Leader Lion (Protection, Inc 5)

Rafa

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Rafa could hardly believe he’d said that. It was his deepest, darkest secret—the thing he’d never confessed to anyone. Even Paris didn’t know all the details.

But instead of looking at him with pity, his mate’s eyes were full of sympathy and love. It filled him with warmth and strength. So that was what it meant to have a mate. You could jump without a parachute, and know that they would always be there to catch you.

“My family—my lion pride—finds their mates young or not at all,” Rafa said. “My grandparents met and married before they were twenty. The rest, by the time they were twenty-five. Mostly their mates were lions from other prides, but sometimes they were other types of shifters. Mate recognition starts working in your late teens or early twenties. Every now and then shifters who fought like cats and dogs when they were kids meet again when they’re adults, and boom.”

“Boom is right,” Grace remarked. “My head’s still spinning.”

He kissed her. “Mine too. Anyway, when my older sisters were eighteen and twenty and still unmated, my family started introducing them to different shifter families. It was to find them mates, not me—I was too young, I was just fifteen—but I came along. My little sisters too. My parents figured the younger kids could make friends, and who knows, maybe one would turn out to be their mate later.”

“All lions?”

“No, we ran through the local prides pretty fast. That summer we all drove up to meet a back-to-nature bear clan in the woods north of Santa Martina. They lived in log cabins and didn’t drive cars. My family comes from old money, and I was learning how to behave at white tie balls when I was twelve. And there I was, getting introduced to girls who hunted deer, smoked the venison, tanned the hide, and sewed it into moccasins.”

Grace poked him. “You snob.”

“Not at all!” Rafa protested. “They were fun. But the one I really hit it off with was a boy my age, Hal. He and I had something in common: neither of us fit in with our family. Hal’s clan wanted him to get married and live off the land, and my pride wanted me to get married and live off our investments. But Hal and I needed danger and excitement. We wanted to join the military, but our families were dead-set against it. When we pushed it, they threatened to disinherit us.”

“Yikes,” Grace remarked. “I don’t fit into my family either, but they’ve never done worse than ground me when I was a teenager and nag me as an adult.”

“Now they just nag me,” said Rafa. “Well, none of us found our mates, but Hal and I stayed in touch. When we were seventeen, we ran off and enlisted in the Navy, and we got on the same SEAL team. It was great—everything we’d wanted. I forgot about mates. I was gone on missions all the time and that’s no good for a real relationship. When the pride nagged me about it getting late for me to find my mate, I blew them off.”

He hadn’t realized that he’d stopped talking until Grace prompted him with, “Until...?”

He let out a deep sigh. “Until I realized that everyone in the pride who hadn’t found their mate by my age never found them at all.” Even though it had been a long time ago and he’d found his mate after all, he couldn’t help wincing at the memory.

“Ouch.” She gave his shoulders a comforting squeeze. “I used to worry that I’d never find anyone. That was bad enough without thinking I had an actual deadline.”

He relaxed at her touch. “The pride held out hope till I was twenty-eight. Then they gave up on me finding my mate, and started telling me to find some woman I liked well enough and marry her, so I could at least have kids and carry on the family name. But I didn’t want to stick some poor woman with a husband who could never truly love her.”

“You’re a good guy.”

Rafa sighed again. “Mostly I tried not to think about it. Then I got an email about my ten-year high school reunion. So I went, hoping against hope that I’d find my mate there. I didn’t. But I did find Paris. We’d always hit it off, and we still did. The reunion was terrible—a bunch of people neither of us had ever liked, bragging about how successful and skinny they were. I joked that we should go to Vegas instead, and Paris said, ‘Let’s do it.’”

“Ah-ha,” said Grace.

“We drove for seven hours and got there at midnight. And then we started drinking. I think I had five shots for every one Paris had. We got hammered. Pretty soon we were talking about our nonexistent love lives and crying on each other’s shoulders. Metaphorically speaking,” he added quickly. “For me, anyway.”

“It’s all right to cry, you know. It doesn’t make you less of a man.”

