Quarterback Lion: A Paranormal Shapeshifter Romance

by Lilly Pink

  ***“We are going to visit a neighboring pride today,” Greg said when they got up for the day. “It is tradition to introduce the new pride leader and his mate to the other prides in the area. Since you are a true queen, the others have been dying to meet you, according to my mother.” Greg rolled his eyes and Olivia laughed.

  Olivia laughed. “You know, you can’t keep me all to yourself, mister,” Olivia told her mate.

  Greg wrapped his arms around Olivia’s waist. “Obviously not. We’ve been spending all of our time with the pride, and now we have to go make nice with the Foresters’ clan.”

  When Greg poked out his bottom lip, mock pouting, Olivia leaned into him and planted a kiss there.

  “How about we go ahead and make the decision to spend all day together tomorrow,” Olivia suggested. “We can lock ourselves in the bedroom and ignore the world for a few hours.”

  Greg pulled Olivia tighter against his body and placed a soft, lingering kiss on her mouth. When he broke the kiss, he wiggled his eyebrows up and down at her and said, “Then we can work on continuing the Wilds’ family line.”

  Olivia laughed and smacked his chest playfully, although, she had to admit that his idea was a pretty good one. “I’ll see what I can work out, Mr. Wilds,” Olivia said playfully.

  “Good,” Greg said. “Now, let’s go get this visit over with. The sooner we do, the sooner we can get back here and start that practice.”

  This time when Olivia tried to smack her ridiculous mate, he darted out of her reach and ran outside. When she went out to meet him, Greg had already shed his clothes and taken off running towards the caves where they were going to meet up with everyone else.

  It was a twenty-minute run from their caves to the Foresters’ land and they headed that way right after meeting up with all of the Wilds at their caves. They were about ten minutes out when two lions Olivia didn’t know approached them. They were both winded and covered in blood and Olivia was immediately on alert. She could feel a change in the air as the rest of the pride all had the same reaction to the sight of these two lions. Something was very wrong.

  When the two lions noticed Olivia, she was surprised to see their eyes widen in shock, and then they both bowed their heads down to her.

  “My queen, please forgive our appearance,” one of the lions sent them through their thoughts. “Our pride was attacked and Edmund sent us to find you and warn you.”

  Olivia could see the panic in the young lions’ eyes as they both stood before her and Greg. “Alright Glenn, just take a breath,” Greg told the lion who had just informed them of the situation they were about to walk into. “Do either of you know who attacked your pride?” he asked.

  This time the other lion answered, “It was the Diochantis, sir.”

  Olivia heard a lot of low growling coming from the members of her pride, and she was right there with them. She was new to this world, yet this was the second time she was witness to an attack by the Diochantis. She wondered just how often these evil creatures would be an issue for them and their kind.

  “How many?” Jane asked as she came up to the front of their group to stand beside Olivia.

  The lions looked at each other for a moment as if they were communicating amongst each other. After a moment, the first lion, Glenn, said, “We aren’t sure. There are a lot of them though; more than we’ve ever seen at one time. That is why we came to warn you and give you the opportunity to run for cover. Edmund is worried the pride will not be able to outlast them this time because we are grossly outnumbered.”

  Olivia was outraged and shocked. These Diochantis were really starting to piss her off, but what she really didn’t understand was the fact that these two, and apparently, their pride’s lion king, thought the Wilds would run away and leave them to fight on their own. Absolutely not!

  “Take us there now,” Olivia was surprised to hear her own growl in her projected thoughts, but right now she was pissed.

  She had always been very passionate and willing to fight for those who needed her help, or couldn’t fight for themselves at all. Since becoming a lion shifter, that passion and intensity had only gotten stronger and more predominant. When she mentioned it to Greg several days ago he had told her that it was her natural animal instincts kicking in. He had also surmised that since she had been born to be the true lion shifter queen, that was most likely why that trait had been so strong within her before her change.

