Tarian Silver Lion (New Tarian Pride Book 2) Page 3

  “No. No, they do not.”

  The smile dipped from his full lips and then reappeared smaller as he searched her eyes. “Maybe try a man then.”

  Chills rippled up her forearms and, whooo, those butterflies got to flapping their wings in her stomach. How many years had it been since she’d gotten butterflies? She felt like she was in high school talking to her crush under the bleachers. This was ridiculous. She was being ridiculous. Everything was ridiculous.

  “I’ll go to dinner with you, Talon Lawson, on one condition.”

  “Name it.”

  “I pay for my own food.”

  He frowned. “Why?”

  She offered him a Cheshire cat grin. “Because then it won’t be a date.” Rose pushed open the door, got out, and then shut it firmly before walking away. Don’t look back, be cool. Don’t look back.

  “Hey, Rose?” Talon called.

  His voice sounded off. Confused maybe, so she turned and asked, “Yes?”

  His eyes had lightened and were locked on her destroyed cabin. “What happened to your house?”

  Oh, dear. She hadn’t thought about this part. She’d been so wrapped up in his charisma and conversation, she’d forgotten he hadn’t seen the destruction. No one had but Kannon, who’d figured out she was missing in the first place.

  Heart aching, she looked at her home and tried to see it from Talon’s perspective. The front porch was gone completely, and there were two massive holes in the front wall. All the windows were busted out so she’d covered them in blue tarp while she was waiting on replacements to be shipped here. And her beautiful, precious rosebushes were all completely trampled or ripped from the ground entirely.

  What could she say? How could she explain in as few words as possible that her house had been hurt, and it felt like her heart had been hurt right along with it? Simple honestly was always best. “You weren’t alone.”

  “What do you mean?” Talon asked, opening his door.

  As she watched him approach, Rose said, “You weren’t the only one the Old Tarians took.” She tried to smile because the ordeal was over and she could reassure him a little bit. That was kindness, not putting burdens on people who already carried so many of their own. “Cassius and four males from his Pride came for me in the night.”

  Eyes wide, Talon looked at her house. And when he dragged his gaze back to her, his eyes were a fiery gold and full of fury. All around them, the air grew heavier and heavier.

  “Everything’s okay. Ronin came for me. We didn’t know you were there in one of the prisoner cabins. We didn’t know, Talon. If we had, we would’ve gotten you out of there the night Ronin came to rescue me.”

  “I saw the bruises,” he murmured. “When I woke up, I was delirious with pain, but I remember the bruises on your cheek and neck. But the next time I woke up, they weren’t there, so I thought I imagined them.”

  “I might not be a real wildcat, but I’m a pretty fast healer.”

  Talon inhaled deeply then released the breath, looking as troubled as a man could look. He pulled her close, hands on her waist, and then he shocked her completely with what he did next. He hugged her. Just…hugged. Just…wrapped his strong arms around her and stayed like that. Frozen, Rose didn’t know what to do. She hadn’t hugged a man like this in years. Didn’t have any urge to. She was Rose, Tarian Lioness, badass, respected…untouchable. Or so she’d thought.

  “I fought,” she whispered.

  “I know you did.”

  “I fought hard.” Her guts felt like they were being torn in two.

  Talon hugged her tighter. “I know.”

  Rose’s lip quivered. Why did this embrace feel so good? She slid her arms around his waist and melted against him. As she squeezed her eyes closed, two tears streamed down her cheeks, and she pursed her lips hard to keep the sob trapped in her throat.

  “Were you scared?” Talon asked.

  Her voice would shake too bad if she spoke, and she couldn’t bear that. So she nodded instead, her cheek pressed to his chest.

  “Good,” he said in a deep rumble. “You didn’t shut down, you didn’t go dormant, and now you’re dealing with what happened. You’re alive, Rose, because you’re tough. Doesn’t surprise me one bit that you were fighting them. That’s the kind of woman you are. Beautiful badass.”

