SEDUCED BY THE
LION ALPHA
A BBW Paranormal Shifter Romance
BONNIE BURROWS
Copyright ©2014 by Bonnie
All rights reserved.
About This Book
When An Innocent BBW Meets An Alpha Lion On The Prowl....
Leon is a strong and handsome Werelion who is the Alpha of his pride. It is mating season and with no desirable females in his pride he is out to seek a new mate. He is heading toward the city to find a Lioness when he stumbles across the cute and curvaceous Lauren in a bit of trouble.
As far as he can see, Lauren is 100% human but her curves are just calling out to him. Is Leon about to go against all of his animal instincts and mate with a human female?
Either way, Lauren is about to find out that being seduced by a Lion Alpha is something that has huge consequences for the both of them..
Table Of Contents
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER ONE
I yawned, stretching high into the air and up onto the toes of my sneakers. It was late afternoon, and the sun had shifted behind the trees of the forest, throwing golden light across the underbrush that coated the forest floor. I shifted my bag strap between my shoulders and loosened it again. The cool breeze did little to suffocate the humidity, but the temperature wasn’t too bad for May. It had allowed me to ditch my sweater, leaving me in a frilly pink shirt and my favorite worn jeans. They were getting frayed at the bottoms from wear and tear, but I saw no reason to get rid of them just yet. Perhaps soon I’d be able to put some nice patches on the bottom.
The forest was filled with noise as I walked through the paths that led me to my usual sitting place. The chirping of birds fluttered passed my ears. I heard the call of a jay, the whistle of a robin, and the chattering of the chickadees above me. I laughed, turning my face up toward the sun. It was the perfect day to get some good reading in, or perhaps some good sketching. Both my paperback novel and my sketchbook lay in my bag. If one wasn’t enough for my afternoon in the sun, the other would do in a pinch. I’d spent weeks before sketching the forests with my pencils and charcoal, but every view was different. I’d have no trouble finding something else to draw, no matter where I chose to sit.
My worn shoes padded against the dirt, skirting the edge of underbrush. It was picturesque – so much so that I was beginning to wish I had my camera. The one on my phone simply wouldn’t do a place like this justice. And while my sketchbook was good for capturing sketched snapshots, the colors of the forest were too much for me to draw. I only had my pencils, and that wasn’t enough.
Thousands of colors filled my vision: from the red-brown of the maple leaves that matched my braided hair to the dozens of greens and yellows which made up the grass, leaves, and vines of other plants; purples, blues, pinks, and yellows danced across the underbrush in clusters – flowers I didn’t know the names of, though I wished I did. There were birds that swooped and ducked – yellow, brown, and red, with the occasional blue. Brown, black, and grey squirrels skittered across the forest floor. And the blue of the sky shone down on it all. All of it was overlaid with the golden light and heat of the sun which tickled my face alongside the light breeze, and the smell of maple and fresh pine that always made me relax. I could taste the forest on my tongue, mingled with the chocolate muffins I’d eaten for breakfast. And the light breeze tickled the entire forest, sending melodies through the air as the leaves ruffled and shook their symphony.
In short, it was a perfect day.
A few more minutes of walking took me to the old clearing near the river where I liked to read. There were a couple of squirrels collecting fallen nuts there, but they scattered when I approached. I took a seat against the tree and pulled my book from my side bag. It was a romance novel, a little trashier than I usually read, but the cover, especially the bare chest of the leading man, had drawn my attention. The markings on his skin - the old symbols for wizards - had further drawn my interest, and the magic system had further intrigued me, leading me to enjoy the story even more than my usual romantic choices.
I opened the book and started to read, letting my mind sink into the stories of the world. My arm hair rose as the leading man took the rebellious princess into his arms and begged forgiveness for all he had done to her throughout the story. They were turning to kiss and…
A tiger burst through the trees not twenty feet from me. Its long, lean body was a vibrant beacon in the forest. For a second after it appeared, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. There were no tigers in this part of the state, or even in this part of the country. There were zoos, but a tiger wouldn’t have been able to get this far away from the city if it escaped. Animal control would have gotten them.
The tiger seemed almost as surprised as I was. Then it started circling me. I tried to stand, but my legs wouldn’t obey me, and I slid back to the ground with a thump. I fumbled for my book on the ground where I had dropped it. Maybe I could use it to fight it off. Even as I touched the book cover, I knew it was a ridiculous thought, but I didn’t have a lot of other options at the moment.
A few seconds passed. The tiger slowly circled toward me, and we stared at each other. I couldn’t tell what it was thinking. My bag was out of reach, and I wasn’t about to turn my back on this creature or its sharp claws and fangs.
The tiger lunged. I screamed and threw my hands over my head. A golden streak burst from the trees to my left. It tackled the tiger. They hit the water, rolled, and landed on the other side. As they jumped up, I saw what had saved me. It was a lion. Its fur was soaking wet, and its bared teeth gleamed in its red and black mouth. It shook out its mane, and stepped toward the tiger. The powerful muscles of its legs balled and flexed as it leaped. I screamed again.
