Chasing Cristabel (Ashland Pride Six) (8 page)

While they waited for Hunter to finish, they
told her about their jobs at the bar and about living with the
pride. He and his cousins had joined the pride a year earlier,
coming with their friends, Ray and Wesley. The boarding house was
more than one hundred years old, with plenty of bedrooms and
bathrooms for all of them. As the males found mates, they would
choose one bedroom to share.

“There are kids in the pride, too, right?”
she asked.

“Seven who live in the house, not counting
Jilly who is eighteen. She just moved to the boarding house a few
months ago. Scarlett, who mated our friends Wesley and Ray, is
pregnant, and so is Melody.”

“My pride is…or was, in Lake Lemanar,
Kentucky.”

“Were you kicked out of your pride?” Dylan
asked.

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “I just
haven’t been home in a long while. My dad is haj, which is the king
of the pride. It’s the tradition of our people that the fathers
choose the mates for their daughters. For the princess, it would
most likely be a male from another pride, a way for the haj to make
an alliance.”

Hunter walked into the room and sat down on
the coffee table. “You’re a princess?”

She grimaced. “Only in the pride. I have
never toed the line like my father expected me to. The moment I
graduated from high school, I rushed off to college because I knew
if I stuck around, my father would push me into a mating.”

“What about your mom?” Hunter asked.

“I love her dearly, but she’s part of the
problem. She wants me to come home to the pride and take my
rightful place as some prince’s mate, not chosen for love but
whatever my father believes is important.”

Chase’s heart ached for her. He lifted her
hand to his lips and kissed the top. “I’m sorry.”

Leaning against his shoulder, she said, “Why
are you sorry? You guys are the reason that I wanted to make my own
choices. If I thought that my dad could pick the right guy for me,
I would never have left home.”

He pressed a kiss to the top of her head.
“We’re glad you’re here.”

“You’ll be welcomed into our pride, but the
truth is that the four of us are a pride on our own,” Hunter
said.

She sniffled and said, “You guys are so
sweet. You’re going to make me cry.”

They comforted Cris as she struggled with her
emotions. He looked at his cousins and saw the same determination
in their eyes that he felt course through him. He never wanted her
to regret choosing them. If her own family wouldn’t stand by her
while she chose them, then they’d do their best to fill in the gaps
and be exactly what she needed to be happy.

* * *

Hunter wished that Cris hadn’t suffered in
the way she had. On the surface, her life was ideal, but underneath
the princess title was the harsh reality that if she’d stayed in
the pride, her life wouldn’t have been her own anymore. He couldn’t
imagine a father wanting to make that choice for his child. He’d
sure as hell not stand in the way of his own children’s
happiness.

He rested his elbows on his knees and wrapped
his hands around her thighs. She gazed at him with her pretty blue
eyes. “Whatever you want to do about your family, we’re by your
side. If you want to Skype with them, or just call, if you want us
to go there with you and meet them in person – it’s your choice,
but we’re with you.”

She said nothing for a long moment, as her
hands twined with his cousins’, and she placed her head on Chase’s
shoulder. Then she untangled her hands from theirs and leaned
forward, pressing her lips to Hunter’s as her arms wove around his
neck. She slipped to her knees between his spread legs, and he
cradled her close, his hands rubbing gently up and down her back as
their kiss deepened.

The front door unlocked, and he lifted from
her mouth. Dylan and Chase stood swiftly, turning toward the door,
protecting Cris. She blinked a few times, and then yawned. “It’s
probably Lily.”

“On the off-chance it’s not Lily, let us keep
you safe,” Hunter said, drawing her close.

“Okay.” She snuggled against him.

Lily paused after opening the door. “Oh.
Hi!”

Dylan and Chase relaxed. Hunter helped Cris
to her feet and stood behind her, wrapping his arms around her to
keep her close. “Hi yourself,” Cris said.

Chase said, “Thanks for letting us have the
apartment, Lily.”

“I’m sorry I gave you the run around
yesterday. I was planning to introduce you to Cris last night and
make sure she wanted to be with you guys, but then I got stuck with
an extra shift.”

“It worked out perfectly anyway,” Cris
said.

Hunter kissed her ear. “Definitely.”

