The Lion Kings (novel): a BBW Werelion Menage Romance (8 page)

“YOU
heard her,” Adam said. “She’s going home.”

He and Cage had travelled by foot, using Madeline’s scent to track her to the El Rancho motel. The place was a standard one-level small town inn. The siding was a shade of cerulean blue with lighter areas where the paint had chalked over the years of weathering. They’d spotted her from across the intersection, perhaps thirty yards away, and had watched her enter the motel’s front office.

They had positioned themselves around the corner of the front office and watched Madeline take the motel key from the clerk. Adam’s heart sunk when he heard her say she was going home.

He pulled Cage to the back wall when she walked out, room key and bag in hand. He didn’t know why he chose to hide when every instinct told him to fight for Madeline, to win her heart. But she wasn’t a part of their world, and he worried that she wouldn’t be able to accept them. If he let her go now, it would hurt less. Right? When Clary had died, Adam’s responsibilities kept him moving forward, one foot after the other, but Cage had taken much longer to recover. If Adam didn’t give Maddie the chance to reject him and Cage, losing her would be a fleeting sting--not a knife to their soul that would never heal.

Adam snorted derisively. When had he begun to believe his own lies?

Cage raised his eyebrows in question.

“We should get back. We only have two hours until the show.” The others would expect them to help prep and walk through each routine. Alice wanted to add a new element to her wire act, and she needed Adam and Cage to sign off before she could do it without the safety net.

Cage shook his head. “Uh-uh. I’m not going anywhere until we talk to Maddie.”

Adam rolled his eyes. This new determined-to-get-the-girl Cage was almost as bad as the Cage who was determined to drive her away. “Fine.”

His pulse raced as they neared room 110. Would she scream? Faint? Slam the door in their faces? Adam wouldn’t blame her for any of those reactions. She’d lived in a world where monsters were creatures of myths and fairytales, and they’d completely turned that world upside down.

Adam chewed his lower lip and stared at the blistering teal-green paint on the door to Madeline’s room. He sniffed and smelled Madeline over the prevalent rust.

Cage chuffed, rolled his shoulders forward, and knocked. When Madeline didn’t answer, he knocked harder—more insistent.

Adam reached out and stayed his hand before the third round. He leaned nearer to the door and heard the faint rush of water. “I think she’s in the bath.” He imagined her naked, the slight bounce of breasts as she stepped into the tub, the easy grace she owned in her luscious, beautiful body, and the way the water from the shower would sluice over each and every sensual curve. It made his body tense.

Adam bristled anxiously. He knew Cage was feeling the same sense of urgency—the same drive to mate. If Adam gave him the go-ahead, Cage would break down the door to get to Madeline.

Adam laced his fingers through Cage’s hair and touched foreheads with him. “Calm, Brother. She is just beyond the door. And she can’t stay in the water forever.” He smiled, trying to reassure Cage. “After all, she’s not a fish.”

Reluctantly, Cage smiled. He pressed his palms against the door then turned, leaned his shoulder against it, and crossed his arms. “We wait then.”

PATIENCE
was not one of Cage’s strong suits. He counted the seconds that felt like hours until the shower stopped. His body squeezed with expectation, and some fear, if he was honest. Adam’s surety in all things had always been a comfort, so it was hard for Cage to wrap his head around his brother’s uncertainty. He’d been wrong to push Maddie away. Was he wrong now, trying to get her back?

He waited for Adam to nod before he knocked again at the door. His pulse leaped when he heard the chain lock on the other side. The door opened a crack, the chain stretched across the two-inch gap.

Maddie’s eyes widened when she met Cage’s gaze. She stepped back with a startled cry and closed the door between them. A dagger of pain lanced Cage’s gut. He felt Adam’s hand close on his wrist.

“Let’s go.”

The chain rattled again, snapping their attention to the opening door. Maddie stood on the other side, one arm holding a towel up around her breasts, the other holding the door. Her light brown hair, darkly drenched, dripped about her shoulders. Some of the water beaded on her upper chest, and Cage resisted the impulse to dip his head and drink from her skin.

