Chapter 2
ISLA
My brain was obviously not processing anything in my near-dead state, because instead of freaking out about the possibility of turning into a freaking lion, I was processing the fact that when you changed from lion to human, you came back naked.
I’d been in too much shock when Bohdie had shifted for the first time to notice what happened when he shifted back, then his bite had made me black out. But I was noticing right now.
See Exhibit A: Axel was standing in front of me, naked, so I got an eyeful of naked Axel. Did I mention he was naked? And hot? But really, really naked? Why couldn’t I look away?
“Cover your balls, man, before she passes out. I think all the blood left in her body is heading for her cheeks,” Archer said with a laugh, and I blushed harder, but managed to muster the energy to give him the finger.
A knife appeared in Axel’s hand from god-knows-where, and he cut down the length of his wrist. My stomach turned at the sight of the blood beginning to run down his golden forearm.
“You need to wrap your lips around the cut and suck down as much as you can. I know it sounds gross, but it’s the only way. In a couple of minutes, it’ll apparently taste like melted chocolate as your body realizes it’s being cured, so just hold out until then.”
He put his wrist to my mouth, but I couldn’t do it.
It was disgusting. Axel put a gentle hand on the back of my head, forcing my mouth onto his bleeding wrist. As the coppery taste of blood hit my tongue, I gagged.
I tried to pull back, but Axel’s firm hand prevented my retreat.
Bolstering my nerve, I sealed my lips around the wound and sucked hard.
Axel let out a shuddering moan, and my eyes shot to his face. His face via his dick. Oh crap, he was getting hard. As promised, I quickly stopped being grossed out by it. But it tasted better than melted chocolate—it tasted like sunshine and perfection. I moaned, sucking it down faster.
No one seemed overly fussed by Axel’s nudity. I guess if that clothes disappearing trick happened every time they changed from lion to man, they’d have seen a lot of nudity, but it was seriously short-circuiting my brain.
Noticing my gaze constantly dragging down Axel’s body, Archer grabbed a throw rug from the back of the couch and wrapped it around Axel’s waist. He must have misconstrued my roaming eyes as embarrassment rather than lust.
Not going to lie—I was partly relieved, partly disappointed.
I could feel the anti-venom working. My muscles were slowly strengthening, the tightness in my chest easing so that I was no longer gasping for breath.
I went to pull away, but Axel’s strangled voice stopped me.
“You need more. Keep going.” Liquid heat pooled between my thighs, and I moaned again.
I was going to embarrass myself soon, but he tasted like sin.
When my hair fell over my face, I gasped, my mouth unlatching from Axel. It was full and shiny, a touch more golden than it had been in years, like it had been kissed by the sun. I stood up, and although my clothes still hung from my body, I felt stronger. Axel was a little grayer, though.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“Yeah, I just need a few minutes.” He snagged a backpack from the floor as he stumbled down the hall toward the bathroom at the end. The door shut with a quiet click.
I turned to the only remaining ghost of my past, unable to control myself. Closing the space between us, I leaped into his arms. Archer wrapped his strong forearms around my body, crushing me close.
And then I cried. I cried every tear that I’d kept trapped inside me over the last five years. “You came for me. She said you’d find me.”
“Always, Isla. Always.” He snuggled his face into the crook of my neck, sucking in deep breaths.
“Lala?” It was a child’s voice that called me, not Wyatt, though the boy from my childhood who was now a man stood beside him.
“Hey, baby. I’m okay now. Come here.” I squatted down so I could catch Bohdie in my arms. I kissed his floppy, golden hair and his cheeks, and he wrapped his arms too tightly around my neck.
I stood with him in my arms, resting him on my cocked hip.
He was too big for my tiny frame, but I was feeling strong.
Axel strode out of the bathroom looking like the confident, proud man I used to know, now fully dressed. God, I’d missed him. I’d missed them all.
He looked at Bohdie, then back at me. “Is this why you left?”
I hesitated. “Yes.”
“You could have told us. We would have helped. We would have taken care of you both,” Wyatt said softly, gentle reproach in his voice.
“She said I couldn’t.” They gave me nearly identical confused looks. They’d hate that they were so alike sometimes.
“Who said?” Archer asked, his head cocked to the side.
Now it was my turn to look confused. “Kara.”
“You were seeing someone from Kara’s Pride? That’s who got you pregnant?” Archer pushed.
I put Bohdie down on the ground. “What? Bohdie isn’t mine. He’s Kara’s. She gave him to me and told me to run when he was days old. Then she died.” My voice cracked, and every man in the room stilled.
“This is Kara’s baby? He called you Mama.”
I rolled my eyes. “Of course he did. He was scared. Normally, he calls me Lala.” I gave Wyatt a watery smile. “He knows his real mama died, and that’s why he’s now my big, beautiful baby.”
Bohdie grimaced. “I’m not a baby, Lala.”
