by Pink, Lilly
THE LIONS
ARRANGED MATE
A PARANORMAL LION SHIFTER ROMANCE
LILLY PINK
Copyright ©2015 by Lilly Pink
All rights reserved.
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About This Book
Hunky WereLion Alan is happy living the quiet and peaceful life as a solo Lion but all this is about to change.
With trouble looming amongst the shifters, the council have taken it upon themselves to arrange marriages to dispel the threat and Alan has been matched with the feisty Anastasia.
This is a very inconvenient situation for Alan as he does not want to be tied down to a mate but he knows that this is crucial for the future of the pride.
However, as he gets to know his arranged mate better it seems his feelings towards this situation might change. Could Alan and Anastasia eventually make their arranged mating work? Or will faces from the past make this even more tricky then either of them thought?
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER ONE
“Son of a bitch!” Alan swore, and pulled his hand out from under the Triumph motorcycle. A clean bright red ribbon of blood had opened on his forearm where one of the screws had bit into him. He dropped the wrench and hissed.
He still didn’t know what was wrong with the old relic. He’d managed to buy her cheap, second-hand from an American who had too many bikes already and was being forced to part with some of his more treasured artifacts – Alan suspected his wife was in no small way to blame. But he was only too happy to take the machine off his hands.
Still, half the charm and fun of owning a bike was trying to keep it from falling apart. Especially the way Alan drove. He ran his arm under the water of the nearby sink and wrapped an old T-shirt around it. His arms were tanned from working out in the sun, and he had all the burly weight and gristle of a bouncer.
Which was, by a strange course of coincidence, his night job. He went to the fridge that was anchored to one side of the garage and pulled out a beer, pulled the tab, and let the cold draft soothe his nerves. He had a beard coming in, nothing too fancy, but it was more than a five o’clock shadow and gave him at least another five years.
It was strange. He felt old enough. Somehow, the light beard gave him a sense of authority, and he thought it was a pleasant change. He picked at his sweaty T-shirt, sat down in one of the old chairs, and looked at the Triumph again.
“Here’s to you, old girl,” he said, and took another sip.
Sometimes he thought the machine might actually be listening to him, even though he knew it was a bad sign when someone starting applying anthropomorphic qualities to inanimate objects. He downed the beer the rest of the way and walked out on the blacktop of his driveway. His two-story cabin caught the sunlight off its green tin roof and blinded him and he held up a hand.
His acreage was small, but ideal. A grove of cedar trees off to one side gave him shade for the hottest parts of the day, and it sloped down gently to a sandy beach that was borne out from the edge of the river. Even from the lip of his balcony, he could always make out the green serpent of it, winding past. The smell of pines and dry dust filled his nostrils.
The cabin was something of an icon to him, a symbol.
Alan was sentimental enough to put a lot of faith in symbols. The two story building was the culmination of hard work – specifically, the hard work of himself and his two best friends, Kyle and Cameron.
He’d been thinking a lot about them all day. It had been the reason he’d decided to try and fix the fuel injector on the Triumph, some way to distract himself from what he knew he was going to have to do. What a mess, he thought. For a number of years, he’d acted as the current liaison between the shifter refuge of Cedarhaven and the Council. It was a job he wasn’t particularly inclined to, but one that had more or less been thrust upon him.
Shifters had always been hunted. When they hadn’t been driven off or feared by humans, they’d had their own seditious Clans and rivalries to deal with. Cedarhaven was different – it existed almost out of time, like a bubble, exempt from the politics of the Clans and the Council itself. It is why he’d moved here in the first place. But all that may be threatened, he thought, and squeezed the empty beer can until it crunched in his hairy fist.
He checked his phone again. No reply from Kyle, even though he’d left a message. The billionaire rich boy would show up, Alan had faith in him. As for Cameron – well, maybe I’d better pay him a visit firsthand, Alan thought. Of all of them, it was Cameron who was most likely to be pissed off. And why am I not angrier? he wondered, even though the answer was in the back of his mind.
Out of the three friends, he was the oldest, even if it was only a year. Somehow, that year had forced him to grow up faster, to take on the role of a leader amongst them. For better or worse, it had also made him preternaturally paternal, and he felt responsible for both Kyle and Cam. Especially now as the Council’s liaison.
No point in waiting. He tugged his leather jacket off its peg, slung it on, and slammed the scuffed helmet down on his close-cut hair. There was just the faintest hint of a receding hairline, and the etched insinuation of a grey hair here and there, but rather than aging him further, it made him look distinguished.
He kicked the Triumph into gear and peeled out on the dusty backroad, heading for Cameron’s cabin. The thrill of the engine under him always cheered him up – sometimes he felt as if he were actually in his true shape. Like Kyle and Cameron, he was a Lion. All the power and elegance of that exotic creature crept into every facet of his being, and he took particular pride in it.
