Taking the Stage: Soulgirls, Book 2 (11 page)

Her lips pressed against his shoulder, the lightest of kisses. It eased the sting he knew to be coming. The telling of it once eluded him, but his soul quieted, ready to unbind the wound in his soul.

“I didn’t listen. I wanted to be my father’s heir, I wanted to be as admired and as fierce as he. I wanted to know that when I walked in the room, all eyes would turn toward me and that they’d listen when I spoke.” Arrogance and pride were his chosen poisons. “I threw my name into the ring. Only a handful sought the mantle of leadership. But no sooner did I announce my claim than my uncle announced his.”

His father’s brother never indicated any interest until that moment. Old resentments surfaced and Anthony ran his hands up and down her back, in part to remind himself where he was and in part to soothe.

“What happened?” It didn’t matter that the answer was obvious, she gave him the grace of explaining it.

“Many of the contenders withdrew when my uncle announced. He was—is still—well respected within the Pride. He is not an evil man, just…an ambitious one. Only one contender did not withdraw.”

Her quiet sigh was nearly his undoing.

“I thought I would lose face and he was my uncle, not the rightful heir. I was younger, stronger, faster. He was past fifty, I had to have the advantage.”

His Amazon leaned back until their gazes met. “Youth and skill?”

“Unfortunately, neither proved as much of an advantage as I would have liked. My uncle ordered me to stand down, I refused. He ordered me a second time…and I attacked him. My pride cost me my Pride.” His jaw flexed, she eased his loneliness, but the echo of it remained.

“But losing…losing would have just meant he led, not you.” She understood Pride politics.

Pleased, he kissed her gently. “Yes. But I wouldn’t bow to him. I refused to acquiesce the fight. He could have killed me, but out of love for my mother I think, he settled for banishing me.”

“But you were young.” She scowled. “Too young to just be thrown out.”

He expected disgust or at the very least disappointment. “I was old enough to challenge him and old enough to believe it was my right to lead. I think…I think they all hoped I would come crawling back. But if I wasn’t strong enough to take my proper place, I refused to beg for it. So I was alone in the world…and it isn’t a friendly place. I found Nalini in a zoo in Bucharest. I stole her…and I wanted to return her to the mountains, but she wouldn’t leave me. One by one, I found the others…”

“And you started your own traveling circus.” Rose shook her head.

“We’re hardly a circus.” He nipped her lower lip. “They are my Pride now. I couldn’t win the one I was born to, so I built my own. So now, you know my shame.”

Leaning back, she studied him. “Will you go back and challenge him now?”

Another uncomfortable truth, but she deserved to know. “When I realized you were an Amazon, I thought I might. Delivering you to the Pride would be quite a demonstration of strength and it could give me the leverage I need to prove my leadership in battle again.”

“And now?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know that I care enough about leadership to tempt that fight especially when I care more about you…and I’ll kill anyone who tries to take you from me.” Saying it made it real. He didn’t want to disappoint, but it was his truth.

She laughed and hit him in the shoulder. “Leadership isn’t about winning, silly cat. It’s about doing what’s best for your Pride or in my case, my Tribe. You couldn’t follow your uncle, so you didn’t stay. I get that.”

Flipping her over, he leaned down and nuzzled her throat. The slave collar tasted metallic against her skin. He found freedom in baring his soul. He needed to find her freedom next. “I have my cats…and now I have you.”

“Oh?” The arch challenge in her voice sent his blood racing. “Do you really have me?”

“I’m about to.”

She lost count of their couplings. He took her on her knees, on her back, astride him and in his lap. Everywhere his fingers touched, pulses of pleasure flashed through her.

When he moved down her body, his mouth poised at her thighs, she closed her eyes and surrendered. His third mark seared her inner thigh and she shouted his name, coming even as his breath whispered over her clit.

Finally, they were twined together in the soft grass, a breeze cooling their flesh. Her hand stroked lazily across his chest, exploring the ridges of muscle.