I ruffled his downy-soft hair. “I know, Squirt. How about you go play some games on my phone? But no buying anything this time.” A $2500 phone bill back when he was three had ensured we both learned our lesson. Happy to get time with the elusive phone, he was gone in a flash.
I turned to Axel and gave into the urge I’d had since he first appeared like an apparition.
Wrapping my arms around his waist, I buried my face in his chest. I leaned on his strength, knowing in my soul he’d catch me before I fell.
I felt Wyatt crowd behind me, his face buried in my hair, his arms wrapped around my ribs.
Pressed between them should have felt weird, but it felt right.
It felt like home. With them, all those years ago, I’d had a family for the first time in my life, or at least something like it.
I felt more than heard the deep rumbling purr in Axel’s chest. “Have you guys always been… lions?”
Archer laughed. “Lion shifters. There’re a few differences between us and our Serengeti forebears. And yes, we are born shifters, like Bohdie.”
Axel sat down on the couch, pulling me down beside him. “I think you better start from the beginning.”
So I told them. I told them about Kara banging on my window.
About the scary knock on my foster parents’ front door.
About the running, the moving from place to place, never staying anywhere more than a week until Kara’s money ran out, then never more than a month.
I told them about the crappy jobs, about Bohdie getting sick when he was three months old with croup and how I’d been convinced he was going to die.
I told them about the loneliness. The shitty houses in the crappy areas.
The reason I’d bought a gun, although I’d never bought bullets.
But I also told them about Bohdie’s first steps, his first Christmas. All the firsts Kara would never see. I loved Bohdie with all my heart. He was mine now. While I may have hated how we lived, I’d never regretted saying yes.
The arm of the couch creaked as Wyatt’s big hand squeezed the armrest. “Why didn’t she come to us?
Why put all this on Isla?” He’d gotten huge, easily as tall as Axel now, and maybe as wide.
I’d missed it all. For a moment, I mourned the normal teen years of boys and tears and prom dresses that I should have had.
Archer wrapped an arm around Wyatt’s shoulders. “You know why. And while I don’t think what she did was right, it was the only way. For the kid, I mean.”
I stood up and walked around the room, tugging at my new lustrous hair. “Well then, does someone wanna explain it to me? Because I’ve lived on the run for five years on the word of Kara, always looking over my shoulder, always jumping at dark shadows. I want to know why.”
Archer grabbed my hands, gently tugging them from my hair and twining his fingers in mine.
The touch automatically soothed me. “It was a hostile takeover. A new Regent had been sniffing around. He came to town, wiped out the current rulers, and any offspring who might have taken their place. Including Kara.”
“Even the children?”
Archer nodded. “Our world isn’t always civil, or humane. We rule with might, and power, and sometimes with greed and ruthlessness. Some of the older shifters are no better than the animals we evolved from—the new leader included.”
I wanted to sit. Or run again. But I didn’t think I could outrun this truth. I was changed now. This was me.
I looked down the hall toward Bohdie’s room, then back to the guys. For the first time in my life, I saw them as a potential threat, not my saviors. As subtly as I could, I positioned myself between them and Bohdie, but I should have known that the action wouldn’t have been lost on them.
Especially not Axel. His fingers curled into his fist, but his face remained calm. “We are not your regular pack. We’re a bachelor Pride, and not one of us wants to rule one of the North American Prides. You and Bohdie are safe with us. I gave you my word.”
I sucked in a deep breath and calmed my nerves. I’d been Bohdie’s sole protector for so long, his mama, and it was hard to break five years of suspicion.
I pressed a hand to my chest. “I know that here. I don’t mean to insult you.
It’s just habit.” Purposefully, I moved back toward the couch.
I had to begin to trust someone, and on this planet, there were none I trusted more than these three.
“He’s secure now, right? Can we stop running?
” My heart leaped at the thought of putting down roots.
Maybe I could go back to school, get a decent job where I wasn’t paid in cash and surviving on tips.
Then I looked at their faces. Wyatt couldn’t even look me in the eye.
“I don’t think that’s an option, Isla. Maybe if Bohdie had been a lioness… but he’s a direct male descendant of our former Regent, and Bob isn’t going to like that.”
I couldn’t help the unladylike snort. “Your new Lion King is called Bob?” I let out a tiny laugh, which got more and more hysterical. “I would have been less surprised if his name was Muf—”
Archer held up a hand. “Don’t say it.”
“Mufasa,” I burst out, doubling over as laughter made my gut muscles hurt.
Wyatt was smiling, while Archer was looking at me like I was deranged. But Axel just drummed his fingers on the armrest, waiting for me to finish my outburst so he could continue.
“Sorry, sorry. Keep going,” I told him, sucking in breaths.
“As I was saying, there’s a good chance that Bob felt Bohdie’s shift within the extended Pride links. He’ll know Bohdie is alive.”
All mirth left me when I saw the look on Axel’s face. “What are you trying to say?”
He dropped his voice, almost too low for me to hear. “It means that if he finds Bohdie, then your son will be as good as dead.”