The Leopard King (3 page)

“I really hate you,” he said then.

But there was no heat in it, only sorrow. Pru tipped her head back. “I hate you too.”

“As long as we’re on the same page.” He sounded exhausted.

She planned to linger only long enough to make sure he settled, but even after his breathing leveled out, he reached for her when she moved. His big hand splayed over her knee and she just… stayed. Pru’s back was aching by the time the sun came up, but Dom seemed to be sleeping peacefully for the first time in gods only knew how long. When she finally crept out, it was well into the morning.

First thing, she taped some plastic over the broken kitchen window, as that wasn’t helping the arctic front sweeping the old house. In daylight, her explorations revealed a number of old-fashioned radiators, so there must be a furnace somewhere. Pru found it in the basement, but the pilot light had gone out, and it took a solid hour of tinkering before she got it running. The resultant rumble-roar filled her with satisfaction.

Maybe I can’t shift, but I
can
fix things.

Dom had no
idea how long he’d been out, but clearly he’d lost control of the situation. Not only had he failed to drive Pru off, but she’d somehow managed to clean his room
while
he slept in it. If she’d come to murder him, he wouldn’t be alive or pissed off. He went for a cold shower to settle down, and the damned hot water kicked in.

What the hell.

A savory smell bubbled through the house: roasting meat, rosemary and sage, a touch of something earthy. Best guess, she was probably making stew out of the groceries Slay had smuggled in. After he dressed, he strode through the house, agitated by the changes she’d wrought in such a relatively short time. Gone were the ruined fixtures and broken glass. His rampage had left the retreat nearly unfurnished, but she’d dragged a few old things in from somewhere, either the attic or basement, and somehow, impossibly, made the place livable again. He wanted to strangle her.

“You think this solves anything? You tidy up, cook me a few meals, and somehow I’m magically fixed?” His voice came out rough and tight with fury.

“No.” She didn’t look at him, but he could tell from the slant of her shoulders that she was fucking exhausted, as one would expect, after all that heavy lifting.

“I don’t need a goddamned maid. I need my wife, and you will
never
fill her shoes, you’re not even her shadow anymore, so get that through your thick head and crawl back to Slay. Oh wait.” Dom snarled deep in his throat. “He doesn’t want you, either.” When her breath hitched, guilt slashed at him, but the discomfort was so faint that he swallowed it.

Too far? She should be running out in tears in 3-2-1…

But when she spoke, her tone was level. “Slay chose not to be my mate, but he respects me. That’s why he sent me to retrieve you.”

Reluctant admiration boiled up from the emotional volcano seething inside him. With every word she spoke, Pru tethered him tighter to the real world. Problems and responsibilities hammered at him, the echo of voices he’d nearly managed to forget. Memories crashed like waves on the shore, endlessly repeating, and for the first time in months, he wondered how his father would feel, knowing he’d abandoned Ash Valley and everyone who depended on him.

He’d be so ashamed of me.

But he couldn’t admit she was getting to him. “You know my terms. Better get to work.”

Dom imagined she’d have a snappish retort, and he almost wanted to hear it. So it startled him when she took off that damned buttercup apron, turned down the heat on whatever she was simmering, and quietly left the kitchen. Questions pecked away at his composure, but he pretended like he wasn’t interested in whatever Pru might be doing. That mock indifference didn’t last as long as he wanted. Eventually curiosity overwhelmed him, and he went looking for her. He prowled the house, growing steadily more irritated.

I should be drunk by now. Working on it, at least.

At last he tracked her to the basement, where she’d curled up next to a box of glass fragments. He had no idea why she’d saved them, but that puzzle dropped out of his head as he breathed in an unmistakable coppery tang. Most likely he should’ve caught it sooner, but drink, isolation, and inactivity had blunted his senses.
Some apex predator I am.
He switched on the light and closed the distance between them, his heart lurching in his throat.

“What have you done?”

She tipped her head back, her eyes glassy with pain and grief. Her hair fell down her back in a messy tumble as he reached for her arm and saw that she’d carved eight lines, shallow cuts that marched over her wrist and toward her elbow. The trickling red connected in his head like a dreadful map navigation, arrowing toward Dalena’s death. Dom gave her a little shake.

