The Lion Must Die: A Sexy Paranormal Thriller

by Angela Foxxe

  “You didn’t pull your hands away,” he said softly.

  “I know.”

  “Am I just a job?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you being honest with yourself?”

  “No,” she admitted.

  His hands cupped her face, tenderly, pulling her closer. He kissed her gently, then released her. She opened her eyes, looking into his and losing herself in the pure honey gold with just a touch of brown.

  “I had a dream about us,” she said softly.

  “I know.”

  “How did you know?”

  “Because I saw the look on your face when you woke up. There’s nothing in the world like quite like a prophetic dream.”

  “If you know that my dream is real, why aren’t you listening to me now? We should keep running.”

  “Why?”

  “Because they’re after us still.”

  “They’re not. We’re almost thirty miles away from the highway. There aren’t many roads here, and all the road are dirt roads and firetruck service roads with huge gates. They can’t sneak up on us in cars.”

  “But that’s what happened in my dream, and you said it was prophetic.”

  “I did. But you have to understand that not all parts of a prophetic dream are rooted in reality.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Tell me about the cars.”

  “They were in that field right there, coming after us.”

  “What else? Tell me everything you saw, heard, smelled- Anything that jumps out at you.”

  Sabrina recounted the entire dream to him, only pausing when he asked questions for clarification, and then continuing. He stood there quietly in front of her, listening intently, his body inches from hers.

  She closed her eyes, not only to remember, but because she felt the heat radiating from his body, and her thoughts were being drawn away from the dream and back to the night before. The dream was fading fast, and she was trying to recount it before her memory wiped it clean away.

  “What about the squad cars? Were they as realistic as the rest of the dream? Because they don’t sound like they fit.”

  Sabrina furrowed her brow.

  “You’re right. They were kind of their own entity. When they were shot, they flipped over and died.”

  “That makes sense. They were a metaphor. They’re not going to jump out at us, but we’re still being followed, or at least you are.”

  “I could feel that, in the dream, even though I didn’t realize that they weren’t real. And when you were running headlong across the field and those men had their rifles pointed at us, I tried to get you to stop, but you just ran faster toward them.”

  “And what happened then?”

  “That’s when they started shooting, but the bullets went around us and killed our pursuers.”

  She opened her eyes, and he was smiling.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “Your dream seems pretty clear to me,” he said, still smirking.

  “How so?”

  “You tried to direct me and I was going the right way. If you had just trusted me, you would have seen that I was heading for safety, not into danger. Clearly, your dream wants you to know that I’m always right.”

  There was a twinkle in his eye.

  “You’re so funny,” she said, pushing his chest playfully.

  “I know. All joking aside, don’t you see it? Even when things look scary, you have to trust me. I’m not going to lead you into something dangerous unless I know what I’m doing. The fact that you saw something that was a clear danger to you, yet the actual danger was behind us should be obvious. No matter how scary things get, you can trust me.”

  His hands had found their way into hers, his touch so familiar and right that she didn’t notice it until he squeezed her hands gently. He leaned in then, kissing her so gently that she almost cried from the sweetness of his touch. It was so different from their passionate night of lovemaking, yet it was somehow better. She leaned into his caress, kissing him just as gently in return.

  “We should go,” he said, holding her by her shoulders and gazing into her eyes. “If we stay here too long, I’m going to make love to you right here in the forest, and then they will catch us.”

  Sabrina shuddered and tried to block the image of him doing just that, but her mind ran away with her. He kissed her again, suddenly, pulling her out of her thoughts and back into the moment.

  “Anything else you need to tell me before we move on? I don’t want you to forget something important. You know how dreams can be.”

  “There is something,” she began, wondering if she should tell him. “I feel weird sharing this, but I think it has something to do with the dreams I’ve been having.”

  “What is it?”

  “When I got out of the car at the retail store and I went in without you, it felt weird.”

  “Weird how?”

  He didn’t look nearly as surprised as Sabrina expected him too. In fact, he looked a little like he was expecting her to say that very thing. She stared at him, trying to read his expression, but she came up blank.

  “I felt lost and a little panicky. I almost chased after you, but I stopped myself.”

  “Then, what happened?”

  “Then the feeling faded and I felt normal again.”

  “We should get moving,” he said. “I’m going to shift again and let you ride, because we have a long way to go before we can stop safely.”

  “The fence and the guards aren’t right over that ridge?”

  “Not even close. We have miles to go before we get to the southern border of what used to be Montana, and we’re stopping before then.”

  “And you’re going to show me something?”

  She could see that he was getting antsy, and she looked over her shoulder, wondering if he could see something she couldn’t. But they were alone in the woods, and there was no sound to indicate that there was danger anywhere near.

  When she turned back, he was already half shifted, stretching out onto all fours and lowering himself for her to climb on.

  “Get on now,” he said with the last vestiges of his human voice.