“Madeline,” Adam said, encompassing a world of emotion in the saying of her name.

“Come in,” she said, unable to hide the tremor in her voice. She walked to a wooden chair between the bed and the window. She sat down, hollow-eyed in the dim light of the one lamp on the far side of the room. Her lower lip quivered as tears brimmed.

An overwhelming sense of hopelessness washed over Cage. “I’m sorry,” he said from outside the room, the apology catching in his throat.

Adam pushed past him, and Cage followed him in.

“Would you like me to leave the door open?” he asked, wanting her to feel safe.

Maddie shook her head. “No, close it behind you.”

Adam sat on the bed, a few feet from Maddie, while Cage stood. He waited for Adam, who always took the lead.

But not this time.

Maddie finally broke the silence. “You found me.”

“Yes,” Cage and Adam said nearly simultaneous.

“Why?” She hugged the towel to her body and stared at her knees. “Why would you?”

“Because you’re
ours
,” Cage answered, surprising himself along with Adam and Maddie.

She jerked her gaze to him. “I don’t know what you think, but I’m not Clary Sage. I may see her memories...” She closed her eyes, and Cage caught the swift, musky scent of desire. “But that doesn’t mean...”

“I know you’re not her,” Cage said the words dry on his tongue. He winced and shook his head. “I know you’re not,” he said again with more conviction.

Maddie’s gaze traveled from Cage to Adam. What was wrong with Adam? He was good with words, unlike Cage, who was making a mess of the whole business. Why was he letting him do all the talking? He needed his brother’s charm, and the easy way he had of making people feel protected and cared for. But instead, Cage was getting an Adam he’d never seen before. An Adam who was uncertain, anxious, and ... afraid. God, if Adam was leaving this all up to him, they were in serious trouble.

“You know what we are?” he said, making it a question.

“No,” Maddie said, her voice shaky. “Not really. I know that you can change into a lion, but I don’t know what that makes you.”

Cage turned to Adam and waited for him to explain.

Again nothing.

He snarled at his brother then sighed. “We are
leogenus
.” When Maddie didn’t respond, he continued. “We’re shapeshifters. And as you’ve seen, we’re from the lion family.” He rubbed his eyes. “You shouldn’t have had to find out the way you did.”

“I already knew,” Maddie said, her voice throaty and hoarse with an almost shame. “I’d dreamed it. I dreamed you both.”

Her strange and unusual confession startled him, but he’d been born in a world of strange and unusual. “Does that scare you?”

“Yes and no.” A small smile turned up the corners of Maddie’s mouth.

“What?” Cage asked.

“I think this is the most I’ve ever heard you talk.”

He shuffled uncomfortably. “I’m not very good with words.”

Adam barked a short laugh, but without any real humor.

Cage narrowed his eyes. “Never mind, brother.”

Maddie smiled, but with a deep sadness still in her light blue eyes. “I’m not afraid because you turn into a...” She mimicked a claw swipe and
rawred
softly. “I know I should be, but that’s not what frightens me.”

“Then what frightens you?” Adam asked her, deciding to finally—and much to Cage’s relief—speak up.

“That I can’t be who you need. Both of you. That I won’t be enough.”

“But you are,” Adam said. He slid from the bed to the floor in front of Maddie. He placed his hand on her knee then held out his other hand to Cage.

Cage took it.

He heard Maddie’s breath quicken as he knelt beside his brother and placed his free hand on her other knee. Even in this position, both men were tall enough to be eye level with her.

“Please don’t leave,” Cage said.

Maddie glanced at Adam then at Cage, giving both men a steady look. “I wasn’t going to leave. I was coming back. I just needed an hour or two to get my head clear.”

“But,” Adam started. “I heard you tell the clerk you were going home.”

“Oh that.” Maddie blushed, the pink flush rising from her chest to her cheeks. “I don’t know how to explain this without sounding crazy.”

“You’d be amazed at what we’d believe,” Adam said, a smirk playing on his lips.