  His strong hand went to the back of her head, cupped it, and then stroked her scalp gently. It felt better than she could remember anything ever feeling before. Her lioness let off a soft purr, but she didn’t try to stop it. Her walls were breaking. He’d taken a layer of bricks off with those three words. Were you scared? It was the way he’d said them that had shattered her defenses. He wasn’t disgusted by the thought of fear. His voice had gone tender. He’d really wanted to know.

  “Will you be able to sleep tonight?” he murmured.

  She gripped his jacket in her clenched fists and nodded. “Eventually. I’m still in that strange phase where I think I hear something and check the house over and over until I’m exhausted and fall asleep on the couch with a shotgun on the coffee table near me.”

  “Shit,” he whispered. “Rose, Rose, Rose. Why haven’t you been staying with the Pride?”

  “Stubbornness,” she said with a half-laugh. “If I leave my home, it gives those men power. Most of them are dead now. I killed one of them in the war. They’re ashes now, and I refuse to give power to ghosts.”

  Talon chuckled. “Atta girl.”

  There was a snarl to his voice, and he smelled like fur now. Fur and cologne—an attractive combination to her senses. Ugh, what a disaster she was. Crying and having a breakdown one moment, then sniffing Talon the next.

  “I’m fine, really,” she said. “My lioness will settle soon, and my defensive instincts won’t be so kicked up. I’ll get the house fixed up and get back to normal. You’re just seeing me raw, when everything is still fresh.”

  “I like seeing you raw. I think you probably don’t let the world see this side of you.”

  Rose eased back and released her grip on his jacket, then ran her fingernails from his short gray hair at his temple, down, down through his beard, massaging gently.

  Talon rolled his eyes closed.

  “Been a long time?” she asked, using his words.

  His chuckle was deep and settled the heartache. “Maybe.” He leaned down suddenly and kissed her forehead. It was fast, just a few moments of his soft lips lingering there, but it was powerful. Her lioness settled, her body relaxed, and she was filled with some sensation she couldn’t identify. What was it, this steady feeling inside her?

  “Go on, Wildcat,” he murmured, swatting her on the ass. “Go on to bed, and no checking the house.” He turned and pulled his jacket off, then tossed it in his car.

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I’ll watch the house so you can get a good night of sleep. I’d rather not be picking buckshot out of my ass by morning though, so leave the shotgun alone tonight, yeah?”

  A stiff breeze could’ve knocked her over right now. He was going to watch the house? What did that even—?

  Talon peeled off his black sweater and began shucking his pants. Oh good gracious, he was going to Change.

  “Talon, you’re still hurt,” she said, gesturing to his bruised and mangled torso.

  He just shrugged like it was nothing and kicked out of his boots. “I’ll probably heal faster if I get a good Change in.”

  Naked. Talon was getting naked.

  And, holy hell, that man had aged well. His muscles were rock hard and flexed with every movement, and she really shouldn’t be staring, but her body was all tingly and her nipples had perked up like two little marbles. He had abs and tattoos. The butt…the butt was glorious. Had she ever liked a man’s butt before? Possibly not, but Talon’s butt was a work of art. The man hadn’t skimped on his squats.

  When he looked up, he had a smirk on his face like he knew she’d been watching, but just didn’t care. Rose wiped her damp cheeks real fast and cleared her throat. “I’ll make you breakfast then. In the morning. As repayment.”

  Her piece said, she turned and marched to where the porch used to be. And then a little ungracefully, she climbed over the rubble and got her keys out, dropped them, found them again, shoved them into the lock, pushed open the door, and climbed inside on account of there not being stairs. She stood up, dusted off the knees of her jeans, and was about to tell him, ‘You really don’t have to do this,’ but a massive silver lion was standing there, staring back at her with those glowing yellow eyes. His paws were the size of dinner plates. She didn’t know if she’d ever seen a lion as big as him and such a light color. He was beautiful, if something so lethal could be called that. His mane was full, and he had lines of scars on his skin. His long tail twitched as he watched her. If they’d Changed together all those years ago when she’d known him, she couldn’t remember his lion. And this one would be impossible to forget.

