Page 26 of Savage Mates (Ruthless Instinct #2)

Titus

Everything about the human intrigued me.

Her perceptiveness.

Her recklessness.

Her refusal to back down in the face of danger both from beast and man.

And her love of animals. Where had that come from? Was her adoration truly about growing up in Africa? That fascinated me as well.

She was such a brave little thing, including at this moment.

She’d all but demanded we shift into our true forms.

She’d enticed us on purpose, using her feminine wiles since she knew we couldn’t resist her.

At that moment, it was as if all time stopped, the needs and wants, insatiable hunger and bone-dry thirst were destroying all sense of thought.

My anger was still raw, my lion barely contained. I’d succeeded in killing two humans before being chained and brought here. There was no reason to trust a single human, yet here we were considering this tiny female as our mate. How in the fuck was that even possible?

“Do we allow her to see our lions?” I asked without using my voice. From what I could tell, she was perceptive, yet could only gather fleeting glimpses of what we were thinking. There was no other explanation for her gifts other than she read everyone’s minds or…

She was our mate.

Goddamn, the idea continued to poke my lion. However, even he wanted a taste of her.

“We shift. She needs to understand,” Thor said while tipping his head toward me.

The wildcard was Zeus, his rage typically getting the better of him, but around her, I’d seen softness, enough to break through his stalworth defenses.

He had even more reason to wish death for all humans.

His face had been carved by a security guard who’d wanted nothing more than to frighten a lion.

At least the guard learned a valuable lesson about just how dangerous lions could be when provoked.

“Agreed,” he gritted out.

Not only was there continued danger all around us, but if what we suspected was true, she was a weakness, someone we would need to protect.

With our lives.

“Please,” the little human asked in a hushed voice. “I need to see you. To feel you.” Perhaps for encouragement or maybe because of our connection, she swam closer.

“Stay where you are,” I told her.

“You won’t hurt me. Will you?”

I laughed. “If we’d wanted to hurt you, little mate, that would have occurred yesterday.” I took a step away, closing my eyes and opening my mind to my beast.

For all the anguish we’d endured, the electricity burning our skin and painful test run, shifting no longer bothered any of us. The first time had been the worst. Now, doing so was as easy as donning clothes when we felt it necessary.

Which wasn’t often.

Hunting was still our priority, even if Zeus often wanted no part of it.

Vibrations thrummed beneath our feet with enough force that there were ripples in the water.

The sound of my bones crackling bothered the birds and our little mate briefly looked at the sky. Her pulse was still very fast, but she wasn’t afraid. She was as excited as she’d been a few moments before when thinking about the possibilities.

As my snout broke through the skin and bones on my face, she pressed her hands on the rocks. There was no disgust as I would have expected. She was still fascinated.

I dropped onto all fours, cracking my neck from side to side as the rest of the transformation took place.

When the three of us had finished shifting, she lifted her head and placed her hand over her mouth.

“I just can’t… My God. You’re so beautiful. All three of you.” She climbed along the rocks until she was standing only a few feet away from us. Reaching out, she laughed nervously. “I don’t know if you can hear me, but if you can, shake your head.”

I lifted my head instead, eyeing her carefully. Her scent was even more powerful to me as a lion than when I was a man. There was another odor. Wait. Another lion.

Issuing a slow growl, I nodded so she understood our connection was real.

“Do you smell that?” I asked Thor and Zeus. “A strange scent from long ago.”

Thor lifted his head and padded closer to her. She didn’t run.

She didn’t scream.

She uncurled her fingers, gingerly pressing her hand on his face.

“This is insane. You are real. A Cape lion. I’ve studied your species.

I’ve written papers on them. When I was a little girl living in Africa, I had pictures of your kind on my wall.

I always expected to see you one day in the wild.

But it never happened. Now here you are. ”

While Thor allowed her to stroke him, he studied her body as I’d done, also enjoying her provocative scent, the fragrance all but driving us into a frenzy. “Yes, another lion.”

“Did he mark her?” Zeus asked.

“No. He injured her. His blood mixing with hers. His saliva.”

What in the hell could that mean?

She laughed, several emotions running through her, but she was happy. Until she realized what that simple joy meant to so many lions and other predatory beasts.

