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  “It’s all right,” Leon assured her. “Whatever it is, we’ll fix it.”

  “You can’t fix this!”

  Jagger’s heartbeat picked up speed. His pulse quickened and his vision blurred. Sanchez made a low guttural racket.

  “No one can save me now.”

  “Shh,” Leon said, stroking her head, glaring at Jagger as if he had somehow caused this.

  “What have you done, Ariela?” Jagger asked, dreading what she might say.

  “I made a deal, Jagger,” she cried out. “And it can’t be undone.”

  Jagger felt a suffocating sensation. “What kind of deal?”

  “I can’t explain it to you.”

  “Damn it, Ariela! What kind of deal?” He lunged forward and grabbed her arm, pulling her free of Leon’s and Sanchez’s grips. He shook her until she sobbed, and then clutched her to his chest, crying out as he easily felt her anxiety then, the way her body melded to his as he cradled her against him.

  In that moment, he felt her slip away, far beyond his reach. He felt the love they shared fading as he gathered her closer, holding her as tightly as humanly possible, yet understanding.

  Another shifter wanted her, a langle with power and position, a man who undoubtedly believed Ariela was his true mate.

  They rocked together in an unbearable sway, embracing one another with a terrorizing grip, a hold that let them each know that they might have held onto one another in that moment, but soon a stronger force would inevitably tear them apart.

  The thought of losing her drove him to take her. He pushed her back against the bed and entered her with one fluid stroke. Her body opened up to him. Her pussy gripped his shaft, milked his cock with a tight squeeze as he threw his weight one way or another with hard-pounding intimate punches. One, two, three, and then he withdrew, stared down at her and then took her again.

  “Jagger,” she whimpered, raking her fingernails down his arms. “This won’t solve—”

  His lips stole hers. He didn’t want to hear her explanations. He didn’t need to listen to her excuses. And he damn sure didn’t want to know the rest of the story.

  He silenced her again with a series of short thrusts, pushing the head of his cock right inside her folds, withstanding the urge to fuck her like the animal he was. He refused to free the beast living inside him. For a few moments, he wanted to ravage her body completely, own and devour it.

  “Did you really think we’d let you go?” The hard prickling sensation underneath his cockhead pushed free. His barb raked against her channel as he thrummed inside her.

  “Jagger, you don’t understand!” She clawed at him, bucking wildly underneath him, giving him the best of her as she undulated in his arms.

  He noticed the marks on her skin then, the indented proof around her nipples. “He touched you.”

  She cried out, and turned her head, looking at Sanchez as if she expected him to save her.

  “Answer me!” Jagger withdrew ever so slowly, trying his best to keep the barb just inside her intimate lips.

  “He touched me,” she whispered, twirling her fingers around her nipples as if she wanted him to know precisely how he’d fingered those hard gems.

  Marred. Touched. Caressed. Enjoyed.

  Jagger roared out his aggression and slammed inside her.

  He fucked her as he imagined Lane would soon take her. He licked the very nipples where another man’s fingers had lingered. He fluttered his tongue over the taut points before he reared back and glared down on the only woman he’d ever really loved.

  “Hold her arms,” he bit out.

  “Jagger, no,” she whimpered, writhing under him as she fought for completion.

  Sanchez and Leon hesitated.

  “Hold. Her. Arms!”

  “This isn’t what you want, Jagger,” she whispered. “This isn’t us.”

  “It is us now, Ariela,” he assured her. “This is what you’ll have with Lane Livingston, and if this is what you think you can’t live without, then let me show you what you’ll have from now on if you give yourself to him!” He nodded once at Sanchez who immediately complied and held her right arm against the mattress. Leon took a firmer hold of her left.

  She jerked forward, her face mere inches from his own. “I need to come!”

  “Relax, kitten,” Jagger rasped, slapping his palms against the mattress and jiggling his hips in an effort to sink as deep as his cock would take him. “You won’t come anytime soon. Not now that I know you’ve already promised yourself to a damn Dominant. If you want to give yourself to someone in a subservient fashion, if you desire submission, kitten, you’ll first submit only to me!”

