Fighting A Lion: BBW Paranormal Lion Shape Shifter Romance (Sleeping Lions - Shifters Prime Book 3) (4 page)

“No.” He cast a glance back at Misty, frowning at her before resting his hand on Janice’s. “You don’t understand. If I can get my
sister
home, I would be free to come back here and show you my gratitude. What time does your shift finish?”

Janice looked from him to Misty and her thoughts must have registered the inevitable: what would a guy like this be doing with a woman like her? “Well, OK.”

“Thank you, she’s hurt her ankle,” he said, shaking his head dismissively. “Little sisters. It’s my duty to see she gets into a cab safely.”

“So sweet of you to care.” Misty’s voice dripped sugary sweetness.

“I’ll get the phone,” Janice said, looking satisfied at the atmosphere she had picked up between Kieran and Misty.

“You nearly blew it.” He turned to her, his eyes casting a warning at her.

“Sorry,” she mumbled, not sure what had come over her.

“Here we go.” Janice put the phone down on the bar, but as she moved, she caught sight of Misty’s collar and her hand curled around the phone again, threatening to take it away. “Damn it, are you one of
them
?”

“What if I am?” he crooned. “If you’ve never been with a shifter, you don’t know what you’ve been missing.” He touched her hand, stroking her palm, and took the phone off her, passing it to Misty. “You will never be satisfied again once you’ve been with me.”

Janice’s face flushed red. She was obviously fantasising about how good it would be to be with a shifter. But Misty pushed that out of her mind. She had to get Darius on the phone, and quick.

She dialled the number of his building, and got through to reception. “Hello, can I speak to Darius Reiner, please?”

“He’s in a meeting, can I take a message?” the receptionist said in her bored but polite voice. Misty wondered how many times a day she had to say the same thing.

“This is really important. Can you tell him Misty Blue needs to speak to him?”

“I’m sorry, I have had strict instructions not to disturb him.”

“Listen, I know he’s busy, but he will want to speak to me. So if you could transfer me to him. It’s a family emergency.”

“Concerning?”

“His nephew.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.” She had to lie, had to get him on the phone. “It concerns his nephew’s visit to Shifters Prime.”

“I’ll put you through.” There was a click, and then a long pause, whereby she had to stand and watch Janice and her saviour, Kieran, making eyes at each other. He was whispering something to her, his lips close to her ear, and whatever it was, Misty suspected it was of an adult nature.

“Misty?” Darius spoke into the phone, his voice hushed as if he didn’t want anyone to hear.

“Darius. Thank goodness.”

“Where are you?” He sounded worried now, and she wanted to tell him it was OK, but it wasn’t. “I heard about the accident.”

“I’m OK. But someone kidnapped me.”

“My driver said you ran.”

“No, I think the accident was a setup; someone wants information about you.”

He was silent, and this scared her more than anything. For as long as she had known Darius, he was always self-assured and in control, but for the last few weeks, since Kane had left, this had changed.

“Darius, I didn’t tell them anything. Someone rescued me.”

“Where are you now?”

“In a bar,” she said, not wanting to tell him exactly where she was in case the line was bugged.
Paranoia at its best
, she thought.

Again, silence. “What do you need?”

“I have no money, and I don’t know if I’m being hunted.” The word caught in her throat. “I just want to go home.”

“I know, Misty, I know, and I’m sorry you’ve got caught up in all this. Some people are very jealous of my success and would like to see my downfall. They’ll use any means necessary to gain power over my corporation.”

“So what do I do?” Another silence, and she became aware of all the people around her, and the sudden urge to leave was so strong, she had to force herself to stay there. “Darius?”

“I have some dry cleaning; I’ll arrange for it to be picked up.” And the line went dead.

Misty thought for a moment, trying to figure out what his message meant. She had come into town several times to collect and drop off his dry cleaning. All she could think of was that he was trying to tell her to meet him, without actually mentioning the location.

