Free Levi by Bailey Bradford Page A

wouldn’t run to their grandmothers and tell them about their sex life, would they? Especially not if it involved a nameless stranger and a down and dirty roll in the woods.”
    If he’d said it to shock Marybeth, he hadn’t succeeded. Levi didn’t think that was the case, anyway. He’d realised he could kind of pick up Lyndon’s moods, little flashes of what he felt though not exactly thoughts. More like impressions, maybe. All he was getting from Lyndon now was the desire to get this conversation over with. And to get Levi under him.
    “Jesus,” Levi whispered, nestling closer to Lyndon.
    Lyndon tightened his arm around Levi and cupped the back of his head, burying his fingers in Levi’s hair—which shouldn’t have turned him on, but damn it, everything about Lyndon turned him on! Levi shifted on the couch, hoping his erection wouldn’t be evident, but one glance at Marybeth and he knew better. She would easily scent every odour in the air, including his arousal. And Lyndon’s, which hadn’t faded much at all.
    “Regardless, Levi, you should have told us there was another shifter on the property. We didn’t even know there were other kinds, although I’m not surprised.”
    Levi started to answer, to apologise, but Marybeth waved him off. “We are, unfortunately, rather ignorant about shifters in a way. My entire pack was murdered, killed for their fur and probably their organs as well. I had been left behind in the huts where we lived as humans. If one of the hunters hadn’t found me and thought me to be an abandoned child, I would have died too.”
    Levi had known that much about his grandmother’s past. He couldn’t imagine being raised by the very people who had slaughtered your family, but he understood Marybeth hadn’t had any other option. She refused to talk about her childhood spent with the hunters. As far as she seemed concerned, her life during that time didn’t exist, like she was in an odd sort of stasis until she’d met Grandpa Vincent.
    “All the knowledge of who and what we are died with my father, who was the story teller—historian, I suppose he’d be called in human terms.” She sighed and rubbed at the pleat in her purple trousers. “There’s very little I remember. I don’t recall him mentioning other shifters. I do know the gene for shifting is passed down from mother to child, so only the females can propagate our species. Is it the same for cougars?”
    Lyndon had gone tense beside him at the question. Levi lifted his head from Lyndon’s shoulder and debated asking why he felt anger coming from the man.
    “No, it’s paternal for us, and I’ve never heard of any cougars living together like your family did in the Himalayas, or here, even as humans. We seem to be as solitary as the actual cats.” He paused and darted a glance at Levi. “Although there was a cougar shifter who took me in and helped me out after my mom died. Grady made sure I was taken care of, and he didn’t ask anything in return. He didn’t know me, didn’t owe me anything either, but I don’t know if he was the exception to the rule or if most cougar shifters are just like regular folks. Some good, some bad.”
    Marybeth narrowed her eyes and smiled thinly. “And yet, here you sit, snuggling alongside my grandson and all but growling over him. What would you say, Lyndon, if I told you to leave? If I made you leave?”
    “Grandma—” Levi began, panic wedging in his heart.
    Lyndon soothed him slightly, caressing his nape and murmuring softly.
    “I’d say it wasn’t your choice, Marybeth.” Lyndon lightly scratched at Levi’s neck, unerringly finding the spot he’d marked. It still bore the faint pattern of his teeth. “I’d say…” Lyndon’s breath stuttered as he exhaled, was steady when he inhaled. He relaxed beside Levi, and his voice was laced with surety when he next spoke. “I’d say it’s Levi’s decision, and mine. Not yours. And if he wanted me to leave”—Lyndon