Lion's Love And Honor: The Pride of Sierra Leandra (Paranormal Romance)

Lion’s Love and Honor

The Pride of Sierra Leandra

Meg Ripley

Copyright © 2015 by Meg Ripley

www.redlilypublishing.com

All rights reserved. No parts of this book may be used or reproduced in any form without written permission from the authors, with the exception of brief quoted passages left in an online review. This book is a fictional story. All characters, names, and situations are of the authors’ creation. Any resemblances to actual situations or to persons who are alive or dead are purely coincidental.

This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only; this copy is not available for resale or to give to another reader aside from any transaction through Amazon’s e-book lending program.

Disclaimer

This book is intended for readers age 18 and over. It contains mature situations and language that may be objectionable to some readers.

Note: This book was previously released as two separate books:
Saved By The Alpha Lion
and
A Shift In Power
.

MY GIFT TO YOU

BONUS!
As a thank you for downloading this book, I’ve included another one of my favorite books at the end of this story!

GET MORE FREE BOOKS

Click
HERE
to sign up to be notified about more of my
FREE
book offers and news!

Stay In Touch -- Join My Community!

Click
HERE
to follow Meg Ripley on Facebook

Click
HERE
to follow Red Lily Publishing on Facebook

Click
HERE
to follow Red Lily Publishing on Twitter

Click
HERE
to follow Red Lily Publishing on Pinterest

PART ONE

“Flight One eighteen now boarding first class passengers at gate three B; would first class passengers on flight One eighteen to Puerto Vallarta please begin boarding at gate three B now?”

Charlie was standing next to the terminal’s enormous conveyor belt, staring blankly at one spot and waiting for his vermillion duffle bag to float before his unfocused eyes. He was distantly aware that he hadn’t moved in a full minute—maybe more—but he was too absorbed in the task of trying to monitor every change in his environment to care about how strange he looked. Evan wasn’t around yet to remind him to be “normal,” so he was happy to keep twitching his ears toward the sound of rapidly moving feet even though the tiny human bones in his ear canal weren’t nearly as sensitive as the ones in beast form. He wanted to be alert, but his eyes were fatigued from the flight, and it was starting to make him jumpy.

Captain Roberts, please call gate seven; your co-pilot is holding. Captain Roberts, please head to the nearest courtesy phone to speak with your co-pilot who is holding at gate seven.

The announcements were clashing with his train of thought more solidly than usual, and he knew why; automatically, his right hand moved to the pocket of his jeans, where Natalie’s letter was folded into a compact rectangle already worn from being handled so much. He’d memorized its contents, but he kept pressing it to the tip of his nose to try to drag a few more particles of her scent into his lungs. Even months into her pregnancy, she still retained the same base scent: warm honey and sharp, sweet smoke, a heady aroma that warned of an intensity he knew could be fatal. She was the strongest person he knew, and the brightest; she often taught him something in her missives or phone calls without even meaning to, and never backed down when she knew she was right.

I got into a fight with Ariel while she was helping me pack up the basement because she wouldn’t believe that bears don’t really hibernate. My mother called and complimented me on my all-fruit dressing; she usually hates avocados, I was so surprised. Did you see that news story about all those diners that got sick—can you believe that waiter thought salt in coffee was a harmless prank? Grade school mistake.

This time, however, her letters had been cheery but sparse; they lacked the bubbly detail that usually padded out the thick envelopes she sent weekly, and sometimes even twice a week. Natalie no longer spoke of her chance meetings with old high school friends, or whose wife was having a hard time dealing with loneliness; now it was just pregnancy symptoms and a series of oddly detached retellings of incidents around their neighborhood. Their last phone call—right before the plane took off—had been the worst.

“Nat, I know something isn’t right.” His hand was sweaty so the slim black cell phone kept threatening to squirt from his grip. Evan was buckling into the seat next to him and fixating on the threads at the hem of his shirt, but Charlie knew he could hear every word. “I can hear it in your voice. I see it in your letters. Evan says Ariel isn’t acting right, either.”

