by Kyanna Skye
“We have a little cub to take care of now.” The pride and joy in his voice were unmistakable and warmed her to the core despite the chilly morning breeze.
“I’m always careful.” She scrunched her nose up at him, and he laughed, grinning that silly grin of his that always made her heart feel like it was doing cartwheels in her chest.
“Uh huh, sure. It took you two extra months to heal that ankle because you refused to stay still.”
“I can’t help it, I’m used to moving.”
“Oh baby, you know how much I like it when you move.”
“Stop it, Sebastian.” Tabitha turned in his arms with a laugh. “My class starts in less than twenty minutes, the kids are going to start getting here.”
His only reply was a husky laugh and a sexy grin.
“Well, we better move fast then.”
Tabitha’s grin matched his as he swept her up into his arms, just like had almost a year ago, and started in the direction of their cabin. She couldn’t hold back the shriek of laughter as he broke into a run, and she threw her arms around his neck. She had no intention of letting go.
THE END
Mated to the Lion
Can Amelia handle the truth that she’s having a lion shifter’s baby?
Kaeden Everett is a Lion shifter with a deep love for his family, even if they do get on his nerves. As the oldest out of three young cubs that had been orphaned and left on their own, he grew up with a keen sense of responsibility. As the population of Lion-shifters starts to decline due to a genetic anomaly, he sees it as his duty to search out Dr. Pearson, a fertility specialist known to the shifter community, looking for a suitable match.
Amelia Price has spent her whole life dreaming of having a baby. Years of being unlucky in love left her doubting it would ever happen. Tired of her lonely life, and waiting for the ‘right’ guy that always ended up turning out to be Mr. Wrong, Amelia decides to take things into her own hands and visits a fertility clinic with the hopes that her dreams will finally become a reality.
He was looking for a surrogate, but what he got was a whole lot more. Maybe he’s finally found his match.
Chapter 1
“Hello, this is Dr. Pearson, from the fertility clinic. Kaeden, we’ve found your match. The one you’ve been looking for all this time, we finally found her! Give me a call, she is due back in two days for the procedure. Call me back.”
“…Kaeden, This is Dr. Pearson again. I know we are supposed to confirm with you before going ahead, but we’ll never find a better match, and she more than meets all of your criteria. She’s coming in today for the operation. Please…call me back immediately.”
Kaeden cursed as he pressed the red button to skip to the next message and held the phone to his ear, straining to hear the words over the pounding of his heart. Finally, after all these years, a true match! He couldn't wrap his mind around it. And it had already happened…he checked the date of the first two messages…almost ten days ago, and he hadn’t been there!
He cursed again, this time directed at the Sanctuary Ranch, and its lack of cell phone reception, where he had been for the past two weeks trying to diffuse the ever-worsening situation between Rafe and Luca. His brothers were going to be the death of him.
Sanctuary was an oasis for down-on-their-luck Shifters from all over the Great Plains. He should know, he had shown up with two younger brothers, still just cubs, and a giant chip on his shoulder, and they had taken them in, no questions asked. So when Mama Jones called telling him his idiot brothers were causing problems at the ranch, he had dropped everything and immediately headed there to straighten them out. He loved his brothers, but really, they were going to kill him.
“Hi, Dr. Pearson here. Kaeden, call me back as soon as possible. She’s coming in this afternoon for the follow-up. We will see if the procedure worked…Just…call me back!”
Kaeden looked at the time of the message, then up at the clock flashing red from the dash of his truck. The last message was from just under an hour ago. The clinic was about a three-hour drive from the ranch if he hurried he might just get there in time to catch her. He grinned at the thought, threw the old pickup into gear, and slammed his boot into the gas pedal. Disbelief and doubt warred with excitement as he made his way toward the Doc, this mystery woman, and he dared hope, his future child.
Amelia Price stared at the mint green clock ticking annoyingly, aggravatingly on the equally mint green wall of the waiting room. Normally, she found the soft gray and light green color scheme of the Jackson Fertility Clinic soothing, but not today. No, especially not today. Today was not just any day. Today was the day she would find out if the procedure had worked, and if she was really, truly pregnant.
Her stomach rolled, and it felt as if her heart was trying to beat itself straight out of her chest and onto the cream and gray checked linoleum floor. For about two seconds, she had tried to read one of the family planning magazines, but all the happy, shiny couples holding perfect little babies was just altogether more than her nerves could handle.
What if it hadn’t worked? What if the results came back negative? It had been almost an hour since Dr. Pearson had taken the pregnancy tests, and she was told to have a seat in the waiting room. It shouldn’t be taking this long, right? She pressed clammy hands to her jittery stomach, trying to soothe the nerves that were threatening to overwhelm her.
Amelia had wanted children her whole life. When other girls had grown out of playing with dolls, she had clung to the dream of having a baby of her own, to love and cherish. Well, actually a houseful of children. As she got older, went through High School and then College for her degree in elementary education, she had just been waiting for that right guy to fall in love with, and help make her dream a reality.