“Can I talk to my bestie for a minute in
private?” Lily asked.

“Sure,” Hunter said. He kissed Cris on the
cheek and stepped into the bedroom with Chase and Dylan.

“You know that they’ll still be able to hear
everything you say, right? Shifters have great hearing,” Cris said
to Lily.

Dylan grinned from where he leaned against
the bedroom wall. “She’s amazing.”

“And all ours,” Chase said.

“Damn it, I forgot you guys hear better than
I do. Well, anyway, I just wanted to make sure you were okay. Are
you…dating all of them?”

“Shifters don’t date. Well, not really
anyway. We’re mated,” Cris answered.

“So you bit them and they bit you? Ouch!”
Lily exclaimed.

“Well, no. I mean, yes, they bit me, but I
didn’t bite them,” Cris said.

Hunter went still, wondering if she were
going to elaborate.

“Should we be listening?” Dylan asked.

“Cris said we would be able to hear. Besides,
I want to know what her mating traditions are like,” Chase
said.

“Me too,” Hunter said.

There was a long pause out in the family
room, and then Cris said, “It’s complicated and involves some
things I don’t think you want to know about me and my mates.”

“Oh, sounds kinky. Does it involve whipped
cream and…I don’t know what lions like. Raw steak?”

“Aw, geez. You’re a nut,” Cris said,
laughing.

“You’re happy? That’s all I care about,” Lily
said.

“Deliriously.”

Hunter grinned, and his lion pranced around
in his mind like a peacock.

“What about your parents?”

“I don’t know. I need to tell them so they
understand I won’t be back again.”

“You won’t ever go home? That’s
depressing.”

“It is what it is. My dad would never accept
mountain lions into the pride.”

“They’re still lions,” Lily pointed out.

Hunter left the bedroom and joined them,
putting his arm around Cris and drawing her into his side. “With
shifters, sometimes the species is more important than the type.
We’re cats, but we’re not African lions. It would matter to her
pride.”

“But not to your pride. You guys are
all-inclusive,” Lily said.

Chase and Dylan joined them. Dylan grabbed
their coats and said, “It’s different for us. Each shifter group
has their own rules. Sometimes they’re inclusive, but sometimes
they’re exclusive.”

“Sounds complicated,” Lily said, her brow
arching.

Cris shrugged. “You just need to know that
I’m staying in Ashland.”

“Here?”

“Um, hell no. No, offense, but your place is
too small for three big guys, and I’m not interested in spending my
nights away from them.” Cris looked up at Hunter. “Is that okay? I
just invited myself to live with you.”

“As if we’d let you go,” he said, kissing her
briefly. “Go pack a bag, sweetheart.”

She gave him a wink, grabbed Lily’s arm, and
hurried back to the bedroom.

“She saved us the trouble of asking her to
move in with us,” Chase said.

“Yeah. I’m going to step out and call James
and let him know we’ll be bringing Cris home with us. You know
he’ll want to get the whole pride together to meet her.”

Hunter stepped out of the apartment after
donning his jacket. He opened his truck and turned on the engine so
the heat would warm the cab. He scrolled through his contact list
and found James’s number. James Fallon was the unofficial leader of
the pride. When his twin sons, Ethan and Eryx, had opted to leave
King with their mate, Callie, James had been the one to suggest
that the whole Fallon family follow suit. When they settled in the
boarding house, they’d extended an invitation to any King pride
males who wanted to join them, and Hunter and his cousins had
thought it was a great time to start over. King was a nice town,
and his dad and uncles were still there, but it had a lot of bad
memories for him, between the uncaring females and the males’
struggles to raise their children and keep the peace.

“Hi, Hunter,” James said when he
answered.

“Hey. I’ve got some good news. Dylan, Chase,
and I have found our mate.”

“That’s wonderful! Where did you meet her,
and when can you bring her to the boarding house?”

“We met her last night at Kickers. She’s
friends with Lily St. James and is staying with her.”

“Are you bringing her home to the boarding
house or is she going to live with Lily?”

His cat balked at even the idea of leaving
Cris at the apartment. “We want to bring her home. She’s packing up
right now. I just wanted to let you know before we showed up with
her.”