“Charlie, everything is fine,” Natalie said soothingly for the fifth time in as many minutes. “A few busted windows, some kids jumping other kids…you know it happens.” The gentle rasp of her voice was carefully avoiding taking on heavy undertones, but Charlie could almost see her anxiously winding her dark brown hair around one finger as she paced around the living room. “We’ll start the move again when you get here. It’ll be fine.”

“Why did you have to stop the move in the first place?” Charlie asked. “I don’t understand that. The boxes were all finished five months ago. You said someone damaged the truck?” He remembered when he was younger having his property stolen or smashed when people found out he was a shifter. It was illegal, but it never stopped them, and the cops were often in on the games, since the shifter population intersected with the inner cities so often.

“The axle is bent,” Natalie answered, interrupting his reverie. “I want you to take a look at it before I get it messed with first. You know I’m useless with that sort of thing.”

Charlie closed his eyes, trying to keep the panic from spilling into his voice. His broad chest was tight with anxiety. “No, I don’t know that, Nat. Are you kidding me? I was with you when you made our old mechanic cry.”

“And I never got to know the new one!” Natalie retorted, her voice shrill. “I’m afraid of pissing this one off, too. Charlie, I don’t get what the big deal is. You’ll be home soon, and you’ll have all your answers then.” Her forced nonchalance snapped something inside him, and suddenly he was shouting.

“The big deal is that something crazy is happening and my wife is acting like it isn’t!”

A red-faced man twisted around in his seat to look at Charlie after he finished, and Evan laid a hand on his broad shoulder. The marine swallowed his anger with extreme difficulty and lowered his voice.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured into the phone. “But I’m scared. Evan is scared, because Ariel won’t talk to him about their garage burning down— he had to hear it from Riley. You’re not telling me what’s stopping us from moving, and I know it’s more than the truck, because we have more than two friends with trucks and SUVs. And I’m hearing about people—grown men and women, not just kids—getting beaten and left in the streets. What’s going on, Natalie? And why won’t you tell me about it?”

The silence stretched on for so long that Evan turned to look at Charlie, his brown face forming a question when he didn’t hear Natalie speak. Charlie was about to ask if she’d hung up on him when she drew a deep, shaky breath and slowly let it out.

“Charlie. I…just trust me, okay? You’re right. You’re absolutely right, but I need to you trust me. Okay?”

It was the raw quality of her voice that finally broke the shell of tension around his heart and allowed him to relax. “Okay,” he answered. “Okay. I trust you.” Even though this is killing me.

“Thank you,” Natalie said, and there were tears in her voice. He realized then that the weight of holding this back from him was killing her, too. Whatever this is had better be worth it.

His bag came crawling by him on the carousel just as he snapped out of his memory, and he almost didn’t catch it in time. Charlie thrust one long arm out and closed his fingers around the bag’s thick strap just before it disappeared behind the curtain to be spun around the carousel again.

“Nice catch, Flax,” Evan said behind him. He’d already located his suitcase and was pulling it behind his body as he strolled up to Charlie, his wiry frame far too relaxed given their situation. “Got everything?”

“Yeah.” Charlie slung the bag across his shoulders and playfully popped his friend on one of his narrow shoulders. “How the hell are you so calm, Reynolds? You’re like a wind-up toy whenever we’re on deployment, and you’re the one who told me about all the attacks. Are you high?”

Evan grinned and fell in step beside his taller friend as they headed for the exit. “Just on life, Flax. Besides, we’re finally home. That means we can get to the bottom of this.”

Charlie looked sharply at Evan, whose dark chocolate face was mostly hidden behind a pair of huge sunglasses, but he could still see the grim determination on his face. “You sounded…very certain about that,” he said slowly, dragging his green eyes up and down his best friend’s stoic expression. “Did you find out something more when you called Ariel in the bathroom?”

