Fighting A Lion: BBW Paranormal Lion Shape Shifter Romance (Sleeping Lions - Shifters Prime Book 3) (7 page)

Lance froze, his face going ashen, and Kieran looked over Lance’s shoulder to where four huge rhinos, covered in armour plating, were approaching, with four wolves behind them.

“What the hell?” Lance said.

“We have our own kind of security over in the Prime,” the old guy said, and the small attack force moved forward.

The rhinos moved forward at an unnatural speed, and Lance and his henchman didn’t have time to draw or run. Several shots tore through the air, but they only dinged on the metal armour of the rhinos.

Shouts and cries filled the air, and the sickening thud of flesh on bone, and then the sound of teeth tearing flesh signalled the end of their persecutors.

The beast inside him would have liked to have joined in.

It was over, she didn’t really want to think about it, think about how the wolves had torn the men apart. Things worked differently over here, no judge and jury: they had learned long ago that the only way to deal with humans with guns was to kill them before they killed you. Despite this, she still felt a sense of horror, but she also knew that it had put an end to their threat, and she only hoped that their deaths meant that Darius was safe.

Her mind drifted back to Darius, and the months she had spent under his roof at the mansion. He had led a secret life for so many years, one she had no idea about, and neither did his loyal human staff. Wouldn’t they be in for a surprise if this ever got out? Which she suspected was exactly what some unknown force wanted. Well, his secret was safe with her.

This knowledge made other things fit together too. She could see why he had taken on so many shifters; he was looking after his own. But it would also raise a flag to anyone who might be investigating him. She only hoped that if things became too dangerous, he would get away in time, and one day she hoped to see him in the Prime, running free.

“Hey, are you okay?” Kieran asked, his hand on her back making her jump, and bringing her out of her daydream.

“I’m fine, at least I will be. Can we just leave here go further into the Prime? I want to put as much distance as possible between us and the border.”

“And where do we go?” he asked, looking around them. “I have no idea where anything is.”

“We could go to my herd; they will accept you, because you are my mate.”

“Even though I’m a predator?” he asked.

“Of course. And maybe that’s the first thing we should do. Take off our collars … and show each other exactly what we are.”

He laughed. “I’m not sure I want to know what I am.” His fingers went to the silver collar around his neck and she saw the anxiety in his face. “I’m not quite sure how this whole thing works. And at least if no one knows what I am, my life won’t be in danger.”

“We’ll get to the bottom of it,” she said softly, they were back to this again: Who had hunted him? And was he still in danger? “Whoever was after you might be dead.”

His eyes softened, and he looked vulnerable, but then he put a mask over his features and returned to his old arrogant self. “And what if when I change, I eat you? I am a predator, you said it yourself, and you are a prey animal. Not exactly a perfect match.”

She laughed it off, trying not to let him hurt her with his words; his defences were up. “Look, buddy, I know you’re my mate, but if you try and sink your teeth into me, I will kick your head in. My hooves are hard, you know.”

“That sounds like a challenge.” He looked up, the old guy was heading towards them; he had been speaking to the rhinos and the wolves who had turned back into men. It looked as if he was trying to organise a clean-up. Her stomach turned at that thought.

“I know you two really want to get away from here. But I really need to ask you some more questions. It’s very rare for anybody to come across the border like that.” He jerked his head over to the crumpled bodies on the ground. “And even rarer for them to risk everything by killing the border guards on the other side. There is no going back from that; they must have had an escape plan. Which means there may be people over here, humans or shifters, who were working with them.”

“I don’t really know what we can tell you.” Misty shook her head. “Until yesterday I
had
nothing to tell you. I was just a shifter, no threat to anybody, who had a contract with a couple of weeks left on it. Then Darius ended it early and told me to leave for the Prime.”

“Those lions have certainly stirred things up,” the old guy said. “I don’t even want to think about the paperwork I’m going to have to do over this.”

