PROMISED TO
THE PRIDE
A PARANORMAL SHAPESHIFTER ROMANCE
BONNIE BURROWS
Copyright ©2017 by Bonnie Burrows
All rights reserved.
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About This Book
Natalie was promised to the pride leader before she was even old enough to walk. And now the time has come to be mated to him.
However, Natalie is already in love with another Werelion called Kyle. Her best friend since childhood.
Now, if Natalie and Kyle are to be together then Kyle has to do something that no other Lion in the pride has done before. Defeat the leader in a battle to the death and the odds are stacked heavily against him.
Can Natalie stand by and watch the man she loves die for her? Or could there be another way for them to be together?
This is a thrilling WereLion Shifter romance that you are guaranteed to love. Download now and start enjoying this awesome read!
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER ONE
Kyle
Kyle was pacing around the room and trying to decide what he could do to help save Natalie before she got stuck mated to their jackass pride leader. Their leaders had been put in place based on birthright for many generations, and until Jason Desmond, that had never been a problem. Usually, the former leader and his family raised their successor to be a smart and kind leader who cared about their pride, but that wasn’t the case with Jason. His father had been killed in a hunting accident, leaving him as the pride leader when he was just thirteen years old. He was a bully then, and the power he was given so early in his life went to his head. Jason only cared about Jason. He was an egotistical bastard and a womanizer who often became physically abusive with the women he took to his bed. Kyle had to do something to save Natalie from a lifetime of affairs and abuse at the hands of their tyrannical leader. The problem was, Natalie was promised to be the mate of the pride-leader when she turned twenty-one, and that wasn’t something Jason would let her out of. The only way to keep Natalie from getting stuck with Jason was for someone to challenge Jason to take over as the pride leader.
“Kyle, there isn’t anything you can do,” Natalie told Kyle. He was still pacing furiously until Natalie stepped in front of him, forcing him to pause, and took his hands in her own. “My parents made a blood pledge, and you know that. There isn’t any way to get me out of this engagement.”
“There has to be a way,” Kyle argued with Natalie. “I won’t stand back and watch him hurt you. It’s bad enough that he is a horrible leader who doesn’t do anything for our people. I won’t let him ruin your life, Natalie.”
Natalie had been his best friend since they were only five years old, and Kyle had known he was in love with her since they were fifteen. Five years later, he was still trying to find a way to save her from mating Jason and find a way for them to be together. Life hadn’t gotten any better for the pride either. The pride leader was supposed to be someone who looked after the needs of the pride above himself, but Jason was anything but selfless. The only thing that he cared about was power and money. Werelions were naturally proud people, but Jason had run their pride into the ground in the eyes of the other magical beings of their world, and now, no one outside of the pride wanted to have anything to do with them.
“There is one thing you can do, Kyle,” Craig said from the other side of the room. Craig was Kyle’s brother, and they were very close. Craig was a year younger than Kyle, and with such a small gap in their ages, they had always been close growing up. “You can challenge him for the position of pride leader.”
Natalie let go of Kyle’s hands and turned around so fast he barely saw her move. “Craig Becker! Are you crazy? Jason would send his protectors after him in a heartbeat. No way would it ever be a fair challenge, and you know it.”
Kyle placed his hand on Natalie’s shoulder in an effort to calm her down. She was shaking, and he knew it was part anger but also part fear. He couldn’t deny that the thought had crossed his mind before as well, but he never imagined that he would be able to get the support needed in order to beat Jason out for the position of leader. Jason might be hated overall, but he was smart enough to take care of the ones who protected him, and he chose the strongest werelions to be at his beck and call. That made it hard to beat him, and it inspired fear in the rest of the pride, which meant getting supporters for such a challenge would be near impossible.
“Craig, I don’t know if we would even have a shot at successfully challenging him,” Kyle told his brother. “You know that everyone is afraid of what he will have done to them if they defy him. That’s why nobody has done anything before.”
“I know that it might be a long shot,” Craig agreed, “but what other choice is there?”
Kyle knew that his brother made a good point. He had been trying to figure out a way to get Natalie out of her arranged mating with Jason for years, and he had come up with absolutely nothing. Craig was right, and Kyle knew it. The only shot that they had of saving her from a miserable life was for someone to challenge and beat Jason for the pride leader position.
“He’s right, Natalie.” She turned back toward Kyle, a look of shock clear on her face. “I will never be able to live with myself if I don’t at least try.”
“But Kyle, how can you win against him and his army of pumped-up goons?”
He pulled Natalie into his arms and looked down at her so that their faces were mere inches apart. “If he takes you away from me, I won’t have anything, so I might as well give it a shot before it is too late. I would rather go out fighting to save the person I love than sit back and do nothing, just watching while he turns the person I care about most in this world into an empty, sad shell.”
