Jaguar's Kiss

Chapter Three

Lila had almost missed her cue.

All through her father’s speech, she couldn’t focus, a sort of creeping numbness fogging her awareness. Luckily Patch whispered her name and jostled her out of her catatonia just in time for her appearance. The one thing she was supposed to do and she’d nearly missed it.

She trotted up on stage, grabbed onto Roman’s hand and looked out over the sea of faces with her pretty social smile fixed firmly in place. Most of those faces were happy, a few held lingering concern from the earlier announcement.

Lila scanned the crowd for Santiago—not even sure why she was doing it—just in time to see the back of his head as he darted out of the building like it was on fire. No surprise there. She hadn’t exactly expected him to be happy for her. She shouldn’t have been looking for him in the first place.

The meeting had broken up shortly thereafter, though Lila had stuck around to accept congratulations and wedding tips from the pride’s matrons. She knew she shouldn’t have been relieved when an emergency had called Roman and the senior pride members away, but with her fiancé absent she’d been able to make her excuses and slip away to meet Patch at the Lion’s Den.

Located stumbling distance from most of the residential complexes, the bar was right in the heart of the pride lands. It wasn’t much—a couple of pool tables, an old juke box and a tiny dance floor—but as a shifters-only watering hole, it was often the only place where they could let their hair—or fur—down and just be themselves without worrying about what the humans might see or think if a drunken fight suddenly took a turn for the furry.

Seated next to Patch at the shadowy end of the bar, Lila watched the bartender, a dark-eyed tigress nicknamed Whiskey, slinging drinks.

“What are we drinking to?” Patch eyed the milky white shots of the bar’s signature drink dubiously. Called raki, or lion’s milk, it was a Turkish alcohol that tasted like black licorice, kicked like lighter fluid, and left the drinker with a sweet, smooth aftertaste and completely impaired judgment.

“To matrimony.” Lila lifted her shot and threw it back, sucking in a hard breath to keep from coughing as her eyes teared up.

Patch played with her shot, sliding it in circles on the surface of the bar. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“It was only decided this afternoon. I tried calling you, but it went straight to voicemail and it seemed like the kind of news that shouldn’t be left on a message.”

Patch made a face. “Yeah, sorry, I was probably out of range. Work stuff.”

“And how is life in the wilderness, Patricia Marie?”

Patch glared at the mention of her real name and downed her shot, gasping and giving her head a little shake.

“That good, huh?”

The cougar grimaced. “The season is winding down. This is usually when I would disappear on my own for a while, until the winter work starts up, but with the bogeyman out there, it looks like I’ll be hanging around here instead. Forgive me if I don’t jump for joy.”

Lila drew a fingernail through the condensation on the bar. For purely selfish reasons, she wanted Patch here with her and safe and sound, but she knew her best friend wasn’t a homebody like her. She’d go stir crazy if she had to stay here long term. “He isn’t forcing anyone to come in. It’s all voluntary.”

“It’s a warning I’d be stupid to ignore. I know better than anyone how quickly we can be taken.”

Lila went still. She’d forgotten. Not actually forgotten, but gotten so caught up in her own drama she hadn’t realized how Patch would be taking tonight’s news. What it would mean to her. She’d only come to live at Lone Pine after her parents had vanished. “Do you think these disappearances are related? Could the same people have taken your parents?”

“They could be. No way of knowing.” She reached for another shot of lion’s milk and Lila joined her. After they were done gasping and tearing up, Patch tapped the empty shot glass against the bar. “I hate that it’s still happening and there’s nothing we can do about it.”

“Roman will come up with a plan.” She may have jitters about the marriage, but Lila didn’t have even a twinge of reservations about her fiancé’s ability to guide the pride.

“He’s not in favor of coming out to the humans?”

Lila shook her head. “He wants to get together a hunting party and take the fight to whoever is abducting us. Says we aren’t predators for nothing.”

Patch smiled fiercely. “I always liked Roman.”

“I used to wonder if you more than liked him.” It was the raki. If Lila had been sober she never would have said it.

Her best friend’s face flamed. “Don’t be ridiculous. That’s your husband we’re talking about.”

“Not yet he isn’t.”

