The Lion's Loyalty

by Emilia Hartley

  How many times had Rodrigo done the same? Meeting Lily had been the best thing to happen to his friend, but Van was already a part of Carol’s life. He didn’t know how to make it easier for her. His presence seemed to account for nothing, even though he knew they were bound by fate. It was like she could not tell.

  He tugged his shirt over his head and dropped to all fours on the ground. His shift rippled over his body, a sensation both painful and pleasurable at once. Moments later, he panted, crouched close to the ground. He stood and brushed his fur against the nearest tree, marking it for when he came back to retrieve his clothes.

  His beast was impatient though. Given reign, the creature quickly loped after Carol’s trail. The wolf shifter could not be far ahead of the lion. He would find her, sooner or later.

  ***

  Carol was tired. She hadn’t eaten enough to fuel her recent shift, and it left her muscles feeling heavy. She climbed a small rock near a narrow creek and lay down. The sun broke through the trees above and graced her with a bit of warm light.

  Before she knew it, the heat and sound lulled her into a light sleep. She startled awake, panic flaring through her mind. Before she could get to her feet, a golden face appeared before her own. The lion’s scent gently greeted her nose.

  This was a friend.

  Her wolf did not need to fight or flee. Not when Van lay down beside her. He rolled to press his side to hers, his warmth seeping into her body. She sighed and laid her head back down. The sound of the water was calming.

  Carol would have thought it’d remind her of the cottage, but she couldn’t remember hearing the river outside. She hadn’t even been able to smell it. The doctors had kept all the doors and windows closed, trapping the scent of their medical supplies and Carol’s anguish inside the cottage. The hum of their computers had filled the air instead of the hush of water.

  The doctors had not tainted the wilds for her, and for that, she was grateful.

  As they lay on the warm stone, she snuck glances at the lion lying beside her. Why had Van followed her?

  Her beast was more concerned with teeth and claws, uncaring if she had lips to ask questions. Yet, the questions burned in her chest. Van’s presence baffled her. He had been around every corner since she returned. The night they’d come to rescue her, he’d been at her side nearly the moment she escaped the cottage.

  Again and again, Van was beside her. She didn’t know what she’d done to earn his loyalty like this. Not until a thought flitted through her mind, one that whispered he was Dante’s scion. Whatever Van saw was relayed to the alpha. It was probably Van’s job to keep an eye on her. He would report back with any weaknesses he saw.

  Like how she had lost control near the ambulance.

  A growl rumbled her thin body. She had believed, if only for a little while, that Van followed her out of affection. It was foolish to think that he was anything other than Dante’s spy. Carol kept her secrets, and her pains, close to her chest for this very reason. No one around her could keep their judgements to themselves.

  They all thought they would have been able to escape the doctors on their own. They thought she was weak for letting them hurt her. Stupid for being caught in the first place. On and on, their lists of judgements went. She could not escape them.

  Just as she could not escape Dante’s persistent spy.

  Yet, her beast leaned into him like he was the fire and she was lost in the cold. Carol didn’t understand what her body was doing. She couldn’t decipher the strange things she felt around Van. Like the way she fell into easy conversation with him earlier. It was like he was an old friend, when they truly knew little about one another.

  She wished she could trust him to ease her loneliness, but she feared the things he would tell the alpha if she gave away any of her secrets. Dante would not be so kind. He could not risk an out-of-control wolf like her. Carol knew the consequences, what happened when a beast could no longer be tamed by human logic. She was the result of such a case.

  Chapter Five

  The carpet was nearly gone. It was in a smelly roll in the dumpster outside. In a weird way, Van mourned it. He’d tried to make the bar look better but had failed miserably. It was proof that even though he tried to think things through, he still didn’t make the best decisions.

  Looking back, hardwood probably would have been for the best. He wished he’d realized it sooner and saved himself a chunk of cash.

