The Girl and the Lion (Sanctuary Book 1) Page 2

  Still, it was a shame to lock up a creature so noble. It was only a temporary measure, but it still felt wrong. As did the thing she was about to do. She had to shoot it with a tranq dart. As docile and placid as the lion seemed, she had to be sure it was safe to move it.

  She took a deep breath and fired. The red puffball seemed to blossom from the lion’s dark fur like a red dandelion. A dandelion for her dandy lion. She couldn’t help but smile at the absurdity of the thought. Clearly, she’d had too much wine at dinner.

  Now that the hard part was done, she had to figure out how to move the damn thing before he woke up.

  Chapter 2

  She changed out of her little black dress and put on her work clothes. A well-worn set of khaki pants and shirt that made her feel more like herself. Now she could get to work.

  The van had cables and a winch, designed exactly for the purpose of lifting animals for transport. It wasn’t exactly a one-woman job, but she managed, even though she’d be sore in the morning.

  She drove the van into the temporary holding area, a small warehouse-sized building set off from the Sanctuary’s main complex. It wasn’t much, just four corrugated steel walls and a roof enclosing a hard-packed dirt floor, but it got the job done.

  When Sadie’s new lion was secure in its cage, she pulled a canvas folding chair a few feet from the bars and watched the majestic beast slumber. Then she cracked open a bottle of champagne she’d been saving for a special occasion. Finding this lion on her doorstep was about as special as things got for her.

  She lifted her glass to the sleeping lion. “Here’s to you, my tired friend. May you be the savior I think you’ll be. The savior I need.”

  She followed the toast with a long swallow of the bubbly drink, then giggled. She was well and truly drunk now, but she couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt this good. She didn’t want the feeling to end.

  Her eyes were glued to the caged lion. Sadie still couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Her excitement was as bubbly as the champagne she was drinking. She wished she had someone to share this discovery with. But she was all alone out here.

  A thought occurred to her. There was no one she could tell about this in person, but she could still share her find with the world.

  She pulled her phone from her pocket and snapped a few pictures of the lion from different angles. Then she uploaded the pics to all of the Sanctuary’s social media sites. She included the caption, “Look at the newest animal saved by the Fisher Animal Sanctuary!”

  The caption was a little much, considering she hadn’t really saved the creature, but the drinks had her feeling a little boastful. No one had ever seen anything like this. No reason to be modest about it.

  And no reason to spare the champagne.

  She drank until she hit the bottom of the bottle, imagining how her life was about to change because of this new discovery. Talk shows. News articles. Millions of visitors. The sky was the limit. But the best part was the Sanctuary would be saved.

  If only her father had been here to see it. She felt a pang of sadness at the thought. Maybe he wasn’t here in person, but maybe he had sent her this creature somehow. When things were at their darkest, maybe he’d sent a miracle her way.

  She found the idea comforting. It was her final thought before slumping back in the chair and falling asleep. When she dreamed, she dreamed beautiful things.

  Then someone in her dream shouted at her to wake up.

  ***

  She shuddered awake. The jerky motion sent pain hammering through her skull like a ringing bell.

  Sadie groaned and slitted her eyelids open just a fraction. The early morning sunlight stabbed at her eyes, and she shut them closed quickly.

  Why the hell did she drink so much?

  Her entire body was a groaning symphony of stiff muscles and aching joints. Sleeping in the canvas chair had not been a good idea either.

  She leaned forward and her head drooped between her knees. Just let the pain end, she thought. And please don’t be sick.

  Then something broke through the painful haze of her hangover. She remembered the reason for her ill-advised celebration. The lion. Her lion. At least there was that.

  A voice cut through her suffering. “Hey, lady, wake up. Let me out of here.”

  Sadie froze, the gears in her mind turning furiously. The voice in her dream hadn’t been a part of the dream at all. Someone had been shouting at her for real. And that person was right here.

  She opened her eyes gingerly and gasped at the sight in front of her, so surprised she fell out of her chair.

  The black lion was gone. In its place stood a naked man, eyeing her angrily. “Come on, lady. Stop messing around. Let me out of here.”

  Sadie turned her head and emptied the contents of her stomach on the dirt floor. Pain lanced through her skull as her body spasmed.

  “That’s not normally the reaction I get when a woman sees me naked,” the man who wasn’t a lion said. “You’re kind of bruising my ego.”

  Sadie wiped her mouth with the back of her hand before turning to face the naked man in the cage. He stood with his hands on his hips, seemingly unashamed of his nudity. The man was tall and muscular, without an ounce of fat on him. Every well-developed muscle rippled just below the surface of his skin when he moved.

  Not to mention the extremely impressive equipment hanging between his legs.

