Melted By The Lion: A Paranormal Lion Shifter Romance (21 page)

“What? Say that again!”

She cupped her hands around her mouth. “I said she’s so weird!”

Still winded from all my running, and now all my shouting, I took a slow, deep breath before addressing Veronica again. “Just get your butt inside right this second!”

She finally got to her feet and took two steps, but then paused. She then backtracked until she’d backed up right against the tree trunk, where she began chewing her lip, gaze on the ground. “Sorry, but if I don’t do my steps so that roughly the first third of the way to the window takes me ten very small steps exactly, then something bad might happen.”

I inhaled very slowly, fighting an urge to bang a fist on the windowsill. “Well, look. If you don’t get inside quickly, something bad is
definitely
going to happen. You’re going to get eaten by an alligator.”

She took three steps forward but then stopped again, then backtracked to the base of the tree, muttering. I knew where this was headed.

“Veronica, I don’t mean to be rude, but you’re going to have to hurry up! Who knows where the gators are, or if they’re headed this way and if they are, who knows how long it might be before—”

I hadn’t failed to finish my thought; it was more like I’d choked on the final syllable of my last word. That was when I’d spotted a dark shape creeping out from a copse of trees well to the side of the yard, on the very edge of the northern forest. The shape was clearly a gator, and he was almost directly behind Veronica, maybe sixty or seventy feet behind her, though being that he was fairly far away, it was kind of hard for me to tell. He could have been a hundred feet behind her, or he could have been fifty, but it didn’t even matter. All that mattered was that he was coming, and Veronica needed to get to safety.

In response to my abruptly cut-off thought, Veronica glanced up, one foot hovering just above the ground. “What? I got the hurry up part, but what did you say after that? You were talking too fast.”

The gator was now creeping a bit faster, an ugly dark brownish-green shape on the bright green grass. When I’d first seen him, I’d had to remind myself to breathe, but now, I was bordering on hyperventilation.

“Veronica, for God’s sake, you have
got
to hurry up! Just hurry up and run; just do it now, goddammit!”

Afraid she might become paralyzed with fear, I didn’t want to alert her to the presence of the gator. I was just hoping I could spur her to action with my words alone, but now she seemed paralyzed anyway, back planted against the tree trunk.

“Stop yelling at me; you’re just making it worse! See, the more stressed I get, the worse it gets, and then it kind of feeds into itself. The only way I got out here so fast was that I was so calm once I’d decided to do what I was going to do. Understand what I’m saying? If you keep yelling and stressing me out, I’m just going to get ‘stuck.’”

The gator was really picking up speed now, maybe only forty or fifty feet behind her now, and he was huge.

“Veronica, I am begging you.”

My voice hadn’t even come out loudly enough for her to hear above the siren, I was sure.

“Please just run—just run.”

The volume control of my voice wasn’t working anymore. Or
I
wasn’t able to control
it
, whichever. The room also kind of seemed to be tilting or shifting around me or something, turning the window into a moving frame for a static picture:
Veronica and the Gator
.

I couldn’t help her now, not without risking my own life, breaking the promise I’d made to Trevor to never put myself in a dangerous situation ever again. I knew I’d lose him if I didn’t keep my word; he wouldn’t be able to forgive me a second time. I realized I’d been teetering on a knife’s edge as far as breaking my promise to him probably from the moment I’d come up from the basement, and I’d probably tipped a hair over that edge toward
technically breaking
my promise when I’d opened the window. These things I could come back from, though. All wasn’t lost, not even close. But I knew if I so much as stepped a millimeter of my toe out the window, it would be. I’d lose Trevor forever.

Though if I
didn’t
break my promise to him, if I didn’t climb out the window and make some attempt to help Veronica, I was probably about to watch her die.

She had only taken a step or two away from the tree, and the gator was now speeding up behind her. I knew I had a decision to make, and I had to make it fast. After allowing myself just the space of a single breath to think, I realized what I needed to do. Forcing my feet to move, I began slowly backing away from the window.

