Her Lion Protector [The Protectors 3] (Siren Publishing Allure) Read online

  The Protectors 3

  Her Lion Protector

  Never mess with the fates…

  Rebecca Hastings has no intention on settling down with some overpossessive shifter. This fledgling guardian witch might need to have sex to awaken her powers, but surely anyone will do?

  When Lion Shifter Leon Friars interrupts her outdoor tryst with the college heart throb, she is simultaneously relieved and shocked. This sex-on-legs hunk can’t be the boy she grew up with. This Protector makes her want to forget all of her plans, and just submit, and that will never do.

  Being mated to Rebecca had not been in Leon’s plans either, but his lion has spoken. When Rebecca denies the bond between them, a heartbroken and furious Leon allows her to run away.

  The fates will not be denied, however, and when Rebecca returns years later, Leon has to decide whether he can ever trust her again.

  Is it too little, too late, or does love conquer all—fates included?

  Genre: Contemporary, Paranormal, Shape-shifter

  Length: 40,424 words

  HER LION PROTECTOR

  The Protectors 3

  Doris O'Connor

  EROTIC ROMANCE

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

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  A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK

  IMPRINT: Erotic Romance

  HER LION PROTECTOR

  Copyright © 2015 by Doris O'Connor

  E-book ISBN: 978-1-63259-307-8

  First E-book Publication: April 2015

  Cover design by Harris Channing

  All art and logo copyright © 2015 by Siren Publishing, Inc.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.

  All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

  PUBLISHER

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

  Letter to Readers

  Dear Readers,

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  www.SirenPublishing.com

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  DEDICATION

  To all my readers, thank you for your support.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  HER LION PROTECTOR

  The Protectors 3

  DORIS O'CONNOR

  Copyright © 2015

  Chapter One

  All Hallow's Eve – present time

  The front door of Mrs. H’s cottage banged shut behind them and Leon took a deep breath of the crisp night air. The rest of the Protectors who had attended tonight followed suit, and they nodded at each other. Nothing amiss—that was something. Ronan spirited his mate Tina away, with no more than a growl of goodbye, and Leon grinned, and waved them off.

  The human looked beat. No doubt tonight had been another case of complete information overload for her. Not for the first time Leon thanked the fates for having mated him with Rebecca. As the daughter of a Protector and a Guardian Witch she took the paranormal happenings, at least, in her stride. Of course that left plenty of other things the two of them could clash over, and frequently did. How much more difficult must it be, however, when your mate had no clue shifters even existed, let alone the evil that Protectors like him fought on a daily basis?

  “Fuck, I need to shift. This blasted evening gives me the hives.” Sasha, the proverbial black sheep among their group sniffed the air and ran a hand through his short, cropped hair.

  “That, or find myself some willing pussy. Wanna join me?” He smirked at Leon, mounted his Harley and revved the engine. The powerful vibrations of the throaty machine shook the ground, and drowned out Leon’s negative response.

  “What’s that?” Sasha revved the engine even harder, and Rebecca, who had been engaged in a somewhat serious discussion with Eva, the eagle shifter, snapped her head around to glare at the panther.

  Brown eyes sparking with anger, and her pale face flushed. She looked about ready to spell the arrogant oaf of his bike, and Leon quickly stepped between the shifter and his hot head of a wife. Leon shook his head at her, and his little mate gave a feminine growl of annoyance that shot straight to his balls. Damn, she was fucking hot when she did that, and had they been on their own, he’d have goaded her some more, but not out here, and not in her condition.

  His lion all but purred as he took in his mate, and Leon reined the possessive animal back in with some difficulty. Sasha wasn’t the only one who needed to shift, or fuck, or preferably both, but there was fat chance of either happening any time soon.

  The faint heartbeat he’d picked up earlier today would put an end to any of the horizontal activity with his hot-as-Hades wife for some time. After the last few times nothing would convince Rebecca that sex was safe, and Leon swallowed a groan at the weeks of blue balls syndrome ahead of him.

  Who’d have thought he’d be back to that? It had been a rather too frequent phenomenon when he’d first realized that the girl whose pigtails he used to yank had grown into a full-blooded woman, determined to ignore the pull between them, and go her own way.