  “Why are we the only ones working?” Rodrigo grumbled. “How many other shifters are in this pack? Any of them could be doing this grunt work.”

  “You two get paid for this, so I don’t want to hear it,” Dante growled back.

  Half the floor was covered, the bright wood reaching toward the bar. The room was so large that it felt like it was taking forever. Idiots that they were, they hadn’t thought to purchase pads for their knees and so they bruised by the end of the day. The bruises went away, but that did not erase the pain as they crawled their way over planks and tools.

  “I promise, the bar will look better once this is all done,” Van said.

  “That’s what you told us last time.” Dante stood and brushed his knees off. “Get Carol. Make her help. She needs to earn her rent, anyway.”

  Rodrigo stood, as well. He angled himself toward the door. Van knew they were both trying to abandon him. The work would get done if the two of them could bear to see it through to the end. Instead, Dante and Rodrigo kept bailing early.

  Van knew that both men had people in their lives, but it frustrated him that he felt like his friends were being pulled away. Rodrigo and Dante were more invested in their mates than Van. And Van’s mate wanted nothing to do with him.

  He felt like an island, even if he knew that wasn’t true. He was not alone. If he asked the guys to stay, then they would. But he didn’t ask them. He didn’t want to steal them away from their happy lives. It was worth more to him to see them smiling than it was to keep them for another hour or two. Especially when all they did was complain.

  “I hope Sadie doesn’t ask you to do home renovations any time soon,” Van quipped with a sly grin.

  He was procrastinating going upstairs. The thought of seeing Carol again twisted his heart. She didn’t want to see him. That much was clear. He didn’t know what he’d done to push her away, but he also didn’t know what to say to make it better. It felt like there were no right words. Nothing he could possibly tell her would make her see how he truly felt.

  There just weren’t enough words in the world. Not the right ones, at least.

  Maybe he needed to learn another language, one with expressions for the longing and protectiveness that he felt for her. But that would never work. Carol would have to speak the same language to understand. For if she didn’t understand, then there was no point.

  He just wanted her to know how he felt.

  “Like I said,” Dante began. “Go get your woman and make her help you finish this. I expect a complete floor when I come back tonight.”

  Van’s brows flattened into an unimpressed line. “Tonight? You want this finished tonight? If that was the case, then the two of you could stay and help us.”

  Dante gave Van a look that said he was pushing his luck. Van couldn’t help but try. Dante couldn’t remain unquestioned for the rest of his life. The power would go to his head if Van wasn’t there to drag him back down to earth every now and then.

  “Dante can’t stay. He and Sadie have to sit Alexis down and have a talk.” Rodrigo’s voice held a touch of foreboding.

  This must have been about the drinking. Alexis was a teen and had handled the situation well by calling one of the pack. Van, for one, was proud of the teen. If she was going to do it, at least she was being smart.

  Well, as smart as a hormonal teenaged nightmare could be.

  It didn’t take long for Rodrigo and Dante to disappear. Van was left on his own. Instead of going upstairs to knock on Carol’s door, he retreated to the bar’s kitchen and gr
abbed a quick snack. When he turned around, Carol was leaning in the doorway. Her arms were over her chest, but her eyes were on the floor.

  “So, I’m your woman?”

  Van’s cheeks heated. That was a new experience for him. Embarrassment gripped his spine and rooted him to the spot.

  “Is that because it’s your job to watch over me? If I snap and start attacking traffic, is it your job to stop me?”

  “Hold up,” Van said. “Did you just make a joke about dogs chasing cars?”

  She might have been angry, but her small smile chased away the tight lines around her eyes. “I might have. What are you going to do about it?”

  “Well, for one thing, I’m going to buy you a trophy for most self-deprecating joke of the year. Unless you plan on chasing tractor trailers, because that would be funny to watch.”

  “I might be a wolf shifter, but I don’t think I’m large enough to take down an eighteen-wheeler.” Her small smile dipped as she looked around. “Where did everyone else go?”

