HAPTER SEVEN
Brigitte scrubbed her face, rotating her head slowly back and forth along her shoulders to ease the tension she could feel there. She was exhausted, and there was still another three hours in the workday for her to get through. At times like this it’s kind of hard not to think that being with Dillon was not my best decision. But then she smiled, remembering just why it was that she was so exhausted.
She had gone to Dillon’s after work the evening before, ever since the night when they had been attacked by renegades from the Pride that Dillon wanted to join, they had spent more and more time together. Dillon was looking for a full-time job, and he told her—though he couldn’t show her—that he was in contact with members of his future Pride, getting to know them, Kieran in particular.
Dillon had dinner already made when Brigitte came over, but by that time, they managed somehow to make love for hours upon hours before exhaustion finally claimed them. When Brigitte’s alarm had gone off in the morning, she had been tempted by sheer fatigue to call in sick. Of all the reasons to be exhausted at work, she thought, a night of incredibly satisfying sex is a pretty good one.
Brigitte wondered if she should have another cup of coffee; she decided against it. She was in that state of fatigue where more caffeine wouldn’t make her any more alert—it would just make her jittery and cause her stomach to churn. Her phone buzzed, and Brigitte bit her bottom lip, hoping that it was Dillon, in spite of her previous, slightly bitter thoughts about him keeping her awake until nearly dawn. How’s my poor tired love? he texted, and Brigitte chuckled softly to herself.
Your poor, tired love is wishing she had gotten a few extra hours of sleep, she replied, glancing around the office. She wondered idly if she could somehow manage to leave an hour or so early and get a little sleep at home. Brigitte’s phone buzzed again and she shook off her abstracted stare to read the reply.
Let me come over tonight. I’ll draw you a bath, massage your poor, tired feet, feed you and get you off a couple of times so you can sleep deep. Brigitte laughed to herself again, shaking her head. She picked up her water bottle and took a long gulp from its contents, typing out her response. You didn’t let me sleep last night! How am I supposed to trust you to let me go to bed at a reasonable hour tonight? Brigitte put her phone aside, able to feel the lingering warmth in her cheeks, the visceral reaction her body had to any thought of Dillon at all.
Sometimes, Brigitte thought, her relationship with—and her reactions to—Dillon were so simple, so basic and so direct that she didn’t know how she could question his desire to be with her for the rest of their lives.
At other moments, when she was tired, or apprehensive about his life as a human-lion hybrid, she wondered if something was essentially wrong with her. Was there something broken about her that she reacted to him on a completely elemental level? Was there something bad about the fact that just the smell of him—cloves and musk, the lingering brightness of his soap—was enough to make her want to press her body against his, to let him rip her clothes off and take her any way he wanted?
Brigitte tried to focus on her work even as her mind turned the problem over and over. No matter how many times she had tried to think through her decision to “come to an agreement” with Dillon—to enable him to join the Pride—she couldn’t quite make herself decide whether it had been the most brilliant or most reckless decision of her life. She thought of the night that it had happened and shuddered. She had been very close to her own death, if she hadn’t been able to muster the self-preserving instinct to get the knife from the man who threatened her with it, things would have gone very differently.
Dillon was already returning the attack, that asshole probably wouldn’t have been able to actually go through with his threat. But would she have felt the same way about Dillon if she’d received more than minor injuries that night?
Brigitte knew that there was a certain part of Dillon’s life—of his mind—that she would never be able to completely understand. Until she had met him, she would have said that she couldn’t imagine being with someone for the rest of her life that she could never fully understand. But there was something so electric about Dillon, something that sent a crackle of desire through Brigitte’s body no matter how apprehensive she felt.
She was drawn to him the way a magnet drew an iron washer, she fell into his arms with almost no thought at all. Now that there was no real need for them to be cautious, Dillon wanted to see Brigitte whenever she wasn’t at work. I guess I can be grateful for the fact that he doesn’t expect to keep me barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen, she thought wryly, rubbing at her dry eyes as she yawned.