  “My eyes are up here, lady,” he said.

  She realized she was staring. She shook her head like she was coming out of a trance, banishing the sight of his perfect, nude form from her head and focusing on his face. He was grinning now. The anger gone.

  “What the hell is going on here?” she croaked.

  He spread his hands on either side of him. “Obviously, we’re both having a really bad morning. How about you let me out? I’ll get out of your hair and you can go sleep it off.”

  Sadie stood up unsteadily, holding onto the chair for support. “You can’t be in there.” He quirked an eyebrow up at her. “I mean, you shouldn’t be in there.”

  “On that, we can agree. So let me out, all right?”

  She shook her head firmly. “No, I mean I didn’t put you in there last night. It was a lion. A black lion.”

  He snorted in disbelief. “Damn lady, how much did you have to drink?”

  “Too much, but that doesn’t mean I was hallucinating. I know what happened last night.”

  He shrugged. “Well, I can’t help you with your lion problem. I really just want to get out of here and be on my way, if you don’t mind.”

  She raised her palm towards him. “Just stop talking. For one second. I need to think.”

  “I’ll stop talking as soon as you let me out of here. Then we can part ways. No harm. No foul.”

  Sadie turned away from him, avoiding the sight of his distracting nudity and the sound of his voice. “Please, just shut up.”

  The man stayed silent. A million jagged thoughts ran through her head, like pieces of a puzzle that wouldn’t fit. Images of the night before flashed like stills from a movie. Dinner with Conrad. Getting the alarm notification. Finding the black lion. Putting him in the cage. Then she remembered something else.

  She dug her phone from her pocket and opened up her photographs. She gave a triumphant cry when she found what she was looking for. Moving back to face the man in the cage, she held up her phone so he could see.

  “See, I’m not crazy. There’s the lion. The one I found last night. There in the cage.”

  The man’s eyes darkened as he looked at the photo. “Who the hell are you?” he growled.

  Sadie was taken aback by the ferocity in his voice. The anger was back, deep and dark. She realized for the first time that the man might be dangerous. “Who the hell are you?” she shot back, not one to be intimidated. He was in a cage, after all.

  “Someone you don’t want to mess with,” he said. “Now let me out of here.”

  He grabbed the bars of
the cage door and shook them. Cords of muscle flexed as he rattled the steel frame. The sound of it echoed through the holding area.

  Sadie looked him in the eyes, jutting her chin out defiantly. “You can thrash around in there all you want. That cage could hold a rhino.”

  He let his hands fall to his sides, but they continued to flex open and closed, like he was barely containing his anger. “What do you want from me?” he asked.

  “I want you to tell me how you got in that cage. I want you to tell me who you are.”

  He eyed her up and down warily, his brow furrowed. Finally, he nodded. “Dimitri. My name is Dimitri.”

  She nodded. “Okay, good. That’s a start. How’d you get in here? Where’s the lion?”

  He shook his head. “Tell me who you are first. I answered one of your questions. Now answer one of mine.”

  “Fine. My name is Sadie. Sadie Fisher.”

  His eyes widened at the name, and the anger seemed to fade from him. “Fisher? Do you know Sam Fisher?”

  She was taken aback by the question. “Yes, he’s my father.”

  A brilliant smile dawned on Dimitri’s face. “So I made it. Thank god. Where is he? I need to speak with him.”

  “I’m sorry, I meant to say he was my father. He passed away about a year ago.”

  Dimitri seemed to deflate. “I’m sorry to hear that. Your father was a good man.”

  “You knew him?”

  “We met a few times. He was a friend to us.”

  “Us? What do you mean ‘us?’” she asked, crossing her arms over her chest.

  “Long story. So this is the Fisher Animal Sanctuary? Are you in charge now?”

  She nodded. “Yes. This is my place now. I run things. Why did you want to see my father?”

  “It’s complicated. I was drugged. Poisoned. I thought he could help.”

  “My father wasn’t a doctor. Sick animals, he could handle, but you’d have been better off going to the hospital.”

  “Like I said, it’s complicated. Trust me, a hospital wouldn’t do much good. Your father could have helped.” He paused for a second. “Maybe you can help me.”

  “Slow down. You still haven’t explained how you ended up in the cage. Before I can even consider helping you, I need answers.”

  He exhaled in frustration. “Obviously, your father never told you about us. That’s unfortunate.”

  “‘Us’ again. What does that mean?”

  Dimitri looked down. “We trusted your father,” he said, almost like he was talking to himself. “I suppose that means we can trust you.” He looked up at her. “Can I trust you? Can you keep a secret?”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  Anger flared in his eyes. “This is serious. A lot of lives depend on this secret. Can you be trusted?”