THE FINAL
CHAPTER

Once I’d taken a few steps back from the window, I made my feet move faster, dashing over to one of the fireplaces in the formal living room with adrenaline flooding my veins. I needed to grab one of the solid steel fireplace pokers.

I’d realized that it was possible that the gator might not kill Veronica, it might try to drag her away or something, but I’d also realized that even if that were the case, there was still a very good chance she could be killed during the dragging, especially if she struggled. So, in my mind, no matter what the gator’s intent was, it didn’t even matter.

I’d also realized something else. I’d never be able to live with myself if I just let Veronica be attacked, and possibly killed, without at least trying to help her. If I
didn’t
try, of course, I’d be able to tell Trevor I’d kept my promise to him, and therefore, I’d get to keep
him
, but I didn’t think our love would be the same. I didn’t think I could
allow
myself to be loved anymore knowing that I was a person who hadn’t acted to help a friend in need. Either way, even if I hadn’t decided to try to help Veronica, I knew Trevor’s and my relationship was over. I was just ending it in the way that would leave me with the least amount of regret, by far.

After I had picked up one of the steel fireplace pokers, things kind of went a little blurry. Blurry as far as time seeming to be stretching and contracting all at once, each second feeling like a year and yet nothing at the same time; and also blurry in the way I was seeing things, like each object I cast my gaze over developed a trail of light, like a comet, even though I was the one who was moving, not the objects themselves.

I wasn’t aware of having climbed out of the window, and I wasn’t aware of having charged the gator, though later, Veronica would tell me that I had, yelling and holding the steel poker aloft, making her think I’d finally lost my patience with her as well as my mind, and was now coming to kill her. She’d had no idea that a gator was now a mere couple of feet behind her.

All I was presently aware of was that I was smashing something, beating it, blood splattering everywhere. Like some wild thing, like a shifter myself, half-human and half-wild animal, I didn’t stop, not even when the thing stopped moving, and not even when my arms became lead. I still didn’t stop when I heard some faraway-sounding female voice shouting something about it was enough. I could even quite comprehend what
it
was.

It was the sound of my own voice that eventually brought me back to reality, at least somewhat. Making a loud, guttural grunt each time I slammed the poker down on the bloodied thing at my feet, I began to focus on this sound, marveling at the stamina and lung capacity of whatever animal was making it. Until, suddenly, I realized that the animal was me.

After freezing with the poker above my head, I slowly lowered it, then let it fall to a patch of blood-soaked grass. I heard Veronica’s voice and recognized it as hers. She was quietly saying something about the gator being dead.

Still in some sort of a daze, I turned to her and spoke, my voice coming out in a hoarse croak. “It’s not. Only shifters can kill other shifters. It’s just knocked out.”

Just then, I spotted some blurry, golden brown shape speeding across the lawn. It was roaring, and as it got closer, I recognized that it was a lion. It was Trevor.

I turned my gaze back to Veronica, head suddenly spinning. “He’ll take care of the rest.”

I was told later that I fainted.

When I came to, I was in the hospital, in the same room that I’d woken up in after being thawed, no less. The same room I’d been standing in when Trevor and I had met. I was fully back to reality now; everything was sharp and crystal clear. Surprisingly, I honestly felt refreshed, as if I’d just woken up from a night of very deep and restful sleep. Which, I later figured out, I kind of had. I’d at least woken up from a day of sleep. It was now evening.

Kind of surprising me, because I would have thought that he’d never want to see me again after what I’d done, Trevor was dozing in a chair by my bedside, holding my hand. Though mere moments after I’d opened my eyes, he jumped up from his chair immediately, maybe having felt me give his fingers the very lightest of squeezes.

He hovered over me, his handsome, strong-jawed face a mask of concern. “How do you feel?”

“Well, I’m fine. How do I look? Probably a little worse for the wear, I’m guessing.”

“Well, your hair could stand to have a brush run through it. But then again, maybe you happen to think that un-brushed hair looks ‘really nice.’”

