Page 8 of Chasing Dawn

Something crackled, and I realized Vance had a walkie-talkie on his belt. “Vance, Josie and the Pussy Cats are here, and they want to talk to you. Over.”

“Social visit? Over.”

There was a muffled sound, then the sound of a scuffle.

“Don’t touch my walkie—” Static.

“Tell Winnie the Pooh that if we were here socially, we would have knocked on the front door,” came a low growl.

“You didn’t say over.” More static.

Vance pinched his nose. “I better go deal with this before the lion Alpha turns Franklin into a nice cloak.”

My eyes went huge. “Lions?” Fear pounded in my veins. I’d never met a lion shifter. They were an antisocial bunch with some screwed up politics, and were infamous for their bloody, take-no-prisoner coups. No one was safe, not even children.

Vance leaned down, placing his arms on either side of my body and pressing his chest into mine like a giant, hot weighted blanket.

Oh, this was a bear hug. That was why it felt so nice. I’d never hugged anyone but the pups, and it was different hugging someone who could encompass your entire body. I lifted an arm and curled my hand around his back, pressing my fingertips into the hard muscles over his ribs.

Had I ever felt this safe?

“Nothing will hurt you ever again, Dawn. I will tear anything that tries limb from limb with my claws and teeth,” he murmured softly beside my ear, then he uncurled his body and stood to his full height. “I have to go. I’ll send Talbot down to sit with you.” He brushed my hair out of my face. “You should rest more. You need to heal.”

His words had my eyelids slowly drooping. I was out again before the gentle whoosh of the infirmary door closing even finished.

“It’s true, Bohdie. My mom said Franklin found her with her guts hanging in the snow.”

“There’s no way your mom said that, Shoo-Shoo.”

There was a distinctly annoyed huff. “Fine. She said it looked like someone had given her a field ‘rectomy.”

“Cubs!”

The sound of that deep growl snapped my eyes open, my whole body tensing. I looked up at the faces of a group of kids, who couldn’t be older than six. A pair of deep gold eyes shone in the sea of chocolate brown and green gazes. That one was definitely a lion cub, and if my Omega was right, an Alpha one at that.

He looked between me and the door. “Whoops. Sorry. We thought you were, like, asleep-asleep.”

“Like in the movies,” a little girl said.

They looked abashed and wary as someone else moved into the room, and I resisted the urge to gather them to me and protect them from the dominant shifter whose presence filled the small space.

I darted my gaze toward the door, then I relaxed, because I knew this bear, even if he’d quadrupled in size since the last time I’d seen him.

“Talbot.”

I did what I hadn’t let myself do in front of Vance. I cried.

CHAPTER 4

TALBOT

Shit. I made her cry.

Shirley Sue elbowed me in the ribs. “Hug her!” she hissed. “When I cry, someone hugs me, and I feel better.”

“Or chocolate. Actually…” Bohdie added. He patted his pockets and pulled out a crumbling cookie. “Do you want a cookie, ma’am?”

Dawn tried to smile, but that just seemed to make her cry harder. The lion cub shot me a horrified look, and I shrugged, but Shirley Sue released an aggravated huff and climbed on the bed, wrapping her arms around Dawn’s head and pressing their cheeks together. “Don’t cry. It’s okay. You don’t want any gross pocket cookies. We’ll get you ice cream, because that’s what you’re meant to have when you’re sick.”