Brigitte’s decision to accept the idea that they might become life mates had opened up a new arena of their relationship, even though they had only been seeing each other for a week when she came to the decision, she couldn’t quite question the instinctive comfort she felt in his presence. Even having seen him in his lion form, Dillon didn’t exactly intimidate Brigitte. Sometimes she was amused—even pleased—by the fact that all she had to do at any given time was to tell him to stop, or wait, and Dillon would comply. Sometimes she was overwhelmed by that fact.
It was something she had inadvertently tested only days before. Dillon had his hands all over her, had been very obviously trying to work her to a fever pitch to make love to her once more. Brigitte, still a little sore and very sensitive from their previous handful of acrobatic attempts at lovemaking, had shuddered when Dillon’s fingers brushed her clit. She had known she wasn’t truly ready for more. “Stop—Dillon, stop,” she had said. Immediately, Dillon’s hands paused and then withdrew, and Dillon was all concern, looking into her eyes, asking if she was okay.
She knew that he had excellent self-control in other aspects as well; Dillon had told her time and again that Brigitte need never worry about him changing into his other form in the heat of the moment—whether in an argument or during their lovemaking.
“We’re all raised to very, very strong self-control in that respect,” Dillon had explained while they cuddled close in his bed the night of the attack. “From a young age, as soon as a lion shows signs of inheriting the traits, it’s drilled into them that part of being two-natured is to have control over which nature you’re embodying.”
“Oh god,” Brigitte had said, thinking about the fact that Dillon said most were-lions changed for the first time as adolescents. “Puberty was bad enough without having to deal with being a lion sometimes and a human others.”
Dillon had shaken his head. “It’s not an either/or proposition,” he had told her gently. “I’m never fully not a lion, and even in my lion form, I’m never fully not a human.” Brigitte had nodded slowly, though she knew that she wouldn’t—couldn’t—ever understand it fully. She couldn’t imagine having a secondary nature that was something other than human; she couldn’t imagine a set of instincts that had nothing at all to do with her human thought processes.
It was no wonder that most of the world was content to continue believing that were-lions—and all other dual-natured humans—were the pure product of fiction and myth. The truth was impossible to completely comprehend.
Brigitte’s phone buzzed and she glanced at the time, realizing that she had managed to kill an hour of her remaining workday with her ruminations. Somehow—though she couldn’t really say how—her work was getting done in dribs and drabs, her fingers occasionally rattling on her keyboard even while she worked at the problem of her ongoing relationship with Dillon mentally. Do you want Thai or Chinese, lover?
Brigitte smiled slightly to herself. Since she hadn’t told him that she definitely did not want to see him that night, Dillon was moving forward with their tentative plans. Did she want to see him? The offer of drawing her a bath and giving her a foot rub was one that Brigitte was definitely interested in but she knew it would be all too easy for dinner, a bath, and a foot massage to turn into hour upon hour of sex. She still had another day at work to get through before her week was over.
Brigitte bit her bottom lip and put her phone aside for just a moment to contemplate. She wanted to spend time with Dillon; she wanted to feel his strong arms around her, to breathe in the smell of his body, to have the comfort of his presence. But would he actually let her sleep? If I tell him I don’t want to have sex, he’ll respect that. But would she be able to make herself push him away? Brigitte chuckled softly to herself, thinking that of all the problems that she could have imagined having, even a month before, she would never have thought that having too much sex—to the detriment of being able to get enough sleep to get through work the next day—would ever be at the top of her list.
Thai, please, she texted back to Dillon. She knew herself too well to completely believe that even with her misgivings, she would be able to withstand the temptation of her lover’s presence.
By the time Brigitte had arrived at her apartment and changed out of her work clothes—and into a comfortable, slinky nightgown that Dillon had insisted on buying her over the previous weekend—her lover was knocking at her front door. Brigitte hurried to answer it, feeling the deep, electric tingle of knowing that Dillon was on the other side. Is it possible to be addicted to a person? That’s what this feels like. She put the worrying question aside and unlocked her door.
