Loving the Lion

by Marie Mason

  “She. Is. My. Mate.” Bachar’s words were slurred as he forced them out, his animal so near the surface that Tarek actually thought the man would shift. At the speed they were traveling, they would both suffer grave, if not fatal, injuries. If Bachar shifted Tarek would be forced to do the same to defend himself. No doubt their vehicle would plunge over the rocky side of the cliff. He stayed perfectly still, easing his foot from the accelerator. “Alpha.”

  Bachar fought through the buzzing in his head; fought to gain control of his lion as the animal threatened to emerge. He heard Tarek call to him. Knew he had to respond. As his senses returned, he realized what he had done—or almost done.

  “Well, shit,” he cursed as he eased his hand from around his security chief’s throat and sat back in the leather seat that had provided so much comfort just seconds before. Now, it only added to the heat rushing over his skin.

  “Well, shit, indeed.” With any other man, especially Keair, the snarky remark would have been accompanied by a sniggering smile. Not with Tarek. The wolf’s hands were steady as he continued to drive as if a near fatal attack by his alpha had not just occurred.

  “Just so we’re clear, Tarek, Sally is my mate, and she will be treated with respect.”

  “Of course, Alpha. I meant no disrespect.”

  “I know, it’s just—”

  “You cannot control the animal.”

  “Right. But you’ll realize it someday. When you meet your mate.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  Bachar grunted. “Let me assure you, your animal will be just as out of control as mine when she comes into your life.”

  “I will have no mate.”

  “What?” Bachar gave his full attention to the man who was more than just a member of his pride. He considered the lone wolf a friend as well. “Why do you say that?”

  Tarek remained silent, and Bachar thought he wasn’t going to answer. Then he heard the low, softly spoken words. Words he would never have thought to hear from the other man. “I am not worthy of a mate.”

  “Tarek…” He knew the wolf’s past was riddled with pain. He’d been about to go rogue when Bachar had discovered him living on the mountain all those years ago. But he hadn’t asked about that past. Maybe that had been a mistaken on his part.

  “We are here.” Tarek slowed and pulled into the circular area in front of the hotel. He sat with the engine running, his attention focused ahead. Bachar wanted to stay and talk to him, but the call of his mate pulled at his lion. He cursed softly and exited the four wheel drive. He did lean back in before closing the door. “This conversation is not over, my friend.”

  He infused his tone with the power of his alpha so that the wolf would know he meant business. As expected, he received no answer. He shut the door and watched for a brief moment as Tarek drove away. Now that he had found his mate, he knew he needed to actively seek mates for those males around him. Maybe, with mated shifters, the humans surrounding them would be more likely to accept them.

  Now that he had his mate—his Sally—his thoughts were rushing to grow his pride where couples—and cubs—could flourish. Not just make money. For years, he realized, he had merely been existing. Surviving.

  That, he thought with a smile on his face at the prospect of seeing Sally again, was about to change.

  Bachar’s good mood lasted as long as it took him to arrive at his suite and discover that Sally was no longer there. Immediately, his lion began to pace, the animal as agitated as Bachar had ever felt. He rushed back down the stairs, too impatient to wait for the elevator. Daniel was not at the front desk. Instead, there was a man he had never seen before. A human. Bachar frowned. While he left the hiring and firing of personnel within the many pride businesses to the individual managers, he emphasized the importance of having shifters in jobs where discretion and security were important.

  “Where’s Daniel?”

  The man looked up from the computer, a bored and lazy expression on his face. “I don’t know.” The words and I don’t care, were strongly implied. The man’s attitude infuriated both Bachar and his cat, especially with the worry building inside of him concerning Sally.

  He leaned closer planning to rip the man a new one. That’s when he scented her. She had been here, probably stood right where he was standing, and not too long ago.

  “Where the hell is my mate?” The roar that left Bachar’s throat would have rivaled his brothers in the wild. The man jumped, startled, and almost fell from the stool on which he had been sitting. It also brought several other employees running from the back. Before they got to them, Bachar was up and over the counter, his hand around the human’s throat, lifting him from the floor. The man clawed at his throat as his air was slowly cut off from the tightening of Bachar’s hand.

