by Dara Fraser
Copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by fines and federal imprisonment.
Please purchase only authorized electronic editions and do not participate in, or encourage, the electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
The Lion and the Unicorn
Copyright 2020 by Dara Fraser
ISBN: 978-1-68361-457-9
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work, in whole or in part, in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden
without the written permission of the publisher.
Published by Decadent Publishing Company, LLC
Look for us online at:
www.decadentpublishing.com
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Epilogue
Samantha thought she was running from evil...turned out she was running home.
Samantha has been living on the run since her family was massacred for what they were—unicorn shifters. She can never stay anywhere too long, form too many connections, relax. When the elderly shop owner who takes her in is murdered by the hunters stalking her, she finds herself on the run once again, only this time with some direction.
Her dead friend was more than he appeared and, by following the instructions he left, she finds safety once more. But for how long? With help from unexpected sources—including ancient lore, the shop owner's family, some heirlooms, and sexy lion shifter Leo—Samantha discovers there is more to her family’s deaths than she’d believed. Thrust into a destiny she doesn’t want, Samantha and Leo fight for their lives and the survival of shifters everywhere.
The Lion and the Unicorn features a strong unicorn with some kick-butt abilities, a hot lion shifter, fated mates, enemies as old as time, a found family, and a happily ever after.
The Lion and the Unicorn
by
Dara Fraser
Chapter One
Being a unicorn is not all sunshine and roses
Samantha was going to have to stop running at some point, but for now, survival was the number one thing on her mind. The last time she got comfortable and actually allowed herself to relax, it had ended up with three people dead. True, two of them were evil, but the third had simply been a nice old man whose kindness was the catalyst for his demise. Up until that point, she had fooled herself into believing she was the only one still in danger. That had been her mistake, one that cost her the life of the first person she had called a friend in years.
She had cried herself to sleep every night since, but no amount of tears could change what was. She needed to pull on some big girl panties and find a solution to her current predicament. Frank, her former boss, made her promise that if anything were to happen to him that she should go to Sendoa. He told her that there were people there who could help her and would be honored to do so. It was a weird promise, but his eyes pleaded with her to do so and so she did.
From the moment she met Frank, she knew he could see past the human she presented to the world. Initially, it surprised her that he knew she was more than a person and wasn’t only all right with that, he seemed to treasure it. In the past, if she even got a hint that someone suspected anything unusual about her, she would flee. Frank was somehow different. At no point in time had she ever felt ill at ease around him, so she stayed when he offered her his spare room in exchange for work.
Now here she was, searching for a town, one she wasn’t quite sure existed, because Frank had told her to. In hindsight, she realized he’d known his time was coming to an end. Little things he said seemed to make sense more now than they had before. And then there were the grand gestures she discovered after his death: when she’d grabbed her bag on her way out, she found a key with a paid invoice to the local garage. He had left her a clunker he’d apparently bought under the table for cash. He’d even left a hand-drawn map in the glove box. Yes, he knew what was coming, but that didn’t ease her guilt. Not by a long shot.
Sendoa, according to the hand-drawn map, was a good five days’ trip from where she started. The first two days she drove on adrenaline, stopping only to gas up, grab a sandwich, and take a quick sleep on the side of the road. Halfway through day three, a rest stop became a necessity. Samantha was starting to get spacey and worried her driving would end up with her car in a ditch. Stopping in a small town, she grabbed lunch at the old-fashioned diner. It tasted amazing, and she was already feeling ready to head back on the road when she noticed the town library. Libraries had computers.
Samantha had long divested herself of all things electronic. She’d found out the hard way that even throwaway phones could be tracked back to their point of activation. That was the closest she had ever been to being caught, up until the day at Frank’s anyways.
Samantha walked into the town library, glad to see that the computer area was full of people. Crowds meant blending in and blending in was exactly what she needed. Samantha was positive that if anyone heard her thoughts, they would think she was paranoid, but quite honestly, she had every reason to be. She pulled up her hoody, headed to the empty computer station, and entered Sendoa into the search engine.
After twenty minutes, she had come up with practically nothing. A town in Arizona, which was in the opposite direction from where she was heading, a few personalities from international sports, and some links to the Basque language. She would just have to trust Frank and continue on using his map. She owed him that.
As Samantha worked her way back to her car, a wave of nausea hit her. That was not good. Either she had eaten something toxic at the diner, which she doubted, or they were getting close. Too darn close. She needed to make a decision. Stay and fight; flee and hope she stayed enough ahead of them that they didn’t sense her in return; or change into her true form and hide in the woods, knowing that she would be making much of the rest of the trip by foot, well, feet, actually. Four to be exact.
