Page 23 of Savage Mates (Ruthless Instinct #2)

Zeus

“She’s gone.” My announcement did not have the effect I thought it would.

Thor barely lifted his head, still drunk from two rounds of intense sex.

I should have known she’d try to run again.

“We should have chained her like I suggested.” My fury was only increasing. I’d allowed my guard to fall with her, something that I never did.

“And what good would that have done?” Thor asked, stretching and yawning.

“She never answered our questions.”

He huffed. “Because we were busy. Including you.”

Titus was only slightly amused, taking a deep breath a few seconds later. “She’s not gone, Zeus. Can’t you smell her?”

I pulled my arm to my nose, inhaling. “Her scent lingers on our skin. Nothing more.” My head ached from what I’d been thinking. Since the understanding that I was losing hold on everything I’d believed to be true about my life. My world.

That should have been damaged beyond repair two years before on the first day we’d been forced to shift. The memory still sickened me.

Finally, Thor swung his legs over the edge of the bed, sitting up. His glare was harsh. “Do you not sense what has happened?”

Snorting, I moved to the window, staring out at the others in the pride, uncertain what the hell I was feeling.

Since being dumped here, I’d experienced nothing but rage.

That wasn’t unlike the beast I’d been prior to my capture, yet I was more restless than before.

Was I missing my pride? Yes, but perhaps not like Titus.

He’d been in total anguish for weeks, roaring at anyone who came near.

At first, he’d refused to shift into human form under any circumstances.

I understood the desire to remain a lion.

I’d felt the same way so I couldn’t blame him.

Even now, my skin crawled with the realization we weren’t finished with being tested.

The bastards from the laboratory had merely sent a beautiful woman in their place. “She could still be our enemy.”

“You saw what happened with the lions. You sensed even Conall’s mate wasn’t concerned at her presence. That’s because she has some strange gift. That’s why she’s here.” Thor was adamant.

“Are you suggesting she had no clue she’s being used, if that’s the truth?” I shook my head. No, I hadn’t read anything in her thoughts in which she’d wanted to hurt or destroy us, but being cautious had kept the pride alive.

“I’m saying you need to keep an open mind, something you’re not very good at.” Thor lifted a single eyebrow.

I snarled in response. “You’re so certain she’s our mate, aren’t you?”

“I feel in my bones,” Thor admitted. “I can’t explain it adequately, but the moment her scent carried, I knew. Maybe something is wrong with your senses, Zeus, from spending too much time being angry.”

Thor was ancient, recreated from ash. Reborn in a laboratory setting. His sense of longing was entirely different. Of all of us, he should feel grateful for the chance to live again. But with the conditions placed on us, we could never return to what we’d once been.

The second I turned toward him, the air in the cabin crackled. We were often at odds, Thor believing himself to be superior just because he’d come from another century. It drove me fucking nuts. “Angry? You mean about being dumped on this island, now hunted like we’re the issue?”

Both felt the same anger, agony not only from being held in limited captivity, but because of what had been done to our bodies, our minds. And our spirits.

We were nothing but creatures. Not men. Not lions.

Beasts people feared, and why? Because of the longing for power.

None of us within the camp we’d created had all the answers.

We only knew what the lifeforms had taken from the humans before they’d entered us.

While that had allowed us some understanding and certain skills that had been foreign to us, there were hundreds of unanswered questions.

Including why the human female was here. Had I enjoyed fucking her? Yes, but what had occurred wasn’t mating. That was even more primal, a connection made that no human could break.

I’d refused to go that far.

“Fuck you, Thor. There is no proof that she’s our mate.”

“Have it your way,” he growled.

Titus crawled off the bed, glaring from one to the other of us. “Fighting over what our bodies have already accepted isn’t going to provide answers. Only the female can.”

“Lauren,” Thor gritted out. “A scientist.”

“Someone we should hate.” A part of me did hate her. In truth, a fraction wanted to rip her to shreds, but my raging desire and aching cock had stopped me before baring my incisors, plunging them into her carotid artery.

“She has answers,” Titus insisted. “I want them. Plus, she’s as confused as we are.”

