Tarian Outcast (Page 8)

Katy swallowed hard and dropped her gaze to Kannon’s work boots, but he gripped her chin gently and lifted her face back up into the saturated sunlight. “Queens don’t drop their gazes. Which one do you deserve?”

She inhaled deeply and, with her eyes locked on his, murmured, “I deserve a king.”

The slow smile that stretched his face was nothing shy of feral. For a second, his face twisted into something more than human. Something animalistic.

She should’ve been scared, but his snarly words settled her instead when he growled out softly, “Good girl.”

Oooh, she liked the wild in him.

“Now, I’m going to go grab us some lunch while you handle your business.”

“Okay. Wait, do you need money? For my tacos?” she asked as he walked toward the bustling food truck.

Kannon tossed her a smile over his shoulder. “I’ve got you.”

Stunned, Katy stood there like a bump on a log as he walked away. I’ve got you. Had anyone ever said anything close to that before? To her? She couldn’t remember that sentiment from anyone.

She’d always taken care of everyone else. That was the curse of the tenderhearted. She took care of everyone before herself, but never got the same in return. At what point did she care for herself?

I deserve a king.

Currently, Kannon was buying her tacos, and she was pretty sure that was the number one requirement of being a king.

Chapter Eight

Work was going to drag by.

Why? Because of the suitcase he’d tossed in the bed of his truck. The one that had soaked up her scent during its time in her minivan. The one he had moved to the passenger’s seat of his truck on his break so it wouldn’t smell like oil and the outdoors by the end of his shift. So it would retain Katy’s smell for longer.

The suitcase that symbolized the last excuse he had to see the human.

He couldn’t stop thinking about her.

Kannon had this bone-deep instinct to teach her things—important things like her worth and how good a man could be to her. He wanted to kiss her again. Goddamn, how many times had he replayed their kiss last night as he’d lain in bed? A hundred?

She’d tasted so sweet. Sweet and innocent and happy. She’d opened her mouth for him so easily. It had been a while since he’d kissed a girl, and it had been his entire existence since kissing a girl had felt like that.

Katy was a special human, but the Tarian Pride would be pissed if he brought her around.

Ronin had his hands full with the transition, the new lionesses, and his new mate, Emerald. Shit, Kannon couldn’t even ask a simple question about the Pride barbecue this weekend without Ronin going snarly on him. He couldn’t even imagine what his Alpha would say if he went to him like, “Hey, Ronin, I know it’s against all the Tarian laws, but would you mind if I brought a human into our territory? She probably won’t sue us if she gets randomly mauled by one of the monster shifters here.” Him. He was the monster shifter. He was the one who’d had a dream of doing something awful to her last night. Something unspeakable.

One tiny nip, and she would be like him.

Just one little accidental bite when he kissed her again, and she wouldn’t be a Tarian outcast anymore. She would be a Tarian lioness.

And that thought right there was infinitely more terrifying than the Pride’s reaction to him falling for a human. He’d done horrible deeds in the Tarian Wars. They all had. Reform didn’t come without cost, and that cost was blood. He’d been a fighter every step of the way and had accepted the black marks on his soul. But this was something different than being a killer. If he Turned Katy, he would be the murderer of all the good parts of her.

The fact that his lion had the urge to kill the sweetness in Katy and make her a monster like him was the vilest thing he’d ever realized about himself.

And yet, as he changed the oil on an old Volvo, he was still thinking of ways to see her again. Light things attracted dark things like moths to a flame. He wasn’t any better than her ex.

At least she’d survived Dayton.

If Kannon’s lion got away with his plotting and planning…she wouldn’t survive him.

Run, Human Katy. You’re too tasty for your own good.

Chapter Nine

The Swampy Frog Saloon looked like a page out of the Wild West, complete with scratched-up wooden walls and a wagon wheel chandelier. The stairwell led up to an exposed second floor with old timey wallpaper. The bar top was long and had the same wood counters as the walls and the floor. Exposed beams glided along the ceiling, and there were a couple of old-fashioned poker tables in the corner. The bartender wore a button-down cotton shirt and suspenders and had one of those thick handlebar mustaches and bifocal glasses. His nametag read Josiah in a western font.