“Pru!”

“Pain is supposed to prompt the first shift. Fear. Anger. Passion. Any strong emotion, really. But I don’t feel things properly, huh? I’m not enough, I never will be. I’m broken.”

A litany of curses escaped him as he bundled her close. The shard dropped from her bloody fingers, and he laid into her as if she were a kit who’d wandered into Golgoth territory. Her lax expression troubled him. This idiot would probably die for Slay if he asked nicely. In his rage, in his wretchedness, he’d forgotten how close to death Pru used to skate in trying to force the change, and how hard Dalena worked to haul her back from the brink.

Swallowing hard, he closed his eyes briefly and then raced upstairs with her. She fought him as he wrapped her wounds, but she never flinched. He held her close and tight, wordlessly demanding that she settle down.
Breathe,
he told her silently. She didn’t smell like goat milk soap anymore, but whatever cheap stuff was currently in his shower. When she met his gaze, her eyes were dry. That look caught and clung, a silent clash that ended in him noticing how the freckles she’d always hated stood out in sharp contrast to her sickly pallor.

Pru didn’t seem grateful as she shoved him away. “The food is ready.”

“Would you really die to bring me back?” he asked softly.

Her chin came up in a gesture so familiar his heart ached. Though he’d never had eyes for anyone but Dalena, he’d grown up with Pru. Her face—he knew it like each of his own scars—each freckle, each of her eyelashes had once been so dear. Mentally, he begged his mate’s best friend for mercy.
Don’t do this. Don’t make me survive losing Dalena.

Monotone response, a sign that Pru was hurting so bad she couldn’t process it. Anguish overload, Dalena used to say. “I was prepared for that when I came.”

“To
die
?” he demanded.

She shrugged, like her life was nothing. Dom clenched his fists, drowning in the desire to discipline her properly. But he couldn’t do that unless he meant to take up the mantle of all his old obligations. So he savaged his lower lip instead.

“As you said, you set the terms. If my shifting will get you off this mountain—”

“Don’t hurt yourself again.” He was almost begging.

How did things turn out like this?
At this rate, he’d be afraid to leave her side for even a minute.
If she dies…
His stomach turned inside out. From birth he’d been reared to carry the whole pride on his shoulders, and he never forgot his role… or all the burdens that came with it.

Until Dalena died.

“I can’t promise that. I wanted to shift before, enough to do practically anything. But now, the stakes are just too high. Don’t you get that? The alliance with Burnt Amber and Pine Ridge could dissolve, leaving us to face the Golgoth and Eldritch alone.”

“Pru—”

She clenched her good hand and waved her fist in his face, as if she might punch him. “I love Slay, but without you to check him, he will
start a war
. Yet you’ve got me playing games, testing me. So fucking fine, Dom. I’ll do anything. Do you get it now? The minute your back is turned, I’ll figure out how to activate my defective ass or die trying.”

“That’s where we are?”

“I hope I was clear.”

“Crystal,” he growled.

“Then eat your fucking stew.”

In all the years he’d known her, he’d never heard Pru swear so much. Her color was better at least, as she slopped some brown food into a bowl and practically threw it at him. Honestly, he’d always thought she was sweet but somewhat timorous, following Dalena like a faithful sidekick. This stubborn streak astonished him.

“I am. See? Eating.” He raised the spoon in a placating gesture.

“Good.” That was all she said for a while.

But he couldn’t let her rant stand unchallenged. “You know this won’t work, right? I won’t let you push yourself.”

I’ll watch you like a hawk.

She offered a tight smile. “We’ll see.”

Damn her, she was right.

When he went to the bathroom an hour later, she vanished again, and he might lose his mind before he hunted her down.

C
old gnawed through
Pru’s flesh and down to her bones.

She shivered and her teeth chattered until she ran out of steam. It was bad enough without a coat, but when the sleet started, it got worse, glazing her hair, which felt like she had icicles growing out of her head. Her body went numb and heavy, and it would’ve been too much work to get up. The house seemed so far away, well beyond her reach. She’d thought that the threat of freezing to death might do the trick, but her genes remained stubbornly locked.

