STORY EXCERPT

“Drugs make up a large amount of our profits, but we do a little trafficking on the side,” Wade said. “Aaron, tell our fine guests what this little shit’s in for.”

When Isaac took over from Sebastian, he said there were a few rules every lion shifter had to understand. They might kill their enemies, but they didn’t mess with the women, children, the weak. These bastards did something unforgivable.

“Greg’s father here owes our group a huge debt. He’s here as payment, and he’s not even broken in,” Aaron said with a laugh, flashing them a mouthful of teeth. Teeth Spencer soon broke. He was on Aaron in moments, his left hand already turning into claws. Before Aaron could move away, he raked his claws across the bastard’s face. Aaron shrieked. Golden fur began covering his arms and legs.

“Shit,” he heard Jed utter behind him. Spencer was past caring. He kept seeing those brown puppy-dog eyes in his head. The trapped soul underneath, that beckoned to his for help. One word kept flashing over and over again in his head. Mate.

“Mine.” He didn’t know why he uttered that, but it sounded right. Aaron came after him, gun in hand. A gun to a shifter fight? Spencer knocked the flimsy weapon side, ran his claws through the bastard’s chest. Growls erupted. He turned his head, saw Jed driving his fist into Wade, who was in half-lion and half-man form.

“Spencer, we need to leave. Now,” Jed yelled.

“Not without him,” Spencer said. Jed gave him a ‘don’t you dare’ look, but he didn’t give a damn.

Spencer scooped Greg in his arms and stepped over Aaron’s groaning body on the ground. The Vicious Manes members lingering outside saw him and ran towards him. One whipped out a gun, fired, but that didn’t stop him. Spencer huffed. Just a mere shoulder graze.

“Meet you in the car,” Jed said, running past him because he didn’t have anyone in his arms.

Greg stared up at him, mouth slightly hanging open, as if he couldn’t really believe this was all happening.

“Stop that big fucker. He stole one of our merchandise,” yelled Wade’s voice in the back.

Greg clutched at his shirt and spoke to him for the first time. “Please. Don’t let them take me.”

Spencer didn’t know what possessed him to press a kiss to that trembling mouth, but it sure felt good. Lit a fire in him he didn’t know existed. All ever Spencer cared about was fighting, violence, but for the first time in his life, he cared about someone. He wanted to keep Greg safe.

“They’ll never touch you again,” he promised.

****

Gregory Marshal thought his life was over the moment his useless excuse of a father handed him over to Aaron and his goons. God knew his old man kept threatening to use him as payment for all his debts. Greg was foolish enough to believe that some good existed in the man. His father didn’t used to drink this much, used to try harder at being a dad. That went south the moment his human mother left them both for another shifter.

He fought Aaron and the other Vicious Manes lions as much as he could, but a submissive lion shifter proved no equal to brutes. Aaron had to drag him into that seedy massage place. Greg thought Aaron had wrung all the fight out of him, that he’d have no choice but to accept defeat. Until Greg laid his eyes on him.

The massive brown-haired and blue-eyed monster with a scar running up his left eyebrow, called to his lion in ways no one ever had or could. A complete stranger. God. This lion shifter looked like a walking tank, but even on the ground, hurting, Greg knew this stranger and the other man next to him were different from Aaron and the rest of the Vicious Manes. These strangers were lion shifters too, but they were on an entirely different league.

His own lion didn’t get repulsed by them. No oily kind of aura hung around them the way it clung to the Vicious Manes lion pride members. Everything happened so fast. One moment Greg was lying on the ground, then the tank moved like a damn hurricane.

Greg didn’t believe a guy of that size, who was probably made up of ninety-nine percent muscle, could move so fast. The next thing Greg knew, his savior picked him up and Aaron lay groaning on the floor, a bloody mess. Greg mumbled something. Then the stranger put his mouth on his, a mere brush of lips, but it was enough to kindle a flame in his chest. A fire that could burn him inside out if he wasn’t careful.

It was crazy, but Greg held on to his rescuer even as he spotted two, three Vicious Mane lion shifters chasing after them. Two of them had guns. Red blossomed across his savior’s left shoulder. He touched the stain, shocked by the scent and sight of blood.

“You’re shot,” he whispered.

His savior only flashed him a cocky smile that completely transformed his harsh profile. God, but that smile went right to Greg’s dick. An inappropriate reaction in a situation like this.

“Takes more than a puny bullet to take me down,” said the stranger.

A car skidded next to them. He recognized his rescuer’s companion behind the driver’s wheel.

“I’m Greg,” he whispered as the guy opened the back door and gently placed him inside.

“Spencer,” the big lion shifter said.

Spencer got inside the car, and they were lurched into sudden motion. Greg pressed his cheek against the fabric of the car seat and shut his eyes. Another person would be filled with anxiety and worry in his place, but he didn’t understand his reaction to Spencer. Safe, his lion whispered in his ear. Spencer would never hurt them. Ever.