I smiled at the memory from the first day we’d met. Trevor smiled, too, and we just looked into each other’s eyes for a long moment or two until I broke the silence.

“Please help me fix my bed so I can sit up, and then you can have a seat yourself if you want. I want to tell you a few things.”

He did as I’d asked, remote-controlling the head of my bed upright to sit me up as in a recliner. Once he’d taken a seat again, I helped myself to a sip of water from an unopened bottle on my bedside table before speaking.

“First off, how are you, and your men? And everyone else in town? And Bridget?”

“Everyone is perfectly fine. We were lucky today. Immeasurably lucky.”

Hearing the exact news I’d hoped for, I breathed a sigh of relief. “Good. That’s so good to hear.”

“The Renards, however, weren’t quite as lucky. I killed Emile Renard and several of his kin myself, and my men took out dozens and dozens more. We estimate that maybe only twenty or thirty, at the very most, survived—such a small number that I don’t think the Renard clan will be causing problems for our town and nation any longer. I expect they’ll either stay close to their lake and slowly die out because of their low birth rate over the next few decades, or they’ll head far north, like we’ve always wanted them to. Either way, today was a clear victory.”

“That’s such good news. That’s wonderful.”

We both fell silent, and I just studied Trevor’s face for a second or two, still kind of surprised that he was in my hospital room, speaking to me. He was also now holding my hand again, having taken it in his again when I’d been asking how everyone in town had fared. These actions confused me, though I reasoned that he was just being the kind, honorable man that he was, probably intending to end things once he was sure that I
was
really okay and hadn’t been injured.

So, figuring I may as well just go ahead and say what I wanted to say before our time came to an end, I just took a deep breath and launched right into it. “I want to tell you I’m sorry, Trevor, but not for what you might think. I’m not sorry for doing what I did today. I’m not sorry for leaving the house when you told me not to put myself in a dangerous situation again. I’d do it again, just like I’d go beyond the town markers to rescue Princess again. What I’m sorry for is ever telling you that I’d never put myself in harm’s way. I should have never made that promise. Also, the first night we made love, I’m sorry for telling you that I’d never die and leave you hurting, like Rachel. See, the thing with that is that I can’t guarantee that I never will.”

I paused, almost waiting for him to release my hand, but he didn’t. He just kept his gaze on my face, expression unreadable, so I continued on.

“I know I could have easily been killed today, and I could have easily been killed the day I rescued Princess. I completely understand that. I completely understand how some people might view my actions as horrible lapses in judgment, as total regrettable mistakes. And I know
I
even told you I was making a mistake when I was going beyond the town markers. But going beyond the markers actually
wasn’t
my mistake. I know now that my mistake was
after
that. It was ever promising you that I’d never put myself in a dangerous situation again. Because, see, this is a promise that I can’t keep, and that I have no intention of keeping in the future. If I ever see an animal or human in danger again, I’m going to help them if I can. Regardless of whether that puts my own life in danger. I know now that this is just who I am, Trevor. I’m just a helper, a rescuer if I can be, of animals, people, or whoever needs me, and I don’t think I can ever change myself. As long as there’s something I can do, or try, to rescue an animal or a person, I’m going to do it. Always.” Willing my voice not to crack, I paused. “Even if that means you won’t be with me.”

Despite my willing it not to, my voice
had
cracked, and I took a deep breath in an attempt to not have it get any crack-ier.

“It’ll break my heart, but I’ll try to understand. I know that after what you went through with Rachel, asking you to be with a woman who seems to continually put herself in harm’s way, and will probably do so again in the future, might be too much to ask. I know you might need a woman who you can be positive won’t get herself killed.” Blinking back a few sudden tears, I paused again. “But for the record, I do wish she was me.”

That was all I’d wanted to say. Wearing a slight frown, Trevor still didn’t release my hand, just turned his gaze down at it. I steeled myself for the words that I felt would be coming, words telling me that he
did
need the type of woman who he could be positive wouldn’t be killed. But when he didn’t speak or even return his gaze to my face for several very long moments, seeming to me to almost be enjoying keeping me in suspense, I became irritated and spoke again myself.

