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make a big damned deal about principles when he could have just told her she didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of winning it back.
    Shana turned and looked at the borrowed bungalow. It actually wasn’t that bad. As a starting point. A few challenges and she could trade up—principles be damned. Even if she couldn’t get her own place back, that didn’t mean she couldn’t get some nicer digs. And when she was the Alpha’s mate, even Tyler wouldn’t deny her. She’d have her place back. And her rightful place in the pride.
    Goddesses and queens did not beg. Or fight. People gave them things.
    “Your mother’s asking for you.”
    Shana flinched at Loralee’s softly uttered words. Her mother. Living proof that queens did beg. Pathetic, deposed, drunkard queens who had lost all claims on self-respect. “What does she want?”
    “She wants to see you,” Loralee said gently. “She’s missed you too.”
    Shana knew what Loralee had missed. It was a little harder to pin down what her mother might have missed in her absence. A handy chauffeur to the nearest liquor store? Someone to look down on when she’d sunk so low it was hard to imagine anyone lower?
    “She can go screw herself,” Shana whispered, barely mouthing the words.
    “What was that?” Loralee asked, sweetness and innocence and weakness personified. Pathetic.
    “I’ll go see her myself,” Shana said louder, brushing past the smaller female.
    She sloshed through the melting snow, her mind closed to the pleasures of the winter sun and the playfulness of a snowy morning. She was going to see her mother. Firing squads were more congenial.

Serengeti Storm: Serengeti Shifters, Book 2

Chapter Four
    Brenna Delray’s bungalow stood on the outermost edges of the residential compound, secluded and dark. There were no lights on inside, but Shana knew better than to think that had anything to do with whether anyone was home.
    She knocked on the door sharply. A small, cowardly part of herself she hated to admit even existed hoped Brenna wouldn’t be awake. Or had already passed out for the day, even though it was only mid-morning. Anything to keep her from having to walk through that door.
    “Shana, honey? Is that you?” A thin, reedy voice floated through the door.
    Shana closed her eyes for a second, slumping in on herself. She only allowed herself a heartbeat. Goddesses don’t wallow. Then she snapped her spine straight and pushed open the door. “Hello, Mother.”
    All the shades were drawn, but Shana saw her mother clearly enough in the dim light.
    Brenna never left the house, unless alcohol was being served in the dining hall. She hid behind her former position, using it as an excuse to ignore the unwritten rule that everyone contributed in the pride. The pride had its own doctor, carpenter, schoolteacher and mechanic, making it as self-sufficient as possible. Those who chose to worked in the nearby town or found opportunities to work online, like Shana did, to bring money into the pride. They weren’t work-obsessed—Shana had never met a lion who defined himself by his day job or cared more about fancy cars than his afternoon siesta—but everyone pitched in.
    Except Brenna.
    She sat in a threadbare armchair, curled in a ratty knit shawl, with both hands curled protectively around a tumbler glass filled with amber liquid.
    If it’s Tuesday, it must be Scotch.
    The air was musty and thick in Brenna’s bungalow, or Shana’s lungs were closing off, she never could quite determine which. She shoved a stack of Star magazines off a chair and perched on the edge. She was always on edge here. Her mother might be cheerfully buzzed now, sweet and docile as a lamb, but Shana knew better than to get comfortable. She knew what was coming at the bottom of bottle number two.
    “How’ve you been, Mother?”
    “Me?” Brenna batted her hand at Shana playfully. “Oh, you know me. Same old, same old. Did you hear about Brad and Jen? Breaking up like