Craving Her (Keeping Her Series Book 4) (11 page)

“And it still feels like
I’m claiming something I don’t deserve to keep,” he said simply, his eyes going
over her head to her father.  “I should never have felt what I felt for a
child, and definitely not a child I swore to protect when I joined this pack.”

“So . . . What?” she
asked looking between him and her father.  “My Dad looks ready to kill you, and
you look like you expect to stand stoic in parade rest and take it.  What a
crock of shit.”  The last line was distinctive and full of scorn.  “I’m a grown
woman who has a mate, a mate that my father trusts and loves like family.  And
you,” she said punching his arm, hard, “you stayed away from me all these
years, and when I threw myself at you,
as an adult
, I might add, you rejected
me, because of who my father is, and knowing you gave up your mate to do it.” 
Then her words turned taunting.  “It’s beautiful what the two of you have. 
Quite frankly, you should both thank your lucky stars you have each other,
because, as of this moment, I can honestly say fuck you both.”  And then with
seething steps, she pushed her way past all of them, stepped quite forcefully
on her brother who was watching them from his prone position on the floor, and
left them looking after her with surprise on their faces.  Her brother’s was
more a painful oomph than surprise, but no one could say he didn’t deserve it.

“Men,” Miley muttered.  “She’s
right.  You all deserve each other.”  Then she followed after Cleo.

Logan cleared his throat
in the silence.  “I reckon you know where to find me if you need me,” he said. 
Then he hauled a protesting Ian up by his arm and yanked him out with him. And
just like that they were alone.  Shawn kept his silence under Lucas’ glare,
waiting to be summarily kicked out of the pack, or jumped and his head ripped
off, until Lucas gave a chuff much like his daughter’s.

“I need a fucking drink,”
was what Lucas said in his less than pleased voice, making Shawn blink stupidly
in surprise.  Then he glared at Shawn and growled, “My office.  Now.”

Shawn watched the big man
who had been his SEAL commander before he was his alpha turn and grumble his
way down the hall.  Then he followed him to his office, wondering who he
disliked disappointing more, his alpha or his mate.  Considering the look Cleo
flashed him, and her final eloquent words, he had a feeling he was going to
regret hurting his mate a whole hell of a lot more, especially if she did
finally give up on him.  For now, he had to live through the next few minutes. 
Then he could find his mate and deal with the huge empty space her words cut
out of him when she left.  One thing at a time.

CHAPTER
ELEVEN

Cleo could not remember
ever being this angry.  When she had imagined all the obstacles her father
could put before her, she had not considered that one.  She had not considered
that her mate’s loyalty would always be to her father before herself.  Knowing
how loyal the men were to the pack had always been a comfort.  Was she really
going to be shocked now when it was proved just how loyal Shawn was?  How
stupid was she?  And now that everyone knew what was going on, thanks to her
idiot brother, who she was going to kill at the earliest opportunity, she was
going to have everyone in her business.  She stopped her full run out the door
and stopped.  What was really scaring her was what happens if her father
forbade the match? Would Shawn go along with that as well?  Did she want him if
he was such a chicken shit?  Hmm.  Tough question.

Unfortunately, she was
fairly certain she did want him.  So, if he did something stupid like get
kicked out of the pack and leave without giving her a chance to go too, she was
tracking his ass down and hurting him, bad.

She sank down on the
garden bench.  She was as close to the property line as she could get without
actually climbing the wall.  She should have grabbed her car and jetted, but
the sad truth was that Shawn was here.  So, where else would she go?

It’s true
,
she thought,
love makes fools of us all.

It was a depressing
thought.  Plus, it made her feel like an idiot girl with romantic notions, who
wore long dresses and pined after some weak-willed full human in the movies. 
Fuck
that.
  Talk about ridiculous.  The question she should be asking herself
was where the nearest gun range is.  The thought soothed her enough that she
could sit still and start creating some mission parameters for herself.

That was how Miley found
her.

“Are you alright?”  Miley
sighed when she turned to look at her and she caught the look in Cleo’s eyes.  “You
know, when I told you to go after what you wanted I had no idea it would be
Shawn.”

“Yeah, well,
unfortunately, he’s all I want.”  Cleo sheathed the knife she had been twirling
in her abstraction.  “You come here to talk me out of him?”

Miley snorted, a most
unladylike statement for her to make.  “Of course not.  He’s your mate.  No one
could change that, least of all your father, if that’s what you are out here
thinking.”

“It crossed my mind. 
Shawn is such a loyal soldier, if Dad said ‘leave and never see my daughter
again’ he would probably say ‘yes sir.  Thank you sir’.”