  Chapter Ten

  The fucking lasted for at least an hour. He’d taken her body and used her for his own pleasure, but he’d refused to let her find satisfaction. She’d begged, truly groveled, and he’d denied her.

  He’d taken her to the brink, pushed inside her as if he were about to give her what she needed, and then he’d refused. He’d backed out of her pussy and hovered over her as if he were about to finish her with his tongue, only his tongue and fingers didn’t probe or explore.

  Oh no. They teased. They taunted. They abused their right to touch her!

  “Damn you, Jagger,” she whispered, refusing to shed another tear now and resisting the urge to feed this insanity by showing her weakness. She jerked her head to the side. “And you, Leon. Damn you for knowing what we faced as a pride! You knew and you didn’t tell me!”

  Her pussy clenched around Jagger’s spent shaft. Instinctively, she pulsed around him, feeling how quickly he regained his erection. He’d filled her cunt with his release several times but he hadn’t tired, he hadn’t moved aside for another one of her mates. He’d stayed on course, kept up his predetermined pace.

  “I loved you.”

  He shoved his face in her breasts and lavished her nipples with his tongue. “You still love me, kitten. You’re lost, that’s all. Lane is a powerful man who used his supernatural abilities to keep you bound to him.” He fucked her with broken strokes, clutching her to him as he grunted against her nape, throwing himself into his motions and dragging her with him as he leaned back.

  “Jagger,” she moaned, needing that first orgasm, desperate for it now as his rigid cock traveled inside her wet pussy. “Please let me come. Let me enjoy you.”

  He pulled out and pressed her back against the bed again. Taking several deep breaths, he stared at her then as if he resented her.

  “Does the love not exist anymore?” She wanted to eat her words. “Have you lost your heart, Jagger?”

  He sneered then and Leon released her. Sanchez did the same.

  “I know what we have to do,” Jagger said, falling to the bed and dragging her body over his. “We fuck her together.”

  Sensing something terribly wrong with what Jagger was suggesting, she tried to break free of his grasp when he bracketed his arms around her middle. “No, Jagger. Not now.”

  He nuzzled her hair, nipped her ear and whispered, “You don’t want my cock inside your ass, kitten?”

  “No.”

  “You’re lying to me, Ariela,” he crooned, rubbing his arm against her breasts. “You want me inside you.” He flattened one hand against her abdomen and pushed against her. “You need me, kitten.”

  “I want you to love me again,” she whimpered, believing it was true. Even though a part of her resented Jagger now, she understood why he’d taken her to the brink of release, over and over again. She accepted his reasons.

  He was punishing her. Now, he was ready to reward her.

  “And if I ask for your love in return?” He positioned his cock between her globes. “Can you give us your love now, Ariela? Have you already promised to love another, or do you remember the history you and I share?”

  “I remember,” she whispered, feeling the flex of her pulsing hole, the penetrating heat surrounding Jagger’s crest
as he breached that first outer ring with the tip of his cock.

  Goosebumps covered her body. She took a deep breath, accepting the rear penetration, but too desperate to relax. She focused on the gorgeous men in front of her, waiting for her, eager for entry now. Sanchez waited at her right. Leon remained at her left. Each stroked their long, gloriously hard cocks as the lust became too much to imagine, too difficult to resist. Her mouth watered at the sight of them.

  “I’ll give you what you need,” Jagger crooned. “Just let me take what is mine to have.”

  “Always,” she whispered, watching in pure exquisite wonder as Sanchez lowered his body to hers and Leon fed her his cock.

  Stretching her neck up, she accepted Leon’s cock, sucking his shaft and pulling his engorged head closer to her throat. Sanchez impaled her pussy with one sudden stroke. Jagger clutched her sides and threw her forward before he brought her down over his body. He nudged her forbidden entrance with the swollen head of his cock and sank between her cheeks, working his shaft from side to side until he was buried inside her rear passage.

