Secret Baby Lion: A BBW Lion-Shifter Romance (Shift Your Fate Book 2)
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Authors: Cara Wylde
SECRET BABY LION
SHIFT YOUR FATE, BOOK TWO
Copyright © 2016 by Cara Wylde
All rights reserved.
This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
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Olivia sat down and tried to relax. She pulled her long, brown, wavy hair over her right shoulder and started playing with it, twirling the thick strands until she managed to tangle them. Her mouth was dry, and there was an emptiness in her stomach, the sort of emptiness she remembered feeling every time before an exam or an interview. She sighed, closed her eyes for a second, and told herself she had no reason to be so nervous. She had visited many homeopaths, psychics, and empaths before, so why would this be different? But it felt different… A noise came from her right, and Olivia furrowed her brows in annoyance.
“Liam, baby, please sit down.”
The boy looked at her and smiled. She smiled back and reached for him. He fought her for a moment, then pouted and allowed her to place him on her lap.
“See? That’s better…”
Her son was only a year old, but he could already walk without any help, and his native curiosity pulled him towards everything around him. Especially in this room, there were so many things Liam wanted to prod and inspect: the crystal ball on the table, the shiny tarot cards, the pretty pictures on the walls. His bright blue eyes moved from the phoenix on the left wall to the mighty lion on the right wall. He was oddly drawn to the lion. The animal’s rich mane, big paws, fierce eyes, and sharp fangs… Liam was fascinated.
Liv followed her son’s gaze.
“What’s up, baby? What did you see?”
She knew he wouldn’t answer her. Her boy had yet to say a word. No “mommy”, no baby talk, sometimes not even a gesture. This was one of the reasons she was here today. Her Liam didn’t know how to communicate. At first, she had thought he was suffering from some mild form of autism, but all the doctors she had visited had dismissed her theory. In fact, they had dismissed all possible disabilities. Liam was perfectly healthy. That was what they had told her, but she knew it couldn’t be right. Her son was incredibly well coordinated for his age, frighteningly smart and insightful. But that wasn’t the problem. The problem was he couldn’t, or refused to, speak. He often retreated within himself and ignored his surroundings for hours, he had a tendency to growl… yes, growl… and bare his tiny little teeth at anyone who dared disturb him when he wasn’t in the mood. She could have dismissed even these odd symptoms after the doctors had assured her he was normal and healthy. However, she couldn’t possibly dismiss the fact that sometimes, her Liam…
The boy jumped off her lap, and Olivia shrieked when she heard his tiny ankle crack.
“Oh my God, oh my God! Liam!”
She gathered him in her arms and studied the hurt ankle, trying to see if it was broken.
“How do you do this, baby? How do you do this?”
There it was: the guilt. She had spaced out, and it had been enough for her son to make a sudden, unexpected move and hurt himself. How he could move so quickly, she had no idea. Sometimes, her Liam was so fast that he was beside her one second, then on the other side of the room the next.
The boy looked at her curiously and struggled to break free from her embrace. He wanted to reach the painting and touch the lion. He had no time to be cuddled.
Liv held him tighter, unsure if she should touch his ankle or not. She shrieked again when Liam pulled his foot away, rolled his hurt ankle once, and the tiny bone popped back into place. He struggled until his mother had to let him go. Pain and fear danced in her green eyes as she watched him walk towards the right wall without the slightest limp. Could she have imagined it? That unique sound, the snap of bone… But no, it wasn’t possible. She had heard it twice.
“Sorry to keep you waiting.”
The old woman’s voice made Olivia’s heart jump. She stood up and smoothed down her long skirt.
“Don’t… don’t worry about it.”
She was still trembling. She turned to face the woman who had just entered the room, and hated the fact that it meant having her back to Liam, who hadn’t even noticed the stranger. Nonetheless, she pulled herself together and managed a smile.
“Olivia Jensen. Thank you so much for seeing me and my son on such short notice.”
The woman shook Olivia’s hand, but didn’t smile.
