Melted By The Lion: A Paranormal Lion Shifter Romance (2 page)

After turning off the long overhead light and the lamps, leaving the room only dimly lit by light from the hallway coming in through the half-ajar door, Martha took a seat bedside, opened a book, and attached a tiny clip-on reading light to the left side. “I’ll just sit with you until you doze off, just in case you need anything.”

I nodded, closing my eyes, not needing anything at present except a hundred hours of sleep, it felt like.

I was soon well on my way, even beginning to have some sort of a hazy dream. Only it wasn’t so much a dream, as it was a fragment of a memory maybe, though I couldn’t quite grasp what the memory was.

Before long, I awoke with a start, turning to Martha with my stomach churning. “I’m really worried about all the animals.”

She peered at me over the top of her book, frowning. “What animals?”

Trying to shake off my sleepy haze and sense of dread, I thought for a few moments but came up with nothing. “I guess I don’t know what animals. I just had a dream or a memory about
something
, but I couldn’t quite grab it. All I know is I woke up worried about animals. But—I still don’t know if I mean—well, just all animals in general, or...well, I really don’t know what. Do I have pets, maybe? Do I have pets at home?”

Martha’s tiny reading light revealed her gaze darting to the side for a moment before she responded. “Oh, I don’t-I don’t think so. Not right at this moment.”

“Oh, and where is my home, by the way?”

Before Martha could respond, the relative quiet of the room was broken by shouting coming from somewhere out in the hallway, or maybe a nearby room. And though it was a bit muffled, it was loud enough that I could make out every word.

“Get
off
me, you stupid bitch!”

Martha, who was a tall, slender woman, heaved a sigh, closing her book. “Wonderful. My lovely patient across the hall is awake again. I try to show all my patients the same level of care and compassion, but despite her getting the same anti-anxiety meds you have, she really has not been a picnic to care for so far.”

“Who’s ‘she?’”

“Her name is Veronica. Dr. Moore has had to sedate her about five times already. Each time she wakes up, she starts shouting that we’re ‘bitches,’ and she tries to claw our eyes out. And she’s not especially strong, but her nails are sharp. I’d better go get in there.” As the nearby shouting continued, Martha set her book on a side table, got up, and began striding out of the room. “You just try to relax and get some rest, Savannah banana. You’ll need it soon.”

With a smidgen of alarm, I wondered what for.

*

The shouting coming from a room near mine soon stopped, and I fell asleep. I slept hard until late in the morning, when I awoke with a shocking realization. It wasn’t so much that I’d experienced a memory as it was that I’d awoken with a
knowing
. I now knew what Martha had been hinting at when she’d said I needed to get some rest for something that would soon be happening. I was supposed to soon be a mother. I was supposed to soon be getting pregnant.

There had been some sort of a nuclear disaster that had decimated most of the world’s population; I remembered that now. It had also rendered many remaining women infertile. The ones who weren’t, which included myself, were seen as precious commodities, the possible saviors of mankind.

Some of these fertile women began procreating right away, but others volunteered to be cryogenically frozen, to be thawed at a later date in a time of great need, when birthrates were low. And apparently, that time had come. In disbelief, I tried to wrap my mind around the fact that I’d volunteered to be frozen and then thawed for the good of humanity. I’d actually agreed to have a child or children with a man I didn’t know.

I still couldn’t remember anything about my life before I’d volunteered to be frozen, though, so I didn’t even know if the seemingly bold decision I’d made was typical of me or not. Sitting in my hospital bed, currently straining my slightly weak muscles to reach for a cup of water on the tray table, I sure didn’t feel very bold, and I didn’t feel very strong, either, like Martha had said I was. I just felt a little nervous, a little on edge, wondering who the man that was supposed to impregnate me was. I had a feeling that my anti-anxiety medication was starting to wear off, especially when, after a little more quiet thinking, I recalled something else about the time right before I’d been frozen.