&
nbsp; Leon shook his head to clear it of the memories rushing back in, and his lion growled low in his throat. Hearing the tale of how Middle Brook came to be always put his beast on edge, no matter how many times he’d heard it before. Not least because he’d called this village home from home, and his fate was inextricable linked to the Hastings’s life. That’s what you got when your lion decided your mate was a fledgling Guardian Witch. Come to think of it, maybe having a human mate was easier.

  “Not coming then?” Sasha’s deep growl brought his attention back to the panther, who flashed him a toothy grin, before he continued to goad him. “Forgot you’re henpecked now, like everyone else in this godforsaken place.”

  Leon flipped him the finger, Eva laughed, and Sasha rode off, leaving a cloud of dust behind. By the time the air cleared a cold blast of Rebecca’s fury hit Leon straight between the shoulder blades. As his mate she couldn’t use her powers to hurt him, but he felt them nonetheless. Oh, yes, his pipsqueak was pissed off.

  “I don’t know why we have to put up with him,” Rebecca said, and the ice-cold tone of her voice could have frozen over the Sahara. “He never bloody does anything anyway. I wish he’d just bugger off and take his unwanted opinions with him.”

  Leon knew better than to argue the point right now. This was a discussion they’d had far too frequently recently, as Rebecca grew increasingly worried about her mother. While it was true that Mrs. H wasn’t getting any younger, she was obviously not ready to step down yet.

  Eva smiled at him and rolled her eyes, and Leon suppressed a grin at the eagle shifter’s antics. At their last get together Ronan, Eva, and he had discussed the inherent problem of Mrs. H’s advanced age in some detail. Ronan, too, was of the opinion that their resident witch and original founder of the council ought to step down, but he’d been Bear enough to admit that he wasn’t the man to make her do so. Everyone had a far too healthy respect not only for Mrs. H’s immense powers, but also for the lady herself.

  Unfortunately Rebecca had not only inherited her mother’s stubborn streak, but also the late Henry Hastings’s tenacity and Leon knew she wouldn’t rest until she had convinced her mother to take it easy.

  “Good luck with convincing Rebecca to butt out,” had been Eva’s assessment of the situation then, and he didn’t need to be a mind reader to know that was still her opinion now. The eagle shifter drew Rebecca in for a hug, and whispered something to her that Leon couldn’t quite catch. Rebecca startled, and pulling back shook her head at the eagle. Eva grinned, nodded, at Leon, and then started her own motorbike. Like all Protectors, Eva, too preferred a bike as mode of transport when in her human form, and Leon ran an appreciative glance over her machine. She’d pranged her old one the week before, and this was a brand-new BMW racer. Sleek in design, and very pricy. Eva must have saved up, because her job at the council certainly wouldn’t be paying enough for that. It made him long for his own Kawasaki. It had been way too long since he’d taken it out for a spin, but Rebecca preferred the relative safety of their Range Rover these days. Not that he blamed her, as such, but, man, he missed the days when he rode the open road with his reckless little mate plastered against his back, her slim thighs wrapped around his, as they took the twisty Cumbrian roads far too fast.

  “Stay safe,” Eva said, and Leon smiled.

  “I’ll be seeing you,” he said.

  “Not if I see you first.” He raised his fist in greeting at the predictable reply, and Eva, too, roared off into the night, which left just him and Rebecca stood in front of her mother’s cottage. The upstairs light came on briefly and then went out, and Rebecca made a move as though to go back in.

  “Maybe I should just check—”

  “Pip, home. Now.”

  He hadn’t meant for those words to come out quite as forcefully, and Rebecca jumped and dropped her gaze to the floor. Not before he saw the mutinous tilt to her lips, however. She might be his submissive as well as his mate and wife, but his pip was most definitively a brat. Most of the time he loved that about her, but sometimes it got old. Leon was tired, horny, and cranky. His lion itched to come out and do some damage, and he could do nothing of that, until he got Rebecca safely home. It was a good hour’s drive to their place at the shores of Buttermere Lake.

  While it was nice and tranquil to be off the beaten track, it sucked in circumstances such as this. Still, the drive would mean they could talk, and clear the air.

  Leon clicked the alarm on their car and held the door open for his wife and she slid into the passenger side with one long, last look up at her mother’s window.

  “Let it be, pip.”

  “Easy for you to say.” She mumbled the words under her breath, but thanks to his shifter hearing he heard her loud and clear anyway. She would know that, too, the minx, and his fingers itched to put her over his knees. Another thing that would have to wait—for now.

