THE LIONS
SHARED BRIDE
A PARANORMAL LION SHIFTER ROMANCE
BONNIE BURROWS
Copyright ©2015 by Bonnie Burrows
All rights reserved.
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About This Book
Bored with conventional dating, Nina decided to try something different but she had no idea just what she was letting herself in for.
After signing up to an adult dating site she found herself receiving lots of different and very interesting propositions.
One in particular interested her a lot...
Two handsome young men named Soren and Aedan wanted to meet her and “share” her sexually for the weekend.
Nina had never experienced a menage before and the thought of being pleasured by two muscle bound hunks for a few days was very appealing to her naughty side.
However, she was soon going to learn that these men were also Lion Shifters and they have intentions for her way beyond just one weekend.
They need a mate and they need her soon....
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER ONE
Nina stared at the computer screen for a long moment, biting her bottom lip and trying to decide whether or not to click the big, bright green button that said “Submit.” She took a deep breath and sat back from her desk. It shouldn’t be this difficult to make a decision, she thought, and yet she couldn’t quite bring herself to either close the window or click the green icon.
Her friend had told her about the site, an Internet version of an old-fashioned system, a matchmaking site. It wasn’t like OKCupid or the other sites where people could “meet” online, exactly—eligible men and women instead put in their information and went on arranged dates with paid subscribers. Nina knew that most of those who paid for subscriptions were wealthier men, and some wealthy women. They were mostly interested in someone on their arm for public functions and dinners, or a “sugar baby.” While the idea of someone being interested in her solely as a piece of arm candy didn’t exactly thrill her, Nina had to admit that her own efforts at dating had hit something of a stalemate.
It seemed to go the same way every time; she met a new guy, and at first it was incredibly exciting. She was deeply in love, interested in everything that the guy did, wanting to know everything about him but then, after a few weeks, when things started to become solid and dependable, when her mind figured out all she needed to know about her paramour, when she started to be able to predict their reactions, everything fell to pieces. She found herself picking fights with whoever she was with, just so that she wouldn’t have to be the one to end the relationship. It didn’t entirely help that she was completely aware of the fact that she did it—even as she was in the process of turning an argument about being late into an excuse for them to leave her.
When Lucy had jokingly told her about the site, Nina had brushed off the idea of actually signing up for it completely. She wasn’t so pathetic that she needed someone to arrange for her to meet with a complete stranger. “You know, it’s not that different from a blind date,” Lucy had insisted.
“Yeah, except that they’re either going to expect me to marry them within like, a month, or they’re going to expect me to be some weird trophy arm-candy.” Lucy had shrugged.
“Suit yourself, but it’s not like you have many more years left to be arm candy, and at least if you were a trophy girlfriend, you’d get some money in exchange for your boredom.”
It had seemed almost insulting at first but days afterward, when all of her friends were either out with new boyfriends or staying in with husbands—even babies—Nina had decided to visit the site. She told herself it was just for the purposes of laughing at the absurdity of it all, but gradually, she had gotten sucked in. Nina had worked in marketing before. She knew, objectively, that the pictures flashing through the intro page of happy, good-looking single subscribers were stacked to make the site look as appealing as possible. She knew that if she’d clicked on the splash page to be one of those subscribers, she’d be served up to young, nubile men and women. The reality, she knew, was more likely to be middle-aged men gone a little bit fat, with lower-than-prime testosterone and not enough time to devote to finding a companion. On her end, she couldn’t help wondering just how highly those same men would rate her own looks. In her mid-twenties, she was on the short side of average, with full curves, hardly the long, lean, yoga-doing model type.
Almost involuntarily, with a curiosity bordering on recklessness, Nina had filled out her profile information, signing up for the site as a “free” member who was seeking a “connection”, as the site called it. She had installed the accompanying app on her phone, so that she could be notified if and when one of the subscribers flagged her profile to express his interest. She had been almost mocking in her biographical essays; freely disclosing the fact that she was doing it mostly for fun, that she had little hope she would find anyone who would actually be interesting but that she was more than willing for a practical connection with someone.
While she was able to support herself fine on a copywriter’s salary, having a relationship with someone who was better off than she was had a certain appeal. She told herself that it would be easier to have a relationship with someone who knew right off the bat she wasn’t interested in emotional involvement. She told herself she probably wouldn’t get a single notification and that after a month, she would call it a wash.
