Page 3 of China

Staring right at Abbie.

Shit.

Chapter Two

Ozzen “Oz” Krane looked at his email as he half-heartedly listened to Alpha Benecio explain his plans to disrupt a lioness’s life once more. He was one hundred percent not interested in Alpha Benecio or his backward thoughts on females making their own romantic choices. The male had taken one look at the lioness a few months earlier and decided she was going to be his, whether she liked it or not. And she most definitely did not like it. Or him. Or anything about the situation.

“What the fuck are we doing here?” his friend Angel said under his breath.

“Beats the hell out of me,” Oz said. He missed home. They’d been trapped in Kentucky ever since Benecio had decided to make the female his. Home was a small, out of the way farm town in Indiana, where everyone knew each other, and all the front doors were unlocked. Of course that probably had more to do with the fact that it was almost entirely lion and they were in the same pride. The Elk Hills pride was mid-sized, and he’d been part of it his whole life.

It would be great if the match-maker had been able to match him with someone, but she hadn’t, and so far—at age twenty-seven—he’d never run into his heart-match, so he was painfully single and all damn alone in the world.

Grumbling internally at his depressing train of thought, he took his gaze off the inbox for his furniture business’s website and looked at Angel.

“He won’t listen to reason,” Oz said. “He’s off his rocker when it comes to this female.”

“Right? Who the hell wants to force a female into a mating? She’s got two mates anyway. Grizzlies are crazy protective of their mates, and you get two crazy males on the warpath to keep a female safe and damn anyone who gets in the way.”

The female in question, Demi, had recently mated two grizzlies. It should’ve been a clear message to Benecio that she was now officially off limits, but nope. His new plan involved fighting her mates for her, which was dumb on a hundred different levels.

Yes, Benecio was a damn good fighter. Their pride didn’t have a hereditary alpha—the position was won during a free-for-all battle. Alphas held their position until a group of at least six males were willing to fight for the position. Benecio was crazy enough and dangerous enough that at the moment there were only three males in line to take over. Oz was not one of them by a long shot.

Yes, he could fight. Yes, he could kick ass, if he said so himself. But he didn’t want to be alpha. He wanted to find his mate—heart-match or mate-match—and focus on his fledgling furniture business and having a family. Which made him want to get back to Indiana soon. He had orders to fill and no one to pick up the slack.

Benecio had left behind only a handful of males to keep their borders safe, and while Oz had volunteered to be among them, Benecio had recruited him along with the rest. His alpha had threatened to bring war to the Kedrick pride if Demi didn’t come to him willingly.

It was fucked up all around.

There was a loud clap, and everyone quieted. Benecio lifted his hand and said, “Tomorrow night, I’ll meet the usurpers for my mate head-on. When I win, I’ll mate her immediately and she’ll become your alpha female. Then, and only then, we’ll return home.”

“At least it’s just one more day,” Angel said under his breath.

Oz wasn’t as hopeful. If Benecio lost the female to her mates, there was no telling what he’d do. He’d threatened war before, and he had the people with him to hurt the Kedrick pride. Oz wasn’t interested in dying fighting some battle in the middle-of-nowhere Kentucky over a female who didn’t want to be their alpha, but he couldn’t leave. Desertion was a death sentence.

Benecio dismissed them and Oz headed to the camper he shared with Angel.

“I think I’m going to find a bar and get a drink. You in?” Angel asked as he changed shirts.

“Nah. I’m going to run out and see if I can find some lumber for the bookshelf I have an order for.”

Angel gave him a strange look. “We’re heading home tomorrow night. What are you bothering with buying lumber now?”

“What if he loses?”

Angel shrugged and made anI don’t knowsound.

“Right, we don’t know. Sure, he’s batshit crazy and could tear the head off anyone who came against him. But there are two males. There’s no way two grizzlies are going to let their female be taken from them. And if somehow they lose, I can’t see that female going along quietly. I think she’d kill him the moment she had a chance.”

“Good point. So you think if he loses we’ll be stuck here?”

“At the very least yes, but we could also be looking at a battle like he said he’d bring to them before. We’re cannon fodder to him. He’s off his nut.”

“He’s better than the last alpha.”

Oz shuddered. The previous alpha, the one no one ever named, had been twice as crazy as Benecio, twice as cruel. He’d been a real asshole. He’d been so hated that there had been regular battles to take over. It hadn’t been until Benecio had gone against him that he was actually defeated. That was a battle where only one male walked away.

“He is. But I’m damn tired of being here. I talked to Thad and Gio the other day, and they both agreed that it was time to go home, but Benecio won’t listen.” Gio was the second-in-command and closest to Benecio, but he hadn’t had any luck in getting him to leave either.

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