There should be some fear or alarm, but she’d passed beyond that point. Distantly she wondered if Slay would care, if he’d blame Dom. As she closed her eyes, the wind carried a voice to her. Pru didn’t call back; the great leopard king could do his own tracking. She wouldn’t give up, no matter what it cost her.

A sleek and gorgeous snow leopard raced toward her, and then he was Dom, clutching her with frantic hands. She stared up at him with wide eyes. They might be frozen open because she couldn’t even blink, and her voice felt like a ghost in her throat. The worsening storm stole his words, sweeping them away, but she could guess what he was saying. Then he swooped in a furious pounce and ran with her to the house. She could feel his shoulder bones beneath her cheek, but despite how thin he’d gotten, he still held her easily.

“You’re driving me crazy,” he snapped as they slammed into the retreat.

Pru didn’t protest when he stripped off her clothes; Dom had as much interest in her naked body as he had in modern art. Averting his eyes, he wrapped her in a blanket. That wasn’t enough, but she did start shivering again. She couldn’t remember Dom taking care of her before. Nobody had since her mother died. Her dad was taciturn and gruff, preferring to spend his nights prowling as a lynx. Before she came to the retreat, it had been a month since she’d seen him.

“Hang in there. I’ll be right back.”

Drowsily she watched him tear his closet apart, and then he returned with socks, a knit cap, and mittens. For some reason, the idea of wearing
only
those three items struck her as hilarious, so she couldn’t stop giggling as he tried to dress her. But Dom hadn’t practiced on dolls, so his normally deft hands fumbled, especially when he knelt at her feet.

She could scarcely feel his fingers and there was something magical about this numbness. A hateful inner voice pointed out,
It’ll be worse than dying if you lose extremities. Then you won’t just be defective… you’ll also be the fool who maimed herself.
That killed the laughter, and she swallowed the lump in her throat without weeping.

“It didn’t work,” she told him.

“Why the hell did you think freezing yourself would accomplish anything?”

“It’s about the only thing I haven’t tried.”

With a muttered curse, he cupped her cheek in his big palm. “You’re still too fucking cold, and taking you down the mountain would only make things worse in this weather.”

His touch burned her skin, so she flinched away. In weary astonishment she watched as he shucked his sweater and the white T-shirt beneath, revealing his bare chest. Even with clothes on, she’d noticed how gaunt he’d become, but his ridged abs had yielded to a concave belly, a hollow beneath his ribs, and the jut of his bones made her want to cook him something right away. Except that her legs wouldn’t hold her when she tried to stand.

“Don’t worry about me,” she mumbled.

“Like that’s possible. I think Slay sent you as my punishment. Come here.”

But she couldn’t even grasp what he wanted, let alone comply with his request. So he lifted her into his lap, her freezing back against his bony, fever-hot chest, and then he wrapped them both up in multiple layers of blankets. When he shifted so they were near the radiator, the blast of warmth hurt. The agony of her thawing flesh finally gave Pru an excuse to cry, and she could pretend her grief stemmed from something other than the fact that she’d failed.

Again.

Great sobs wracked her, and the entire time, Dom held her like she was fragile and precious, like nobody ever had. His arms tightened on her until it hurt almost as much as the sensation returning. When she shifted to complain, the tear tracks on his grim face silenced her. He needed to grieve more than she did. Whatever he’d been doing the past few years, it wasn’t mourning. At no point had he accepted his loss or let any of the pain out. It seemed more like he’d been nursing it, letting a broken heart fester into a soul-deep wound.

Clumsily, she shifted and wrapped her arms around him. Pru expected him to shove her away; maybe because she was still so cold, he didn’t. A shudder ran through him, and then he tucked his painfully warm, damp face into the curve of her neck. She cradled his head in her mitten-covered hands, closing her eyes so she wouldn’t fixate on how strange this was.

They stayed that way for what felt like forever. His breathing went deep and slow. She registered the moment when the tension slipped out of him, and he leaned on her to the point that she had to exert herself to keep him from falling.
He’s not as strong as I thought.
But he’d done a good job of warming her up gradually. Now that her head was clear, she understood that he’d done things that way to avoid plunging her into shock or causing arrhythmia. Yet now she was naked in his arms, conscious of where his bare skin touched hers.