“I think that both of you are underestimating our people and their hatred for Jason’s tyrannical ways,” Craig told them. “If you check it out, I think that you will find there are a lot more people who will be willing to stand beside you if you challenge his leadership.”
“Let’s do it,” Kyle told Natalie and Craig. “Between the three of us, I am sure we know enough people we can approach to begin forming an alliance. I cannot think of a single person I know who wouldn’t love to see Jason gone.”
“Exactly!” Craig agreed. “I’ll go start talking to some of my friends now.”
“Thanks, brother. I think we should all get to work right away. If we are going to do this, we need to hurry. Natalie’s birthday is in a couple of months, so we don’t have any time to waste.”
“If you guys think this is what is best, then I a
m with you,” Natalie finally agreed. “I’ll get started with my parents. They have been apologizing to me for years for promising me to a leader they didn’t know at the time. Well, they have always said that they wished they could do something to make it up to me, and now they can.”
Kyle gave Natalie a kiss. “Be careful, okay? If Jason hears about what we are doing, I don’t want your name getting dragged into it. It won’t be pretty if he finds out what we are up to before we have the chance to get enough people to support us.” He looked over to where Craig stood texting on his phone, probably already texting their plans to his friends. Craig was always the more impulsive brother between the two of them. “That goes for you too, little brother.”
“You don’t have to worry about me,” Craig told him. He flashed his bulging muscles and a cheeky smile at Kyle and Natalie.
Natalie rolled her eyes at Craig, and Kyle just laughed. All werelions where incredibly strong, but Craig and Kyle were both more muscularly gifted than most, and Craig loved to flaunt his body any time he thought that he could. “Oh my God, it is definitely time for me to go before his over inflated ego takes up all of the oxygen in the room. I’ll get up with you later after I talk to my parents.” Natalie hugged Kyle and left.
“We should probably talk to mom, too,” Kyle told Craig.
“No worries. I already texted her.” Craig held his phone up so that Kyle was able to read the text he had sent to their mother.
Hey mom, Kyle’s going to kick that scumbag Jason out and take over. You have to be on our team. Love ya.
“Craig! What the hell, man? You can’t text Mom something like that.”
Sometimes Kyle wanted to strangle his brother. Craig believed in actions before thoughts, and that usually turned out to be a bad thing. Case in point: Craig texting their mom about Kyle’s decision to challenge their pride leader.
“Kyle, it’s okay. Mom texts me all of the time.”
“No, Craig. I wasn’t disputing Mom’s ability to text. What I was trying to say is that you shouldn’t have texted Mom to tell her that we’ve basically decided to start a war. She will freak out when she reads that.”
Craig opened his mouth to say something else, but his phone rang before he had the chance, and when he looked at the screen to see who was calling, his face fell.
“Hey, Mom.”
After he answered, he paused for several minutes. Kyle watched as his eyebrows drew together and he closed his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose. “No, Mom. It’s not like that. Kyle is fine, and he hasn’t gotten into a fight with Jason.” Another pause, and then, “I just meant that we were going to find others who support us and will stand by Kyle’s side when he challenges Jason to be the new pride leader.”
After a few more minutes, Craig hung up the phone, and Kyle’s face broke out into a wide grin. “What was that you said about it being cool to text Mom?”
Craig flipped him off. “Oh, shut the hell up.”
Kyle laughed briefly before becoming serious once again. “What did she say about our plan?”
“She’s worried, but that is to be expected. She thought that you had gone off to fight him on your own, and she was about to rip me a new one for not stopping you.”
“Like I said, not the kind of shit you should be texting people, especially Mom. Now that that’s over, let’s go get this started. If we are going to have any hopes of getting enough people together to face Jason before Natalie’s birthday, then we need to get started right away.”
Craig agreed, and they both devised a quick list of the people they would talk to first—the ones that they felt they might have a chance of convincing on their own. Then they split the list to ensure they were not both going to end up talking to the same people. When Craig made it to the home of the first person he wanted to invite, he had to take a minute to collect himself before he knocked. He knew that by just talking to these people, he was potentially putting himself in harm’s way. If Jason or one of his goons found out about what Kyle was up to, they would shut him down hard. This whole idea was dangerous, and not just for him. Anyone who went along with him was at risk of Jason’s retaliation. Hell, the asshole would probably punish people just for talking to Jason, even if they declined to help him at all. God forbid if he were to find out that Natalie was a part of Kyle’s plan to overthrow him. Kyle couldn’t bear to imagine the horrible things that Jason would do to her. As bad as he treated the women who have never betrayed him, Natalie’s fate would be atrocious, without a doubt.
