“That won’t happen.” I took my new coat off and draped it over the arm of the couch, flinching as my boots crunched over glass ground into the carpet from the shattered coffee table. Then I sank onto his lap, straddling him. “You may not have the clout to make sure of that, butIdo.”
His hands settled onto my hips and he met my gaze, and for the first time since we’d left Spencer’s, he seemed to be truly with me in the moment. “What are you talking about?”
“The council wants me back. You said they’d be willing to start a war to make sure that happens. Which means they’re desperate, and desperate people are always eager to negotiate. So I’ll agree to return peacefully—sparing everyone this ‘war’—in exchange for Justus’s clemency and the recognition of your Pride. With you as Alpha. Drew’s doing the best he can, butyouare best equipped to lead them.” That much was obvious in the lengths to which he was willing to go to protect his brother.
“Robyn…” The objection was clear in his tortured expression, even if he hadn’t found the words.
“I am the most valuable bargaining chip we have. I know you’re willing to do whatever you can to keep me here, but the truth is that that’s beyond your ability right now. Drew’s in charge of the Pride, and he’s too new to risk pissing off the council. ButI’mthe one whose life is being run by committee. If I have to go back, I might as well get something good out of it.”
“I don’t want you involved in this,” Titus said. “Not any more than you already are,” he amended, with a glance around the destroyed living room.
“Whatever. I brought war to your doorstep.” I leaned down to kiss him, pressing as much of myself against him as I could while his grip on my hips tightened. “I owe you,” I whispered against his stubble-rough cheek when the kiss finally ended.
“No.” Titus’s gaze burned into me. “You don’t owe me anything, Robyn.”
“Including obedience. This is my decision. And I’ve made it.”
I tried to stand, but he held tight to my hips, and I saw myself reflected in his eyes. “You are the most fearless woman I’ve ever met. If it had been up to me, I wouldn’t have locked you up. I would have set you loose upon the world and watched you soar.”
My chest suddenly felt tight. “Before I met you, I was just angry. At the council. At the enforcers. At myself.” I ran one hand down the side of his face, toward his chin, enjoying the rough brush of stubble against my palm. “Meeting you changed the way I feel about shifters. The way I feel about myself. I thought my life—at least as I knew it—was over. I was so obsessed with everything I lost when I was infected that I didn’t take the time to truly realize what I’d gained.You’rea big part of what I’ve gained, Titus. Your vision. What you’re trying to do is more important than anything I’ve ever done in my life. If I can help put you in the position to do that, I will. Even if that means getting out of your way.” Going back to Atlanta. I shrugged. “I got out once. I can do it again. Worst case scenario, I’ll be back when my sentence is up.”
Titus pulled me closer and buried his face in my hair. “I’m not done arguing about this.”
“Okay, but fair warning, I’m not sure I’ve ever lost an argument.”
“There’s a first time for everything.” His breath brushed my ear, and pleasant chills slid along my spine.
“Right now, I’m more interested in our second time.” I slid my hands beneath his shirt, then dragged them up over the hard planes and angles of his chest. “This may be the last chance we get for a while…”
Titus pulled his shirt over his head and dropped it on the glass-littered floor. Then he stood with me still straddling him, and I wrapped my legs around his waist as my arms slid around his neck.
I kissed him all the way into the bedroom.
“The herpetarium.” Titus stood on top of a commercial trash bin, staring over the Jackson Zoo’s eight-foot exterior fence, squinting against the glare of the security light. “Who on earth would want to get drunk with a bunch of snakes and lizards?”
“You’re showing your age, Mr. Alexander. But you’re right. This would be much more awesome in the cat house.”
“There’s no cat house. They’re in outdoor cages.” He turned away from the fence and looked at me. “And even if there were a cat house, the lions and tigers would alllose their mindsthe moment they smelled us.”
“Why? They’re caged next to each other, and they don’t kill themselves trying to get through the fence.”
“I don’t know. Maybe it has something to do with us smelling like humansandcats. Or maybe it’s that we’re walking around free when they aren’t.” Titus jumped down from the bin and landed right in front of me. “All I know is that I went to the zoo once, not long after I was infected, just to watch them. To see how much I had in common with nature’s true predators.”
“And what did you find?”
“That the cougars and leopards backed away from me, but the tigers were ready to rumble.” He shrugged. “Maybe that’s because they’re so much bigger than we are. They know they have nothing to fear.”
I watched him, fascinated by the thought of Titus staring through a chain-link fence, trying to figure out where he fit into the natural order. “What kind of cat are we, when we have fur?”
“No kind.” He frowned. “No, we’reourkind. A species of our own. We are like no other cat in the world.” He pulled me close for a kiss. “And you are like no other woman in the world. Which makes you doubly unique and fascinating.”
Grinning, I went up on my toes to give him another kiss.
“This is where you say something nice about me,” he said.
I slid my arms around his neck and whispered into his ear. “You have a very limber tongue.”
Titus laughed. “And you have a one-track mind.”