Suddenly restless, Lila waved to catch Whiskey’s attention and called out a request for a bucket of Patch’s favorite beer. Lila tossed her head to get her hair out of her eyes and tugged her best friend by the arm until she came off her stool. “Come on. Let’s go for a walk. I wanna get out of here.”

“I thought the whole idea of coming to the Den was to be sociable and flirt with the world. Isn’t that what you told me?”

“You should never listen to anything I say. I don’t know what I’m talking about.” The bucket of beer appeared on the bar. Lila called out her thanks to Whiskey who was already walking away and grabbed the bucket by the handle. “Come on. Please? We’ll do a little bachelorette party. Just you and me.”

Patch didn’t take much convincing. She always preferred being outside in the quiet to being crowded in with other shifters at the Den. Lila grabbed her hand and towed Patch to the door, for once ignoring the laughing mix of invitations and complaints that followed in the wake of their departure. She threw a smile over her shoulder at the door to smooth any fur that was ruffled when she didn’t stay and play like usual.

Then they were outside and the cool night air was kissing her exposed skin, easing some of that restless agitation in her stomach. She handed Patch a beer and took one for herself, gently swinging the bucket as they wandered away from the noise of the main compound.

Patch, bless her, walked in companionable silence at her side, sipping her beer and tipping her head back to take in the stars. Lila didn’t look up. She kept her eyes on the gravel path in front of them until it faded into a dirt track wending up toward the hills on the northern edge of the pride lands.

Thank God for Patch, who always seemed to know exactly what she needed.

No one had expected them to be friends. They were night and day. Patch dark and tough, Lila fair and girly. Patch was happiest in the wilderness on her own, or guiding tourists through challenging rapids or mountain climbs. Lila’s idea of roughing it was a hotel without a spa attached. By rights they should have had nothing in common, but that had never mattered. They’d been inseparable since they were ten.

Lila was the Alpha’s daughter, and lions, even as children, had an intense awareness of hierarchy. She was always the princess, always a little separate from the other children—and she’d felt the isolation keenly. Then Patch had arrived at the pride, half-feral and wholly alone. Patch who treated her just like all the other lions because pride hierarchy meant nothing to her and they were all strangers to her.

Even at that age, Lila had been a pleaser, wanting everyone around her to be happy, so she’d made it her mission to make Patch feel accepted and welcomed, to make her feel safe and protected after the trauma of her parents’ disappearance. She’d talked her father into letting Patch foster with them, even though the Alpha traditionally didn’t take in strays.

It hadn’t been instant or easy, but Patch had become the sister she never had. It didn’t matter that she wasn’t a lion. Didn’t matter that she preferred hiking boots and jeans—like she was wearing now—to dresses and heels. None of that could touch the bond they’d formed as two lonely cubs who’d promised one another they’d never be alone again.

“You don’t have to marry him, you know.”

If it had been anyone else, Lila would have deflected, turning the conversation back to light topics, but this was Patch.

“I don’t have to. But I will.” She sighed and dropped her empty into the bucket, taking Patch’s as well and handing out the next round. “Do you think that makes me a coward? Because I’m always doing the easy thing, trying to make everyone else happy?”

“Is that always the easy thing?”

It wasn’t. Trust Patch to know that. “I don’t please people because I’m scared to be myself.”

Patch looked at her, the gold of her eyes gleaming a little in the darkness. “You aren’t a coward, Lila. Where’s that coming from?”

Santiago. “It’s nothing. Just something someone said.”

“Well, someone is an ass. It takes a brave woman to sign on to be the Alpha’s mate.”

Lila took another swig of beer. It was darker than she liked, the taste sharper than the fruity ales she preferred, but tonight she liked the bite. She didn’t feel brave. She didn’t know what she felt. Not how a bride was supposed to feel, that was for sure. “I don’t know why I’m not more excited. I get to plan a wedding. And force you to wear a dress loaded with ruffles and flounces.”

Patch ignored her attempt to goad her with bridesmaid dress hell. “You don’t love him.”

“I don’t see how that matters. My parents don’t love each other. It’s never been a problem for them.”

“You aren’t your mother.”

“No. More’s the pity.”

