A Lion's Chance: A Crimson Hollow Novella (2 page)

E
ach minute ticked
by slower than the last as Ginger waited for Liam to move away from her cabin. Her heart slammed against her ribs, her chest ached, and her head swam from the lack of oxygen.
A lion! The only thing that could be worse would be a bear as a mate.

Her suitcase that she had yet to unpack sat next to the sofa, reminding her how easy it would be to leave. She could slip out before Garret came back and she could make her excuse later. She took a step toward the suitcase before she could get a grip on her emotions. The trip to Crimson Hollow wasn’t just to meet her brother’s mate; she was also there to see if she could help another shifter.

Years earlier, Swift had witnessed her whole leash—a group of foxes—get slaughtered. With the recent attacks on foxes, the memories of it all came flooding back and she wasn’t able to handle it. Why Garret thought Ginger could help was beyond her. She was barely able to keep her own shit together, let alone help another through their turmoil. If Garret only knew what went on inside her head, he’d have never asked her to come. She wasn’t good for anyone.

Her cell phone vibrated in her pocket, bringing her back to reality, and she pulled it out to see a new text from Garret on the screen.
It’s going to be late before we make it back. I’ll make it up to you. Breakfast? I’ll cook your favorite.

A smile tugged up the corners of her lips. Images of her brother’s waffles with fresh strawberries and chocolate sauce danced through her thoughts. There was nothing like Garret’s waffles.
You have responsibilities. Don’t worry about me. I’m fine. I’ll hold you to breakfast though.

She slipped her phone back into her pocket, grabbed the handle of her bag, and wheeled it back toward the bedroom. The idea of Garret cooking breakfast for her was all she needed to dispel the idea of leaving. His waffles made it worth having to deal with the lion for another day. She’d meet with Swift after breakfast, and by evening she’d be back on the road, putting distance between her and Liam.
The last thing I need in my life is a lion.

The bedroom was much like the rest of the cabin—welcoming but sparely furnished. The bed with the pale blue and white comforter dominated the small room, and a single dresser stood next to the door that led to the connected bathroom. The pale blue walls were supposed to offer comfort and put her at ease; instead, they only reminded her of her captivity. She dropped the handle of her bag and collapsed onto the bed. Soft and warm, she forgot about changing, closed her eyes tightly, and curled up on the bed. Her wolf brushed along the inside of her skin, trying to ease the emotions rising within her. Nothing helped; she had to live with the anxiety and terror that plagued her after the slightest reminders. Those reminders were why she couldn’t settle down. She’d moved from town to town, trying to outrun the past that inundated her.
A lion mate doesn’t help matters.
She squeezed her eyelids tight, as if that would stop the flood of memories. The room around her faded and she was back in the apartment above the bar.

“Going somewhere, dog?” He grabbed her by the back of her neck and threw her across the room. Her battered body slammed off the door hard enough that the wood splintered, and her head cracked against the handle. Stars danced in her vision, yet she forced herself to get up. This was her chance; she had to get out of there or she was going to die at his hands.

He was on her before she could get to her feet. He slammed her back against the door, his hands wrapped around her throat, squeezing the life from her body. Desperate for oxygen she clawed at his hands. She kicked at him, but he didn’t seem to notice. Life was slipping away from her when they were joined by the lion.

“You said she was mine for the night.” A man stepped out of the kitchen with a piece of pizza in his hand.

The bear’s grip loosened but he didn’t let go of her neck. As she fought to get air into her lungs, she took in the additional man. She could smell his lion, but the booze stench reeked off him. His short, spiky blond hair was wild and uncombed, but it was his glossy, angry eyes, fixed on her, that had her wolf rising within her. This man was more dangerous than the bear.

“I’ve got to teach her a lesson first.” He grabbed her by the hair and pulled her up to her feet. “Escape is impossible.”

“Make sure there’s enough left of her that I can have my fun with.” The lion bit off a mouthful of pizza and grinned.