But, as it turned out, she was incredibly unlucky in love. Like, abnormally unlucky. First, there had been John. Sweet John, charming John, cheating John. The second year of college, she had met Nathaniel in her Intro to Children’s Literature class and was sure that he shared the same dreams that she did. They had dated almost a year and a half before she discovered the reason he would never move past second base probably had something to do with the stash of men-on-men porn she found in his closet.
At the time, she had been heartbroken…again, but now she could chuckle at the irony of Nate hiding gay porn in the closet. They were still friends, even after she broke off the relationship, and had spent years encouraging him to be honest, at least with himself, about his sexual preferences.
After that had followed an even sadder parade of guys just looking for a one-night stand, or if they were interested in more, Amelia just didn’t feel the spark that she was looking for. As much as she wanted a slew of children, she had dreamed of those children being a result of a warm, loving relationship with a man she could spend the rest of her life with.
Now, at 29, she had an amazing job that she loved teaching kindergarteners at one of the best k-12 charter schools in the area, and a quaint home of her own, which she had signed the last check for six months ago.
But for years she had felt the empty ache in her life continue to grow until she found herself reading an article about a woman who had gotten pregnant using donor fertilization at the Jackson Fertility Clinic.
For the next three years, Amelia had worked hard, saved her money, and delved into research, learning more about the donor fertilization process, all the while hoping for the right guy to come along. Well, she was tired of waiting for Mr. Right to happen by and make her dreams come true. She was ready to take her life into her own hands.
Amelia was about to get up and ask the nurse at the reception desk how much longer it would be when the chime of the door opening chirped loudly. She turned to look at the newcomer, desperate for a distraction and froze.
The sexiest man she had ever seen stood just in the doorway, looking concerned, not slightly perturbed, and his dark brows slashing over unusual gold eyes. Her gaze swept up and over jet black hair
that curled just slightly where it brushed the tops of his broad shoulders, lending him an unkempt, wild look. Her eyes took in the chiseled pecks and the hint of a six pack under his tight white t-shirt. Oh, my! This was one handsome beast.
Caught up in enjoying the sight of this fabulous man candy, it took her a moment to realize that those amazing golden eyes had settled on her with a razor sharp stare. Amelia jumped at the visceral response, like a physical touch as he returned her thorough perusal. She didn't think it possible, but his gaze sharpened, brows lowering even further as his nostrils flared, almost as if he could smell the delicate lemon verbena perfume she had donned earlier that morning.
“Ms. Price, the doctor will see you now.” The receptionist nasal voice broke whatever spell Mr. Tall, dark, and dangerously handsome had thrown over her, and she jerked around just as a pink flush rose, tinting her normally pale cheeks. Get a grip, she mentally scolded herself as she grabbed her bag from the seat next to her, and walked down the hall toward Dr. Pearson’s office.
Kaeden exhaled roughly, finally able to breathe as the dark haired beauty disappeared through the frosted glass door that he knew led down a hall to a set of offices, including Dr. Pearson’s. He started toward the front desk but couldn’t shake the image of the wide, gray eyes staring at him from across the room, and wavy auburn hair reflecting the cool fluorescent light. He mentally traced each and every delicious curve accentuated by the white lace dress she had been wearing. She had looked like a sexpot dressed up as a pre-school teacher.
His mouth salivated at the juxtaposition of unbelievably sweet and undeniably sexy, remembering her ripe, pouty mouth glistening slightly pink, and her scent. Something light and citrusy, but underneath, all woman.
“I need to speak with Dr. Pearson.” His voice came out as more of a growl, husky still from the thoughts of the tempting woman who had just stood where he was now, her perfume filling his senses, distracting him anew.
“I’m sorry, Dr. Pearson is busy. He’s seeing a patient right now. You can take a seat if you would like to wait.”
“Well, this is an emergency! I need to talk to him right nnn….” His words trailed off as his brain made the belated connection that she was the perfect match the Doc had been referring too. That angel was going to have his child? Pregnant with his seed? He was instantly hard at the thought and took a deep breath to get his body back under control. He took off toward the glass door that separated the waiting room and the back offices, throwing the door open and striding through. It closed violently, muffling the receptionist’s admonition to wait.
He stood still a moment, concentrating on breathing normally, but the spike of excitement and adrenaline was still wreaking havoc on his body. He fought to keep his thoughts clean, trying to calm himself before he walked into Dr. Pearson’s office. The last thing Kaeden wanted to do was to scare the future mother of his child, even if she was only a surrogate.
Chapter 2
Amelia walked into the Doctor’s office more nervous than she could ever remember being. Even more than when she had to give the Valedictorian’s speech in front of her entire fellow graduating class, and she had thrown up twice right before taking her place in front of the podium. Dr. Pearson looked up from a stack of charts as she entered, and gestured for her to take one of the two charcoal gray leather seats in front of his oversized cherry wood desk.
He raised his horn-rimmed reading glasses as his eyes focused on her face, pale as a ghost now that the flush of seeing that magnificent specimen out in the waiting room had fled, leaving her complexion almost porcelain and making her dark gray eyes stand out starkly. Amelia felt every second crawl by like an hour as he repositioned his glasses on his beak of a nose, and finished reading through the paper in front of him. She couldn’t take the silence any longer.