Miley chuckled at the
salute Cleo threw in but then sobered fast.  “One, your father is not going to
say that . . .” she paused and retrenched.  “Your father is not going to say it
and mean it.  And two, Shawn is your mate.  He may be fighting it out of a
sense of duty and because of the age difference, but he is not the kind of man
who would let you go, not really, and not for long.  He’s another of those uber
alpha men, remember?” 

Miley wrapped her arms
around Cleo’s shoulders, and Cleo was worn enough to lean into it.  “Even if he
did leave, probably thinking it was for your own good, eventually he would show
up, tell you you were his, and wham, you are just supposed to change your whole
life for him, when if he had just manned up to begin with, it would have saved
you all the grief.”  Since her words were getting more heated with each
sentence, Cleo leaned back and looked at her aggravated face.

“You know, we were
actually talking about me.”

Miley reddened and then
cleared her throat and toned it down a notch.  “Sorry, I got carried away, but
let it be a reminder that I know a thing or two about being rejected by your
mate, and how not fun it is to try and live without him.”

“Right,” Cleo said
dryly.  “Now tell me how to live with him, knowing I’m not his first loyalty.”

Miley leaned back and
looked at her in surprise.  “Is that what has you worried?”

“Wouldn’t you be?”

Miley pursed her lips and
looked to be giving it considerable thought.  “Your father, first and foremost,
is about protecting his children.  Loving you and your brother goes hand in
hand with protecting you, even above himself.  Am I any less loved because I am
not his first loyalty?”

Cleo looked at her and
shook her head.  “You’re comparing apples and oranges.  Dad loves you more than
life.  He loves and protects us, yes, but he doesn’t really need us in his
everyday life.  You, well, I don’t think he was really living until you came
back into his life.  And I can guaran-damn-ty you if we asked him to give you
up he would laugh in our faces.  You are most emphatically the one thing he
would not give up.”  She leaned back thinking about it.  “Not sure if the same
can be said for Shawn.  Don’t get me wrong.  I want him to be loyal to his
alpha and his pack, but I would prefer that he wanted me enough to say ‘to hell
with all of you if you don’t like us together’.”

“And you are so sure he
wouldn’t?”

“I don’t know,” Cleo
sighed, “and I am out here hiding because I’m afraid of the answer when I find
out.”

“Give them both more
credit.”  Miley stood up and held out a hand.  Cleo just looked at it until
Miley smirked at her.  “You and I both know you’re not the type to hide from
anything, least of all the two men in your life.  Three if you count Ian.”

“I don’t count Ian,” Cleo
muttered, but she took the hand offered.  “I suppose if he isn’t there, I can
always track him down and shoot him, after bludgeoning my father with his desk.”

Miley laughed, but Cleo
wasn’t sure why.  She sure as hell wasn’t joking.

***

Shawn had just spent the
most uncomfortable twenty minutes of his life when Lucas finally finished his
drink.  He was in his office chair and had been alternating between glaring at
Shawn, who was staring at the wall in parade rest, and his drink for quite a while.

“She is right about one
thing,” Lucas said, loudly into the growing silence.  “If I was going to choose
a mate for my daughter, which I never fucking would,” he added on a dark aside
before going on, “you would be a good choice.”

Shawn had been holding
his silence as was his usual practice, but at those words, he could not have
spoken if he wanted to.

Lucas glared at him some
more, before finally saying, “Fine.  Not like I can change a fucking thing
between mates anyway, but you will fucking take this slow,” he growled,
pointing a big finger at Shawn.

That had Shawn raising
his head and taking the stare with a firm look of his own.  “With all due
respect, Lucas, I’m not taking this slow.”

“Excuse me?”  The voice
had dropped to a soft warning, but Shawn knew enough about the man’s daughter
to know if he had a chance in hell of claiming his mate, he had better move the
fuck on with it before she chucked his ass.

“Your daughter would take
that as an insult, and she would be right to do so.  Again, with all due respect,
you would not let someone else interfere with your mating, and I have let too
much come between us as it is.”  He kept his eyes firmly on Lucas’ as the man
hissed at him.  “We’ll move at our pace, and not yours.  Or, quite frankly,
your daughter would be handing me my balls.”

“It’s never a good thing
to be scared of your mate, son,” Lucas sniped, but something in the
conversation had mellowed his anger.  He was practically languid.

Shawn narrowed his eyes,
but his words lacked real heat.  “Fuck you, Lucas.”

Lucas guffawed, and just
like that, Shawn knew they were okay.  And something deep inside relaxed.  Now
to find his mate and soothe the other angry lion, hopefully without getting
mauled.

Logan crashing through
the door derailed his thoughts like dynamite.  “We have a breach on the fences.” 
His voice was grim and hard, his eyes wolf yellow.  “Hostiles on the property.”

Lucas stood up.  Shawn
was already moving.

