The Lion's Shared Bride

by Bonnie Burrows

  Soren shook his head to himself, smiling more and more broadly as he read her flippant responses. He bit his bottom lip and set the phone down on his cluttered desk, considering. A difficult woman… Soren wondered to himself if this particular woman had any idea of just how perfectly that particular phrase would hit him. A difficult woman was exactly what he wanted.

  He picked up his phone once more, exiting the app but not closing it. Soren opened up the messaging app and found the thread marked by the name Aedan. I may have found her. He sent the text message and shook his head again, re-opening the profile and tapping the icon that would mark it as one he was actually interested in. The notification that popped up somehow seemed to almost express shock that he had actually flagged a profile on the site. Congratulations! We’re glad you’ve found a match. The message cleared and then prompted him to send a text message through the app to his potential match. The guidelines outlined at the top of the page were clear: no contact information, just a proposition of where and when to meet. His potential match would be able to respond via text, but their phone numbers would be kept from each other.

  If the situation worked out, Soren would pay the site another sum of money (a sort of finder’s fee that he had agreed to when subscribing). It wasn’t huge, certainly not enough to set off his scam alerts when he was agreeing to the terms and conditions, but it was definitely enough to make him wary of picking someone who might play him and then run away, leaving him to find another potential match by sorting through the dozens of profiles that came his way.

  Soren’s phone buzzed, notifying him of a new text message. What’s she like? Soren licked his lips, smiling to himself. He pulled up the woman’s picture and grabbed a screen shot, and then another shot of one of her particularly flippant responses to the required questions in the biography section. He sent both images to Aedan. A moment later his phone buzzed again. Promising! Will you be meeting her first? Soren pressed his lips together. When he had embarked on this particular quest, he hadn’t even been sure he would find a single woman who could possibly be suitable for what he wanted. Therefore, he hadn’t sorted out just how the first meeting would come about.

  He shrugged to himself, typing his answer quickly. Flip a coin for it.

  *

  Nina fidgeted in her seat, glancing around furtively at the crowds of people walking past the café where she’d been instructed to meet her match. She had had just enough time after work to change her clothes and freshen her makeup. She had been tempted to spritz a little bit of perfume on her wrists and cleavage, but the text message she received specifically requested she not wear any at all, and to wear unscented deodorant.

  She’d been shocked to receive a notification at all. She was even more shocked that she received it the morning after signing up for the site. The notification that her profile had been flagged for interest had been accompanied by the first of a series of quick text messages, which nonetheless piqued her interest more than she would have predicted.

  So you’re a difficult woman. Congratulations—I happen to be very much in the market for a difficult woman. If you aren’t completely on this site as a joke, I hope you’ll meet me. I’m available any night after 6pm.

  Nina had responded that she could meet at seven, and the match had replied with a list of requests and a place to meet.

  I’m sure you’re expecting a balding, sixty-year-old guy but I hope you won’t be too depressed at a fairly normal 30-year-old. I promise I can be every bit as boring as you want.

  In spite of her jaded attitude toward the site, Nina had to admit that something about the man’s requests—that she wear nothing scented, to not shower immediately before coming to their meeting, and be comfortable with actually eating dinner instead of ordering ‘to fit someone’s expectations,’ intrigued her.

  She was surprised also at how nervous she felt. Nina entertained herself with a private theory: her match was probably some deadbeat trust fund kid whose parents wanted him to get married. Maybe he was gay and just couldn’t bear the thought of actually formally dating a woman to satisfy whatever dynastic needs came along with the family name and money. It could actually be interesting to be his “beard” if that were the case.

  It would be so much easier if she had a clue what the guy looked like, Nina thought resentfully. He knew what she looked like but she was just supposed to take on faith that the guy knew what he wanted, that the site knew that they would be remotely compatible. She hoped he wasn’t completely unfortunate-looking.

  Nina discovered that the notifications she received on her profile worked on a first-come-first-served basis. Unless the man she agreed to meet withdrew his interest, her profile would be hidden from other potential suitors. She was allowed to decline him but only after her first meeting, and at that, she was required to submit a form detailing the reasons why; “In order to improve our match-making algorithm.” Nina knew well enough that it probably wouldn’t be nearly as anonymous as the instructions suggested, and if she rejected the guy out of hand, he would probably have the same opportunity of providing feedback about her. So if she really did want to meet anyone else, she would have to play nice.

  Nina saw one of the hostesses for the café where she had agreed to meet her mystery match moving towards her table. She focused on the man behind the hostess and her eyes widened. He would tower over her standing. Nina estimated he was probably just under six feet tall. His hair fell in a dark brown mane to nearly brush his broad, subtly muscled shoulders in messy, loose waves. The man strode forward with confidence, his dark eyes scanning the pre-dinner crowd in front of him. As he came closer, Nina took in the strong features of his face: a sharply defined jaw and high cheekbones were highlighted by three-day stubble, and something about his long, narrow nose and soft eyebrows gave him an almost predatory, feline appearance.

