Melted By The Lion: A Paranormal Lion Shifter Romance (13 page)

After another long pause, it slowly advanced again, studying my face.

“There you go. That’s a good little sweetie.”

When it reached me, it paused again, sniffing the food, before practically diving into it, gobbling it up with such giant mouthfuls I was kind of afraid it might choke.

“Easy, little buddy. Just take it nice and easy. I won’t take the food away.”

I could now see that this “Buddy” was a girl, and the top of her head had been badly scratched or bitten or something, making her bleed.

“You poor thing. Was it a mean cat that got you? Or a squirrel?”

Considering her miniscule size, it wasn’t inconceivable that a squirrel could have brought her down.

“Did a mean old squirrel get you?”

I realized that being a dog, she obviously wasn’t going to answer me, but I was just trying to keep talking as a way to soothe her and assure her that I really wouldn’t hurt her. As she continued to eat from my hand, even allowing me to very gently begin petting her, I thought of a name for her already. Diminutive and dainty, she struck me as a
Princess
, even caked in mud as she was.

“How about ‘Princess’? That seems to fit you. Do you like that name? Do you, Princess?”

She gobbled up the last bite from my hand, chewed briefly, and then began swallowing with big gulps, almost seeming to be nodding in response to what I’d said.

“Then that settles it. That will be your name. Now, do you want more food before I get you to Dr. Ericson, Princess?”

I began reaching for the dog food pocket of my bag, but just then, a woodpecker began hammering at one of the many tall bald cypress trees along the trail, startling Princess. Not a second later, a coal-gray cat stepped out of a nearby cluster of shrubs with a low, almost inaudible hiss, eying Princess. This bold cat, one I’d fed before, didn’t even seem intimidated or wary that I was there, kneeling right next to Princess.

“Oh, you naughty little—”

Getting to my feet, I began shooing the cat away, trying to make it clear to Princess that I’d defend her. The cat just hissed again, though, glaring at Princess, and Princess had heard enough. She took off up the trail, heading north, setting in motion a chain of events that would threaten to destroy my new relationship with Trevor.

*

Princess was running faster than I ever would have thought possible for such a tiny dog, not to mention an injured one, too. She was practically flying through the forest, just tearing up the trail, as if the cat hissing at her had put little rocket launchers on her paws.

Burdened with a somewhat weighty, bouncing bag of water and food, and having to watch out for fallen branches and dips in the trail, I myself wasn’t going quite as fast. With legs on the shorter side, I wasn’t that fast of a runner anyway, and besides, it was hot and humid, as usual, and the afternoon sun was beating down. I’d begun sweating even before Princess had taken off.

Calling after her, even though I was sure she didn’t recognize her brand-new name yet, I chased her up the trail toward the house, thinking that she had to slow soon. She didn’t, though, just sailed right past the break in the trees that led to the back yard and the house. Not long after, I hoped she might take a turn to the right, and head on down the new little trail that led right to the shelter, but she didn’t do that, either. Seeming to think the cat was right on her heels, and maybe now a little frightened of me, too, she just kept on rocketing up the trail as if running for her life, which she probably thought she was.

“Princess, please! Slow down! Nobody’s going to hurt you! Just please slow down!”

She didn’t, making me continue to chase her, gasping for breath, and maybe a quarter-mile further north, the trail running parallel to the house became even more choked with fallen branches, thorny vines, and other forest debris. No one hiked this way often, if anyone ever did, since heading north was heading into the Renard clan’s territory. I was still well within the town limits, though; that I knew, and therefore still well within the area that Trevor and his pride regularly patrolled. The bright orange town limits markers he’d warned me to never stray past were still at least three-quarters of a mile away, about a mile beyond the house.

Though still, knowing that Renard gators were frequently seen not too far beyond the markers, I really had no desire to get any closer than I already was. Heading north just didn’t feel very good somehow, even if I
was
still very much within town limits. But Princess, still racing up the trail, didn’t seem very troubled at all.

Slowing my pace maybe a half-mile beyond the house, I considered just giving up the chase. I could try to find Princess later, maybe luring her out with food once she’d returned to the animals’ area of the forest. I could try to take her to the shelter another day, and I might have done just that, if not for the deep, bleeding scratch on her head. If it weren’t treated quickly and it got infected, I knew how quickly things could get very bad for her, especially considering that she was already emaciated and in poor health.

It also crossed my mind that because of what had happened with the cat, who’d likely been her attacker, she might never return to the animals’ main turf, at least not for a long while. And by then, she might succumb to starvation, if not the wound on her head.

Another thing I thought about was that if I couldn’t catch Princess and she continued to head north, the possibility of starvation and infection might not be her only problem. As fast as she was, she couldn’t run forever, and I knew she’d likely make a tasty snack for the gators.

I couldn’t just give up the chase, and I knew it. My conscience would never let me. I had to keep trying to get her until my legs gave out from under me, or we reached the bright orange town limits markers, whichever came first. Princess had already been through too much in her life to just be abandoned.

Starting to slow while I did, she was only maybe ten feet ahead of me now. Half-running, half-tripping my way over rocks and sticks along the quickly-narrowing path, I continued calling out to her, but she ignored me. Still going fairly fast despite her slowdown, she just charged right along without even glancing at me, her tiny little body bobbing with each of her rapid steps.

“Princess, please! That cat is long gone!
Long
gone!”

As if she could understand certain words, the mere mention of
cat
sent Princess’ short little carrot stick-sized legs into overdrive once again, taking her farther away from me. Groaning, I slowed my pace to a jog, legs and lungs burning, realizing the absurdity of the situation I was in. I was being outrun by a chihuahua. And an underdeveloped, severely malnourished, wounded one at that. It was just a bit too much for me right then, and soon I laughed, thinking that I might need to seriously step up my game in terms of a regular fitness regime.