  “But you’re not done shift-”

  His roar cut her off, and she hurried, scrambling onto his back and holding on as he took off, his body still morphing beneath her. His muscles bunched and slid beneath her legs as he ran, the sensation odd. Her heart was pounding in her chest, images of liquid forms trapped beneath his hide jumping into her mind. They were in the field now, completely exposed for hundreds of yards on all sides. She wanted to scream at him to go back into the forest, to stay where they had cover, but she didn’t. Her thoughts went back to her dream, and that moment that she had tried to stop him from going the way.

  She leaned forward, keeping her weight balanced above his shoulders and off his back, just like she had seen jockeys riding horses do. Much to her surprise, Paul’s stride lengthened and he began to eat up the ground in large, bounding strides.

  He was fully shifted, and they were nearly across the field. She was tempted to look over her shoulder, but she knew that it wouldn’t change anything. There would either be people there, or there wouldn’t be. She knew for certain that there wouldn’t be cartoonish squad cars running over the plains like wild buffalo, but she also knew that any shift in her weight against his center of gravity would slow him down.

  Her dream had been very clear; follow his lead and trust him, and you will be safe.

  They were almost to the tree line that had seemed so far away when they had first broken out of the safety of the other side. Sabrina felt relief wash over her when the sun disappeared and was replaced with the sweet darkness of thick shade and dense trees.

  But Paul didn’t stop running, and soon, it became apparent why.

  She heard the familiar thwomp thwomp in the distance, and instantly recognized the sounds of helicopters approaching. Paul sped up impossibly faster, bending and duc
king through the trees and down the narrow foot trail so fast that the wind drew tears from her eyes. There was another sound ahead of them, one that was also familiar but that she couldn’t place.

  The choppers were getting closer, and Sabrina found herself searching frantically around them for somewhere to hide. She could see ahead of them that the trees ended abruptly again, and they would once again be exposed. Only this time, the enemy was right above them. Waiting.

  Trust him, a voice urged in her head, and she faltered. Finding a place to go to ground in the covered area was the right thing to do. She knew it. Yet here she was, second-guessing herself instead of him.

  The choppers were still behind them, far enough away that Sabrina was certain that they were over the wooded area they had already left and not directly overhead. She was still tempted to beg him to hide, but looking around, it was pointless. There was nowhere to hide, and it was starting to look like running wasn’t going to get them far either, but there were no men with rifles waiting to pick off the enemy behind them.

  The choppers faded in and out as they ran a grid pattern; starting from the highway and working their way in the direction that they believed the two of them had gone. Sabrina could hear two distinct choppers, and she wondered if there were more that were drowned out by the other two, and if they were searching both sides of the highway. It was hard to tell if they had seen them use the culvert to go under the highway, or if they still thought that Sabrina and Paul were on the east side of the highway.

  Pulled abruptly out of her thoughts by the growing sound ahead, she realized what she had heard that she couldn’t place earlier. There was water nearby, and by the sounds of it, there was a lot.

  An image of Paul tightening her backpack on her and securing the extra strap across her belly flashed through her mind.

  No, she thought desperately, please no. But she knew then what he was planning, and there was no going back now. Ahead of them, the tree line ended and there were only a few feet of hard, rocky ground before the bottom dropped out and there was nothing but sky. Sabrina couldn’t begin to guess how long the drop into the water was, but after being flung off a fourteenth story balcony by Paul, Sabrina had no illusions that he would be gentle with her.

  He didn’t hesitate when they burst out of the trees, and Sabrina leaned low over his back, preparing herself for the worst. She closed her eyes, too terrified to look down. Paul leaped into the air and downward. Sabrina took a deep breath, squinting her eyes shut tight and wrapping her arms tightly around his neck.

  When he picked his head up to protect her face from hitting the water full force, she knew they were about to break the surface.

  The world went dark and she couldn’t hear a thing above her pounding heart. The ice tore at her face and neck. She fought to hold onto Paul, but the current pulled at her, ripping her free and sending her racing downriver.

  She popped up out of the water and took a huge breath before she was dragged down again, then popped back up and stayed up. The straps of her backpack had taken on water and swelled, filling with air automatically so she was held upright just like a life jacket. She spun in the water, spotting Paul just a few feet away, his body shifted into human form, his backpack keeping him afloat as well.

  He reached out to her and she grabbed his hand, then his wrist, holding on for dear life as their bodies were catapulted along the rapids.

  “Don’t let go,” he yelled over the rushing water, though he didn’t have to tell her that.

  He pulled her closer, grabbing the tail end of one of her straps and wrapping it around his hand before he closed it in a fist. He began swimming for the opposite shore, pulling her along with him. She kicked her feet and swam with him as best as she could, but the water was weighing her down, and the icy chill of the mountain fed spring was seeping into her skin. She was already shivering violently, and they hadn’t been in the water long.

  Sabrina watched the skies, but there was no sign of the choppers in the distance. With the cliff face and all the ground they had to cover in a methodical grid pattern, they would get out of the water before the search team knew where they had gone. If they were lucky.

