Lion And The Falcon (Furry United Coalition) (25 page)

“And you’re just going to let her go?”

“What else do you expect me to do?”

“So that’s it? You’re just going to give up. I thought you cared for her.”

“I do.”

“I thought you were willing to fight for her?”

“I am!”

“Then stop acting like such a pussy. You’re a bloody lion. Act like one. Stalk her skinny butt down, pin her with a paw, and pluck her feathers until she admits she loves you.”

“Um,
Mom, I want her to love me, not kill me, or have me arrested for assault.”

“
Stupid laws. Fine. Do it the modern way. Text her, or call her and tell her you miss her. Ask her to come back. Admit how you feel. But for God’s sake, don’t give up without a fight.”

His mother was right—ack, how he hated to admit it. Why did he give up so easily?
He’d known from the start getting Clarice to care for him would be fraught with challenge. It was time for him to act, but to call her up and declare he loved her? No. Too impersonal.
I need to do this in person. Face to face. Or on my knees—maybe while tonguing her.
She could never manage to say no when he did that.

He sprang up from the couch. “You know what
? You’re right. I should track her down so I can tell her how I feel.” Kiss her senseless. Make love to her until she promised him anything, even a lifetime together. “Where are my car keys?”

“
Um, Nolan?”

“What?” he asked absently as he stalked through the empty ice cream cartons
and pizza boxes, on the hunt for his keys.

“You might want to take a shower first.
Run a comb through your hair. Find some shoes. Maybe put some pants on. You know, clean yourself up. You’re kind of rank.”

Catching a glimpse of himself in the hall mirror, he did a double take.
Oh boy, who was the wild-eyed, shaggy-haired beast with bloodshot eyes? Mother was right. Again. Argh!

S
hower first. Clothes. Then he’d go after his falcon and he wouldn’t stop stalking her until she gave in. So what if she’d left? He’d erred in not declaring his feelings. He knew how stubborn she was, how proud. He also knew from the way she’d opened up to him and let him in on her secrets that she had to care. Clarice wouldn’t have let him get so close if she didn’t. And if she wasn’t ready to admit her undying affection for him, then by damn, he’d keep whittling at her resolve until she finally caved into pressure and grudgingly conceded.

His mother left with a promise to return shortly with a battalion of cleaners. But he planned to be gone
already.

Whistling in his shower, a strong soap washing away the traces of
depression, he planned what he would say. Nothing seemed just right. I love you seemed too straight forward, but a long speech? He could just imagine her disdainful smirk. He could try kissing Clarice senseless and when she got to the point where she liked to scream, “Yes!” pop the question, and trick her. However, he doubted that would go over well later on when she came down from her climatic high.

Rinsing off, his nose wrinkled as the scent of stale popcorn wafted over him. Odd
, because he didn’t recall eating any during his self-pity stint. A moment later, his eyes widened in realization, but before his lazy lion could surge to the rescue, something hard conked him over the head, and Nolan slumped to the shower stall floor, a ring of mini Clarices fluttering around his unconscious head.

When she’d made her impromptu decision to flee the coop, chickening out on saying goodbye to her lion, Clarice thought she’d made the right decision. She truly had.
We don’t belong together
, no matter what her heart thought.

And what did her heart think? It
loved the stupid lion. Probably had for longer than she cared to admit. But loving him didn’t mean she’d resort to begging to stay with him or holding out for crumbs of his affection.

Not Clarice. Pride wouldn’t let her.
The same way she wouldn’t show how much she longed for someone to adopt her when she was young, she didn’t dare show Nolan how she wanted something more. How a part of her fantasized about them staying together forever and popping out little hatchlings, or even fuzzy little cubs, of becoming a family.

Despite understanding their time together was temporary, s
he soaked in the pleasure of having someone to come home to, who cared about her day, who listened to what she had to say, who made her feel important. Loved. Nolan played the part of caring partner so well that she lived the fantasy while she could, and loved the stupid feline while she had a chance.

W
hen the time came to say goodbye? She couldn’t do it to his face, fearful she’d break down and beg him for something he’d never offered. A happily forever after.

Melancholy
clogging her throat, she gathered her things and left while he was at work. Her note, one line of meaningless nothing instead of the several lengthy ones she’d torn up, a feeble thank you for what they’d shared. But what else could she do? Everything else she wrote sounded so…so clingy. So desperate. So needy.

Tears in her eyes
—dust, had to be dust—she boarded a bus for home, leaving behind the Goldwing she adored, the life she’d come to cherish, and the man she loved even more.

Mistakenly, s
he’d thought once she got home and fell back into her regular routine that things would go back to normal, that she’d go back to normal; cold, acerbic, and uncaring. Instead, she found herself turning when she caught a glimpse of gold from the corner of her eye. Listened for a roar that never came. And more pathetic, even went window-shopping for a kitten.

Thankfully
, sanity prevailed before she bought a little furball, but it just made her loneliness more acute, which was why she wasn’t paying much attention when her boss—the same prick who’d assigned her to FUC in the first place—reamed her out for something. She couldn’t have said what. It might have been for not paying attention on the job, which she was currently guilty of as he droned on and on. She couldn’t have cared less as she peered out the window, eyes scanning the parking lot yet again for a dark grey Audi.

Dammit. Why can’t I stop thinking of him?

Her cellphone rang and she peered at the screen. The caller ID had her spine stiffening. She cut off her ASS boss midsentence. “I need to answer this.”

“Don’t you dare. I’m talking to—
”

Clarice turned her back on him. “Hey,
Garfield. Miss me already? Your catty friends not giving you the exercise you need?” She taunted Brenda, faintly smiling for the first time in days.