Kyle was still fighting the images in his head when the door he was standing in front of swung open and Glenn Sanders was standing in front of him.
“Hey, Kyle,” Glenn greeted him with a handshake. “We heard someone walk up on the porch, like, fifteen minutes ago. Is something going on?”
“I was hoping I could talk to you and Alice, if you have a minute,” Kyle told him.
Glenn stepped back to allow Kyle room to pass by him and enter the house. Alice was in the kitchen when Kyle entered the house, preparing something to eat.
“You hungry, Kyle?” she asked him while holding up a loaf of bread and some sliced ham and offering to make him a sandwich.
Kyle smiled politely but didn’t take Alice up on her offer. “No thanks, Alice. I was actually hoping that I could talk to you and Glenn about something kind of important.”
Glenn and Alice glanced at each other, and Kyle saw the look of concern when it passed between the two mates. “Is everything alright, Kyle?” Glenn asked him after a second.
“Yes, everything is … actually, no, everything isn’t fine. It hasn’t been fine for years, and that is why I’m here.”
Alice and Glenn both sat down at the kitchen table and gestured for Kyle to join them. “Kyle, you are worrying me,” Alice told him. “Please, just go ahead and say what you need to say. If you need something, we will be happy to help; you only need to ask.”
Kyle rubbed the back of his neck. He wondered if Alice would be offering such blind assistance if she knew why he was here. There was only one way to find out, so he bit the bullet and told them exactly what he wanted from them. “I plan to challenge Jason for the position of pride leader. I need supporters if I am going to have a chance at all against him and his goons. Craig and I are meeting with our closest family and friends first to see if we can find anyone who will stand with us. Jason has been hurting our people and getting away with it for way too long, and I am hoping you will join me in the fight to stop him.”
Alice’s eyes gave away her unease when they grew wide in disbelief. Glenn stared at him, rubbing his fingers over his short goatee while he studied Kyle. Glenn finally spoke, breaking the awkward silence that had settled between the three of them. “This wouldn’t have anything to do with the fact that Natalie is supposed to mate him in just a couple of months when she turns twenty-one, would it?”
Kyle was looking Glenn right in the eyes when he answered him. “You know I would be lying if I told you that it didn’t, but she is not the only reason. It is way past time for him to be put in his place. Jason has been the worst leader our pride has had in centuries, and he isn’t doing anything but hurting us. He has to be stopped.”
When Alice spoke up and pledged her help in whatever way possible to before Glenn, Kyle and Glenn were both surprised. “That pig has been defiling and beating women for years, and no one has stood up to stop him yet. It’s about time our people stand up and put him in his place—face down in the dirt like the pig he is.”
Kyle was shocked by Alice’s outburst about their current leader. It was no secret that all of the werelions hated Jason as their leader, the women especially, but it wasn’t something people verbalized often.
Glenn squeezed Alice’s hand and smiled at her. When he turned back to Kyle, he already knew what Glenn’s answer was going to be before he said it out loud. Mates stuck together, and there was no way a male werelion would sit by while his mate fought any kind of battle alone. “I’m in.
Let’s kick this fool’s ass. Like my mate said, let’s finally put him where he belongs.”
When Kyle left, he was feeling a lot more optimistic than he had been when he had first walked up on Glenn and Alice’s porch. He had expected to have to do a lot more convincing. Maybe he had underestimated how much his people were ready to be rid of Jason. He hated to admit it, but Craig might have been right.
CHAPTER TWO
Natalie
When Natalie got home, she decided to wait until after dinner to talk to her parents. They were always a little wound up when they first got home for the day, and she wanted to make sure they had time to wind down so that they would be in a more susceptible mood. Her mother had fresh lamb chops out to make for dinner, so Natalie decided she would go ahead and cook dinner for them; maybe butter them up a little bit before she asked them to join a cause that might get them killed. Natalie’s parents had made a blood oath arranging her mating to the current pride leader when she turned twenty-one. No matter how much they hated Jason, their current leader, there wasn’t anything that they were able to do in order to get Natalie out of the mating arrangement. The only way Natalie wasn’t going to be forced to mate Jason was if something miraculous happened leading to a new pride leader taking over before her birthday. She was certain that her only hope of that happening would be if Kyle was successful in his challenge against Jason.
Natalie heard the front door open and shut before her father spoke up.
“Wow, something smells great in here.”
She was setting the table when her parents walked into the kitchen. Her mom looked from the table, to the finished meal by the stove, and then to Natalie and crossed her arms. “Something is up. Why are you trying to win over your father and me by cooking dinner?”
Promised To The Pride Page 1