That night, her will had been broken. She thought she’d never get out of there, at least not alive. Even her wolf within had begun to give up. Thoughts of Garret saving her also quickly diminished. He was states away at the time, handling a job for a company; he didn’t even know about the situation she found herself in. She was alone and her fight was gone.
No one is coming to save you. You’re mine now, bitch.

W
aking hours later
, Ginger’s body was stiff and sore from falling asleep curled into a ball with her legs pressed tightly against her chest. Fear spread through her veins, and she lay in unknown surroundings. It felt too much like her days as a prisoner and was the reason why she didn’t sleep like that any longer. She slept on her side, facing the door, or on her back, ready to attack. She never wanted someone to have that kind of power over her again.

Quickly, she changed out of the day-old clothes and into a fresh outfit. The sun wasn’t up yet but she needed to get out of there, to feel the fresh air on her face and watch the sunrise. It would remind her that she was free and chase the demons away, at least until night fell again. No matter how much time had passed since she regained her freedom, she needed little things like this to remind her just what was at stake if she ever fell victim to someone again.

“I’d rather be dead,” she whispered to herself as she stepped out of the cabin.

“Why, when there’s so much to live for?”

She stumbled back, hitting her elbow on the doorframe. “Shit!”

Liam strolled around the side of the deck and came to stand by the bottom of her steps. “You okay?”

Rubbing her elbow, she forced herself to step forward. She wasn’t going to run away from him again. He wasn’t going to make her miss the sunrise. “Do you have to sneak up on people?”

“I was checking the perimeter, not sneaking up on you.”

As the wind picked up, she pulled the sweater she’d grabbed on the way out of the cabin tighter around her. It was chilly in the morning hours but she did it also to try to hide her unease as his lion aroma drifted toward her.

“What is it about me that puts you off? Yesterday you suddenly dashed off inside and today your discomfort thickens the air.” Liam slipped his hands into the front pockets of his jeans and watched her.

“Nothing.” She fiddled with a button on the sweater and wouldn’t meet his gaze. “I should get ready. I’m having breakfast with Garret.”

“They’re not back yet.” He climbed the steps and, with every step, the panic rose within her. “Answer my question. Is it because I’m a lion? Because I’m Jase’s guard? Or do you just not think I’m good enough for you?”

“It’s…” The button came off in her fingers as she watched him. The heat between their bodies radiated through her and it was almost enough to diminish the fear.
Almost.

“Feel that, baby?” Catching her hands, he cupped them in his and brought them up until they were just above her breast. “This proves you’re mine. You want this just as I do.”

“It can’t be.” Even as she said the words, there was no denying the feeling that overwhelmed her just from his touch. The heat between them was unlike anything she’d experienced before. “I can’t…”

“Tell me.” He squeezed her hands a little tighter, offering her comfort. “What can’t you do?”

“Love a lion.” Garret stated as he came bounding up the steps toward her. “Hi, sis.”

“Hi…” She stared at her brother and tried to figure out if he knew.
No, he couldn’t.
She shook her head, trying to get rid of the idea, but it wouldn’t disengage. “When did you get back?” It wasn’t the question she wanted to ask but it was the one that came out.

“Twenty minutes ago. We found the boy. He went off with some friends and when he heard there was a search party out looking for him, he was too terrified to return home.” Garret shook his head. “Kids…but at least he’s safe.”

“Can we get back to the loving a lion part?” Liam glanced between the two of them.

“Ginger had a bad experience with a lion.” Garret laid his hand on her shoulder. “Did you really think I didn’t know?

“How?” Looking into her brother’s eyes, she could see the sorrow shining back at her, but there was also anger mixed with it. Garret was angry he hadn’t been there for her when she needed him most. He blamed himself but to her, he was her savior.

“I might not be the warrior Dad was, but I know better than to go into a situation blind.” He dropped his hand away from her shoulder and stepped back. “Forty-eight hours…that’s how long I stood outside of that bar, watching, stalking, and waiting for my opportunity. To go in too early could have meant your life, so could waiting too long. Dad always said we’d know when the opportunity presented itself but as I stood there, for the first time in my life I doubted him.”

