Page 35 of Savage Mates
Zeus shook his head.“What difference is there from then and now? We’re lab rats. You know that Thor. You just don’t want to admit it.”
I threw my head toward him, baring my canines. There were days I wanted to rip him apart. Yet I reminded myself they were both right to be concerned. Letting our guard down would mean certain death.
As soon as we caught sight of the man the female had believed she could trust, there was no more discussion. The bastard had shot her with a dart gun. The reason behind his treachery didn’t matter.
We charged forward, catching him off guard before he had an opportunity to use a weapon. As I threw myself into the air, my claws came down quickly, rendering him incapable of screaming.
Our beasts took over, our instincts providing a collective force and in less than a minute, the man had been killed. There wasno satisfaction in doing so. Not at this point. I lifted my head, listening for sounds indicating he wasn’t alone. The quiet was eerie.
The deed complete, I padded closer to the woman. She was lying on her side, knocked out cold.
Titus leaned over the little human, using his muzzle to try to awaken her. After another single inhale, I recognized the strange new smell.
“A dart gun,”I told him.“A heavy dose of ketamine.”
“Why? That’s traditionally used for lions.”
He was right, which could mean she hadn’t been the intended target, but something gnawed at my gut.
“Why should we give a fuck?”Zeus growled.“Leave her.”
She was so pale, her breathing shallow. Whatever drug she’d been given would keep her knocked out for several hours. Her beauty captivated me in a way that I hadn’t experienced before. She had hair the color of bright copper kissed by the sun, creamy skin, and an hourglass figure, and the human part of me hungered in an entirely different way than I’d experienced.
Her eyes alone had kept me mesmerized, a sea green that reminded me of the waters off the shore of the godforsaken island.
“Because she’s injured,”I shot back, issuing a slight growl to tell him to shut the fuck up.
“Because she defended us, including against the rogue lions,”Titus also threw out. We were both sick of Zeus’ attitude. Titusalso had a desire to get into it with Zeus. That would do us no good. We didn’t need to turn on our own.
“We can’t risk the pride.”He was bound and determined.
I swung around to face him.“The majority rules.”Something about her presented a deep ache while also putting me on edge.
It was emotional and physical reaction I couldn’t put my finger on, a churning in my gut. Just like I’d also felt the night before. There’d been no sleep after confronting the lions. In fact, I’d ventured out on my own, ensuring there hadn’t been more of them prepared to finish the attack. I couldn’t explain the reason why.
There was a resourcefulness in her that had intrigued me from the first moment I’d laid eyes on her. She hadn’t been terrified when seeing us in the jungle the night before. Just the opposite.
She’d been thrilled, her body trembling from excitement.
I’d felt it, adding to the ache in my groin, the heaviness in my balls.
Which was exactly what I felt at this moment.
An unexplainable longing that defied logic.
A sudden burst of wind caught me by surprise as her scent filtered into my nostrils. A strange series of sensations yanked once again at the protective side of me. What the fuck? As the leader of my former pride, I’d been the one to sniff out danger prior to any other lion. I’d protected the females and cubs, fighting to the death to do so more than once.
But that had been a long time before. More than a century and a half, something I also had yet to fathom. My pride hadvanished, the lions I’d protected considered extinct. Yet here I was, living proof that science could do anything. The loneliness from realizing I was the only one left on Earth had eaten at me since I’d comprehended how I’d come to exist.
That’s why her scent hit me so hard, the pang of loneliness and rage creating a need that was almost desperate. Possessive. And my hunger for her was already difficult to control.
In all that time, I’d searched for one thing, something I’d begun to believe wasn’t possible. The thought ripped at my mind, but I’d accepted my fate. To be alone for the rest of my life. After inhaling her fragrance, a throaty growl filtered into the air. For whatever reason, I was rattled for the first time since I could remember.
Her scent carried a light musky fragrance, but was also sweet, a hint of a luscious fruit that created a need so deep and primal that I was lost in a haze for several seconds.
This wasn’t about the human side of me being attracted to a beautiful woman. This was about something else. Something deeper.
There was a moment in a beast’s world that every lion knew instinctively, a longing that transcended space and danger. A need so vibrant that nothing would stop us from protecting.