“Well?…” Her voice cracked through the silence, startling her and her quickly deteriorating nerves. “What are the test results? Am I…am I pregnant?” She stumbled over the words. After so many years of hoping and wishing and dreaming she could hardly let herself believe that it might be actually be happening. She desperately wanted it to be true, but she was afraid if she got her expectations up just to have them dashed, it would be that much harder to continue on, to start the process over from scratch.
“Ok, Ms. Price, I have just been looking over the results of your test. Let me start off by telling you that your lab tests came back perfect, you are in great shape, and everything is at healthy levels.” Amelia sighed in impatience, as she mentally urged the doctor to get the news she urgently needed to hear.
“With that being said, on to the results of the pregnancy test. Amelia, you are…” The sound of the door banging open interrupted him, and the doctor jumped and looked up at the sudden intruder. Amelia was on the edge of her chair, her purse twisted in a white-knuckled death grip as she was waiting to hear the verdict. If she didn’t get the answer soon, she was pretty sure she was going to have a heart attack. Her nerves were completely shot as she turned to see what was so incredibly important the someone had to barge in right at the very second her entire life might have changed.
She sucked in a breath as she turned around, struck again by a blindingly handsome stranger who had stopped her dead in her tracks in the waiting room. Just as she opened her mouth to demand to know what the hell he was thinking just barging in like a Neanderthal, Dr. Pearson spoke.
“Kaeden! You…you’re here….finally.” He cast a guilty look at her, probably because of the unconscionably rude interruption. “Um…uh, why don’t you wait in the office next door, so we can…uh, talk. Yes, talk. We definitely need to do that.” Dr. Pearson nervously fiddled with his glasses, directing his words in the he-man’s general direction, but refusing to meet his burning golden gaze.
“No.” His deep rumbling voice sent an involuntary shiver running down her spine. What was it about his guy that affected her so much? His windswept black hair, disgustingly broad shoulders, and the fact that he would tower over her own five feet seven by about eight inches probably had something to do with it. As well as that incredibly potent gaze of his that made her feel like he could see everything under her clothes. Yep, exactly like the look he was giving her right now.
“Um, this is a private meeting.” Damn, she was trying to sound stern, but all that had come out was a breathy whisper. Get. A. Grip! She had important, life altering business to get back to. “You really need to go.” She frowned, that still wasn’t right. “Now!” There, that was better. She started to turn back toward Dr. Pearson, who was still standing behind his desk looking strangely guilty when his deep voice stopped her.
“No, I’m not leaving. This has as much to do with me as it does with you,” He took several steps into the room, “…more really, when you think about it.” He didn't notice the sudden widening of her gray eyes as he continued until he reached the other chair, and started to sit.
“Excuse me?…You have no idea…”
“Wait, Kaeden, I really need to talk to you in…”
Amelia and Dr. Pearson spoke over each other, making an unintelligible jumble that seemed to have no effect on Kaeden as he sat, stretching out his legs and crossing them at the ankles, crowding Amelia and unintentionally brushing her bare calf with the denim of his black jeans.
Kaeden sucked in a breath at the contact as goosebumps erupted, traveling outward from the point of contact. He tried to remain casual as a wave of arousal followed, trying to distract him from the matter at hand. The very gorgeous, and obviously confused, matter.
“Listen, that is my child you are carrying,” He nodded at her midsection, his eyes wandering over her ample curves of their own volition. Otherwise, he would have noticed the battle light suddenly firing in her eyes, making them deepen to the color of steel. He also would have seen her tense, pull back the hand still holding her purse, and swing it towards him.
“Are you kidding me? Who the hell do you think you are?” Each question was punctuated by ano
ther swing of her purse, and he raised his hands up to shield himself from the sudden and unexpected onslaught. “You can’t do that! Just walk into some random Doctor’s office and say ‘that one’s mine’ like some sick, demented caveman!” Another smack as the bag made contact with his forearm, Kaeden still trying to wrap his mind around the situation. “I don’t even know if I am pregnant yet, but if I am this baby is sure as hell not yours! What is your problem! I’m calling the cops! If you don’t leave, I am calling the cops. Right. Now!”
He grabbed hold of her wrists and held them gently but firmly, preventing her from continuing her attack. She wasn’t making any sense, this was the woman who had met all of his criteria? She seemed a little unstable to him, but he racked his brain for some explanation for her reaction. He was obviously missing something. Still holding her wrists, he directed his gaze towards the doctor, who had taken his seat and was rubbing the bridge of his nose underneath his glasses.
“Doc, care to explain?” His voice was deceptively calm.
“Not really,” Dr. Pearson sighed and leaned forward, supporting himself on his elbows, and looking suddenly a lot older than he had at the beginning of the meeting. “First, Amelia…you are pregnant. The tests came back positive.”
“Oh my God…” The words whispered passed her lips on a puff of released breath that she didn't even realize she was holding. “Oh, oh my…” All her thoughts were suddenly wiped from her as the words she had so long hoped to hear were finally a reality. She didn’t even notice the strong fingers that had at first restrained her wrists were now rubbing gentle, soothing circles on the backs of her hands.