The Lion and the Unicorn (Lionsville Shifters Book 1)

by Dara Fraser

  Samantha could hear minute changes in his voice from time to time but never felt the power. She would need to ask Sybil about that. If she knew Samantha’s grandmother, she probably knew more about unicorns than any of the rest of the clan.

  Mindy perched on the couch with Zara next to her. When Leo pulled the ottoman to sit in front of her, terror filled her eyes.

  “Mindy, honey.” His words were tender but firm. It was an odd combination, but as Mindy relaxed just the tiniest bit, Samantha could see there was a method to his madness. “I need to talk to you about something you probably don’t want to think about. I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t imperative, and at no point in time will you be in any danger, even if I don’t like your answers.”

  Mindy sat like a deer caught in the headlights. After about fifteen seconds, she gave a slight nod. The poor girl.

  “I need to ask you about Rose and Daisy.” Mindy started to rise. She looked around the room, searching for an escape route. She would find none. Somehow Samantha had missed Zara and Dylan moving to the two exits. Samantha had been wrong, Zara knew what was going on, at least to some extent. “Sit, Mindy. We are here with you because we all care about you and we care about your sisters.”

  “I’m sorry I called them, Alpha. It was just…it was our birthday and I knew better—”

  “Stop. I had no idea about that, so let’s start with when. When did you call your sisters?”

  “Yesterday afternoon.” Her voice shook and tears ran down her face. “Yesterday was my real birthday, and we are sisters so I wanted…”

  “That’s fine, Mindy. No one expected you to come here and never think about your past.” Leo reached out and took Mindy’s hand. “Was this the first time?” She shook her head. “When did you call them before?”

  Mindy looked back and forth, as if to make sure running really wasn’t an option. She might be scarred and wounded on the inside, but she was clearly born a fighter. “About a year ago. When I went with the chef to pick out the new stove. I knew I couldn’t call them from here because then he would find me and everyone would be in danger.”

  “That was very wise, little one.” Mindy perked up at the praise. “This time you called from here though, right?”

  “I did, Alpha.”

  “And what did you guys talk about?” His voice sounded conversational even though the info he was gathering was life or death.

  “I talked to Rose. I wished her a happy birthday and asked about Daisy. She wouldn’t give me an answer, not really. She just kept saying she was busy. Daisy was never too busy for me even when she found her mate. She was the lucky one. Her mate was our neighbor.” So if Daisy was the lucky one, Rose wasn’t lucky? “Instead, Rose kept asking me where I was.”

  “And you said?”

  “I said I was safe and with my new pack.” Mindy looked down. Something she said wasn’t quite true.

  “Did you use the word pack?” Leo caught her avoidance also. “What did I say, Little One? I told you that you would be safe no matter what was said here. You are mine and I protect what is mine.” It sounded so caveman, but Mindy seemed to respond well to it, so who was Samantha to judge. Maybe it was a wolf thing.

  “No, Alpha. I said clan.” Her head popped back down.

  “Well, I had you meet us here today not because you called your sisters, but because on Thursday, we plan to get your sisters out of the pack and claim them as clan.” She looked up to him, as if she needed to make sure she had heard him correctly. “So I need you to tell me everything you can about your old pack. Can you do that?”

  “Yes, Alpha. I also need to tell you one more thing.”

  He nodded and she stared. Poor thing was waiting for the verbal command. After this was all over, Samantha was going to spend a lot of time with Mindy, helping her feel like a full member of the clan, which she clearly at this point did not.

  “Go ahead, Little One.” He grabbed her hand again.

  “I told her how I was going to the quilt show on Thursday and she said they would try and meet me there.”

  “Quilt show?”

  “Brother, do you pay attention to nothing?”

  Samantha had forgotten Zara and Dylan were in the room they were so silent, which was probably part of their plan to keep Mindy relaxed.

  “The women’s guild is presenting the town quilt at the Capital Quilt Festival. They’ve been talking about it for a year because if they win, it gets put up in the state building.”

  Leo shook his head.

