Tarian Traitor Read online

  She’d never shown anyone her artwork before. It had always been a private, personal thing, but Orion made her feel like she could do and be whatever she wanted. He gave her the confidence to share parts of herself she’d been scared to show before.

  Steeling herself with a deep breath, she led him down into the cellar of that old house and hoped that he would see her…really see her…and want to stay for her.

  ****

  Orion stood at the mouth of the old, creaking stairway, watching his Anna turn on a trio of electric lanterns around the room. “This is where all of my paychecks have been going,” she explained.

  Everything was as he’d left it the other day, but also completely different now. He wasn’t stealing this. Anna was giving it to him.

  She showed him the stack of quick sketches. They were studies of the other members of the pride. Charcoals and pencil. A few watercolors. The set of pastels he’d gifted her were sitting on the table next to her paints.

  “I like that you took out the browns,” she murmured, running her fingers across them. Some of them were already used, the tips of them worn. She picked up a piece of paper with a sketch of Orion’s truck. His old Chevy was painted realistically, but the background had a blue and green pattern. “Do you even understand how talented you are?” he asked as he studied it.

  Annamora was rummaging through a storage bin. “I found them!” She held up a pallet of paints in a plastic container. “Face paint. For the flea market.”

  “Anna,” he murmured, holding up the little Chevy pic. “Do you? Understand how talented you are?”

  She shrugged, and her cheeks tinted pink in the lantern light. “I’m okay. I just like the way I feel when I’m drawing. Or painting. Creating, I guess. I like the challenge of getting better. It’s not a big deal, though. Just something that makes me happy.”

  Orion picked up the stack of sketches of the New Tarian Pride, both their human sides and their animals. “You have this unique ability to make other people happy, too.”

  Her chin was lowered, but at least she was still looking him in the eyes. The awkwardness she’d been plagued with around him had evaporated. It was like watching a flower bloom right in front of him. And she had no idea how damn beautiful that was.

  “Did you see this the other day?” she asked softly, her fingertips brushing the sheet over the canvas on the easel.

  “I couldn’t bring myself to lift the cover. Felt like taking something that didn’t belong to me.”

  “Don’t think I’m silly. But a few weeks ago, you know how Sora took those pictures of all of the Tarian lionesses? The ones about sanctuary? At the time, I was so scared I would mess up those pictures. The other females here are so beautiful, and I was having a hard time. In my head.” Her eyes flicked to him and then back to the sheet she was fingering. She licked her lips and continued. “Sora showed me the picture of me and the other Tarian Lionesses on her camera when she took the first set of pictures and something lifted in me. I looked different than the person I saw in the mirror. I looked…okay. I’m not saying I was this beautiful, perfect girl in the pictures. I just mean that I looked like I still existed and maybe I could be all right after everything. It was a good moment. One of those I’ll never forget. It’s when I started wanting to decorate my cabin and not be so quiet, not just be on the outside anymore. I wanted to be a part of everything. I was watching you, and you were still quiet and on the outside, so I started wishing you could find your sanctuary, too.”

  Annamora pulled the sheet off the canvas.

  The background had been built up with thick layers of texture and color, blues and greens. And in the middle was a white lion walking, head low, ears erect, white mane full, one leg straight, one bent in mid-stride, staring at the viewer. It looked exactly like him. Flanking the lion were four other males, a dark lion, Ford, a silver lion, Talon. Kannon and Ronin were there, too. And in the background were the Tarian Lionesses. Rose, Emerald, Katy, Sora…and in the very back corner sat a tan lioness with gold eyes locked on the white lion.

  “Holy shit,” he murmured, stepping forward to study the intricate details.

  “I know you’re thinking of leaving. It breaks my heart to even think of it, but I know you have a bigger destiny than the one here. You should know you aren’t ever really alone. No matter what, you’ll have allies in the New Tarians. And no matter what, for always, no matter what comes our way, you’ll have me.”

  Orion ran his fingertip over the bumpy texture of the layered paint. The grass was realistic, except it was colorful instead of a wheat tone. He’d never seen anything like this painting. “Do you want to know my real sanctuary?” he asked.