  Van rolled his eyes. “While I keep you out of traffic, the others have gone off to reprimand their step-children and re-enact smutty novels with their lovers.”

  “Bullfrog doesn’t deserve a reprimand,” Carol said, barely hiding her laughter.

  This was what he needed to do. Keep the conversation light, teasing. If they approached serious topics, she would begin to pull away again. How he felt for her sat on the tip of his tongue, but he had to swallow it back down. Now wasn’t the time. Not while she was smiling and laughing.

  “Mind helping me with this cursed floor?” Van asked as he stepped toward the kitchen door, the one Carol was taking up.

  He moved to push past her. She turned out of the way, but as he stepped through, he was brought dangerously close to her. He heard the hitch of her breath and felt his stomach tighten in response. The heat of her body traced flames along his bare skin. He wanted nothing more than to reach out and claim her mouth.

  When she tilted her head back to look up at him, her lips parted as if in invitation, he could barely control himself. The beast in him growled, urging him to take her. She was there. She was willing. He could smell it on her. He needed her.

  Then, he stepped out of the doorway. Cold air from the open door hit his hot cheeks. It did little to wash away the heat inside him. He still wanted to turn to her and pull her into his arms. Would this need ever go away? He wished it would lessen in time, as he got to linger around her, but it only sharpened.

  “I’ve never put in flooring, but I guess I can’t leave you to do this on your own.”

  ***

  He smelled like a snack. A literal snack. Her stomach growled when she noticed the bag of spicy snack mix in his hands. He offered it to her, but she wasn’t sure if she could take a step toward him.

  In the doorway, where there had barely been space to breathe, she’d nearly jumped him. Her skin had ached to be touched, to know what it felt like to wrap her arms around his neck and feel his hair in her fingers.

  Then, he’d moved on and left her alone in the door.

  She blamed her beast and its needs, but a part of her wondered if there was more to it. She wished she could say she’d never felt like this around anyone, but she’d spent so little time since her change around other shifters that she couldn’t tell if this was normal.

  Maybe she just needed release.

  It was frustrating to not know anything about what she’d become. Even more so when she thought about how she had changed in the hands of the doctors. Her beast had warped and become something new. And the change was not good.

  She felt on the edge of monstrosity, unable to keep the creature inside her from forcing its way out. She feared the day that she would hurt someone. It felt like an inevitability, but she feared too much for her own life to tell the pack about her problems.

  Their solution was simple.

  Extermination.

  “You’re holding that backwards.” Van’s voice brought her out of the dark hole her mind had fallen into.

  She came back to herself, holding a plank of finished wood. “No, the shiny side is up. The color matches the rest of the flooring.”

  Van shook his head and crawled closer to her. He took the plank of wood from her and turned it around so that the other edge faced her. It was then she noticed the small lip on the edge. Van grabbed a nearby rubber mallet and put it in her hand.

  “This part,” he said, pointing to the lip, “connects with that part.”

  She followed his finger to the small indent in the side of the plank already installed. “Ah!”

  Together they worked, a comfortable silence settling over them. Over time, her knees began to ache. The skin of her palms cried out, rubbed raw from the wooden handle of the mallet. When she could no longer bear it, she leaned back on her haunches.

  “I see why Rodrigo and Dante bailed on you. This is obnoxious.”

  Van grunted. “It’s my fault. I wanted to replace the ugly carpet, but another carpet wasn’t the best idea.”

  She scrunched up her face in thought. “And wood is a good idea? Seems like it would absorb a lot of beer.”

  Van sat back, beaming with pride. “And you would be right. I did my homework this time. While I’ve been calling this wood, it’s actually a tile made to look like wood. Beer can’t soak into ceramics.”

  Carol laughed.

  Van crawled closer again. The heat of his body grazed hers when he reached for another plank of the ceramic tile beside her. He raised it and pointed to the grooves, where the unglazed ceramic was visible.