Evan gave a single curt nod that set Charlie’s heart racing.

“Well why didn’t you say so!” Charlie yelped, and several people in the crowd ahead of them turned toward his raised voice. He felt blood rush to his cheeks and he cursed himself for losing control of his volume again.

A man caught his gaze in the crowd, short and incredibly tanned, with dark blue eyes and a full mouth pinched together in what seemed to be surprise. His sandy blonde hair was being lovingly ruffled by a lovely copper-skinned woman with black curls who seemed to be trying to style his wavy coif, but he was staring so intently at Charlie that he was ignoring all of her muttered instructions. Charlie felt a curious ripple of power pass between them, and it intensified as they got closer. Eventually the charge was unbearable, and he broke their gaze and lowered his head as they hurried past the couple. What was that about? Charlie thought, but as soon as they were out of the doorway and under the blazing Southern Californian sun, he grabbed Evan by his forearm and pulled him into the shade of the parking garage to their right, the incident driven from his mind.

“Okay.” When they’d stopped, Charlie pushed both of his hands through his short black hair excitedly, willing his pulse to reign itself in. “Tell me. Tell me what you know.” It’s the cops again, he thought. Trying to find a reason to stamp out the shifters, like last time.

“It’s more stuff about the abductions,” Evan said slowly, his voice cautious and deep. He slid the sunglasses from his face, letting his brown eyes pierce Charlie’s as he spoke. “And it does seem like they’re targeting younger people…but it’s not just jumping, and it isn’t random.”

“What do you mean?”

Pain and anger flashed across Evan’s dark brown eyes, and Charlie caught the scent of the feline beast stirring beneath his skin. “The young men being attacked are sometimes being taken, and they turn up weeks later across the country, or are found with their memories gone, and part of a completely different pride. They can only be identified by their fingerprints. And sometimes they’ve been…mutilated.” Evan paused and swallowed hard.

Charlie shook his head slowly, trying to understand his best friend’s implications. “Mutilated?”

“Like…eunuchs,” Evan finished. “Only some of them, though. And the women…sometimes they’re raped, and if not…they’re mutilated too.”

Charlie shuddered, and the icy terror he’d banished from his blood only hours before came rushing back to fill his veins and freeze his muscles in place. “So someone is trying to wipe us out with a cull,” Charlie said vehemently. “It’s the lawmen again. They hate us, Evan. They don’t under—“

“I don’t think it’s the cops,” Evan cut in, and he dropped his eyes. “The targets don’t make sense.”

“Evan, they’re stopping us from reproducing,” Charlie spat. “They’re killing us. They tried this a decade ago, and I always knew they’d try again. Their targets make perfect sense. They’re targeting lions, and making sure they can’t ever breed when they’re finished. Setting us up and killing us indiscriminately didn’t work so well last time.” Rage was pounding in his ears, and the heat of the afternoon was finally starting to weigh down his body. “Who else could it be? Why would you think it could be anyone else?”

Evan looked deeply unsettled by his thoughts; he even put his shades back on before he spoke again. “Whoever this is seems to be targeting young lionesses to impregnate them. Some of the girls are four months pregnant. And the ones they’re mutilating are…Charlie, they’re already pregnant.”

“Already pregnant?” Charlie echoed numbly. “They’re…already…?”

Evan nodded. Charlie stared at him, listening to the blood rushing around his ears as he processed what Evan was telling him. Someone was beating and raping lions, and taking their young right from the womb. This was strategic. This was a genocide.

“It isn’t cops,” Charlie whispered. He turned on his heel and stalked away through the parking garage, leaving Evan to trot behind him toward their shuttle.

“I told you it wasn’t cops,” Evan said, annoyed, but Charlie wasn’t listening; he was too busy assembling the growing puzzle in his mind and trying to formulate a plan.