There was a brief moment of quiet between them, and she let go of the fears inside her and trusted him.He was her soulmate, and he was a badass lion.
“I want to keep you close today,” he said.
“What do you mean?”
“I was thinking you could come topside with me and be in the paddock during the VIP tours.”
“Like in my shift?”
“No, as a zoo keeper.The soulmates do it from time to time.I’ll be in my shift, and you can walk around and clean up the paddock and toss treats to our people, and then you and I can hang out away from view of the VIP tour jeeps.I promise it’s safe and you’ll also be able to get lots of sunshine and fresh air.It’s a beautiful day today.”
“Are you serious?”
“Absolutely.Because the security team is on high alert after Otto showed up, we need every shifter who isn’t working security to be in the paddocks so the VIP guests don’t notice there are fewer animals.I hate the idea of you being down here by yourself while I’m stuck in my shift for hours.I’d like you with me.If you’d like to be.”
“Hell yes,” she said, jumping to her feet.There wasn’t any place she’d rather be than with Caesar, especially in his shift.The chance to hang out with him for hours, in the sunshine and fresh air, was too good to pass up.“What should I wear?”
* * *
Sera pulled on a pair of jeans and boots that Anke had given her from the market shop and reached for a tan polo with the park’s logo on the breast pocket that Caesar held out.It was one of his shirts, so it was big on her, but she loved how the faint scent of him was in the fabric.Tucking it into her jeans, she headed into the bathroom and braided her hair, then grabbed her phone.
“This is so exciting!”
“I’ve got something else for you,” he said.He handed her a canvas satchel and a leather-bound book.“This is the history of this pride as well as my family history, and the laws that apply to our people directly and the park shifters as a whole.As our alpha female, you need to know what’s in these pages.I figure you’ll have time to read for a bit this afternoon if you’d like.”
She turned the book over in her hands and ran her fingers over the embossed cover with a lion silhouette.“I can’t wait.I want to be the best alpha female for the pride.”
“You already are,” he said.He offered her his hand.“Ready to go?”
“You bet.Lead the way.”
They walked out of the house and headed topside, using a special set of stairs that took them directly into the maintenance shed in the lions’ paddock.“Some of our people are already out in their shifts,” he said as he stripped his shirt off and laid it on a workbench next to stacks of other clothes.“Usually we’re out there an hour before the tours start, but with the setback with Otto this morning, the schedule got thrown off a bit.”He patted a basket of gourds.“You can toss these to any of the lions, they’re fun to play with and it’s a good enrichment activity that a normal, non-shifter zoo would give to their lions.”
She watched him strip, looking her fill as he bared every sexy inch of himself to her.
“If you keep looking at me like that, I’ll take you down to the house for the afternoon instead,” he said, his voice banked with heat.
“That’s not much of a threat,” she said with a laugh.“I can’t help it if you’re sexy and mine.”
“You’re sexy too, baby, trust me.But you’re right, I’ll just have to sex you up good when we’re finished today.”
“I’ll hold you to that promise.”
The plan was for her to walk around the paddock and make sure no trash had blown in overnight, toss gourds to the others, and then take her place with Caesar at the back of the pond, where a stand of trees offered shade and privacy.
She watched him shift, turning from sexy, big male to huge lion.He shook himself out, his tail swishing on the wooden floor as he opened his jaws wide in a yawn.She scratched behind his ears and ran her fingers over his thick fur.
“You’re such a gorgeous lion,” she said.“I’m a really lucky female.”
He yowled and bumped her shoulder gently with a purr.
She opened the shed door and he padded out ahead of her.Then she grabbed the basket and tossed the gourds to the pride.She recognized Jenni, the only lioness in the pride, who snagged a gourd from another male as he was about to pounce on it.Her lionish-chuckle made Sera laugh.She tossed another gourd to the male and he nodded at her as he cupped his paw around it and threw it toward one of the other males, starting a game of throwing gourds around.
When the basket was empty, she and Caesar walked around the paddock and she found a few pieces of trash that she dropped into a receptacle in the shed.By the time she heard the first tour Jeep, she and Caesar were settled on the grass next to the pond, tucked away underneath the leafy branches of an old willow.
She opened the history book and leaned against Caesar and read about the history of the pride and his family.
When she finished reading the book, she closed it and traced the lion’s symbol on the cover.“I feel like there’s a lot I don’t know, still.About being an alpha female.Our old alpha female wasn’t the sort of female who spent lots of time with our people.When she died, nothing really changed in the prowl.The alpha kept on like he always had, and he never took another mate.The old alpha hadn’t been mated, and Dario wasn’t mated either.I feel like I’ve never really seen what a good alpha female is like.”She let that thought roll around in her head, then said, “But I’m not the only alpha female out of my element.Joss’s mate Jeanie is human, and so is Alistair’s and Atticus’s.I’ve at least got being a shifter going for me, but they’re doing just fine as alpha females being human.”