  The man’s gaze lit on her and Nina felt herself blushing as a flicker of recognition showed in his eyes. She’d been outright staring at him—but, she told herself firmly, who could blame her? The man making his way to her table was flat-out gorgeous, even if he wasn’t her usual type. Normally, obvious muscles were a strict turnoff for Nina but there was something about the easy confidence that made the rangy, lean look of his muscular body appealing. He didn’t look like a meathead, he looked like a man who simply took pride in how he looked.

  The hostess was clearly as dazzled by his charms as Nina was. She fluttered around them as she brought the man to the table, blushing and sidling, simpering and smiling up at him. Nina wondered just what kind of defect the guy had that he was on a matchmaking site, that he had found himself in the position of having to pay to find a wife – for the messages made it clear that a mate was the intended outcome, assuming they were compatible.

  Oh God, he’s gay. I’m going to be with an incredibly hot gay guy. Joke’s on me—the first guy who wants to give me the time of day on that damn site just wants an appropriate beard.

  The man glanced at the hostess sideways, and Nina almost chuckled at the fleeting look of annoyance that crossed his features. “I think we’ll be fine for the moment, love,” he told her. “And you’re busy and all, you should probably get back to seat someone.” A faint Irish accent rippled through the man’s gravelly baritone voice. Nina suppressed a shiver at the sound of it.

  The hostess smiled brightly and shot Nina an envying look before scurrying away, and the man chuckled softly. Nina stood on unsteady legs, taking a deep breath as the man closed the distance between them to give her a quick, strong hug and a kiss on the cheek. She caught his scent: faintly green, with a rich, almost spicy underlying musk, almost reminiscent of cologne without being identifiable. She started slightly as she felt his breath against her skin, for an instant she could have sworn that he was sniffing her hair but the impression left her as he broke away from the hug and gestured for her to sit down. “Well, love, disappointed in me?” Nina opened her mouth to speak, only to find that she’d no idea what she was going to
say.

  She swallowed, conquering the mixture of nerves and shock that froze her brain. “I’m a little worried at the fact that you apparently need to use a matchmaking site,” she said, blurting the words out all at once. “I mean—you’re gorgeous. You’re obviously not hurting for money. It should be harder to turn down the dates you get instead of having to pay someone to find a wife for you.” Here it is, she thought grimly. He’s going to tell me he’s gay.

  “I have sort of—special requirements,” the man said smoothly. “I want a mate, in all the senses of the term, but it would be a lot harder to find the things I need in a woman by just going to the bars and hoping, you know?” Nina felt a sudden spurt of dread. Instead of fearing that he was gay, that she’d be maneuvered into a sexless marriage with an incredibly gorgeous guy who had no physical attraction to her whatsoever, she was convinced now that he was some kind of sadist who wanted a slave to abuse. “Don’t look so shocked, I’m not looking for a pretty little slave, though if I was, I’d definitely have a hard time picking a prettier one than you.”

  “Then what exactly are you looking for?” Nina blushed at the compliment, though the way he’d couched it would have been creepy if not for his deep voice and rippling accent, the lilting cadence of his speech.

  “That is a little bit complicated. Let me buy you a glass of wine and we can discuss it.”

  Nina bit her bottom lip. Part of her mind screamed an alarm. She should excuse herself; leave as quickly as possible. The guy didn’t know where she lived, he had no idea of her phone number, and there was no way for him to track her. She had checked into the app to confirm that she was at the meeting place, it would have notified him to arrive. She could sign on the moment she left the café and formally reject him. But another part of her was intrigued. How specific could the man’s requirements be that simply being gorgeous and well-to-do weren’t enough to secure him whatever he wanted?

  “I’ll have red,” she said, taking a deep breath. “But don’t think for a second that you’re going to get me drunk.” The man across the table from her laughed out loud, throwing his head back.

  “I wouldn’t dream of it. Not for a first meeting, anyway.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Aedan watched the woman who Soren handpicked as the solution to their mutual problems. He watched the evolution of expressions on her face; that she hadn’t been expecting him was clear by the look of shock in her big, dark eyes. She had been staring at him and he watched the quick flush light up her cheeks, the dart of her gaze away from him, oddly demure and challenging all at once. When he had hugged her, he had sniffed her slightly, she was perhaps a week away from her monthly, but through the lingering orange blossom and jasmine perfume of her shampoo or conditioner, he had been able to scent her underlying pheromones. The warm, almost spicy scent of her body had been enough to convince him she was precisely what he wanted.

  Gradually, as they sat together, she calmed and relaxed in his presence. Aedan enjoyed the way her fear pheromones slowly dissolved, the scent of subtle arousal building up, adding a nearly distracting undercurrent of sweet vanilla to her pheromones. The impulse to tell her she smelled like his mother’s finest Easter baking, that the smell of her made him want to devour her completely, trembled in the back of his mind. She would discover the truth soon enough, he didn’t want to rush her. The woman in front of him somehow combined the skittishness of a gazelle with the haughty pride of a slinking panther.