  Suppressing his lion’s growl of annoyance he rounded the car, slid behind the wheel and started the engine. Soft classical music came on, masking the tense silence that fell between them now they were completely on their own.

  Leon sighed and concentrated on driving. The roads were treacherous at best, and a fine drizzle now fell in the beam of his headlights. It made the road slippery, and when he rounded the steep bend and broke sharply to avoid the lone sheep, which had wandered out of the grass verge, the wheels slid. He didn’t miss the protective way Rebecca clutched her belly, as her seat belt locked, nor the surge of adrenaline that shot through her system.

  Having righted the car in seconds and easing off the accelerator, Leon glanced at the pinched expression on her face.

  “Sorry about that. Are you okay there?”

  Amber eyes flashed at him, and she hastily removed her hands from her belly and grabbed the arm rests instead.

  “Fine.” She glanced at him, again, pursed her lips and then stared straight ahead, spine ramrod straight, nostrils flaring.

  Leon, too, brought his attention back to the road until he couldn’t stand the silence any longer.

  “You’re about as fine as I’m a rabbit shifter, pip. For heaven’s sake, woman, talk to me. What’s eating at you tonight?”

  A sharp intake of breath was his reward, and he saw her shake her head, and continue to stare out of the window.

  “Girl, answer me, or, so help me I’ll pull over and make you answer me.” Leon knew his lion’s growl showed in his voice and he wasn’t at all surprised that his eyes glowed softly when his gaze met Rebecca’s startled glance in the rearview mirror.

  She paled, grasped her belly again, and shook her head.

  “You can’t, please. I’m sorry, it’s just…I’m sorry.”

  The wealth of pain behind those words made Leon swear, and spotting an old farm track leading off the road he pulled over and reaching across, put his large hand over hers. Rebecca visibly startled and the tears in her toffee-stained eyes burned a path of acid across his heart.

  “What did your mother say about this one?” he asked, and Rebecca’s pulse jumped under his fingertips, as she opened her mouth as if to say something. Nothing came out but a strangled squeak, and he brought his other hand up to wipe away the silent tears that fell down her cheeks.

  “You knew?” She whispered the question, and Leon cursed. He shoved his seat back as far as it would go, and pulled his wife over and onto his lap. After just a moment’s hesitation she snuggled into his chest, and he kissed the top of her head.

  “Of course I knew, pip. We’ve been here a few times, after all.” She tensed at his murmured words, and his lion roared at his insensitive handling.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t—”

  With a growl Leon buried his hand in her hair and tugging his wife’s head up, kissed her. It had always been the most expedient way to shut her up, and right now and here proved no exception. A sigh escaped Rebecca at the first bold swipe of his tongue along her lips, and Leon groaned as the scent of apple and spice exploded on his taste buds. It was
her unique brand of magic and aroused woman, and when she opened to the demanding sweeps of his tongue he deepened the kiss. Leon put all his pent-up emotions into the kiss, all the grief, and the heartache, and the hopes for their future, and Rebecca met his desperate strokes with her own. By the time Leon forced himself to break the kiss, their breathing came in short pants, and Rebecca’s sweet musk permeated the air around him and drove his beast wild. Fingernails curled into his biceps, Rebecca ground her hips over his rock-hard erection, and they both groaned.

  Leon’s claws ran out and Rebecca winced when he grasped her hips and stilled the frantic movements she didn’t even seem aware of making.

  “I want you really fucking badly right now, sweetheart, so, unless you’re ready for me to fuck you right here, for the love of god, stop moving, woman.”

  Rebecca froze, just like he knew she would, and his lion roared his frustration with enough force to shake the car.

  “I’m sorry, we can’t…I’m sorry.” With her little hands buried in his hair, Rebecca murmured the words, and kissed every bit of his face not covered by his beard. It was sweet torment, and Leon rested his forehead on hers, to stop her frantic exploration.

  “I’m really fucking tired of hearing you apologize, too, pip.” He sheathed his claws and ran his hands slowly up her sides, until he framed her face and pulled back slightly to study her expression. “None of this is your fault, so stop already.”

  He tempered the harsh words with a kiss to her nose, and tipping her head slightly, inhaled against her neck. The action grounded her as much at it calmed his lion, and her tense frame relaxed slightly. He still smelled the worry coming off her, however, and it brought his lion back to the surface, hissing and snarling.