“I’m so sorry about what happened to you. So very sorry.” Her sadness was gripping, pulling me into a moment away from caution or concerns about the other lions.

My hunger was all I could think about.

My desires were even more intense than before.

Need outweighing danger.

Hunger.

Yes, hunger.

The three of us felt the same and I could tell by the glassiness in her eyes that the pull to us was as strong as ours was to her.

Yet she still didn’t understand the ramifications or the danger she’d been placed in.

But we did.

Her lions.

Her protectors.

Her mates.

With the longing so great, the three of them shifted again, becoming the humans that before now I’d loathed with every ounce of my being. But by my ability to become something I’d never wanted, I was able to touch her, taste her.

Take her.

The ability made the horror and anguish, the uncertainty about whatever the future would bring that much more enticing.

She was ours.

Ours to fuck.

And ours to mate.

I dragged her against me, feeling a more significant rush of adrenaline. She pressed her hands against my arms, slowly unfurling her fingers and stroking my skin. Her breasts were crushed against my chest, rising and falling with every breath she took.

She was so fucking beautiful, so enticing that my mouth watered while my cock throbbed between her legs.

“You should be careful, little human. There are dangerous beasts on this island,” I told her as the two others crowded closer.

“I think I can handle them. In fact, I know I can.” Her statement was barely a whisper, the soft moan erupting from her lips more like a sweet purr.

Her scent was intoxicating, driving me to the point of losing control.

I claimed her mouth in a brutal kiss, dragging her onto her toes. My needs were too great and I thrust my tongue inside, sweeping it back and forth. I became the savage she should fear, tangling my fingers in her hair, my hold controlling. Perhaps painful. But she wasn’t going anywhere.

Thunderous vibrations jolted me and it had nothing to do with shifting or other danger lurking in the shadows. It was all based on the intense drive, the famished hunger that created madness.

She was alternating between trying to push me away and scratching my skin as if marking me.

The thought made me a little delirious.

With my fingers tangled in her hair, I yanked on her head, pulling her back into a deep arc. Slowly exposing my canines, I raked them across her jaw while inhaling her sweet scent.

She dug her nails into my skin, marking me when that’s all I could think about doing with her.

There was nothing more I wanted than to mark her as mine, but I was forced to share. That didn’t mean I wouldn’t do with her exactly as I wanted.

My beast would accept no less.

When I jerked her back to face me, she took several gasping breaths, her stunning eyes roaming down my face.

“What do you want?” she dared to ask, which caused Thor and Zeus to chuckle.

“Isn’t it obvious?” I asked. “Every single inch of you.”

Everything seemed to blur around us and while I could hear the heavy breathing of the others, all I was concentrating on was the woman in my arms. The very human woman.

There was no thinking, only carnal needs.

There was seeing clearly, only electric surges.

And all control was lost, the frenzy of what we’d felt before even more controlling.

We were losing it, our needs too intense.

She chose that moment to do something unexpected.

After pressing her palms against my chest, somehow, she managed to break the hold.

Without hesitation, she jumped into the water. Not one of us needed to be able to read her thoughts to realize she was inviting us.

Or testing us.

Either way, she had no idea how intense our primal cravings were.

She dove under the water. Did she truly believe she could escape us or was she simply trying to entice us even more? If she only knew the effect her playfulness had on us.

One by one, we dove into the water, easily gaining on her as she swam under water beneath the waterfall.

Only seconds after she came up behind the powerful stream, we did as well.

There was nothing quite like seeing the rise and fall of her chest or the way her nipples remained hard and swollen, reddened from our night together.

But we were just beginning to satisfy our needs.

She tried to crawl away onto the small bank nestled against the cave wall, but I was too quick for her. I snatched both legs, twisting and dragging them until she was fully in my control.

Her laugh echoed in the dense space, her sounds turning to slight yelps when I brought my palm down on her still reddened bottom.

Our little human threw her head back and by the glisten in her eyes, I could tell she was even more aroused than before.

Primal instinct tore through me as I continued spanking her. There was no fear of her getting away, simply carnal need that was already overwhelming.

She managed to thump her foot against my chest, knocking me away, but Zeus was right them to control her.