Her Lion Guard - The Complete Series Box Set (BBW Shifter Romance) (8 page)

     “Just furrier,” Irma added, mouth quirking in one last smile before her expression smoothed.

Mary-Lou watched as her parents closed their eyes, watched them even their breathing and loosen their bodies with gentle twists of their limbs. She expected them to explode into motion, into uncontrollable twitching as the Shifters of that night had – trembled at the thought of watching them lose their minds to animalistic bloodlust.

     It did not happen.

     There were no theatrics in Irma and Jonathon’s Shift. No dance, no song – no fire rising from the confines of human bones. Fine shivers roughened their skin, trembles shook their powerful bodies for all of a moment before a wave seemed to pass over them: Bones shifted beneath thick skin, spines curved and lowered and clothes tore; features sharpened beneath spurts of soft, thick fur.

     It was all over within minutes.

     Mary-Lou stared at the huge, black-striped tiger that stretched before her, at the pepper-red coyote gleefully nuzzling in the great cat’s side. The tiger snorted, snapping her great jaws in mock-anger at her playful companion. The coyote danced just out of reach, letting out a strange he-he-heee sound as it ducked the swipe of a powerful paw.

     They were playing, Mary-Lou realized and stumbled forward, almost falling off the couch in her haste to get closer.

     “Careful!” Jonas bid her. He helped her stand, remained a warm shadow at her back as Mary-Lou made her cautious way toward her parents.

     The tiger and coyote stood still as she approached, eyes calm and intelligent. They lowered their heads when Mary-Lou stretched a curious hand, an obvious invitation to touch. Mary-Lou hesitated nonetheless, wondering if petting a Shifter – petting one’s shifted
parents
– was considered rude in Shifter society. She glanced at Jonas, meaning to seek advice, then promptly yelped when she felt a furry head butt against her hand.

     Jonathon barked in his coyote form, tongue lolling out of his grinning mouth. He hopped up and butted Mary-Lou’s hand again, fur velvet-soft against her skin.

     Mary-Lou laughed, kneeled to gently pet the coyote’s flank and back. The tiger –
Irma
, she reminded herself – bumped into her side, placing her large head on Mary-Lou’s shoulder.

     “Do you believe them now?” Jonas asked. He was grinning, fingers twitching with the need to grab for his mobile and snap a picture. As he watched Mary-Lou nod and laugh, joy shining in bright-green eyes, another need grew in his chest: The desire to Shift, to join Mary-Lou and her family, to
be
her family—

     Jonas’ eyes widened. He stumbled backwards and collapsed into the couch, mind whirling with this new and not entirely welcomed revelation.

     It could not be. He was too young, too unstable still. He could not have found his mate.

     As he watched Mary-Lou nuzzle into her mother’s neck, unafraid and happy and beautiful, Jonas realized it was much too late for doubt. It was done.

     The question was, would Mary-Lou feel the same?

C
HAPTER FIVE

Mary-Lou stretched on her bed, tired and sore and strangely, unbearably happy.

     It had been all of seven days; for all that had happened, all that she learned, it could have well been seven months.

     Mary-Lou was terrified that first night, and it had shown. She lashed out at her parents, at Jonas – acted like a child and threw tantrums, ignoring the utter pointlessness of her actions.

Mary-Lou had always dismissed self-pitying words and actions as meaningless, always chosen to meet her problems head-on.

     Of course, her problems had never previously included shape-shifting bigots. First time for everything, she guessed.

     “Mary-Lou?” a female voice drifted into the room, the wooden door doing nothing to conceal its cheery notes.

     “Yes?” Mary-Lou called back, even as she rose from her sprawl and made her way toward the closed door. “What’s up, Cara?” she asked the younger girl once the door parted open, smiling at the enthusiastic glint in baby-blue eyes.

      “I need to show you something,” Cara grinned back, bouncing slightly even as she attempted to hold still. Mary-Lou smothered a fond grin; little pink flowers dotted Cara’s white socks.  “It’s
so
cool!”

     “Is it, now,” Mary-Lou followed after the younger girl, not bothering to match her enthusiastic gait. “Where are we going?”

     “The library!” Cara threw a mischievous wink behind her shoulder as she added, “Jonas is already there.”

     Mary-Lou tried very hard not to blush, failed as Cara proceeded to alternatively laugh at and tease her for the rest of the way to the basement.

   The Cabin – as Mary-Lou continued calling it, capital letter and all, even after she had been informed its official name was actually, “The Cat’s Cradle” – turned out to actually
be
a bed-and-breakfast and not, as Mary-Lou had previously suspected, a top-secret bunker.

     The Cabin’s visitors were, however, exclusively of the top-secret kind.

     A Shifter Inn
, Mary-Lou had thought with a grin,
Why the hell not
.

     The first of them had arrived in the dead of night, hours after Mary-Lou had retreated to what would become her room in the Cabin. Hyper-aware, still running high on fear and excitement, Mary-Lou heard his heavy steps echo against stone and wood as he climbed up the stairs to the second level. She curled into a ball beneath her covers, trying to think through her panic: Was this an attack? Were her parents safe?
Damn it, was there something she could use as a weapon—

     A soft knock against her door had Mary-Lou almost falling off the bed, a startled yelp catching in her chest.

     “Are you okay?” Jonas had called from outside her door, voice concerned.

     Mary-Lou had taken a deep breath, feeling a bit like her heart was about to jump out of her chest. “I am fine!” she answered in the end.

