Read ROMANCE: Highland Bear Love : A BBW Paranormal Historical Billionaire Romance (Fantasy Alpha Male Shape Shifter Short Stories) for Free Online Page B

he’d be a white lion. He seems like a pretty tamed fella, but there’s something about him that seems... odd.”
                  Cassie nodded her head. She couldn’t agree more. Tenderly, she put her hands against the metal gate that separated her from the beast. “What have they done to you?” she asked.
    ***

In the aquarium, Cassie tried to focus on the bioluminescent jellyfish, which looked like an infestation of tiny parachutes floating in the giant floor-to-ceiling tank, but her mind kept wandering back to the new lion.
     
    Out of fear he wouldn’t interact well with the other lions, he’d been given his own enclosure. The public was delighted, fawning over him like bees to honey. The gift shop sold out of white lion plush toys his first day out of his den. He was the star of the zoo. But to Cassie, his newfound celebrity made his situation all the sadder.
                  “Another late night?” Doug, the security guard, asked as he passed through the aquarium.
                  “Night time is the best time for a researcher,” Cassie replied with a smile. “I’ll check in with you before I leave.”
                  “So sunset, then?” he surmised, familiar with her routine. “I’ll have the coffee waiting.”
                  “Thanks,” she called as he left, leaving her alone to observe the behavior of the hundreds of glowing turritopsisdohrnii .
                  “Another time,” she said to the jellyfish and went to see the lion.
                  With the zoo closed, he was back in his den behind the enclosure, lying in a corner with his head tucked in his paws, defeated, but as soon as she drew near, he stood and moved closer to her.
                  This was not the first time she’d visited him. It was one of many nightly visits. She felt drawn to the lion, as if he had some meaning to her life. It was her hope that if she spoke with him nightly, if they became friends, the sadness in him would recede. But it didn’t. If anything, he seemed to be getting worse.
                  “You’re not happy here, are you?” she asked, sitting on the ground with her side against the gate. He edged closer to her, the bulk of his body twice the size of a human’s, but he didn’t come too close. She got the sense he didn’t want to scare her off.
                  “You know, white lions have a place in mythology,” she told him, strumming her fingers along the gate. “They are believed to be children of the Sun God. You’re a gift to Earth. I’ve done a lot of reading since you’ve arrived. A lot. You’ve been a distraction,” she teased. Then she sighed. “But no books can tell me why you look so haunted. None of the scientific ones, anyway.”
                  Suddenly feeling tired, she closed her eyes and began drifting into sleep, staying awake long enough to feel his fur stick between the gate as he laid beside her.
     
    …
     
    You can read the rest of the book at the following address:
     
    http://www.amazon.com/dp/B013726MS6

There were fifteen pickup trucks parked in front of Loma Rita’s tiny town hall. It had been a long time since any of those trucks had seen a dealer’s showroom. They were dented and scratched from long years of working in South Texas. There was scraps of hay and gravel in nearly every bed; a few had lost their tailgates.
    The cowboys standing in a cluster near these trucks didn’t look much better. Years spent in the saddle had turned their skin leathery-brown; most had a perpetual squint lurking in the shadows underneath their Stetsons. They wore blue jeans that had seen much better days and faded t-shirts.
    “It’s just bullshit, that’s what it is,” Millet Baynard proclaimed. He was one of the bigger cowboys, although far from the brightest. His t-shirt proclaimed his Longhorn pride. He was known in town for his ability