Maddie smiled and shook her head. “I guess that’s true.” She tucked the wrapped towel in more snuggly, wedging the tail between her armpit and breast. With both hands free, she caressed their cheeks.

Cage rubbed against her left palm, while Adam did the same on the right. This was the third time Cage had scented her, marked her as his potential mate, but this was the first time he’d done it with intent. Her fingers were gentle as they brushed over his beard.

“God, you’re so beautiful,” Adam said.

She smiled. “Thank you.” She lowered her eyes as if suddenly bashful. “In six months, I have never stopped traveling. It started shortly after your carnival had come to my town. I have ached to keep moving, to never stop, with such a restless fire I thought it would consume me. I’ve felt hollow like an empty shell, and it seemed as if only the next town could fill me. But it never did. The yearning to get in my car and go has been an obsession. I have left my town, my few friends, and my family behind, and I have never looked back.”

Before Cage or Adam could ask a question, Maddie continued.

“I have been on a journey, and until this afternoon, I didn’t understand why. But I believe I have been psychically drawn to you. Both of you. The second I met you. The second I touched you...” She smiled wistfully at the memory. “It stopped. The need to keep going, to keep moving, went away. I finally felt as if I belonged.”

“You do belong,” Cage said, his voice wavering under the power of his emotions. “You belong with us.”

“Yes,” Adam agreed. “With us. But it has to be your choosing. We would never force you—”

Maddie put a finger over Adam’s lips and silenced him. “Being with you and Cage, staying with the carnival, it’s the first time I have felt... normal. When I told the clerk I was going home, I meant I was going back to you.”

Cage fought to keep his trembling under control, but the sudden swift vocalization of emotion from Adam took away his restraint. “Maddie,” he said fiercely. The words he wanted to say wouldn’t come. He tried to convey what he was feeling in his eyes, and hoped she would see his joy, his relief, his love.

“You’re our mate,” Adam growled. “Our queen.”

Maddie bit her lower lip, tugging it between her teeth. “Yes,” she said after only a second’s hesitation.

The smell of her desire hung sweet on the air, and the bulge of Cage’s cock pressed uncomfortably against the seam of his tight jeans. “I need to touch you, Maddie.”

“Yes,” she said again. “Yes.”

Cage leaned forward and pressed his lips to her cool shoulder. Maddie leaned her head back, and pushed her wet hair away from her neck. He kissed the dip just above her collarbone, and she moaned, the sound causing a rush of heat to his stomach and groin.

Adam worked the other side her neck, his hand’s tugging at the tucked edge of her towel, exposing her lush breasts. Cage took her nipple between his thumb and forefinger, loving the way the contracting bud responded to his touch. He cupped the under slope, and dipped his head, taking the taut bud between his lips, laving the rigid tip, and relishing every squirm and squeak his attention provoked.

“Oh God,” she whispered, when Adam did the same to her other nipple. His balls ached with every elicited sound of pleasure that passed her lips. The complete abandon to her own desire both excited and awed Cage. He palmed her thigh, as he sucked and licked, teasing her until she cried out. Her hips jerked forward as she had an unanticipated orgasm.

Cage glanced at Adam who wore an expression that must have mirrored his own. Maddie’s heightened response, her ability to climax without them physically stimulating her sex surprised them both.

“Jesus,” she panted. “Wow.”

Cage put all his heat and passion for Maddie into a short declaration of intent. “We are just getting started.”

MADDIE
’s thighs vibrated from the aftershocks of her orgasm. She’d never experienced one before. At least not one that hadn’t been rooted in someone else’s memory. It had felt good, wonderful even, but not the same soul scorching ecstasy she’d thought it would be.

“
Wait
,
” Adam said. He cast a cautious glance at Cage.

His sudden halt had Maddie alarmed. Had she done something wrong? Had he changed his mind about her? Maybe she hadn’t reacted in the way they expected? The way she was supposed to?

“Why?” she asked, suddenly afraid of the answer. She caught the smoky look of heat and desire in Adam’s midnight blue eyes. The same look echoed in Cage’s gaze.

