by Sara Summers
“Get on the bed.” I hoped my voice came out sort of, well, sexily, for lack of better term.
My soulmate wasn’t going to argue with that command. He was on the bed before I even looked backward.
“You’ve got to make me love you before we make love, Mr. Alpha. Husband or not, that’s only meant to be shared between two people who plan on sharing a life, and I’m not ready to say ‘I do’ yet.”
I wrapped the towel around myself again, then walked into my closet and shut the door before he could say a word.
While I pulled on clothes, all I could do was grin to myself and think,
Wow, I’m good.
Ross had his work cut out for him, and I couldn’t wait to see how he’d deal with it. It meaning me, of course.
This soulmates thing was going to be fun.
Chapter 7
I exited the closet wearing my favorite outfit—black leggings and a big, soft gray shirt that liked to fall off my shoulder. I was wearing a tank top as to avoid flashing Ross again, but refused to wear a bra. Bras aren’t comfy, and sick people deserve comfort.
That was the excuse I’d been using for years, and I would keep using it long after I stopped being sick. My sickness was a part of me after that much suffering.
“I’m not your husband.” Ross told me, from his spot on the bed. He was still lying down on his back, shirtless. He could flash me as much as he wanted, his body was stinking gorgeous.
“The marks on our backs disagree.” I shrugged, wheeling my suitcase out of my closet and plopping it down on the bed. “So does the government.”
“I’m the government.” My mate sat up and folded his arms.
“No, you’re the Alpha of one pack.” I reminded him. “Getting a big head, Mr. Alpha?”
“Our pack is not under the control of any US politicians. I am the government.” He repeated, practically daring me to argue.
“Whatever you say, Alpha dearest.” I gave him a sugary-sweet smile, then went back to packing.
“You do realize why I’m not your husband, right?” Ross asked.
I looked over my shoulder at him.
“Just because you don’t like the term doesn’t mean it isn’t yours. You’re my husband.” I turned back to my suitcase, packing socks and underwear and leggings—I wasn’t wearing jeans, not even if someone offered to pay me.
As I said, sick people deserve comfort, and jeans? Not comfortable.
“No,” Ross put his hands on my shoulders. He’d come out of nowhere, and I half expected him to spin me around. He was a dominant male, after all. Some of those idiots thought their dominance gave them freedom to do whatever the flip they wanted. “I’m not.”
Instead, his touch was gentle. Ross picked his hands up and walked around me. He pushed the suitcase across the room with his foot, then took my hands in his.
Yeah, that wasn’t anything near what I expected.
“I’m not your husband, Brooke. And you’re not my wife. Those words mean nothing in our world.”
“My world looks different than yours, remember?” He was being so sweet, I couldn’t sass him out of his newfound gentleness.
“Husbands and wives can be separated.” Ross continued, ignoring my protest. “We’re not merely married, we’re soulmates. We are connected, not with rings and promises, but here.” He placed his hand over my heart. “Within us.”
“I know, the Creator put us together, but—“
“Please let me finish.” Ross said. He was serious, so serious, and I could tell that he believed in this. Whatever he was explaining to me, he believed it one hundred percent.
“Okay.” I nodded. I’d try harder to actually hear what he was trying to say, since he apparently cared about it so much.
“We make a mistake when we allow the humans to call us husband and wife, because we’re not. We are soulmates, two separate pieces who come together to make a whole. Alpha and Omega, man and woman, lion and lioness. Our souls are connected to each other, through these markings.” Ross slid his hand into the back of my shirt, touching the markings on my back.
His feelings rushed through me once again. They were intense, so intense that I didn’t even know what to do about them. He felt so strongly about so many things. I couldn’t even figure out what he was feeling, let alone why and how he was feeling it.
“I’m sorry for getting mad earlier. Now I understand that we see things differently, but Brooke...” Ross put his hand on my cheek, disconnecting me from the roaring emotional rapids I’d been trying to maneuver through.
“To me, those markings are the place where our souls meet. They’re sacred because they expose our souls. Lions are strong, and only in our coties are we weak. Because our women are our strength, they don’t expose our weakness.” He brushed my hair out of my face. “You’re my strength, and when I saw you showing the world all the ways I was weak, I panicked. I’m sorry.” He apologized again.
There wasn’t any doubt in my mind as to whether or not he was sincere. He was so sincere that he made me feel like the suckiest mate in the world, and all I’d done was wear a comfy shirt.
“Why are you so afraid of letting people see your weaknesses?” I wondered.
“Isn’t everyone?” Ross shrugged. “We all want to look strong.”
“Alright.” I reluctantly nodded. “I’ll retire my backless shirts for a month or two, then we can talk about this again.” I agreed.
“Shirts? How many do you have?” he frowned.
I glanced back at my closet, which was about halfway made up of shirts that showed off my mate marks. In my defense, my mate marks were cool. I liked them so I liked showing them off.
“A few.” He didn’t need an exact number, did he? Ross shook his head.
“It doesn’t matter, you can’t bring anything with you anyway. We’re running back to Georgia.”
“We’ve been over this, I can’t shift.” My voice was flat. Did he not understand that? It was embarrassing, yes, and it sucked. A shifter who can’t actually shift forms? What sort of monster was I?