A white fence appeared out of the darkness beside them. The elk enclosure. They’d come farther than she thought.

“You know I didn’t mean it like that.”

No, Patch was her staunchest ally. She would never say what Lila always thought the pride elders were thinking. That Lila didn’t have her mother’s strength. That she didn’t have her poise and intellect and leadership ability. That Lila wasn’t Alpha’s mate material at all. That she was just a girly pleaser who could play the role when it was easy but would buckle under the first real threat.

“I just meant that you’ve always wanted to be in love,” Patch explained. “Ever since we were kids.”

She had. It was almost embarrassing to admit, since she’d known since birth that no fairy tale prince was going to sweep her off her feet. She had a role to play and falling in love wasn’t part of it. “Maybe I’ll fall in love with Roman. He’s very…” She couldn’t think of anything. He was handsome. He was smart. He was strong and powerful. He was everything a lion should be. “He’s a great man.”

He just never looked at her like she was even remotely special. He looked at her like a duty. She supposed there was affection there, but no interest. No passion. No heat. He didn’t look at her like…

Like Santiago looks at me.

Lila squashed the thought. That wasn’t lust. Santiago didn’t even like her. At least Roman felt affection for her. She could build on affection. Maybe she could even fall in love with him—though it was harder to imagine him falling in love with her.

That was it. The icy stone of fear lodged inside her heart. Her husband would never love her. No matter how many people she pleased or how pretty she was or how wonderful he was or how much she learned to adore him, Roman would never see her as worthy of love above all others.

Lila whirled and chucked her empty bottle as hard as she could toward a fence post. It struck dead center, shattering in a magnificent shower of glass. And her brief flash of rage instantly deflated. “Crap. I should clean that up.”

Patch caught her arm when she moved to set down the bucket. “You aren’t cleaning up broken glass at night with your bare hands. We’ll get it in the morning.” She reached up and gently removed a red ribbon from Lila’s hair and went to the fence, her hiking boots crunching in the glass, and tied the ribbon around the post. “There. X marks the spot.”

Patch picked up the bucket, handing her a fresh beer and they walked on, Patch giving her silence for several minutes, until Lila couldn’t take the quiet anymore.

“Sorry,” Lila murmured. “That was juvenile.”

“You’re allowed to be upset. And you know I won’t tell anyone.”

“I shouldn’t be upset,” Lila growled. “I’m just so annoyed with myself that I’m not excited. I’m supposed to be thrilled, damn it. This is what I’ve been waiting for all my life, isn’t it? For years I’ve been complaining that I’m going to be the oldest virgin in the world because none of the other members of the pride will so much as kiss me lest they offend Roman by getting their scent on me. I’m finally going to have someone who is obliged to sleep with me—” Obliged to sleep with me. That didn’t sound so good.

“You could always have gone the human route.”

“And always have to worry about whether or not I’m going to lose control and shift during sex? No, thank you. Just kissing humans is weird enough. They smell so…weird.”

“They don’t smell weird. You’re just a lion elitist. Admit it.”

“Lions smell right,” Lila argued.

Patch tipped her head back, her nostrils flaring. “Speaking of lions smelling right, is that Roman?”

Lila inhaled the wind in her face and the distinctive leonine musk it carried. Shit. Roman was the last person in the world she wanted to see right now. Tipsy and far too honest was not the best way to face the man who was going to be her husband. What the hell was he doing out here?

They couldn’t see or hear him yet, but the scent was strong enough that they should soon. Escape. She had to escape.

The bucket in Patch’s hand looked like salvation.

“Oh, would you look at that, we’re out of beer. What kind of fiancée would I be if I couldn’t offer him one? I’ll run back and grab another bucket.”

“Lila?” Patch wasn’t an idiot. She’d obviously picked up on Lila’s irrational panic at the idea of seeing her husband-to-be. “Do you want me to—?”

“No! No, I’ve got this. We’re good. You guys just, you know, talk or whatever and I’ll be right back with some more brewskies. Lickety split.”

Patch had always been the more athletic of the two of them, but there was one way in which she’d never been able to compete with Lila. The lioness was fast when she wanted to be. And tonight she wanted to be.

Lila ran.