Lion Conquers All by Krystal Shannan

10

CONNIE

The kids weren’t here. “Why would Gretchen lie?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t forbid her from doing anything. She always checks in with me if she moves.” Gaven climbed back down from the blind. “Maybe they are on their way to a new site? Maybe she’ll call me in the morning and give me an update.”

Connie stared into the swaying pines. The wind was picking up. There was a chill in the air that hadn’t been there a few hours ago.

“Could she have started home and we missed her? Is there another trail she would’ve used?”

“No. We came the way she would’ve.” Her father ran his hands through his hair. His his face was tense with worry.

“There’s been no campfire here .” Aarav crouched next to a small circle of rocks.

Well, dammit.That wasn’t what she wanted to hear.

Ava was circling the blind, staring at the ground. At the brush. Connie couldn’t say what she was looking for, but the woman was focused. She’d give her that.

“We need to go back. We need information on all the locations where she could’ve gone.” Aarav dusted his hands on his pants and slung his day pack back over his shoulder. “Ava, find Ryder. Unless you see a trail. We need to go. I need to put together a search team as fast as possible.” He glanced at the sky and Connie’s chest constricted. He could sense it, too. A storm was coming. The air smelled different and the temperature was continuing to drop. She’d lived here long enough to know what it felt like before the first winter storm hit.

“This storm is going to wipe out everything.” Gaven’s voice was tighter now. Panic was starting to creep into the father’s mind. He’d trusted his daughter. She’d not only broken that trust, but now she was in danger. Connie couldn’t imagine the stress he was feeling right now.

Aarav’s voice carried authority and command. “We are leaving now. They weren’t here. We have to regroup back at the office. Gaven. Now.”

“I have to look for her.” The girl’s father was panicking.

Aarav marched over to Gaven and took him by the arm. “We are leaving. You are no good to me lost in the woods. Your daughter needs you to provide the search teams with information. How can you do that if you leave to look for her? You don’t have any gear or maps with you. Please. We need to go. Now.”

Gaven resisted for a few seconds longer. Connie saw the moment the fight left him. He knew Aarav was right. He knew the best thing he could do for Gretchen and for Sam was get help and come back later.

But the storm was coming.

They needed to hurry. Wherever the trail might be, it would be gone soon.

Connie headed back the way they’d come. Back toward the stream. Aarav and Gaven were right behind her. They were all half-running-half-jogging.

“Where did Ava and Ryder go?” Connie shouted out between sucking in breaths. Running wasn’t her thing. And running in hiking boots really wasn’t her thing. She wasn’t in bad shape, she just wasn’t in SEAL team shape.

She glanced over her shoulder. Gaven was struggling too, but Aarav looked like he could run all day without breaking a sweat. Damn lion. There were some obvious perks to being an alien shapeshifter from another planet.

“They went around another way. They’ll come out at the stream.” Aarav’s voice was right next to her. He’d moved so fast. She hadn’t even heard his footsteps get closer.

A second later his arms were around her and she wasn’t on the ground any more.

She tensed and whimpered, but clung to his body all the same. His first step into the water splashed them both a little, but he launched himself far enough that his second foot landed close to the other side in only about six inches of water.

He set her down and patted her shoulders and arms. Straightened the bag on her shoulder. Then bent down and looked straight at her. “You good? I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you, just wanted to use the momentum to jump.”

“I—yes—I.” She licked her lips and tried to form words. Her whole body was locked and her mind wasn’t with her.

He’d grabbed her.

Without warning.

He’d jumped the whole damn stream. How had he done that? He was a person. He hadn’t shifted.

She could still feel his arms locking around her, trapping her, stealing her control. Her lungs wouldn’t work. She couldn’t suck in air or blow it out. She was frozen.

Run. Run. Run.

Her mind went back to that place.

That place she hadn’t been in several years.

She’d been doing so well. Or maybe she hadn’t. Maybe she’d just been avoiding it. Shoving it down in a dark hole and hoping it would never crawl out.

Well. It just crawled out.

“Connie.” Aarav had started to walk away. He stopped and returned to her side. His hand returned to her arms.