  Her heart was pounding, but not from fear. It was pounding because, in this moment, she’d realized what that steady feeling was. The word clicked into place as he sat down, a guardian of her home for the night. A guardian of her.

  Safe.

  Tonight, she was safe.

  And even if he moved on and left her behind, she would never forget what he was doing for her right now. He was giving her a gift. Sleep. He was allowing her to let her guard down and rest her weary mind and instincts for a little while.

  He was a very, very good man.

  Through a full heart and a grateful smile, she murmured, “I’m really glad you’re back. Goodnight, Talon.”

  Chapter Three

  A wooden plank.

  Rose had turned into a wooden plank. That’s the only thing that explained the stiffness in her body. With a groan, she log-rolled over in bed and squinted at the harsh ray of sunlight that blasted her in the retina. What in the hades?

  She reached out and yanked the alarm clock closer. 11:40 am.

  Rose sat up in a rush. What sorcery was this? She only slept past six if she was lucky. She patted her body all over, but the stiffness wasn’t from her injuries from the war. She lifted up the hem of her oversize T-shirt and looked at her stomach. Every claw mark and puncture wound from the war was completely healed, leaving only silver scars. “Whaaat?” she whispered in shock. She pushed up her sleeve to expose the cut she’d gotten across the back of her arm the night she’d been kidnapped. It had happened when Cassius had slammed her against the full-length bathroom mirror. The cut had been to the bone and bad enough that she’d thought she would bleed out the first night she spent in captivity with the Old Tarian Pride. She’d said her goodbyes in her mind to Grim, Ronin, and the rest of the boys in the New Tarian Pride who were trying to change the fate of all lion shifters. To improve it. She was so proud of those boys.

  That night had been hard, but now she was staring down at her arm at a silver scar. She was really okay.

  There was a scuffling noise in the bathroom attached to her bedroom. She had been using the bathroom on the other side of the house since she’d returned from being taken. She hadn’t been able to face what had happened in this one. Rose sniffed, scenting the air. The smell of cleaning solution and Talon’s cologne wafted to her. Tenderly, she got out of bed and stretched her aching back. She hadn’t in a million years ever imagined she would sleep good enough, deep enough, and long enough to get a stiff back like this again. Rose padded across the cold wood floors to the bathroom door opened just a crack. The light was on, casting a streak of gold across the floor and beckoning her closer.

  With just a second of hesitation, she pressed her fingertips against the door and pushed. It creaked open until she could see him, Talon, on his hands and knees, scrubbing the floor. He wasn’t wearing a shirt, and his powerful shoulder muscles flexed with every movement. There was a blue plastic bucket beside him half-full of water that had turned crimson.

  Talon leaned back on his folded legs and jammed a finger at the broken mirror. “Tell me whoever did this is dead.” When he looked at her, his eyes were glowing an impossibly bright gold color.

  Rose crossed her arms over her stomach like a shield as she scanned the bathroom. He’d cleaned up the broken glass and all of the blood. He’d even hung the shower curtain back up, and the ruined bathmat was shoved into a trash bag on the ground. “Cassius did this. The girls killed him in the war.”

  Talon’s broad shoulders lifted as he inhaled deeply. He blew his breath out slowly, fists clenched on his thighs. “Rose, are you okay?”

  She showed him the scar. “Yes, look. All healed. That good sleep benefited me.”

  “I don’t mean physically, Rose. Are you okay?”

  She swallowed hard. She wouldn’t get away with a lie. Not when Talon seemed so attuned to her already. “I’m better now that I had a good night and you cleaned this room. I’ve been putting it off.”

  “Letting it haunt you.”

  Clever, clever man. She nodded.

  He cast a quick glance at her toes and said, “Red is my favorite color. You look cute.”

  Cute? She was sixty-two years young, and yeah, shifters aged well, but she hadn’t been called cute in a couple decades at least. Rose huffed a laugh and wiggled her toes. “Maybe I’ll get my fingernails done the same color. For you. As a thank you for…” She shrugged and looked around. “For this.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m not done.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, I can’t leave here until this place is a safe home for you again.”

