

When David escorted me back to the table with his arm around my waist, the subtle aroma of sweat and tobacco wafted from his skin. He smoked, and in my excitement, I hadn’t picked it up before we hit the dance floor.

Shit. There’d already been enough to knock him out of the running as a potential mate, and smoking was the final straw that broke the camel’s back. Us girls had sketched out the perfect list of desired traits, requirements for a future husband chiseled in stone.

And if it wasn’t the odor of cigarettes clinging to David’s skin, it would have been his age, his immaturity, the fact that he was still probably in college. Why couldn’t this be like the romance novels I read where women met their ideal match while standing at the bar?

Between the three of us, no man would ever be enough. I could have looked the other way and ignored a few cigs, but Isisa would never bend on what she’d deemed an unforgivably gross habit. She took her health seriously, and if one of us made her miss the morning five-mile run, she sulked the rest of the day.

“What’s a sexy lady like you doing here all alone?”

“My roommates work tomorrow, so they hit the hay early,” I explained.

At that moment, Nandi and Isisa lay cuddled together in bed, since I’d drawn the short straw for the night’s hunt. Sometimes we took turns, sometimes we pulled straws, but one of us always went on the prowl for a man up for the task of satisfying three women at once.

“Where you from? You can’t be American with an accent like that.” David flashed an eager grin and feigned interest in learning more about me.

“South Africa.” Searching for men was like fishing, and if the girls weren’t so thirsty, I would have thrown him back and tried to reel in a bigger, better catch. “I was born in Africa, but I came to the states as a child to live with my mother.”

“Oh man. Africa. Like elephants and lions Africa. I bet you saw them all the time, right?”

“Mm-hmm. If you know where to look, it can be like seeing a squirrel or a hare in your backyard here.” Sightings were exceptionally frequent when those same lions were family.

“So, you want a drink?”

“I’d be glad for another White Russian.”

“My pleasure. Be right back.”

My quarry disappeared into the throng at the bar. Better him than me. So many sweaty bodies pressed together, everyone wrangling to catch the barkeeper’s attention in the most obnoxious way possible, always triggered my annoyance. Give me wide-open spaces over claustrophobic crowds.

David must have had a trick or two up his sleeve. He returned sooner than I expected with two drinks and passed one to me. “A White Russian for the lady.”

“Thank you.”

My would-be lay for the night watched me closely from across the table, holding his shot in one hand but not sipping. A strange odor offended my nose as I raised my glass for a sip. Discreetly, I swished the drink and inhaled again.

Flunitrazepam. Also known as Rohypnol by its trade name. While it was tasteless and odorless to humans when mixed in a drink, the drug was known for loss of inhibitions and amnesia. I’d performed a rape kit on a girl named Kerry only a month ago at the hospital, and the toxicology report had pinned Rohypnol as the culprit.

And now someone had laced my drink with it, albeit clumsily, as tiny little particles of white clung to the inside rim of the glass just above the creamy line of liquid. When my gaze rose from the glass to the man opposite me, his eager smile raised the fine hairs on my nape. Every sense, both related to my shifter half and female intuition, told me to splash the drink in his face and flee. Better yet, call the police and hold the cup for evidence.

Then I wondered how many times he’d done this shit before. How many Kerrys had he served a treacherous glass of sedative and booze? Because for every girl who came forward at the police station, there had to be a dozen more who wept at home in their showers and wondered how the hell their night on the town went so wrong.

Maybe I wasn’t the first, but I’d for damn sure be his last.

Aware of his eyes on me, I raised the glass to my lips and slammed it back. Then I was out of the seat and taking him by the hand, relying on preternatural stamina as my shield. A few sedatives wouldn’t do shit to me. As part of Ian’s special operatives team, we’d all drugged ourselves numerous times before to test our endurance against a variety of concoctions.

This would be child’s play.

“Let’s go again,” I coaxed him.

We danced for fifteen minutes longer until I feigned a stumble and swayed against him. It didn’t take much longer afterward for David to guide me from the floor and into the parking lot where the fresh, balmy Texas air tossed my blonde hair. The kiss of the breeze against my perspiring brow alleviated the chemical fog enough to continue the act.

Clutching David by both hands, words escaped my lips in a breathy whisper against his cheek. “I don’t feel so good. Can you take me home? I think I drank too much.”

“Sure thing, babe. Sure.”

