Home > Tarian Outcast (New Tarian Pride #3)(10)

Tarian Outcast (New Tarian Pride #3)(10)
Author: T.S. Joyce

Kannon looked over at Drea and nodded once. “You’re a good one.”

The bell above the front door dinged again, and Katy turned to find three women walking into the bar.

Kannon called out, “Rose! Over here.”

“Do you know them?” Katy asked him.

“Oh, yeah, these are the main ladies in my Pride.”

“Hey, I know them, too,” Drea said, waving to the silver-haired woman in front. “They’re starting to supply my shop with local flowers.”

The women came over, and Kannon introduced them. “This is Rose, Emerald, and Sora. “What are you doing here?”

It was the silver-haired beauty named Rose who answered. “We started doing a girls’ day once a week. We decided to try this place today. Heard they have good mimosas and nachos.”

“You heard correctly,” Josiah said. “But like I told Abel earlier, no shifter shit. I’m tired of breaking up fights and fixing broken windows.”

“Wait,” Kannon said. “Abel was here?”

Josiah nodded his head. “He sure was. Why?”

“Well,” Rose murmured, “because we thought he was dead.”

Josiah held up his hands in surrender and murmured, “I’m out of all this. I don’t hear nothin’, I don’t see nothin’,” but Kannon looked utterly disturbed as he exchanged looks with Rose.

“Did he say anything to you?” he asked Katy low.

“A little. I thought he was part of your Pride.”

“Nope,” the black-haired, green-eyed beauty, Emerald, said. “He’s an Old Tarian.”

Okay, Katy definitely didn’t understand the Pride dynamics. “As opposed to…?”

“New Tarians,” Kannon murmured. “The Pride split a year back, and we’ve been fighting for the territory and the Tarian name ever since.” Kannon cleared his throat and lowered his voice even more. “The War ended a couple of months ago.”

“How did it end?”

But just as Kannon’s pupils constricted and his eyes turned gold, his face twisting into a terrifying one she didn’t recognize, she remembered Abel’s deep scars down his face. Kannon didn’t elaborate, but she probably didn’t want to know. Blood made her squeamish, and she was starting to realize that being a shifter was very bloody work.

The blond-haired woman, Sora, kept looking down at her shoes and blushing while everyone was talking. The movement caught Katy’s attention over and over. Why? Because she had a problem with that, too. Or she had around Dayton, dropping her gaze when she was uncomfortable. Or when she wished she could speak up but knew she would be teased or reprimanded. That submissive moment when she’d tried to be invisible. Katy felt a connection to her because she’d been like her before, cowed and uncertain. So when she stood to go to the restroom, Katy excused herself as well. A big problem when being that submissive was bars. It was bars! Men in bars were like wolves hunting a herd of caribou, and if they sensed one was weak, they would pounce. And a lot of boys had been filtering in over the last hour, probably getting off work.

She didn’t know why, but she felt protective over Sora. Silly her, since the woman was obviously a lion shifter and had teeth and claws if she needed them. What she probably didn’t need was a human guard listening to her pee, but whatever.

In the restroom, Katy was washing her hands when Sora exited a bathroom stall.

“You won’t be allowed.”

“What?” Katy asked.

“In the Tarian Pride. I see Kannon touching you and looking at you, but he can’t keep you. He’s a lion shifter. If he were human, you could be together. If you were a lion, you could be together. But humans and lions don’t mix. We aren’t like other shifters in other Crews.”

Katy just stared at her, the water running hot over her hands.

“I loved a human once,” Sora whispered, stepping closer. She looked so scared. “And I was punished. Don’t get him punished. If you actually care about him, take the bite.”

“Take the bite?”

“Let someone Change you.” Sora blinked hard, and her eyes rimmed with emotion. “My biggest regret was not giving my human mate a bite. I didn’t Turn him, and then I got shipped off to another Pride. He’s not an option anymore. I have so many regrets…”

Katy didn’t understand. “You…wanted to bite…him?”

“No. I wanted someone else to do it. I wanted him to be a lion so he could claim me, but I was too chicken to do it myself, even when he asked me to. I couldn’t bring myself to hurt him. Those lions out there? The New Tarians? They’re better than the Old Tarians, but they still believe in tradition, and they’re careful. It’s ingrained in them. If you aren’t one of them, you’re an outcast.” Her voice dipped to a whisper. “And Tarian outcasts don’t exist. They get rid of them. Do you understand?”