  Annamora whispered, “Yes.”

  He dragged his finger across the painting and rested it on the lioness in the back corner, the one with her eyes on his lion.

  Annamora looked up at him with such hope in her pretty eyes.

  She should know her effect on him and how important she was. He touched her soft cheek and wished it was his to touch a thousand times more. “No matter how far away I am, it’s always going to be you.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Well…the Tarian tent didn’t really look like the others in the market.

  Annamora compared it to the tent she had just drifted by with handmade jewelry lined up in perfect rows on a professional looking table with a banner and everything. The woman behind the table had perfect bouffant hair and a horrified expression on her face when Annamora waved to her. Annamora suddenly became pretty sure that the Tarian’s “party tent,” as she’d heard one of the passersby call it, stuck out like a sore thumb.

  Music echoed from the giant wedding tent on the end. Why a wedding tent? Because on three-hour notice, Rose decided to use the one they still had from the mayor’s wedding.

  The market was held in a giant, mowed, level field, so the boys had just parked their trucks right under the tent. Kannon was playing DJ, and apparently bartender, since he’d put a tarp down in the back of his truck, filled it with ice, and now it housed a metric ton of ice waters, soft drinks, canned margaritas, and beer. He and Talon had made a sign with poster board and a permanent marker: dollar beerz, get ’em herez.

  Annamora tried her very best to ignore the sign someone had posted with the rules for the flea market vendors. No alcohol was number one. No Animals was number two.

  They were definitely going to get kicked out of the flea market.

  The place was starting to get busy, and the field was filling up with cars, but the townies were giving the wedding tent on the end a wide berth, which freed Annamora up to do some shopping. She had two twenty-dollar bills a-burnin’ a hole in her pocket. Orion had left an hour ago, and she had no idea where he was, so she’d gone adventuring on her own.

  “Hi,” she said shyly to the pair of vendors who were selling homemade honey sticks and homegrown vegetables. No one else was at their table, and they looked up with matching smiles, but Annamora could tell the exact moment they recognized her. The smiles fell away.

  Crap. She moved on, but it kind of bothered her that everyone thought she was this awful thing. This awful person. She wasn’t. She was nice.

  She should just keep walking, but she couldn’t help herself, so she turned back around. “How much are your peaches?” she asked.

  “Uuuuuh,” the man said. He and the woman exchanged glances.

  “I’m not so bad,” she said. “To me, I’m just normal. I have a house and friends, and I was a kid once. I like playing in the sprinklers and eating birthday cake even when it’s not my birthday…stuff like that.”

  For a few awkward seconds, they just stared at her. It was the woman who softened first. Her shoulders slumped, and she sighed. “Peaches are three dollars for four. Or one dollar for one.”

  That was going to eat into her home décor budget, but it was the principle and she’d already circled back around. “Can I get a four-pack? I’m gonna get some for my friends, too. Orion. He�
��s kind of my boyfriend, but he’s leaving soon. Still, I like to get him presents while he’s around. And his sister Sora and her mate Ford are really nice to me, so I’ll get them one, too! I talk a lot. These look amazing.” The peaches were huge and smelled so good. “You’re very good peach growers.”

  The woman laughed and stood from her chair, then handed Annamora a small cardboard canister. “I’m Elora, and this is my husband Dave.” She held out her hand, and Annamora shook it.

  “Good to meet you.” She handed a twenty over, and while she waited for change, she picked out four perfectly plump peaches.

  A catcall whistle sounded behind her. Nine-point-nine times out of ten, those kind of whistles weren’t for her, but today was different. When she turned around, a tall glass of water in a desert heat was walking her way. Orion was wearing her favorite smile, old threadbare jeans, work boots, and a white V-neck T-shirt that made her want to bang him in the porta-potties. He had on sunglasses, and he hadn’t shaved in a couple of days, so his dirty-blond whiskers looked rugged and hot as hell.

  “Hiiii,” she said, bumping his shoulder with hers when he made it to her. “I’m buying you something.”

  “Another present?”

  “Yes!”