“Kassandra. I don’t usually have many clients at Shift Your Fate. I don’t know what happened today.”
Olivia shook her head. “I should have called ahead. If you have any more clients…”
“I closed the shop early.”
Kassandra rounded the table and sat down. She motioned for Liv to do the same.
“Oh, you shouldn’t have…”
But the old woman wasn’t paying attention to her anymore. Her sky-blue eyes were fixed on Liam, who was simply standing in front of the painting with the lion, staring the animal right in the eyes.
Olivia’s stomach tightened.
“Here I go again…”
she thought. For the hundredth time in the past few months, she had to tell a stranger what was wrong with her son, had to do her best to describe symptoms she didn’t understand. It didn’t help that most of them sounded weird, impossible, ridiculous… Oh, how she wanted this to be over! How she wanted Kassandra to be the one to tell her exactly what was wrong with Liam and how to fix it, so Olivia could walk out the door of Shift Your Fate, go back to Europe, and live a peaceful life! She took a deep breath and told herself that maybe… maybe she would be lucky this time. She had done her research well, after all. Apparently, Kassandra truly was a gifted empath.
“The reason why I came to you,” she started.
Kassandra raised her hand to silence her. She hadn’t looked away from the boy yet.
Liv furrowed her brows but didn’t say anything. Maybe that was the way the old woman did her thing. She took her time to study her profile.
Kassandra was old, but her age was impossible to tell. Her pale complexion had no wrinkles, and her raven black hair fell down to her waist in straight, shiny waves Olivia could almost envy. She was wearing a long, colorful dress and thin bracelets around her wrists. They clinked softly every time she moved. The thunderbird necklace around her neck caught the God rays seeping through the curtains.
Finally, Kassandra turned back to Olivia, but her expression held no invitation for the young mother to speak.
Liv swallowed heavily and thought how it was the first time she could say she felt an empath’s energy in the air. She other two she had visited in London had been unable to help her. Maybe they were frauds, or maybe they simply weren’t as gifted as Kassandra.
“Your son is special,” said the old woman.
“I… he needs your help.”
“I know why you’re here.” She held Olivia’s gaze. “But you don’t.”
Liv smiled, confused. “Excuse me?”
Kassandra leaned back in her chair and looked at the items on the table. Something was missing.
“Oh right, I forgot the tea.”
It was the first time she was seeing a client in the back room of Shift Your Fate, her occult gift shop, and forgetting to offer them tea. The boy had thrown her completely off the track.
“I saw what happened earlier,” Kassandra changed the subject.
“You saw?” Olivia leaned forward, placing her palms firmly on the table. “So, it wasn’t just my imagination. He… he…” Her voice became a whisper. “He truly broke his ankle and then just… just popped it back into place.”
“Yes.”
“He’s not special… I mean, he is. Of course he is. He’s my son. I think he’s special. But… what’s wrong with him? Please. Can you tell me what’s wrong with him?”
Kassandra finally managed half a smile. “He can hear you, you know? No matter how softly you whisper.”
Olivia stole a glance at Liam. He still hadn’t moved a muscle. He was staring into the lion’s eyes as if he was trying to hypnotize the animal and make him step out of the painting.
“Olivia, I think it’s better if we talk about this alone.”
Liv looked back to Kassandra. For a moment, she was tempted to say “no”. She had nothing to hide from her son, and he had always been present when she had consulted all the other people she had thought might be able to help her. Or him. Help him. Then, she saw the distress in the woman’s eyes and understood this was going to be different.
“My sister is waiting in the car. It will only take a minute.”
Kassandra nodded. “There’s no rush, my dear. I will make some tea for us.”
As she walked Liam to her sister’s car, Olivia thought how nice it would be if she could go with him now and never look back. Just the two of them, running away, leaving everything behind, like Olivia had already done one too many times. She shook her head and chased the temptation away. It was only New York City messing with her head. This place would always make her run, run, run.