And yet, when it came to the final step of submitting her picture and profile information, she hesitated. Nina wasn’t sure whether it was the possibility of being popular or unpopular on the site that daunted her more. If she had multiple notifications, she might actually meet someone, and it might actually work out until she became bored of them just like she had every other man she dated. However, it would be an even bigger calamity to have gone through the trouble of being “matched” with someone, who undoubtedly expected her to want to get married, only to find herself in the same bind that had happened over and over again. But it would, she had to admit, be even more crushing not to receive any interest at all.
Nina looked over her information again. Did she really want to do this? She took a deep breath and shook her head at her own indecisiveness. What was the worst that could happen? If she didn’t get any attention from anyone interested in buying themselves a bride or a mistress, then she would just move on with her life and find another disastrous relationship to enjoy for a few weeks or months before it crashed and burned. The cursor hovered over the green icon, and Nina took a deep breath, closing her eyes and clicking once before she could talk herself out of it.
When she opened her eyes again, she watched the next page load. Thank you for joining! We will send your profile information to all of the paid subscribers who match your
criteria. Nina sighed. At least, she thought, it couldn’t possibly be any worse than what she’d already gone through.
She wasn’t entirely sure she understood the terms of the site. Even though she had drilled Lucy about it, and even though she had read through the introductory material that the service provided, some of the people on the page were clearly looking for “sugar daddies” and “sugar mamas,” but she had gotten the impression that the vast majority were looking for long-term relationships. They were seeking a practical form of relationship. To be sure, Nina thought that money didn’t just change hands between the subscribers and the owners of the site, but probably pretty frequently between the free users and the paid subscribers who went for them.
She closed the window and turned off her computer monitor, frowning. She told herself again that she was too independently minded, too obviously contemptuous to even garner a single notification from any of the people looking for someone to date or marry. She would keep the app and her profile up for a month, just to give it a “fair shot,” or so she told herself, but when she didn’t get even a single nibble from an interested subscriber, she would delete both. It would be a fun story to tell and even if she did attract someone from the site, she would go out of her way to annoy and frustrate them when they met.
From what Nina had been able to understand of how the site and its companion app worked, she submitted her profile information, which had included a somewhat bizarre psychological questionnaire, and the subscribers who had paid for the privilege of looking through the free users would be given a link to her biographical information and picture along with a breakdown of her psych profile. If they thought she was interesting, they could flag her profile. The action would send a notification, a “request to meet,” to Nina’s phone. She wouldn’t be able to contact them directly or even see their profiles—that was the downside to the free membership—but she would arrange a meeting with them, in public, a “date” of sorts, and then they would work out between them the possibilities. She and whomever she had been matched with would be able to discuss the terms of their relationship, and if it worked out, they would move forward from there.
Nina curled up in her bed, pondering some of the stranger questions the psychological profile had included. Are there any animals you can’t stand? What is your opinion on hunting? What is your opinion on eating meat? Would you consider yourself an adventurous person? She hadn’t noticed any particular bent one way or the other to the politics of the site; certainly it didn’t market itself as a PETA matchmaking site or something like that. There had been a note at the top of one of the pages that stated that some of the questions included were specifically submitted by certain paid subscribers, and that her earlier responses had indicated she might be a match for them.
As she drifted off to sleep, Nina had an image of finding herself at a nice restaurant, seated across the table from a graying sixty-something man who was telling her about how he expected her to bear him at least four children, that he wanted her to adhere to a strict raw vegan diet in her pregnancies, and that he expected to be “taken care of” three times a week at specific intervals.
Nina shook herself out of the dream, wondering if she was making a huge mistake but she told herself that it wasn’t as though she didn’t have an option. Even if she had been selected by one of the paid members, she could back out of the match at the first date and there wouldn’t be a penalty against her. She just had to hope that she wouldn’t get one of the crazies. Maybe, she thought, taking a deep breath in the hopes of going back to sleep, she’d find one who just wanted a mistress to be on his arm a few times a week, to meet with clients. That would be nice. And, if the guy happened to be marginally attractive, it would be even nicer. What are the chances of that, she asked herself, even as she began to doze off once more, falling into a dreamless sleep.
CHAPTER TWO
Soren heard the chirp of a notification on his phone and half-smiled to himself. The particular noise was one he knew well; he hears it a few times a day, ever since he had signed up as a paid subscriber for a matchmaking site. Soren slipped his phone out of his pocket, sat back in his chair and opened up the notification.
He was still somewhat amused at the fact that, in spite of being incredibly wealthy (he was relatively well-to-do as a music producer) but far from the top 10% of the sites paid users, he seemed to be generating a great deal of interest from the site’s creators. He had rejected more profiles than he had expressed an interest in, mainly because he was looking for a very specific type of woman.