  “Men. You only hear the parts of town meetings related to hunting.”

  Dylan chuckled.

  “Well, there you go. We will meet them there and bring them back here.” Mindy’s eyes lit with a glimmer of hope.

  “Daisy’s mate?”

  “Absolutely.” Samantha knew it would be far more complicated than all of that, but the hope radiating off of Mindy made Samantha bite her tongue. There would be time for those details later.

  “Thank you, Alpha.”

  “So can we have tea now?” Zara grabbed the pitcher and a cup and brought it to the coffee table. It looked like “we” meant she was going to guzzle the whole thing down. “So, mate of mine, Mindy’s staying here for a few days. I would go make up the guest room, but…” Zara played Dylan like a fiddle, and he was down the hall before she came close to finishing her thought.

  “Mindy, that is if you want to stay here.” Zara poured her tea. “I just thought that you might feel safer here and, don’t tell my mate this, I could use some help around here.” That seemed to be what Mindy needed to hear.

  Zara showed her to the room she would be staying in as Leo walked over to Samantha, his arms spread open in invitation. Samantha walked right into them, savoring the feel of being wrapped in his arms. Things had gone much better than she had feared.

  “Zara knew?”

  “Nah, she’s just pretty amazing at stuff like this. I will get a mouthful tomorrow for keeping her in the dark, but I’m okay with that. Things fell into place better than I thought. I was terrified that we would scare her into silence.”

  “Do you think it is safe to go home now? I really want to talk to Sybil about the book and locket, but it felt wrong to bring it up until we had some idea what we were dealing with as far as Thursday went.”

  Leo pulled away from her, entwining his fingers with hers as he did. “Zara,” he called. “We need to go. I forgot to turn the stew off.”

  “You owe me stew. Don’t think I forgot.”

  “Night, Zara, Thanks for the tea.” Samantha wasn’t sure how to address Mindy or if she even should. When Leo gave her an encouraging nod, she left it at a simple, “Bye, Mindy. See you soon.”

  They were about to pull the door closed behind them when Dylan stopped it with his foot. “Anything else you need to tell me, Alpha?”

  “Yeah, how about you stop by our house before work tomorrow and I’ll fill you in. To be fair, most of what happened tonight surprised me as much as it did you.”

  “They’re in there making plans for all the things Mindy wants to do around the house. She sounds almost gleeful about it.” Dylan followed them out and shut the door behind himself. “Is that alright for us to be fostering? I would hate for Mindy to feel that was her role here, too. Her pack sure did a number on her.”

  “Normally, I would say no, but Zara is pregnant with a passel of cubs, so it probably feels like it is temporary and for a good cause.” Samantha’s heart hurt for Mindy. Her pack had treated her so horribly. This was not a conversation people should need to have about an adult. “True, Mindy is probably feeling comfortable because it is a role she knows, and people revert back to what they know when they are scared. Knowing Zara, she will keep a good balance and focus on the friendship enough to keep it positive for all.”

  They reached the truck and she heard the bing indicating the doors were unlocked.

  “I say let Zara take the lead.” Both guys looked at her as if she were unhinged. “Seri
ously, Zara is Zara, but she knows what she’s doing. Did you see how Mindy went from ready to bolt to making plans for the week?” They nodded. “Why did she do that?”

  “Zara,” they conceded, both looking pretty darn proud.

  “So yeah, let her take the lead.” Samantha let Leo’s hand go and walked around the truck. “But for goodness sakes, Dylan, pour that tea down the drain. She’s going to be up all night with a sugar rush if left to her own devices.”

  They all laughed. Laughter was good, and if Samantha’s gut was correct, the conversation with Sybil would be not quite as good. And by not quite, her gut was telling her it would be awful.

  Chapter Fourteen

  A Necklace is not always just a necklace

  Sybil was sitting at the kitchen table when they walked in, sipping tea and writing in a notebook. Samantha had half expected her to be asleep.

  “Hey, Granny.” Leo’s open affection for his grandmother warmed Samantha’s heart. He wasn’t Alpha with her. He was adoring grandson. “We weren’t sure if you would still be awake or not after the day you had.”