  Neither of them moved. Instead they glanced at each other uncomfortably, and then looked to Greg as if pleading for his help with something. When she heard Greg’s voice in her mind again, Olivia knew that they had in fact been addressing Greg individually through their thoughts.

  “Glenn and Nate are concerned about you coming along. They want me to take you somewhere safe until this is handled.”

  “No! Are you kidding me right now, Greg?” Olivia was shouting through her mind, but Greg cut her off before she was able to go on any further.

  “I know, babe,” he said. “I already informed them you would never agree to something like that. You have to remember that you’re their true queen too, so they are just as eager to protect you as our family pride.”

  “Okay, good,” Olivia said in acknowledgment. When she looked back to the two lions, who she knew now were Glenn and Nate, she let out an authoritative roar. They nodded and turned around to lead the way with Olivia and the rest of the Wilds’ pride following right behind them and straight into the danger.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Greg

  Greg was pissed and ready to rip some Diochantis scum to shreds. He couldn’t believe that Olivia was going to be put in danger by these evil creatures twice already. It had only been a few weeks since they were attacked at the waterfall. Along with the fact that it was strange for the Diochantis to be attacking them so close together was the fact that their numbers kept getting larger with each attack.

  In the past, the demonic sorcerers usually attacked the less powerful magical groups or shifters. As lions, Greg’s kind were the strongest beings in the mystical world on earth, so the evil beings of their world didn’t usually attack them head on. Lion shifters usually only wound up battling such evil to help out other less capable beings.

  Greg knew that the Diochantis were into dark blood magic, and as the most powerful beings, lion shifters’ blood was rare and powerful, so these sudden large scale attacks had him on edge. The Diochantis were planning something big, and he needed to find out what it was and make sure they didn’t succeed.

  Greg heard the screams and smelled blood before they were close enough to actually see what was going on. The next thing he knew, Olivia let out a warrior’s roar and took off at full speed.

  “Shit! Olivia! Wait for us,” he shouted through his thoughts as he took off right behind his mate.

  He knew Olivia was very protective, he had picked up on that immediately when he met her and she was still human, but he hadn’t expected her to just run head first into a fight she didn’t know much about.

  This would be her first time fighting as a lion, and fighting the Diochantis meant killing them. Greg was afraid that Olivia might not be prepared to kill even if it was to save others who were innocent, and if she wouldn’t kill them, then the Diochantis would definitely kill her.

  Unfortunately, as the natural born queen of all lion shifters, Olivia was faster than Greg. By the time he caught up to her, she was already in the middle of the fight between the Foresters and the Diochantis. He felt his heart freeze up in panic at the thought of something bad happening to his mate.

  When he watched Olivia rush up to a group of five Diochantis who were attacking a young lion, and rip their heads off so fast he nearly missed her movement, he was able to breathe again. After that, Olivia let out a commanding roar so powerful everyone present turned to face her, the Diochantis included.

  He heard a collective gasp from the Foresters’ pride in his head. Surely, seeing their queen for the first time would have
been a big deal no matter what, but to see her for the first time as she fought to save their lives had to be overwhelming for the Foresters. Even as Olivia’s mate, Greg felt the sudden need to bow and show his respect to her in that moment. Her power was palpable in that moment, and it permeated the air around them.

  In the blink of an eye, the Diochantis seemed to snap out of the haze of Olivia’s power, and all at once, they all took off towards her. Greg was by her side though, and he ripped into every one of the creatures that came close to them. Still, they were vastly outnumbered and Greg was taking hits repeatedly.

  “Protect Olivia!” Greg called out to all of the shifters. “Protect your queen!”

  Within a few minutes, Greg saw the black blood and body parts of several Diochantis go flying all around him and Olivia as more and more lions came to protect their queen. Olivia was holding her own against the evil creatures, but this was her first battle and Greg wasn’t going to risk her life if she became fatigued, or simply made a bad call and left herself open to an attack.

