Tarian Alpha (New Tarian Pride #1)(34)

Chapter Fourteen


“Are you all okay?” she asked the women sitting around the living room.

“No,” Sora said, her bottom lip quivering with the admission. She cradled her warm mug of hot cocoa closer and tried to smile at Emerald. “But we will be.”

Emerald perched on the arm of the couch and looked around. Two hours ago, this cabin’s furniture had been covered with sheets. This place hadn’t been lived in since the Pride split. “You know you don’t have to stay in this place. It’s not girls vs. boys like the other Pride. You can all live where you’re comfortable. Rose even lives outside of the territory line, if any of you ever wanted to live in town or anything.”

“Why are you telling us this?” Annamora asked. “Does Ronin not want us here?”

“Ronin most certainly wants you here,” he rumbled from the open doorway.

Orion stepped out of the way to let him pass, exposing his neck. Ronin clapped him on the shoulder. “You look like hell, man.”

Indeed, Orion was sliced and diced from claw marks. He’d gone to war right alongside his sister, Sora, and the lionesses. “Speak for yourself,” he said, wincing. “You look like hamburger.”

Ronin laughed. “I fuckin’ feel like it.”

Ronin was a sight for sore eyes. Emerald hadn’t seen him in a couple hours, not since they’d all come back to the territory. She’d missed him. Sitting next to him in his truck on the drive back, his hand on her leg, her holding onto his arm for dear life as they stared ahead silently in shock, hadn’t been enough time for her to truly feel safe again. And Ronin was safety.

Now, it was all sinking in. They were okay.

He pulled up a chair right next to where she sat on the arm of the couch and brushed his fingertips across her knee before he spoke. “You’re all welcome here. I can’t imagine what you went through, but I saw you all tonight, and you protected Emerald. In a way, you protected me.” He shook his head slightly. “I don’t even know you, but I was so damn proud. This isn’t like the other Pride, though. You can choose to stay and pledge to my Pride, or you can go anywhere you want. You. Aren’t. Trapped. Not anymore.”

Emerald swore she heard at least three sighs of relief.

Annamora looked at Ronin’s hand on Emerald’s leg. “You picked good.” Her expression was raw and open, her eyes rimmed with tears when she looked up at Emerald. “You changed everything for us. You gave us some fight.”

Emerald’s voice would crack if she answered right away, so she swallowed a few times before she tried. “When I saw you girls on Cassius? Your lionesses? It was hands down the coolest moment of my life. You’re submissive like me, and I know how hard it is to break a habit of fear, stick up for yourself, and just…let the animal have you. And you all did it tonight.” Warmth streamed down her cheeks, but she didn’t wipe the tears away. They could see her vulnerable. Tonight, these women had become her people. They’d had her back when it would’ve been easier to sit inside and stay safe until it was all over. “If you ever need anything, I’m your girl.”

Annamora stood, lifted her chin proudly, and approached her and Ronin slowly. Then she looked at the other girls before she knelt. “Ronin, I pledge to you because I pledge to Emerald. I don’t know you as an Alpha. But since the moment I met Emerald, my lioness knew her. She’s different. She’s a queen. And if she chooses you, I trust her. She wouldn’t pick anyone who isn’t a worthy king.”

Emerald gasped as the other women fell to their knees. She didn’t understand.

“Ronin?” she whispered, tears just streaming.

But he was smiling. Proudly. He pulled her against his ribs and kissed her temple. And she could feel it, how proud he was of her. That was a real man. That was love. When a man wasn’t intimidated by a woman’s power, but awed by it? That was strength.

She didn’t know what the proper thing to do was, so she did what she wanted. What her lioness wanted. She needed affection, so she leaned in and kissed Ronin tenderly, gripping his shirt because this man had become so important. And then she fell to her knees in front of Annamora and hugged her. She buried her face against the woman’s shoulder, and when she reached her arm out for Sora, they all piled on. She laughed as the girls hugged. Emerald stared at the ceiling fan, amazed at how anything could feel so good. Ronin’s hands were on her shoulders; he was right behind her, always behind her. And the girls were going to be okay. She would make sure of it. Being a queen wasn’t about being better than someone. Or being higher up. It wasn’t about power. Not to Emerald. It was about making other women feel like queens, too. The broken and the kicked, those were her people. The ones who had nowhere to go but up. She’d been there. She’d been sitting on rock bottom waiting for someone to save her, but she hadn’t known she didn’t need someone to save her. She’d just needed Ronin to show her that she could save herself.

And because of that? He would always have her loyalty and the loyalty of Fury. Someday, she was going to explain that to him, but for now, she was going to enjoy the climb. She was going to enjoy the life she would build with him. And build, she would. She’d believed once that she’d been destined for no special fate. But as she looked over her shoulder at her man, cut up and exhausted from defending her, she knew she’d been wrong.