The pride would disagree with that. But maybe Grace was right. He nodded and went on, “We told each other as much of the truth as we could stand to, I guess. I didn’t tell her about shifters. But I did say that my family was pressuring me to get married and I’d never even been in love, and I didn’t think I ever would be.”

He wished he could go back in time and tell his younger self to be patient. That he finally had fallen in love, and it was worth waiting for.

“Paris told me her family was pressuring her to get married too,” he went on. “They didn’t know about her, you see. She said she was afraid that if it got out, her family would disown her and it would ruin her career. We talked about how depressed we were that we could never have what we really wanted. And we agreed that the best thing to do was to marry someone we at least liked as a person, even if they weren’t the love of our lives, so our families would be happy.” He hesitated, then admitted, “And so we wouldn’t be so lonely.”

Grace squeezed his hand.

“And I said, ‘Let’s do it,’” Rafa concluded.

“And then you noticed the Elvis Wedding Chapel next door?”

“You think you’re kidding, but that’s exactly what happened.” In a lighter tone, he said, “Now you know my tackiest secret. I was married by an Elvis impersonator in a rhinestone-studded jumpsuit. It started sinking in what a terrible mistake we’d made when instead of singing a love song, he serenaded us with ‘You Ain’t Nothin’ But A Hound Dog.’”

Grace snickered. “Seriously?”

“Seriously. And then Paris and I staggered off to a hotel room. All of a sudden we felt stone cold sober. I said, ‘Paris, I like you as a friend, but I’m not in love with you. I can’t do this.’ And Paris said, ‘Rafa, you’re a great guy. But you’re a guy. I can’t do this.”

“Not exactly a match made in heaven. How long did you stay married?”

“Twenty-four hours. We passed out for about twelve, and then it took us a while to recover from our hangovers enough to go out and find someone to divorce us. Not Elvis! Just a guy in a suit. Paris went straight home and told her family she was never going to marry any man. They were upset at first, but by now they’re nagging her to meet a nice woman and marry her.” Rafa sighed. “There you go. That’s the story.”

“Thanks for telling me. Poor Paris. Poor you. I’m glad you’re both happier now.” Grace gave him a puzzled glance. “I don’t get why it’s this huge secret, though. I know Paris was worried about her career. But why is it such a big deal for you?”

The words caught in his throat, but he managed to force them out. “It’s not what happened that’s the big deal. It’s what I thought it meant. When I went to Vegas, I’d never loved any woman. Not Hal’s cousins, not the shifter women my family kept shoving at me, not the women I met in the Navy, not anyone. Paris was beautiful and sexy and kind, and I liked her a lot. But I didn’t love her. And when I had to admit that, it convinced me that I wasn’t capable of that sort of love. That there was something wrong with me, like I had a hole where my heart ought to be.”

“Oh, Rafa,” Grace said softly, with all her love for him shining from her beautiful eyes. “There’s nothing wrong with you. Nothing at all. There never has been.”

“I know. Now, I know that.” He’d been so afraid to make that final confession, but now that he had, it didn’t weigh him down any more. He felt light as a feather. Like Fiona had said, he was walking on air. “You know, I had it all planned out how I was going to tell you that story. I’d meant to do it while we were cuddling on a bed covered in rose petals after we’d made love, not sitting on a fake Mars rock after we’d had a huge fight. I had champagne and candles and music and everything.”

“A bed covered in rose petals?” Grace echoed, and laughed. “Sorry, Rafa. I’m not laughing at you. Exactly. Your date night sounds awesome. And knowing you, I’m sure they’d be the best roses and candles and champagne.”

“Well, of course.”

She ruffled his hair. “Here’s the thing, though: you don’t need any of that stuff. Sure, it’s nice. But you don’t have to be this perfectly suave romantic hero. I like you, Rafa. Not roses. Not champagne and candles. You. I like the guy who fixes the BARF sign and watches me solder and hates rose-flavored cupcakes. You love me for being me—I love you for being you.”

Rafa was taken aback. All he could manage was, “Oh.”

“Where did that even come from, anyway? You’re so good-looking and tall and strong, and you used to be a Navy SEAL. Women must’ve been falling all over you for your entire life. What makes you feel like you have to go way above and beyond to make them like you?”