  He chuckled and took the peach from her hand, bit into it, and muttered, “Oh my God, these are amazing,” around the bite.

  “Elora’s fruit,” Annamora said, taking the change from the woman. “This is Elora and her husband Dave. They’re nice.”

  “Orion,” he introduced himself, offering his hand for a shake. “We’re at the big rowdy tent at the end if you all want to stop by. So far it’s a ghost town, but we’re hopeful.”

  Dave chuckled. “Well, that’s probably because you’re a little intimidating. Y’all got a long history with this town.”

  “Not really,” Annamora said. “All the lions that are left here? They’re mostly new, and they’re good people.” She winked. “We chased away the bad ones for you.”

  Dave and Elora exchanged another look. “You did?” Elora asked.

  “Yeah, look around,” Orion murmured. “All the key players who used to bully the town? Have you seen them lately?”

  Dave leaned back in his chair thoughtfully, chewing his lip. “Maybe we’ll stop by later. Barter some of these peaches for a beer or two.”

  “Sounds great, lookin’ forward to it.” Orion held up his partially devoured fruit. “These really are good.” Orion winked down at Annamora. “I found something I think you’re going to like.”

  Annamora squeaked simply because she couldn’t help it. Maybe she was delirious from being so tired, she didn’t know, but today she was having so much fun.

  “Good to meet you,” Annamora called as she walked away, cradling her cardboard carrier of peaches.

  Orion lingered, and she could’ve sworn she heard him say, ‘Hey, thanks for being nice to her.”

  “Oh…” Elora murmured. “Of course. You two are cute together.”

  One more squeak crept up Annamora’s throat. She was cute with Orion? Orion was seven levels of hot! That was a really neat compliment.

  Orion swatted her ass as he walked up beside her. “Hear that? We’re cute. And that’s from a human’s mouth.”

  “Mmmm hmmmm. The cutest.”

  Orion chuckled and led her down the rows of tents, zigzagging between people. “I found an iron worker, and she makes that shabby stuff you like.”

  “Shabby chic?”

  “Yep, that.”

  “Okay, yay! I have thirty-five dollars left. Let’s do this!”

  Orion slid his arm around her shoulders and pulled her against his side as they walked. He kissed her temple and said, “Today, don’t worry about money. I’ll pay. Today let’s just have fun. No thinking, just fun.”

  She knew what he was doing. He was telling her to ignore the looming future and pretend for today they were just a normal couple with a hundred of these dates still left to come. And she could do that. She could get lost in the moment with him. Orion was easy to get lost with.

  The crafter was friendly, more interested in making a sale than in the shifter gossip. Orion bought her an antique white mandala sculpture for her bedroom wall. He’d taken pictures of the inside of her cabin this morning, and they had so much fun meandering from one stall to the next, looking at pictures of her cabin and where they would hang everything.

  “I’ve never enjoyed this kind of stuff before,” he admitted at a woodworker’s tent. He’d bought her a trio of storage baskets and a rough wooden bench for right beside the door to store her shoes in. At another stall, they got a wooden coaster set, an antique white vase for her kitchen table, and a rustic coat rack to go with the bench for the front door. And in between home décor vendors…they ate. Corn dogs, street tacos, and then they shared a homemade ice cream sandwich that had strawberry ice cream between two chocolate cookies. It would forever be her favorite desert, not just because it was delicious, but also because she had so much fun sharing it with Orion in the shade of one of the tents while they talked to a few nice people from town. The longer they were out there, just hanging out and joking and flirting and playing and chatting with people, the more comfortable humans seemed to be around them.

  “Hey, Annamora?” Sora asked from behind them.

  “Yeah?” she asked, turning from the conversation she and Orion were having with a couple with a toddler swinging between their hands.

  “Um, I think you’re needed at the tent.”

  “Excuse us,” she murmured to the couple. “It was really nice to meet you.” She picked up the cardboard box of decorations and followed behind Sora, who was already walking down the row of tents.

  “What’s wrong?” Orion asked as they followed Sora through the growing crowd.

  “I don’t know how to price Annamora’s artwork. I don’t want to get it wrong.”