The lion hit the tiger and they rolled. A clash of teeth and claws flashed before my eyes. The tiger was bigger, faster, but the lion seemed more determined. It circled and snapped, pulled at the tiger’s tail, swiped at its paws, and took a snap at its face. Blood spattered onto the ground beneath them.
They were back in the river, clawing at each other. The lion leaped up onto the bank, not fifteen feet from me. This time I managed to get my feet under me. I scrambled backward and ducked behind the tree. I couldn’t go up, I was too heavy for the thin branches, and I couldn’t run. I was trapped. Trapped because I didn’t know which one would attack me first.
I clapped a hand over my mouth, and tried to stay quiet. My eyes grew wider and wider as I struggled to understand what was happening. The action was fast and furious. Blood and fur and claws were everywhere. I didn’t know whether to scream or cry, and so I just watched it all unfold before me.
The lion and tiger snapped and snarled at each other. I watched as the lion, smaller though it was, leaped at the tiger once more. The tiger darted sideways and rolled into a jump. The two collided in midair and flipped backward from each other. The lion snapped at the tiger and stalked forward. It growled, a low rumble in its throat that made my jaw vibrate from its intensity. With a hiss, the tiger slashed at the lion. Blood flashed in the air and dripped onto the ground. The lion stumbled back, its muzzle streaked with blood. It reared up and roared. The tiger flinched, shrinking back , its face contorted with fear. The lion lunged again. This time it connected properly. The tiger snapped at the lion, but it was no use. Even with the tiger’s extra strength, the lion had it pinned. The lion snapped at the tiger, tearing at its fur and streaking it with blood as wounds bubbled up and obscured its orange and black fur. Roars and snarls filled the ai
r.
The tiger let out a roar of pain and jerked, then lay still. The lion clambered back to its paws and took a few hesitant steps backward.
There was something distinctly human about the way the lion watched the tiger. Something human in the way it stepped back and allowed the tiger to get back to its feet; in the way it watched as the tiger let out a weak noise before disappearing into the forest to lick its wounds. I stared, my gaze flickering from the lion to the retreating tiger. The human-like qualities of the lion vanished along with the tiger, but it still looked smug. It was only when the tiger had completely disappeared from view that I allowed myself to breathe properly again. Almost instantly, the gaze of the lion switched from the disappeared tiger to me. I went rigid once more. I should have waited for the lion to vanish as well, or fled while they’d been distracted. I’d been a fool, and now I was going to be killed for my foolishness.
The lion padded toward me slowly, its tail swishing back and forth. It was silent, more silent than a creature of that size and power had any right to be. I stared as I slowly backed away . The body of the lion was distinctly animal, and the movements of the creature were likewise animal, but the humanity was returning to it – now the small flash of human curiosity and mercy lingered in the creature’s eyes. Such large, expressive eyes, and, despite my fear, I itched to draw them.
Before my eyes and against all that I knew to be possible, the lion reared up on its hind legs. As it did, its body began to change. Its legs straightened out, its paws shrunk. The golden fur shrunk back into the body and was replaced with slightly darker skin. The mane of the lion vanished as well, flexing around the head and face even as the muzzle reshaped itself. When it was over, a man stood before me. A man in the place of a lion. I stumbled backward, my eyes wide and my head spinning. A man instead of a lion. This was impossible. My eyes refused to believe what they had seen. I blinked hard, but the vision remained.
“Hello,” he said. He was naked. But I couldn’t focus on that. I couldn’t focus on anything. All I could see in my mind was that there was a man where there should have been a lion. Nothing that had just happened should have been possible. I stumbled back even further. My back hit a tree, and I grabbed onto it. I skirted around it and kept backing up.
“Please, it’s all right,” he said. He held out his hands toward me and walked forward.
I bolted. I ran through the trees, forgetting my book and my bag. I pushed through the underbrush; I dove between branches. I ran as hard and as fast as I could, even when my body started to ache and scream for me to stop. I slid around the edges of the mud, and grabbed trees when I started to tumble forward. I couldn’t stop. The man should not exist. I had to get away from him. Then, just when I thought I might pass out from a lack of air, I tripped. The whole world toppled around me. Everything twisted sideways. My head ricocheted hard off the ground. The world stretched to cartoonish proportions. And then everything went black.
CHAPTER TWO
For a time, there was only darkness. Darkness and floating. There was no pain, no emotion, nothing. Simply darkness and floating.
My senses came back to me slowly as I returned to consciousness. Sound returned first. The gentle drip of water struck hard against my ears, flattening them out and driving the sound into the base of my skull. Each irregular drip sent a staccato of pain dancing inside my skull. I couldn’t move properly. Each tiny twitch sent red-hot heat through me. The hum of an overhead fan muffled the dripping sound, but did little to ease the pain.
Smell returned second. The light smell of pine and musk slipped into my nostrils, followed by the smell of soup – beef. And, internally, that made me smile. A thicker smell, something more animalistic and tangy flooded my nose when I took a deeper breath. It chocked out all other smells for a minute.
