“Nope. There hasn’t been a Tarian human since the Pride began. To us, humans are the outcasts, not the other way around.”
“Oh.” Katy gripped his arm a little firmer as the reality of his words hit her. They might be eating lunch together, but they were from two completely different worlds.
“A big tough lion shifter who knows where the boutiques are in town.”
Kannon pulled his arm closer to his body, squeezing her hand in place. “Honestly, it’s because there’s this hot outfit on a mannequin in the front window of one. Skinny jeans with all these rips across the thigh and this looser shirt but it has these little thin straps… I don’t know. It’s silly.”
“Why aren’t you paired up?” she asked suddenly.
“Whoa, nosy,” he said, shaking his head.
“Well, you know why I’m not paired up and it’s super embarrassing. So why can’t I ask what happened to get you to three point five decades old and no wife. Or…mate?”
“It wasn’t for lack of trying up until a few years ago. I wanted one. My lion wanted one. But then we were in war after war and fighting all the time, and what kind of life is that for a woman? None of the girls in my Pride stuck, and what right did I have to drag someone into what happened to the Tarians?”
“What happened to them?” she asked.
He looked like he would tell her for a moment. For a split second, he stared down at her and parted his lips. His eyes were so raw. But then he asked her instead, “Where are you meeting Drea?”
The change in direction happened so fast she stammered her answer until she could find her balance again. “I-I umm, think she s-said something about a Swampy Frog Saloon.”
“That place is good,” he murmured quietly as he led her to the taco truck.
She didn’t understand him. His mood had changed. He’d been easy-going until she’d asked about his Pride. Maybe there was some rule that he wasn’t allowed to talk about his people or something. Maybe she’d crossed a line. But then again, she hadn’t known she was doing anything wrong. She didn’t know the rules with shifters. All she knew is that she wanted to find out more about Kannon. Not because she was nosy, but because she liked him. Or…found him interesting. Yes, that. Because liking him was dangerous.
They didn’t match.
Just like she and Dayton hadn’t matched, and she would be damned if she went through all that again.
Her phone vibrated in her pocket, and she slowed to a stop in front of the taco truck and checked the text.
“Think of the devil, and he shall appear,” she muttered, narrowing her eyes at the message.
I’ve been thinking about you all night.
“I want him to stop,” she said. “I want him to leave me alone.”
Kannon murmured, “Truth. You meant everything you just said.” He pointed to his ear and said, “I can tell.”
“What do I do?”
“You block him, or I can get involved and make it stop for you.” His tone had gone low and dangerous on the last part. “This is how he is, right? That’s how he kept you on the line for so long. A woman like you. You’re leagues above him, but you stuck around because he got you addicted to the little amount of attention he would give you in the good times…right?”
Katy’s eyes had gone so wide they were drying out in the stiff wind. “That’s right.”
“He’s one of those men who doesn’t take care of his toy, but gets possessive if someone else plays with it.”
“So it seems.”
“Katy? You know you’re not a toy, right?”
“I…” Katy frowned. Did she? For so long, she’d breathed for any kind word from him. Praised him when he decided to take her on a date in public. Thought well of him when he actually paid for their movie tickets. Lit up for two days when he threw a half-assed compliment her way.
“I used to think I was, but I’m starting to feel differently now. I think I’m really damaged, but it’s my own fault.”
“How so?” he asked.
“Because I allowed him to treat me like that for so long. I didn’t fight it. I just thought that was the most I deserved and accepted all the crappy things he did to me. In a way, I trained him to treat me like that.”
“Nah, it’s on him for being a shitty man.”
“But I can’t control his actions, or his feelings. I can only control mine, and I told him it was okay to treat me like that instead of telling him no or leaving.”
“Katy, that’s you being sweet and having a heart of gold. You are a woman who checks yourself and owns your own shit, but you can’t own it all. He also treated you like that because he’s a user, and you’re nice, you’re light, and sometimes people are attracted to the light ones because there is darkness in them they don’t know how to fill. So he drained you trying to make himself feel better, but it’s not your job to be a man’s medicine. Do you understand? He has to be your partner, have your back, show you how important you are, because you’re really important. You’re rare. The world needs more nice people like you. More light ones. A weak man uses his woman to make him feel better about the areas he’s failing, so he doesn’t have to work any harder on himself. A strong man lifts his woman up, shows her she’s never alone, builds her confidence and trust in him, treats her like his queen. Now tell me, which one do you deserve?”