No. No. No.

She heard splashing. The others were crossing the stream.

“Connie.”

Let me go. Let me go. Let me go.It’s what she wanted to scream.

She couldn’t breathe.

She couldn’t move.

Aarav saying her name was a distant echo in her mind now. She was so far away from being able to react. Her vision was changing. Black spots floated around, darkening and narrowing her line of sight.

Voices shouted around her, but they were so slow and drawn out that she couldn’t understand them anymore. It was all just jumbled roaring in her ears.

She looked up into Aarav’s face again.

He was still there. She could hear the rumble of his voice through the chaos in her head, but she couldn’t tell what he was saying.

Tears blurred her vision even more.

Her knees buckled.

Darkness stole the rest of her consciousness.

The humof an engine startled Connie awake. She started and sat up. She wasn’t in a dark van. She wasn’t bound. No one had their hands on her. She was okay. She was in her truck. In the front seat.

“Hey.” Aarav’s voice did that low rumbly thing. She could hear the lion’s purr beneath it. And it made her feel safe. Which was weird. She shouldn’t have felt safe around an enormous man who could change into a lion. But she did. And she wanted to touch his chest again. She wanted to feel the vibrations roll through her. It had been the most scared and safest she’d felt in so many years. “I shouldn’t have picked you up like that without warning you first. I feel like a monster for scaring you. The last thing I ever want to do is hurt you, shuarra. Ever.”

She believed him. She really did.

She could see the anguish on his face. Hear the way his voice cracked over what had happened. It destroyed him emotionally to see her upset as much as the incident had wiped away her control.

“I know.” The first words came out a gravelly whisper. She cleared her throat and tried again. “I’m okay. I promise. It just—it was the combination of the running and you grabbing me from behind.” She grit her teeth and cracked her neck back and forth, refusing to allow her mind to sink back into any of those memories yet again. “I know you meant no harm. In my head. I knew that.”

“But your instinct said otherwise.”

She stared out the window at the passing forest. They were halfway down the mountain. Her breath was creating a little bit of a fog on the window. Not good. Temperatures were still dropping.

“Tell me what happened, please.”

Tears burned at the back of her eyes. She couldn’t look at him. Shame welled up in her chest, threatening to crawl up into her throat and gag her.

“It’s not a good story. It’s not a story I share with anyone.”

The truck bumped along on the gravel and dirt road. They were getting close to the bridge over the river that ran along the west side of Mystery.

“Can I have your hand?”

My hand? He wants to touch me again. After everything that happened. Except that nagging feeling in the back of her mind really wanted to feel his lion’s purr. The rumble of his beast had made her feel so safe. He wasn’t just a man.

And he hadn’t given up on her. All this time he’d been there for her in the background of her life. He’d brought her coffee. He’d made sure anything that broke around her was fixed. He’d kept her woodpile full. He did everything he could possibly do to take care of her without intruding on her life.

She’d noticed.

She hadn’t said anything, but she’d noticed. Even perhaps come to rely on him…just a little.

But if she told him her story, her heart warned that she’d lose him, and that would be worse than never having him at all. She’d avoided men for years to avoid the heartbreak of losing them. That didn’t even take into account that she really didn’t want to be touched by one either.

Until Aarav.

He put his hand on the console between them, palm up. He didn’t ask again. He laid it there and kept driving. And open invitation.

She stared at his hand. His skin was darker than hers. He was a light brown color, while she was pale and freckled. The muscles in his fingers dwarfed hers. He was so strong. It was obvious looking at his hand. There were calluses on his palms and the pads of his fingers and she found herself wondering what they felt like.

Connie stretched her left hand closer and let her fingertips brush over his palm.

Fear danced in her chest like a thousand knives waiting to slice her to ribbons. His hand didn’t close around hers. He didn’t grab her. He didn’t trap her wrist in a tight grip.

Her heart slammed against her ribs. She felt like a rabbit creeping about a trap that was ready to snap shut and end her life.

How was this her life?

She distrusted everyone so much that she couldn’t stand the thought of even holding hands.

All she could see were traps.

Everywhere.