“I’m sorry about that,” she said, but she wasn’t sorry her attackers were dead. “Hey, I just remembered something. I was told to find someone called Frasier.” A look of recognition spread across his face.

“I can send a message to him. I know where he is, and going by what you said, I think he might have some information for you.” Now who was being cryptic?

“Thank you.” Misty was trying to filter through all the information going around and around in her head. To think she was caught up in something was worrying. All she wanted to do was go home to her herd.

“Look, we need to head further in to the Prime. I don’t really want to hang around here.” Kieran sounded uneasy.

“You can stay with me for a while, might be best until I get this all straightened out.” He indicated the body bags that contained what was left of the humans. “Name’s Cartwright, and me and my mate would be happy to have you stay. I can send a message to Frasier and he will be here in a day or two.”

“That would be great.” But when she looked up at Kieran’s face, she knew that that was not what he wanted. “We’ll just be hanging around over there, while you finish up here.”

She walked away from the guy and Kieran followed, and as soon as they were far enough away, that no one could hear them she asked, “What’s wrong?”

“I’m having the same feeling that you must have had when we were back on that other side.” He gestured back towards the border. “I don’t know who to trust, I don’t really want to wait here for this Frasier. I’d rather find out what’s going on myself than have someone else tell me. Because that way we might get to the truth.”

“But surely we can trust the old guy, and we do need somewhere to stay.”

“What if they try to haul us back across the border as witnesses. No. We can stay up in the hills; I don’t trust anybody. I can’t help it, it’s the way I’ve always been, it’s the way Philippe raised me. He kept me alive, he kept me out of trouble, and I would hate for his sacrifice to have been for nothing. If we stroll in here and whoever was after me pounces straight away, I’ll be dead.”

“OK,” she said. “Although I think you are overreacting.”

She didn’t really know what they were supposed to do. They had no food, no money, not even water. She would be okay, she could go horse and eat the grass, but if he really was a predator, that was not going to help him much at all. He was not allowed to shift and hunt, that was about the only rule:
no hunting,
because you never knew whether you were going to catch an animal, or if your prey would end up being another shifter.

“Look, let’s make up it up as we go along, it’s how I’ve always lived my life.” He began walking and she followed. “And I see no reason to change now. Do some work, get paid in food and lodging, that’s how I’ve always lived.”

“But where are we going?” She thought over what the old guy had said, and knew if Darius had wanted her to meet up with Frasier, it was important. But Kieran had his own ideas.

“I thought you wanted to go to your herd.”

“I do.” Desperately, with all her heart, she wanted to see her family again. And yet there was something nagging at her brain, as if she were missing something. “But it can wait. I think this is important. What if Darius is in trouble and he was trying to get me to take a message to Fraser?”

“What, you owe him now your contract is paid off? You worked for him, don’t act as if he is your friend.”

“But I do owe him, he looked after me, I could have ended up goodness knows where. So many of us end up in factories, made to work sixteen hours a day just for food on our plates and somewhere dry to sleep. No one does us any favours over there.”

“Do you think I don’t know that?” He turned back towards her, his face clouded in memories. “You might think I had it easy, that all I had to do was punch a few people to survive. But I knew every time I entered that cage that there was a chance I would never walk out of it, never even crawl out of it. I took advantage of what Lance gave me. But don’t think I had it easy, don’t think I actually enjoyed it.”

His mood had changed, he was closing up on her, and she couldn’t let that happen. “And does no part of you want to find out exactly who you are? To find out who was trying to hurt you when you were younger? This Philippe, he took you from here; he kept you safe and taught you to be afraid. He wouldn’t have done that without a reason, and now you’re back you should want to find out.”

“Well, I don’t.” His face was set and she could tell he had made his mind up. For whatever reason, he wanted to shut out his past, but his past now affected her and it would affect their children. You couldn’t hide from it, but that was exactly what Kieran had been doing all his life, and he was too scared to change. Not that she was about to point that out to him. He was in a fragile place mentally; all his demons were gathering, pushing in on him.

“Then do it for me.”