  The mention of him leaving felt like someone had punched her right in the stomach. It sucked the air from her lungs, so she waited until she could draw a breath again before she forced a smile. “I’ll be fine.”

  “Damn right, you will. I put in some orders for supplies. You gotta truck out back I’m gonna need to borrow to bring the supplies back here. I don’t want to pay extra for shipping it. There’s no point when I can do it myself. I made a list of stuff you need fixed up, Rose. It’s a long one.”

  This man had stunned her on so many occasions since he’d come back, and here he was doing it again. “Oh, Talon, you don’t have to do that. It’s a lot of effort and—”

  “I assume you aren’t going through some human insurance company because you would have to explain how your house got destroyed like this, and from my time with the Tarian Pride, I remember the rules. No human law to govern us.”

  “I’m going to have to fix up the house in sections. I’m a retired florist. I get paid every couple of weeks from my retirement funds, but it mostly covers living expenses, not home repairs.”

  Talon snorted. “Woman, you aren’t retired. I saw your greenhouse out back. You’re a worker bee.”

  “Yeah, well, did you happen to see it’s destroyed? They wanted to make sure Ronin noticed me missing. They wanted to get to him by taking the only female in his Pride.”

  Talon shrugged. “We will rebuild.”

  “How?” She frowned and leaned against the open doorframe. “How do you know what to do?”

  Talon smiled. “The best job for staying on the move was construction. I got real good at finding teams that needed help for a week, a month, or two months. I learned a lot that way, too, didn’t stay stagnant just hanging sheetrock or laying brick. I learned it all.”

  Oooh, he was a fixer. Okay, that was the sexiest thing in the world. She had a huge thing for men who were handy with tools. When her lioness purred, she covered it with a cough.

  The smile that curved his lips was nothing shy of wicked, though, so she figured he probably heard it.

  “I don’t have the money to tackle it all at once.”

  “Let me worry about that. I’ve already been calling in favors on some of the supplies we need.”

  Stressed, Rose shook her head. “It still costs money, Talon.”

  “Have you told anyone in the Pride how you can’t get your house fixed up?” he asked softly, hands relaxing against his jeans. His eyes were so direct and earnest on hers.

  “No.”

  “I figured. You’re tough, Rose, but you aren’t alone.”

  Felt a little like she would be when he left, but she wasn’t going to utter that little gem out loud.

  “I got money just sitting in the bank getting moldy,” he said through a grin. “No material possessions means I saved my earnings. If it bothers you, pay me back in time. But know that I’m not asking you to.”

  “Why are you doing this?” she asked.

  Talon leaned toward her and tugged her hand until she stepped into the bathroom. He tugged and tugged until he eased her into his lap. “Because, Rose,” he murmured against her hair, “you deserve to feel safe. You deserve to have something good happen to you. That’s how the balance of the world works. You do good, and good comes back to you. There’s gonna be bad patches in a life. What happened in this room was a bad patch. But woman, you can’t have a rainbow without rain, right?”

  Okay.

  Okay, Rose.

  Go ahead and fall a little harder.

  He’s catching you.

  She slid her arms around his neck and nuzzled her cheek against his shoulder. How could affection feel this good? She hugged the boys and Emerald. She hugged Grim and his crew. But this was different. This was slipping into a warm, safe room where nothing could touch her, nothing could hurt her. She did have a lot of history, a lot of cracks in her story, but Talon was good at pointing to them and then wordlessly accepting them or fixing them without her even asking. He wasn’t just a fixer of houses. He was a fixer of broken pieces.

  “I will be sad when you leave,” she admitted softly.

  “You’ll miss me?”

  With a sigh, she nodded. “Something like that.”

  A deep chuckle reverberated through his body and drew a giggle from her. A giggle. Like a school girl again. She’d always believed in magic. She’d seen too much in this life not to. Talon made her believe in it even more. Magic was shaving years off of a person and, right now, sitting in a strong man’s lap, growing a crush, she felt decades lift from her shoulders.