The Lion and the Unicorn (Lionsville Shifters Book 1)

by Dara Fraser

  “In a nutshell, I talked and you heard. The physical mechanics are not the same, but…I have no idea how to explain this.” He raked his hands through his hair and mumbled something about his sister knowing better.

  “How about this—change into your unicorn and talk to me. Just pretend you are human and do what you always do.”

  His idea made no sense to her. Her animal instincts were completely different than her human ones. But not standing in front of her mate naked was probably a good idea at this point, so she gave it a go. Her first attempt sounded like her typical neigh, and she watched him work hard not to laugh. Brilliant.

  “You’re thinking like your unicorn. Think like your human half and try again.”

  She was so in tune with her animal side that it took her a few moments to get into the right headspace. Growing up on a ranch and being able to appear to be a horse meant she got far more time as her unicorn than most shifters got in their animal form. People would notice a lion running around the forest a lot more than they would pay attention to a horse in a meadow.

  “Leo?” She heard herself. He was right, it was just like speaking but not at all. “You said this is a mate thing?”

  “Sort of.” He kicked the dirt with his naked toe and she watched the small cloud of dust dissipate before he continued. “For us, yes. We can talk because we are mates. Zara, for instance could not hear you.”

  “I hear a ‘but’ coming on.”

  “But…” He met her eyes with his. “I am the alpha, so when I speak all of my clan hears me.”

  “So I’m not that special.” That came out totally wrong, but she loved the idea of having secret mating powers. Finding it was just because she was clan hurt a little.

  “You are. You’re not clan yet, and you heard me.” True. She hadn’t thought about that. She was welcomed like clan by those she me, but not officially his mate yet.

  She changed back. It was weird having a serious conversation with a naked man in the middle of the forest but felt doubly weird when she wasn’t even human during said conversation.

  “I didn’t leave because of you, you know. How long were you following me anyways?”

  “I know why you left. You needed to. No proper decisions were going to be made then.” He had no idea how true his words were. At least out here there was a breeze to help the pheromones go their merry way. “I followed you outside just as you hit the tree line.”

  “But I listened for you. Why couldn’t I hear you?”

  His eyes filled with mischief and Leo pointed to himself. “Me, Predator…” Turning his hand in her direction, he continued, “You, Prey.”

  “Well isn’t nature completely unfair?” In hindsight, she was glad he was there with her all the way, but knowing that a lion could sneak up on her like that wasn’t the most pleasant thought. She was still alive because she could sense the Theron long before they could sense her. Not being able to sense lions meant that she didn’t have as many safeguards as she had hoped. Not that Leo would hurt her, but he was far from the only lion in the world or this town, for that matter.

  “How come I sensed you at the end? Because you were close?”

  “Not really. At first I was blocking you so I could keep an eye on you. Then I wanted you to sense me so I let the block down. It’s an alpha thing.”

  Samantha was livid. For some reason that hurt her deeply. She knew she was being irrational, yet she couldn’t help herself.

  “You hid from me.” She tried to rein in the emotion in her voice.

  “I won’t do it again.” He looked remorseful, as if the full impact of his action made complete sense to him, even if it only half made sense to her.

  “Thank you.”

  “Anything for you.”

  She could hear the honesty in his words. For a moment, it was so powerful that she forgot he was naked, but then the wind shifted, hormones hit her, she looked down, and the moment passed.

  “So the biting…”

  “No rush.” From the look of him, he would be more than happy to rush, but he didn’t let any of that tinge his voice. He was a good man.

  “The thing is…” She wanted to word this delicately, but truthfully, without causing him more frustration. Where was the darn mating handbook? “Wanting is not the problem…” A growl rumbled in his chest. So much for not frustrating him. “It’s just that I feel like we are missing something to the story. Maybe we should talk to the elders first. Or maybe your granny?”

  Leo started to pace back and forth. It was not something she had seen him do before, not that she knew him a long time, but still it put her on edge.

  “You’re right,” he finally said, all formal and assured. That was good, because she was questioning practically everything. “It sucks, but you are right. There is more to that story than we understand, and we should be prepared.”

  “It totally sucks.” She sounded like a whiny teenager, but it was true. Suckage all the way.

  “The question is: what do we do from here? Granny is hours away and may have some ideas that can help us, but we would need to go there. This is not a phone conversation.”

  “What about the elders?” Samantha asked, hoping to stop the pacing. Pacing on a good day made her nervous, but tonight it was driving her over the edge.

  “Do you remember what I was saying about the clan vs pride thing?”

  “A bit. A pride is all lions. A clan is shifters of all kinds.” There was probably a lot more to it than that, but that was all she could pull from her brain.

  “Basically, yes. The problem is, our clan elders include only one lion, and he is far from what you would call an agreeable guy. He still wishes we were a pride and is not a huge fan of the less structured pack order we use.”

  Great, the one guy who could help probably didn’t want her there in the first place.

  “So he might not help us anyways because he’s a bigot?” It was a harsh word. Leo cringed a tiny bit before nodding. He might not like the word, but that didn’t make it untrue, apparently.