“It’s a lion thing, partly. We’re the king of beasts, everything should be the best for us and the best for our mates. But, honestly, once I thought I was never going to have a mate, I decided to be the coolest single guy ever. Show the world how much I liked it better that way. I didn’t want anyone to think I was this lonely guy and feel sorry for me.”

“Yeah, being pitied is the worst. I hate it too. After Dean cheated on me and ended up in jail, I could feel people thinking, ‘Oh poor Grace, such bad luck with men, so sad.’ And ‘Oh that Grace, she must be doing something to attract that sort of man.’”

“You didn’t do a thing. It was bad luck. But I don’t feel sorry for you. Look at the fantastic mate you have now!”

As Rafa had intended, Grace laughed. “True. Hey, do you still have the rose petals and champagne and stuff at your place?”

“I do. Want to try them out before the petals wilt?”

“Absolutely.”

Grace turned off the lights, and they left the theatre. Destiny had taken off when Rafa had arrived, reporting that she’d seen no sign of danger. He scanned the area, but he didn’t see anything either. They were alone on an empty street. The night was dark and colder than ever. Grace shivered.

“Take my coat.” Rafa slipped it from his shoulders and bent to put it on her.

As he started to straighten, his sharp lion’s eyes caught a far-off glint of light at the roof of an otherwise unlit building.

Moonlight on a rifle barrel.

There was no time for a warning. Rafa hit the ground rolling, Grace caught up in his arms. Her startled yelp was drowned out by the crack of a gunshot.

Fragments of concrete struck him in the face, but he was glad of the pain. It told him that the bullet had missed.

That his mate was unhurt.

He rolled again. Another gunshot. More chips of the sidewalk struck him, this time on his hands and arms.

Even as he moved, he was calculating the position of the sniper, the distance between them, and the range of his own handgun. Rafa could try to hit the sniper, but at that distance and moving, it would take a one-in-a-million shot.

As he threw himself to the side one more time, he fired at that glint of light.

Rafa had no idea if he’d hit the sniper or not. The next instant, they landed hard, inside the thick concrete walls of the parking structure. Safe.

For now.

Rafa leaped to his feet, still holding Grace close to his chest. Shielding her with his body, he bolted for his car. He wrenched open the door and lifted her into the passenger seat, then jumped into the driver’s seat.

His heart pounding, he turned to look at Grace. Her eyes were huge and her olive skin had gone ashen with fright, but she was alive and unharmed. As far as he could tell, she hadn’t even been bruised.

His relief was so intense that it made his head swim. “Thank God.”

But he couldn’t let himself get distracted. He slammed on the locks, started the car, and floored it out of there, putting the several-story parking structure between them and the probably-still-alive sniper.

There was very little traffic late on a winter night. Rafa broke all the speed limits as he drove, with one hand on the steering wheel and the other dialing his cell phone. He first called 911, as the police could get there faster than his teammates. The police assured him that they’d dispatch SWAT to go after the sniper, and send officers to check on everyone else involved in the play.

He didn’t know if the attack had been directed at him or at Grace, or if the sniper might try again. But he’d feel better knowing that everyone connected with the play had police headed their way. He’d have preferred to send his teammates to guard them, but there were far too many Mars people, all at their individual homes, for that to be possible.

“Is there a list of them all?” the dispatcher asked.

Rafa turned to Grace. “Have you got everyone’s numbers?”

“Of course.” She turned on her phone. “If you give me the police email, I’ll send them our contact sheet. It has names, addresses, and emergency contacts.”

Rafa got the email address, and Grace forwarded the list. A moment later, the dispatcher remarked, “Wow. Someone was well-prepared. Okay, I’m dispatching them now.”

Rafa then called Hal, who first made sure they weren’t injured, then told him to come straight to the office.

“Thanks. We’ll be right there.” Rafa hung up. He turned again to Grace and put a hand on her shoulder. “How are you doing?”

“Forget me,” she said impatiently. “You’re hurt! I’ve been trying and trying to get your attention.”