Putting the phone back down on the bar, she nudged Kieran, who looked around, raising his eyebrow in a question. “We have to go.”

He picked up Janice’s hand and kissed it ostentatiously, before smiling and saying, “Thank you, I’ll be back to pick up from where we left off.”

“I can’t wait.” She stood back, running her tongue along her lower lip, her lips forming a pout.

Misty grabbed Kieran and began pulling him towards the door, her ankle killing her. After standing around, it had seized up, and getting it mobile again was excruciating. But they had to move.

“So what’s happening?” he asked.

“We have to get to the dry cleaners on Harrington Street. Do you know it?”

“Dry cleaning is not exactly my thing. Jeans and T-shirts man, me.” He looked down at her, and concern covered his face. “But I know where it is, a good ten minutes’ walk, and you don’t look as if you can get that far.”

“I’ll manage.” She gritted her teeth, trying to ignore the pain that shot up her leg with each step. All she knew was if she was ever going to get home, she had to keep going, keep moving until they met up with Darius.

“There it is,” he said, pointing across the road to the dry cleaners. “Can you see him?”

“No.” She looked pale, the blood drained from her face. He knew it was from the pain; he had seen it enough times in the cage.

“Did he say how long he was going to be?”

“No, but he was in a business meeting and might not have been able to get out straight away.”

“Do you trust him?”

Misty turned to look at him, her eyes scanning his face. She was good at reading expressions and body language, and he wondered what it was inside her that made her that way. “More than I trust you,” she replied.

“That doesn’t say a lot, does it? You think I’m here to get information from you.”

“True.” She rounded on him. “Which means you can go.”

“What?” He wasn’t sure he wanted to leave her here. His hidden side was making his thoughts known:
it was their duty to make sure she was safe
.

“You can go, leave me here. At least then I know you aren’t up to no good.” Her mouth went into a thin line, and then she frowned, and said more firmly. “I mean it; Darius will make sure I’m safe.”

“I thought you wanted me to go to the Prime with you.”

“That was before, you know, when I was in shock.”

“And now you want to get rid of me?”

“I thought you promised that girl Janice you would go back and see her. So go, I don’t want to ruin your
fun
again.”

“I get it, you want to get rid of me because this guy Darius is your lover?”

“No,” she spat.

“Oh, I see, forbidden love. This guy bought your contract and he got you between the sheets… And you were coming down on me about sleeping around.” He didn’t know why, but he wanted to twist a knife deep inside her heart, make her feel the betrayal he felt.

What betrayal?
She was nothing to him, a woman he had just met.

A woman he had given up his old life for. And no matter how many times he tried to tell himself it was his choice, that he had made the decision to help her because he was bored with his old life, and his boss had simply had it coming to him, he knew it wasn’t true.

“It’s not like that.” She denied it strongly. “He wouldn’t… And I wouldn’t... Especially not now.”

“What, you mean now he doesn’t own your hide?”

“No, I mean because once you’ve found your mate, you won’t ever want to take another person to your bed.”

Her face was so open, so honest. But he didn’t want to acknowledge what she said, even though he knew exactly what she was describing. He had changed;
she
had changed him in the short time he had known her. Even if he could go back to his old life, he knew it would never hold the same satisfaction.

This had become obvious to him back at the bar. He had Janice in the palm of his hand, the smell of her body, the scent of her arousal, those things would normally have sent him into overdrive. He would have taken her to bed, or maybe fucked her in some back alley. But even though she was there, waiting for him, he knew he wouldn’t go back.

Because to do so would betray Misty.

“Why? What exactly is a mate, some fancy name for a boyfriend?” He tried to make a joke of it.

“You really don’t know?” she asked her voice raw.

He shook his head, wanting to understand what was going on inside him, but scared of what she would say.

“Shifters, people like you and me, when we find our mate, we know.”

“I still don’t get it,” he lied, because he did know. If he looked deep down inside himself, into the part of him where his beast lay dormant, he understood completely.

“It’s the person you’re meant to be with for the rest of your life.”