  “He’ll say he likes all shifters, just misses the old ways of how the pride was run.” His hand raked through his hair again as he seemed to pick his words carefully. “The pride used the same basic structure as the clan with the exception of one rule: shifters of non-lion birth couldn’t hold positions of power. So yeah, bigot pretty much works.”

  “Do others feel that way?” It felt so wrong in this day and age to be running into this kind of thing, but hatred always seemed to find a way to survive.

  “Not as strongly as him, but most were born into or mated into the clan. Only the oldest among us were there from the pride days.” It was too much. All too much now.

  “I say we go home now and deal with this all later.” His eyes lit up when she said home, making her nerves lessen.

  “Race you?” Playful Leo was back. She liked that side of him.

  Without acknowledging his challenge, she transformed into her unicorn and ran like the wind. It was two miles and lions were sprinters, so she had a shot. Okay, she had a shot because she cheated, but that was just fine by her. She could hear his paws stomping behind her, catching up quickly.

  She knew firsthand how very stealthy he could be… He wanted her to know he was right there. She was fairly confident he was letting her win. He should’ve passed her quickly and then slowed down, giving her the opportunity to pass him and be there first. She would have to call him on it. After she won, of course.

  She transformed as the back porch came into full view. She snagged the clothes she had tossed on her way out. Being around him naked was not a good plan. Actually it sounded like a magnificent plan, which is why clothing was not optional. They needed to be smart about everything if they were going to survive this in one piece.

  “You totally let me win,” she called behind her as she reached the back door.

  He brushed past her, completely naked. “If I caught up to you, that would have been worse.”

 
Smug bastard had a point.

  “I’m taking a cold shower and then going to bed,” he called over his shoulder as she walked over the threshold. She could have sworn she heard him mumble, “Ice cold.” Yeah, he was feeling it, too.

  Bed sounded good. All of the day’s events were starting to hit her, and she needed to think about them without the distraction of wanting to jump her mate’s bones. If Zara and Dylan were any indication, the feelings didn’t subside when you mated, but at least then there was something to be done about them.

  “Good night, Leo.”

  “Good night, my mate. See you in my dreams.”

  Wasn’t he the charmer? She needed to get to sleep. There was work to be done.

  Chapter Ten

  See you in my dreams

  Samantha snuggled into bed and fell asleep with ease. She’d thought the invigorating run would keep her up, but sinking into the bed with his scent wrapped around her sent her to a safe, happy place, and soon she was in her dreams. Now was the time to get her thinking done. No pheromones distracting her, just herself and her mind. She had to figure out this whole mess before anyone got hurt.

  Samantha pulled her memories of Frank and, creating a white board, she wrote down anything that she thought could be of help, focusing on anything that might have hinted at the future. When all was said and done, she was basically at the same place she started, but knowing she hadn’t missed anything was worth the time. Next, she pulled from her memories of Sybil. Frank’s sister gave away more in the short conversation Samantha had with her than Frank had in all the time she knew him, but it was still a whole lotta nothing.

  “What are you doing?” Leo’s voice came from behind her.

  “What am I doing? What are you doing?” Samantha tried to will him back into her memories. The last thing she needed was to waste this time on a naughty dream. Hopefully there would be plenty of time for that after everyone was safe.

  “I told you I would see you in my dreams.” Leo had inadvertently set her up for this and now, try as she might, she couldn’t put him back. Maybe he could help. It wasn’t as if the pheromones would affect her in her dreams.

  “Fine, but to be fair, this is my dream and I have a lot to do. If you want to help, you can stay. If not, please go back into my memories.” She was rationalizing with her dream. Only her.

  “You want me to go into your memories? Isn’t that a little… I don’t know…rude?” He walked to her, and this time he was just wearing boxers. Leave it to her to bring him here half naked.

  “I seriously don’t have time for this. No, I don’t want you rummaging through my memories.” She was getting pissy with dream Leo. At least it wasn’t her real mate. “Here.” She pulled up the book Sybil had painted and handed it to him.

  “Read this, and if you read or see anything we haven’t talked about before, please put them on the board. Hopefully I paid attention enough to have at least the first half of the book complete. So far I’ve gone through all of my memories of Frank and Sybil and, as you can see, I found a whole lot of nothing.”

  Leo walked over to the board, and she watched as he mouthed each of her ideas. He picked up the eraser and started to erase random facts.

  “What are you doing? I worked hard at that.”

  “You asked me to help. I am erasing things that won’t help. Especially the things Frank said that were his way of messing with you. Most of these are telling you to be brave and strong.”

  She stood there with her mouth open.

  Leo put his finger under her chin, presumably to get her to shut her mouth and stop embarrassing herself.

  “So, Mate, do you do this often?”

  “Staring at my dream mate with my mouth gaping open? Hardly.”

  “Glad to know I am your dream mate, but I meant working so hard in your sleep.”

  “Yes.” She had better control over her dreams most nights, but this one just felt off. “Leo, answer me this: what did Zara tell me about what she does all day when Dylan is working?”

