Marie Harte - By the Tail

Now Quince supposedly wanted to date her. She’d wanted him forever, and he’d never seen her. But maybe, because Stacey had mated and her sisters had moved to Cougar Falls, she was the only one available. Might he be using her to get into Miles’s good graces?

She believed Quince hadn’t liked Lex. Reviewing how many times he’d warned her and tried to help her and her family stay safe from Lex’s men, she didn’t think he’d been in league with Lex. Not really.

But a guy like Quince, now head of the pride, could have any female he wanted. He’d always been handsome, so women had never been his problem. He said he wanted her. Well, he’d had her. Now she’d see if he meant it about dating her, or if he had another agenda. She might not be business savvy, but she was the top predator in her family. Of that she had no doubt. If Quince thought he could use her to further some goal of his, he had another think coming.

Right upside the head.

“If you don’t get out of my face in the next two seconds, I’m going to rip your claws out one by one,” Quince snarled at Leonard Silas, a whiny, ungrateful sycophant wanting more than his share. As usual.

Leonard took an immediate leap back, then turned and raced from the room, muttering under his breath as he did.

“Ah, Quince? Maybe not the best approach,” Jace cautioned.

“Fuck that. The asshole is still trying to steal from the pride. Bad enough when he was sucking up to Lex. He doesn’t bring in what everyone else does, he doesn’t get more than his fair share.” The little creep wanted the new apartment complex in South Beach. Like Quince didn’t know the asshole would take kickbacks and skim rent off the top.

“Sure, right.” Ellis and Jace exchanged a glance.

Oliver, a CPA with a brain like a calculator, took a step inside the office, took a good look at Quince, then turned around and left the room, shutting the door behind him.

“What?” Quince growled. “Who’s next?” He normally disliked the open office time on Wednesday afternoons, when the pride could bring him their concerns and requests for assistance. But lately it seemed no one wanted their due, just more than they needed. How the hell could he get the pride back to running smoothly if the same selfish dickheads wasted his time on trivial matters? “And why the hell aren’t you two dealing with this shit instead of me?” he asked Ellis and Jace, who continued to stare at him in concern.

“See, we’re thinking you need a break,” Jace said.

“I need to get us back on track. Where’s Dana with the spreadsheets? I need to see how our real estate assets are sitting. Is Rain out there?”

Ellis shook his head and spoke calmly, slowly. “Rain is probably in his office handling the stuff you gave him to work on last night. And Dana and Willow are with Joy, remember?”

He glared at Ellis. “I’m not senile. I just forgot.” Not that it should be any great surprise Joy wasn’t around.

Jace snorted.

“You have something to say?” he asked, more than ready to tear someone apart. Quince wanted to hunt something down and kill it. For the past week, he’d seen Joy sparingly while she watched him from a distance. She’d spent time with his lieutenants and Dana and Willow touring the pride, seeing it from the inside out, gauging the politics and dithering that normally soaked up all his free time.

So much for the grand seduction he’d had planned. The woman continued to steer clear of him, even sitting ten feet away at last night’s dinner in the estate commons where he and his council took meals.

“Joy has been asking questions and listening to everything we tell her,” Ellis said.

“Yeah. And?”

“And I get the impression she’s still not too sure of you,” Jace answered. “I thought you had this handled.”

By handled , Jace meant securing the woman’s attention. The pride leader was expected to take a mate. Michael’s had died years ago during his tenure as leader, so he’d been excused. Now that Quince had returned and the pride seemed in order, there’d been noise about having a more stable influence in charge. Namely, a pride leader with a female by his side.

On the one hand, not having a mate would solve his problems. He didn’t want to be in charge. But not having a suitable replacement nixed that idea. He’d step down in a heartbeat if a better candidate appeared. Instead, he had Lex’s groupies and sniveling idiots like Leonard who wanted the position. And none of his lieutenants had asked for the job. No, all the smart ones knew how thankless and time-consuming being pride leader actually was.

Yet, needing a mate gave Quince the perfect opportunity to approach Joy. He’d intended for her to realize how wrong she’d been about him and Lex. See how stellar a job he was doing, then be seduced by his manly prowess in bed. He knew he could thrill her body, but the stubborn woman had eluded him to such an extent he wondered if she even remembered their lovemaking. Or had it just been incredible in his mind?

He snarled, experiencing a deep need to turn feline and rake the palm trees in the courtyard once more, as he’d done last night.

“Easy there, oh great pride leader.” Trust Jace not to back down when he should. “I’m just saying maybe you need to step it up a notch. You need a mate, and the one you apparently want isn’t around enough to get things started.”

“I thought you’d nailed it.” Ellis’s eyes grew large when Quince stood from behind the desk and advanced on him. “Nailed it . Nailed it , Quince, not her .”

Jace laughed until Quince swung a vicious glance his way.

“I caught your scent on her when I picked you guys up from the airport,” Ellis explained. “She had the mating scent on her. But it’s faded. Are you keeping her or what?”

Quince dragged his hand through his hair. “The woman is running me ragged. I told her I wanted her to be an important part of the pride, and she’s taking this new position of Female Liaison to heart. I can’t get her to stop moving long enough to mate her.”

Jace shook his head. His blue eyes looked sad. “Dude. Come on, Quince. Use your head. Trick her into some alone time. Take her out to the House.”

The pride’s meeting place in the Glades was a hidden gem. A huge house off the grid, solar-powered and large enough to accommodate all the pride at once, the wooden structure had enough niceties that close to a hundred cats could mill around and laze to their hearts’ content. Just forty minutes away, but once out in the pine forest, it felt like another world entirely. The pines, salt marshes, canals and flat land all around were resplendent with wildlife and vegetation. God, he needed to run.

“Take her out to the House?” he asked on a huff. “When? Every five seconds around here someone has a new problem. Then the Rochert deal went bust, and I spent two days patching that.”

“Which is holding, by the way.” Ellis gave him a thumbs up. “So Jace and I think you should take Joy away. The House is a perfect escape. We’ll put the word out to everyone to steer clear of it for a few days for maintenance issues. Between Jace, Dana, Willow, Rain, Oliver and I, we’ll hold down the fort. You go work your magic.” Ellis wiggled his brows.

Quince sighed. “I get within scent of her, and she’s gone. I don’t know how she does it, but she’s fast.”

Jace shook his head. “What dumbass meant but didn’t say—”

“Hey!”

“—was that she’s a Bermin. Joy’s too smart to fall for ‘nice’. Tie her up, kidnap her, whatever it takes. But you need to do something about fixing your unmated status pronto or you stand to lose the pride.”