  “I was waiting for you and trying to write down all the bits and pieces my brother told me that I could remember.” She put her pen down and looked up. “It was easy to find a pen for a change. Has finding your mate changed your disorganized ways?”

  “Hardly, Gran. Not being able to find a pen this morning and having to dump out three drawers to locate one changed my ways.”

  “So you’re saying that Samantha organized the mess you made on the floor?” Oh, Samantha liked Sybil. Leo had mentioned it was nice to have people he could be himself around. So far, she counted four. That wasn’t too bad. Although if push came to shove, she imagined that Dylan and Zara would have to fall in line.

  “Something like that, Sybil.”

  Leo groaned at being caught. Samantha sat in the chair across from Granny and plopped her bag on the table.

  “So I was wondering if you could tell me about this.” Samantha dug in her bag for her necklace, which she found much quicker than the last time, and handed it to Sybil. Leo was making a pot of coffee, but Samantha knew he was paying as close attention to the conversation as Samantha was.

  “This was your grandmother’s.”

  Samantha nodded.

  “She used to wear it all the time. She told me it was a family piece and one day it would go to her child and her child’s child.” Sybil knew her grandmother when she was just Betsy. Not Mate. Not Mom. Not Grandma. Just Betsy.

  “It’s in the book you painted but only on one page.”

  “It is. I’m surprised you saw it. Details of paintings tend to get lost in printing.” Sybil took a sip of her drink.

  “So I wanted to ask you why? Why only on one page and not all of them?” She wanted to know a whole lot more than that, but it was a start.

  “I put it on that page and only that page because it was where Betsy asked me to put it.” The non-answer was making Samantha’s head spin. She was so close to an answer but yet so far.

  “She mention why, Granny?” Leo asked.

  “She said that was when the unicorn would need it.”

  “The unicorn? So she didn’t know who the unicorn would be?” Leo asked what Samantha had so wanted to ask.

  “She said the unicorn. Did she never tell you the story, child?”

  “My family told lots of stories when I was young, and honestly I was pretty much a bratakins and didn’t really listen. Now I wish I had, but it’s too late.” Samantha wouldn’t let this turn into a pity party. “I don’t remember any about a lion and a unicorn though.”

  Sybil fiddled with the locket until it opened. “Well look at that, she wrote in here.” They had already known that and it hadn’t helped them much. “Do you have a knife, dear? A pointy one?”

  Samantha walked to the knife block and pulled out multiple knives until she found one that could be described as pointy. “Here, Sybil.”

  “Thanks, dear, now let me see how agile these old hands are.” There was no looking at Sybil and thinking she was a spring chicken, but she was far from old. She moved like someone half her age. Sybil fiddled with the knife and it was all Samantha could do not to take it away from her. The last thing she wanted was her locket getting damaged or Sybil to be bleeding.

  “Ahhhh, there we have it.” Sybil popped the little piece of paper with the letter from her grandmother on it out and handed it to Samantha.

  “We saw this earlier, Granny.” Samantha missed him coming up behind her and she leaned into him.

  “Turn it over, fresh mouth.”

  They did and on the reverse side was a picture of Leo. She couldn’t be sure it was him, as it was really small and a drawing, but squint as she did, it looked like him.

  “Is it?”

  “It is. Betsy told me to keep the lion the traditional lion color and not the color of an alpha, but said she had a dream and he would be an alpha. She then asked me to sketch him small enough to fit in here. That was hard, by the way. I thought I was drawing Frank at the time, but as you can see, it was you.”

  It was so much to take in. She needed the locket when they slept, and her grandmother knew about Leo before he was born.

  “Did Betsy know a lot of things?” She leaned against her future mate. She needed his warmth.

  “She was more powerful than your uncle, if that is what you mean.”

  “Then why did she...” Samantha couldn’t bring herself to ask.

  “Because not all things can be seen or stopped, dear.”

  Samantha knew there was truth in that statement, but she still wished her grandmother had seen the right thing at the right time to save them all. No one should have to die the way they all had.