As he neared Cameron’s cabin and pulled into the driveway, he noticed the old pickup was missing. Suits me fine, he thought, turning off the engine and stepping into the cabin. It was cool inside, and had the distinctive smell of old wood that evoked in him all the time they’d spent building their cabins together, each of them in turn. Cameron’s had been the first cabin they built, and even though it was crooked in corners, and the floor was creaky, and right angles were nothing but a rumor, it had the most character.
He flipped open the fridge and helped himself to a Tiger beer. Cameron loved those southeast Asian brands, and knew how to get them cheap from the supplier. Maybe I’m drinking too much, he thought. But then, he felt like he needed courage in order to deliver the news to his friends.
Almost on cue, he heard the engine of another car, and recognized it as Cameron’s truck. “Oh boy, here we go,” he said to himself, and walked toward the open backyard patio that had a hanging trellis of wisteria in full bloom. “Ahoy!” he shouted down.
Cameron’s shaggy brown hair twirled and he looke
d up. “What the hell you doing? I’m pretty sure I locked up before I went out. I think this constitutes breaking and entering,” he narrowed his eyes.
“Who are you kidding?” Alan yelled back down. “You never lock your doors. That would be absolutely contrary to your nature. Besides, I’m likely to leave your place tidier than when you left it. Get up here, there’s something we need to discuss.”
“I’m not going to like this, am I?” Cameron said, sitting down on his old chair and swigging back the cool beverage Alan had tossed to him. Sweat was already standing out on his forehead from the hot summer sun beating down on them. “It’s about me, though, isn’t it?”
“You won’t like it,” Alan agreed. He took off his jacket and let it fall over the armrest rest of one of the other chairs, and leaned forward on his knees. When he did that, Cameron always knew something worse was coming – it was like a nervous tic, something that Alan did when he was keeping something to himself, and had decided at last to let it out.
“Well, you might as well tell me. It’s about my architecture contract, isn’t it?” Cameron asked. Alan smiled in spite of himself – I suppose that’s a reasonable enough fear, he thought. For several years, Cameron had been trying to apply for an architect’s grant in New York. Alan didn’t really understand his younger friend’s compulsion. For Alan, life began and ended in Cedarhaven, even though he knew the world was bigger than the little valley they all lived in.
It was precisely because it was a little valley, isolated from the threats of the outside world, that he had never considered leaving it. And try as he could to sympathize with Cameron, there was a part of him that didn’t understand why anyone would want to leave this place.
It was Eden, or as close as any of them would ever come to finding it.
“No, no.” Alan waved his hand in a dismissive gesture, and Cameron relaxed. “Actually, they don’t really care that much about it. You’ve been after it for so long, I think they realize it isn’t just some random whim of yours. No, it’s… well, it’s more serious than that. I came from the Council, and they’ve given us an edict.”
Cameron’s brow scrunched up. “What sort of edict?”
Alan opened his mouth again, but just then the sound of another engine broke the stillness and he stood up, grateful for the diversion. “That must be Kyle,” he said out loud, meandering back to the balcony.
“You invited him too?”
“This concerns all three of us,” he said over his shoulder. Over the edge of the deck, Kyle’s shiny new Miata came to a grinding halt in the dust, and the youngest of the three of them stepped out. He had on a nice pair of slacks and a freshly ironed shirt and vest. Unnecessarily dapper, Alan reflected. But then, as the heir to his own Clan, the billionaire kid did have a proclivity for flair.
“Please tell Cameron that I’ll pay to have his driveway redone with pavement,” Kyle shouted up, his close cut blond hair slicked back in a keen groove. “Seriously, the two of you with your bikes and trucks have no sympathy for my cars.”
“A little mud on your rims will do you good,” Alan jeered, and tossed another can of beer down, which Kyle snatched out of the air.
“Fair enough, but why did you call me here? Your message said it was urgent?”
“He said the same thing to me, but won’t open up about it,” Cameron said when Kyle came in through the door and took a seat in the other couch. “Tight-lipped and secretive as always. I think we may need to beat it out of him, or else we’ll all grow old waiting for the other shoe to drop.”
“As if you could,” Alan quipped, flexing his biceps in mockery, “but fair enough, I’ll come to the point. As you know, I’m the liaison for the Council here in Cedarhaven. You also probably know that there’s been a lot of movement and controversy lately, especially among the higher-ups in the Clan. Some of them think there’s an imminent power struggle.” It wasn’t really news – even though Cedarhaven deliberately kept out of the politics and mainstream happenings, they weren’t oblivious to them. Several of the other families had tried to shift the control, and there was talk of insubordination and insurrection on the horizon.
“What’s that have to do with us?” Kyle asked, slurping his beer.
“In order to try and levy peace, the Council’s edict has been designed to avert disaster. To bring some stability back to the different Clans. In short, they are planning on arranged marriages between some of the major houses – as you know, it’s a pretty standard move among shifters. They’re going to try and negotiate these marriages in Cedarhaven, since we’re more or less off the grid in terms of being non-partisan. Three guesses who the eligible bachelors are that they chose.”