  “So you can see, my situation is a bit precarious,” he told her, smiling his most charming smile. As soon as she had taken a few sips of her wine, Aedan had begun to explain his situation, at least in terms that she could understand. The truth was, of course, much stranger and much more complicated but she would discover the depths of it very, very soon. As soon as he left, he would report to Soren. Whether she knew it or not, Aedan thought, she was going to be his, even if she would not, strictly speaking, only be his.

  Aedan watched as Nina caught up her bottom lip between her teeth, the act nearly drove him to distraction. If things had been the way they should’ve been, if he had been the Alpha male of his own Pride, instead of a wandering lone lion, he would have taken her himself. If wishes were fishes…

  His father had been Alpha of the pride he had belonged to as a child. By the time he was five years old, Aedan had begun learning what it would take to rise to the position himself. His father drilled the responsibility, the needs of leadership, into him over and over again, fully anticipating when Aedan was of age, he would step back and Aedan would step into his shoes, mature and stable enough, perhaps with a mate, to continue leading the Pride into the next generation.

  Shortly after he turned ten, everything changed. His parents both died, victims of a random arsonist in their small community in Ireland. Aedan had been at a friend’s house for the night, wrestling and sparring with his best friend Lachlan right up until the phone call came in to Lachlan’s parents. The shock of losing both of his parents at the same time had been difficult enough but Aedan hadn’t even undergone his first transformation either. He was so young that, initially, the intense pain of grief had shaken him to utter silence. He attended the memorial service numbly, touching the urns that held his parents’ ashes with cold fingers.

  But when the new Alpha had taken power, Aedan’s grief was compounded by the fact that he was no longer even welcome in the Pride. Because he had no family affiliation within the Pride, no one to be present for his first transformation and to initiate him into the adulthood, he was expelled. At the age of eleven, as the first real signs of puberty started to mark his face and body, Aedan had been sent to distant relatives in the United States. They’d known he was a lion, but he hadn’t received any guidance. When he changed for the first time, it was alone, in the depths of woods where his uncle dropped him off without ceremony. “Don’t get yourself shot,” the man’s parting advice had been.

  Because no Pride had witnessed his first transformation into his animal form, Aedan wandered for years as a lone male. He was ineligible to join any other Pride unless he came with his own mate because as a loner, he was too much of a threat to the Alpha of any group. Wolves wouldn’t admit him into their packs, and the bears were just as wary of him.

  When Aedan met Soren, he had gone to the younger Alpha in desperation. He knew Soren’s Pride was in trouble. A lack of genetic diversity resulted in stillbirths, in children who could barely live, much less transform into the majestic form of a lion. Aedan was distantly related to Soren—one of his cousins had mated with one of Soren’s uncles—but Soren had been only too happy to provisionally accept him into the Pride, desperate for some new genetic material. He was also overwhelmed by the massive task of re-invigorating his Pride as their Alpha. But without a mate, Aedan would not be allowed to remain and since he’d been kicked out of his own Pride, no female would agree to become his mate.

  Late one night, discussing the problem over beers, they came to a simple conclusion: they would find a human mate to share. That way, Aedan would be able to join the Pride completely, admitted to hunt with them on the special reserve they owned and Soren would have a mate who would bring new genetics into the limited pool. If they could convince a woman to carry children for each of them, the offspring could be potentially mated off to other were-lions, further spreading the genetics, and Soren would also have an opening for convincing the members of his Pride to seek human mates by setting an example.

  The explanation he gave to Nina in the course of the two hours they spoke was much simpler. He hadn’t mentioned Soren at all, for one. He simply told her about the death of his parents, and hinted at his ability to continue living in the US was contingent on him finding a wife. His citizenship in the country was already established but his membership in the Pride was balanced on the precarious possibilities of him finding a mate.

  “So,” Nina said, setting her empty glass on the table and looking at him levelly. “This would be a marriage of convenience.�
� Aedan smiled slowly.

  “If it makes you feel better to think of it that way, then yes,” Aedan said. “But I expect it to be convenient for both of us, and I expect it to be a real marriage.” His smile deepened as he watched the blush spread over Nina’s cheeks swiftly.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Soren paced back and forth along the length of his living room; he hadn’t felt this anxious since he faced the challenger who stood between him and the status of Alpha male for the Pride. The fact that the “date” had gone on for two and a half hours was promising but he was more than ready for some kind of report from Aedan. Soren combed his fingers through his hair, resenting the luck that gave Aedan the opportunity to meet her first.

  They had discussed which should be the one to meet her. Soren argued that since he had done the legwork, he should get the privilege, while Aedan argued—fairly—that they would both be with her, and they would both have to determine their compatibility with her, so it didn’t much matter which met her first. If she were incompatible with either of them, it wouldn’t work. Finally, as Soren suggested in his text message, they resorted to flipping a coin to make the determination. Soren had called heads but the coin had landed three times on tails, beating out the odds.

  Soren jumped slightly as his phone buzzed in his pocket.

  She’s lovely. Seems to be a little feisty underneath the skittishness. I suspect she’s got an issue with becoming bored. The profile was the act of a desperate woman who was tired of being alone after getting tired of other men.

  Soren grinned to himself. Another text popped up.

  She’s got the prettiest stink—I’d eat her whole if I didn’t have any manners.