Lion In Wait (A Paranormal Alpha Lion Romance) (8 page)

“Ah. Enter Lyle. How did he find you?”

The way Lex said
you
made it seem like he was reliving his own experience, if only partially.

“It’s kinda hard to remember,” Cass said. Her voice was crackling, fragile, distant. “I said I was in a bad place, well... I mean it. The money I made over top of the food I ate – which wasn’t very much – went straight to other stuff to keep my mind off how ridiculous I was.”

She stuffed her fists into her eyes, rubbing angrily at the tears, as though she was angry about them existing. “I can’t believe what a goddamn idiot I was. I’ve stopped beating myself up over it, but every now and then I still hate old me a little for doing this to now me. It was all some stupid rebellion, you know? An idiotic attempt to... I don’t know, prove that I couldn’t be what people wanted me to be, that I wasn’t the girl they wanted.”

Cass took a deep breath and didn’t bother hiding the shudder, or the shaking shoulders as it rolled out of her. Lex sat up, but didn’t make a move to comfort her, which she actually appreciated. “Every time I cried with Max, I’d try to tell him all this stuff, and he’d kiss me or hug me, or he’d start talking and make me feel better for a second. Then he’d stroke my hair, we’d have sex and the world seemed right. Only...”

“It wasn’t.” Lex’s soft voice had taken on an edge. It was still gentle, still kind – still Lex – but there was an edge of something between anger and understanding in his tone.

Cass nodded, and then looked back up at the stars, almost feeling their warmth bathe her naked vulnerability in a shimmering shield. “Yeah, it never was. I’d try to convince myself I was just being whiny, or dumb, or whatever, but those feelings, the regret and the anger, it kept coming back.”

Lex was watching her, his golden eyes turned a stormy, darker shade. She’d seen that look in his eyes before – albeit when he was a giant magical cat – right before they’d escaped. Slowly, he shook his head from side to side.

“That’s when he found me. Like some, I dunno, hard luck Freddy Krueger. I was just a dumb kid, which I’ve accepted now, by the way, but he found me when I was at my weakest, my most broken. I went to the show when it went through this sorta middle-of-nowhere town in Nebraska, that’s where Max and I ended up after running out of money and being unable to con the Greyhound driver into letting us stay on anyway. We had a fight, Max took some of my clothes, sold them for enough to hop a bus to wherever-the-fuck, and took off. Never saw him again.”

She laughed, bitterly. “To think, I still think about him sometimes and miss him. I guess that’s how bad the circus got. Anyway, yeah, I went to the circus since it was free to get in and at least look at the midway. He saw me somehow, gave me his card, saying if I ever needed anything—”

“Help is only a phone call away,” Lex finished for her, and then smiled grimly.

“Long story slightly shorter, I got drunk, thrown in jail. Next morning, who the hell was I going to call? And then there we are. He paid all my outstanding bills, which at the time seemed great. He offered me a job, which... shit, what else was I doing? So that seemed great too.”

“How long did it take you to realize what happened?” Lex had stood by then, and took a step nearer where Cass was, but made no move to touch her, distract her, or anything except listen to her pain.

She took a deep breath, her lips trembling as she let it out. “Year, probably,” she finally said. “When he gave me that slip of paper showing how much I owed him against how much I’d made. In one year, I made dent the size of five hundred bucks in a ten thousand dollar bill.”

Lex let out a dangerous hiss.

“I was sold,” he said in that flat tone of his. “Sold like a pet. Or more accurately, a trophy.”

Cass’s eyes went wide. “You let that happen? I mean... I’ve seen you do some thrashing before, you’re not exactly easy to convince if there’s something you’re not wanting to do.”

“Our stories aren’t all that different,” he said. “Mine’s a lot shorter, but... not that different. We need a fire,” he announced, and stood abruptly. Cass grabbed his arm as he stalked away, forcing him to face her.

“I told you everything,” she said. “Laid it all out there, every embarrassing thought and feeling laid bare for you to see. And you’re just going to say something vague like how our stories are similar, and then pack it in? That’s it?”