“You mean like marriage?” He must sound like such an idiot. Of course she meant sex, procreation, not some stupid certificate that bound you together.

“More than that.” She turned to look over at the dry cleaners, and he sensed her tension. If this Darius didn’t turn up, what were they going to do?

“And your mate is waiting for you in the Prime?”

She flashed him a look, as if he was playing within her. “No.”

“Then…”

“There he is.” She took off, hobbling across the road. As she approached the car, she said to Kieran, “Thanks, I’ll be OK now.”

She was dismissing him, had he got it so wrong?

Take it as a chance to get away, go back to what you do best, live alone, no dependents
. He could move to another town, maybe head along the coast and find a job, no more fighting for a living.

Kieran stood and watched her, saw her reach the dry cleaners and lean down to speak to someone in a car. For some reason he wanted to linger, to let himself take in the way her dark auburn hair slipped across her face, the way her hips swayed as she walked, to remember her.

This was new. He had never wanted to remember any of the women who had made it into his bed before, but here was Misty, a stranger, and he wanted to etch her image onto his brain.

Tearing himself away, he left. She was safe, Darius would take her to the border, and she would be gone forever. Simple. He could get back to doing what he did best, surviving, keeping his head down, so that the people who wanted him dead would never find him.

Coward
. That voice, the one in his head, managed to penetrate his thoughts, bursting out of the muted world it lived in.

She’s safe, safer without me
. But as he turned around to look at her, she was standing alone; the car had gone.

She was certainly not safe.

Darius hadn’t come himself. Instead, John, one of his employees, had driven to meet her. Why she was surprised, she didn’t know, of course it was too risky. For both of them. The exchange had been brief. John had simply handed her some cash and passed on a message from Darius.

“Darius said to get yourself across the border and find Frasier.”

“Frasier,” she repeated. “No other name?”

“No.” She could tell John didn’t want to hang around, which made her even more uneasy. And before she could ask him any more questions, he drove off, leaving her alone in this world where she didn’t belong.

“Great.” She looked at the money: there was certainly enough for her to pay a taxi to take her to the border. But she felt vulnerable and scared; scared of getting in a taxi alone, and finding she had been kidnapped again.

Feeling faint, from lack of food rather than the pain in her ankle, which was beginning to subside, she backed away from the edge of the road and leaned against the window of the dry cleaners. She felt more alone than she could ever possibly have imagined as strangers passed her by. Home seemed a million miles away, the journey fraught with hidden dangers.

Inside her head, her horse struggled forward and gave her a nudge.
One foot, or hoof, in front of the other
. She could do this.

Walking down the street, towards a busy shopping mall, she figured she would find a taxi, and take a risk, there was no other real choice. She took comfort in the fact that they hadn’t found her so far, so the chances were she would be safe.

All she had to do was pick a taxi at random.

One foot, in front of the other. Left, right, left, right
. Her pace quicker as her ankle took more weight, she moved forward, the thought of being free again her driving force. She tried not to let her lost purse worry her. If her contract was paid off, the border guards would test her DNA and let her pass over to the Prime.

It would be OK. One foot in front of the other
.

There were three taxis in a row waiting on the side of the street; she would pick the middle one. Her speed increased a little as she fought the urge to just flop down here in the street and give up. But she reached the middle taxi and opened the door.

“Can you take me to the border, please?” she asked.

“The border?” The driver, middle aged, with dark hair that was obviously dyed to cover his greys, took a good look at her. “I don’t like your kind in my taxi.”

“Listen, I’ve had a bad day, I’ve sprained my ankle and I just need to get to the border. Can’t you help me?” she asked.

He studied her, and then said, “OK, but it will cost you double.”

“What?” she asked, shocked that he would take advantage of her.

“Double or ask one of the others, but you’ll get the same answer.”

“OK.” She got in, relieved to finally take the weight off her foot.

“Let me see your money first.”

“Here.” She held out the notes in her hand for him to see.