The nuclear blast that had nearly destroyed the world had also created creatures called shifters. They were men who could turn into animals at will, specifically dragons, lions, and bears. With a bit of tension tightening my neck, I wondered if the man I was to be mated to was one of these shifters. And if so, I wondered if he’d be kind, or if he’d be cold and wild, like an animal. Other than the fact that they existed, I really couldn’t remember anything else about shifters.

Martha, who looked like she hadn’t even slept, soon came to check on me and then brought breakfast. While I ate in bed, I told her what I’d remembered, and what I still couldn’t recall.

“I still don’t really have a clue who I
am
, other than my name. I can’t remember where I lived before the nuclear disaster, what my job was, who my family was, or anything at all.”

Dressed in her slightly wrinkled pale blue scrubs, Martha sat back in her folding chair with a satisfied smile. “Well, I think that will come, and probably very soon. It’s very, very good that you’ve already remembered as much as you have about the disaster and being frozen. I think your amnesia resolution will be a quick, easy case, which is more than I can say for our friend Veronica across the hall. She still can’t remember a single thing, and has been accusing Dr. Moore and me of having ‘brainwashed’ her. Says she just knows ‘bitches’ like us did something to her.”

“Well, can you just tell her, and
me
, for that matter, who we were in our former lives before being frozen? It might help her to calm down a little, and I know it would make me feel better, too.”

Martha frowned, making the dark circles beneath her warm brown eyes seem a bit more pronounced. “I wish I could. Believe me, I’d tell you two everything I could about your pasts, because I can’t imagine how frustrating it must be not to know. But I can’t, and no one else can, either.”

Disappointed, I set a half-eaten piece of buttered toast on my plate. “Why?”

“Because nobody knows a thing about your pasts. See, at the time when all you women were frozen, you each had files detailing every single thing about your lives, just in case none of you could ever remember, as nobody really knew exactly
how
things would go for you when you were thawed, but those files were destroyed during one of the Gorgolian attacks on the city of DC. After that, all that was left was the names of each of you women engraved on your cryo tanks.”

I’d just taken a nibble of toast, and now I chewed and swallowed quickly. “Who are the Gorgolians? And where’s DC?”

“Well, DC, or Draconia City, is a city built over the ruins of what you probably remember as New York City. DC is the capitol of the United Free States, a country that encompasses most of what you probably remember as the United States of America. I say
most
, because the states you probably remember as Louisiana and Michigan are now their own sovereign nations, governed by lions and bears, respectively. And the United Free States, basically what you probably remember as America, less Michigan and Louisiana, is governed by one Commander, Jackson Wallace, who is the commander-in-chief. Now, to answer your other question, the Gorgolians are dragon shifters with dark hearts, for lack of a better way to describe them.”

“How so? What do they do?”

“Well, for one thing, Gorgolian leaders have always been cruel to the Gorgolian people. Some of their leaders have been known to kill their own human citizens just for sport. For another thing, the past couple of hundred years since the disaster, the Gorgolian army has been trying to steal land from the dragons of the United Free States. There aren’t many Gorgolians left nowadays, though. Maybe a hundred or two, and they’re all scattered over the land that you probably know as Canada. Sometimes a small band of them try to attack DC yet again, and sometimes they cause enough trouble that Commander Wallace and his men have to stay very busy fighting them off, but they’re not nearly the problem they once were. You see, about three years ago, Commander Wallace and his men attacked the Gorgolians’ capitol city, Blackblood, to rescue a woman named Vivian Mason, who was to become Commander Wallace’s wife and the mother of his twins. During this attack, Commander Wallace and his men killed Drago Stone, the leader of the Gorgolians, and thousands and thousands of his fighters.”

An intercom speaker out in the hallway blared with a page for Dr. Moore, and Martha waited before continuing.