“Did you?” She pulled her hands from Liam’s grasp and stepped back to get a better look at her brother. “Did you know when the time was right? Or did you just bust down the door, without knowing?”

“I knew.” He glanced over to the cabin of the tribe’s Chief, Jase, as if expecting him to come out. “Jase showed up and having his help gave us a better shot of getting you out alive. I knew it was then or never.”

“Jase?” Surprise had Liam’s eyebrows knitted together.

Garret glanced at the other man and nodded. “Who’d have ever thought I’d work alongside of a bear, but to save my sister…” With a shake of his head, his words trailed off. “Look at me now, married to his sister, and doing what I can to assist with the tribe.”

“But how did you know about the li…” She couldn’t get the word out; it stuck in her throat like a hot brick.

“Lion?” Garret questioned, but didn’t give her time to answer. “Hours before I found you, I bribed the cable installer to get me eyes in there. I gave him the equipment. He just had to put the bugs up, and I could see inside. He couldn’t get into one room, but he put cameras in the living room and one by the door. When he killed the other man, we knew we couldn’t wait any longer. I’m sorry, Ginger…I truly am. If I had known…”

She crossed the distance between them, cupped the side of his face, and forced him to look at her. “You have nothing to apologize for. You saved me. Without you, I’d be dead. For that, I will always be grateful. I owe you everything.”

“You owe me nothing. I got you that job.” Garret slammed his fist down onto the railing, splintering the wood.

“With the previous owner. You never knew Ken would die and his heirs would sell the bar to
him
. I should have quit, but I liked my co-workers and the customers. I stayed because of them, telling myself it would get better.” She dropped her hand from his cheek, shoved them into her pockets, and glanced up at the sky. The sun began to peak over the horizon but the joy of seeing it vanished as the memories of her past surrounded her like a blanket.

“If I had been around more—”

She spun around to face Garret and shook her head. “Don’t do that. None of what happened is your fault. You saved me from Hell.” She dragged her hand through her hair, pulling the auburn strands out of her face, tugging just enough to fill the pressure. “That fucker had no right! No right to…” She couldn’t get the words out.

“I’m confused.” Liam took a step toward her but stopped before getting within reach of her. “This past…is it coming up now because of me?”

Keeping his gaze anywhere but in Liam’s direction, Garret said nothing and, after a few moments of uncomfortable silence, Ginger shook her head. “No. At least not completely.”

“I wouldn’t have asked you here if I’d have known this would have been dragged back into the present.”

“Garret, you’re my big brother. You always want to take blame and protect me but this isn’t your fault. All of the time I live with what happened to me. Each night it plagues my dreams—it’s a part of me. I can’t get rid of the memories of what happened.” She leaned back against the railing, careful to avoid the spot that Garret broke.

“You can’t escape your destiny and mine has led me to Sin. Yours gave you Liam. Now you have to face that and tell him.” He turned to face the lion. “I’ll tell Jase you’ll be late. When you’re done, if you want to join us, I’m making breakfast.”

As her brother descended the steps and headed back to his cabin, she wasn’t sure what to think. There was no denying Liam was her mate, but Garret had dropped her into it with him. She couldn’t tell him that her terror was meaningless, not when her brother had just told him that she’d had a bad history with a lion.
Thanks, Garret. I’ll get you back for this.

L
iam stood there
, feeling uneasy. Clearly, Ginger wasn’t eager to tell her story, leaving him to wait her out. If they were going to make this mating work, she’d have to tell him for them to move past it; otherwise, they’d lose their opportunity at happiness. There was only one mate for each shifter. If they rejected that person, they’d be destined to spend the rest of their days alone. He wasn’t eager to spend his life alone, never knowing the comfort his mate had to offer, never having a woman he could snuggle next to every night.

“Let’s do this inside.” She brushed past him as she hurried to the door.

Without a word, he followed her inside and shut the door behind them. She took a seat on the only chair in the room, her action was a clear statement that she didn’t want him near her. So, he settled on the sofa, as far from her as he could be in that space.

“We don’t have to do this now,” he offered with mixed emotions. He wanted to know the complete story instead of the bits and pieces he’d gathered from her exchange with Garret. What had happened between her and this lion? If someone hurt her, he’d kill them.

