Lion In Wait (A Paranormal Alpha Lion Romance) by Lynn Red Read Free Book Online

any long runs. There wasn’t going to be any hiding.
    “What are we going to do?”
    She shot a glance back at Lex, who was yawning sleepily, then shook his head and relaxed on his paws. Seeing him completely nonplussed about the jeep or whatever it was zooming around the cracked, rocky ground, Cass trotted over to the lion, and shook him until he opened one of huge eyes, then slowly closed it again.
    She blew a puff of air between her lips, flipping a fallen tendril of hair back on top of her head. “Really?” she said, standing up and driving her fists into her hips. “So this is the grand plan, then? You shoot me a couple of sidelong glances, you either talk to me, or I go crazy enough to think a lion is chatting me up, and then you go to sleep? That’s it?”
    Cass started pacing. “We’re alone, unarmed, and sitting in the middle of the damn desert. In the only land form anywhere around. Huge rocky thing?” she used a mocking voice. “Yep! That’s where we are, the single place for what seems like a hundred miles that’s safe from rain. And we’re in it, and there’s a damn jeep coming our way and you’re sleeping.”
    “I’m tired,” Lex said, simply and flatly. “So I’m sleeping.”
    Her eyes shot open and she spun on her heel. “So you are talking?”
    “You’re not gonna let me sleep, are you?” The lion’s lips didn’t curl in quite the right way for the words to all come out in perfect English. There was a little twist to some of the words, and a strange lift to his voice, even though it was somewhat gravelly and hard. “I’m tired.”
    “Okay,” Cass said, more to herself than to Lex, who had closed his eyes again. “So, good, talking lion. I’m living in a Disney movie, and I’ve got a pissed off carnie chasing me. What could be better? Oh right, the only way this could be better is if I was in the middle of the desert. Oh! Good! Check again!”
    She hadn’t gotten this huffed up in a long time. When she finally looked back at Lex, his eyes were closed, but his shoulders were shaking slightly. “And now you’re laughing at me?” Cass felt her cheeks burn. The flush went all the way down the sides of her neck. She’d had plenty of occasions to be angry in the past several years, but she never was. For a second, the thought clicked in her head that the only other time she did get this irritated was with her dad, who she loved dearly, despite his shortcomings.
    Loved dearly , she thought, at once chewing on her lip and pinching the bridge of her nose. “In love with a lion?” Cass shook her head. “More like just used to one. Oh my God and here I am talking to the lion again. Maybe Lyle grabbing me will be a good thing. I can flip out and get committed.”
    “That isn’t him,” Lex rolled onto his back, stretched, and then hopped to his feet.
    Something about him – some kind of scent, or feeling, Cass wasn’t sure enough to say what it was – called to her. She watched the muscles in his shoulders flex and immediately felt comfortable again, just like she had when he protected her for all those years from all those lusty men and angry women.
    “Wait, what?” Cass asked. “How do you know?”
    Twisting his neck from side to side, Lex snuffled and yawned again. “See how far your eyes let you see? I can see three times further. And your ears? Mine are five times as good.”
    Distracted, Cass looked back out at the desert. Sure enough, the jeep spun a doughnut, then another, and a third, before darting off in the opposite direction. “How do you know?” she asked. “I mean, how do you know what it’s like to see as a person? To hear as one?”
    She watched the Jeep bounce over a rocky patch of desert and disappear behind a patch of mesquites.
    “Because,” Lex said, his voice deeper, rounder, and infinitely less uncomfortable sounding. Before the fact that there was a warm palm radiating heat through her shoulder could register, Cass turned around, promptly let