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swallowed thickly, fighting to keep it together. So what if he didn’t want her? So what if he was saying he never would have touched her if not for the hormones messing with his impulses? He was just the only lion she had ever wanted. What was so special about that?
    Landon parked the jeep in front of a small cluster of bungalows. Hers wasn’t one of them and his was on the opposite end of the ranch, but she wasn’t about to argue the point with him. At the moment, she needed to get away from him. Fast. Before she started blubbering all over his upholstery.
    Ava threw open the door and launched herself out into the night, running toward the nearest familiar bungalow, Zoe’s. She managed to get the door firmly closed behind her before she collapsed to the floor in an undignified heap and burst into tears.

Chapter Five
    In retrospect, bursting into Zoe’s one room home with her clothing in shreds and collapsing into hysterics was not the best course of action. After Ava brought herself under control, it took a long and embarrassingly detailed explanation to calm Zoe enough that she stopped threatening to bring in Ava’s brothers. Or worse, her own.
    Ava sprawled on the one item of furniture in Zoe’s place, a low, sturdy, king-sized bed, and watched her friend prowl the floor. Ava didn’t know why Zoe’s five-ten Viking goddess appearance didn’t intimidate her, but for some reason the former-nomad was the only lioness in the pride she felt completely comfortable with.
    Too alphic for Ava’s preferred method of strategic retreat, Zoe stalked across the room attacking the problem head on. “He said you were unsuitable? That was the word he used?” Zoe questioned, no shock or outrage in her tone, just a need to get the facts straight.
    “Unsuitable,” Ava repeated, trying to distance herself from the pain of the word. It hadn’t been said to her, she told herself. She was just recounting the experiences of some unknown third-party, talking about last night’s TV drama. It wasn’t real , this hurt she was feeling.
    Zoe shook her head, frowning in confusion. “That doesn’t sound like him. He’s always said that cloistering the women who weren’t ‘pure’ enough to breed was barbaric. Just like tossing perfectly strong males out of a pride when they matured because of the threat they posed to the Alpha.”
    “He tossed out Leonus and Kato,” Ava reminded her.
    “Who ran this pride like their own private harem before Landon challenged them for control. Half of the lionesses hated them. Those two were not the type to take their defeat lightly. If he hadn’t banished them, they would have ripped the pride apart. But he didn’t throw your brothers out, did he?”
    “Neither did Leonus and Kato when they took over. Too afraid of them.”
    “Which is why the Bastard Coalition never bothered you, but that isn’t why Landon keeps them around. He likes your brothers.” Zoe tipped her head to the side, pausing in her pacing to consider some new angle. “Which might explain why Landon felt so guilty for jumping on you in the jeep.”
    “Fear of my brothers?”
    “No, respect for them. And exposure to their idea of you. They talk about you like you’re fifteen, Ava. And while you may look like a mature young woman, you’re small enough that Landon probably thought he had come this close to raping a baby.”
    “I clearly wanted him,” Ava protested.
    “You’re in heat. He thinks you don’t know what you want, that you can’t control your body.”
    “I’m not howling and scratching the walls yet,” Ava snapped.
    “Of course you aren’t, and I’m not suggesting you will. It’s my brother who had a hormonal lobotomy tonight, not me.” Zoe began pacing again, her long-legged stride eating up the room. “What did he say exactly?”
    “I don’t know,” Ava hedged, as though the words had not been seared into her mind, leaving a ragged scar in their shape. “Something like ‘There’s a reason