The sight of Dillon sent a jolt of heat through Brigitte’s body. It wasn’t fair that he was so effortlessly gorgeous, she thought, grinning slightly as he carried in a huge box of Thai takeout. He was wearing a thin, long-sleeved black tee shirt with the three buttons at the top undone, and camel-brown pants along with a pair of well-worn boots, and his dark, shoulder-length hair was messy and tousled about his head.
And yet Brigitte couldn’t think of a single person on the planet who could put less effort into their appearance and look quite so completely delicious. Dillon set the box of takeout down on the table and immediately coiled his arms around her, bringing her face up to his for a deep, lingering kiss. “God, love, I’ve been thinking about you all day,” Dillon murmured, barely breaking away from her lips.
“We are not going to spend the rest of the night making love,” Brigitte told him firmly, though she couldn’t bring herself to pull out of his embrace.
Dillon chuckled. “Poor tired thing,” he said in a wheedling tone. “How about just an hour or two of making love, and then we’ll spend the rest of the night cuddling and sleeping?”
“Can’t I eat first?” Brigitte pulled back to look up into Dillon’s face with a pout.
“Of course!” Dillon nuzzled against her neck, nipping playfully along the column of her throat. “What kind of mate would I be if I starved my little love?” Brigitte laughed, giving Dillon a playful shove away from her. Dillon took advantage of the little distance to take in every inch of Brigitte in the nightgown he’d bought for her, smiling approvingly. “I do want to talk to you about a few things tonight,” Dillon said finally, meeting her gaze. Brigitte sighed, nodding.
“As long as you’re not trying to take advantage of my exhausted state to get me to agree to something because I’m too tired to argue, I’ll listen,” she said with a little smile.
“You know, I have to wonder just what kind of men you’ve been with in the past that you always jump to the most suspicious reasons or ideas about what I want from you,” Dillon said, raising one dark eyebrow. Brigitte shrugged.
Dillon sent Brigitte into the living room, saying that he knew his way around her kitchen well enough already, and she sat down on the couch, pretending to watch TV while her lover moved around. She heard the sounds of drawers and cabinets opening and closing, the clink of flatware, the clatter of plates, and in a few moments, Dillon came out of the kitchen with two loaded plates, a bottle of wine that Brigitte hadn’t seen before, tucked into the crook of his arm.
“After this I fully expect you to have a nice, long bath and then I will make you come so many times you won’t be able to believe it’s only been two hours,” Dillon told her, handing her one of the plates.
Brigitte had to admit to herself that whatever misgivings she might have about Dillon, he definitely paid attention to her preferences. He had loaded up her plate with all of her favorites: spring rolls, pad Thai, and a heaping of red curry over rice.
While she began to dig into her meal, Dillon opened the bottle of wine and went back into the kitchen for glasses, putting off his own enjoyment of the meal to make sure that Brigitte didn’t need anything.
“Sometimes,” she said, taking a bite of a spring roll, “I feel like I would have to be an idiot to turn down someone who is so completely focused on making me happy.” Dillon grinned.
“And at other times?” he asked, picking up his fork to take a bite of something he’d ordered for himself. Brigitte shrugged.
“At other times I feel like the idea of moving in with someone I’ve only known for two weeks and agreeing to be his mate for the rest of my life is completely mental and I should go have my head examined.”
“Yeah, I can see where if we were a normal human couple that would be madness,” he agreed. “But even if you can’t quite understand it, I hope you have enough trust in me to know that I wouldn’t lie to you about something as important as mating. If you weren’t the woman for me, I wouldn’t be pushing you so much to commit. And I hope I’m being at least a little fair about it.”