“It’s been nearly a year ago now but what happened stays with me every day. It was supposed to be an average day but when I arrived at the bar, I found the place deserted. All of the staff received calls that there was a water line break and the bar would be closed. I never received that call and I ended up walking in on something I shouldn’t have witnessed. Tap, my boss and the owner of the bar, was bribing a private detective to hide evidence of him killing a woman.” She wrapped her arms around herself, as if trying to chase a chill away, and stared at the floor. “I don’t really remember but I think I dropped my bag. Next thing I knew, Tap had me up against the wall and stuck a syringe into my arm. Everything went black.”

“What happened when you woke up?” he pressed when she remained silent.

“I woke up in the apartment above the bar, locked in the guest room. I had been there when the former owner, Jim, lived there. He’d been an avid photographer and because of that, he’d covered and sealed the window to use the space as his dark room when developing pictures. The only way out was the door and it was locked.”

“Tap was a lion?” He tried to put the pieces together. If the man who’d kept her hostage was a lion, it would explain why she freaked when she smelled his beast.

“A bear.” Her nervousness seeped from her and she rocked back and forth. “His friend was a lion. He was there when I tried to escape. Tap beat the shit out of me and chained my ankle to the floor. I was terrified and he had broken my will, but even if not, the chains were too heavy. I couldn’t break them. I couldn’t even lift my foot off the floor more than a couple of inches. When Tap was done with me, his friend had his chance. The lion wasn’t satisfied to use me as a punching bag. He wanted…”

“Sex?” Growling, Liam shot to feet. The attack on his mate was enough for him to want the asshole dead but the thought of a man forcing himself on her made him want to torture him before ending his life. He couldn’t sit there and do nothing if this asshole was out there, possibly picking another victim.

“Nothing happened. Tap had his faults and they were lengthy but he never kept me prisoner for sexual reasons. It wasn’t about that.” She took a deep breath and let it out again. “He knew I’d go to the police with what I heard and he didn’t want to go back to prison. That’s why he held me. He knew that if he killed me, he wouldn’t get away with it. Garret would have never let him have a day of peace if he so much as suspected Tap was behind my murder. So he kept me locked in that room while he tried to figure out what to do with me.”

“He never…it was never sexual?” Some relief set in at that but still, this man had hurt her and he couldn’t stand for that.

“Never.”

“I still want him dead. Both of them.” He balled his fists at his sides. “Where are they?”

“Dead.” As the word left her mouth, she seemed to relax a little. “I was only there a couple of days, but during that time he beat me whenever he was around. The night the lion was there and I tried to escape was the worst. When the lion attacked, Tap must have heard my screams from the other room and he came in. Tap killed him right in front of me, splattering me with the man’s blood. As I watched the life drain from his eyes, I thought I was going to be next but Tap hauled the dead man out of the room without a word, leaving me alone.”

“Who was this lion?”

“I never knew his name. I had never even seen him before that night.”

“And Tap?” Knowing they were dead did nothing to eliminate the anger coursing through him. He wanted to kill the bastards himself.

“Jase was pissed but Garret killed him.”

“How does Jase play into it?” He tried to hold back his anger until he knew. Surely, the tribe’s Chief couldn’t have known that Ginger was being held hostage. Jase wasn’t the man to turn a blind eye if someone needed his help.

“He was there, I guess, spying on Sin to make sure she was safe, and he bumped into Garret. Somehow, Garret talked him into backing him up and he’d owe Jase for it. I don’t know what happened between the two of them that night. I was in rough shape and honestly, I didn’t care. I asked about it later but Garret wouldn’t talk about it. I only know Jase was livid because I remember him yelling. I couldn’t tell you what he said though.”

“Sounds like Jase.” Liam had no one to kill. All of the ones that hurt his mate had already been taken care of but he wanted to do something. Setting aside his anger, he went to her, reached down, took her hand, and pulled her up until she stood in front of him. “Evil exists everywhere but I’m sorry you had to witness it. To have a lion instill the fear in you that has you shy away from me makes me want to kill him. I want you to know that I’m nothing like him—just as Jase is not like Tap. You can’t paint the whole species with the same brush because of them.”