Soren’s need was desperate. He chewed his bottom lip in thought as the new profile loaded. For him, it wasn’t a matter of finding a companion for business dinners, or even a convenient wife to show around the country club. He took a deep breath and exhaled, suppressing his impatience as the text populated. If he didn’t find someone soon, there would be a great deal of trouble for him and for the people who depended on him. Earlier in the day, one of the women who owed him allegiance had come to his office.
Anna had sat down carefully, assuming a properly humbled demeanor. “Soren,” she had said, “people are starting to talk.”
“Do any of them want to challenge me? Because I can handle anyone in the Pride, and they all know it.”
Anna had shrugged. “They’re worried. You need a mate. The Pride needs new genes and something has to be done about Aedan. They’re starting to whisper that you’re dragging your feet.”
“Aedan is my problem, not theirs.”
“That doesn’t stop them from worrying about him. A lone male in the Pride is a danger to us all.” Soren had let out a low, throaty warning growl.
Anna had hunched in on herself, her golden-hazel eyes looking up at him with beseeching fear.
“I am trying to find a mate,” Soren had told the woman firmly. “I’m doing everything I can but it’s not like I can just hit a singles bar.”
Anna had shrugged. “I’m just telling you what I heard.” Anna had something of a protected position in the Pride. She was one of the closest-related to him, being a double-cousin, and tended to not only protect him but also to alert him to the real opinions of the group who owed allegiance to him, feelings no one else would state baldly to his face.
Soren was more surprised than anyone when he had beaten the main contender, Jordan, and became Alpha of the pride. Jordan had left the group after his defeat by a man of 30, 15 years his junior, without a mate to speak of. The group of were-lions he had grown up among, that his father had led for his entire life, sometimes made Soren wish he had the ability to just walk away cleanly.
He had taken up the challenge to become the leader, the Alpha of the Pride, because his father had insisted on it but if it weren’t for the sense of responsibility Soren had developed, he would have become a lone male, just like Aedan. Some days, he desperately wished he had gone that route.
After generations of inter-breeding among various other Prides around the world, and among themselves, the lions of Soren’s Pride had started to scrape the bottom of the barrel. Under normal circumstances, it would be easy for Soren to find a mate. All he would have to do would be to contact one of the matchmakers for their kind and provide his specifications, and the matchmaker would scour the pedigrees of the various Prides, doing all of the searching it required for him to find a pool of eligible women to choose from.
But because of the extensive inter-breeding, Soren had been regretfully told by the matchmaker, who had brought his parents together, that there was no one who could safely be available to him. The woman, an old crone of a were-lion, had told him flat out that he would have to find a regular human woman to breed with in order to invigorate the genetics. And, that he would have to force some of the men in his Pride to do the same. But he would have to go first and choose carefully.
The text of the new free subscriber profile finally populated Soren’s phone screen. He scrolled down first to find the picture, knowing he was being shallow, but if h
e didn’t find her attractive in the first place, it would take much more of a psychological and personal match for her to be worth his while. Soren’s eyes widened as he opened the image and expanded it to fill the screen of his phone. She was short, but not so short that he would worry about her. Contrary to his usual inclination, the first thing that caught Soren’s eye was the sardonic half-smile that curved the woman’s slightly thin lips. Her hair was cut to her shoulders, falling in a pitch-black sheet around her oval face. She had something of mystery that lurked in her dark eyes, a joke he wasn’t privy to.
Scrolling down, Soren licked his lips unconsciously as he took in the lush curves of her body. So many of the other women on the site had been obviously surgically enhanced but the full breasts, neat waist and flared hips of the woman in the picture looked to Soren’s practiced eye to have been nothing more than a genetic gift. He whistled lowly, taking in her strong legs. Okay then, he thought, smiling faintly. First hurdle cleared. He closed the image and navigated back to the main profile. She was okay with hunting, as long as it was for survival or out of necessity. She had passed his set criteria for intelligence. He scrolled to the biography portion.
Unbidden, Soren laughed out loud as he read her responses. She was clearly on the site as more of a joke than a serious contender for a convenient spouse. The mystery match had answered the question prompts with frank sarcasm and a little contempt.
My deepest apologies to any sixty-plus men looking for a nubile, skinny twenty-something to show off to the boys at the country club…I fully expect that anyone who is on this site looking for a match probably really wants a mostly-brainless blonde or redhead to carry their umpty-million children for them…I guess you could say I’m a difficult woman.
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