The headache and blurry vision were only a temporary setback. Those would fade, even if the world was currently spinning around me and turning topsy-turvy like I’d taken a crack to the skull. Heavy eyelids threatened to close, and exhaustion crept into noncooperative limbs until the moment we reached a battered green pickup truck.

What if it had been some other girl? What if it was someone who couldn’t defend herself? The what-ifs became fuel, motivating me into the passenger seat where I collapsed in a heap, no longer completely feigning the disorientation.

David drove for twenty minutes, never asking where I lived.

“Here we are, baby, safe and sound.”

“Am I home?”

He chuckled and leaned across the center console. He slid a hand over my lap and wriggled his hand beneath my skirt. I clamped my thighs and denied him the feel he wanted. “Damn, I bet you’re going to be tight. We’re back home now. Want me to carry you up to bed?”

All I managed was a moan while suppressing the need to vomit.

He helped me from the car, keeping one arm tight around my waist. Through my blurred vision, I made out a dusty-looking apartment building with brown brick and grimy windows. Inside wasn’t any better. The lights in the hallway flickered, and the stairwell smelled like stale cigarettes. The stench worsened the migraine initiated by the drugs.

The apartment was a bachelor’s haven infused with the odor of old gym socks and sour sweat. Old pizza boxes piled on a greasy, food-smeared kitchen counter, and two other guys sat on the beat-up sofa in front of the flat screen.

“Oh shit, you got one!” the nearest exclaimed. He was heavyset, sporting a real stocky build, glasses, and dark hair.

“Hell yeah, man,” David said. “And you’re happy to be here, aren’t you, Sasha?” He lolled my head forward and back a few times while I gazed around through half-lidded eyes.

“You found a blonde named Sasha? I thought that was a stereotype.” The second guy on the couch resembled Arnold Schwarzenegger at the top of his bodybuilding career. A big jock of a guy, probably a football player. He whistled and stepped close. “And she’s hot as fuck, too. Check out those tits.”

“Didn’t they ask for a white chick though?” the chunky one asked.

David snickered. “I thought she was.”

“Nah, look at those lips. She’s probably a mutt.” Then he grinned. “Bet her nips are brown.”

Mutt? Barely contained rage trembled through my body.

“Help me get her to the bedroom, Pete. She’s heavier than she looks,” David said. “Get the condoms, Al.”

“Yeah, sure. I got her.”

Possession of me exchanged hands from David to the musclebound guy named Pete. He carried me into the back room and unceremoniously dumped me on an unmade bed covered by a scratchy, gray woolen blanket. A nearby tripod aimed a video camera toward the bed.

“Let’s get this dress off of her,” David said.

“It’s skintight. May have to rip it.”

“Rip it then. That’ll get us a shitload of upvotes when we get it online.”

Distracted by the promise of seeing more skin, Pete leaned over my body and grasped the hemline of the black dress I’d worn. Before fabric ripped in his hands, my hips bucked up from the bed and both thighs surrounded his neck. A hard twist yanked him down to the mattress, and then the assailant became the helpless victim, thrashing against the smelly bedcovers.

Faster than he could shout in surprise, I flipped him beneath me and straddled his shoulders before launching a fist into his nose. One. Two. I pounded him a third time, punches faster than cobra strikes.

“What the fuck’s going on?” David cried.

Their other friend stood at the foot of the bed with his pants down and cock out. After twisting from my perch on Mr. Biceps, I dove like a wild cat to knock Al to the floor. Satisfied with the crack of his head bouncing off the ground, I sprang to my feet to confront David.

He charged and ran into my open palm. Hell if I knew what he thought he’d accomplish by rushing me, but all he earned for his effort was a broken nose, a gut punch that doubled him over, and an uppercut that knocked him back up. He and Pete could sport matching shiners.

“Holy shit! You said you gave her the shit!” Al cried from the floor.

Muscular arms surrounded my waist from behind. Pete’s hot, alcohol-laden breath washed over my neck as he lifted my feet from the floor. Smashing the back of my head into his face made him set me back down, but he kept his arms locked around my chest. With strength that was a combination of natural athleticism, hard work, and shifter genes, I pushed him backward until his spine hit the wall. His breath heaved from his chest on a choking wheeze and his arms dropped.

By then, Al had recuperated enough to fetch a knife, though it did him no good; his attempt too slow and inadequate to use the weapon correctly. Between my reflexes and military training, I twisted the blade from his grip.

After slipping my hand around the back of his neck, I thrust him into the wall and crashed his face into it.

