Tarian Alpha (New Tarian Pride #1)(7)

I’m so sorry, Dad.

And then her vision collapsed inward, and everything went dark.





Chapter Three


Shit! The girl had passed out!

She’d just gone totally limp in his arms. He clung to her, holding her close to his pounding heart as he tracked the trio of Old Tarians racing through the woods a hundred yards off. They appeared and disappeared in the trees, holding flashlights, headed right for the cabin. They wouldn’t find Rose there, though, since she was crouched behind him with her hand resting on his lower back. All they would find was the carcass of the asshole who’d beat on Rose.

“Ronin,” Rose whispered, sidling around him, “look at her face.”

Ronin had great night vision, the only gift his good-for-nothing dad had ever given him through genetics. The moon cast her face in blue hues as he cradled her body like a child and looked upon the damage someone had done to her. She looked like Rose. He was going to fucking kill every male here. Blood was dried on her swollen lip, and her cheeks were still damp with tears. The left side of her face was so swollen it was hard to tell what she looked like.

What the fuck was he supposed to do with this? He’d only meant to keep her from screaming and giving their position away.

“We have to move,” Rose whispered.

He fucking knew. He’d come here with no backup, trying to steal Rose back quietly, but he’d lost it on that lion who’d hurt her and wasted too much time.

But he sat here frozen, looking at the woman in his arms, unable to move, unable to set her down gently in the snow and leave her to endure whatever this Pride had been doing to her.

Women were queens. Queens. Male lions had it all wrong. The boys weren’t important. They were weapons, but females were the intelligence. The ones who softened hard hearts and made boys salvageable.

This one had been mistreated, and he couldn’t just leave her.

She’d been crying.

“Ronin,” Rose warned.

Fuck. He was kidnapping two lionesses from the Old Tarian Pride tonight.

Without a word, he stood, hoisting the woman in his arms. Rose’s hand stayed right on his back. She didn’t see as well in the dark anymore.

He cut straight for the ravine because the Pride wouldn’t expect their escape to be the hardest route. But Ronin wasn’t scared of hard. Nothing in his life, and he meant nothing, had been easy.

And if they caught up to them, okay. He would let the snarling lion inside of him loose on this asshole Pride and see who survived. Because right now, he was in the presence of two battered women at their hands, and he was ready to steal every last one of their breaths.

If it had been only him, he would have turned back around and been a live grenade right in the heart of the Old Tarian Pride. The only thing that kept him moving forward were the tear stains on the woman’s cheeks.

Someday very soon, he would have his revenge, but not tonight.





Chapter Four


The hazy murmur of voices dragged Emerald from a deep sleep. Perhaps she was still dreaming. So many vivid images had bombarded her slumber, but she hadn’t been able to wake up. She’d had to get through them all instead. Maybe this was another one.

“…you can’t just go out on your own, Alpha…”

“Kannon, how many times have I told you, stop calling me that.”

“Doesn’t matter how much you tell us. We’re still Tarian! That’s the way we talk to an Alpha.”

No answer.

Kannon’s voice came again. “Meeting is in ten minutes, and how are you going to explain last night?”

“I don’t have to explain shit.”

“Yeah, you do. You put this all together. You want to rehab us? Well then remind us why we are backing you.”

“I brought Rose back—”

“Alone! Without anyone knowing! What would’ve happened if you got caught? If you and Rose were killed? We would have no leadership, and we would all be sitting ducks. And now you’ve brought her back here? You’re going to turn this war into a fight over females, and it takes away from everything we’re trying to accomplish.”

A terrifying snarl rattled the air around her.

Okay, this dream wasn’t that good. It was kind of scary and didn’t make any sense. Emerald squinted her eyes open. The room was blurry for a moment before she focused on a tall, lean man slamming another dark-haired man against the wall.

The man against the wall exposed his throat, but his face said he wasn’t sorry for anything he’d said. “I’m on your team, you know,” the dark-haired man, Kannon, growled. “Not all Tarians are bad.”

“Fuck!” the tall man yelled. He shoved off the other man and sat heavily into a chair on the other side of the room. Kannon left, slamming the door behind him.

Uh, this was not a dream. Where the hell was she? Scared into stillness, she watched the man run his hands down his beard and then rest his elbows on his knees. He stared at the ground, shaking his head. In a ragged whisper, he said, “What am I doing?”

The man had blond hair, longer so it curled right at his shoulders, pushed back like he’d run his hands through it over and over. He had a thick beard, a couple shades darker, and his torso was covered in tattoos. How could she tell? Because the man wasn’t wearing a shirt. A bandage was slung across his body from ribs to shoulder, and at his shoulder, there was a big blood stain, but he wasn’t favoring the injury. It was definitely the man from last night, the one that had something familiar about him. She couldn’t put her finger on it. It was something in his profile when he looked out the window. Sharp cheek bones, and his eyes were slightly slanted upward, giving him a feline look even in his human form. He wore dark jeans that were ripped at one knee, and a gold chain wallet sat in his back pocket, the gold chain clinking against the chair when he moved.