Lex stared at her, but not coldly. He was searching her face and, she thought, his own feelings. It couldn’t be easy for him, but then again, “it wasn’t easy for me either,” she whispered. “You make me feel safe – you always did, even when I thought you were a lion with whom I shared a very small living space. If you don’t feel the same way with me, what the hell are we doing here?”

“We got away,” he said. That time his voice was a little cold, but it was hard to tell if it was actual coldness, or self-defense. “That’s all that matters, isn’t it? We’re free.”

“Are we? Are we really?”

His eyes went from her eyes to her lips, then to her chin, and finally he stared at the ground near her feet. “I need time,” he said. “These aren’t words I was ready to say.”

Lex took her hand in his and slid her clasped fingers off his wrist. “And we do need a fire. Just... give me some time. I’ve been having this fight with myself since the first time I laid eyes on you, Cassiopeia. The very first time. When I saw you, I wanted to show you what I was, what I really was. But I couldn’t. And right now, I’m not sure if I was protecting you from the truth, or me.”

Her hand fell limply to her side, and she watched as he turned again, and crouched. The firm muscles lining Lex’s back, his legs, his arms, all grew leaner and tighter. His hair, turned into a mane, and the tiny hairs all over his body slid out of his pores, becoming the golden fur she’d known for so many years. She took three steps forward and laid her hand on his back.

“If that’s what it is, time? I can... I can give you time.”

He turned, his golden eyes flickering in the moonlight. He nodded, and then was off like a shot.

––––––––

W
hen Lex returned, Cass was laying on her side, pretending not to notice.

When he struck the fire, and made it near enough to her to keep her warm, but not so close for danger, she kept pretending not to notice – in fact she took it one step further and started snoring.

If he knew, which she thought he almost certainly did, Lex made no sign of it, or of trying to disturb her, or anything else.

With those careful
in
actions, he did more than Max ever had, more than either of her parents, or Lyle, or anyone else.

He let her be the way she wanted, no matter how badly he wanted something different.

The entire sum of attention he gave her, outwardly anyhow, was that when he curled up by her feet to sleep with one eye open, he made sure that her meager covers – not much more than her spare clothes, were wrapped around her, that her head was resting on her canvas bag, and that the fire was warming her back.

She opened one eye just enough to look in his direction and see what he was doing. She knew he saw her, but as soon as he did, he turned away, again giving her the peace she was asking for.

In truth, she’d been trying to sleep the whole time, and between the fire and the pouch under her head, was at least as comfortable as she’d been a hundred other times in her life. But until he settled down by her feet, and she felt the slow, even, rise and fall of the side of him that was against her calf, sleep wouldn’t come.

Once he was there though? No matter how irritated she was at him being a little too much like John Wayne with his feelings, she couldn’t keep from feeling the comfort he emanated, and shrugging her shoulders against the ground, moving her body a little more against Lex’s.

With her legs crooked around his curled up form, she felt him purr softly, the way he always did when he, too, felt secure and comfortable.
Maybe I’m not crazy
, she thought.
Maybe I do just need to give him a chance to get used to this new skin, this new... reality. It can’t be easy, it can’t be...

She drifted off as the moon was at its apex, but still low in the sky. The last thing she remembered before drifting off to dream was Lex moving his head, and draping it over the top of her thighs, the way he’d done so many times before, back in the days before she knew.

Somehow, with that one gesture, that one simple motion, Cass knew that he was trying to let himself trust her. That he was fighting against his fear, even if it wasn’t exactly what she wanted, was good enough for right then.

*

“U
p!” he urged, with that strange twist in his speech that Lex had when he was in his lion form. “Cass, up, now!”

In a half-startled, fully confused tangle of clothes, messenger pouch, and her natural grace, Cass flopped over onto her side, grunted when she hit a rock with her elbow, and shook her head wildly from side to side.

“Up!” he said again. “Quick!”

Lex was nuzzling her with his head, pushing against her neck to try and urge her off the ground. “Jeez, if you were that hard up,” she said, blowing a tendril of hair out of her face, “all you had to do was ask. Even after last night I wouldn’t be saying no.”

He paused, furrowed his heavy, lion eyebrows and let out a soft growl. “Reassuring,” he whispered, “but no, that’s not it.”