Brigitte took a deep breath, considering the almost-question at the end of Dillon’s comment. “You’re being fair,” she said slowly. “It’s just… I mean, I can never really have the kind of experience that you had meeting me. I know I like you; I know the way you smell drives me out of my mind with the need to have sex with you as soon as possible. And the fact that you’re dealing with me fairly is a big point in your favor.” Brigitte picked at some of her pad Thai, trying to think of how to go about explaining the thoughts that had been churning in her brain for almost the entire time they had been seeing each other, certainly ever since Dillon had told her he wanted her to be his mate. "But I didn’t really join that app for the purposes of finding the love of my life, you know?”
Dillon nodded. "I didn’t—at least, not exactly—either,” he said. “I was hoping for a few fun flings, and sure, I had hoped I could find another were that I could come to an agreement with. But I certainly didn’t really expect to find a mate—and I definitely didn’t expect that my perfect woman would be a regular human.” Dillon grinned. “But I find it hard to believe that you’re just a regular human. You’re stronger and smarter and more…something…than any other regular human I’ve met.”
“That’s just your reading of my pheromones talking,” Brigitte protested, blushing at the compliment.
“No,” Dillon insisted. “It’s a fact. Were-lions and other two-natured people don’t typically pick human mates unless there’s something extraordinary about them. There’s a lot more to you than you’ve probably ever thought, and that’s not just because I want to roll around in your scent constantly.”
“I guess it’s something I’ll have to figure out on my own,” Brigitte said, shrugging. She had never really considered herself to be particularly extraordinary in any way, she thought that she was more or less almost as normal as the next person. She’d gotten a normal degree, she’d gotten a normal job, and even her body was more or less average, from her perspective.
“Believe me,” Dillon said, his dark eyes glowing with something that was more than simple lust and admiration. “You’re a big deal. In fact, I kind of wanted to talk to you about that. But I’ll let you eat first, love. Go on.”
Brigitte felt a little tingle of something like apprehension working through her, but her trust of Dillon—even after such a short time together—made her push it aside. If nothing else, Brigitte decided, she owed him at least the courtesy of hearing him out before she reacted to what he had to ask or tell her.
*
Dillon watched Brigitte intently, knowing that what he needed to tell her was going to be difficult for her to understand. “Kieran wants me to be his second,” he said quickly.
“Okay,” Brigitte said, absorbing that for a moment.
Dillon licked his lips. “I don’t mean, like, eventually,” he said, taking a quick breath before he continued. “I mean as soon as I join the Pride, he’s going to put me forward as his second.”
Brigitte’s eyes widened slightly and he knew Brigitte was thinking back to the night they’d been attacked, and the myriad of information he had given her about joining the Pride earlier that night. “So you would be like…like Kieran’s enforcer, basically?”
Dillon smiled, leaning in to kiss Brigitte’s forehead. “Basically, that’s about right,” Dillon said, nodding. “There are some other things to it, but I would be more closely involved with the Pride than I previously told you I would be.”
“So we’re not even fully committed and you’re already breaking promises?” Brigitte raised an eyebrow and Dillon cringed slightly.
“It’s not so much breaking my promise as it is that I’ve been offered a really good opportunity, and I was hoping you would be okay with me taking it. I’d still put you first, you know that, right?”
Brigitte looked away from him and Dillon wished—not for the first time—that there was some way that he could make her a were-lion like he was, that he could make her understand how the society of his kind worked. But he had to be patient with her; she was his mate. He had to give her time to absorb things. He had to understand that there were certain things about his life that Brigitte would never be able to fully comprehend, because she hadn’t been raised the same way that he had.
“So what comes with this whole ‘Alpha’s second’ thing?” Brigitte set her plate aside and Dillon knew that he was going to have an uphill battle; the look on her face was not exactly skeptical but was guarded.
“Well,” Dillon said, starting as slowly as he possibly could. “I would have a job offer with it; I’d have a guaranteed position in Kieran’s company. Benefits, all that.” Brigitte caught her bottom lip between her teeth and Dillon watched her worry at it for a moment in thought. “I would have position in the Pride. If…if Kieran were to suddenly die, for whatever reason, I would be in contention to become the Alpha.”