The faux sun had traveled through the artificial sky. Around them, the forest rustled. She lifted her gaze at the first flash of white and stared as the tigers drifted out of the mist curling across the forest floor. One by one, they gathered into the clearing, stretching out to greet Anthony and Roseâtre by turns, until they were sprawled all around them.

It should have unnerved her, this display of power, of unity, of Pride, but she reached out her fingers to caress Nalini’s sweet face. The tiger seemed to almost smile, her raspy tongue swiping across Roseâtre’s fingers in warm welcome.

“They know you’re mine.” Anthony’s husky voice rumbled. The tiger reflected in the cool blue of his eyes. Dear gods, she was his. The thought should have been enough to ice the languid heat still surging in her blood, but she was full to the brim with being his.

“You marked me.”

“Yes, I did. More than once.” A smirk took up residence on his sensuous mouth. Pride at his accomplishment colored his words. He was so damn male.

Her male.

Roseâtre sighed. The soft sound stilled Anthony’s features, chilling the ardor of his gaze.

“Are you unhappy with it?” The question was solemn, out of place in their sensuous stupor.

“I should be,” she admitted, hating herself for the flash of pain that steeled his features. “An Amazon mating is fleeting, lasting only until we conceive.”

“But?” Her cat was wise, she’d discovered, pressing past the surface to probe for deeper answers. Answers she wasn’t always willing to share.

“But you marked me.”

His brow furrowed and he tucked a hand behind his head, stretching his magnificent chest. Did he have any idea what the motion of his muscles did to her? Her hungry gaze roamed over him. She wanted to thump her breast and scream it from the cliff top. He was hers.

Amazons don’t mate for life. Amazons don’t submit. Amazons require men for one thing and then they release them.
Roseâtre didn’t feel much like an Amazon.

“You’re crying.” He raised his free hand, gliding it over her cheek, thumb stroking away the moisture she hadn’t even realized was there.

“By marking me, you’ve staked a claim.”

“I’m aware, trust me.” His bearded cheeks dimpled. Pure masculine satisfaction swelling with each word.

“By allowing you to mark me, I’ve submitted to that claim.”

He went still. Hadn’t expected that, had he? She grinned, pleased and rueful at once. It was better that he not become too accustomed to her surrender. It wasn’t in her nature to be passive.

“You’re mine.” Despite the firmness of the statement, a sliver of query hung at the end of the word.

“I wish it was that easy.” The words were simpler to express than she might have imagined. Her body and soul committed where her mind feared to tread.

Perhaps the surrender inherent in her words was enough, because Anthony pounced. “It
is
that easy. You’re mine. I am not letting you go, and if that means tying you to a bed and torturing you with pleasure until you scream it to the sky, then I’ll do it.”

Her body heated at the seductive promise. “Will you really?”

“Do you prefer satin or silk?” He purred.

Roseâtre’s eyes widened. “For what?”

“To be tied up with. I’ll fetch it right now.”

She dropped her lips to his chest and lapped her tongue across his nipple. Stiffness rolled through his body, the musk of their shared passion drenching the air. She scraped her teeth over his pectoral, testing the flesh.

“Bite me,” his voice was dark, smoky and hot with need.

“I want to,” she confessed against his skin. It was easier to admit if she wasn’t looking into his sinful blue eyes. “But I am sworn by oath, Anthony.”

“Oaths can be broken.”

“No.” Her heart cracked at the idea. “I’m a princess. My oaths are in my blood. No matter what my body desires. No matter what my soul hungers for. I cannot break with my oath, it would destroy me.”

Nothing he said to her seemed to change her mind. He made love to her body, but she held hostage that last piece of her soul. He wanted to celebrate their mating, but no matter how strong the bond between them grew, she held herself aloof when they were among the other dancers. When Heidi summoned her away from rehearsal, he crouched on the stage and stared down at the key in his palm. The bite of bronze stung at his nostrils and he flicked his gaze up to stare at the second Amazon in the theatre’s lineup.