  “Where is she?” From the fear in the man’s eyes, Bachar knew he didn’t have to explain who he was looking for, nor was Bachar left in any doubt as to this man’s involvement.

  “She—I—.” The man gurgled his answer

  “You might want to give him enough air to speak.” This came from behind Bachar, and the amused tone told him it wasn’t Tarek. Keair had finally decided to make an appearance. He spared the tiger shifter a brief but telling glance. He would deal with his second-in-command’s notable absence of the day before later.

  After he found his mate.

  He did as Keair suggested and eased the grip on the man’s throat, even lowering him slightly until his toes touched the floor. “Where?”

  “She wanted to borrow a car.” The words were innocently spoken, but the man refused to look him in the eye.

  “And where did she go?”

  “I didn’t ask.”

  At that point, Bachar was torn between throwing the useless human against the nearest wall or shredding his throat with the claws that had appeared at the tips of his fingers.

  “Allow me, Alpha. I believe, perhaps, you asked the incorrect question.” Keair held out his hand and Bachar handed the man over. Keair’s fingers closed around the other man’s throat as he leaned in close. “Where did you send her?”

  “I, I—.” The man struggled in earnest now, the golden glow in the tiger shifter’s eyes deadly.

  “You did send her somewhere, now didn’t you?” Keair opened his mouth to reveal a set of fully distended fangs. They were long and white and wet. His face had also started to morph, his cheekbones elongated as he partially shifted. His long claws cut into the flesh of the man’s throat, and soon rivulets of bright red blood slowly spilled from the man’s throat and coated Keair’s hand.

  “They wanted her. Knew she was his.” His eyes darted back to Bachar, a plea written in the beady depths.

  “Who?” Bachar’s cat was now under control, easily allowing Keair to gather the information. Both the cat and the man knew the tiger was a formidable presence. When deciding which shifter would lead his security force, it had been a difficult decision. Both Keair and Tarek were more than qualified for the job. However, Tarek had that edge about him that allowed him to complete Bachar’s somewhat harsher commands without question. Keair argued with Bachar over simple matters of business. He’d known the tiger would question his every move should it involve a matter of life or death.

  “The Group.” The man didn’t have to say anything more. The Group was the name the community had given to the humans determined to drive away the shifters. It had been formed when the shifters had first been given the land. Bachar had thought it had mostly disbanded until about three years ago when trouble had started again.

  “Fuck.” Bachar scraped his hand through his long strands of hand, tugging on the ends in frustration.

  “We’ll find her.”

  Bachar knew he was close to completely losing it when he realized he hadn’t noticed Tarek approaching.

  “Let me take care of this piece of shit, and we’ll leave.” Tarek motioned a member of the hotel’s security team forward. Keair’s face and voice had returned to no
rmal, but he still dangled the man from his hand. With a laugh, the team member, also a shifter, removed the human.

  The three men didn’t say a word as they stripped and quickly shifted. If any humans had happened along at that moment, they would have gotten an eyeful of three very handsome and well-endowed males. Within minutes, a lion, tiger, and wolf stood in the hotel lobby. The three animals moved forward as the doors were held open, running swiftly into the cold air. They had a woman to find. And not just any woman. The alpha’s mate.

  Sally cursed as the four wheel drive continued laboriously up the winding stretch of road. For the past half hour, she’d had her doubts that it would even be able to make the treacherous climb. When she’d first seen it, parked in the back of the hotel, next to the dumpsters, she’d almost gone back inside. It had been covered in mud, a large dent on both the front and back driver’s side doors. There was no way this was one of the vehicles Bachar used on a regular basis. His fussiness when it came to the finer things in life would not have allowed him to be seen in what was just a step up from Sally’s beat-up, old compact car back home.