“And I told you, I can help you. I’m your Alpha and your mate.” He promised.
I narrowed my eyes at him.
“Last I checked, I didn’t belong to your pack. Good luck forcing me to join you while I can’t shift.” I stepped away from his grip, folding my arms. My stomach actually hadn’t been hurting all that badly while we were talking about being soulmates, but now that the subject was back to shifting, I was done for.
“You don’t believe me?” Ross asked, as if that were a completely foreign concept. And I guess that to Alphas, having people not listen to you really was a little foreign.
“No, I don’t.” I put my hands on my hips.
“Fine. Take your shirt off.” He shrugged.
“Excuse me?”
“Take your shirt off.” My mate repeated.
“No thanks.” I gave him a weird look. We went from talking about shifting to stripping? Was that really the new normal for us? If so, I had a lot of adjusting in my future.
“If you don’t want your clothes to get shredded when you shift, take them off. I’m not asking for a show, not that I’d argue if you wanted to give one.”
I gaped at him. What the—The nerve of that guy! My soulmate? Um, more like my sole destruction. Even if Ross could force me to shift, I wasn’t sure I wanted to. There was a reason I couldn’t shift, and I figured it was probably self-preservation. What if staying in lion form while I was that sick could kill me?
Still, I didn’t think his plan would work. Alpha or mate or whatever, I hadn’t heard of anyone being forced to shift. If letting him give it a try would get him to agree to drive us there, then I’d let him try.
“Fine.” I forced the word out. Without breaking eye contact, I pulled off my comfy shirt and my leggings. The tank top and underwear would stay; he wasn’t getting that show, after all.
“Ready?” Ross checked.
“Sure.” I didn’t th
ink there was anything to be ready for. His plan wasn’t going to work on a sicky like me.
He closed his eyes, and nothing happened.
“See, it didn’t—“ My stomach cut me off mid-sentence. It went from being a knotted mess to a fricking rock concert tornado in .2 seconds flat. My legs shook harder than they’d ever shaken before, my muscles convulsed uncontrollably, while my eyes stopped transmitting to my brain and my vision clouded over.
Blinded by the pain, I stumbled but managed to catch myself with my hands.
I heard Ross’s words before I could see anything.
“You’re sick.” The words tickled some part of me that I couldn’t identify.
“No kidding.” I snapped. Finally, I started to see again. First just shapes and colors, but as my eyes focused, I saw details once again. Dust on the floor, paint chipping off the wall, dirt on Ross’s feet, bruises on the tops of my paws.
My paws?
I looked back and forth between Ross’s feet and my paws, completely and utterly stunned.
“This is a dream, isn’t it?” I wondered. “If it was real life that wouldn’t have worked. You wouldn’t be able to talk to me mentally while you’re in human form.”
“Not a dream.” Ross shook his head. “As shifters become like humans, they lose some of the abilities that come with being a shifter. I’m just living the way the Creator intended us to be. Half human, half animal.”
“That’s not a thing.” I objected. “I’ve never heard of that before. Living like humans hasn’t changed anything.” Even as I looked down at my paws again, I realized that to some extent, my mate had to be right.
“The less animal you are, the less you have binding you to your nature. Not spending enough time in animal form will mess you up the same way spending all your time as an animal will.” This time, Ross spoke out loud. He took a seat on the floor in front of me, reaching his hand out to touch my face.
My lion face, that is. The whole thing was weird. It seemed alien, it had been so long since I’d shifted last without passing out. Alien, but right.
“It’s not bad to spend a little extra time in human form though. My friends only need to shift every few days, their coties would tell them if they needed to shift sooner.” I protested.
“That’s how often they need to shift to keep being shifters. Staying a shifter and embracing your animal side are two completely different ways of living.” Ross rubbed the side of my lion-fur-face, and I leaned my head into his hand. It felt good, having him pet my face. Really good.
Just try not to think about that in human terms, because having your face petted as a human would be downright weird.
“I don’t know if you’ll be able to run the whole way. It’s a long run, and you’re hurt.” Ross was concerned about that, I could tell. The bruises all over my lion-body, the scratches and scars… yeah, I couldn’t disagree with him. As a human my pain had been on the inside, but while I was a lion it was on the outside. My stomach wasn’t raging anymore, but my skin hurt and my muscles ached. I was in pain everywhere except my head and my stomach.
The change made me feel great. Physical pain was something I could handle after so much digestive and mental pain.
“I’ll be fine. Let’s go.” I decided on a whim. After hearing everything Ross had said, I actually wanted to see where he came from. Just to check and see if it was all a hoax, of course. I didn’t really believe that some people were more shifters than my people were, that was ridiculous.
Well, ridiculous-ish.
Ross made me shift (which was supposed to be impossible) and could talk to me mentally even while he was in human form, so maybe it wasn’t quite that ridiculous.
Maybe.
Chapter 8
I led him out of the house, telling him where the key was and having him hide it really, really well (I might have been a little paranoid), and then Ross started taking off his pants.