“No,” Katy said on a breath. “I don’t understand at all.”

“Get. Bitten,” she snarled, grabbing Katy’s hands. “I can feel something between you. I can see it. I see more than other people. More than other shifters. I can see bonds. You have one. It’s faint. I don’t know why. Maybe you just met or you’re uncertain. But it’s purple.” She widened her eyes and squeezed Katy’s hands as she repeated. “Purple. That color is real. I had that color with my human. Leave now before you bond to him more and ruin him or take a bite. He won’t be able to leave you alone soon. He’ll need to be around you. You stand no chance at all if you’re human.” She gave her a significant look, and then in a rush, she left the bathroom, the door swinging closed behind her.

What. The. Hell?

Katy stood there staring at the door handle, breath shaking on every exhale. With all the purple bonds, lion bites, and shifter politics, she was starting to figure out how dangerous a Pride could be. This was a lot. Too much, perhaps. She needed to think. Right now, her head was swirling with tequila and a mountain of unexpected information.

She turned and looked at herself in the mirror. Her eyes looked wide and frightened and her cheeks pale. She pinched them a little to put some color back in, straightened her hair, and made her way back out to the bar to excuse herself.

As soon as she rounded the corner, she looked up and met Kannon’s eyes. He’d been mid-laugh, but his eyebrows lowered the second he saw her face. Are you okay? he mouthed.

There was such care swirling in his dark eyes, and her heart thumped harder with the relief she felt at seeing him. No. She was about to leave and think everything through, but being around him, even in the same room, muddled her thoughts even more.

It seemed like a big cost to spend time with him. Was he worth the risk?

She made her way to him and looked around. “Where is Drea?”

He twitched his head to the front window where she was standing outside on the phone with a mushy smile on her face. Probably talking to Donnie or her kiddos.

“You look upset,” he said. “Did someone mess with you?” His eyes flashed gold, but then they were back to that pretty chocolate brown. It happened so fast that, for a moment, she thought she imagined it. “You’re safe, Katy.” His voice held such conviction.

Being safe sounded nice…

But…

The talk of bonds and bites rattled around in her brain, and she didn’t want to be an outcast.

“I think I should get going.”

His frown deepened, but he nodded. “Okay. Go tell Drea we’re loading up while I pay the tab. I’ll be out in a minute. Hey,” he murmured as she turned to go. When he touched her elbow, her skin tingled there. Felt good. “Tell me you’re okay.”

She smiled, but inside, she felt so many things. Sadness, confusion, the effects of those margaritas…loss. That one she couldn’t understand or explain. Kannon made her happy, and everything she learned about him she respected.

“I’m only here for a few more days, and I don’t want to make saying goodbye any harder than it already has to be.”

Kannon rocked back in his seat and dropped his fingertips from her arm. He looked slapped for a second, but then he nodded. “All right.”

“It’s just I have this life and a job and it’s been so easy to get all wrapped up in…in…you.”

“You don’t have to explain, Katy. I get it.”

“You don’t get it, because I don’t know how to explain this very well.”

“Can I get the check?” he asked Josiah.

“Kannon—”

“Katy,” he said, trapping her in the intensity of his gaze. “You deserve better.”

She opened and closed her mouth. What? She didn’t even know how to respond to that. Better than Kannon? She hadn’t known him very long, but that didn’t seem right. She’d never met anyone she’d been this instantly attracted to. And not just the way he looked…but the man he was. Or the animal he was, maybe, she didn’t know.

“I’m just really confused.”

Kannon put a few twenties on top of the receipt Josiah slid across the counter to him. “I’ll see you ladies back home,” he told Rose and the others.

Sora looked so sad that Katy couldn’t hold her gaze. She felt like Sora looked right now.

“Come on, Human Katy,” he said low, resting his hand on her lower back. “Let’s get you where you’re going.”

And she could feel it—the shutdown. It was her fault. She’d started it first, and he was just respecting her wishes. He wasn’t making some big scene like Dayton would’ve done. He was giving her what she’d asked for, no questions.

And she liked him even more.

She’d come here to escape her real life, and she’d maybe done that too thoroughly, because here she was thinking about a future without Kannon, and it sucked. It was bleak. She would go back and feel empty, probably always have a hole in her chest that asked, “But what if?”

   
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