  But, she’d reasoned with the heavy snowfall that most of the regular vehicles were probably in use, shuttling hotel guests and staff to town and back. Who was she to complain? At least the man had given her a car. Despite the fact that she had spent the night in the alpha’s bed, that didn’t make her special.

  Well, it had certainly made her feel special she thought, her body moistening as she remembered last night. She wondered briefly if there could possibly be a repeat once she found her brother.

  Probably not. They’d been thrown together under a strange set of circumstances. She had no illusions that last night had been just that, one night. She was just grateful that he had found Nick and that Nick hadn’t suffered any injuries from his adventure. A wolf pack had found him and taken him in according to Bachar. But that didn’t mean the boy was getting off Scott-free. Yes, he was a teenager, a teenager with a very old soul, and he was a wolf shifter, but he was still her brother. And she was still responsible for him.

  Running away hadn’t been the answer.

  Her hands tightened on the wheel. Not that she knew what the answer was. Maybe, Bachar could help her. Help them both. Maybe the wolf pack would be willing to give Nick shifter lessons. Well, that sounded dumb, Sally thought. And condescending. She forced back the tears as uncertainty started to overwhelm her again.

  No. She was strong. She’d proven that over and over again during the last few years. She’d survived the loss of her stepfather and mother, gotten her degree, worked hard to provide for herself and her brother. And hadn’t freaked out, much, when said brother had shifted with no warning. She was strong.

  As she gave herself the much-needed pep talk, she realized she was about to miss the last turn off. Even as she started to slow down, she heard the roar of a vehicle come up behind her. Wincing, she eased her foot off the gas, thinking it might be Bachar. He’d warned her not to leave the hotel last night, but she hadn’t thought the same warning would apply today. It had stopped snowing so that danger had passed.

  But she had a deep, down feeling that he wouldn’t like to be disobeyed in any sense. Or, that he would like her going off to find her brother herself. She’d done that for two reasons. She truly didn’t want to bother Bachar with her issues, and she really wanted to get her brother and leave the shifter territory as quickly as possible.

  The vehicle behind her slowed even though there was plenty of room for it to pass. The windows were darkened so she couldn’t see who was inside. It didn’t look like one of Bachar’s, sharing the same run down condition as her borrowed one. She gave her turn signal and prepared to make the turn. Before she could, the front end of the car following her hit her rear bumper.

  “Crap,” she squealed, thinking she hadn’t given them enough notice before slowing down and they had slid into her. When it slammed into her car again, she knew that wasn’t the case.

  “What the fuck?” she whispered to herself, glancing in the rearview mirror. Now she was panicking, did she turn off, leaving the main road to travel on what looked like a one lane road—a road she was unfamiliar with? Not that she knew where the road ahead of her would lead to either.

  Her mind flooded with thoughts of Bachar, and she wanted desperately for him to appear. As the large SUV hit her again, sending her slightly smaller vehicle spinning, she realized she was in one hell of a predicament.

  Bachar, Tarek, and Keair ran through the woods, their oversized animals carrying them quickly over the snow and downed trees from last night’s storm. Tarek, his animal more comfortable in the wintery conditions, lead the way.

  Bachar could hear vehicles in the distance up ahead and prayed one was Sally’s. He heard more laboring up the mountain and knew instinctively that Tarek had ordered the security team to follow them. While his lion was roaring in his head to go faster, to gather more reinforcements, he knew that both the wolf and the tiger would lay down their lives to protect him, and more importantly to protect his mate.

  He breathed in the cold air, the nostrils of his lion opening and closing, letting out large puffs of white air. In other circumstances, he would have enjoyed the speed at which he was running with these two men. Enjoyed the feeling of freedom. But not today. Not while Sally was in danger.

  Tarek slowed and then stopped, his snout in the air. Bachar and Keair stopped right behind him, scanning the area. A wolf’s sense of smell was greater than a cat’s, but both Bachar and Keair could see farther and with greater detail.