  “I have no idea. I wasn’t there.” He looked confused by the question, but she stayed quiet hoping he would open up a bit more. “Is she still watching that reality show where the waitresses all bet on who will give the biggest tips?”

  “What? No. They have a show about that? What has this world come to?” She closed her eyes and let the reality of the situation sink in. “Fuck, you’re really here.”

  “Yes.” He took a step forward. “Is that a trick question?”

  “Do you dream walk, too?”

  He shook his head.

  “Then explain this all to me because I’m not quite understanding it. I should be able to put you back in my memories, and you should’ve known about your sister’s shenanigans because you are formed from my memories. But I can’t and you don’t, so that means either I’m losing all of my skills, or you really are here. Since you don’t dream walk, I’m a whole lot of confused.”

  “I’m going to kill Zara. I thought she was going to be gossiping away and you would leave understanding this mate thing.” He grabbed the bridge of his nose, closing his eyes. “Mates can visit each other’s dreams.”

  “But we technically aren’t mates yet.”

  He sighed, still not opening his eyes. “No. No we aren’t, but our bond is strong enough you can see things I show you, so my guess is that is why we are showing signs of a mating bond without the actual mating.”

  “Did you know you could do this when you said that to me?” Had he inadvertently opened the door by his comment, or had he planned it all along? Not that it mattered. Not really anyways.

  “I said it to be funny and because I was hot and bothered, so I figured I would dream about you because of…well that.” Color hit his cheeks. It was kind of cute watching the big bad alpha lion blushing over her. “But then I got in bed and was thinking about the day so I figured ‘eh, why not give it a go?’ I did, and here we are.”

  “Did you know unicorns could dream walk?”

  “Yes, and no.” He opened his eyes. Finally. She had missed them. “I knew the stories talk about it, but I thought it meant you could visit people.” He used his arms to gesture around the room. “This was not what I was expecting. It’s like you have a little office in here.”

  A desk, filing cabinets, even a white board. As a child, she’d used her dreaming time to run more often than not. Now, she was office girl. It was actually pretty depressing when she thought about it.

  “So you are really here?” She needed to either get back to work or, at the very least, stop this train of thought. When he nodded and took a step forward, she decided to go with option two. “So how does that work? Do the things we do in here have…repercussions in the real world?” The sultry intonation she was going for was amiss, but from the look of her mate, he got the message loud and clear.

  Leo closed his eyes as he ran his hand through his hair, waiting a solid minute before replying. “I have no idea.” He sounded defeated. “I want to say no. Oh God, do I want to say no, but truth is I have never met anyone who shared dreams before they mated. Or at least no one who has shared that info with me.”

  Not the answer she was hoping for. Not. At. All.

  “We are freaks in the shifter world, aren’t we?”

  Leo took a step toward her, now fully clothed, reminding Samantha that she was still asleep. “We”—he caressed her cheek with his thumb—“aren’t freaks. Just because we have more to consider before becoming mates doesn’t make us freaks.”

  She leaned into his palm. She wanted him to be right.

  “I know, but it feels so… I don’t know, like we are doing it wrong?” Everything in her called to him and restraining herself was more than a challenge. Especially when they may or may not have free reign in this realm. If it turned out they did, she was going to spend the next few days sleeping, to be sure.

  “How about I help you with your original task for the evening, and then tomorrow we can call Granny or talk
to the elders and go from there?”

  Nodding, she stepped back toward the white board. If she’d stood that close to him any longer, she feared she would have made a decision based on need instead of on thought. She had fought too long, been on the run too long to let the Theron win now because she couldn’t keep her hormones in check.

  Leo followed and picked up the book she had given him. He began to read what she was sure was only a partial tale. They would need to get hard copies in real life and do it again, but for now, at least they were trying something. After what felt like hours, but was probably less than an hour since it all took place in one REM cycle, they had a few notes on the board and a pile of papers and books in the “to be filed” pile. Of course there was no pile, but it felt good to see the visual representation of what they had gone through.

  “When I wake up, I will write down all I can remember from the board and you do the same.”

  Leo acknowledged her orders with a smirk and a nod.

  “Sorry, I’m used to dream time being only me even when others are there. I didn’t mean to be so bossy.”

  “Bossy actually is kind of good.” Leo took a step toward her and she sucked in a breath. “It means you will be a good alpha female.”

  Another step forward.

  “Bossy with me, well, I venture to guess you are going to prefer me being bossy with you, but we shall have to see on that.” As he took another step forward, she leaned into him. Yes. Yes she would like him to be the bossy one in those situations. Goodness help her.

  His arms wrapped around her and she returned the gesture. She could feel the dream time slipping away. Darn REM. She might be able to dream walk, but she had no control over the time she spent there. Knowing their time was limited, she threw caution to the wind and stood on her tiptoes while slamming her lips to his. She kissed him like she wanted to in real life. She explored his mouth with hers and he met her movement for movement. As she felt him slip away, she held on tighter, well aware that it would do no good but having to try something, anything.