My laughter was finally what did it, though. Princess finally slowed, then stopped, then turned to look at me, panting, her dime-sized, tiny pink scrap of a tongue lolling out the side of her mouth. It was as if she wanted to know just what exactly had been so funny that her pursuer had wasted a good lungful of air to laugh out loud. Instinctively, not a moment after she had, I stopped running as well, not wanting her to get scared and take off again.

“That’s it, Princess. See? I’m not going to hurt you. Just want to pick you up and take you to see the doctor once I get my breath.”

Hands on knees, I took in several great gulps of air while she did the same. And that was when I noticed the wooden stakes not even twenty feet ahead of us, hundreds of them, placed at intervals of about a foot. Wooden stakes that were painted bright orange. Directly in front of and behind them, tall oaks and gum trees bore bright orange markings across their trunks.

Trevor had been right. In order to venture beyond town limits, a person would really have to do so intentionally. And like he’d guessed, I was too smart to do that. Though still technically “in town” and near where Trevor’s pride regularly patrolled, I was fully aware that I was way too far from home nonetheless, and right on the border of a place where, not too awfully far away, gators were known to lurk. Not having a death wish, I wasn’t about to step foot beyond the orange markers. I wasn’t about to take a single step beyond where I was currently standing, actually. I just needed Princess to cooperate with me.

Now having caught my breath a bit, I rose from my hands-on-knees crouch, slowly took my bottle of water from my bag, and took a long drink, all the while keeping an eye on Princess, who was still watching me from maybe a half-dozen feet away, panting. I
was
genuinely beyond thirsty, but the real idea was to make her come to me for a drink, and once she did, I’d snatch her up and carry her safely back to the house.

After I’d drained half the bottle, I poured some water in a cupped hand, knelt, and held it out to her. “You thirsty, too, Princess?”

More blood had trickled from her head wound while we’d been running, and a fat drop now trickled into one of her eyes, making her blink and startle. She then whimpered, spinning around wildly, as if she thought some nearby predator had flung some kind of liquid at her. Maybe, I realized with a sudden, sharp pang in my heart, she even thought that
I
had flung water at her.

Trying to speak as soothingly as possible, I crept a little closer. “Easy, Princess. Easy.”

Not a chance. One look at me approaching sent her rocketing off again. Directly toward the line of orange stakes up ahead.

“Shit.”

I knew I had about three seconds to make a decision, one that in the back of my mind, I’d been praying I wouldn’t have to make. I really
hadn’t
had any intention of crossing the orange stakes. I’d just been hoping that Princess wouldn’t, either. But now she was bobbing away toward them, farther away from me each fraction of a second.

“Dammit! Dammit, Princess, come back!”

She wasn’t going to. I knew it. I also knew that if there were any gators nearby, beyond the orange stakes, they might smell the blood on Princess’ head, find her, and make a quick snack of her right away. Especially since she
had
to collapse from exhaustion soon, making her a sitting target. She wouldn’t survive long enough for me to come looking for her a different time, maybe with Trevor. She’d be eaten, dead, before she ever got to experience caring and love from a human companion.

I was running again before I even knew I was running again. “Shit!”

Once I’d crossed the orange stakes, I pulled my phone from my pocket, one eye still on Princess, who was now bobbing along at least a good twenty feet ahead of me. I had no idea how one scrawny, injured, carrot stick-legged dog could be so fast, or have so much stamina. I had a feeling that if I hadn’t had to constantly watch my feet for sticks, roots, and rocks on the forest floor, I would have surely been able to catch her by now. I would have at least been closer than I was currently, still part-jogging, part-hopping, part-tripping over all the debris. There really wasn’t even much of a trail anymore, just a faint, grassy, rocky line through taller grass and bigger rocks and the towering, densely-packed trees. I’d heard that the northern trail had once been a favorite of hikers when the town had first been established, but had quickly fallen into disuse when the Renards had become a problem. Trevor and his pride certainly didn’t need it; in lion form, they bounded through the forest just as easily as if they were on a marked trail anyway.

Continuing to follow Princess, figuring that she
had
to run out of steam soon, I glanced down at my phone’s screen just long enough to hit a button to auto-dial Trevor’s number. Being that I wasn’t in immediate danger, even though I was now outside of town limits, I wasn’t even exactly sure
why
I was calling, or what I was going to say. All I knew was that I just felt compelled to call. I also wasn’t sure if Trevor would even answer. When he and his pride shifted into lion form, their clothes and phones shifted with them, which was to say, they magically disappeared until they shifted back into their human forms. So, of course, any incoming call received when they were in lion form wouldn’t be heard.

This had always concerned Trevor, so recently, he’d devised a kind of a system to deal with this problem while he and his men were out on patrol. One of them would remain as near the group as possible, in human form, with cell phone at the ready, in case of any emergency in town. Each time before he shifted, Trevor would have his calls forwarded to this number. Then, in the event that his “phone man” got a call about an emergency, he would then shift into lion form, quickly catch up to Trevor, and tell him, although this hadn’t been necessary yet.

While Trevor’s phone rang, I reasoned I was calling just to maybe ask for an escort for the return trip back to town limits with Princess in tow. Hopefully, I wouldn’t encounter any gators, but just to be on the safe side. Maybe Trevor would even be kind enough to carry Princess and me on his back. If he wasn’t too mad at me, anyway, which I knew was a real possibility. And I was almost going to be mad at myself if I didn’t encounter any gators, making my telling him what I was doing pointless. But still, I just couldn’t end the call; the “just to be on the safe side” part of myself wouldn’t let me. And soon, on the fourth ring, Trevor answered.