  When he looked up, his brows rose. It was as if he was surprised at how close he’d gotten. Carol’s stomach tightened with hunger. Her fingers twitched at her sides. She wanted nothing more than to reach and grasp the back of his neck, though she didn’t know why.

  She’d only been back for a short while. She couldn’t have fallen in love with Van in this amount of time. Not with every gray cloud lurking over her head.

  “You don’t get out much,” Van said. She could hear the way he was trying to lead into something else. An invitation, perhaps.

  Carol got to her feet in the blink of an eye. There was a reason she didn’t hang around the rest of the pack. If she did, they would begin to see the signs. Van had already seen too much. The day he took her to the food trucks had been bad. He’d followed her and found her in her wolf form.

  She didn’t know how much he’d seen or what he suspected, but if he stuck around any longer, he would find out.

  Before he could ask anything more, the phone rang. Van’s brows slid together, and he turned a glare upon the phone hooked to the wall. After a moment of hesitation, he stood and moved toward it.

  “No one calls the landline. We all have cellphones.” As if reminded of his phone, he plucked his from his pocket and checked it. “I don’t have any missed calls.”

  “Everyone knows this is the shifter hang out,” Carol said, under her breath.

  Her heart stuttered. It wasn’t hard to find shifters in this town. Everyone would be able to point a newcomer toward this bar. The thought kickstarted her heart, making it race.

  Van picked up the phone and held it to his ear, answering with a practiced introduction to the bar. He waited. Carol couldn’t hear anything. She strained to listen, but her heartbeat was too loud.

  Van’s face fell into a deep scowl. His eyes slid to Carol.

  “No. No one here goes by that name.”

  Her wolf thrashed. It wanted to run. She knew who was on the other end. There was only one person who would come looking for her. Her lungs felt shallow. She couldn’t breathe deep enough. Her head spun. The wolf shoved at her again.

  It was close to breaking free. If she didn’t hold it back, Van would find out. The pack would put her down.

  He hung up the phone. “That was weird. They were looking for someone by the name Georgette. Who even has that name?”

  She let out a breath. Her relief was so s
udden and sharp that it nearly dropped her to her knees. The cool rush of fading adrenaline made her knees knock together.

  “Who names their kid Van?” she shot back, her mouth already covering for her.

  Van grunted. “You have a point.”

  Carol feared what would happen when the buyer caught up to her. Would the pack protect her? Or was she pulling herself so far away from the others that they wouldn’t notice when someone else attacked her? Pack was supposed to mean safety, but Carol didn’t feel safe among her brethren. And she certainly didn’t feel safe alone.

  “You were saying…about me not getting out?”

  Van’s head snapped up. The glare he’d been serving the phone vanished and a small grin quirked the corners of his mouth.

  “Oh, yeah. I was going to ask you how you felt about hiking. There’s a trail not far from here that I’ve been wanting to try out. It’s a long one and rumor has it there’s a dragon shifter that lives nearby. Would you be interested in going with me?”

  “Hiking?” she asked, trying to make sure she heard him right.

  He shrugged, as if she hadn’t just wounded him.

  “I’m not saying that’s a bad idea,” she added, quickly. “It’s just that no one has ever asked me to go hiking before. I don’t think I’ve even gone hiking. Unless long walks in the woods on all fours count.”

  She caught the gleam in his eyes, the one that said there was a dirty joke in that mind of his, but that he was going to keep it to himself. She rolled her eyes but couldn’t help the smile taking over.

  “You. Me. Tomorrow?”

  She shouldn’t. But she was also afraid of being alone. Of being caught off guard and losing her freedom all over again. Around Van, she felt safe. She forgot the things that were haunting her, the man who was hunting her. She found that she craved more of that.

  “That sounds good to me. You’re sure the dragon shifter won’t mind?”

  He brushed it off with a wave of his hand. “That’s just a rumor. Everyone knows dragon shifters don’t exist.”