Bending Steele by Sadie Hart Page B

pride, and Enforcement liked
their takedowns cut and dried. No fuss, minimal mess.
    Meaning her boss would shit sticks if Lennox
botched the takedown and he had to send the rest of the pack out to
save her ass. She needed to take Kanon Reyes in quietly, but quiet
wasn’t something lion-shifters did very well. They were a lot like
their wild brethren. Lions, both shifters and real ones, were
violent, edgy, and always riding that fine line between aggression
and brutality.
    Visitors more often than not equated to
snacks.
    Keeping low, Lennox crept closer to the small
ranch. Six houses total. It wasn’t the biggest pride around, and
once everyone settled in for the night she should be able to make
her move with a minimum of uproar. A car rattled up the road and
Lennox froze. The only cars heading up this drive would be other
pride members. But she should be fine since she’d planned her
clothes to blend in easily with the red dirt and wiry brush that
dotted the landscape. She’d dressed for a romp along a country dirt
road, and at this point her khaki camos were dusted thoroughly with
prairie dirt, and her tan tank top matched her skin. To a car
racing down the road, she should be invisible.
    The car drove on past, exhaust billowing out
in dark, angry plumes, and Lennox waited, breath held. Watching.
Taillights flashed in the dim evening light as the car pulled to a
stop in front of a two-story house with a wraparound porch. She
watched the towering form of a man get out, black hair flipped back
in the wind. Had to be her man.
    And he was alone. Lion prides, just like in
the wild, were typically run by a coalition of ‘alpha’ males. The
Bayrock Pride only had two coalition males, and one of her pack
mates was supposed to have eyes on Tegan Sharpe to make sure he
didn’t make it home in time to come running to his partner’s
aid.
    One pissed male lion-shifter was going to be
bad enough. She licked the grit off her teeth and stretched out,
belly-crawling over the dry, cracked grass. All this would have
been easier if she’d just shifted into her dog-half and trotted the
distance in a low crouch, but she kept her inner Rhodesian
ridgeback clamped down. The trip to the ranch would have been
easier, but it was a waste of energy and magick that no experienced
Hound would risk.
    She needed hands to put cuffs on Reyes when
she got to him. Hands to slip a gag in his mouth if she needed one.
Hands to tranq him enough to make him cooperative. Human logic had
won out, so Lennox crept over the ground. Lean muscles bunched as
she hung low, scanning the road for any other cars heading this
way. Her shoulder holster chafed against the back of her arm as she
rolled to get a good view.
    All clear.
    About damn time. She loved a good hunt.
    Quickly working her way closer to the ranch,
she was stopped cold by a roar that filled the slowly darkening
sky. A tremor ran down her back, raising gooseflesh down her arms
in a rush. It sounded again, deeper this time. Throatier. The roar
had a physical punch to it. She could feel it rattle in her lungs
and she caught her breath at the sheer force behind it.
    With nothing more than sound, Reyes left her
frozen on the dirt a quarter mile away from his ranch, staring as
the pride scurried into their homes. A lion cub pounced on a human
sibling before darting in a front door; an impatient woman tapped
her foot against the whitewashed porch step before she, too,
disappeared inside. Reyes stood on the tan steps of the two-story
house in the center, his face tilted back toward the dying sun.
    The embers of fading sunshine highlighted the
rich tan of his skin, illuminating his profile in sharp contrast to
the shadow of his jaw. It made him look hard, fierce. His tongue
darted out over pale pink lips, and then his mouth opened again.
She could see him shudder and then sway as he roared again. A
shudder stole up his spine and his whole body swayed with the force
of the sound ripping out of him. It thundered