  Sadie was taken aback by the intensity in his voice. “Yes,” she said solemnly. “I promise to keep your secret. Whatever the hell it is.”

  He nodded. “Very well. Your lion didn’t escape. He’s still here.”

  She opened her mouth to speak, but was stopped short when the air in front of Dimitri shimmered like a heat mirage. The man disappeared, and in his place stood the black lion.

  Sadie thought she might faint.

  ***

  “I’ve gone crazy. That’s the only thing that makes sense. I’ve lost my mind. All the stress. The lack of sleep. I’ve cracked.”

  Sadie was pacing back and forth in front of the cage, her words flowing out of her in a continuous, babbling stream. The lion’s gold eyes watched her as she moved, back and forth. Back and forth. The intelligence she saw behind those eyes only confirmed her suspicion that she’d lost her goddamn mind.

  The air in the cage shimmered again and Dimitri was standing there. He looked winded and weak now, as if the change had sapped his strength. Still, there was no doubt it was him. Sadie couldn’t believe her eyes. Literally. “This can’t be real. How can this be real?”

  “I know it’s a lot to take in,” Dimitri said, his voice low and gentle now. “I wish your father had prepared you for this.”

  “Well, he didn’t,” she snapped, angrier than she’d intended.

  Dimitri continued, unfazed. “And I wish we had time for you to make sense of this all. But I need your help.”

  “You keep saying that,” she said, throwing her hands up in confusion. “Help with what?”

  “I’m dying. I need you to save me.”

  Chapter 3

  “Save you?” Sadie asked, shaking her head in disbelief. “How am I supposed to do that? I don’t even understand what’s going on.”

  “I’ll help you understand. I’ll explain everything. Please, just let me out. I won’t hurt you.”

  He sounded sincere. Even though nothing else in the world was making sense right then, she believed him. His stormy gray eyes held no hint of threat or malice. They looked almost gentle.

  Sadie was a firm believer that the eyes never lie. You can fake a smile, you can hide anything behind the right words, but you couldn’t hide the truth in your eyes. The truth in his eyes said he was a good man.

  And he had been friends with her father. That counted for something. She trusted her father’s opinion, even though he was no longer around. And even though he’d been keeping secrets from her. If her father would have helped Dimitri, she would do her best to continue his legacy.

  “Fine,” she said, grabbing the jumbled mass of keys clipped to her belt. “But I need some answers.”

  The key slid into the lock and she turned it with a solid clunk. Sadie pulled the cage door open, hoping she hadn’t just made the biggest mistake of her life.

  When the door opened, he strode up to her and extended his hand. “Dimitri Markov.” She took his hand in hers.

  The feeling of his touch was electric. It overwhelmed her, dimming the hungover feelings to a dull roar in the back of her head. She looked up at him, and his gray-blue eyes gazed back. She wondered if he was feeling the same way. There was one way to find out.

  She glanced down at his dangling member. She couldn’t be sure but it looked like it was swelling up. Or was it just her imagination?

  Dimitri snapped his fingers in front of her face, bringing her back to the present. She felt her face flush.

  “No time for love, Ms. Fisher.”

  She tore her gaze from his member and frowned in annoyance. “It’s not my fault you’re walking around like that.” She gestured vaguely toward his naughty bits. “All flopping around in your birthday suit.”

  “Clothes don’t shift with me,” he said, shrugging. “They tend to get lost.”

  “Shift? Is that what you call it?”

  “Yes, I’m a shapeshifter. We call ourselves shifters.”

  “So you’re not human?”

  “Yes and no. Like I said, it’s complicated. But the uniqueness of our biology means that not all medicine works on us. Not when something is attacking the shifter part of me.”

  “Is that what’s happening now?”

  “Yes, I was injected with something by some very bad people. I can feel it coursing through me, stealing my strength. Making it hard to shift. They said it would kill me. I can’t let that happen.”

  “You keep saying ‘they.’ Who did this?”

  A deep, rumbling growl sounded from his chest. “I’m not entirely sure. I came to town looking for an old friend.”

  “My father?”

  “No, a soldier friend. Garrett. He’s in trouble. My search led me to a shady group. A bunch of small time criminals, or so I thought. Obviously, there’s more going on here than I know about. I underestimated them. I won’t let it happen again. But first I need to neutralize the poison.”

  Sadie chewed her lower lip, processing everything he’d told her. “Not to sound insensitive, but if these people wanted you dead, why not just kill you? Why poison?”

  “I don’t think they want me dead. They wanted leverage. Do what they say, and they’d give me the antidote.” He
smiled ruefully. “I wasn’t about to let them have their way. I ran. Came here. Your father knew how to treat these kind of things.”

  “He never told me about this. About any of this.”