“I…” She glanced at up him, meeting his gaze for the first time. “Maybe I have done that but it’s hard to separate the memories and fear from the scent of a lion.”

“There are other lions throughout the tribe and none of them mean you any harm. I’ve known most of them all of my life. I’m not going to hurt you and neither will they.” He wasn’t sure how he would prove that to her but he was determined to find a way. “After breakfast, let me show you around, introduce you to some of them.”

“I don’t know.” She tried to step back from him but she hit the chair and he wrapped his hand around her bicep before she could fall back.

“I know you’re afraid, but let me prove to you that I’m nothing like the last lion you had contact with.” He let go of her arm and stepped back. “Do you honestly think Garret would have left us alone if he thought I was anything like that asshole? Do you think I would be one of Jase’s guards if I were like that? Garret trusts me with his mate and with you, yet you don’t trust me enough to let me show you around and introduce you to some of the residents here.” Her attitude against lions had started out directed at someone else but now it was becoming personal. What did he have to do to prove to her that he was different? And more importantly, how was he supposed to do it if she couldn’t even stand to be alone with him?

He let out a sigh. “Tell Garret thanks for the invitation, but another time.” He turned his back to her and strolled toward the door. Perhaps he was being unreasonable as he’d only known her for a short time, but already, he was tired and her attitude was more than he could handle without getting his lion edgy. Another reason why he had no doubts this woman was his mate. From the moment he set eyes on her, she’d gotten to his head.

“Liam,” she called to him, but he didn’t stop.

He needed to put some distance between them and think things through. How was he supposed to handle his mate’s hatred toward his animal? If it continued, he’d be destined to spend the rest of his life a lonely bachelor.

T
he door slammed shut
, leaving Ginger alone with her regret. Her wolf snarled at her, demanding to know why she let her fear get the best of her. They were better than this. Wolves fought; they didn’t give in at the first sign of trouble. Her human side was weak and willing to let the terror from her past spill into the future she could have, while the wolf within grew angry at the very thought of allowing the past to control them any longer. She needed to rise above it all and fight through the horror to grab a hold of her mate. She only wondered if she could do it.

She wasn’t sure how long she sat there, lost in her own thoughts, regret, and feeling sorry for herself, but when she opened her eyes again, Garret was squatting in front of her, his hands on her shoulders. He shook her.

“Ginger!” He shook her shoulder again.

“What?” Even to her own ears, her voice sounded different—weak and distant. She tried to blink away the fog that had settled around her and focus on her brother.

“Damn it! You scared the shit out of me. I knocked and you didn’t respond. What the hell is wrong with you?”

“I’m…” Her voice broke, forcing her to swallow before trying again. “I’m fine.”

“Where’s Liam? How could he leave you like this?”

“He left before.” She rubbed her hands over her face and squeezed the bridge of her nose. “He’s angry that I can’t trust him and you know what…I don’t blame him. What hell it must be to have a mate who can’t stand you because of the animal you shift into. Every time he comes near me, all I can think about is what happened. His lion scent reminds me…”

“You’ve known other lions before this happened to you. Focus on them.” He rocked back on his heels and took her hands in his. “Focus on the happiness you can have. Finding Sin changed my life and I’ve never been happier than I am now. You can have that too with Liam. He’s a good man, a protector.”

“I already have one of those.” She grinned at him. “You’ve always been there when I’ve needed you.”

“And so will Liam.”

Maybe he was right but it didn’t ease the tension within her. The idea of being mated to a lion chilled her blood and made her want to run. Her wolf was eager to find a mate, but even the idea of a lion made her wolf’s hair stand on end. She had been at the receiving end of the lion’s claws and didn’t want to find herself there again. Maybe spending her life alone would be the better option than finding herself stuck with an evil lion. Liam might be different when they were alone and behind closed doors. By then, it would be too late.

No, I’m not willing to do that. I’d rather be lonely than deal with that.