“I’m standing right here,” Callon gritted out.“You can ask me.”
He heard the deep growl in his father’s throat.“The question is,whyare you standing there when I have already ordered you to leave.”
Callon glared at the phone as if he could see his Prime.Though if his Prime had been in his presence, his glare would have been seen as a challenge to his father, especially since Callon’s beast was making itself known.Without a word, he spun on his heel and forced himself to walk in the opposite direction of Lola.
“Can I have my notebook?”Kian called out.
Callon looked down, tore the page out that had his lion on it, and then tossed the notebook over his shoulder.He heard Kian curse and the fumbling sound of hands attempting to catch something.
“Once you’ve calmed all the way down,” Kian continued.“It would be a good idea to show that to our Prime.”
He didn’t bother to respond as his shoulder hit the exit door out into the late morning sun.His pupils immediately reacted to the bright light to help shield his superior eyesight.Callon took deep breaths through his nose and turned to look at himself in the glass window he was walking past.His face was completely human, his glamour firmly in place.His father had ordered him out of the building, but he hadn’t ordered him tostayaway from Lola.Which was a good thing because it was an order he didn’t think he would be able to obey.That was a first for him.
He jogged across the street, dodging cars and people.Callon ignored the annoyed honking of the taxi drivers.Even if they did hit him, he’d hurt the car more than they’d hurt him, especially at the slow speed they were forced to use because of the city’s congestion.Once across the street, Callon found a spot in the shadow of an alley where he could see the front door ofWild Ink.She was in there getting his lion tattooed on her flesh.Right over her heart, just as his was on his own skin.He wanted to roar with some ancient ferocity that urged him to take his mate.To protect her and keep her from anyone who could take her from him.
His skin felt raw and he couldn’t stand still.Callon paced, just as he had in the back room of the tattoo shop, his eyes bouncing from the street to the door.It was a dumb question.The ink going into her body wasn’t just normal ink.This was ink specifically foranimiand the Kingdom Shifters.It would bring the magic that had laid dormant in her blood to life, giving her the ability to bond with one of their males and lend his magic the power he needed in order to shift.Their kind rejoiced in moments like this, it was almost sacred.In some ways it could put her in danger, but there’d been laws put in place by their Shaman to protect theanimi.That didn’t keep Callon from looking around to see if any other beastwalkers lurked near by.
He wasn’t really worried about Kian, now that he’d made it very clear Lola was his.And Zephyr had a mate, so he knew he was no threat or competition.“Dammit,” he snarled as he looked back at the door for what must have been the hundredth time in fifteen minutes.
An eternity later Callon’s head whipped around as he heard her laughter.It was like sun parting clouds.He stayed just inside the shadows where her human eyes wouldn’t see him, though if she did look his way, she might see past his glamour, because she washis.
Callon watched as Lola pressed her right hand over her heart, her lips turned up in a grin and her eyes filled with satisfaction.She looked proud.As the girls walked down the street, he noticed she held her head higher than usual.His female seemed less reserved as if the tattoo had somehow given her confidence she’d been missing.Maybe that shouldn’t make him feel proud, but it did.It was his mark on her body that was making her feel something different, something that made her obviously happy.
He trailed them as they walked, laughing and talking.He caught snippets of their conversation, but mostly, he was too entranced in watching Lola.The way her body moved, her facial expressions he could see, and the way her red hair sparkled when the sun hit it.She was practically glowing.He heard the crinkle of paper and looked down realizing he still carried the drawing in his hand.Callon carefully folded it and slipped it into his back pocket.He kept on the girls until they hailed a taxi.Even then, he was able to jog, using glamour to keep eyes off of him, keeping up with their ride easily.
When they reached Lola’s apartment building, Callon wasn’t even winded.He was however, ravenous to be closer to her.The three girls hurried into the building.He waited until the taxi drove away before he headed to the fire escape ladder and easily climbed to her floor.Taking the familiar spot right next to her window, Callon leaned his back against the brick.His eyes focused on the dirty, red building fifty feet across from him while he listened to her door open and then close.
“I can’t believe we got tattoos,” Lola said, her voice scandalous but also filled with excitement.“Well, me and Katy,” she amended.“What happened Maddie?Why didn’t you get one?”
“Yeah,” Katy’s voice filled the room.“What happened, Mads?
“I don’t,” she answered, her voice crestfallen.“I just didn’t find anything that I could honestly say I wanted on my body for the rest of my life.”
“Fair enough.”Lola accepted her friend's answer without judgement.“I still can’t believe Katy and I went through with it.”
“Why can’t you believe it?”Katy snorted.“We totally look like the type of chicks that would get tattoos.”
Lola made a derisive sound.“Ilook like a chick who would hide in a book for hours on end and say weird things at awkward moments.”
“And yet,” Katy declared, her voice getting louder.“You got a 3D portrait of a lion on top of your boob.That makes you a hot, book nerd-slash-out-of-work porn star.By the way, is he supposed to be a warning to any guy who comes near your girls?If so, then you should have had him put lower so he could guard the gates to the secret garden.”
“Good grief,” Maddie, Lola’s other friend, huffed.
“Please don’t ever refer to any part of my body as ‘the secret garden’,” Lola said.He imagined she had her hands on her hips as she gave the order.
“What do they call it in your books, ‘the cozy den,’ ‘the bowl of cream.’Oh, but for a failing, out-of-work porn star it would be more like, ‘the Sahara Desert,’ and much less like a secret garden, cozy den or crea—”
“Dammit all, make her stop,” Lola practically yelled.“You’re killing my ink buzz.”
Callon chuckled.Ink buzz.He’d have to ask her what that felt like.
“Fair is fair, Kitten,” Katy sang.“You kill all my buzzes.”
“It’s that, or I kill you, which would you prefer?”
My female has claws,he thought with a smile.She’d be able to hold her own.And she’d need to be able to.One day she’d be Queen, or Prima, as his people called his mother, to the Kingdom of Claws.Visata had picked her for Callon for a reason.He couldn’t deny it.Not with the pull he felt for her, something he’d never felt towardsanyfemale.Having his lion on her flesh only solidified what he felt—she was for him.And he was hers.Whether she wanted him or not.That thought made him laugh again.
“Did you guys hear that?”Lola asked.
