When he and Marc had been alone together, he’d been, there was no kinder way to phrase it, a womanizer.He wasn’t proud of himself, wasn’t proud of the title, but it had been a phase he’d needed to work his way through the knowledge that for the foreseeable future he would be alone.
When he looked back on those days, he had to give Marc credit where credit was due.He’d led a lifetime alone, and Trip had barely spent ten years as a single man before he’d found Marc.Ryan not even that.Marc had really borne the brunt, and that manifested in ways El probably didn’t recognize.Mostly because Marc tried to control himself around her.
Trip knew El believed Ryan was the possessive one, the protective one.She was wrong.Ryan was dominant in his need to protect her.There was no getting away from that.For that matter, Trip was exactly the same.Marc was different—all those years alone had changed him.Not for ill, not for good.Just different.
But for himself, Trip’s days of womanizing had come to a swift end after moving to LA to formalize their Triad.Swiftly after, Ryan had been challenged, and within barely a few months of having met his three Triad brothers, he’d also been privy to one of the nation’s most successful Prides because Ryan, though incredibly young, had won his challenge and had become the leader.
It had been back then when Claudia had been a part of this world, and as things had grown ever more muddled, he’d let her go.
They were still friends, still contacted each other regularly, and still grabbed coffee together every couple of months—to him that was all she would ever be.A friend.But he was well aware she wanted more, and though she knew of his background, knew that men in a Pride wanted their mates and that anything else could only ever be considered a dalliance, she carried on wanting more.
It was unfortunate, because he truly considered her a good friend.However, when he thought back to El’s reaction to her presence, to what she’d been to him once upon a time, he knew he’d have to cut ties.
Truth was he was surprised she hadn’t asked after Claudia.He could only assume that the heat that Claudia had not been allowed to help with had burned away all memories of the healer’s presence.Trip was glad for that, especially after that morning’s conversation.
“How can you be with somebody so narrow-minded?”
The words echoed through his mind, agitating his lion as nothing else could.The beast didn’t understand Trip’s human sensibilities, didn’t understand why he hadn’t attacked the woman who had dared insult their mate.But the human empathized, understood Claudia’s hurt where the beast didn’t care.
That was the trouble with being a Shifter, he thought ruefully.Half man, half beast.Sometimes one held sway over the other, making it impossible to maneuver around the world in a way that didn’t stir attention.Finding a balance was a large part of the battle.
“She was in the middle of the heat, Claudia.Cut her some slack,” he’d told her, but his defense of her had felt weak.Lackluster.When, if anything, Claudia deserved to be attacked for her opinions on his mate.
El deserved more than just some slack.Currently dealing with the kind of pressure Claudia could never even imagine, she astonished him with her strength.
Collectively, he, Ryan, and Marc had never heard of a Shifter who had been denied their heritage from day one.Of course, things slipped through the net.And Trip wasn’t saying that it had never happened before, but if it had, it was certainly outside of their knowledge.
Maybe somebody somewhere had lived like a human without ever manifesting their Shifter half, and that was why what El was enduring was so rare.But for whatever reason, the strength of will, the strength of self to deal with the two cats inside of her without being submerged in their power, was a constant source of astonishment to El’s mates.Even Shawn, who didn’t understand the ramifications of what was going on, understood how perplexed they all were.
In a weaker woman, El might constantly be in the other half’s form.
Even if she wasn’t strong, the cats battling away inside of her could null the human’s presence.The very idea terrified him, but the fact she’d been dealing so well with all this, save for that little spat with Claudia, he was not only impressed, but relieved as hell.
“I just don’t understand how you can be attracted to somebody like her,” Claudia had told him, and her jealousy raked down his spine like El’s claws had done two nights before.The heat had burned off soon after he’d mated with her that night after meeting with the Pantera Council.She wasn’t pregnant though, and the swiftness of the heat was another mystery they couldn’t unravel.
In a way, Trip believed he and his Triad brothers were just rolling with the punches of whatever was popping up in their path.And with El, there were so many of them.Not that that was her fault, it simply meant that they had no choice but to bend and flex with each development.
But that conversation with Claudia today had troubled him.Not because he questioned his feelings for his mate, but because of the opposite.Finding a mate wasn’t like immediately falling in love.It didn’t work like that.Though Trip knew Ryan had told El that he loved her, he also knew it wasn’t the same as with the humans.Love to a Shifter meant so much more.And Trip believed that he felt the same for El as Ryan did.Marc too, probably, although he was remarkably closed mouth on the subject.But then, Marc could be remarkably closed mouthed on many topics of conversation.
The man in question elbowed him in the side.“Do you feel that?”
Trip grimaced.Nodding, he murmured, “Think that’s a Pantera thing?”Though the many species of Shifters were aware of each other, and though there was some sharing and passing of information among one another, many aspects of their cultural differences remained unknown.
A Pantera would never realize how Pride honored its dead in a ceremony like this one.Wolves undoubtedly have their own system.Bears and eagles too.Each was unique and had been granted gifts unique to them by The Mother.
This ability to project either stemmed from El being dual natured or her being half Pantera.
He was a man of knowledge.He hated being in the dark on any matter, never mind one so important as his mate.But sadly, there was no way to rectify this lack of information regarding his mate’s nature.The Pantera would never share with them their secrets, not unless those secrets were accidentally discovered.And if her gifts were to do with her being dual natured, then they had more chance of cracking a Pantera code than learning more about that side of herself.
He highly doubted that, even if she asked nicely, her mother’s people would ever help her.She would be considered Pride now, which meant there would be a lot of questions left unanswered for her unless they discovered where Jessa was hiding.
Marc rubbed his chin.“I wonder what else she can do.”
Trip shrugged, the same thought crossing his mind as it had done so many, many times before.
A Lion could growl in human form.But it didn’t pack the punch of the Lion’s rumble.There was a little more power there, a little extra snarl that was unique to their kind, but that was it.Nothing more, nothing less.Certainly nothing that imbued the magick of their people.
Pantera and Wolves had the ability to channel their beasts rage, unlike Lions.Yet when El’s Lioness made itself known to them, she could growl.Trip had come to realize that was her way of communicating.The beast was trapped, and though he wished he knew how to free it, to liberate the creature from the cage that was El’s body, he didn’t know how.None of them did.They could only hope that time and being at peace in their mate bond would change things.
