Vivi Andrews - Serengeti Lightning

Mara kept her voice icy cool, the same tone she used in the classroom when the cubs were out of control and needed to be reined in. “Pull over, Michael. I’m driving the rest of the way.”

He hissed at her, baring teeth that had suddenly gone feline. “The day I can’t drive my own car—”

“You can’t ,” she snarled, all traces of soothing calm drowning under the tide of her own anger.

She never lost her cool. Keep your head when all around are losing theirs, that was her M.O., but Michael could get under her skin and bring out a violence in her she’d never known was there. She stopped thinking and reverted to just reacting, feeling. And what she felt was anger. Bright, vivid anger.

“Look at you. You can’t even control the shift for five minutes. You nearly got us both killed!”

Michael slammed the brake and wrenched the steering wheel to the right. Mara gripped the doorframe, relieved he was obeying her demand, though a small, irrational part of her would have preferred he scream back at her. She didn’t want him to give in. Some wild, foreign part of her wanted a fight.

Then Michael punched the accelerator. The SUV jumped forward along a rutted dirt road and Mara realized he hadn’t pulled over. He’d just pulled off onto the ranch road. They were on pride land now. The wildness inside urged her to shift and run the rest of the way home on four feet—even if they were still too close to the outer perimeter, close enough to make being seen in feline form a danger.

She wanted the danger. “Stop the car.”

“Shut up, Mara. I’m driving you home. Deal with it.” Michael didn’t even glance in her direction. His eyes stayed trained straight ahead, locked on the unlit dirt road.

“What is your problem?” The rational part of her brain was completely submerged in stupidity, apparently. She was goading a man on the verge of losing control. She actually hoped he would. What the hell was wrong with her?

“What’s my problem ?” he repeated incredulously, though he appeared no closer to shifting than he had five seconds earlier. “Half an hour ago I fuck my girlfriend’s brains out and fifteen minutes later she tells me she’s leaving me and never coming back. And why is she leaving me? Because she wants to find a real man who can give her what she really needs. What is my fucking problem ? What the fuck do you think it is?”

“So my timing was bad. Sue me. You had to know this was coming.”

“Did I? What was my first clue? The way you got wet for me the second I walked in the bar? Your scent was so damn strong I couldn’t smell anything else. Or maybe I should have caught on when you were telling me not to stop and digging your claws into my back. That was a big fucking red flag right there.”

“You can’t honestly have expected us to live happily ever after. Our little fuckfest couldn’t last forever. I’m going to be thirty-five next month, Michael. I can’t waste my time fucking around—”

“With guys like me. Nice to know where I stand. Tell me, which was the bigger issue—the fact that I’m only twenty-four or the fact that I make you lose control?”

“I notice you don’t mention the fact that you nearly killed us both a few miles back.”

“You gonna answer me?”

Mara clenched her fists in her lap, trying to find some memory of calm. “This isn’t about us.”

“The fuck it isn’t.”

“It’s about me . What I want. Everything is arranged. I’ve already talked to Landon about it.”

Michael snarled. “My brother-in-law knew about this?”

“By this time next month, I’ll be visiting a pride in Florida. I need to have time to meet the lions in the other pride and gauge our compatibility before I go into heat in six weeks. I’ll need to be off the birth-control shots and on a prenatal vitamin regimen by then if I want to have any shot of conceiving. I only have a certain number of viable breeding years left.”

The lion in the driver’s seat hissed. “Nice to know it’s all about practicality and your viable breeding years. God forbid emotion should get involved in anything as messy as who you choose to spend the rest of your life with.”

“This is emotion,” she said, practicality pushing down the tide of irrational feelings and putting her back in control. “I want a family and I need to know I can rely on the father of my children. This is the best way to go about finding the happiness I want. The stable, abiding relationship I’ve always wanted.” She swallowed around a thickness in her throat, trying to think how she could make him understand. “You know my parents, Michael. You’ve seen how deep their love for one another runs. It’s not a passionate flame that only burns on the surface and vanishes with time. It’s built on companionship and friendship and compatibility. I won’t settle for less than that.”

He pulled the car to a stop in the middle of the ranch compound. Normally he would have driven her around to the front door of her bungalow, but Mara was glad he hadn’t. She didn’t want to have to tell him he couldn’t come in. It was better to leave it like this. To leave him like this. On neutral territory.

He cut the engine and turned to her, resting his arm along the back of her seat but not touching her.

“What if there could be more ?” he asked in a low rumble.

Mara shook her head. “For me, there isn’t anything more important than that. I’m sorry, Michael.”

He started to reach for her, as if he would touch her face. She ducked away from his hand. “I’m sorry,” she whispered again. Mara jerked open the passenger door and jumped out.

She shifted immediately, not caring that the change would destroy her eye-candy dress. She could run faster on four feet than two and she needed to get away, as far and as fast as she could. Mara ran, ignoring the roar of a wounded lion behind her.

Michael couldn’t handle seeing anyone right now, least of all his brother Tyler, but life didn’t seem to be in the mood to grant him any wishes tonight.

He felt like he’d just been smacked in the face with a crowbar. Repeatedly. The woman he’d been stupid enough to think might actually consider becoming his mate had planned to leave him from the start. Knowing he wasn’t good enough for her wasn’t the same as hearing her say it. Hearing her scream it in his face.

He needed to be alone, to lick his wounds in private. But as he pulled the slightly worse-for-wear Cherokee into its slot in the massive garage, he saw the lights in the mechanic shop were still on, even though it was coming up on three in the morning. If Tyler was still working, Michael could guarantee he’d be in a shitty mood.

For a second he was tempted to go into the shop, pick a fight and vent some of this rage. But the anger couldn’t compete with the ache in his chest, like a piece had been carved out of him, leaving behind a gaping hole. He didn’t want a fight. He was too drained to put up much resistance, and violence wouldn’t touch the emptiness.

Michael hung the keys on their hook and crept toward the door. Maybe he’d hide out for a few days. Kane could handle the maintenance tasks around the ranch without him for a while. He could use a break. He didn’t know what he’d do with his time, but maybe a day or two to himself would bring things into focus.

Michael shook his head, flinging away the thought. Crappy idea. He needed to work. Like Tyler. Twenty-four-seven. If he was busy, he wouldn’t think about Mara and the way she’d ripped his still-beating heart from his chest and taken a bite.

“Hey, Mike.”

Michael winced before turning to face his oldest brother. So much for solitude.