Navin (Pride Daddies #1)

Chapter 1

Chapter One

Navin

“Navin!”

I turn around at the sound of my name being shouted. Orion and Pryce are walking at a fast pace toward me, and I narrow my gaze because it looks like Orion is carrying a limp body.

It’s not big enough to be one of our pack members, and as they get closer, I notice long brown hair flowing over his arm.

My heart rate picks up as the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. What the hell? What is a human female doing this high in the mountains? Is she even alive? I hope whatever happened to her has nothing to do with our logging company. That would spell disaster.

“Found her in the woods,” Orion informs me breathlessly.

She’s covered in blood, which concerns me greatly as I take a closer look. “Is she breathing?”

“Barely,” Pryce says. “Huge gash on her thigh. I’d say she’s lost a lot of blood. We used Orion’s flannel as a tourniquet.”

I lift my gaze from the woman. “What caused the injury?”

Orion shrugs. “No idea.”

“Was she anywhere near our logging operation?”

“No,” both men say in unison. “We stumbled upon her by accident while scoping out the next grove of trees.”

I glance at my truck. “Guess we better take her to the clinic in town.”

Pryce shakes his head. “She wouldn’t make it, Navin.”

I inhale slowly as I return my gaze to his and then switch to Orion’s. Both men stare at me. “What are you suggesting?” I ask, even though I know the answer.

“You should claim her, Navin. It’s the only way.” Orion’s voice is calm.

I shift my attention back to the woman. Fuck.

He’s serious. “Why me?” I mutter. She’s pale from blood loss, but I think her skin is ordinarily tanned.

She seems very small and frail, but it’s been a long time since I’ve been this close to a human, so it’s possible I simply can’t remember how much smaller they are compared to me and my pride members.

“You’re our leader. You should be the first to claim a female.”

I inhale deeply, which draws her scent into me, and take a step closer. I’m oddly drawn to her, which isn’t logical. She’s unconscious, and it’s obvious she’s hanging on to life by a thread. Blood has soaked through her jeans.

Nothing about her clothing makes any sense.

She’s barefoot and wearing a red tank top.

We occasionally come upon humans hiking in the mountains, but she’s not dressed for that sort of thing.

In fact, she has to be cold. It’s too chilly for nothing more than the tiny shirt she’s wearing.

How long has she been in this condition?

I lick my lips. “Bring her into my cabin. Let’s assess her wound. Maybe we can patch her up and still get her to the town doctor.”

“Her pulse is weak, Navin,” Orion says. “Without your intervention, she’s not long for his world.”

“Come.” I turn and take long strides toward my cabin. It’s probably a terrible idea. If I bring her into my space, her scent will fill it and linger for years. I don’t see how I have any other option, though.

I didn’t set out to be the leader of our pride. It just sort of happened. When the twelve of us broke off from our previous pride in search of a place to put down roots and find mates, the others voted and declared me the leader.

Hurrying, I leap up the three front steps to my porch and open the front door, guiding my men through to my bedroom.

Orion gently deposits the human female onto my bed.

I stare at her for a few seconds. Her features are stunning. Small button nose, rounded face, long dark lashes. She’s petite.

“We need scissors,” Pryce states. “We’ll have to cut the denim from her.”

“Kitchen drawer under the coffee pot,” I say as I reach for her leg to carefully angle it so I can see the damage better.

I wince. The gash must be long. The shirt they used to secure the wound is soaked with her blood.

So are her jeans all the way down past her knee.

She must have passed out soon after receiving the cut because there’s no blood on her hands.

She didn’t even attempt to put a tourniquet around her thigh herself, though I’m not sure what she could have used besides her tiny tank top.

Pryce returns in seconds and holds out the scissors.

I remove the flannel before I take them from his palm, and I inhale deeply again. Blood is the primary scent, but her own essence comes through clearly, filling my lungs, calling to me. I’m not sure exactly why my pride mates think I should be the one to claim her, but I can’t deny the pull.

Working fast, I slide the blade under the denim at her ankle and start cutting upward until I can pull the denim away from her thigh.

I wince as the long cut comes into view. It’s not actively bleeding, but it’s pretty deep and long, running down the front from her upper thigh to almost her knee. It’s about six inches long.

When I gently grip her leg to inspect it closer, I gasp. This gouge wasn’t caused from a fall or random accident as I’d expected. “Fuck,” I mutter. “This is a knife wound.”

“Shit. We didn’t see a knife,” Pryce says. “We also didn’t see evidence of what might have caused the wound. I just assumed it had been a tree limb or the sharp corner of a rock.”

“Someone did this to her,” I mumble, fury consuming me. I can feel her pulse. It’s very faint. Orion is right. She’d never make it into town. Her only chance at life is for one of us to claim her.

“You don’t have much time,” Pryce states unnecessarily.

“He’s right,” Orion agrees.

I’m breathing heavily now as I briefly ponder my options. There are none. I can’t let her die. Even though she’s not conscious and I know nothing about her, the magnetic pull is strong.

She’s mine.

All I need to do is bite her and make it official. The properties in my saliva will cause her to heal faster than without intervention. In this case, she literally won’t survive without me claiming her.

“Navin…” Orion warns.

The clock is ticking.

I grab her thigh with both hands, hold it steady in case my bite causes her to rouse, and lower my mouth to her. With my next inhale, my fangs drop down long and sharp, and I sink them into her tender flesh, the top two on one side of the wound, the bottom two on the other side.

The taste of her blood fills my mouth, instantly changing everything. After lingering for a few seconds to let plenty of my saliva enter her blood stream, I release her. The four puncture wounds will heal quickly and leave no evidence.