“Well, go ahead and just get it over with. Just tell me goodbye.”

He finally looked up, meeting my eyes. “That’s not what I’m going to say.”

“Then, just go ahead and tell me how I could have been killed, as if I haven’t already realized that and said that. Just get it over with. Tell me that I’m foolish, and untrustworthy, and reckless. Just go ahead with it. Go ahead and tell me I’m all those things.”

With his amber-green eyes glinting decidedly amber in a dimmed overhead light, Trevor shook his head. “No. I won’t say those things because you’re not all those things. You’re brave, and courageous, and kindhearted, and you have the most beautiful snarly hair I’ve ever seen. And I’ve come to realize that I’d never want you to change anything about yourself for me. In fact, maybe it’s me who needs to change. Maybe I need to become as brave and courageous as you are, enough so that I can be afraid of losing someone, but without letting that fear rule me.”

I allowed the tiniest bubble of hope to rise in my heart.

“So are you saying that you’ll consider still being with me? Even though I’m saying that I definitely might put myself in harm’s way again if the situation ever arises?”

With the inside corners of his dark brows angling upward, to the center, Trevor sighed, his expression one of clear affection and warmth. “Yes. I’m in love with you, Savannah, and I’m starting to think that I want to spend the rest of my life with you, whether we have a child together, or we don’t, or we have ten. This all started because I wanted heirs, and lots of them, and I still do; but more than anything now, I just want you. I want you to be my partner for life, and if I have to learn to accept that you’re a rescuer and always will be, then so be it. I will. Obviously, I don’t want you to be a reckless kind of rescuer, and I’m definitely not giving you the green light to do just that, but you do what you need to do to protect animals and people who need help, and I’ll do what I need to do to protect
you
. Deal?”

I nodded, kind of in disbelief. “Yeah. Deal. Very, very good deal.”

I smiled but then burst into tears and began crying hard enough to give Veronica a run for her money. After getting out of his chair, Trevor pulled me into his arms and held me, near-imperceptibly rocking me, until my tears finally slowed.

Over the next several weeks, the town got back to normal, little by little. Rattled nerves were soothed with a daylong community music festival and picnic. Some buildings that had been damaged by the gators were repaired, as was a water tank that several of them had flipped with their tails.

Without their leader Emile, the remainder of the Renard gators seemed to fracture, splintering into tiny little subgroups, most of them slowly making their way farther north, just the direction Trevor wanted them to go. All of the splinter groups didn’t leave the area, though; a few of them stubbornly remained, periodically giving Trevor headaches and interrupting his work of building the nation. I was just glad the gator problems weren’t what they used to be. This gave Trevor and me lots of time to work on making a baby, and that fall, after we were married in a lavish ceremony in our vast backyard, we even got to take a two-week honeymoon to DC.

It was there, the day after we arrived, actually, that I learned I was pregnant. I knew we probably shouldn’t tell anyone for a couple months, just to be sure everything with the pregnancy would be okay; but completely overjoyed, Trevor and I just couldn’t keep the news to ourselves. We told Commander Wallace, leader of the United Free States, and his beautiful wife Vivian, and they hosted a private celebration dinner for us, presenting us with a pair of white silk booties and a solid gold baby cup at the end of the night.

When our baby was born, a boy we named Nathan, Trevor became a little misty holding him for the first time, though in a very stoic, repeated-throat-clearing-but-without-any-flowing-tears sort of way. But when our twins were born, two girls named Emma and Ella, about two years later, he nearly cried like a baby himself, head bent and shoulders shaking, with a tiny sleeping girl cradled in each arm. Twins seemed to be very common for frozen women, and I could tell that
our
set of twins was likely to become a pair of two daddy’s girls the likes of which the world had never seen before. Princess, who at this point had become absolutely spoiled rotten by Trevor, expecting to be fed scrambled eggs from his hand every single morning, had given him lots of practice in spoiling.