Vivi Andrews - Serengeti Storm

The jeep’s engine coughed and sputtered as the wheels locked in place on the rutted dirt road.

Shana Delray swore and stomped on the gas. When the engine screamed in protest, she slammed the clutch to the floor in a last-ditch attempt to keep the damn thing running. The abused jeep just gave one last bone-jarring hack and died.

“Fuck.”

She cranked the key, but got no response other than a pathetic whinny and a puff of smoke from the direction of the engine block.

“Double fuck.”

So much for her majestic return to the ranch.

Shana breathed warm air onto her freezing hands and glared out the window. The winter night stretched cold and dark around her. Clouds heavy with the threat of snow hung low, almost completely concealing the moon and throwing eerie shadows across the plain.

Shana had never been afraid of things that go bump in the night. Hell, she was one of the things that went bump, a born predator, a lioness shape-shifter. But that didn’t make the prospect of walking the two-plus miles to the ranch compound any more appealing. Especially not lugging her bags and her wounded pride.

She kicked the door open and stepped into the night, shivering even though it was barely a degree colder outside than it had been in the jeep. The heater hadn’t worked for days.

The jeep she’d borrowed seven months ago had survived a desert, a flood, and LA traffic, only to die within miles of home. The radio had met its maker at the county line, dying with a pathetic moan immediately after a report on the Blizzard of the Century about to hit west Texas. Throw in the flat tire she’d gotten a hundred miles back and it looked like the Almighty was bitching at her from on high.

If she believed in signs, she might take it as an omen that her current plan was ill-advised and reverse course.

Shana gritted her teeth. The signs could go suck it. She was here for revenge and she wasn’t leaving until she got what was coming to her.

Flipping down the tailgate, she dug into her bags, shuffling things around. She’d take the essentials now and send someone back for the rest. There was no way in hell she was gonna show up carting all her possessions on her back like some damned beggar girl.

The icy wind shifted direction, swirling around her and teasing her nose with the familiar scents of the ranch. Earth and hay and that subtle, sexy musk of male lion… That scent…

Shana spun to face the wind, crouching defensively and snarling as she scanned the horizon. Her heart drummed wildly as a dark figure slowly straightened out of the tall grass along the side of the drive, no longer bothering to hide now that she’d scented him.

“Caleb.”

She’d meant his name to sound like a biting epithet, but it caught in her throat, emerging on a hoarse whisper instead.

Why did it have to be him patrolling the land tonight?

Her memory had betrayed her. He looked even more edible than she remembered. Dammit.

Caleb Minor stalked toward her through the grass with a deliberate, feline grace belied by his extreme size. He was massive. Six-and-a-half feet tall with broad, heavily muscled shoulders. He could have easily looked like a gorilla, but the rest of his big body balanced the impressive strength so obviously on display in those shoulders. He was built like a Mack truck, but a very sexy, proportional Mack truck.

In spite of the cold of the night, he wore only a paper-thin, long-sleeved shirt that hugged the contours of his chest and a pair of khaki drawstring pants. The clothing was designed to be quickly discarded should he need to shift and fight. Shana dragged her thoughts away from other reasons he might need to get naked.

His hair was shaggier than when she’d last seen him, but still as dark and thick as a mane. It looked black in the night, but she knew when the sun hit it, or when he shifted into his lion form, streaks of red and brown would thread through the black, drawing the eye and making her fingers itch to bury themselves there.

He stopped in front of her, too close for human comfort, but still oddly distant for lions who traded touch so casually. She’d straightened slowly from her partial crouch as he approached and now met his gaze with a mocking arch of one eyebrow.

“Well, if it isn’t little Shana. Back to cause more trouble, princess?”

Since that was exactly what she was back to do, Shana ignored the question as rhetorical. “Well, if it isn’t big-assed Caleb. Still the Alpha’s loyal lapdog?”

He bared his teeth on a hiss—no lion tolerated being called a dog. “At least I didn’t run off in a pout because things didn’t go my way.”

Shana bared her own teeth. “I do not pout, Fido. And you have no idea why I left.”

He snorted. “Oh, I have a pretty good idea. My baby sister married the man you were trying to wrestle to the altar and you ran off to lick your wounds. Stop me any time this starts to sound familiar.”

“Marriage.” She spat the word. “Such a ridiculously human word. Is your pint-sized sister too squeamish to claim Landon as her mate?”

Caleb folded his thick arms across his chest. “Actually, it was his idea. The Alpha’s trying to humanize us. Didn’t you hear his plan? Oh, no, that’s right. You were too busy running away.”

The look he shot her was icy with condescension. Scathing and contemptuous.

No man looked at her like that. Shana was a goddess. She was what all men desired but could never deserve, not some pathetic creature to be pitied.

She refused to explain herself to him. Goddesses did not explain.

“Get my bags, Alpo. It’s cold. I don’t want to spend all night listening to you embarrass yourself with your ludicrous theories.”

“You think I give a shit what you want?”

She ground her molars. Men did not swear at goddesses. Even rough-edged men like Caleb Minor. It was time to remind him that she was not a creature to be pitied. She wasn’t that lost little girl anymore, begging him to save her.

Hell, she could use that reminder herself.

Shana drew herself up to her full height. She would have towered over an average female, and most men, but she still had to tip her head back to meet Caleb’s chilling gaze. She tossed her long, flame-red hair and arched her back, thrusting out her breasts and seeing his gaze flicker down for just a fraction of a second before locking again on her eyes. Caleb was all about discipline, but he was far from immune to her. She wet her lips and lowered her lashes, searing him with a sultry, melting look.

“You used to care what I wanted,” she reminded him throatily, drenching the words in sex. “You used to beg to be allowed to please me.” She traced one finger over the tightly flexed muscle of his forearm. “Don’t you remember how good I can make it, lover?”

“You’re a praying mantis,” he growled. “I don’t have that suicidal urge anymore.”

She stroked down his stomach to brush her fingers across the rock-hard ridge growing beneath those drawstring pants. He may not be suicidal, but he definitely had the urge. “Oh, honey…” she purred, “…you know I’m always very careful with my teeth. I would never bite the head off.”

His fingers closed vise-tight around her wrist, jerking it away before she could press against his erection like she wanted. “Still the slut, I see.”

Shana flinched in spite of herself. Why did it always hurt when he said it? It was just a word. She’d been called worse and the words just bounced off, but that word, in Caleb’s gravel-deep voice, and she wanted to run to her Momma and cry like a baby. As if her Momma wouldn’t say exactly the same thing. And worse.