Claiming Her (Keeping Her Series) (16 page)

The next time she woke up,
she was alone in their room, and a light breeze was coming from the opened
French doors.  She could see that the sun was up, and it was mid-morning by the
humming light that had not quite burned off the cool of morning.  This time she
was up and, while she still felt a bit sluggish, she was more than ready to get
out of the bed and find out what was happening.  Whatever it was, it was not
happening here, because there was no one she could hear or smell in the rest of
the suite.  So where was everyone?

She jumped in the
shower and then stood around in her towel as she contemplated how she was going
to get some clothes, since she had refused to move them into the suite when he
ordered it, because he ordered it.  Before she could decide, she heard the
outer door open, and then a minute later, the bedroom door was easing quietly
open.

“I’m awake,” she said.

Lucas walked in looking
her up and down while his eyes heated, and Cleo came in behind him, pushed at
his bulk to get around and smiled at her.  Miley was happy to note that she had
something vaguely resembling clothes in her arms.  “Brought you some clothes.”  She
smiled bigger.  “Had to grab these before my dad packed them in with the rest
of them.”

Lucas growled his daughter’s
way.

Miley winced.  “Your
dad packed my clothes?”

“You’re welcome,” he
groused, glaring from his daughter to Miley.

“Yep,” Cleo shook her
head.  “And it was not pretty let me tell you.  If I had arrived earlier, I might
have saved something.  But . . .,” she shrugged in apology, letting her words
trail off.

“It’s all going to be
in a giant clothes ball, isn’t it?”

“Ohhh, it’s already
there, my friend.”  Cleo threw the clothes on the bed and sat beside them.  “Why
my dad got the itch to pack you up, I have no clue, but he did, and it’s done.”

“Great,” Miley
muttered, then ignoring the giant lion male snarling in the center of the room,
went to the bed to go through the salvage.  Summer slacks in natural linen that
sat low at her hips and a white cotton top that was just thick enough you did
not have to wear a camisole with it, but still managed to be airy and soft.  It
fit just low enough to hide the waistband of the pants, but she would have to
be careful because, when she bent over, it would show a line of naked back and
possibly the very top curve of her ass.  The shoes were brown leather sandals
with a two-inch heel and many straps.  Plus tiny pink flowers sewn here and
there to make them a-dorable.  The bra was white satin and the white lace hipsters
were low enough not to show at the top of the pants.  “Thanks for saving these.”

“You know I would have
gone into the breach for the rest of your clothes if it would have made a
difference.”

“I understand,” Miley
said with a sigh.  “You’re a good friend, but it was already too late; you
couldn’t have saved them.  I’ll do what I can for them at the end of the
journey.”  She let her voice drop to a whisper and break as if in sadness, “But
I have not the smallest hope.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake!”
Lucas snapped, followed by a short roar of frustration when Miley and Cleo
started laughing.  Then they heard someone come into the outer room of the
suite and Miley smelled both Ian and Eli.  She stood still chuckling, trying to
straighten her towel and make sure she was fully covered but Lucas had other
ideas.  Showing off those amazing lion thighs of his, he straight pounced
across the room to the bedroom door and slammed it. 

She bit her lip when
she heard someone run into the suddenly closed door and curse.  Ian.  “Hey,
walking here!”

Lucas snarled out the
words, “Open this door and diiiie!”  His last word was a full out roar, making
Miley jump and clutch her heart in primal fear.

“Don’t do
that,
”
she hissed, still dealing with the adrenaline rush when he turned and speared
her with a look. 

“Get dressed.  Now.”

Miley glared from him
to his daughter, who was practically rolling on the bed in her mirth.  Her
heart still going a mile a minute, she snapped up her clothes, then had to go after
one of her sandals when it shot out of her hands and across the room.  She
swiped it up, picked up the pants she dropped at the same time, and then glared
at Lucas, who was now watching her with amusement while he leaned casually back
against the closed door.

She closed herself into
the bathroom with a slam, and leaned all her weight back against the door, her
legs too shaky to hold her up on their own.  “Lions.  The Drama.”  Then she
thought of Ian slamming face first into the door when it closed, and her lip
started to twitch. She chuckled, and got dressed.

***

After she was
sufficiently clothed so that Lucas’ head would not explode, she joined
everybody in the body of the suite to find the rest of the pack had joined
them, and they were in deep discussion on tactics.

In the short time she
had been in the bathroom, Logan and Shawn had joined Eli, Ian, Cleo and Lucas
in the suite.

Logan was speaking.  It
was always a pleasure to hear Logan speak.  She could have done without the
subject matter.  “After looking over what we have on Rickarts, I agree with
Cleo.  He is going to go for public sentiment when he realizes guerilla tactics
have failed.  We need to get the word out first, or we are going to once again
be portrayed as the degenerate mixed breed pack that is now steeling other men’s
mates for shits and giggles.  We need to get the word out fast that Miley is
yours, and it would be good if we could also spread the word, subtly, that it
was a love match.”

“I can do that,” Cleo
said into the quiet.  “I know how to do it and where, that it will spread fast,
and not feel planted.”

Lucas was shaking his
head.  “I want you at Lionsgate until this blows over.  I’m calling in the rest
of the pack as well.  Rickarts is not finished with his dirty dealings yet.  I
agree the smear campaign will hit us, and soon, but I think he will also want
to demoralize us and cut our numbers.”

“I can handle myself,”
Cleo said quickly, “and I can make one stop to start the ball rolling in such a
way that it will snowball.”

“Then start that ball
from home.”  Lucas was getting noticeably impatient, and everyone else was
staying out of it. 