  Greg was so focused on protecting Olivia that he didn’t see the group of Diochantis that swarmed his mother, Jane, until he heard Jessica’s scream inside his mind.

  “Greg!”

  Quickly he ripped the head from the creature he was fighting and turned to Jessica.

  “Your mother! They took her, Greg. I couldn’t get to her.” Jessica was panicking, and he could hear her tears even through her thoughts.

  Greg ripped his way through the Diochantis between him and where Jessica indicated his mother had been attacked. He picked up her scent easily, including the strong smell of her blood, and burst into the forest in the direction she had been taken.

  Running at full speed, it wasn’t long before he could see the creatures who were dragging his mother’s limp, bloody body through the brush. He could hear her heart beating, although faint, so he knew she was still alive. He sprung forward, but the Diochantis heard him. He watched as they all placed a hand on his mother, and in a black swirl of smoke they were gone; magically transported away.

  Greg was enraged when he turned around and headed back to where he’d left Olivia and the rest of their pride. He ripped through the remaining Diochantis with vigor. He didn’t stop to think or worry about the pain he was in from the wounds he had received throughout the battle. Greg used his teeth and claws to shred the enemy apart, and by the time the last Diochantis present was killed, his fur was saturated by the black blood of the demonic creatures.

  He looked around to make sure all of the enemy had been taken care of. He saw Olivia approaching him, and she was also covered in quite a bit of Diochantis blood, but from what he could see, she didn’t appear to be hurt herself.

  “Greg, are you alright?” Olivia asked once she was right in front of him.

  He could see the concern in her eyes.

  He nuzzled her face with his own in an attempt to show her he was fine, even though he wasn’t all that great. Those creatures had taken his mother, and he knew that they would torture her and use her blood to try to raise their demonic leader, Diocholos. When she was no longer useful to them, then he knew that they would kill her. Greg wasn’t about to sit back and let that happen.

  “We have to go,” he told Olivia.

  She nodded, and with Greg in the lead, the Wilds’ and the Foresters’ prides ran back to his family’s homeland.

  Once they had all made it back to the Wilds’ pride lands, the injured were taken care of and everyone washed the blood of their enemies from their bodies. It was not long, however, before Greg called together a group of the higher ranking shifters from both his pride and the Foresters’. They had all made the short trip from the caves to the Wilds’ family homes so they could make the shift into their human forms, and therefore communicate easier.

  “Greg,” Olivia spoke up before anyone else could, “how are we going to find Jane? Shouldn’t we be out there searching for her already?”

  “We need to narrow down a starting place. Otherwise, we could wind up searching for the rest of our lives and still never find her,” Greg replied.

  Edmund Forester stood up and addressed everyone. “I know a way,” he said. “If we can get the panther shifters on board, they have the gift of sight. If you can remember where you saw the Diochantis fold your mother away, the panthers will be able to follow the trail they left and see where they have her now.”

  Greg couldn’t believe he had forgotten about the panther shifters special gift. He was on his feet in a split second.

  “I can show them exactly where she was taken,” he said firmly.

  He was on edge and he knew it, but time was of the utmost importance. The longer they waited the greater risk to his mother’s life, as well as the world if the Diochantis had the chance to raise Diocholos.

  “I’ll call Marissa and see if she can come and bring a few members of her family along,” said Jessica.

  “Who is Marissa?” asked Olivia.

  Greg put his arm around his mate, needing to feel her against him in that moment. He had lost his mother, but he could have lost her just as easily the way the Diochantis had thrown themselves into defeating her. He knew that they had sensed her power, but he wasn’t sure if they knew that it meant she was the lion-shifter queen.

  Greg hoped that they didn’t because he knew that they would stop at nothing to get their hands on Olivia, so that they could harness her powerful blood for their demonic leader. Greg lightly shook his head, as he tried to wipe those thoughts from his mind.