“About what? You read her mind,” I said then stopped myself, sighing as I looked away.

My blunder forced Thor to laugh. “You read her mind? You can’t read the minds of humans, Zeus. No matter how powerful you think yourself to be. Unless she’s your mate.”

“Yeah? Well, if she is then why do you two claim her as well? Tell me that.” The question had been swimming in my mind since I’d lain awake watching her sleep.

Even in her slumber, I’d smelled her continued arousal.

I’d become drunk off it sometime in the middle of the night.

It had been reckless of us to allow her to stay since she’d arrived on the island with others, including a man with training on how to kill.

She’d all but ignored the fact she’d been drugged by the man.

She also hadn’t asked any details of what we’d done with him.

Maybe she didn’t want to learn the gory details. Oddly enough, the kill had brought me nothing but another wave of anger.

Then there was the issue with the mercenaries who’d dropped onto the island with cages full of feral lions. Killing them had been and would continue to be our only option. Last night in our carnal free-for-all, we’d all but invited them to attack us in the middle of the night.

However, for a little while even I’d been able to forget about our destiny and the horrors we’d been through. Being able to feel her pulse, to taste her skin when I wanted and studying her in the darkness had calmed the beast inside.

I’d seen human women before, including during our time of incarceration. I’d also had another be kind to me after I’d been caught in a trap. She’d healed me before allowing me to rejoin my pride. Perhaps the single experience was the reason I hadn’t killed and eaten her.

As Lauren’s image flashed across my eyes, I closed them and took a few seconds of personal pleasure. The little human was truly beautiful, her copper hair catching every shimmer of sunlight, her eyes bedazzling the three of us.

And her skin, creamy white, yet even more exquisite when she blushed.

Fuck. My cock ached. What the hell kind of mind control did the woman have over me? Over us?

Both lions remained quiet until finally Thor walked closer, his expression pensive.

“You know we are connected through whatever being entered us. But denying what you the two of feel isn’t going to help you rid yourself of anger and doubt.

She is our mate. Human or not. That cub in the last cabin is proof it’s possible. ”

He was right, but only to a point. We were lions, the DNA stronger than our human side. Or maybe that was just wishful thinking. “I’m going for a walk.”

“Why don’t you find our mate while you’re out there. While she will need to return to the others, we need to discover what she knows and her intended plans,” Titus said in an untypical demanding voice.

We were all agitated. The food supply on this island was limited and we certainly weren’t going to kill and eat the mutant lions.

And fish were out of the question. At some point, we would starve to death if we remained on the island.

We couldn’t trust whatever had been done to the mutants wouldn’t be transferred.

I didn’t bother dressing. At some point, I would shift again, hunting the jungle for dangers.

And answers.

There were still mutated lions with the marauders. At some point, I had a feeling they’d all be released, unable to sink their teeth into the men who’d abused them, so they’d turn on us. We’d vowed to protect our little pride with our lives and we intended on honoring that pledge.

As I moved to the edge of the camp, a scent caught my attention. Sweet. Sultry. All consuming.

My skin prickled and when I held out my arms, I could see my blood pulsing rapidly in the veins on my arms. Hissing, I also was forced to endure my cock becoming stiff as a board. What I was feeling was ridiculous, yet the draw to her scent and to the woman was powerful.

What few humans truly understood was how much power was in our ability to smell. The range was long, much more so now than before. With the wind carrying her fragrance through the dense foliage, it was as if the little human was standing right beside me.

Still grumbling, I headed into the jungle, the small pathway wide enough that it had drawn her attention.

She certainly wasn’t stupid. She knew the risks of the island.

She was completely aware there were other mutations of nature roaming the land.

That meant her determination to venture off, and not in the direction of the military compound, was based on fact finding or simply being irresponsible.

I moved my way through the foliage and it didn’t take me long to find her.

A location that allowed me some peace and privacy, protected on one side by our camp’s establishment and security measures while the other three were based on sheer elevations and treacherous terrains.

Including drop-offs that would mean certain death.

The sound of rushing water captured my attention as I slowed my pace, finally moving through the thick vines and brush until I was able to capture a glimpse of her.