  “What else did she give you?” Sybil asked.

  “Lots, but it was all lost in the fire or left at my dorm when I ran.”

  “Let me rephrase, then, what else did you save?”

  Samantha pulled out the statue and the journal and handed them to Sybil. “Just these.”

  “Well let’s have a look, then, shall we.” First, she examined the statue. She turned it round and round. She thumped it in numerous places. She held it in the light. Finally she proclaimed, “This is a really cute knickknack and would probably do well in the shelf above your bed.”

  “Oh, I don’t have a shelf.” Samantha didn’t miss the uncomfortable exchange between Leo and his granny. She didn’t seem to realize how not yet mated they truly were.

  “Leo?” This was not a conversation Samantha wanted to be a part of or be near. She willed it to go away. “Why are you and Samantha not fully mated or even on your way to being mated?”

  Poor Leo. Getting berated by his granny over sex or, more accurately, lack thereof. Samantha willed the world open up and swallow her whole.

  “Because we don’t know what that would mean for the prophecy, and we didn’t want to ignite some big whole thing before we were prepared.”

  Sybil looked at Samantha and she nodded her head in agreement. “Sit. Both of you. Now.”

  “Let me tell you the story in a language you can easily understand so you can stop making decisions based on misinterpretation.” She sounded exasperated, and Samantha wondered exactly how far off they must have gotten things.

  “In a nutshell, the lion and the unicorn mate. That means you two, in case that was confusing.” Samantha would have found this hilarious if it had been happening to anyone else. Since it was her, she found it mortifying.

  “After they mate, they somehow use this locket here to trap the Theron in what I imagine is a dream realm, but that was never clear. It might just be the powers are collected in the actual locket. We will figure that all out in time, because if we don’t, the prophecy is garbage.”

  “Then everyone is happy and the clans stop fighting,” Leo added. Sybil nodded.

  What????

  “The clans aren’t fighting, are they?” That was something that hadn’t even crossed Samantha�
�s mind.

  “Not in the truest sense, love. But there is tension there among those packs which hold onto the old ways, packs like Mindy’s old pack, and the ones that have adopted a more modern approach to leadership.”

  “When you say packs like Mindy’s, you mean there are more like that?” Samantha had hoped that was one weird fluky thing.

  “Many,” Sybil answered for him. “My brother and I were reaching out to those clans, trying to get them to change their ways and many were surprisingly open to the idea. Mostly because they saw it could be a financial boon to their clan, but we were glad no matter the reason.”

  “Mindy was in the Aldric Pack.”

  “Oh no. There are not a lot like those.” Sybil’s disgust was evident in her tone. “Enough of this depressing talk. Let me look at this book you have here and then I will leave you two to your mating.”

  Sybil and her sex talk, again. Samantha wanted to curl into a ball and hide under the table. There was absolutely no way she was completing her mating in the same house as his granny. She may be old, but as spry as she was, she probably still had her hearing, too. No one wants a grandmother figure hearing their mating. No. One.

  Sybil picked up the knife and stabbed the journal’s spine.

  “What are you doing?!” Samantha tried to reach across the table to grab the knife, but Leo beat her to it.

  “Granny?”

  “Calm down, kids, I am doing what was meant to be done.” Sybil flipped the page to the first entry from Samantha’s mother. She had read it enough times that Sam knew it by heart, and nowhere in there did it say please stab my journal. Sybil pointed to a line. “Between these covers, I hope you find the answers you are looking for.”

  She had read that line a thousand times and never took it as anything more than a statement about the words she would journal, but as Sybil reached into the slit she made along the spine and pulled out a set of papers, Samantha realized how wrong she was.

  “Looks to me like we now know how to use this here locket, sweetheart.” Sybil’s face was practically glowing. Whatever was on those papers was good, but Samantha had to take care of her journal first. Selfish as it was, she needed to tape it back up and make sure all of the papers were intact before she could begin to concentrate on the rest of it all. It was all she had left of her mom.