The Lion’s Forbidden Mate

“Nope,” Becca said with a smile. “I’m sure we’ll be hanging out a lot when we’re finally on the road, but right now, it’s just paperwork and making sure that everything is packed. Stop by tomorrow night and we’ll make sure everything is loaded up before we hit the road. The first two shows are in town and that’s going to make it easy for us to test everything out and make sure we didn’t leave anything behind.”

“Cool,” Lucy said with a relieved grin on her face.

“Don’t be scared,” Becca put a hand on her shoulder to comfort her. “Everything is going to be fantastic.”

There was a loud commotion on the other side of the garage and there were people hooting and cheering, slapping hands on the backs of several people that were heading into the garage. She looked at them and she tried to figure out who was coming in that everyone was excited for. The room swelled with a kind of energy she wasn’t used to.

This was the kind of excitement that made her feel like she was doing God’s work here or something. But as the workers in the garage started to part and let her see who was coming through, she realized this was someone special. This was one of the centerpieces to the group. This was one of the bands that were going to be playing the tour. This was one of the big kahunas, one of the top dogs of the whole program. This was like seeing royalty walking among them. As she stared like a baffled schoolgirl, she noticed that one of the band members looked oddly familiar.

He walked across the garage with a smile on his lips, but with a large pair of aviators on his face as he grinned, mingling with the few people that were talking with him and stopping him along the way. She hadn’t expected band members to be so nice to the grunts of the project, but as he walked with his leather jacket slung over his shoulder, he had a sort of kindness in him that she didn’t anticipate. He tilted back the newsboy hat and she realized with a grim understanding that shattered through her mind that she knew the man.

That was James.

Seeing James was terrifying to her. He was the leader of the band. She didn’t know how to handle this. She had just slept with the head of the band she was working for. That had to violate some kind of rules or trust that you are going to screw the head of the band. In less than four hours, she had probably compromised her entire position here. What was Lynn going to say? What were her parents going to say? Should she go up and talk to James? How was she supposed to handle any of this?

“Who is that?” Lucy asked, trying her hardest not to sound too impressed or too enthralled with the sight of James.

“You don’t know who that is?” Becca asked with a confused expression on her face.

Lucy felt like a fool, but she didn’t want to give away the fact that she knew who James was, kind of. Honestly, right now she felt like she didn’t know who James was it all. That was probably because she didn’t. Why hadn’t he said that he was part of the band yesterday?

“That’s James McCreedy,” Becca said with a smile on her lips. “He’s the lead singer of The Pride, the reason we’re all here.”

When had he said anything about that yesterday? Lucy didn’t understand what was happening right now. How could she end up getting drinks with a guy, take him back to her room, and end up sleeping with him; and not know that he was the lead singer of a very famous band? In fact, he was the lead singer of the band that she was working for. That was even worse. She looked at Becca, wondering if Becca could tell just how stupid she was right now.

“He’s very handsome,” Lucy said with a smile on her lips. She wanted to test the waters. See what she can find out from Becca. It was a risky move, but she thought she could do it.

“Be careful,” Becca said with a smile on her lips and a dark tone in her voice. “That man is untouchable right now.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Lucy asked with a confused expression on her face.

“That man is engaged right now,” Becca said with a disappointed tone.

It was clear to Lucy that Becca also had interests in James. Unfortunately, Lucy was beginning to want to kill the man she had slept with the night before. How could he lie to her about that? How could he not tell her that he was engaged to someone else? That seemed extremely wrong to her and she immediately resented him for it.

“He’s engaged to our show’s other main attraction, Violet White. She’s the flashy intro for them. All s*x appeal and not a whole lot of talent.”

That was when Lucy understood. She could see it in Becca’s eyes now, the mixture of sorrow and lust, both of them fading away. She was just like Lucy. She had been in love with James, too. It’s not like Lucy could blame her. James was extremely attractive, but she did feel jealous. More so, she felt the conflicting emotions inside of her. Who was this Violet? Why hadn’t James told her about Violet? How was she going to tell James that she was pregnant now? What were people going to say? How was she going to tell her parents? All of this was going through her mind. At the same time, she couldn’t help but think about how attractive James was.

The thing was, engagements were political affairs. The Pride was more than just a band – it was a group of Shifters. If they were all part of this band, then they were all part of the same Shifter group. There was a natural order to that. Thus, this was a political engagement no doubt. She didn’t doubt that James was probably the head of his Shifter pack. He was probably the heir apparent and this Violet White was probably going to be making the political movement of the century by joining up with him in marriage.

“She’s a very lucky lady,” Lucy said with a smile.

“There isn’t a Shifter female in the world that doesn’t hate her,” Becca said with a ruthless grin. “She’s lucky because she has an important family. James’s parents and her parents are trying to form an alliance. It’s your typical Machiavellian politics between families. No one like James ever gets to marry for love.”