Free Jaguars' Reward [Impulse 3] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) by Zara Chase Page B

I didn’t know that.” She didn’t try to hide her confusion. “How old does that make you guys, then?”
    “In human years,” Zayd replied, “we’re both pushing ninety.”
    “Was your father hurt in the raid, Vadim?”
    “He was killed,” Vadim said, grinding his jaw and not meeting her gaze. Shit, he blames me!
    “I’m sorry. Now you have double reason to hate me.”
    His ferocious glare softened just fractionally. “I don’t hate you. It would make life one hell of a lot easier if I did.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “Ignore him,” Zayd said flippantly. “The rest of us do all the time. It’s the only way to handle him.”
    Vadim shot Zayd the finger. “Okay, so your grandfather married your grandmother, didn’t tell her he was a shifter until after the event. That would be enough to get him expelled from any respectable colony if the alphas knew, so we have to assume that they didn’t.”
    “I’m sure they didn’t. It was a love match, by all accounts. My great-grandfather didn’t like my grandfather and refused to let Granny marry him. So they eloped. She only found out about his other life after the event and was appalled by it. But by then she was expecting my mother and in those days women didn’t cut and run, especially as her father had disowned her.” Talia shrugged. “She had nowhere to go and so she had to make the best of it.”
    “Then your grandfather got ambitious and led that fateful raid on Impulse.”
    “Yes. He was killed and my grandmother was devastated. She was also left, literally holding the baby.”
    “Your mother,” Zayd said softly.
    “Yes. Apparently there were repercussions when news of the failed raid broke. The wolves had been trying to mend fences with the Impulse leaders, but the attack put paid to that. The wolf leaders retaliated by confiscating all my grandfather’s property, leaving my grandmother with no choice but to go crawling back to her father, who never let her forget what she’d done.”
    “No wonder she became so bitter,” Vadim said. “And passed her hatred of shifters on to her only child.”
    “Yes. And history repeated itself. My mother was abandoned by the man she loved and never got over that, either.”
    Zayd indulged in a graceful feline stretch. Talia watched him and opened her eyes wide with appreciation. It wasn’t every day that a girl saw such a lithe display of lean, hard, and unquestionably male musculature. He saw her watching and flashed a wink that made her blush. It also took her mind back to their bedroom the previous night when she’d caught them fucking one another. When they’d asked her to join them, she’d thought she would get to experience one or both of their cocks buried deep inside her. Had desperately wanted to, but instead they stuck to cunnilingus. Now that she’d regained her memory, she knew it had been like nothing she’d ever experienced before. It had blown her mind, taking her to places that she hadn’t known existed. Talia had loved the attention, but was eager to know what came next. Surely it had just been a curtain-raiser to the main event?
    She’d been wrong about that. They all went to sleep, and she’d slept like a baby. Even so, she had been disappointed that they didn’t want to fuck her. She couldn’t have made her willingness plainer if she’d sent them a written invitation, but they obviously hadn’t wanted her that way. Not that she could really blame them, not after she’d tried to kill Vadim. But still, the rejection hurt.
    “What type of jaguars are you?” she asked, just to show that she was broad-minded and didn’t share her mother’s view of shifters. “You look very different.”
    “I’m just your run-of-the-mill spotted cat, albeit a threatened species,” Zayd said, grinning at her. “I was born and raised right here in Impulse. My buddy here likes to think he’s rare, just because he’s all black and his spots are only visible on close