Read Seduced By The Lion Alpha for Free Online

I didn’t like that there was someone out there who might be trying to hurt me. Or worse.
     
    I suppressed a shudder and bit my lip. “And seeing as he knows who I am…” I trailed off, and Leon nodded.
     
    “You could be in grave danger,” he finished. I swallowed hard and forced myself not to make a sound at that. Grave danger. The shifter could want me dead. I nodded to Leon, grateful for his protection.
     
    “All right, then.” I tugged my bag tight around my shoulder. “Let’s go.”
     
    Together we left his cabin and hiked back into the woods. It was late afternoon now, and the sunlight filtered through the trees above. It threw a thousand shades of gold and green through the trees, tossing it across the flowers and letting the light spread in puddles on the dirt and gravel trail through the forest. It looked almost like a sunlight shower. The puddles and drips which extended from the leaves and branches. I could imagine the sunlight raining down from the skies, coating everything in its brilliant light.
     
    Leon’s cabin was deep within the woods - farther than I had ever walked. If it hadn’t been for my accident, I doubt I would have ever found the cabin. It was simply too well hidden to be chanced upon. The shading of the trees and the overgrowth of the bushes and vines around it allowed the cabin to hide within the forest as though it did not exist. The wooden exterior let it disappear into the darkness of the forest. The overgrown vines and bushes surrounded the walls, and overtook parts of the windows. Flowers bloomed across a small fallen branch on top of the cabin. It had long since gone soft with decay.
     
    I studied it all closely, taking in every detail with the knowledge that I would probably never see it again. Then, with a soft sigh and a nod to Leon, we set off.
     
    We trekked through the forest. Leon made scarcely a sound as we moved, leaving me to feel like a bull in a china shop. He moved like a dancer – fluid and light as a feather. His body was liquid as he stepped from place to place. One movement flowed into the next until I couldn’t help but stare at the way his body rolled and rippled across the forest floor. He barely touched the undergrowth when it wasn’t necessary. And when he did, he stepped quickly and lightly, darting over it with barely any damage left behind. By contrast, I trampled the undergrowth, crushed the flowers, and snapped the twigs with all the grace of a newborn elephant. Flowers wilted in my wake and the undergrowth turned to mulch from my trampling. The twigs seemed to cower even when I tried to step over them, only to result in a crackling snap that was audible even over the noise of the birds.
     
    That was one thing that didn’t change in the forest – the calls of the birds. Jays and cardinals and chickadees all buzzed overhead, chirping and whistling as they called out to one another. Their songs filled me with a light as bright as the afternoon sun. My favorite part about the forest had always been the birds and the animals. In the city, those sounds were absent. In the city, the only sounds that were constant were the traffic and the sirens. Barking dogs or yowling cats would occasionally join in, but it was nothing compared to the lovely sounds of the animals all around us.
     
    It was then, listening to the birds, that I realized something. The small forest critters were strangely absent, and I cocked my head in Leon’s direction to ask why.
     
    “Where are the squirrels?” I asked. Part of me wondered if he had eaten them. Either through capturing and cooking them or through… other means. I winced a bit at that. Had he just torn them apart as a lion? The thought was both gruesome and strangely… intriguing. I shifted uncomfortably, wondering where the thought was going. Wherever it was, I wasn’t sure I liked it.
     
    “They don’t like shifters,” said Leon.
     
    I blinked. “Why not?” It made a bit of sense. As a lion, Leon