“You can’t just be rude to the women you think we’ve fucked,” Marc snapped, and Shawn knew then that whatever pheromones she was blasting out they had to be pretty damn strong.For Marc to snap at El, then he had to be under supreme pressure.
And considering Shawn had seen him at the aftermath of a bomb… he figured he’d seen Marc at his best and worst.
“I can be whatever I want to be when you bring a stranger to my rooms, a stranger you’ve fucked, and even better, have known longer than I’ve been alive.”
Marc snarled, and it was his Lion reacting, pure and simple.“We’ve fucked a lot of women, El.”
He’d expected El to cower at the snarl, Shawn saw that, but she didn’t.She snarled back with a volume that had his ears wincing and the instincts that had saved his ass a time or two on the battlefield rolling to the surface.
His body knew a feral animal was in the room.Every instinct he possessed was aware of the fact El wasn’t in control of either part of her nature.
It made him want to run or to, at least, back the fuck off, but he knew enough about animals to realize that was the worst thing he could possibly do.
Still, Marc’s shoulders dropped in response to her snarl.Even Ryan and Trip jolted in surprise at her reaction.
“What the hell?”Ryan demanded, standing and striding over to her.
She stood her ground, her hands fisted at her side, head high and hackles stirred once more.
God, she was fucking glorious at that moment.Power strumming through her, so beautiful in her strength that even as half of him knew to be careful, that she was on the edge of a precipice he couldn’t even begin to understand, the other half was in awe of her auburn beauty.
The energy streaming around her made her hair look like a living flame, and every part of him responded to the power she emanated, even as he knew to be scared of it.
Ryan got in her face.There was no other way to describe it.
He pushed his face into hers, crowding her, demanding she submit.A hand snapped out to grab his wrist when Shawn instinctively started to go to her, her protection his end goal, and Trip tugged him to a halt, studied him until he understood he needed to stay out of this.
Though it pained him to, he complied, knowing this was some kind of strange habit he could never understand, and that was something they’d have to handle by themselves.This side of her was completely alien to him, after all.
El didn’t submit as he knew Marc and Trip had expected her to.He couldn’t see Ryan’s face, didn’t know if he was shocked, but Shawn saw her stand on tiptoe, her chest pressing against Ryan’s to push him back, to not let him crowd her.
Even as he was proud of her strength, he winced in fear of the consequences.
For weeks, all he’d heard about was how strong Ryan was as a Lion.How he was dominant and impossible to cow.How he couldn’t shift all that often because his Lion was so domineering, it could take control of the man, and that the man had to be inordinately strong to keep reign over the beast…
Yet here was his five feet nothing mate, standing toe-to-toe, nose-to-nose with him.She wasn’t frightened of the big, bad Lion.If anything, she was matching his fire with her own.
Trip tensed when Ryan growled, and the sound rumbled along the sound waves as it had done that night at Feral.It made his ears prickle in a way that was totally uncomfortable, set his teeth on edge, and made all the hairs on his body jolt to attention.
She didn’t seem to react, if anything, the low rumble that escaped her was just as challenging.Just as assertive.
Marc’s eyes were glued to the pair of them, and Shawn noticed his breathing was elevated.Trip’s too, when he looked at the other male.
A quick interested-only-for-scientific-reasons glance told him they also had hard-ons.So, her challenging Ryan was viewed as what?Foreplay?
Her fists came up to push against Ryan’s chest, and Shawn sensed the men’s surprise when that move was strong enough to have him backing up a few steps.
“You think you can dominate me?”she raged, her voice a hiss that suited her feline side.That, in fact, seemed to combine both Panther and Lion to create a booming snarl that stunned the Shifters in the room: “You think you can bring a bitch into my room, and I’ll roll over and let her take charge of me?”
“Not take charge,” Ryan growled back, his Lion obviously battling him for dominance.“Help.”
Her eyes flared.“How can she help us?”
“If you explain rather than try to force this on her, that will make it far easier on all of us,” Shawn interrupted them.
They flinched and turned to stare at him.El’s nostrils flared, and he knew he’d said the right thing.
Ryan must have sensed it too because he said, “She will initiate a spell.That spell will protect you from pregnancy.”
