The Lion's Love Child

THE LION'S

LOVE CHILD  

A PARANORMAL

LION SHIFTER ROMANCE

JADE WHITE

Copyright
©2015 by Jade White

All rights reserved.

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About This Book

When Grace went to Africa to research the indigenous Lion population she had no idea just how close she was going to get to them.

A hot one night stand with a handsome man named Dylan got extremely complicated when Grace discovered she was somehow pregnant.

Little did she know, Dylan was actually a WereLion and she was now carrying the Lion's love child.

With no way to contact him, Grace was resigned to raising the baby by herself however it soon became very apparent that this was no ordinary pregnancy and this would be no ordinary baby...

This is a thrilling paranormal romance featuring action and adventure alongside scenes of hot romantic mating. If you like the sound of this then scroll up and start reading this now!

                                           
CHAPTER ONE

C
HAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER ONE

Grace Baker stepped off her plane in Lagos to the midday heat of an African summer.  Her dark hair was pulled up and she wore an old pair of denim shorts and a university tee-shirt.  She was on her third travel day and her appearance no longer meant much to her.  Still, she couldn’t hide her lush curves or the magnetism of her violet eyes.  The sun was so blinding and the crowd so thick that it took her a few moments to spot her research partner and best friend, Shannon, waiting for her.  Shannon, with her bobbed blond hair, would always look, Grace thought, like a college freshman.  Her youthful features gave her an ethereal quality that had not faded a bit since they first met, nearly 10 years earlier.

“Are you OK?” Shannon asked, looking concerned.
 

“Long flight,” Grace said with the largest smile that she was able to muster, after nearly ten hours on the plane. “Is the camp all set up?” she asked as they made their way towards the parking lot.  Grace was surprised to see Shannon hop behind the wheel of a rather large rag top jeep. She usually hired a drive for these sort of trips.

“Yes,” Shannon said as she adjusted her mirrors. “The preserve had a pair of huts built for us, plus we have access to one of their buildings for our research.”

“That's terrific; I thought we would be sharing a tent in the middle of the plains!” The thought of a little hut all her own was immensely appealing.  She loved Shannon dearly, but working with her all day and sharing close quarters at night was a bit much, especially for the year that they were scheduled to be studying the African lions.

“Like that time in India?” her friend said with a laugh.

“That was a crazy month.” She smiled. It had been nothing but rain and mud as they tried to study the local tiger population.

“Yes. But it got us our first published paper,” Shannon pointed out seriously.

“All worth it then,” she said as she recalled the waterlogged notebooks they had to sift through to compile that paper.

“I think so!” Shannon said proudly.

“Me too,” she admitted.  “I suppose that's why we work so well as research partners.”

“Well, it doesn't t hurt that we have lived together and taken every class together since we were 18. After that tiny dorm room and a communal shower, you are going to think your private hut is the lap of luxury.”  She laughed, recalling the cold cinderblock walls that they had covered with pictures cut from National Geographic.

“Running water?” she asked hopefully.

“Nice try,” Shannon smiled, “but you aren't far from the well.”

“Well then, it'll be just like the spa!” she said with a chuckle.

“You wouldn't know what to do at the spa,” Shannon scoffed.

“That is true,” Grace admitted, laughing.  “What are the people like?”

“The locals seem great,” Shannon gushed. “They really care about their lion populations and they are glad to have people who care as much about them as they do.”

“That's great. They could be a big help.  How about the other scientists?”

“A bunch of nerds live in cabins near ours,” she said, pushing her sunglasses on top of her head. “They are here to study elephants.”

“You can't call people who do the same thing that we do nerds!” Grace said with mock horror.

“Yes I can!  Plus, lion trumps elephant.  Law of the jungle,” Shannon insisted. 

“We aren’t in the jungle,” Grace pointed out, enjoying teasing Shannon.  She had arrived there two weeks earlier while Grace had finished lecturing at the university and she had missed their banter. 

“Oh, you know what I mean,” she said with an annoyed tone in her voice.

“Does that mean you haven't found your local lover yet?”  

“I don't think I will on this trip. The pickings are slim,” she said, looking dejected. 

“No! Where is your usual can-do attitude? Even when we were in Siberia, you were able to find that burly, bearded fellow.”  He had been a mountain of a man, with such a long beard that neither of them were sure to this day, what his face actually looked like.

“The elephant twerps make him look like a GQ model.”  Shannon raised her eyebrow to prove just how serious she was.

“Well then, our work will have your undivided attention,” Grace said with sincerity.  Shannon’s usual lover always found a way to invade their lives.  It would be nice for it to be just the two of them.

“Laugh all you want, but it doesn't do any good for us both to hide in our work,” Shannon said, taking a serious turn in the conversation.  Grace shuddered, preparing for Shannon’s usual rant about her lack of a love life.

“Hey, I dated that accountant between our last two research trips,” she said, trying to cut off the conversation before it began.

“That was five dates, eight months ago!”  Shannon said, with her usual annoyance at Grace’s attitude towards dating.

“It counts,” she exclaimed.  “He loved me!”  And he had.  Jerry, a 30-year-old accountant, had been sweet and kind and as vanilla as could be.  She was so glad when they got their next research gig and had to leave suddenly.  She was fairly sure that he would have proposed after three more dates.

“Yes, and you just barely tolerated him,” Shannon accused.

“That's not nice!”  Grace said, pretending to be wounded by her friend’s remark.

“Neither was leading that poor man on.”

“I didn't!” she cried.

“Oh, we both know that you did,” Shannon pointed out.

“Well, he wasn't exactly thrilling,” Grace admitted.

“See, even you admit you could use a little thrill in your life,” Shannon said with triumph. 

“We are here to spend a year studying lions.  I am sure we will both get plenty of excitement.” Grace sighed, thinking of the tremendous opportunity they had in front of them.