     Jonas had snorted, the sound sleep-heavy. “Right. I heard you hyperventilating all the way from across the hall. Are you opening the door, or are we going to continue chatting through a slab of wood?”

     That is how Mary-Lou learned of Shifters’ astonishingly sharp senses. She pestered Jonas with increasingly uncomfortable questions regarding that and all other potential physical enhancements the Shifter species possessed, mostly to watch him fidget and blush like a schoolboy.

     Mary-Lou had fallen asleep just as dawn pinked the skies. She woke five hours later, rather horrified to find her head pillowed on Jonas’ broad chest. At least she had not drooled. Much.

     After extricating herself from the slumbering man, Mary-Lou spent a few minutes wandering about the second level of the Cabin. Had anyone asked her, Mary-Lou would have told them she was familiarizing herself with the place. Which was not completely untrue; Mary-Lou had been too frazzled to pay much attention to her surroundings the night prior, and was rather curious about the layout of the house. The fact that she could not for the life of her recall where the hidden staircase that led to the first floor was – well, hidden. Irma seemed to pull it out of thin air, sturdy steps unfolding like origami from the ceiling.

     There were four rooms beside hers on this level, each furnished with soft rugs, a large bed, and an assortment of beautifully carved cabinets and tables. Mary-Lou peeked in each one, feeling a bit giddy and childish. There was so much warmth in this house – Mary-Lou felt a pang of longing, then the cold rush of guilt on its heels. This was not her home, and Irma and Jonathon were not her parents; not the ones who raised her. Not the ones she would return to, after all was over.

     “Is there ever a time when you are calm?”

     Mary-Lou had jumped about a foot in the air with a terrified squeal, wide eyes blinking the previously empty hallway into focus. A few steps away, Jonas grinned – sleep-tousled and warm and utter
bastard
.

      “Why, Jonas?” she had groaned, hand pressed over her rapidly-beating heart, “Would it kill you to say hi like a normal person?”

     “I made plenty of noise,” Jonas smirked and stepped closer, “Not my fault you were too busy snooping to hear me.”

     “I was not snooping!” Mary-Lou denied instinctively, warmth flooding her cheeks. She had not been! …At least, she had not meant to. “And you should really stop pouncing on unsuspecting humans – it is not good for our blood pressure.”

     Jonas had frowned then, smile dimming as he thought over her words. A moment later, Mary-Lou squeaked as she found herself pressed against the hallway wall, Jonas’ body so close she could feel his breaths.

     “I really scared you?” the man rumbled, apologetic and soft. Mary-Lou had shaken her head, more to clear her head than deny his words. She felt him sigh into her hair, trembled when a large hand lifted to cover hers where it pressed against her chest, forgotten.

     “Your heart is not slowing down. Was it really that bad?” Jonas questioned. “I am sorry. I really did think you had heard me. At times I forget how dull human senses are.”

     Mary-Lou had been too flustered to take offense at the sympathetic arrogance blatant in both Jonas’ words and his careful tone. She felt too dizzy, too warm – sick with a heat that seemed to smolder in her very flesh. Mary-Lou shook her head, sought to clear her mind enough to step away from Jonas’ own burning body.

     Jonas let out a sneeze as a golden-brown curl tickled his nose, quickly followed by a surprised bark of laughter. The tension that had stretched between them eased, but did not disappear – not even as Jonas moved away, blue eyes studying the wooden floor with undue interest.

     “The stairs are this way,” he had finally muttered, head tilted toward an uneven portion of the floor some steps away. Mary-Lou had followed his broad back down the stairs and into the brightly-lit kitchen, curiously subdued.

     The man whose arrival had so scared Mary-Lou the previous night turned out to be an aged gentleman by the name of Nicholas. He had gray hair, bushy eyebrows, and a charming smile that lit up his whole face.

     “My!” Nicholas had boomed as Mary-Lou walked into the kitchen behind a still-flustered Jonas. He stood up from a plush-backed chair and offered a large hand, “Irma, she is your mirror image! Except the eyes – the eyes are all John. How are you, my dear?”

     Mary-Lou had allowed her hand to be shaken, her chair to be pulled for her by the older man, bemused at his enthusiasm. She had attempted to keep up, but was still a question behind when Nicholas’ animated focus shifted to Jonas.

     “Edwards!” he had exclaimed, “Is that Jonas Edwards?” Nicholas leaned forward into his chair, eyes widening comically as he took in Jonas’ flour-dusted form. Mary-Lou stifled a smile, admiring the speed at which Irma had gotten the younger man to help in making breakfast. “Last time I saw you, you were thin as a birch tree!” Nicholas continued, “Now look at you – could move a mountain, I bet you could!”

     Jonas had smiled, wide and boyish. Mary-Lou focused on the pancakes Jonathon placed in front of her, trying and failing not to be utterly charmed. “Good to see you again, Nick. Ma said you moved to Romania for good.”

     “Bah,” Nicholas waved a broad hand, “Too many stinking vampires over there. Most cliché species ever, I swear. Plus, how could I stay away at a time like
this
?” He had grinned at Mary-Lou, quite obviously using “this” to refer to her.

      “You knew I was coming?” she questioned, then added, “vampires are real?”

      The older man nodded, a bit of surprise showing on his face. “Of course I did. Everybody does.” He had glanced at her silent parents, a frown weighing his face. “What have you folks been telling this poor girl?”