  “Marissa is the leader of the panther-shifters,” Greg told Olivia, “so she would be the one to make the call to help us or not.”

  After a few minutes, Jessica re-entered the room. “Marissa said they would be happy to help. They can be here tomorrow morning.”

  Greg hated that they had to wait until the morning, but he knew it was their best option. “Thank you, Jessica,” he said to his cousin. His next words were addressed to the room. “For tonight, everyone needs to get as much rest as they can. Tomorrow is going to be a long day and we’ll need everyone at their best in order to pull this off.”

  After agreeing to meet back at the caves in the morning at sunrise, everyone dispersed to get some rest before the battle that was to come. Greg knew that they had a rough battle ahead of them tomorrow, and he prayed that his mother would have enough strength to hold on until they could rescue her.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Olivia

  They didn’t waste any time the next morning, and were soon on their way to the caves to meet Marissa and the rest of her family of panther shifters. Olivia was scared to death, but there was no way she was going to stay behind while Greg and the rest of her new family went out to fight the Diochantis and rescue Jane.

  The panther-shifters arrived at the caves immediately following the two lion-shifter prides. Olivia was momentarily caught up in the beauty of the majestic cats. There were about twenty of them, and they were huge. Their sleek black coats of fur were shiny, and Olivia was certain that they would disappear in the darkness except for their large, bright yellow eyes that seemed to glow.

  Greg moved forward and Olivia was right by his side. “Marissa, thank you for coming,” he said to the panthers’ leader.

  Marissa was larger than all of the other panthers, a clear indication that she was the leader. “Of course, Greg,” she responded with a slight nod of her head in respect to Greg. “I see you have brought the Foresters’ pride with you today,” Marissa said, and her tone seemed to convey a slight tone of disapproval which concerned Olivia.

  Marissa moved closer to her and Greg, and Olivia knew that the next thoughts she heard were only shared with the two of them. “Are you sure they can be trusted, your highnesses? I am sensing some negativity within their group aimed at you.” Olivia was surprised at Marissa’s words, but she could also tell that her last statement had been meant for her. The way Marissa’s eyes were trained on Olivia didn’t leave much to the imagina
tion.

  “That can’t be true,” Olivia said.

  She was fighting the urge to turn around and look at the Foresters as if the culprit would suddenly be surrounded by a target naming them as the one against them. The Foresters had all seemed ready to fight by their sides to get Jane back, and it had been Edmund Forester’s idea to call in the panther-shifters in the first place.

  “It is just a little harmless jealousy. Nothing to be worried about,” said Greg, but Olivia could see the way he looked at her.

  He was waiting to see how she would react to that piece of news. She was just staring at him, waiting for him to continue. If she had been in her human form, then her arms would have been crossed over her chest and she would have been tapping her foot impatiently.

  “It has to be Sasha, Edmund’s daughter. My mother had made an arrangement for her and I to be mated if I couldn’t find my mate on my own. I heard that she wasn’t happy when word of our mating made it to their pride, but I never thought she would be upset. We weren’t in love, and we don’t even know each other well. If anything, I thought she would have been relieved to not be forced into an arranged mating.”

  Olivia didn’t know what to say. She was angry at Greg for never telling her about his “arranged mating” but she was also a little sad for Sasha. Even if their mating had been arranged by their parents, Olivia was sure that Sasha was upset to have lost Greg. Olivia couldn’t say if Sasha had feelings for Greg, but he was the born King of the most powerful lion-shifter pride and she was sure that meant any female would have loved to be his mate.

  Then, here comes this human who knows nothing, and suddenly Sasha loses her chance to be his mate. Olivia took a deep breath and decided not to say anything about it. They had more important things to worry about right now, like rescuing her kidnapped mother in law.

  “Now that that is settled, I think we need to get busy finding Jane. I doubt the Diochantis are wasting any time harvesting her blood for their spells.”