Grace dozed off then.  She was not entirely sure how long she had been asleep, but the brakes of the jeep jostled her awake and she began to take in her surroundings.  Outside of the jeep, the night was pitch black. 

“Well, here we are,” Shannon said. “Here are our cabins.  Yes, our humble homes.”

As her eyes adjusted, Grace took in the two lovely cabins that had been built for them. Shannon had described them as huts, but they were a bit more substantial than that.  The roofs, though thatched, seemed sturdy and sloped down to form a nice covered outdoor area.  There was a small table with chairs there, making a sort of dining room.

“They are great!” she said, before even seeing the inside.

“I'm pretty fond of them,” Shannon said with a big grin on her face.

“Where did you get this jeep?” Grace asked suddenly.

“It belongs to the preserve.  We can use it as long as we are here.”

“Even better,” Grace said with relief.  It would come in handy in their research to have access to it. “It's going to be good here.  I can feel it.”

“I think so too.”

Grace grabbed her large suitcase while Shannon picked up her smaller suitcase and camera case.

She led the way to the furthest cabin.  The inside was one open room, with a small cot on one side of the room and a desk and chair on the other.  Though it was sparse, she felt at home in the space. 
It had,
she thought,
great potential.  It will be so nice to have a place to call my own. 

“Well, I will leave you to get settled in.  Tomorrow I'll give you a tour of the buildings here on the preserve and then we will hit the field.”  Shannon gave Grace a hug then and she knew just how glad her friend was to have her there.

“I can't wait.  The last few weeks have been so boring.  I dislike being idle,” she joked.

“Oh, I know. We haven't taken more than a month off in 6 years.”

Grace laughed. “What would you do with the time off?”

“I don't think you will ever give me enough of it to find out,” she said as she ducked out the door.

After Shannon left, Grace began to settle in, looking forward to what the year would bring.

Five days later, she was feeling as though she had found her rhythm.  In fact, she was so comfortable that she had taken the jeep out by herself so that she could begin to become familiar with the local lion population.  She parked the jeep at a spot downwind from the ridge that Shannon had said the locals pointed out as a prime spot for the pride to gather. 

She used her camera to take pictures of each lion as they passed through so that she and Shannon could have ID photos in their profiles on each animal.  She was three hours into her project when a group of three females began to approach the lions gathered on the ridge.  They were larger than the average female and she was eager to snap photos of them near the other lions for comparison purposes.  To do so, she had to step out of the jeep to ensure that she got the correct angle.

Her movement caught the attention of the largest lioness and she appeared displeased at her presence in their territory.  Slowly, the three began to leave the ridge, stalking in her direction.  Though they were moving slowly, their movement was deliberate.  It was that of a hunter.  Slowly, she returned to the jeep and got ready to start it up and drive off when a male lion intercepted them. 

He, too, was larger than average.  His mane shone in the sunshine and his muscles rippled as he moved between her and the approaching group of lionesses.  She could only see his back now, as he faced the females.  Though she couldn’t see what was happening, there seemed to be some sort of communication occurring.  As a scientist, the behavior seemed incredibly odd to her.  So odd, in fact, that she could not help but photograph it. 

The expression on the lead lioness’ face seemed almost human to her, as if she was clearly annoyed that this male had decided to interfere with her.  He seemed to be tolerating none of it, though. Soon, he roared so loudly that it shook her jeep.  At that, the three lionesses scattered, though they gazed back with a simmering expression that made her feel quite unsafe. 

The male turned then and regarded her for a long moment.  She lowered her camera and met his gaze.  During that moment, there was a connection that she could not deny.  It was such moments, when she felt a real bond with the animals that she was studying, that made her career worth it.  With that, the male turned and slowly walked away.

It ended as quickly as it had begun, but she couldn’t help but feel shaken by what had occurred.  Slowly, she started the jeep and headed back to camp, eager to look at her photos and write up her notes on what had occurred.

She spent the majority of the evening in anticipation of returning the next day, to see what other abnormal behavior she might encounter.  Though she had anticipated another odd encounter with the lions, she could not have anticipated what she did encounter.  As she approached the ridge in her jeep, there was a man standing there, in the exact spot where her jeep had been parked the day before.  He was dressed casually, with shaggy blond hair framing striking blue eyes. 

It was so surreal to see such a handsome man standing alone in the middle of the preserve.  There was no vehicle or any other means of transportation nearby and she couldn’t help but wonder how he had come to that spot, so very far from civilization.  As she pulled up beside him, though, he did not seem at all surprised to see her there.

He looked up at her from underneath the brim of his hat as she parked the jeep.  He had a magnetism to him that hit her before he even began to speak.  He seemed to be at one with his surroundings, just as she often felt when connected to the animals she studied.

“Well, hello,” he said with a glint of humor in his eyes.  He smiled at her then, as though he had been expecting her arrival. 

“Not exactly the place where someone expects to meet a stranger,” she said, leaning out of the jeep.

“I come here every year or so.  I'm a wildlife photographer.”  As he spoke, she noted that he didn’t have any gear with him, not even a small point and shoot camera.   He seemed so at ease though, that she couldn’t dispute his claim. 

“Without a camera?” she asked skeptically.  She could not resist the urge to poke a bit at this handsome stranger.

“I'm scouting,” he said without further explanation.  His smile, though, told her that there was perhaps more to what he was doing in the preserve.  “My name, by the way, is Dylan.”

“Interesting,” she replied.  Though his words still seemed a bit odd, there really was no other reason for a man to be alone, this far out on the range.  Still, she was so intrigued by him.  “I’m Grace.”

“Yes, it seems you are.  An appropriate name for you,” he said with a sly half smile that told her that he felt her distrust and was enjoying it.