“Guh,” Cass flung one of her arms around, and it smacked the ground hard enough to alert Lex. “Hate it when I sleep like that. Arm goes all numb. Shoulder gets sore.”

She finally got to her feet, blinked her eyes tight a few times, and then stuck her thumbs in them to clear out the sleep. “What time is it? And why did you wake me up like that?”

“Past dawn, and listen.”

“Thanks. That’s very good, very specific, why—”

That’s when she heard it – a distant buzzing sound, far away but with the quiet of the desert morning, she could still make it out clearly. “What is that?”

“Four cylinder engine. Dune buggy, probably, four wheeler maybe.”

“I bet you’re fun at parties,” she said, sticking her fists into the small of her back and leaning backward until she heard an audible pop, and groaned in pleasure. “Wait,” she said, freezing still. “That’s not good.”

Lex snarled, drawing his shoulders into that tight, ready-to-leap posture she’d seen so many times. He raised his huge head, sniffed the air, and cocked it to one side. “Quiet,” he grumbled. “It’s far, but I can make something out. We knew this would happen. I’m just glad...”

Cass huddled close to the lion. “Knew it, maybe, but I hoped it wouldn’t. One of those pointless wishes that sits around in the back of your head and you know better than to wish for, but... and there I go rambling out of nerves. Can you hear anything?”

“An engine. Four cylinder,” he said, “dune buggy or—”

“Yes, good, anything new?”

He craned his neck, staring intently into the distance. “Two engines,” he said after a moment’s pause. “Though it doesn’t make sense. Why would he be after us with these things?”

“You said yourself his truck’s a piece of ripe shit,” Cass said, straining her ears to hear whatever Lex heard, but failing completely. “Maybe he thought better of charging around the desert in his only transportation? I mean, he’s not the brightest cookie in the sleeve, but even he would probably figure out that’s a bad idea.”

“Brightest...cookie?”

“Never mind,” Cass shot back. “Should we run? I really feel like we should be running right now.”

Once again, his ears tilted back on his head, almost hidden in his mane. He let out that same low, rumbling growl he always did when he was deep in thought. This time, she just let him be. If nothing else, in the past couple days, Cass had learned that sometimes listening was the best way to figure out what was going on around you.
If only I learned that one about ten years ago
, she thought with a dry laugh.
That and about ten thousand other things
.

“They’re coming closer,” Lex whispered. “I’m fast, but from the sound of those engines, running won’t do much good. And this is as hidden as we’re going to get.” The speaking had dried his throat to the point that every word he said clicked painfully. “This might be the best chance we have of... of hiding. Without a fight...”

His voice trailed off into a painful rasp before cracking completely. Cass laid her hand between his massive shoulder blades and stroked absent mindedly. Panic set in, or would have if her first reaction to panic wasn’t to go completely numb and shut down immediately. She stared in the exact same direction that Lex stared, but whatever his lion eyes saw, she could not.

“Why don’t we fight?” she asked. “I still have my whip and you have... well you’re a giant magical lion.” She nudged him with an elbow, but instead of laughing, Lex only growled low in his throat. “If it
is
him, then what can they do to us – or more specifically to you – fast enough to keep you from really ruining their day?”

He narrowed his eyes. “Shoot me again, for one.”

Now
she heard the two separate engines.
Oh God they must be getting close if I can make out two separate hums.

“Are you scared?” she asked. It wasn’t meant as any sort of insult or anything more than a question. She was genuinely curious.

“For you,” he answered. “If they kill me, they’ll—”

“Not gonna happen,” Cass said, interrupting him as the vehicles – he was right, dune buggies – crested a distant hill. “You’re not the only one doing the protecting, remember?”

She cocked a look at Lex, who turned his head to face her. Even in this form, he wasn’t much shorter than her, and didn’t have to look up very much at all.

“Why?” he asked.

“I could ask you the same thing. Truth is that I think this has always been the way things were supposed to go. It’s you and me, just us two misfits who both shouldn’t exist against the world.”

He snarled in a way that sounded like he was smiling. “I’ll take it,” his voice cracked again. “Little over the top, but I’ll take it.”