The Lion’s Forbidden Mate

This was the defining moment.

She found Lynn seated at a small table, looking over expense reports and a million other things that demanded her attention. She was the busiest woman Lucy had ever met and she felt bad that she was going to be tacking on more stress to the poor woman’s life. She took a step toward the table and waved cautiously to her. Lynn looked up over her glasses and stared at Lucy with a soft smile on her lips. It was a fake smile that had been practiced for clients and professional settings. Lucy hated this. She wanted to bolt and run, but she knew that this needed to be done.

“Good evening, Lucy,” Lynn said, tucking her paperwork into a portfolio and stuffing that into a bag by her side. “You look very lovely tonight.”

“So do you,” Lucy complimented, but Lynn looked like she had just been dragged through hell, honestly. She didn’t look well at all.

“Spare the flattery,” Lynn laughed. “I’m not going to look lovely until this tour is over. I’m going to spend the next five years in a spa.”

Lucy chuckled and awkwardly touched the menu, trying to steel herself. She took another deep breath and found her courage. She knew the longer she waited, the more awkward it was going to get. She needed to just pull the trigger now and go for it.

“Lynn, there’s something that I need to tell you,” Lucy said, watching as Lynn studied the menu.

There was something anticipatory in her actions as she lowered the menu and looked at Lucy with the eyes of a hawk, studying her and getting ready for whatever blow was about to come. Lynn had been in this situation a million times, sometimes they confessed it to her and other times she found out on her own. No matter how she learned of a pregnancy, everyone said that it was bad.

“I’m pregnant, Lynn,” Lucy said with a deep sigh. “I’m sorry that I’ve disappointed you and I know you have a zero tolerance policy for politics and fooling around getting in the way of the tour. I’m more than willing to take a step down and leave the tour. I just wanted to tell you in person.”

Lynn was silent, for a moment.

“There are three kinds of people who get pregnant in my employment,” Lynn said sharply. “Those that I find out about and have to kick their sorry asses out of the tour because I’m apparently their mommy, those who come forward the moment they know and tell me and I respect them for that. I really do. It takes guts to fess up to something like that in a job as high stakes as this one. But there’s a third kind of person and they’re the worst. They’re the ones that I know about already and who come to me pretending like they’re a saint and trying to get into my good graces by confessing it to me. But it’s too late. It’s too late, Lucy. I already knew you were pregnant. I just wanted to wait to see how long until you finally came clean about it.”

Lucy was shell-shocked. She wasn’t sure what this meant or why she would keep silent about it. But it didn’t take long for her to realize there was an obvious hand at work here that she had been ignoring that might have been her fatal move. The hand at play was Violet’s and Lucy could feel it reaching out and trying to strangle Lucy. Jane would never have told Lynn and the only person that had a hint about this was Violet. James, Becca, and Justin were absolutely on her side and they would have hated to see her go. They wouldn’t have tried to harm her in this way at all and the fact that she was here was horrifying to them. She knew they wouldn’t do this to her. That meant there was only Violet and that also meant Lynn didn’t actually know anything. She just had rumors and a suspicion up until now.

But in the end, Lucy supposed it didn’t matter. It never really mattered. In the end, the facts were still the same and Lynn knew that she was pregnant. The pregnancy was going to haunt her for the rest of her time here. Lynn was not going to be kind about this and she knew she was going to suffer from the intervention of Violet.

“Does James know?” Lynn asked her.

That was a stab at the heart and it scared Lucy. It was something Lynn couldn’t possibly know. No, Lynn had good authority and the guess that it was James who she was sleeping with made her feel like Lynn might have another spy out there or another informant other than Violet. Maybe Violet was the first to turn her on to the doings of Lucy and James, but she had to get confirmation from somewhere else, that or Violet was playing it way safe.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Lucy decided to go with deniability, not wanting to get the man she was in love with in trouble. She didn’t want to hurt him and she didn’t want to cause any more trouble than she already was. She could see in Lynn’s eyes that she wasn’t buying it. She wasn’t buying it for a second.

“James is the father,” Lynn said with such a cold understanding and determination that it genuinely scared Lucy. “I’m not a fool and if we’re going to keep having this conversation, I’m going to need you to understand that I know and stop hiding. I’m going to need to you to just understand that I’m up to date on everything and there isn’t a single thing that you can say right now that’s going to surprise me or make me feel like I’m caught off guard. In fact, right now is the point in your life where you need to stop saying anything and shut up for a second and let someone who knows more than you talk. Do you think this is something that you can do for me, Lucy?”

Lucy didn’t say a word. She just nodded to Lynn.

“Good, because you’re at a very dangerous point in your life and I’m going to give you all the reasons you could possibly need to walk away right now and never come back. So I hope you’re listening,” Lynn said, leaning in and speaking to her in a hushed voice that scared Lucy. “You’re about to spark a war, the likes of which you’ve never heard of and you’ve never seen in your little Podunk, backwater pack that you have. You’ve never seen what a Shifter war looks like and you’ve never seen the horrors of war in general. You’re green and you’ve been living in peace for far too long.