“For you?” He almost sneered as he said the words.

“Yes, me, your mate, remember?” she asked crossly.

He didn’t stop. He just walked away and that made her so angry. He might be scared, but it did not give him the right to treat her like dirt.

Right now, she really did want to go horse and trample on his big, fat, arrogant head. Or maybe just kick some sense into him.

He walked off, leaving her fuming; she probably wished she had let Lance kill him. He had hurt her, but he couldn’t help it, he was that little boy again, the one who had been brought up to be careful, to be scared, to fear that which he didn’t know.

The same little boy who was still inside him and always would be. Maybe if he did find out why Philippe had taken him across the border, it might one day be free.

Alternatively, his fear might be the thing keeping him alive. What had Philippe told him? Don’t ask questions; don’t stir up the past.

She walked after him; he could hear her anger in every step, but he wasn’t going to turn around and tell her it was okay, because it wasn’t. She kept dangling this
mate
thing over his head, but in all reality he didn’t really feel it. Not now. It had gone.

When she was in danger, the feelings he had for her were strong, his need to help her and keep her safe all-consuming. But now they were walking across the grasslands that led deeper into the Prime, it was almost as if the connection between them had gone.

“Hey, wait,” she said running to catch up with him. “You know what you really need to do?”

“No?” he said. “I don’t. I’m not a mind reader, remember.”

“Look, I’m not the enemy, I don’t know what’s changed, but before we were working together and we need to do the same now.”

“Is this where you hit me with that
mates
thing again, because if it is, I don’t really want to know.” But he did stop and he did turn around to look at her. Trying not to let her see what effect she had on him as she stood there, looking beautiful.

With her eyes aflame as anger flashed across them, he could imagine her as a horse, nostrils flaring and a mane of hair flashing silver in the wind as she tossed it and snorted, a foot stamping before she turned round and kicked him in the gut. He smiled, but kept it half hidden. Maybe that was what he needed, to see her other side. And experience his other side.

But that scared him. Once he knew what he was, once Misty knew, there would be no going back. He would be forced to confront his past. And that was her plan.

“You want us to take our collars off.”

“See, you can read my mind.”

“It didn’t take much, it’s obvious. You think that once this collar’s off my neck I’ll become this lovesick puppy and will swear my undying love to you,
because we’re mates
.”

“You know what? I wish that when we took our collars off, that you wouldn’t mean anything to me. That’s right, I wish you weren’t my mate.” She jabbed her finger at him, trying to emphasise her point when she continued, “Because if you really want the truth, you might be disappointed in me, but I’m disappointed in you too. I thought I’d come back here, meet some
nice
stallion, settle down and have foals, lots of sweet foals, and he’d look after them, protect them. But instead, I ended up with a self-centered idiot.”

The smile that he had tried to keep hidden, widened. “I could get used to having you around. It’s nice to have a woman who doesn’t suck up to me because she wants me to fuck her.”

Shock spread across her face, and she didn’t see the funny side of what he said, but that was even more endearing to him. Damn, if she didn’t make him blow hot and cold.

“So let’s get to it,” he said.

She looked around, and then asked with a hushed voice, “Let’s get to what?”

He knew what was going through her head; she thought he was asking her to let him claim her, out here in the open grasslands. And that thought spun around in his head and the beast inside him stretched, liking the idea.

Maybe finding his true self wasn’t such a bad idea. Once the collars were off he was pretty sure he would want her more than anything he had ever wanted in his life. He only hoped that wanting her didn’t end up making him follow her wherever she wanted to go.

“Let’s take these collars off. Right now.” He put his hands up to the clasp which held his collar secure. “Want to run and hide from the beast inside me? I can feel him, you know; I can feel it prowling.”

Now she looked quite smug, and she said, “Go for it.”

It was if she was calling his bluff, and he wavered, not really sure what to do, because he might hurt her, he might not be able to stop himself. He was a fighter who had never lost a battle, he reminded himself; this beast wouldn’t get the better of him.