This was so freaking cool!

Katy had arrived early, and Drea wasn’t here yet, so she moseyed on over to the bar top and grinned brightly at the bartender.

“What can I do you for?” he asked as he set a coaster in front of her. The logo was a frog in a swamp. Cute.

“Um, what’s your specialty?”

“The Swamp-Grider is good,” said a man down at the very end of the bar.

He wore a baseball cap and a long-sleeve threadbare denim shirt. He had a dark, heavy beard. And when he looked over at Katy, she gasped. His entire face was scarred and disfigured from temple to jaw on the right side, but that wasn’t what shocked her. His eyes were gold like Kannon’s.

“Are you in the Tarian Pride?” she blurted out.

His eyes narrowed slightly, but he smiled a little. “I’m in the real Tarian Pride.”

“Oh.” She didn’t know what that meant. “So, you know Kannon?”

The smile fell from his face, and he looked back at the half-empty whiskey on the rocks he cupped between his hands. “I sure do.” His voice had gone all snarly though, and there was a growling sound in his throat. Katy didn’t like this.

And apparently neither did the bartender, Josiah, because he said, “You take that shifter shit outside, Abel.”

“I can take it wherever I want to. This is our territory, you—”

Slam! Josiah hit the counter with the flat of his palm loudly. “Not anymore. I heard what happened. I know how many of you there are left. You don’t have rights to trash this town anymore. You have to act like decent, law-abiding citizens, same as the rest of us now. Or we can run you out of town. Pretty sure I could wrestle up a big enough mob for that. Y’all have pissed off a lot of shop owners over the years. Now, your money is still good, but we aren’t taking your shit anymore. No more broken windows or fights. No more costing us money. No more scaring townsfolk just because you feel like being an asshole. There’s rules for you Old Tarians now.” The bartender arched his bushy eyebrows. “Tell the others.”

Abel sat back in his creaking chair and tossed the rest of his whiskey back, then glared at the bartender thoughtfully, scratching his lip with the edge of his thumbnail. “But I suppose there’s no rules for the New Tarians, is that right?”

“There’s rules for all you shifters.” Whooo, there was venom in Josiah’s voice.

And now the three of them were drowning in awkward silence as the two men glared at each other like they were having a staring contest. Their faces were turning red.

It was about this time that Katy realized she’d had a weird reaction to their argument. She had her hands up in the air like she was in the middle of some stick-em-up shootout with pistols at noon. Clearing her throat, she lowered her hands and said, “You got margaritas here? I think I need a margarita.”

“Sure do.” Josiah grabbed a glass from behind the bar and started mixing up her drink.

“You think you run the entire world, don’t you?” Abel asked.

“Me?” Katy looked behind her, but no one was there. He was definitely looking at her. “I don’t run anything. I trip on my own shoe laces three times a week and barely remember how to spell my middle name.”

“You think your rules are important and that everyone should follow them.”

“In my defense, my mom was a bit of a hippie and made my middle name Meadow. But she wanted to be different so she spelled it M-E-H-D-O-H.”

“Nobody fuckin’ cares about your stupid rules,” he said, rudely ignoring her interesting story about middle names.

“Get out,” Josiah told him as he did a long pour of tequila.

“Or what, human?”

The cocking of a gun was deafening in the quiet bar. Katy’s hands went back in the air, but it wasn’t her Josiah was aiming at. It was Kannon’s Pride-mate. He should probably take lessons in manners from Kannon. On a scale of one to ten, Abel’s rudeness hovered right at eleven.

Wait, maybe this was one of those interactive bars that had shows like the Wild West? It would be more convincing if the gun Josiah was holding was a Peacemaker and not what looked like a Glock.

Abel’s smile was downright evil, and he threw up his hands as though he surrendered. But the look in his blazing eyes said he surrendered nothing. “Sleep good tonight, Josiah. There’s still enough of us around to make a little ruckus.” He threw his glass against the back wall, shattering it into a hundred pieces. And then he made his way slowly to the door.