Prologue
Within a tribe of ancient, indigenous people who once roamed the Idaho Panhandle, there was a legend about the daughter of a mighty shaman who fell in love with a mountain lion. His strength, honor, and courage allowed him to leave the coils of the beast behind and become human, but her father cast a powerful curse on all those who followed them. Their children would never truly be one with lion or human but would shift between the two worlds. This story, passed down between the generations, became known as the Legend of Koyama'.
Chapter 1
She missed her mate. They’d been together for five rotations of the Earth around the Sun. Two rotations past, he’d been killed by humans while trying to guard their nest. She felt his loss every time she took to the sky. They’d soared so high together that when they would lock talons and fall through the clear atmosphere, it was dizzying. Another male had tried to engage in a courtship flight, but she had no interest. She mourned him still.
The cool breeze ruffled her feathers while the warmer air provided lift as she glided over the currents, scanning the terrain below. She spiraled up, moving gracefully between the echoing thermals. The land below was a particularly good hunting ground, most often devoid of humans but rich in rabbits, rodents, and ground squirrels.
She circled the mesa, noting the rattlesnake sunning himself. Snakes were quick, but stupid. They often lay on warm flat rocks warming their blood, leaving themselves completely vulnerable. She didn’t much care for snakes.
There was a horse tied not far from the reptile. Horses were all right, albeit a bit arrogant, especially given their limited abilities in terms of reasoning. She’d seen the big gray before.
Upon further inspection, she noted a human standing close to the mesa’s edge. As she flew overhead, she examined the valley floor but didn’t find anything of interest for her appetite. Because her eyesight was far superior to any other creature, including those narcissistic bald eagles—God, they thought the skies existed just for them—if she couldn’t see it, it wasn’t there. The eagles might be bigger and a smidge faster, but she had more maneuverability and rarely went hungry.
She watched as another horse and rider crept up the back side of the mesa. It was hard for a horse or rider to be stealthy, but this one was doing a good enough job to be interesting. She’d planned to move to a different part of the valley to hunt but circled back around to see how this played out. The human on the ledge didn’t seem to notice that he was being stalked. She circled, emitting her hoarse, raspy kree-eee-ar in warning. The rider looked up, but the idiot at the edge did nothing. The rider lifted something metallic that glinted in the morning sun—a deathstick! She knew what it was because another human had used one to kill her mate. She called again, but the one on the ledge paid her no mind.
The deathstick seemed to bounce in the human’s hand before a loud bang! It then emitted smoke from one end. A small projectile hit the human standing near the ledge in his back, in nearly the same way as her mate had been killed. Humans were cowards. She hated humans.
She saw a splash of red just before the sweet, coppery scent of blood reached her even at this distance. The vultures would eat well today. They liked carrion, but she preferred to eat fresh prey she caught herself. Vultures were so lazy. The human on the edge spun around and toppled backward, his flightless, featherless wings flailing to stop him from falling. Humans were fools. She hated humans.
She flapped her wings, gaining altitude and soared along the warm currents of wind and flew toward the meadow. The hunting would be better there—perhaps not better, but less chaotic. She liked peace. She hated humans.
Ten Hours Before
Clay stood at the forge, pumping the bellows to stoke the flames. He took the piece of straight iron out of the fire. Yesterday, he’d begun fashioning what he hoped would turn into an intricate bouquet to give to Serena. Sweet Serena. He’d been fascinated with her since the time he’d caught her skinny-dipping down by Trey’s cottage.
He and his brothers were of a similar body type—tall, muscular, solid. Built along the same lines as the mustangs and heritage Appaloosas he loved. Broad shouldered, trim waist, strong arms and thighs, with cut chests and sculpted abs. For the most part the musculature came from their shared DNA and their lives of hard, physical work. Like most of the Waverly men, he was blessed with a cock that, when fully engorged, could be difficult for some women to take, but not Serena. No, his quirky artist was all about taking him on.
Not only could she swallow him down, but she loved it when he plowed her pussy. He grinned. Serena wasn’t a shifter, but God, could she yowl like an alley cat when being taken from behind. Clay felt his cock throbbing inside his jeans. He wanted to get to her place over the diner before she got upstairs. He intended to tell her everything and ask her to share her life with him.
His happy thoughts ceased. He could smell her before she spoke his name: Lorna, his father Cyrus’s second wife and his stepmother. Lorna always smelled of cigarettes, too much booze, and stale sex. He wasn’t sure where she would even get any, but the scent followed her everywhere. Cyrus didn’t want her anymore but made sure that anyone in the area or in ranching knew that if he caught someone sniffing around her, he’d bring the full weight of Koyama' to bear against them.
“Clay, sugar, I think you’ve been avoiding me.” Her words were a purr as she entered the barn.
Lorna and her unwelcome advances were one of the reasons he avoided the main ranch compound as much as he could. He preferred to be with his horses, at the original homestead cabin, or in Serena’s bed.
“Leave me alone, Lorna. You’re married to Cyrus,” said Clay.
“He’s an old man,” she replied. “He hasn’t touched me in months.”
Lorna came around to the other side of the forge, so he had no choice but to see her. She drew her tank top over her head, revealing her perfectly voluptuous, surgically enhanced breasts, then lifted them in her hands and fondled them, apparently for his benefit.
“Do these look old to you?” she mewled. “For God’s sake, Clay, I’m closer to your age than I am to his. I’m coming into heat, and I feel like I’m burning up. I need a shifter, a real lion, to mount me and fuck me hard. I need to feel your barbs scoring my pussy, preparing it for your seed...”
Clay shoved the hot, shaped iron into the cold-water barrel, savoring the clean smell and delicious hiss as he plunged it under the surface.
“Do you hear yourself?” he asked. “I don’t want anything to do with you. Even if you weren’t married to my sire, even if Cade hadn’t already had you and found you wanting, I wouldn’t touch you with a ten-foot pole. My mother wasn’t stupid. She knew you were yowling under Cyrus’s nose trying to get him to knock you up, but he was too afraid of losing Koyama'.”
Clay turned back toward the forge. He’d found the best way to get rid of Lorna was to be brutally honest about what he thought of her and her pathetic attempts to seduce him. The problem was, he didn’t like the man he became in her presence. He liked women and found their company infinitely preferable to most men. There’d been a time when he was a Raider that he’d been a real tom cat. Nowadays, he wasn’t proud of that time in his life, but it was his past, for better or worse.