When he thought back on the last few minutes, he vaguely recalled it. But he’d been intent on talking to the police and Hal. “No, I wasn’t hit. Believe me, I’d have noticed.”

“You’re bleeding!”

Realizing what she must be seeing, he said, “It’s nothing. The bullet hit the sidewalk and some bits of cement hit me, that’s all.”

Grace stretched out a trembling hand and touched his cheek, swiping at some of the stinging cuts. “Oh. Yeah, you’re right. They’re shallow.”

“Like shaving cuts,” he assured her. “And I’m a shifter. We heal fast, remember? You watch. They’ll close in a few more minutes, and they’ll be gone by morning.”

“Oh.” She visibly relaxed, then shook her head in amazement, sending her purple curls bouncing. “I still can’t believe you can turn into a lion. And my cousin can turn into a tiger. For the first time in my life, I’m not going to be the weirdest person in the room.”

“You definitely won’t be. I’m taking you to meet my team.”

Grace gave him a shaky but real smile. “This should be interesting.”

“If they haze you, I could turn into a lion and bite them,” he offered.

“Nah. Forewarned is forearmed. They can lay all the guilt trips they like, it won’t bother me.”

He was going to warn her that they could do much more than that when his phone rang.

It was Hal. Rafa put him on speakerphone. “The cops just called me. SWAT found a dead sniper on the roof. It was a one-in-a-million shot, but you got him.”

Rafa relaxed, but only a little. For all he knew, there was more than one gunman. “Do they know who he was?”

“Yeah,” said Hal. “A professional assassin on the FBI’s most wanted list. Looks like you’re getting another medal.”

“Another medal?” Grace echoed. “How many do you have?”

“Enough to weigh down his dress blues,” Hal said, at the same time Rafa said, “It’s not important. Hal, did the police say if there were any clues about who hired the guy?”

“Didn’t look like it,” Hal replied. “It’d be someone high up in organized crime, though. You don’t find assassins like that on Craig’s List.”

“And the Mars people?” Rafa asked urgently. “Paris?”

“Paris is fine,” Hal replied. “An officer is with her now. He says the NASA consultant is there too. They’re still tracking down a couple people, but it looks like the only attack was on you and Grace.”

“Thanks. I’m on my way.” Rafa hung up.

The only attack was on me and Grace? He wondered. Or on me or Grace?

“Which one of us do you think the shooter was after?” Grace asked, as if she’d read his mind.

“I was just wondering that,” Rafa replied. “Who’s more essential to Mars, the bodyguard or the stage manager?”

“You are,” she said after a moment’s thought.

Surprised, he said, “From what I’ve seen, the show would fall apart without you.”

“I don’t think so. Yeah, things would go wrong and it wouldn’t run as well, but if I was...” Grace shuddered. “...out of the picture, Carl could step in. But you’re the only protection we have. Sure, the police are guarding us now, but how long is that going to last?”

“Probably just tonight,” Rafa admitted. “That’s why bodyguards exist.”

“There you go. I think that shooter was after you.”

“I sure hope so.”

She stared at him. “What?”

“Better me than you.”

“What?!” she repeated. “No!”

“I heal fast,” he reminded her. “I’m hard to kill. I have faster reflexes and better vision. Not to mention military training. I turn into a lion. Plus, lots of people have tried to kill me. I’m used to it. And you notice I’m still here. It’s much better if any assassination attempts are aimed at me.”

“I still don’t like it,” Grace muttered, but seemed to accept his reasoning.

And if anyone’s going to give their life, better me than you, he thought.

It was bad enough that she had nearly been caught in the crossfire of an attack aimed at him. The thought of his mate being the target filled him with protective fury.

“I’ll be fine,” he promised her. “Don’t worry about me. We’re going to catch whoever’s behind this before they try again. I’ll get my entire team on it.”

With perfect timing, Rafa pulled into the underground parking lot of Protection, Inc. as he spoke. He got out and opened the door for her. “Sorry for flinging you into the car.”

“If someone’s shooting at me, you have permission to fling all you like.” She stepped out and took his hand. “Guess it’s time to meet the family.”