Cameron almost dropped his beer. “What the fuck are you saying?”
Alan sighed. He knew Cameron would take it the hardest. “Easy, bud. I know how you feel about this. As the Council sees it, it’s the only way to avert a potential civil war. And as an official edict, you know what that entails.” He saw a nod from both Kyle and Cameron – disobeying the Council meant exile from the refuge, and once that happened you were well and truly on your own.
“That’s not fair to you guys,” Kyle interjected. Alan watched him – as the highborn among them, no doubt Kyle had been preparing for something like this for most of his life. If he was having his own reservations, the kid hid it well. Alan had to admire that.
“It is what it is. Look, Cam, it’s just a political move. It doesn’t change anything.”
It did little to console him. The lean logger stood up and walked to his balcony. It was Kyle who spoke again. “Do they have any idea who it is we’re supposed to marry?” he asked, but his voice was now glum and sullen.
Alan pulled at the leather coat on the armrest and took out two envelopes, one each. The Council had given them to him only hours earlier, and they were both marked with a red seal. He tossed one at Cam, and the other at Kyle. “Yeah, more or less. The information is in there. You have a day to become experts on them, because tomorrow we’re meeting them at the airport.”
He wished there was a better way to reconcile the unfortunate position the three of them had found themselves. He wondered if he hadn’t been the liaison between the Council, if perhaps they might’ve chosen others in the village for this task. The idea that it was because of him that Cameron and Kyle would now have to endure an arranged marriage tugged at his heart.
He raised his beer in a kind of pitiable salute. “Here’s to us, then,” he murmured. His brothers did the same, but there was no energy or motivation in their movements. It was as if they had all succumbed to some inexorable fate.
Now all we can do is wait, he thought.
*
The next day he tried to find the most suitable clothes for meeting his soon bride-to-be. It came as a bit of a dismal shock that he had lived as a bachelor for so long, that his wardrobe consisted mainly of T-shirts, work clothes, and jeans. In the very back of his dresser, he found a moth-eaten tie, but couldn’t for the life of him remember how to tie it, so reluctantly put it back among his socks.
For a moment, he considered phoning Kyle and perhaps trying to borrow some nicer clothes from the billionaire. If there was one thing you could count on from Kyle, it was to have a fully articulated selection of suits and clothing. They would have put Alan in debt for years to come. No, he thought, he’d already put both Kyle and Cameron through too much already to be asking them for favors.
He found the cleanest T-shirt he could find, and a nice pair of jeans, and flung on his old leather jacket again. It smelled like oil and grease from the Triumph, but it was a sort of odor that had more or less inundated itself into his very being that he was hardly aware of it anymore.
By time he made it to the airport, Cameron and Kyle were already there – Cameron looked like he had borrowed some of Kyle’s nicer clothes, and Kyle, of course, was decked out in a casual suit, his hair impeccably combed. I look like a total slob in comparison, Alan lamented. None of them sa
id anything to one another, a simple glance of acknowledgment was all that was needed. They were all too focused on the imminent arrival of the brides.
Slowly, a small Lear jet circled around the far hills and came in for a landing. Alan cleared his throat and took in a deep breath as the engines wound down and the stairs were brought over. Three women emerged from the aircraft, each of them singular in their own way. There was a brunette with long hair braided down her back and another punkish looking woman with short black hair and a sullen gaze. The third was taller than the others, and had on a provocative red dress that did little to hide her cleavage. The fabric split down the middle, not quite to her navel, but the effect of baring the middle of her stomach all the way to the top of her jugular had an alluring effect.
It pushed the sides of her swaying breasts to one side, and Alan couldn’t help but let a side-long glance fall toward the sensuous curves that seemed to withhold their own shadows. If she turned too quickly left or right, he was certain the fabric would give way and both her breasts would emerge. Focus, idiot, he reminded himself, and took a step forward to greet her.
It was hard to mistake her. Anastasia. He’d looked at her photo and profile probably a hundred times in the last twenty four hours in anticipation of meeting her. She belonged to the Stormfang Cloud, a clan of shifters renowned for their bequeathed bloodline – that of Wolves. Her red hair tumbled down her elegant shoulders in cascading streams of amber, and as she neared, Alan saw that her long face was just as beautiful – if cold – as her picture. Large elfin eyes and high regal cheekbones gave him a passing glance.
“You’re Alan,” she said with a matter-of-fact pertinence.
“Anastasia,” he said, offering a polite bow, “welcome to Cedarhaven. We’ve been expecting you.”
“Of course you have,” she said impetuously, and he winced. Not a good start, he thought. “These are my companions, Elise from the Blacktalon Tribe, and Krista from House Roseblood.” The other two women curtsied, and each was introduced to their respective mate.