  “What artwork?” Annamora asked.

  “Oooh,” Orion said behind her.

  He was hefting a ridiculous amount of stuff, so she waited for him to catch up and tried not to get distracted by his bulging biceps.

  “What did you do?” she asked.

  “I brought some of your sketches of the Pride and asked Sora to set them out next to her photographs.”

  “What?” Annamora speed-walked after Sora. No, no, no, no. Those weren’t good art. They were just quick sketches. She would time herself, keep them to five minutes or less. It was just a fun game, not art. Mortification crept into her cheeks. Why had Orion done that?

  When the crowed thinned, she gasped the second she saw the party tent. “What the hell?”

  “Yeah,” Sora said excitedly, “whatever you two social butterflies did, it worked. We’re slammed.”

  “We didn’t do anything! Just talked to people.”

  “And told them the party tent barters for beer,” Orion said.

  Annamora scrunched up her face. “Oh yeah, we did do that,” Annamora said over the music as they made their way through the crowd.

  “I’ve got her,” Sora announced as she led Annamora to a long table Talon had brought in. On it were a bunch of black and white prints Sora had taken, and on the other side, to Annamora’s great embarrassment, were her sketches all laid out in rows.

  “Oh, my gosh, I’m so sorry,” she murmured, shoving the box of décor under the table. “These don’t belong up here.”

  She began gathering them up, but a woman stopped her. “Wait, I wanted that one. Sora just said we had to wait until you could decide prices.”

  “I want that one,” a long-legged teenager with thick curly hair and glasses said, pointing to a charcoal sketch of Ronin. “Sora said that’s the Alpha.” The girl waved to Ronin, who was handing a bouquet of cut roses to a man while Rose took his money. Ronin nodded to her and gave her a smile. “Would you sign the back for me?” the girl asked Annamora. “Ronin already said he would sign it, too.”

  “Sign it? Like…an autograph?”

&nb
sp; “Yeah! You’re the lioness from TV. Rumor is you were fighting a boy lion. My mom and I watch you guys. We keep up with you. It’s always been our thing, but usually it’s just the boys who get attention. But last night you were called the Tarian’s new Bonny.” The girl grinned so big she showed her braces. “That’s really cool.”

  Annamora was staring. “No one has ever called me cool before. Uhhh, yes. Of course, I will sign it. With my name. If I have a pen.” She looked around, and suddenly a pen appeared in front of her. Orion was grinning down at her. “I’ll handle payments. You sign.”

  “The cash box is over here if you need to make change,” Kannon said from the row of truck beds. There was a line of people beside him, ordering drinks, and Talon was making change like a pro.

  The rock music was blaring, and over on the other side of the tent, Emerald, Ford, and Ronin were selling flowers. Out in the sun, there was another table set up where Rose was teaching a dozen people how to arrange flowers in a vase. Two of them were little girls. Awww.

  Orion handed her a beer with the cap off, shoved a bag chair against the backs of her knees, and here they went.

  “How much for the Dark Lion?” another woman asked from the back. She was waving a ten dollar bill in the air.

  Annamora’s mouth hung open for two seconds too long to be polite. “Uh, ten bucks works. Ten for each picture, and we’ll sign whatever you want us to. I guess?”

  Chaos reigned after that, but it was the good kind. People were asking about the lions and the people on the sketches, so Annamora got to say nice things about her friends. About Sora’s loyalty or Dark Ford’s protectiveness. Ronin’s patience and Emerald’s steadiness. Rose’s quick wit and Talon’s ability to always lighten a dark moment. Kannon’s humor and Katy’s also-humor. They then argued who was the funniest out of the two of them over the noise of the crowd and music and made people laugh.

  She signed autographs. On her artwork. That really happened. People actually saw her artwork, saw her, and they said nice things about it. Real compliments about her shading, her highlights, her steady hand, or her eye for detail. Sure, sometimes people asked questions about last night’s brawl, but mostly they just talked, and she got to know things about them, too. Like the teenager who came back a second time with her mom so she could pick out a sketch and meet the Pride. From here on, if she saw them in town, she would know she could say hi to them.