She gasped as Adam pushed his palms up her outer thighs.

“What we are, Cage and I, do you accept us as mates, Madeline Granger?”

The formal gravity of the question made Maddie hesitate. Her body and heart screamed, “Yes!” but her brain had questions.

Adam took her delayed response as a rejection. A brief expression of pain pinched his face, before he immediately covered it with a stony mien. “I’m sorry.” He rose from the carpeted floor. “Of course you need time. You don’t even know us—“

His sudden distance startled her to action. “Yes,” she said, her breath rushing from her lungs as she grabbed his hand. She covered Cage’s on her knee and looked from one man to the other. “Yes,” she said again, this time more steadily. She might not be prepared for what a commitment might entail, but she was even less prepared to live without either man in her life. “I... I accept you.”

Cage spoke up now. “Are you sure?”

“Accepting us as your mates, means that we will be bound together until death,” Adam explained. “You will be ours in all things. Our queen.”

Maddie nodded. “Like Clary.” She gulped. Did she want to open the wound of the past and examine it more closely? The answer was “no.” But a part of her was afraid they didn’t really see her. She didn’t want to be a mere replacement for a lost lover.

“No,” Cage said, his voice heavy and low—the ache of heartbreak and injury clear in his tear-brimmed eyes. “She was never our queen.”

His words floored Maddie. Clary wasn’t their queen? What did that mean? She’d been their mate. Maddie had seen it in her visions. They’d loved Clary, and she’d loved them to the depths of her soul.

Adam knelt again and placed his arm around Cage’s shoulder in a gesture of comfort. The symbiosis between them as Adam stroked Cage’s upper arm made Maddie’s stomach warm and her lower parts clench.

Adam gazed pointedly at her, his dark eyes begging for understanding. “We’re not asking you to be our Clary Sage. She was a wonderful woman, and we loved her.” He moved his hand to Cage’s hair—a habit she’d noticed before—rubbing and massaging to ease his brother’s stress, and probably to ease his own as well. “You’re different. The way we feel about you is different.”

“I don’t understand.” She worried her lower lip, honestly confused.

“We wanted Clary, but we never needed her, Madeline.”

Cage’s body shook as a noise of grief rumbled through his chest at Adam’s words.

Instinctively, Maddie slid to the floor with them and wrapped her arms around Cage’s waist and leaned against his chest. She wanted nothing more than to ease his pain, and in her embrace, his body instantly calmed and the shaking went away.

She felt Adam’s arm around her back. His breath was hot against her ear. “We wanted her,” he said again. “But we didn’t need her, Madeline.” He paused for a moment, then said, “We
need
you.”

It was a statement, but also a plea.

“Do you mean it?” Maddie asked, but what she really wanted to know is if both Adam and Cage felt this way, or if Adam was forcing her onto Cage.

Her fear eased when the bearded Goliath in her arms said, “Yes,” in a soft breath that whispered across her forehead.

“All right,” she said.

“I have to warn you,” Adam said. “A true mating will require us to shift some.”

She stared at him, her mouth agape, unable to fathom the possibility. “Into a lion?”

“No,” Adam said. “Just a small shift, not a complete one.”

“And will it change me?” Would she become a
lion
?

“Yes,” Adam answered. “But not in the way you think,” he added as if reading her mind. “If our mating is true, you will become stronger, more than any normal human. You will also live a very long time, as long as we do.”

“How long is that?”

“About two-hundred years.”

“Wow.” She narrowed her gaze. “But I won’t turn into a lion?”

“You sound disappointed.” Cage laughed.

“A little,” she said. “Okay, so is that all?”

“You will probably get pregnant.”

“What?” She couldn’t keep the alarm out of her voice.

“When you are with child, it will seal you to us. The infant’s blood mingling with your own is what will bring on the change in you.”

Her reluctance wasn’t in the idea of changing into something more than human. The problem lie in the fact that she didn’t know how she felt about having children in general. She’d spent her whole life wanting to be something more than a wife, more than a mother...

But as she looked at Adam and Cage, she realized having their child, being their mate was
something more
.

