Falling in Love with the King of Beasts

To listen to my July Author Q & A, go to YouTube and search "Author AimeeLynn." There you'll find a voice-acted recording of "Reth" reading Chapter 2 of this book, along with my recent author Q & A about the Anima world, tribes, and history! All for FREE! Enjoy!

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ELIA - Human World

There was movement in the suite. Someone was in the living room, talking on a phone, she thought. But she couldn't care enough to lift her head, let alone her body.

She wanted to sink away from this place, back into Reth's arms. Back into the furs at the cave. She didn't want to be here anymore. She huffed the call for her mate and listened. But there was no answer.

Her heart grieved.

Then suddenly the door opened and a familiar scent entered, leaving other, unfamiliar scents nearby, but not so close.

Her body tensed. It was the wrong male. She didn't want to look. She didn't want to see.

"Elia?" Gahrye's voice was soft and hesitant. He stood at the side of the bed. "Elia, are you okay?"

"No," she breathed.

"Can you… are you…"

"I'm still me," she snarled through her teeth. "I'm still here. I'm still… nothing has changed," she spat.

"Elia, everything has changed. You can shift."

She growled.

Gahrye swallowed loudly. "Do you remember?"

"Yes."

"How did you get back?"

"I don't know. I just woke up on the floor a while ago."

He blew out a breath and raked a hand through his hair. Elia caught a glimpse of his hand shaking and watched him from the corner of her eye. She didn't want to see his worry, or the weight on him. She knew he would be feeling responsible even though there was nothing he could do. She knew she should be reassuring him. But she didn't want to. She didn't want to soothe anyone. She wanted to go home. She needed Reth. And she needed… she needed to be out of this house and away from these strange smells that raised the hair on the back of her neck.

Then she blinked. Had she really just told herself she didn't care about Gahrye having to carry… all of this?

What was wrong with her?

She covered her face with her hands. "I'm sorry," she whispered. "I'm sorry, I'm just… this is really hard. I… I dreamed about Reth and it just smacked me in the face with… everything. I'm so scared, Gahrye. So scared."

"Me too," he said, but he sank into the chair next to the bed instead of pacing. "I don't know what's going to happen, Elia. I'm really… I'm really uncertain how this is going to go."

She huffed a humorless laugh. "You're unsure? Apparently, I'm pregnant, no longer human, and riding the crazy train."

"The… crazy train?"

"Yeah. Nuts. Psycho. Losing my marbles…"

"What does this have to do with children's games?" Gahrye's face was crumpled into a look so purely confused, Elia almost laughed for real.

Groaning, she forced herself to push up, to sit up, to face her dear friend.

And it was only then that she saw the truth.

The lines on his forehead. The way his hands clenched on the arms of the chair. The sweat at his temples. And his leg jiggling, because he couldn't keep it still.

"Oh, Gahrye, I'm so sorry," she whispered. "I shouldn't have snapped at you."

"I think under the circumstances I can forgive a little short-temperedness," he said dryly. But his lips were thin and his eyes looked haunted.

"Did I… did I try to hurt you?" she breathed, blinking, a vague memory cloudy in her mind.

His eyes snapped to meet hers. "Your beast did. Almost. You stopped it."

"I'm so sorry."

"What for? You can't be expected to control that. You… how the hell did you become Anima, Elia?"

She shook her head. "It's got to be the pregnancy? Maybe… maybe my blood is mixing with Elreth's or something? Have you had any chance to look for any records or—"

Something strange entered Gahrye's scent, a quality she didn't recognize, but he shook his head quickly. "I mean, we looked. We've been looking. For hours. But we haven't found anything about human pregnancies yet. Apparently they're really uncommon."

"Well, no surprises there, I guess," Elia said sadly.

Gahrye shook his head, and they both sat there, not looking at each other for a minute.

"What are we going to do?" she said eventually.

He shrugged. "Keep looking. Keep trying. You need to rest as much as you can. And try not to get angry. I'll… I keep going back and forth about telling Shaw. Something about that guy just puts my back up."

"Telling him what, though? About me shifting? He doesn't know?"

Gahrye shook his head. "I guess he doesn't know the signs. He didn't see your eyes change. I got you up here and kept you locked in. They thought you were sleeping, until someone came to check on you and I guess you… growled at them? But you were you, already. They thought… they thought maybe you were already starting to lose your mind. They didn't want to tell me, in case I freaked out."

"Where were you?"

"I was… Kalle took me to the library in town. We were looking for information. I brought a bunch of books back, if you want something to occupy your mind. We haven't even started with the records they have, and there's just… there's so much to look through to try to find…" His jaw twitched and he raked a hand through his hair again. "There's just a lot."

"I'll help, she said resolutely. "I'll rest, like you said. I'll be careful. If Shaw doesn't know and you're reading the winds and it's not good—wait, why should we be concerned about a Guardian? Aren't they here to keep our secrets?"

"That's the thing. I can't figure out what's wrong. He's not lying. He cares about you. He means it when he says he'll do anything he can to help. I'm just… there's something about him that I don't trust, but I can't figure out why."

Elia frowned. She trusted Gahrye's judgment. But… "Is it possible it's just because he's human? Do we smell different? Or… do things that feel off?"

"Always," he grinned, but it faded quickly. "But this is different to you and the things we went through where you didn't understand, or I didn't understand you. This is… it's like there's something in him that's hidden from me. But I can sense it. Except…" he groaned. "I don't know, Elia, maybe it's nothing. Maybe I'm just being paranoid."

"Maybe, but I doubt it," she said. "I trust you, Gahrye. If you have a bad feeling, we'll listen to that until we know otherwise."

He took a deep breath, then winced. "This damn world stinks."

Elia's nose wrinkled as she breathed in. He was right. The air seemed almost to sting in her sinuses, it was so sharp. "Ugh, I don't know how you do this," she said. "Distract me with something."

"What?"

"You said you went to the library. So you left the property? What did you see? What was it like? What do you think of my world?" she asked, and forced herself to smile.

Gahrye shook his head. "Where do I start?"

"How about at the beginning?"

That strange edge threaded into his scent again, but Elia couldn't identify it. Didn't know what it meant. She looked at him, but he was staring at the door into the living room, which he'd left open. "I think… I think I should tell you later," he said thoughtfully, as if his mind wasn't really on her. "But I can tell you this now: I pray that we never get technology on Anima. That shit stinks."