  She was skill kicking, and Paul was still dragging them closer to the shore with each moment, but it was grueling, and Sabrina felt like dead weight. Her legs were heavy now, and kicking was becoming more and more impossible with each passing moment. Still, she forced herself to keep going, unwilling to give up the fight and let herself give in to the desire to quit.

  It’s just your body shutting down because you’re too cold. You can do this, she thought, giving herself a pep talk and trying to stay the course. It was working, and her attempts to help him, no matter how feeble, were helping as well.

  Sabrina’s legs were nearly numb when Paul pulled her onto the sandy shore and helped her up.

  “We have to move. They can still get to us here.”

  She nodded, teeth chattering too much to speak. Pushing with all her might, she took one step and then another, shaking off the frozen water and letting the adrenaline do its job. She was upright and moving normally within a few steps, though she still felt numb and exhausted.

  When Paul grabbed her hand and tugged insistently, she shook off the last of the stiffness and ran for her life.

  *

  “Have they found them yet?” Tom Decker demanded angrily when one of his agents walked in to give him an update.

  “They had them in Wyoming, just south of The Zone, but they got away.”

  Decker’s fist came down hard on his desk, his face turning red with anger.

  “How did they get away?” he said, his voice measured, his words eerily calm.

  The agent stood in the doorway, rigid. His lips were pursed together in frustration and dismay, and right away, Decker knew that he wasn’t going to like the answer.

  “They jumped into the river and we lost them there,” he finally said, looking uncomfortable at being the bearer of such bad news.

  “What about the choppers?”

  “The choppers lost them. Our men on foot were on the east side of the highway and couldn’t get there in time to offer ground support. They jumped off a cliff and into the river, and that part of the terrain is too hazardous for the chopper to get low enough to see them when the river passed through some trees. It moves so fast and-”

  The man stopped, either running out of explanations or seeing the look on Decker’s face and realizing that the man was about to explode with rage.

  Decker took a deep breath, pinching the bridge of his nose and closing his eyes. He half expected the man to step out of the room and run for his life while Decker’s eyes were closed, but when he opened them, the man was still standing there.

  “Did they jump into the river near Hawk’s Pass?”

  “They did.”

  “Are we sure that they didn’t drown? That stretch of river is mountain fed and icy all year long. The speed of the rapids and the temperature alone are more than most people can survive. Add that fall and how are we sure that they didn’t die?”

  “We didn’t find any bodies yet, Sir. It’s been more than two hours since the chopper pilot saw them go over the edge.”

  “Was he on two legs?”

  “Four. He was in full lion form when he jumped over the edge with the girl on his back.”

  “And you guys can’t find a lion in all that?”

  The man looked at the ground, seemingly embarrassed by their failure.

  “We did not see a lion in the water at any point.”

  “So, then he must be dead. Because a dead shifter cannot hold their animal form. Logic would dictate that not being able to find the lion means that he’s dead and likely so is Agent Coates.”

  “There were footprints.”

  Decker’s anger flashed, and he barely contained the urge to throw something heavy at the man.

  “Do you think that would have been good information to lead with?” Decker sneered.

>   “We don’t know if the footprints belong to Coates and the lion. There is a popular picnic area nearby, so footprints aren’t to be unexpected.”

  “Did you follow the prints?”

  “We did. They disappeared after a few yards because the ground is covered with dead leaves. We couldn’t track the prints, and there were several trails that branched out from that area.”

  “Did you split up and try that? Why is this so hard? It’s two people and I have allotted millions to catching these two before they reach the safe zone. Once they cross the old Montana border, they’re untouchable.”

  “I know that, Sir. Like I said, most of the men on foot were on the east side of the highway.”

  “Dare I ask why they were on the east side if our missing persons were clearly on the west side of the highway?”

  The agent recounted Paul taking the small sedan off road, ending the mad dash in the tree line and leaving the driver’s door opened.

  “The men first went north, but then a few of the agents realized that the open door was likely a ruse, and we went south.”

  “Yet no one considered that they could be on the other side of the highway?”

  “Why would they?”

  Decker slammed his fist on the desk again, causing the agent to flinch, though he was a good ten feet away and closer to the doorway than Decker had remembered.

  “Because Sabrina is our best agent and she’s smarter than that. Couple her cunning nature with Paul’s skills and you’re looking at the perfect pair of fugitives. I had imagined that almost one hundred men would be able to anticipate their next move and capture them, but I see that I was mistaken.”

  His voice was deadly calm, the rage barely contained beneath the surface.

  “I’m sorry,” the agent said. “We’re still looking for them, but the wilderness is a little-”

  “Wild?” Decker scoffed. “Of course, it is. They went that way because it’s almost exclusively dense wilderness all the way into The Zone, and then into the safe zone all the way in what was once Montana. They know once they cross that border, that we can’t touch them.”

  “I thought he kidnapped Sabrina. Is she in on this?”

  Decker blinked, realizing what he had said.