***
For a few minutes, they drank their tea in silence. Both Olivia and Kassandra were lost in their own thoughts.
Many people had come to Shift Your Fate seeking her guidance, but Kassandra had to admit Olivia and Liam Jensen might have brought with them more than she could handle. The empath could feel Olivia’s energy float between them, catch glimpses of her erratic thoughts. The young mother was lost, scared, insecure… She didn’t know who her own son was. Kassandra could tell her. Two words. Two words would have been enough to take the veil off Olivia’s eyes. The old woman had felt Liam’s true nature the second the boy had stepped into her shop. The incident with the broken-then-perfectly-healed ankle had just confirmed her theory. But as much as she wanted, she couldn’t tell Olivia. Not yet. In fact, not ever. This was something she had to find out on her own. There was a long, long way until she would be ready to learn and embrace just how special her son was, and Olivia hadn’t even taken the first step.
Liv shifted in her seat and cleared her throat. The way the empath was looking at her had started to make her feel uneasy.
“So… do you think you can help me?” she asked hesitantly.
Kassandra arched and eyebrow and set her cup down.
“I can try, but the truth is that you’re the only one who has the answers to all the questions going through your head right now. Also, you must know: there’s nothing wrong with your son. He is not ill, nor disabled in any way. He’s simply different.”
Olivia let out a breath of relief. Even though all the doctors she had talked to had told her the same thing, she finally had a strong, unexplainable feeling that she could trust this woman.
“He’s different… how?”
Kassandra didn’t answer her question. Instead, she asked one of her own:
“Do you still keep in touch with his father?”
Olivia’s stomach flipped. Liam’s father…
“How do you…? Why would you assume his father and I are not together?”
Kassandra smiled briefly. “Am I assuming wrong?”
“N-no.” Liv wrapped her fingers around the warm cup of tea and fixed her eyes on the dark liquid as if it held some kind of secret she might be able to decipher if she looked hard enough. “No, we don’t keep in touch,” she finally answered. “I’d rather not talk about him. He has nothing to do with this.”
“He has more to do with this than you’re willing to admit. Does he know he has a son?”
“No.”
Kassandra waited for her to continue.
When the silence got the best of her, Liv raised her gaze and said defiantly: “It was my choice, and I don’t feel like I have to explain myself to anyone. I am perfectly capable of raising my son. I’ve always given him everything he needs, everything he could wish for. Yes, I might be only 26, but I have a good job, a steady income… Liam is a happy kid. He doesn’t need a father.”
Kassandra sighed. “Are you absolutely sure about that?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, let me rephrase it: are you absolutely sure you’re making the right call? Are you sure you have the right to make this decision which directly affects two people?”
“I’m his mother!”
It wasn’t the first time Olivia was hearing this. Her sister, Miranda, never failed to mention the same things every time they talked on the phone. In fact, that was why Liv didn’t like to keep in touch with her family in New York. Her aunt, Cecilia, the woman who had helped her two years ago when Olivia had decided to move to London and start a new life, did the same every time she had the chance. Depending on her mood, Liv either shrugged and ignored them, or got really angry and ended the embarrassing conversation. As she saw it, she was Liam’s mother and she knew what was best for him.
Kassandra smiled bitterly. “Yes, you are. However, have you thought about what you’re going to tell him the day he comes asking about his father? He might even demand to meet him. Might… what am I talking about? He will demand to meet him. That’s how these things go, Olivia. Always.”
Olivia took a deep breath and tried to calm down. Clearly, this was not one of those times when she could easily shrug it off and change the topic. She wondered why… It was as if the empath could see right through her, and that scared her. It made her feel vulnerable and exposed. Olivia had never liked to feel vulnerable. She had always made it her mission to show everyone around her she was anything but that. She was a strong, independent woman, a young, single mother who didn’t need a man to raise her son. She stared into Kassandra’s eyes for a moment, thinking of the perfect comeback. Then it hit her: this woman wasn’t going to give up that easily.