“That’s really great news! I’ll let the pride
know, and we’ll have a welcome dinner tonight. Aaron, Alek, and
Ethan have to work, but I think everyone else will be home, so
we’ll have most of the pride there. Congratulations, Hunter. That’s
the best news I’ve heard in a while!”

“Thanks, James. We’ll see you in a few.”

Hunter pressed the button to end the call,
feeling a weight lift from him. It wasn’t that he expected James to
balk at the idea of Cris moving in, but his immediate acceptance
made it so much easier.

He glanced at the apartment and saw the door
open and his cousins and Cris walk out. He put the truck into gear
and pulled up in front of the sidewalk and parked. He got out and
opened the passenger door and said, “Let Dylan drive your car,
sweetheart.”

She smiled broadly and gave her keys to
Dylan, who gave Hunter a disgruntled look. Dylan shouldered her
bags, and Hunter gave her his hand to help her into the truck. She
sat in the center of the bench seat. Chase climbed in next to her,
and Hunter shut the door, moving swiftly to the other side and
climbing behind the wheel.

“Poor Dylan has to ride alone,” Cris
said.

“He’ll live,” Hunter said. He wiggled his
brows at his mate and said, “Are you ready to go to your new home,
sweetheart?”

“You bet.”

* * *

Dylan was slightly annoyed at having to drive
Cris’s car home by himself, but he couldn’t fault his cousins for
wanting to be with her. They’d need to find a bigger vehicle that
they could all fit in comfortably. He made a mental note to talk to
them about it.

He loved Ashland. He sometimes missed King
because his dad and uncles still lived there, but Ashland had been
a new start for them without the threat of the females hanging over
them as it had for generations. Not that the females hadn’t tried
to horn in on the males’ happiness a few times since the small
group had split from King.

A few of the females had tried to abduct the
kids from the boarding house and nearly killed Sam, Aaron and
Grant’s mate. The females had also sicced a bunch of crazy bears on
Alec’s shared mate, Lachlyn. The previous summer, Micah and Tristan
had found their shared mate, Melody, a female mountain lion who had
been raised away from the pride and never poisoned the way other
females had been. When the females discovered Melody, they’d
kidnapped and tried to kill her.

Dylan realized it had been a while since
they’d heard from the females. He hoped to hell that it remained
that way forever. Although the pride didn’t know for sure where the
females were, it was believed that most of them lived in
Canada.

He parked at the side of the boarding house
and removed Cris’s bags from the backseat. He joined them as they
walked up the steps onto the front porch. “Are you ready for the
grand tour?” Chase asked.

“Are you sure they don’t mind me just moving
in here?” Cris asked, chewing on her bottom lip.

Hunter shook his head as he took one of the
bags from Dylan. “I promise they’ll be thrilled.”

Chase opened the door for them and Hunter led
the way. They hung up their coats on the massive row of coat hooks
along the wall and then left her bags at the bottom of the
stairs.

Dylan grabbed her hand and tugged her close.
“Welcome home, love.”

Her smile was so sweet it made him feel warm
from the inside out. She rose on her toes to kiss him. “I’m so glad
to be here with you guys.”

The foursome walked into the kitchen. A small
crowd had gathered, just a sampling of what the dinner that evening
would bring. “Everyone, this is our mate, Cristabel Hardison. Cris,
this is part of the pride.”

James, John, and Rue introduced themselves
first, followed by their kids, Henry and Domino, then Grant and Sam
and their five kids, and finally Micah and Melody.

“We’ll be eating dinner at seven,” Rue said,
tucking a lock of white-blonde hair behind her ear. “I hope you
like pot roast. It’s kind of the pride specialty.”

“I love it,” Cris said.

“Let’s go show you our rooms so you can pick
where we stay,” Hunter said, turning her out of the kitchen and
toward the stairs.

“Why would I pick a room?” she asked.

“Because we each have our own room, so you
can pick which one you like the best and we’ll move into it,” Dylan
said.

“Wait,” James said, joining them. “You should
feel free to look at the empty rooms up on the third floor, too. If
I remember correctly, two of them have attached bathrooms. I don’t
think you want to be on the second floor with us and all the kids.
I mean, unless you like not having any privacy or not sleeping in
on the weekends.”