Serengeti Heat by Vivi Andrews Page B

being in bed with a marble statue.
    “We can’t always get what we want, Landon. Shifter prides have been a hierarchy of strength for as long as anyone can remember. I don’t think they’re going to suddenly start changing now.”
    “We will change,” he vowed. “We may be animals, but that doesn’t mean we have to abandon all reason. The weaker ones should not be punished. No one should be allowed to decide who is eligible to breed and who isn’t.”
    “It keeps the gene pool strong,” Ava countered, having memorized all of the arguments that were supposed to comfort her in the knowledge that she would never be allowed cubs of her own. As a tiny, albino lioness, she was practically considered deformed.
    “Survival of the fittest does not include breeding restrictions,” Landon snapped. “And a select coalition of males being allowed to breed with the females is just as ridiculous.”
    “Even if, as the Alpha, you decide the coalition?”
    “There are no conditions on decency, Ava.”
    She twisted around in his arms until they faced one another. His expression was fierce, determined. Ava smiled a little at his idealistic resolve. “Zoe said you wouldn’t force the strong young males to become nomads as you were forced out of your pride. Don’t you fear that one of them will overpower you and toss you out of your home?”
    “If we did not micromanage every aspect of their lives and forbid them from ever having sex with the females, then I imagine the young, strong males would be much less likely to want to rip my head off.”
    Ava gently stroked a finger across his cheek. “It is a lovely idea, Landon. Justice and equality for all often is. But do you really think you can accomplish all that? Change our wild and savage ways?”
    His green-gold eyes held hers steadily. “Not alone.”
    Ava tucked her chin and snuggled close to him, burying her face against his chest to avoid his penetrating stare. He would need a true queen as his consort if he was going to accomplish his dreams for the pride. “Then you had better choose wisely,” she murmured, closing her eyes against the painful knowledge that she could never be that choice. Not for him. Not for the pride.

Chapter Nine
    Landon’s first sensation upon waking was hunger, and not the hunger that had consumed him during the hours of the night before and well past dawn. His stomach felt like it was wrapped around his spine, consuming itself in a futile quest for sustenance.
    He realized he hadn’t eaten since before seeing Ava in the bar last night. Lion shifters had naturally high metabolisms and between the sexual marathon and the extra energy expended from the one time they’d shifted, he felt like he’d been starved for a week, rather than fasting for a matter of hours.
    His stomach growled ferociously, but Landon didn’t move. He held himself perfectly still as Ava sighed and rubbed against him in her sleep. She was half sprawled across his chest, her long white-blonde hair blanketing them both. He ran his fingers through the soft strands. Often a shifter’s human mane would resemble the pelt of their other form—in his travels, Landon had once met a tiger with gold hair and black stripes at his temples—but he had still been surprised by the pale luminescence of Ava’s coat when she shifted the night before.
    White lions were rare in their feline counterparts, perhaps one in a thousand born with the anomaly, but they were practically unheard of among the shifter culture where any hint of the unusual was brutally bred out. Landon had never seen a white lioness before last night, which made him wonder where Ava had been hiding during all of the gatherings over the last three months. He was sure the unusually bright sheen of her fur would have caught his eye in any form.
    She curled toward him instinctively in her sleep and Landon smiled. She was so skittish when she was awake, always holding part of herself away from him, hidden behind her