Brigitte’s eyes widened. “Why would he offer something like this to you? I thought you said that lone males were practically hated by Prides?”
Dillon’s smile broadened slightly; he knew that Brigitte was really trying to understand, that she was trying to keep in mind all of the things he’d told her. “Apparently we impressed him,” Dillon said with a grin.
“We?” Brigitte pointed from Dillon to herself. “As in both of us?”
Dillon nodded. “You killed one of the tougher guys in his Pride, and Kieran’s not the kind of guy to not notice something like that.”
Brigitte shrugged it off, and Dillon saw the flicker of guilt in her eyes. “I don’t really—I mean, it was mostly luck,” she said.
Dillon kissed her lightly on the cheek. “Love, you wanted to live—that’s what it was. You wanted to live and you defended yourself against a were-lion. That’s a pretty impressive feat.” He kissed her lips. “And I defended myself against a couple of were-lions.”
“But the fact that you killed members of his Pride should make Kieran not want you to join,” Brigitte said with a frown. “I mean, those were his friends, right? Or maybe even family?” Dillon twisted his lips into a wry expression.
“They were friends, and the Pride is like family—and often is family,” he admitted. “But they’d gone behind his back, and attacked you and me. They risked revealing themselves as two-natured to the regular world.” Dillon shrugged. “It’s more important than being friends with someone. If word gets out that we really exist, how long do you think normal humans would let us live our lives?”
Brigitte hesitated for just a moment, but nodded. “I can see the point there,” she said finally. “It just seems strange to me that Kieran would go out of his way to make you a pretty powerful figure in his Pride when you are kind of an outsider. How does that make sense?”
Dillon shrugged. “When you have really powerful people,” he said, smiling slightly in more than a little self-congratulation, “in a Pride, you want to give them positions of authority. That’s the way of it. You form alliances with strong people because you want to keep the rest of the Pride in line, and you want to make sure they don’t go behind your back. It’s like…” he felt his cheeks burning, but he knew his description—the one his father had given him when he’d asked a similar question as a child learning to understand the ways of his own kind—was apt. “It’s like being a king of a very small kingdom. You want to make as sure as you can that the most powerful members of your kingdom don’t rebel against you.”
“A lot of good that did Kieran with the assholes that attacked us,” Brigitte said wryly.
Dillon chuckled. “Well yeah, there are no guarantees; that’s why the Alpha’s always the toughest of the tough. The best leader, the strongest fighter.” He leaned in and kissed Brigitte on the lips lightly.
“If you hadn’t been kicked out of your Pride…”
Dillon looked down at his hands. “My dad was a second,” Dillon said quietly. “He was in contention to take the title of Alpha after the old leader died.” He took a deep breath, feeling the lingering pain and grief that had chased him away even more effectively than the threats of his former fellow Pride members. "I’m pretty sure that the fire that killed him and my mom both was set on purpose. But I can never prove it. They chased me out, rather than have me be a second. I think it was because they never wanted me to be in a position to challenge the new Alpha.” Dillon took another breath and exhaled a gusty sigh.
“So if you take the position as Kieran’s second, you’re basically in line for the throne, so to speak,” Brigitte said, bringing Dillon back to the present.
“Essentially,” Dillon agreed. “While Kieran is still alive, I would be his enforcer, and I would do some of the things that…” Dillon’s lips twisted again. “Things you don’t really want to know about.” Dillon swallowed against the tight feeling in his throat before moving forward. “But it would guarantee me a job and it would mean that if and when you do decide to marry me, I could give you benefits, give you a good home.”
“So this is mostly about you providing for your mate,” Brigitte said with a certain flatness in her voice that Dillon was coming to recognize.