  With each new inch he gave her, Ariela whimpered or uttered a barely audible, “ah.”

  “Now, Sanchez,” Leon said, glancing over her shoulder. “Go, Jagger.”

  As if their union had been planned and orchestrated, they entered her in repetitive beats, pulling out at the same time before reentering her together. Then, they each took their turns.

  Sanchez sank inside her pussy, fucking her like a man on a mission. He slowly backed out and Jagger began. He pumped his cock inside her ass, cupping her breasts and pulling at her tight nipples until they were tender and sore.

  Leon took his turn with a little more dignity. He let her guide him and followed her lead. She pulled him to her throat, suckling his warm, hard shaft as he pumped between her lips in a well practiced rhythm. Together, they played her body like a finely tuned violin, softly at first, before thrumming along with more passion, more precision.

  Her pussy convulsed. Her hole flexed. She opened wider, accepting Leon’s strokes, dying to taste him, needing to know she alone had completed him.

  The fates danced only for her pleasure and the bed began to rock. The earth seemingly shook. The four of them came together, urgent for their releases, desperate in their pleas for continued passion, unquestionable devotion, and an unshakeable loyalty that could only be found in a circle of commitment, a commitment steeped in everlasting love.

  Chapter Eleven

  Four weeks later

  Catwalk Premiere, Las Vegas

  Lane stood above the crowd, watching as the ticket holders rushed into his newly renovated arena. Those in attendance were excited to be the first to view the show dubbed as the only competition for Pride’s Las Vegas Casino’s Rise to Power: Search for Pride.

  Lane searched the crowd for signs of trouble, questioning if his angst had more to do with Ariela and less to do with the possible dangers. No, Lane reasoned, he and Ariela had a deal. She was a lioness-shifter, and regardless of the pain she believed she’d feel, she would leave the Catwalk Premiere on his arm and they would begin their lives together.

  Soon she would mother his children, his shifter-cubs, and together they would build a powerful pride of their own. He would reap the benefits of rejuvenated years, looking and feeling decades younger. But more than finding the freedoms discovered in his forties, the imagined fountain of youth would bring him another gift as well: Ariela, the woman he’d waited to love and honor, adore and enjoy, the woman he planned to make his willing submissive had now entered a new life chapter, too.

  She would perform for her first and last crowd at the Catwalk, and leave the premiere with a new understanding. This performance would school her in techniques he would later use to help him train her.

  She would learn patience. She would learn obedience. Most importantly, she would realize that defiance came at a price and betrayal was never rewarded.

  Taking a deep breath, he jerked at once, realizing then he had another pressing matter at hand. He scanned the crowd again. “This can’t be.”

  “Mr. Livingston,” someone said, approaching him with a wide smile. “It’s so good to see you. Have you met my wife, Renata?”

  “A pleasure,” Lane said, lifting her fingers to his lips and faking genuine interest as the couple spoke to him in fluent French.

  A few moments later, he brushed them off and continued his wide search of the expanding crowd. About that time, he spotted Leon, one of Ariela’s so-called mates.

  “I’ve been looking for you,” Leon said, worry etched in his brow. He tilted his head to the drawn curtain. “There’s a panther in the line-up.”

  “A panther?” Lane’s pulse raced. “We don’t have any panthers.”

  “You don’t have a black panther in the show?”

  “No,” Lane replied, already walking around the circular top tier of the auditorium.

  Leon retrieved his cell phone. “Get Ariela out of there.”

  Lane stopped and slowly turned around. Stalking Leon, he said, “What gives you the right to come into my show and drag away one of our performers?”

  “There’s another shifter in your line-up, and I can’t figure out where he’s from, Lane. I’m not here to interfere. This show is important to Ariela and it means a lot to Sanchez, but we can’t have our mate in danger.”

  “Your mate, you’ll soon find, is not in danger as long as she is in my building, under my protection.” He turned to walk away.