Not going to lie, I sat there and watched him strip. He stood in front of me wearing boxers, looking so incredibly hot that I would’ve drooled if I was a human. Lionesses don’t drool, though. And if we do then we won’t admit it.
“Aren’t you going to take those off too?” I stared up at my man.
“I don’t want to overwhelm you.” He smiled wryly, then turned to the forest. Ross sprinted toward the trees and, in an instant, shifted faster and more smoothly than anyone I’d ever seen.
He looked majestic, landing perfectly on the ground. His mane was big and bold, and well, my lion thought he was dang good looking.
And then he was sprinting toward me—me, or her, or, us—and tackling me in a great big roll/hug. It would’ve been fun to roll around with the big guy if I wasn’t so bruised and scratched up.
“Ouch.” I couldn’t hold back the whimper that escaped me. The moment he heard the sound, lion-Ross practically leapt off of me. He saw the pain in my eyes and looked at the injuries once again, and then tilted his head back and roared.
“Hurt.” He growled, coming back over to lion-me. He nuzzled me/her (I decided to go with ‘her’, because that lion totally didn’t feel like me) and rested his nose against hers.
“It’s fine. Let’s go.” I replied, pulling my face away from his.
With that, Ross took off into the trees. I followed behind him, losing all sense of time, myself, and my dreams and goals. For those long hours, I was just a lion following her mate home. It was a strange feeling, one I wasn’t all that comfortable with.
But like I said, I lost all sense of myself as I ran through those forests. The weather and scenery changed as the hours ticked away both running and stopped with her mate—my mate—but for once I didn’t mind. Time was just time, hours were just hours, and I was just a lion.
I don’t think I’d felt that good in three years.
Don’t bother asking how long we ran for—I don’t know. We took a lot of naps and food breaks (yes, I ate raw meat and it wasn’t as disgusting as it sounds), because holy cow, southern Georgia was a long way from northern Washington. It would be difficult to pick somewhere further away than that.
All I know is that when we finally stopped in the backyard of a little cabin-house, I couldn’t wait to get in bed and sleep for the next six years.
Sleeping Beauty wouldn’t have anything on me after that cross-country trek.
Chapter 9
Ross shifted back into human form and grabbed some clothes hidden up in some tree branches. He came over to me wearing a pair of sweats and held a shirt out to me.
There was just one problem: I couldn’t shift back.
“I’m stuck.” I told him, lying on the ground and sort of hoping death would just take me already. I was exhausted.
“Alright, I’ll force you back.” Ross seemed just as tired as I was. He closed his eyes, and I swear, death grabbed onto my stomach.
It felt like someone jabbed a burning knife inside me, and then the knife shattered and started burning all of my insides at once. They twisted and burned and ached and shut down all at once, and I was sure it was the end of me.
There was a loud ringing noise in my ears, my head pounding harder than it ever had before. It was as if someone was whacking me over the brain with a hammer.
Bang, burning brain.
Bang, frozen mind.
Bang, fiery thoughts.
I wasn’t going to make it through this one. That was the one thing I was sure of. I’d found my mate, I’d argued with him and teased him and followed him all the way to freaking Georgia, and now I was going to die.
Life had never looked quite so bleak, and believe me, when you’re sick for three years straight, life can seem severely bleak.
“Brooke.” Ross shook my shoulders. My vision cleared despite the burning pain that didn’t budge. “Brooke.” He begged me to respond.
“Goodbye.” I whispered, closing my eyes. “I would’ve loved you.”
The world disappeared a moment later, taking me away from the overwhelming pain
of mortality.
Chapter 10
Okay, okay, I didn’t actually die. But I swear, that has to be what death feels like. If it’s worse than that, I’m going to become a vampire or find the fountain of youth or something. I literally cannot handle any pain worse than what I felt that moment.
Don’t tell Jazz I said that though, because she’ll call me that one nickname that she swore never to call me unless I did something horrible. And if Ross hears that nickname, I’m done for.
Anyway, right. Hi, I’m not dead.
But when I woke up I wished I was.
“Ugh, what is that smell?” I groaned, turning my head and opening my eyes. Both actions were a bad idea, I figured, when I threw up all over the floor. Luckily, the only thing inside me was water.
“How do you feel?” Ross had a brand-new roll of paper towels in his hand. He cleaned the puke without a second glance or wrinkled nose, completely focused on me. Thirty points to Mr. Alpha for that.
“Like a skeleton does when it realizes it’s a skeleton.” I smiled. My nails-on-the-chalkboard voice told me I’d been out a long while. That wasn’t good.
Next, my eyes jumped to the trash can beside Ross. It was overflowing with paper towels, which by the looks and the smell, had also been used to clean up puke.
I closed my eyes and groaned again.
“What’s that smell?” I repeated the question. While the puke paper towels were obviously part of the smell, there was something else in it too. Something like… trees.
“I call it ‘Tree Chili’, but it’s just a little something to ease tension.” A woman popped into view next to Ross. I jumped when she appeared, and the next groan was in reaction to the pain that followed jumping. My mind wouldn’t focus and my vision was blurry, so I wasn’t sure what she looked like or anything.
“Tension? I’m not tense.” I frowned, half out of pain and half out of confusion.