“Fuck this! I’m out of here!” Pete yelled before he burst out the door.

I glared at his retreating form. “Coward.”

“Dude, we’re sorry. We’re sorry. Don’t hurt us anymore,” David pleaded from the ground. “We didn’t actually do anything to you yet. Just let us go. I mean, you can walk out the door and we can forget this happened.”

How many of their victims had asked for mercy too, begging to be let go, pleading with him not to do it?

“You want to rape women, yes? Rape someone now.”

I crushed David’s balls beneath my heel. He shrieked like I was killing him. Too bad I couldn’t.

Battered and bruised as they were, fear of another ass kicking kept Al in line for me to hogtie him. As for the other predator, I slammed his face against the floor again for good measure before restraining him too. Rummaging through their belongings and hunting around the bathroom revealed a stash of narcotics and sedatives. Not to mention the spindle of DVDs labeled by physical traits and dates. Blonde Gangbang 5/17. Black Threesome 4/21. Underage Asian Girl 9/13. That was only three days ago.

The nausea struck like an emotional fist to the gut, and everything in my belly came up in the grimy toilet. I flushed with the bottom of my foot, avoided touching anything else in the apartment, and stumbled outside with my heels in one hand.

I stood barefoot on a sidewalk encrusted with petrified gum. Gross. It took less than a minute to schedule a lift from a ride sharing app on my phone. With that accomplished, I swiped through my contacts list and dialed the only friend I could trust with my current situation.

“MacArthur.” His drowsy voice grumbled a hello into the phone.

“I’m sorry for waking you, Ian, but I need a favor.”

The sleepy man sighed. “Sasha, it’s...” He paused, presumably to check the time. “It’s past midnight. You couldn’t wait until morning?”

“Someone tried to rape me.”

Bedsprings creaked. “What? Where are you? I’ll be there as soon as—”

“I don’t need you to come here, silly. I need your connections. They’re a group of college kids with a whole stash of illegal drugs and… and tapes. I beat the shit out of them before they could do anything.”

“If you beat the shit out of them, what do you want me to do?”

“I need you to use your pull with the Houston PD. Get them arrested on something that doesn’t require me to testify and become involved. All the evidence they need is right here I think.”

“Fine. Forward me your location, and I’ll get some guys out there who know what to do,” Ian said.

“Thanks. Love you.”

“Love you too, kitty. Are you sure you don’t need me? I can be there in under an hour.”

“I’ll be fine. Call me tomorrow with an update.”

We ended the call as the Lyft driver pulled up to the side of the street. By then, the enhanced metabolism granted by my shifter abilities had cleansed most of the Rohypnol from my system.

It could have been worse. It could have been so much worse. I could have been human, and the story would have ended another way without the three assholes nursing their bruises and two of them in lockup for a host of sex-related crimes.

I could have been one of the girls on the tape.

---

Rambling thoughts followed me from the car into the elevator, unshakable worries refusing to let loose even when I entered the tranquil atmosphere of a penthouse shared by my pridemates.

For the first time since the entire ordeal began, the battle rhythm of my racing pulse eased. Centering myself, I closed my eyes and dragged in deep inhalations, letting the comfort of home and our chic digs welcome me within a fragrant embrace. Nothing worked better than erasing the stank memory of an illegal sex den than Nandi’s sugar cookie Scentsy melts. She had a fragrance for every season. The season of the pumpkin would arrive soon.

Home. I’m safe now.

After tossing my heels into the corner beside our front door, I maneuvered into the kitchen and set my phone on the counter. I’d carried it and my ID in the lace band of my thigh-highs, the satin soft nylons secured by an overpriced garter belt from my favorite lingerie company.

Nandy and Isisa had to be asleep by now, probably wrapped in each other’s arms. After a bath, or maybe even a long soak amidst peach-scented bubble bath, I’d crawl into bed and join them. The image brought a smile to my face until I saw the pale glow of a light from the upstairs office.

She’s at it again. Writing at two in the morning? Really?

Nandi was the homebody. We dragged her out into the sun every so often, but it was usually a lost cause. She’d rather sit behind her computer building her reading audience, joining book parties, and typing up the erotica that paid her share of the bills.

Isisa and I wouldn’t mind it so much if she left home sometimes to breathe in the fresh air and hunt.

“Well? Where is he?” Isisa whispered from the shadows.

Jerking toward the sound of her voice and twisting my upper body to face danger brought my hip into the edge of the dishwasher. I swore before shooting her a dirty look. “What the hell are you doing up?”