Dillon reached out and tousled her hair. “Love, you need to get adjusted to the fact that my biggest priority is going to be providing for you. If you get pregnant, that priority is going to be even greater.”
Brigitte’s eyes widened. “Let’s not talk about pregnancy or having kids yet,” she said quickly. “I mean—I mean, I’m not opposed to the idea of having kids in theory, just…” she shook her head and pulled away from him slightly, reaching onto the coffee table to pick up her plate once more. “I just haven’t even fully decided to commit to you yet, you know?”
Dillon suppressed the frustration he felt. She isn’t like you. She doesn’t know deep down in her bones that you’re the only one for her, the way you know it about her. Give her time. Give her as much time as she needs.
“Long story short,” Dillon said quickly, “I’m going to need you to come with me to a meeting next week.”
Brigitte paused, a forkful of curry and rice halfway to her mouth. “Why do you need me to go with you?”
“Because you’re my mate,” Dillon said, grinning. “That’s how everyone in the Pride sees you. They know we haven’t come to an agreement yet, but from their perspective it’s only a matter of time. If I show up to this meeting without you, it could make things…awkward. For me, and for Kieran.”
Brigitte sighed and brought the forkful of food to her mouth, chewing in silence for what seemed to Dillon like a long time. “I’ll go,” she said finally. “But I’m starting to really feel like when you say you’ll give me as much time as I need, you don’t really mean it.”
Dillon leaned in close and kissed her temple. “I do mean it,” Dillon said firmly. “I swear I do. You don’t have to move in with me until you’re ready to, and you don’t have to get married to me if you don’t want to.” He rested his hand on her knee. “For right now, it’s just more convenient for everyone in the Pride to go on their assumptions that we’re mates. After all, you smell like me. You have my bite.”
Brigitte’s eyes narrowed. “Yeah, about that,” she said, reaching up with her free hand to touch the back of her neck. “You didn’t break my skin and yet the mark is still there. What the hell is that about, exactly?”
Dillon laughed ruefully. “I didn’t do it on purpose,” he said. “But it does mark you as mine. No one in the Pride would try and horn in on you with my mark on your neck, with my scent on you.”
“And you really think that someone in the Pride might come after me otherwise?”
Dillon stared at Brigitte with astonishment. “Kieran would, for one,” he said sharply. “You have no idea, do you?” Brigitte’s cheeks suffused with pink, her blush deepening as Dillon’s smile grew. He nuzzled against her neck lightly, bringing his lips to her ear. “A woman like you is pretty fucking rare, especially amongst our kind. Even if you’re not a lion, you’re impressive.” Dillon nibbled at the juncture of Brigitte’s neck and shoulder. “You’re not a helpless waif, you’re not a murderous bitch, you’re a woman who will defend what’s hers, and you hold yourself together. What man wouldn’t want you—were-lion or regular human?”
Brigitte chuckled, putting her plate aside once more to bury her face against Dillon’s chest. “Plenty of guys don’t want me,” she insisted, her voice muffled by Dillon’s shirt. “It’s not like I’m having to beat them off with sticks, you know.”
Dillon wrapped his arms around her tightly, purring in the back of his throat instinctively. The smell of Brigitte’s body, the feeling of her lush curves pressed against him; he would readily fight—and readily kill—to keep the privilege of experiencing those things. Probably not what she wants to hear right now, he thought wryly. But somehow he would make her understand, and he would join the Pride with Brigitte at his side, that much Dillon knew he was capable of. He tugged Brigitte’s face away from his chest and pulled her up, kissing her hungrily.
“So about that bath, and all that sex we were going to have,” he said, grinning slightly as he barely broke away from her lips. Brigitte laughed, shaking her head.
“You are impossible,” she told him. “You promised me I could eat first.”
“Okay, okay,” Dillon said, pausing his hands in their exploration of her body. “You can eat. I’ll get your bath ready for you so we don’t waste time.” The sound of Brigitte’s laugh as he strode away from the couch was the best thing Dillon could think of.