Lion In Wait (A Paranormal Alpha Lion Romance) Read Online Free Page B

for you.”
    Squaring her jaw and leveling her shoulders, Cass put her hand out behind her, trying to calm Lex’s increasingly irritated growls. “This is a really, really bad idea, Lyle. This isn’t a threat or anything, it’s just... no!”
    The first of Lyle’s goons kicked her screen in, letting himself and two others inside. “Lex! No! Don’t hurt them!” she cried out, begging the cat not to do anything to get himself killed. As much as being separated from him was going to hurt, having him hurt or killed would have broken her.
    Lex curled up his lips in a silent snarl, tensed his massive shoulders and neck, and bared his teeth.
    “Calm him down, Cass,” Lyle said. “You’re the trainer, right?”
    With a soft pat on the back of his head, Cass curled her fingers in the lion’s mane and tugged. He was pulling against her, straining to get at one of the idiots who had invaded, if only one of them chose to try something stupid.
    When the one in the front – the big one with the vacant look on his face – decided to get a little closer, Lex snapped his jaws in a warning that could have easily taken the guy’s hand if he were a half inch closer, or if Lex were just a little less careful with where he snapped.
    “See that? He’s crazy! He’s nuts! He’ll kill me, or some kid, or some damn hick farmer or something, and then where will we be?”
    “I didn’t want to do this, Cass,” Lyle said, pulling something that looked like a rough facsimile of a gun out of his coveralls. “He ain’t gonna go easy though, and you don’t seem like you’re gonna be much help.”
    He inserted a canister into the back, and a dart into the barrel. “Now listen, I told ya I ain’t gonna hurt him.”
    The tears were already running down Cass’s face. She took a swing at Lyle’s lumpy head at exactly the same time that he fired the dart. It sunk into Lex’s chest just as her fist slammed into Lyle’s chin, sending a tooth flying. Even with the drugs coursing through him, Lex tightened his chest and let out a half-growl, half-roar that shook the windows. He lunged straight for the nearest idiot, with a rage that was going to take at least part of a head should he choose. She saw that he kept his claws back, but smacked the absolute hell out of the closest man.
    Flying backward like a hurled potato sack, the leering, vacant-eyed man hit the wall, flattened somewhat, and slid to the floor. Lex lurched, but kept his paws under himself, at least long enough to send another of the panicked workers sprawling to the floor when he tried to grab Lex’s fur.
    Lyle shouted some kind of incoherent profanity and loaded a second dart. He fired it straight into the side of the lion’s neck. “God damn idiot girl,” he whined, clutching his broken lip and sore chin. “This coulda been so much easier.”
    The lion was lurching, heaving from one side to the other, obviously slipping unconscious. Lex was fighting, as hard as he could, to keep from succumbing to the drug. He looked to Cass, who was watching him, her pale blue eyes flashing between unadulterated rage, and terror for her friend. She ran toward him, but Lyle grabbed her shirt, yanking her backwards and keeping her from getting where she wanted to be.
    “Now calm down, you damn fool,” he said, spittle collecting in the corners of his mouth. “Nobody else gotta get hurt if you just stop .”
    Lex blinked twice, and Cass thought she saw him nod at her, in a way that said everything would be fine, there was nothing to worry about.
    She screamed out, kicked backward at Lyle and tried to twist away, but he held his grip tight with those warty, knotted hands. “Calm down!”
    Lex took a deep breath and sighed as he finally collapsed. Cass shook, trembling, quaking with anger. She spun around, slapped Lyle directly in the face once, though he caught her other hand when she tried to repeat. “I swear to God, if you hurt him—”
    “Why’n hell would I do that? He’s