ADULT EXCERPT

“In and out. Slow and easy,” Spencer told him.

Greg calmed down. “You see what you can do to me? Please, Spencer. Tell me this is real, not a trick, because my heart won’t be able to take it if you’re harboring a hidden motive.”

“I don’t,” Spencer said simply, grabbing Greg’s hand and placing it over his broad chest. “Hear that?”

Greg closed his eyes, listened. “I do. Your heart’s beating steady. Confident.”

“That’s right.”

Greg opened his eyes again. “Am I worth it, Spencer? You risked so much for me, and we hardly know each other. Strangers.”

Spencer’s irises glowed like a pair of tiny, passionate suns. The dominant lion shifter placed a hand on his shoulder, rubbed at it. Greg found he didn’t mind Spencer’s touches. Cat shifters were said to take after their animals. They were supposed to be affectionate to other cats by nature, but Greg never found it so. He’d always been alone. Lonely. Never comfortable around others, but with Spencer, he felt like he’d finally found what he’d been missing his entire life. Home. Mate.

“Mate. You’re my mate,” Spencer said, as if reading his thoughts.

Feeling bold and unlike himself, Greg leaned forward, placed his arms behind Spencer’s neck. He tugged his big lion lower and kissed him. His heart started again as Spencer ran his hands down the length of his body. Spencer’s touch felt possessive, rough, but he didn’t mind, because something deep inside of him, a voice, kept shouting ‘yes.’ Yes, Spencer was the one.

****

“Are you sure?” Greg asked after their kiss. “That you didn’t make a mistake?”

“In saving you?” Spencer asked, frowning.

“No, that I’m your…” Greg paused, and whispered in a low voice, as if terrified someone would hear. “Mate.”

Spencer answered by kissing the side of Greg’s neck, that tender spot between shoulder and neck. Perfect position to place his mate mark. Greg shivered when he set his teeth into skin, grazed at it. Spencer left Greg a hickey there, was tempted to do more, but he pulled away at the last second. That move annoyed his lion, but Spencer reminded the beast that Greg had been through plenty in the past twenty-four hours.

“Why did you stop?” Greg asked.

Spencer pulled up Greg’s shirt. Well, his old shirt, but it sure looked good on his little lion. The moment he saw Greg wake, hunger nearly took over. He wanted to ravish his conquest, his special mate. Place his scent all over Greg. He did that now, nuzzling and kissing a path down the length of Greg’s chest, ribs, stomach. Underneath, Greg only had his boxers. Those, Spencer grabbed a handful and ripped off with ease.

Greg gasped, clawed at the sheets above him and curled his fingers over the metal bars of the headboard.

“Stop me anytime,” he told his mate.

His voice sounded barely human, all growly and rough, a sign he wasn’t in full control of both the man and beast inside him. Who could blame Spencer? He’d been resigned to a lonely, single life, certain in the knowledge he didn’t need a mate. Hadn’t wanted one, but that was all for show. Deep down, he’d been terrified that cruel fate wouldn’t give him one. Destiny proved him wrong.

“Stop? I don’t want that.” Greg let out a moan, which only thickened his dick.

Would Greg cry out sweetly while Spencer slid his cock inside his ass and pounded in and out of him? Staked his ownership? No way in hell Spencer would let any male sniff around his mate. He was a possessive bastard that way.

“Spencer? Something wrong?”

“Just thinking that any guy stupid around to sniff at you would have hell to pay. I’ll rip them apart.”

Greg stared at him. “You mean it.”

“Of course I do. You were born to be mine, and I’ve never been good at sharing.”

“You’re too much, a little overwhelming, but is it wrong that I don’t mind?” Greg whispered.

“Not at all. Right now, I’m this close to flipping you on your hands and knees. Then I’ll rut you until you can barely walk in the morning, but I won’t do that.”

Greg groaned. “Why not?”

Tempting little lion.

“Today, I’ll just have a taste of you. Let you rest and heal. Once you’ve recovered, then our first time will be all the sweeter.”

“You’re going to make me wait?” Greg demanded, sounding shocked, annoyed almost.

Spencer chuckled. Greg could get away with acting bratty, because Greg was his mate. He wouldn’t tolerate another submissive lion shifter acting that way with him. There were a few lion shifters in the pride he had one-night stands with. Spencer was a grown male dominant lion shifter in prime after all, but he never formed any connections with them. Finally, those days of numbness and loneliness would come to an end, now that his mate was within his grasp.

“Lie back. That’s all you need to do,” Spencer ordered.

He lowered his face to Greg’s dick, stuck his tongue out, and traced Greg’s prick from root to crown. Greg shuddered underneath him, and he’d scarcely begun. Spencer toyed with the slit on Greg’s cock head with his tongue, sucked at it. Greg squirmed, moaned as he opened his mouth, began to take Greg’s dick in.

Spencer blew Greg, leaving Greg panting, pleading. His own dick lengthened, felt like a steel pipe between his legs.