The rest of my senses followed soon after. The taste of blood, a copper tang that flooded my tongue, the smell of dirt, the feel of a blanket, scratchy but warm beneath my fingers, and, finally, the light of a singular lamp, and perhaps some windows. Slowly, ever so slowly, I opened my eyes. The light burned my retinas for a moment, but then my eyes adjusted. I squinted and blinked and tried to get my eyes to focus and adjust. I stared up at the angled dark wooden ceiling for a long moment. Seconds ticked by before I finally managed to make sense of it; before I figured out that it was indeed a ceiling. There was a slow spinning fan hanging there. The gentle “wump wump” of its movements drew my ears into proper focus as well.
A figure moved to my left. I twitched, my fingers drawing together into a loose fist, but I could barely move. The figure turned toward me. Through my half-open eyes, I could see it holding a cloth. Gently, it dabbed it against my forehead. The sensation burned before it cooled and tingled. I hissed, struggling to squirm and shake my head. A warm hand settled over my shoulder. My eyes had gone out of focus again, leaving the figure cloaked in shadow and darkness.
“Welcome back to the land of the living.” The voice was a deep rumble – smooth and low, like he’d spent years hiding his smoker’s voice. I blinked a few more times, and my vision started to come back into focus. The man standing above me was tall and lean. His shaggy hair was a few shades darker than gold, and his skin was only a bit lighter. He grinned at me, flashing several teeth too sharp to be human. Then it hit me – this was the man from the forest. The man who had been a lion.
I gasped and jerked back from him. Searing pain roared in my skull. It burned across the side of my head and slammed into my ears and eyes. My vision fogged. My ears pounded. Hands leaped to my shoulders – hands that were not my own. They pressed me back into the bed. Foggy words spoken in a soothing voice barely reached through the pounding. I could not understand them, but they soothed me slightly. Against my better judgment, I began to relax. The words filtered through, slowly changing and faltering until they started to solidify. I blinked a few times, straining with my ears to try and understand what he man before me was saying.
His mouth came into focus. It was a pretty mouth. A little bow flexed in worry and wrinkled around the edges with confusion. I wondered what had him so worried. It struck me then that it might have been me. I didn’t understand why. I couldn’t fathom that this man, this lion man, would have been upset over me. I was just a girl, and he was… Well, I didn’t know what he was. I wanted to ask him.
He was still talking, and now my ears were coming back into focus. Slowly, ever so slowly, his words solidified into something I could understand.
“Are you all right?” he asked. The words echoed around my skull, rattling a new headache. I didn’t dare nod for fear of my head falling off and rolling away, but I also didn’t want to speak. My throat was raw, like I had been screaming. But I knew my screams from earlier wouldn’t have been enough to hurt my throat so much. I wondered if I had been screaming after I fell. I wondered how hard I had fallen. I wondered if perhaps this was all a dream – a dream with a very attractive leading man.
Eventually, I managed a weak, watery smile through the pain, and leaned a little further back into the pillows. They were soft and downy, and they rushed up to meet me. The sounds around me were further muffled, but I didn’t mind. Their softness, coupled with the muffling, did wonders to my headache.
“Do you need anything?” asked the man. His words were soft, but they still struck hard. I winced, waiting for the stab of pain to vanish. Then, when I was sure I wouldn’t throw up, I opened my eyes again. I stared at him for a moment, trying to understand him. This was a man I had seen turn from a lion into a man. A man who had fought a tiger trying to kill me. A man who had been naked the last time I had seen him. My face heated up at that last thought. Images of his body – long, lean, and hairy, though not nearly as much as the lion – floated up in my mind. I ducked my head to hide my blush. When I looked back up, he was grinning. The too-sharp teeth were visible again. This time they didn’t look menacing. They looked almost friendly, almost playful. I nearly smiled before remembering I had no idea who this
man was, or why he had taken me to his house.
“I’ll get you some water,” he said. Standing, he turned and walked out of the room, still chuckling to himself. I rubbed my face with both hands and cursed internally. I had gotten distracted in my thoughts, leading me to stare even longer at him. It wasn’t that I was thinking of him naked – those thoughts had only lasted a moment, but I couldn’t erase the feeling that that was exactly what he thought I was thinking about.
With the man out of the room, I was finally able to take in my surroundings properly. I pushed myself up and struggled back against the pillows. My head was ringing. I shook my head slowly to clear the fog in my vision. It seemed to be working – slowly, but steadily.
I looked around and tried to determine where I was in the world. I was in a cabin, as I had first expected. The wood panel ceilings and log walls gave that much away, at least. It appeared there were multiple rooms. I sat on a bed in one. It was a single bed - low to the ground - and an end table and dresser took up the majority of the room alongside it. A woven rug sat on the wooden floor and went almost to the door. It was an old fashioned looking thing. It had lions and other big cats woven into its fabric. It looked like it was telling a story, but I couldn’t tell the story from where I was sitting. I suspected most of it was hidden by the bed.
Seduced By The Lion Alpha Page 1