“She won’t choose you.” Anthony couldn’t hold back the snarl. He didn’t understand Cerveau’s name. It was French for Brain. Who named a child brain?

“She already has.” Challenging an Amazon’s possession was not the smartest decision he’d ever made, but he wouldn’t retreat from the challenge in her cool blue eyes. Unlike Roseâtre’s passionate hazel, with their promise of the dark forest and deep pleasure, Cerveau’s were like chips of ice, unrelenting and unmoved.

“No. She has given you her body.” The ice in her regard slithered over his skin. “Admittedly, I see the appeal. But she will not choose you, no matter how many times you mark her.”

The tiger in him stretched, claws dragging against the inside of his skin. He didn’t bother to disguise the cat staring out from behind his eyes. “You can’t force her to stay where she doesn’t want to be.”

“And you can’t force her to go where she doesn’t want to go.” The blonde’s mouth tightened into a parody of a smile. But despite the tough expression, fear lingered in her scent, coating the back of his throat. She didn’t want to be left behind.

He sympathized, but he wouldn’t be intimidated. Rising, he tipped his head to the side and lifted his brows. “I would never force her to be something she isn’t, nor would I demand she serve a master to save me.”

The black scowl creasing Cerveau’s forehead promised swift retribution. “I asked her for nothing.”

“No. But
you
are the reason she’s here.” He knew it as surely as he knew his mate by her scent, her walk and her touch. Her loyalty to this one Amazon kept her trapped in slave bands, prisoner to the Arcana Royale—a royal hostage. His heart swelled with admiration and respect for Roseâtre’s giving heart. But his soul thrashed at the idea of her submission.

It was not just the Amazon princess the Overseers held now, but his mind. Neither he nor his cat would settle for this slavery.

Not for her.

The key on his chest burned against his skin. She’d refused every attempt to remove the bands. And she also refused the gift of potential freedom when he tried to give it to her.

“I did not ask her to do this for me.” Cerveau recoiled, her mouth open as though she intended further speech when Roseâtre appeared. Her hazel eyes snapped at him, hot and furious.

He held up a hand, palm forward, but her temper washed through him like a hot summer breeze. “Cerveau, we’re supposed to be practicing.”

Anthony considered placating her or at least making peace, but the blonde Amazon surprised him, she twisted to face the princess. “Did you stay here because of me?”

“Cerveau…”

“Rose. Answer me.” The little mouse with the ice-cold eyes had spine and while he couldn’t see her expression, no one could mistake the edge of steel in her voice.

“I stayed because of me. Don’t listen to the cat. He’s mad because I won’t choose him.” The words lashed at him, scoring deep. “We need to practice—”

“You
did
stay because of me. Dammit, Rose, I’m not a child.” Cerveau waved off Roseâtre’s hand and stalked away, her posture stiff. But it was her scent that pulled Anthony—terror mingled in sadness.

“How dare you?” Roseâtre growled at him and pivoted to stalk after her friend. The man in him recognized that he should let her go, he’d pushed her temper, but he caught her arm and tugged her back against him. Her rigid posture refused to yield even when he nuzzled the back of her neck.

“I dare because you’re my mate, Roseâtre.” He kept his tone simple. “Mates don’t hold back. Your battles…”

“…are not yours. Dammit, Anthony.” She turned in his arms and slid her own around him, squeezing him. The hostile Amazon in her sharpened, but failed to dilute the woman. “You have to leave this alone.”

“Tell me why.”

“Because if you continue to challenge it…” Her mouth compressed and she sucked in a noisy breath and released it in near silence. “Because you could get hurt. They could come after you and use it as leverage.”

“So now, you protect your shield-sister and you protect me.” The cat in him arched his back, proud that his mate wanted him safe, but they would not let her take the hits for them.

“Is that so hard to believe?”