Isisa had one hand out toward me, though she blinked and withdrew it. “Sorry. I was on my way from the kitchen when the door opened. I hid to catch a peek at your find…”

I kneaded my aching hipbone. “There’s no one tonight.”

“No one?” Nandi had popped out of the office. She peered down over the second-floor railing and pushed her glasses up on her nose. She had a mild astigmatism in her human form, not uncommon among some types of shifters, and the screen hurt her eyes after a while.

“Why did you come back empty-handed?” Isisa asked.

While I fretted in the mirror over blemishes and acne, Nandi and Isisa enjoyed flawless complexions smooth as black satin. Their silhouettes were reminiscent of obsidian statues given life by a wizard searching for the perfect women despite their differing frames and shapes.

“Because the only idiot I met tried to rape me.”

Nandi’s gold eyes grew saucer large. She leapt over the rail and dropped down beside me with effortless grace. “Are you hurt? Did he hurt you?” Her gentle hands cupped my face while Isisa searched my body for injuries.

“It’s okay. Relax. The police are going to take care of it. I made a call to Ian, and he’s put some guys on the case.” If I told them more, if I shared anything else about what I saw and what could have happened, Nandi wouldn’t sleep for the rest of the night.

I’d tell Isisa. She had the stomach for tolerating things our sensitive Nandi struggled to handle.

“Maybe this is a bad idea. Maybe we should give up on it and accept that we’re alone but together,” Nandi said. “Since we have each other.”

“No,” Isisa said, shaking her head.

Nandi crossed her arms beneath her generous breasts. “I don’t like this anymore. We’ve tried everything from clubs to Tinder and Match.com, but you’re the two risking your safety to meet guys we never like. I’m happy with both of you. Aren’t you happy with what we have?”

“I’m happy,” Isisa said. She hesitated and bit her lower lip. “But it isn’t the same.”

“What isn’t the same?” Disgust dripped from Nandi’s voice, and she rolled her eyes. “Some asshole almost hurt Sasha, and if getting some dick means we have to put either of you in danger out there, I’m fine with our battery-operated boyfriends.”

I sighed. “I’m happy, too, but we deserve more.”

“More? Like what?” Nandi demanded.

“Don’t pretend you don’t feel the same hole, because I know you do. There’s something missing, and no amount of writing porn on your computer is going to fix it,” I said.

Nandi flinched. “It’s not porn.” And then the moisture glistened in her eyes, shimmered against her impossibly long lashes, and I felt like the world’s biggest asshole.

Usually Isisa said the stupid and impulsive things. Sighing, I moved close to my pridemate and drew her into a hug. “I love you, Nandi. And I love your books. I just wish we had that kind of romance for ourselves. Don’t we deserve to have a man of our own?”

“Yes, but… I don’t want you to be in danger.”

“I wasn’t in danger. Not once.” In a gentler, softer voice I murmured, “Don’t you still want a baby?”

Silence fell over the kitchen. A baby had been the one thing we all wanted, but the dream eluded us at every turn. Once upon a time, I should have been a mother.

Then fate had dashed those dreams to ribbons and turned my hopes into nightmares. I blinked a few times to alleviate the burning behind my eyelids, but it didn’t help, and my vision blurred.

“I do,” Nandi whispered. “I still want a baby. We can do a donor though, can’t we?”

Isisa shook her head. “Neither you nor I had an ideal father, and Sasha’s died too soon. While I don’t doubt we could raise a child, or several alone without a man, it isn’t something I want for our little one if possible. I would like to reserve that option for when all else fails.”

“But I do think we need to change up our plans. We’re never going to find a good, quality type of man by trolling bars. Some good lays, maybe, but not the kind of guy we want to keep around for us. Definitely not the kind of guy we want around to raise a family with us.”

Isisa nodded in agreement. “You’re right. I began to think along the same lines after you left.”

“So did I,” Nandi admitted. “The Internet is full of trolls and guys only wanting booty.”

“It would have been nice to touch some muscles tonight though,” Isisa lamented. “I’m sorry you had a rough night, but I’m even more sorry some creep almost hurt you. Want me to run you a bath?”

“Please.”

“Want us to join you?” Nandi asked.

As if she needed my answer. “Double please.”

Isisa ran the bath while Nandi fawned over me, and all discussion related to finding the ideal mate to complete our pride ended. By the end of the night, I slept cradled between them, safe, secure, and loved.