Page 8 of Hunting Isla

“Move that finger any closer, kid, and you might lose it.” I snapped my teeth playfully in his direction, and the kid pulled back his hand in horror. But he didn’t move away. That made him brave or foolish.

“I was checking you weren’t dead. Lala said to tell you it was breakfast time. And to wash your hands to your elbows.” He tilted his head at me, a subtle sign of submission, even though he’d been raised a human and wouldn’t understand the gesture. But his lion side knew an Alpha when he saw one.

I sat up, pulling my shirt over my head. “You first. I’ll be there in a second.” The kid was out of the room in a flash, and I followed my nose to the kitchen. Isla stood at a stove that had probably been rolled out in the sixties, flipping pancakes. Wyatt and Archer sat at the kitchen table, eyeing her like the hungry predators they were.

She tilted her head to the side. “I can smell you.” It was a statement, although she sounded confused.

“Are you saying I stink, Isla?” I teased, and was rewarded by her horrified look.

“No! You smell great. I mean, good. You smell fine.” The blood rushed to her cheeks again, and the guys laughed.

“It’s okay, Lala,” Wyatt said with a grin. “Apparently, the apocalypse is really happening and Axel’s joking. You’re picking up his scent. Everyone is different, like human fingerprints. It’s just your shifted abilities kicking in. Some shifters will smell better to you than others.”

She scraped a pancake out of the pan and plopped it on top of a growing stack on the plate. “Why?”

He shrugged. “No one really knows. Just something your animal does. It can smell the difference between, say, your mate, and someone who means you harm, and filters that accordingly.” I watched her shoulders tense as she processed everything Wyatt was saying.

Then she turned to me, her big eyes shining. “We need to kill Bob.”

CHAPTER 4

ISLA

Archer launched himself out of his chair and had his hand wrapped around my mouth quicker than a jackrabbit. “You can’t say that shit, ever. The entire world has ears, and if it isn’t someone Bob has in his pocket, it’s someone from the Pride in this area who wants to use it as blackmail, or as a way to get in with the Chatsville Pride. Don’t say that out loud ever again, okay?”

I wanted to laugh at his overreaction, but then I looked at Wyatt. He looked almost green, which was interesting, given his naturally golden complexion.

I nodded, and Archie released my mouth. “Okay, got it.”

Bohdie chose that moment to fly into the kitchen, scrambling onto his booster chair. He was short for his age, but I was fairly certain he was going to have a growth spurt soon. He was beginning to eat like a horse. Or a hungry lion, I guess. I was going to have to get a second job just to feed him.

Axel came over to take the pancakes from my hand, placing them in the center of the table. He leaned close and whispered in my ear, “It’s not that we don’t agree with you. We all loved Kara, too. It’s just better we don’t say it too loudly.”

The feel of his hot breath brushing against my ear, his lips so close, sent tingles buzzing their way down my spine. All I could do was nod dumbly.

“Pancakes!” Bohdie’s squeal of delight was so loud that my eardrums threatened to shatter. I slapped my hands over my ears and screwed up my face.

Wyatt clicked his fingers in front of Bohdie’s face to get the little boy’s attention. “Hey, Bo. Remember how yesterday we talked about Lala getting a lion, like the one you have?” Bohdie nodded, stuffing nearly half a pancake in his mouth. “Well, she’s new to it, so everything sounds super loud and smells really strong. So no yelling, okay?”

“And no farting at the table,” Archer added, and I gave him a stern look. Archer shrugged. “He’s a boy. You’ll thank me one day.”

Axel pulled out a chair for me, and I sat down, feeling like someone important. No one did those things for me, or any woman that I’d ever seen. I smiled at him over my shoulder, grabbing a pancake from the stack before the whole thing was devoured by hungry lions. I noticed Archer and Wyatt waiting until Axel grabbed a pancake.

“What’s with that?” I asked Wyatt, who’d always been the easiest to get answers from. Apparently, it wasn’t a trait he’d grown out of.

“Axel is the most dominant. Our lions like to let him eat first. Axel doesn’t give a crap, but some things are just ingrained in our DNA.”

Weird. This whole thing was weird. I had a billion questions, but if I opened my mouth and asked them, it was like this whole thing would be true. It would be more than just good senses and great hair. Would I begin to submit? Would I turn into a lion?

That last one was the question that had kept me awake most of the night, but I wasn’t ready to ask.

“What do we do now?” I asked, rolling my pancake and eating it with my hands. Syrup dripped onto my fingers, and I licked off the sugary goodness.

I looked up to find the guys all watching me intently, their faces varying degrees of turned on. I looked at my hand wrapped around the pancake—which now looked more phallic than any breakfast food had the right to be—and felt the stickiness of syrup around my lips.

Whoops.

I put my pancake back on my plate and picked up my fork. Clearing my throat, I tamped down the arousal that stirred deep in my belly. “So? Anyone got a plan?” I prompted again.