“Cleo and Miley?” Lucas
asked grimly, while Shawn stopped only long enough to hear the answer, his
talons shooting out from his human hands without him realizing it.

“No fucking clue,” Logan
answered, his words coming from a less than human throat.  “Cameras had them by
the back fence line before we went dark.”

“They got into the
security feed?” Lucas asked, but Shawn was already moving ahead of him past
Logan and out the door.

“Maybe.  Could have just
cut it, but we won’t know until Eli has a chance to check it.”

“Stryker?”  Shawn heard
Lucas ask, but he was already shifting and didn’t wait for the answer.  One
minute he was man, the next pure predator, with a wing span of six feet and
razor sharp vision that could see prey miles away.  He left the others behind
with one thought.  Cleo.

***

Cleo and Miley were
nearly back to the house when she heard a sound she had become more than
familiar with.  She lunged to the side and the dart that would have taken her
in the back instead lodged itself helplessly in a tree a few feet from where
she stood.  She flipped up to her feet and turned with the gun already in her
hand, only to see Miley fall in a somewhat graceful swoon to the brick path – a
graceful swoon that ended with a thunk of her head on hard, packed ground. 
Cleo was too busy to check to see if she was okay, busy dodging another dart
before she had the trajectory and pulled a blade, sending it unerringly through
the brush with the same motion.  She heard the thunk of it burying into flesh
before she heard the male scream.   Then she smelled lions.  Bullets and blades
would just make them mad.  At that point she could have escaped, but not with
Miley out cold on the ground.  Instead, she stripped as she moved around,
circling Miley and keeping her ears open for more.  She shifted as soon as she was
not constricted by clothes.  Then, as a 600-pound lioness, she stood over Miley
and watched, her tail flicking with her impatience.  She waited for whoever
would dare trespass armed on Lionsgate itself. 

That was a mistake.  She could
already taste their blood.  In her lion form, she threw back her head and
roared.  It was the only warning they were going to get.

***

Shawn circled to the back
of the property, and finding nothing but disrupted wilds, he flew back towards
the house.  It looked like they had come in through the wildest part of the
property against the beginning of the hill country Lucas left wild for when
they wanted to run.  It had always been their biggest weak spot, but they had
compensated with motion sensors and as much of a view for the cameras that they
could get with the foliage.  They had considered it worth the slight risk they
took keeping it wild and untamed, and hard to defend.  They might feel
differently if it cost them more than they were willing to pay. He thought of
Miley and Cleo and squawked his denial at the thought of losing anything.  Then
he heard the lion roar, and if he had been a man, he would have smiled.  From
the sound of it, Cleo was pissed and in fighting form.  He veered through the Napa
sky and headed for his mate, secure in the knowledge that she was not knocked
out and in trouble while he searched for her.  From the sound of it, she had
things well in hand.  He would be lucky if he got a piece of the lunatics who
thought they could come to Lionsgate and take what they valued most.  He cawed
an answer to her roar, even as he heard another lion and a wolf howl close by. 
Someone was going to die today.  Painfully.

He saw Cleo and a second
later realized that Miley was on the ground under the protective shield of Cleo’s
lion.  In front and behind her, two larger unknown male lions were moving in. 
Cleo’s problem was that she had to protect Miley. If she attacked one lion, she
left the unconscious human to the mercy of the second lion.  Somewhere behind
him he heard another lion roar and recognized this one.  Lucas was close.  He
swooped with an angry caw and scraped razor sharp talons up the sides of the
nearest lion.  The lion roared and sprung up at the hawk with his powerful back
legs, but Shawn was already somewhere else.  With the lion in the air, he came
back around and swiped at his eyes.

While he was keeping the
second lion distracted, Cleo sprung at the first male, taking him down to his
back with the unexpected move and mauling him with teeth and claws.  He twisted
and came at her with his heavier weight, knocking her back and standing over
her, his paws pressing her down into the dirt.  She fought clearly pissed and
her fight seemed just as unexpected to him as the attack had been.  Plus, he
seemed determined to dominate her rather than kill and she was having none of
it.

The point of who was
going to win that struggle was moot when Lucas, in his much bigger lion form,
came flying out of the trees and took that lion up and away from his daughter. 
Shawn circled and struck at his wounded adversary, untouched while the lion he
played with was bleeding from his muzzle, back, and sides.  Knowing what was
coming, Shawn went for the enraged lion’s eyes again, and while he was once again
roaring his rage and trying to get to Shawn in the sky, Logan as his black wolf
took him out at the hamstrings.  Shawn blinded him when he screeched and turned
to go after the wolf, splattering blood with every move.  Now he was blinded,
twisting, and jumping every which way until another lion, Ian, came out of the
trees, wrapped his giant maw around him, and broke his back.