I shift my attention to her face. In seconds, her mouth opens, and she gasps as though taking in the first deep breath to oxygenate her lungs in hours. It’s likely that’s exactly the case.

“I’ll grab the first-aid kit,” Pryce states, turning from the room. He’ll easily find it in the kitchen. We all have large first-aid kits under the sink. In our line of work, we often have minor injuries that require patching.

As lion shifters, we don’t need much medical intervention, but we do like to clean and dress a wound to help the healing process. Sometimes, stitches are preferable when one of us gets a larger gash.

Orion heads to the bathroom and returns with a few towels. When he shakes one out, I gently lift my mate’s leg so he can slide it under.

Pryce returns with a bowl of water, a cloth, and the first-aid kit.

Without a word, I rinse the wound, determining that it’s definitely from a knife. It’s clean. It doesn’t seem that any major artery was hit, but close enough that she’s lost a lot of blood. An inch closer to her femoral artery and my brothers would not have found her alive.

Working quickly, I sew up the long gash, trying my best to minimize the scarring. I won’t ever be bothered by the appearance of the wound at any point in our lives, but I suspect my mate will care. Females have a tendency to be sensitive to their appearances.

At no point does my mate flinch. She’s still unconscious.

When I’m done, Pryce takes away all the supplies. “We’ll let the others know you’ll be busy and cover for you,” he informs me.

I’m vaguely aware of my brothers excusing themselves and leaving the cabin. My attention is on my mate. Every inhale draws her more firmly into my system, endearing her to me deeper by the second.

I lean over her, brush a lock of hair from her cheek, and set my nose on her neck, breathing deeply. She’s like the sweetest ambrosia. I can’t get enough. I’m already so connected to her that it will pain me to leave the room.

I’ve never had this experience, of course. There’s no way to fully grasp the connection one experiences with their mate until claiming her. I’ve never even witnessed such a claiming.

The twelve of us separated from our larger pride four years ago.

We traveled for over a year, looking for a place to settle where we might find human mates.

It was a long journey, but eventually we stumbled upon this location.

The previous owner of this land was getting up in years.

He had no sons or other relatives who wanted to inherit the property, so he was looking to sell his logging company.

We bought it and moved into the cabins scattered around the clearing.

We’ve been slowly updating them, modernizing the important aspects.

It’s perfect for us. We live up in the mountains in a space undesirable for most humans, away from society where we can shift and run free, but we’re within two hours of a few different towns.

We have trucks with four-wheel drive, so we can get to a nearby town for supplies without issue most days of the year.

It’s nice living far enough off the grid to maintain our privacy while still being close enough to society to eventually find and claim human mates.

This is not how I expected to claim a female. I certainly never intended to bond one to me against her will or without her knowledge. But there hadn’t been another option. Hopefully she will be able to forgive me.

I cringe as it occurs to me that she could possibly already belong to another.

Not a shifter. I would scent that on her.

But a human. There’s no way for me to be able to discern if she’s in any sort of human relationship.

Their bonds are not as strong as ours. Getting married or even engaging in sexual intercourse does not alter their essence in any way.

If she’s married or in love with another man, there would be no way for me to know.

All I can do is pray to the heavens that when she awakes, she isn’t furious to find she’s been bonded to me in a way that isn’t reversible. Chances are before she wakes up her body will begin to align with mine. She will already recognize me as her mate the first time her eyes blink open.

I can’t wait to see her eyes. What color are they? How deeply will I be able to see into her soul when she looks at me? I have no choice but to wait and see.

For now, I need to get these soiled clothes off her, clean her up, and then feed her. Hopefully she’ll be able to take a bottle. I’m counting on her instincts to kick in so she automatically suckles when I put a nipple in her mouth. If not, I’ll have to hook up an IV. She desperately needs fluids.

Instead of bothering with the button and zipper on her jeans, I simply cut the rest of the material up to her hip so that I can slide the ruined denim down the other leg.

She’s wearing pale-blue bikini panties, and I cut both sides before carefully easing them out from under her. Her essence is strong and fills the room. I’m so drawn to her that I want to lower my mouth to her pussy and suck her juices. I won’t, but the desire is strong.

My mate doesn’t rouse at all as I pull the tank top over her head and then unfasten the matching blue bra. As I lower the straps down her arms, freeing her breasts, I inhale sharply.

She’s fully naked now, and even though there are minor scrapes on her arms and smudges of dirt, she’s stunning. Perfection.

I note several details. Her hair is messy, but it’s obvious it was recently washed and conditioned.

She wasn’t wandering around in the woods for days or anything.

I can smell her shampoo. When I run my fingers through her locks, they easily untangle.

Her hair is soft. I could stroke it for the rest of my life.

I check every inch of her for other injuries and find none. The bottoms of her feet aren’t even very dirty. She did not walk around in the woods with no shoes, which means someone left her there.

Fury consumes me as I piece together the facts. My mate did not cut herself on anything in nature. She also didn’t cut her own leg. A knife was used, and whoever cut her left her for dead.

If Orion and Pryce hadn’t stumbled upon her, she would have died soon. Wild animals would have found her body and torn her to shreds, making it impossible for anyone to have ever located her.

My blood boils. Someone wanted her dead, and they did a good job of making sure she would never be found.

Perhaps years from now, a hiker or logger might have discovered a femur or other bones, but by then there wouldn’t have been any evidence to indicate how or why she died.

A DNA match could have proven her identity, but beyond that, nothing would have ever happened to her killer.