Another wave hit her and she decided to run for it. She was in the car in thirty seconds flat and on her way out of town before the next wave hit. She crossed her fingers that she had been lucky and that she’d make it to this possibly nonexistent town of Sendoa.
Five minutes down the road, Samantha pulled over just long enough to remove her hoody and slap on a wig. If they were truly after her, nothing was going to stop them, but if they were Theron by birth alone and not by training, she had a hope, as minuscule as it was.
“Oh, Frank, I hope you knew what you were doing. Silly old man,” she said aloud
, breaking the silence. She dared not turn on the radio for fear that she would miss a clue as she drove. Gone were the carefree days of her childhood when all of the stories of Theron were given about as much credit as the boogie man. Here to stay were her days as Samantha, paranoid unicorn. If only she had paid more attention back then.
Darkness was beginning to set in and much to her relief the nausea didn’t hit again. Maybe she had been lucky and they hadn’t sensed her. Maybe they assumed she was taking the highway. Maybe they were on her tail but staying just enough back so that they could sneak up on her while she was asleep. Whichever the case, she planned to keep going as long as she was able. Looking down at the gas tank, she figured she had a good two hours before she had to stop, but if she ran across a convenience store before then, she would fill up and get the largest coffee they had. Possibly two.
Less than a half hour later, she came upon a small grocery with a gas pump. A quick glance told her the gas gauge was much lower than she expected. Samantha pulled in, filled the car, and walked into the store. It was more of a mini-everything store than a typical convenience store, and she grabbed a T-shirt with the local college team to change her outfit in case they had seen her. A new wave of nausea hit as she was pouring the largest cup of coffee she could find, but unlike the typical nausea she felt when danger was nearby, this felt more like a “come hither” and it creeped her the heck out.
She all but ran to the counter and was greeted by a little old lady with familiar eyes.
“Frank said you were coming, dear.” That was not the greeting she expected, nor was it one she felt comfortable with.
Pulling on her wig, she replied in her best British accent, “I ’ave no idea what ya mean, ma’am.” She sounded worse than a kid in a middle school play.
“Oh my, my brother was right about you, Samantha. You are a spitfire.” Brother. The familiar eyes, she was telling the truth.
“Sorry,” was all she could muster as a reply. “He didn’t tell me about you.”
“That, dear, I believe. He was always one for secrets.” The little old lady walked around the counter and grabbed Samantha’s hand. “Come with me, dear. There isn’t much time.”
Wasn’t that the truth.
“Listen, I know you mean well, but I have to go. Frank gave me a—”
“A map. I know. It was meant to lead you here. The rest of it is not for you. You are to drop it on the ground outside so they find it.” The woman was moving at a quick clip, and Samantha knew in her gut that she was to follow. Frank didn’t die for her to stop listening to him now.
“Okay, give me your bag and get naked.” Well, maybe some listening could be avoided.
“What?”
“Give me the bag. Get naked and give me your clothes and shoes. I have a bag here they will all go in. One that I will fasten to you once you change.” Whomever Frank and his sister were, they knew far too much. “Hurry.”
For some reason, Samantha felt compelled to obey and stripped down to her birthday suit.
“Behind the back door is a field of horses. You will go under the fence as a human and change. After I attach your bag, run due west and don’t stop until you meet a young man with my eyes. He is about your age and I am told he is quite the looker. He will help you from there.”
A car screeched to a stop, and Samantha’s heart began to pound. “Quickly. That is our ‘you were kidnapped’ alibi and I need to be there for it.”
They ran out the back door and to the barbed-wire fence. She barely remembered to mumble her thanks before changing into her unicorn and running due west. She had so many people in her life that gave so much for her, and now even strangers were in the mix. She had to get away not only for herself but more importantly for all of them.
Chapter Two
The eyes of safety
Samantha ran and ran. One of her gifts was to look like a horse, so as she left one pasture and jumped into another, she easily blended in. If it weren’t for the pack on her back, which she hoped looked like a saddle from a distance, she would have looked like any other brown mare. Of course, her true color was more of a silver, and she sported a horn. She actually looked like almost every fairy-tale-book unicorn she’d read as a child. Little did she know at the time that all the tales were true—especially the scary ones.