  Tarek moved again, loping towards the road. Within minutes, the three came upon an abandoned vehicle, nose first in a ditch. Bachar didn’t hesitate to change back into a man, despite the freezing temperatures and the fact that he was naked. He strode through the snow as if it were a sandy beach and yanked the driver’s side door.

  “Damn it.” Sally’s scent immediately assaulted his senses. “She was here.”

  The other two men remained in their animal form, Tarek, already starting to track. Luckily the snow predicted for the day had not started yet and the tire tracks of another vehicle were clearly visible. As were the signs of a struggle. Spotting a dark patch in the snow, he knelt down, touching it with his fingertips before bringing it to his nose. As he feared, it was blood. Her blood. For the first time since he was but a cub, the shift came over him without any thought or control on his part. His lion sent a chilling roar through the mountains as it bounded forward, determined to find its mate.

  Sally tried not to allow the terror racing through her overcome her and make her the helpless victim she knew the men wanted her to be. Despite her best efforts, she’d been forced off the road and dragged from her vehicle. She’d struggled and managed to bloody the nose of one of the men and bruise at least one pair of balls.

  Unfortunately, her efforts to defend herself had also resulted in a bruised cheek and split lip for herself.

  After the men had kidnapped her, she’d been surprised when they had continued in the same direction that the front desk clerk had told her to go. Until her brain had woken up and she’d realized that he had been part of the plan.

  A plan she was still uncertain of. Why would they want to kidnap her? Unless her brother was in far more danger than Bachar had told her, there was no reason. He was a young half-shifter, of absolutely no threat to anyone. The ride down the bumpy road didn’t last long, and soon they were pulling her roughly from the back seat.

  “Sally Abigail Wilder, what have you gotten yourself into?” she murmured to herself as two of the men dragged her through the snow and onto the front porch of what appeared to be an old hunting lodge that had fallen into a deep state of disrepair. For a moment, her twisted sense of humor took over as she wondered if Bachar was aware that such a building was on his lands. It was nothing like the elegant hotels she’d seen so far. She doubted he even knew of its existence. If he had, he no doubt would have had it razed. She knew it would have offe
nded his senses. The smell certainly offended hers. Her eyes started to water at the putrid odor assailing her poor nose as she was forced inside.

  “Well, well, well, what do we have here?” An unpleasant male voice came from the far end of the room. The man behind her pushed her forward, almost making her fall. Thankfully, her hands were tied in front of her so she kept her balance..

  “So have you slept with the mangy lion?” The man walked over to her, sniffing the air. She had no way of knowing if he was a shifter or a human. If he were a shifter, he would surely smell Bachar’s scent on her.

  Sally raised her chin, looking the man directly in the eye. “I’m not sure to whom you’re referring to.” Maybe she could confuse him with proper grammar.

  The other man frowned. “Bachar. Have you slept with him?”

  Sally threw back her hair, defiance written all over her small face. “Have you seen the man? He’s built like a brick shithouse. Of course, I slept with him.”

  “Did he mark you?” He gripped her chin and twisted her neck from side to side. When he didn’t find anything, he grabbed the neck of her t-shirt and ripped it until the tops of her breasts were exposed. “I see he didn’t. You must not be important then.”

  “Well, thanks a lot,” Sally muttered. “You sure know how to build a girl’s self-esteem.”

  The man laughed. “You are nothing but a whore that spreads her legs for dirty shifters.”

  “I take it you aren’t one then?”

  “How dare you suggest such a thing?” The affronted look on his face told Sally he’d just as soon have been accused of being a leper.

  Sally started to shiver, the temperature in the small cabin not much higher than that outside. She’d realized in the last few moments that she was in the hands of the radical humans that had been in the news for the past several months. They wanted the government to take back the land they had given the shifters and basically round them up and put them on reservations, much like the government had Native-Americans. While humans had never welcomed the disclosure of the existence of shifters with open arms and happy hearts, most of humanity had accepted them. There were however still small pockets of humans around the country, even the world, who were less than thrilled to know that man wasn’t at the top of the food chain anymore.