Cleo was not ready to
admit defeat judging by the firm tilt of her chin and flashing eyes.  “This
needs to be in person or it will feel staged.  I will fly out and handle it, be
home within two days.”

“No,” Lucas said, “we aren’t
taking any chances.  We go home and regroup, batten down and brace for war.”

“We do that we lose in
public opinion.”

“Wouldn’t be the first
time we took that on, won’t be the last.”

“And if the Council
moves in because of it?”

“I’m not taking chances
with your life.”  He practically snarled his answer; anyone else would have
stopped arguing with that face.

Cleo met it with a
snarl of her own.  “If it was anyone else you would trust them to do this.”

His eyes flashed gold,
his words were low and whipped the air with steel.  “Your my daughter.”  That
was all he said, and from the look of him, that was all he was going to say
because that said it all.

Miley breathed out low
and worried when Cleo turned and slammed her way through the rest of the men,
and then the door to the hall.  She was gone, and everyone was watching her go,
with varying degrees of concern.  Miley moved fully into the room looking from
the closed door to Lucas who looked like he wanted to chew nails.

“That,” she said low,
her eyes on his, “could have gone better.”

He snarled again and
then prowled to the bar. 

Okey dokey. 
She
looked around to the rest of the pack and decided to wait until they were alone
to throttle Lucas.
“What did I miss?  I mean besides the daytime
television lion drama?”

Logan quirked up a
smile and directed it her way.  “Looks like we all get to try out that fancy
swimming pool Lucas put in.”

“Hell yes.”  Ian
suddenly whooped into the quiet room, making Miley jump.  “Miley, Clytie, and
the luscious Cassandra in bikinis.”  He waggled a brow at Miley.  “That’s what
I’m talking about.”

“Ian.”  His father’s
voice was a low warning you could hear even over the other chuckles that
followed.  Logan was shaking his head, and Eli was very carefully looking over
something on his computer, his grin was wide though. When Miley looked at Shawn,
however, he was not joining into the attempt to lighten the mood.  He was
watching the door that Cleo had disappeared through with a grim look on his
face.  Seems she was not the only one worried about that situation.

Lucas was clearly also
not feeling the joy when he continued in a harsh order. “Eli, make the call. 
Get Demon, Mac, and Ben and their families to Lionsgate today.  We fly out in
an hour.”  He turned to Ian.  “Give your sister a few minutes, then let her
know we are moving out, and fast.  She needs to do the preflight within the
next two hours.”

Ian was still smiling,
and from the look in his eyes, he had more to say, but he took one look at his
dad’s face and nodded his head.  Even he knew better than to tweak the lion’s
tale when he looked like that.

Soon after that, he left,
followed in short order by Eli, Shawn, and Logan.  Each to their designated
tasks.  Clearly intending to take care of business away from the pissed lion male.

Once they were all gone
and it was just Miley and Lucas, she made her way to the bar and sat down
across from where he was standing, his fists balled and pushed down against the
top of the bar he was leaning on.  “You want to talk about it?”

“What’s to talk about? 
Whenever I try to protect her, my daughter thinks it’s because I don’t trust
her.”

“Do you?”

He looked up, his eyes
narrowing on her face.  “What the fuck does that mean?”

“If Logan had told you
he needed to make a stop and was confident he could get the ball rolling on the
right rumors circulating, would you have told him to get his ass to Lionsgate
where he would be safe?”

He gnashed his teeth
and growled.  “Logan can handle himself.”

“And Cleo can’t?” 
Miley made sure her voice was mild.

He pushed away from the
bar with a hiss.  “It’s not the same, and you damn well know it.”

“I know it, and Cleo
knows it, too.”  She blew out a breath and held his eyes.  “Would you have
given Ian that play?”

“Fuck no.”

“Because he can’t take
care of himself?”

“Because he’s a teenage
boy with whacked out hormones and gets distracted by every warm female body
that walks by.”

“So it’s his age, and
eventually he will grow up and no longer be ruled by his hormones and you will
trust him to handle himself?”

“Where are you going
with this?  The ride’s getting tedious.”

“My point is that Ian
is a boy, so in a few years he will be a man and you will trust him to handle
himself.  You basically told Cleo that the reason she is not going to get to
make the play she pitched you was because she is your daughter.”

“And?” he asked,
impatience clear in his voice.

“Will that ever change?”

“What?”

“Will there ever be a
time when she is not your daughter?”

“Of course not!”

“Right.  So you
informed Cleo, and most of her pack whose respect she craves only slightly less
than her father’s, that she is never going to be equal to the men, because she
is one, a woman, and two, your daughter.  And will always need to be protected
because of it.”

Lucas had stilled
utterly, the anger leaving his face, something close to regret taking its
place.  “That’s not what I said, or what I meant.”

“It’s what she heard,
it’s what I heard, and it’s what every man in that room heard.”  She held his
eyes.  “And can you honestly say it isn’t exactly how you feel, whether you
wanted to say it out loud or not?”

His jaw tightened, but
he said nothing before he released a breath and leaned down into the bar on his
elbows, his hands going to his face to rub away the tension there.  “No. 
Fuck.  I trust her.  I fucking trained her; I know she can take care of
herself.  But she’s my daughter.”  His forehead hit the bar with a thump and
stayed there.  “Shit.”

Miley reached over, pushed
her hand into his hair, and rested it on his bowed head.  “I know.  It’s not in
your nature to send your daughter into dangerous situations.  I get it.  It
doesn’t mean you’re wrong, Lucas.”  She blew out a breath and rubbed his head
again.  “It just means that eventually your daughter, being a great deal like
her father, and also not wrong, will have to make a decision you are not going
to like, or be in a position to stop.”