When she ran out of pastures, Samantha made her way through the woods. She was going the opposite direction of the map, but if the old woman was correct, that was exactly perfect. She wished she had gotten the old woman’s name and had time to tell her about all Frank had done for her since they had met and what a great man he was. The woman most likely knew how amazing he was, but to hear it from Samantha might help with closure.
The sun was starting to break through the trees and Samantha was exhausted. Her pace may have slowed, but she was not going to give up. She had come too far to give up now.
The feeling she’d had at the convenience store hit her again. She was close. She picked up her speed and as she came to a clearing, she spied an abandoned old blue pickup with vines and weeds so overgrown all around and through it, that it was barely recognizable as a truck. Sitting on the hood was a man, and if her senses were accurate, he was there waiting for her.
“Samantha?” He was tentative in his words, but his voice gave away his assuredness. He was asking out of what she assumed was a mixture of politeness and caution.
She nodded her head. As much as she wished she could speak in this form, she couldn’t. Not in the truest sense anyways.
He stood up and inched toward her as if worried she would spook and run off. She had come too far for that crap, but he had no way of knowing all she had been through. His thoughtfulness was endearing, even if unnecessary.
“I’m going to take your bag off so you can change and we can go. Granny said we shouldn’t dally, so I’ll sit here with my eyes closed while you take care of...things.”
He reached up and removed her bag. She normally didn’t like it when people touched her in this form, but with him it felt almost welcome. There was something odd about his family, but she would take odd and nice over murdering evil any day of the week. He dropped the bag in front of her and walked back to the truck. In moments, she was in human form and changed, fearful to speak before she was dressed, not wanting him to accidentally look too soon.
“I’m decent.” She spoke with a confidence she didn’t have. “Thank you.”
“Not a problem. Granny said you were coming and that Uncle Frank said you needed to…” He turned and caught her eyes with his. A shiver ran down her spine as he stood there and stared.
“I need to what?”
He had stopped mid-thought and it unnerved her more than it should. She knew she most likely looked like a disheveled mess, but there was more to his reaction than that. He shook his head.
“Um, sorry. Frank said you need to go with me and I would know why.” His confident voice was now more awe-filled than firm, and she guessed that he just realized that she was a unicorn and not simply a horse shifter.
“Do you?” She had to confirm because she was riding blind and it made her so uneasy. Samantha liked having a plan and while this plan seemed very well thought out, it was far from her plan. She didn’t even know what was to happen next. “Because Frank never told me anything and the older woman only told me to find you. I have been running all night and my head seems to be extra foggy since I changed back, so any insight would be fabulous.”
“Yes.”
She was not 100 percent sure she heard him speak, his voice was so low. “Yes?”
“We need to go, and now.” The strength in his voice returned. “We can discuss everything else later.”
He walked over to her, grabbed her bag, and led the way. It was a short walk and they were at his SUV in only a few minutes. Once inside the vehicle, her fogginess grew. It felt almost like coming out of anesthesia after getting her wisdom teeth pulled, minus the pain. She grasped at reality, but it was just ou
t of her reach. When he climbed in, it grew even worse. She was going to pass out before she even knew his name.
“Fuck. Sorry, I should have realized.” He started the vehicle and opened all of the windows while turning the fan on high. Immediately the fogginess started to lift. Not all of the way but enough.
“What is that? Are there drugs in here, or a carbon monoxide leak or something?” None of her ideas sounded right, but it was all she could think of as a possible explanation.
“No, nothing like that and no worries, it will be better now, especially after we get on the road.” They began to move, and she realized that they were on a dirt road, but one that had seen some traffic over the years. “My name is Leo, by the way. Frank only told me you would be here before the sun rose but not how much before, so I had been there a while.”
“Frank is…” She didn’t know how to tell this to Leo, that the man who sent him to help her was dead because of her, but she might as well put all of her cards on the table.
“I know. He told me that, too.”
She heard him swallow and knew that Leo was trying to hide his emotions. She was queen of that, so she pretended not to notice the tears forming in the corner of his eye. Instead, she chose to look forward. “When?”
“When did he die?”
She turned to him as he gripped the steering wheel so tightly, his knuckles turned white.
“Shit. I’m sorry. I thought… I assumed you knew he was gone.”
Wait? What? “I was…there.” Her voice got quieter with each passing word.
“Oh.” He didn’t continue for almost a full minute, and Samantha almost took the question back. She didn’t want to upset him more than he already was. “What were you asking, then?”
“I wanted to know when and how he told you.” This conversation got weirder by the moment.