“Anyway. It was during this fight that the several hundred lions and bears living in the United Free States helped Commander Wallace to win, which caused him to give the lions and the bears their own nations, which was a long time coming, if you ask me. I know Commander Beaumont and many of the folks here in Beaumont City, the capitol of the new nation of Louisiana, were basically nomads, wandering all over the state for years and years, and generations and generations, without really having it be their home. They were always just something of strangers in ‘dragon-owned’ land, so to speak, the feeling made worse by the fact that there are only a few hundred lions, and tens of thousands of dragons in the United Free States. But now Louisiana
is
the lions’ home, their own sovereign nation, which is kind of an exciting thing. When I heard about the new nation, I volunteered to leave my home in Alabama to help come get the little hospital here in Beaumont City established. And despite occasional patients, like our dear Veronica, I’m glad I did. Helping to establish a hospital in a new nation has been very rewarding, and Commander Beaumont is a good man to work for.”

“So, he’s the leader of this new nation of Louisiana?”

Martha nodded, brushing a strand of her longish bob behind one ear. “He’s the commander-in-chief, something like how you probably remember presidents of the United States, pre-disaster, except with a little more power. His word is final around here, but folks seem quite happy with that. He’s a stern man for certain, but he’s a fair man, and he’s the type of leader that a new nation needs. In human form, he’s the same as he is in his lion form, which is to say, strong, fearless, and brave.” Martha paused momentarily, lips faintly twitching. “He’s not too hard on the eyes, either. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed at all in that regard.”

My mouth suddenly went dry for some reason, and I took a quick sip of orange juice before responding.

“Oh. So, he’s-he’s the man that I’ll be—”

“Yes. You and Commander Beaumont will be working to make a baby together. He won’t be
all
yours, though, unfortunately.”

“What do you mean?”

Martha heaved a sigh, all traces of amusement gone from her face. “Well, I don’t know if this is the exact arrangement that
I
would have chosen, though I suppose I understand
why
he chose it, but you and Veronica are going to be ‘sharing’ Commander Beaumont.”

Though I hadn’t been eating or drinking anything, I suddenly choked, seemingly on air. “Um, what now?”

While my little coughing fit continued, Martha heaved another sigh.

“I know. It’s a bit of a shock, no doubt. But you and Veronica will both be trying to make a baby with Commander Beaumont.”

I took a sip of tepid coffee, still sputtering. “But, why?”

“Well, short answer, now that his new nation is established, Commander Beaumont wants a child badly. He wants an heir to carry on the work of growing the nation after he’s gone. And actually, he wants several heirs, ideally. And the thing is, he doesn’t want to wait. We have enemies here in Louisiana, gator shifters who are much like the Gorgolians—dark-hearted and always trying to cause destruction. Commander Beaumont and his men must fend them off constantly, and he knows that at any time, he could lose his life. So, he’s in a hurry to have an heir, or several, and he figures having two women to impregnate will help him accomplish that goal.”

Beginning to dislike Commander Beaumont, even though I’d never met him, I folded my arms across my chest. “And he doesn’t care if we both get pregnant?”

With a little shrug, Martha gave me a sheepish, apologetic sort of look. “I think he’d actually be thrilled. That’s what he
wants
.”

Not exactly sure how I felt about all this, I didn’t respond right away. “So, he doesn’t have any plans of eventually marrying one of us, or at least attempting a real, committed relationship with one woman only?”

Martha gave her head a slight shake. “Well, no. And I think that’s part of Commander Beaumont’s reasoning for trying to impregnate two of you. He’s a… well, he has a reputation as a man who is very…” Pausing, she lifted her shoulders in another little shrug. “‘Closed off,’ I guess you could say, when it comes to women, and matters of the heart. He’s had physical relationships in the recent past,
that
I know, but that’s all they ever are. I’m not sure what went on before I arrived here to help, but just since I’ve been here, I’ve witnessed several young women, almost one right after the other, leave our little city for DC or other places, heartbroken, because they were each able to get Commander Beaumont into bed, but no one could get him to share his heart, ultimately.” Shrugging yet again, Martha paused. “I suppose that’s just the kind of man he is, and some men are just like that. And maybe it’s even a reflection of the stoicism and strength he must always display as a leader. I don’t know. But what I do know—what I
think—
is that him taking two frozen women for his own isn’t only about his desire to have several heirs, and in quick fashion. I think it’s also partially about his continual heart-guarding.”