“Clarice. Thank
God I got you. I need you. More specifically, Nolan needs you.”

He did? For a moment
, elation made her heart stutter, then she came back to earth. “Needs me? Then he’s got a funny way of showing it. I mean, really, getting his mom to call me?”

“
Oh stuff it, bird. Despite what you might think, Nolan’s been a wreck since you left.”

“He has?
Why?”

“I don’t know how you
managed it, but my fool son fell in love with you. Told me his happiness is more important than his duty to the pride and that it hinges on being with you. He insists he wants to spend his life with you.”

“He does?
” She whispered the two words before clearing her throat and finding a vestige of her pride. “If he cares so much, then why hasn’t he called?”

“
Because he’s a stubborn idiot, just like you.”

“
I don’t believe you. Prove it. Put him on the phone.” She so wanted to hear his voice, to believe his mother when she said he missed her.

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“
Because he’s been kidnapped, you chattering magpie.”

“What? Why didn’t you tell me?”
Clarice yelled.

“I was trying
, but you kept nattering.”

“When? How long?”
Despite her panic at the news, she tried to focus on the important facts.

“
An hour or so. He was getting ready to come find you, as a matter of fact, when he was attacked. We found traces of blood in his shower.”

Blood?
Her lion was injured. Clarice paced. “Who took him? Do we have any clues?”

“None really other than a kernel of corn and some hair we believe came from that psycho called Lester.”

Her heart stuttered. That wasn’t good. “But there wasn’t enough blood at the scene to signal a fatality?”

“According to Mason, he thinks the mutant knocked Nolan out and took him somewhere. We just don’t know where. I need you to find him, Clarice. Please find my baby boy.”

Even without the please, Clarice would have gone, but the broken note in Brenda’s voice brought tears to her eyes. “I’ll find him,” she promised. “I’m on my way.”

She hung
up just as her ASS boss grabbed her by the arm. “Oh no you’re not. I don’t know who you think you are, but as an employee of this office, you can’t just walk off whenever you like or ignore me when I’m talking to you.”

Clarice glared down at the hand gripping her. “Let go of me.”

“Or what?”

“Or I
’ll break your fingers.”

“Do that and I’ll have your job, Avian Union or not.”

“I don’t want your job.” She peeled off his hand, smiling coldly at his wince.

“You walk out of here and you’re done with ASS.”

She cocked her head and smirked. “Good, because you know what I learned during my time away? FUC is better. Definitely more satisfying. Why, I’d even go so far as to say that FUC is way better than ASS. I quit.” And with those words, she pivoted on her heel and left.

She had a lion to save.
A man to kiss silly. And a confession to make.
Time to stop being a stubborn chicken and tell him how I feel.

So what if she and Nolan belonged to two different worlds?
She loved him and it was time she admitted it. Now, if only he could hold on long enough for her to rescue him and tell him herself.

I’m on my way
, Sylvester.
And she was ready to kick some serious mutant butt.

Nolan returned to consciousness only to wish he’d remained napping. Every part of him hurt and it only took a moment for him to remember why. Or parts of it, anyway.

Lester surprised him in his shower. Embarrassing
, to say the least.
Some predator I am.
In his defense, he’d not expected the attack. Still, though, his lion should hang its head in shame. A chimp one-upping a jungle cat? Mason would never let him live it down.

Of course, that presupposed he’d survive his current dilemma.
Bleak didn’t come close to describing it. Currently, he found himself strapped to a table in some kind of poorly lit storage room, a rather freaky one that made him wonder if he hallucinated, as props from various movies towered around him, from an eight-foot tall hobbit to a gun-wielding action hero. It took him several blinking moments to realize he looked upon the remnants of movie marketing. Posters hung on the walls, overlapping each other, the corners curling in many cases. Cardboard cutouts ranged around the room, vestiges of movies gone by. A popcorn machine sat to one side of him, partially filled with the fluffy stuff. But the buttery popcorn scent wasn’t the only smell in the room. Judging by the unwashed musk he recognized over-laying everything, he currently guested in the lair of one deranged mutant chimp called Lester.

And I don’t think he’s brought me here for a movie date night.

Perhaps it was the fact he found himself duct taped to a table unable to move anything but his head, or the various needles sticking from his body, or the mad laughter of the gibbering psycho as he pranced around singing something about what the doctor ordered, but Nolan got the impression he might be in a teensy tiny bit of trouble.

Where is my mother with her bubble ball when I need her?
He could have used some over protective pride love right about now. At least the mutant didn’t get his claws on Clarice. Actually, if what he gleaned from Lester’s foaming speech was accurate, he’d bided his time until she left.

“I was so clever, doc
—tor. So very, very clever,” Lester hissed as he lumbered into sight. And what a monstrous sight. Last Nolan saw, Lester was a decent-looking guy with clean cut hair and features. Now, his face misshapen, more monster than man, his nose several times its normal size, his lips a lumpy mess and his hair sticking out in straggly clumps, Nolan could admit the guy might have a reason for his grudge. “I saw how they guarded you. Those FUCs with their guns and that annoying bird with her sharp eyes. They never left you alone. So I waited. And waited. But they kept looking. And looking. Never finding me or my old cell mates.”

“You were spying on me?”

“Watching. Yes. Waiting. But I was more clever than FUC. I scared off my friends from the dungeon. Killed the ones who wouldn’t go away. I knew, knew, that if I was patient, so very, very patient, that the guards would eventually leave.”