  “We think he’s a langle!” Leon called out. “Here. Look at these pictures, and see if you recognize them.”

  Lane whipped around and grabbed the phone Leon waved in his direction. “What is this?”

  “Eighteen different images, all taken within the last hour and a half,” Leon replied. “Your security was breached, Livingston.”

  “That’s impossible.”

  “Then do you mind explaining why—”

  Lane took a sudden breath and as he released the hearty intake of air, an angry roar rolled to the fore. His nostrils flared and he glared at Leon, willing his temper aside, wishing he could tame the angry beast before he ripped into the shifter-wizard in front of him, before an audience full of cameras captured his retaliation, a fight he would seemingly instigate without motive, without fair warning.

  Leon smiled. “We figured it out, Livingston.”

  Knowledge had always empowered the Livingston, family but as Ariela’s scent filled his senses with the mix of male aromas, Lane realized the cost of awareness was a precipitous price indeed. Considering where and how he’d come by this new information, he was at a slight disadvantage, but he rebounded quickly, licking his wounds in time to save face.

  “You shouldn’t have come here to gloat,” Lane said, bypassing Leon without a pause in stride.

  No, Leon shouldn’t have bothered. The circle of commitment might have been complete, closing out all others from joining a pride now much stronger together than they ever would be apart, but what outsiders didn’t know, what they couldn’t possibly comprehend, was a langle’s abilities to shatter plans, destroy dreams, and take what he was meant to have, regardless of the costs.

  A deal made with a langle was like a deal made with the devil. One could sell their soul, but buying it back wasn’t an option.

  Ariela now belonged to him. Leon, Jagger, and Sanchez couldn’t change the tide once the oars were already in motion. And while Ariela would always have ties to the circle of commitment she’d formed, she would forever be bound to Lane once she conceived and began mothering his children.

  He massaged his nape, trying to rub away the tension, the sense of betrayal he couldn’t easily dismiss. Before he stomped around the circular tier, he took a moment to gather his thoughts, aware once again of another being among them.

  He glanced at a stoic Leon behind him and wondered then. Were the pictures he showed him significant or staged? Had they been i
mportant or used to draw Lane close enough so he could sense the closed circle of commitment?

  He hurried to the stairwell. Barreling down the steps, he rushed the lower level and ran toward the den of lions in hopes of stopping the show before the performers stepped out on stage.

  Around and around he went, speeding through the maze of circular steps until he landed in the basement. “Ariela!”

  “Lane!”

  His heart sped up at a fluttering pace. Not only did he sense the danger then, but he also felt it crawling against his skin, prickling his nape and settling in the pit of his gut.

  He sprinted by the caged beasts and a lion roared out, practically calling to him. Catching a glimpse of white, Lane took three steps backward and yanked the blanket away from the cage. There, behind the iron bars, Sanchez was hunkered down, his head low, his crystal gaze lifted.

  Lane paused for a moment, only a moment, and considered freeing him. What if Lane needed his assistance? What if another langle had taken Ariela from them?

  He stilled at the thought. For a second, he was paralyzed as he considered the deception, the way Ariela’s mates had tried to keep her from him.

  “She’s mine,” Lane said, more to reassure himself than to convince Sanchez. “The circle of commitment doesn’t matter when a langle has a true mate within that circle.”

  Sanchez practically nodded his agreement which Lane found odd, but not exactly disturbing. He pushed through a throng of employees, making his way to the stage. “Ariela!”

  Seconds later, the curtain was drawn behind the performers of the hour—Sanchez, Ariela, and a stage full of beautiful lions. He froze in place and slowly turned around, glaring at the cage where he thought he’d last seen Sanchez. There, sitting in the very cage where Sanchez had been was a rough looking brute of a man with chain-linked tats up and down both biceps.

  As Lane slowly approached, the langle said in Ariela’s voice, “She’s mine. The circle of commitment doesn’t matter when a langle has a true mate within that circle.” The fellow threw his head back and a wicked laugh resounded.