Katy swallowed hard and dropped her gaze to Kannon’s work boots, but he gripped her chin gently and lifted her face back up into the saturated sunlight. “Queens don’t drop their gazes. Which one do you deserve?”
She inhaled deeply and, with her eyes locked on his, murmured, “I deserve a king.”
The slow smile that stretched his face was nothing shy of feral. For a second, his face twisted into something more than human. Something animalistic.
She should’ve been scared, but his snarly words settled her instead when he growled out softly, “Good girl.”
Oooh, she liked the wild in him.
“Now, I’m going to go grab us some lunch while you handle your business.”
“Okay. Wait, do you need money? For my tacos?” she asked as he walked toward the bustling food truck.
Kannon tossed her a smile over his shoulder. “I’ve got you.”
Stunned, Katy stood there like a bump on a log as he walked away. I’ve got you. Had anyone ever said anything close to that before? To her? She couldn’t remember that sentiment from anyone.
She’d always taken care of everyone else. That was the curse of the tenderhearted. She took care of everyone before herself, but never got the same in return. At what point did she care for herself?
I deserve a king.
Currently, Kannon was buying her tacos, and she was pretty sure that was the number one requirement of being a king.
Chapter Eight
Work was going to drag by.
Why? Because of the suitcase he’d tossed in the bed of his truck. The one that had soaked up her scent during its time in her minivan. The one he had moved to the passenger’s seat of his truck on his break so it wouldn’t smell like oil and the outdoors by the end of his shift. So it would retain Katy’s smell for longer.
The suitcase that symbolized the last excuse he had to see the human.
He couldn’t stop thinking about her.
Kannon had this bone-deep instinct to teach her things—important things like her worth and how good a man could be to her. He wanted to kiss her again. Goddamn, how many times had he replayed their kiss last night as he’d lain in bed? A hundred?
She’d tasted so sweet. Sweet and innocent and happy. She’d opened her mouth for him so easily. It had been a while since he’d kissed a girl, and it had been his entire existence since kissing a girl had felt like that.
Katy was a special human, but the Tarian Pride would be pissed if he brought her around.
Ronin had his hands full with the transition, the new lionesses, and his new mate, Emerald. Shit, Kannon couldn’t even ask a simple question about the Pride barbecue this weekend without Ronin going snarly on him. He couldn’t even imagine what his Alpha would say if he went to him like, “Hey, Ronin, I know it’s against all the Tarian laws, but would you mind if I brought a human into our territory? She probably won’t sue us if she gets randomly mauled by one of the monster shifters here.” Him. He was the monster shifter. He was the one who’d had a dream of doing something awful to her last night. Something unspeakable.
One tiny nip, and she would be like him.
Just one little accidental bite when he kissed her again, and she wouldn’t be a Tarian outcast anymore. She would be a Tarian lioness.
And that thought right there was infinitely more terrifying than the Pride’s reaction to him falling for a human. He’d done horrible deeds in the Tarian Wars. They all had. Reform didn’t come without cost, and that cost was blood. He’d been a fighter every step of the way and had accepted the black marks on his soul. But this was something different than being a killer. If he Turned Katy, he would be the murderer of all the good parts of her.
The fact that his lion had the urge to kill the sweetness in Katy and make her a monster like him was the vilest thing he’d ever realized about himself.
And yet, as he changed the oil on an old Volvo, he was still thinking of ways to see her again. Light things attracted dark things like moths to a flame. He wasn’t any better than her ex.
At least she’d survived Dayton.
If Kannon’s lion got away with his plotting and planning…she wouldn’t survive him.
Run, Human Katy. You’re too tasty for your own good.
Chapter Nine
The Swampy Frog Saloon looked like a page out of the Wild West, complete with scratched-up wooden walls and a wagon wheel chandelier. The stairwell led up to an exposed second floor with old timey wallpaper. The bar top was long and had the same wood counters as the walls and the floor. Exposed beams glided along the ceiling, and there were a couple of old-fashioned poker tables in the corner. The bartender wore a button-down cotton shirt and suspenders and had one of those thick handlebar mustaches and bifocal glasses. His nametag read Josiah in a western font.