“Ask me again,” she said, now certain of her answer.

Cage tilted her chin, his fingers large and warm. He stared down into her eyes—his black pupils widening until only slight burnt-orange bands rimmed his irises. “Maddie Granger, will you accept us, Adam and I, as your mates? Will you be our queen?”

She was suddenly conscious of her naked breasts pressed against Cage’s chest, of Adam’s hand touching her back, and of her every hastening desire for these men that went beyond anything she’d ever experienced.

“Yes,” she told them. “I will.”

A surprising sound of relief escaped from Adam, as if he’d been holding his breath, expecting the worst. “Thank you,” he said quietly.

It was a strange response. “You’re welcome.” She made it sound like a question.

Adam chuckled then leaned to her ear. “Let the mating begin,” he teased.

Cage growled his agreement while pressing her lips with a surprisingly delicate kiss. His mustache tickled her nose. Maddie swooned as they both touched her, but even so, it didn’t stop the dithering anxiety from building.

“What’s wrong?” Adam asked, sensing her nervousness.

“I’m... I’ve never...”

“You’re a virgin,” Cage said bluntly.

Heat rose in Maddie’s cheeks. “Yes.”

“We know,” he said.

Her eyes widened with embarrassment. She suddenly felt raw and exposed, like Hester Prynne in
The Scarlet Letter
. “Am I walking around with a big V on my chest?”

“No,” Adam said gently. “You came to us the other night in your... trance.”

“Oh, yes.” She blushed again. “I forgot. But how did you--” A sharp memory of Adam’s finger testing her depths made her body hum. “Never mind.”

Cage chuckled. “You tasted so sweet. I can’t wait to put my mouth on you and taste you again.”

Maddie involuntarily moaned as her pussy pulsed between her thighs with eager anticipation.

“I can smell the rise of your desire,” Adam said, his dark-blue eyes shining like mirrors when he shifted his head sideways and caught the light from the lamp. He kissed her neck, his hand traveling between her thighs until his fingers brushed her wet, swollen sex. “I love how your body reacts when I touch you.”

She let the towel drop completely to the floor, leaving her naked and exposed. She should’ve been nervous, shy. It was to be her first time, but Adam and Cage made her bold. They charged her body with lust and need that demanded to be satisfied.

She’d never been a petite girl, so when Cage picked her up from the floor as if she were light as a feather, it made her giddy. She wrapped her legs around his waist, leaning back as Adam stepped behind her. He brushed her nearly dry hair to one side, and kissed her neck, nibbling and sucking his way to her ear. Cage palmed her breast, giving it a gentle squeeze, as he kissed up the other side. His tongue felt rough—rougher than she remembered as he thrust inside her parted lips.

Maddie squirmed, arching her back, rubbing her groin against Cage’s T-shirted stomach as their kiss became a frantic dance. Adam bit down gently, as he reached around and took both of her nipples between his fingers, rolling them until they constricted into rigid buds. She felt Adam’s hardness through his jeans against her back. Between the nibbling, the sucking, the pinching, and the rubbing, she could feel another quick burn happening in her lower body.

“Oh hell,” she moaned. “It’s happening again.”

“Then we’re doing it right,” Adam said, his voice low and sexy.

“I want to see you,” Maddie said, dropping her legs to the floor, and trying to push herself from between them. “I want to see you naked.”

Adam chuckled. “You’ve seen me naked.”

“Yes,” Maddie said, remembering how he looked, hard and masculine when she’d taken the sheet from him. She turned in his arms and kissed him, his mouth tasting of oranges. A fruit she was beginning to suspect was his favorite. “But I’m allowed to look at you now for as long as I want.” She turned to Cage. “Both of you.”

Cage raised a brow, but didn’t argue or banter. He simply stripped his shirt off. Maddie made an appreciative noise as she stared at his wide expanse of chest and the golden hair dusted across and down his stomach. Damn, he was huge.

The muscles at his hips dipped in a deep V, and when he dropped his jeans, she knew the V stood for victory. Her victory, because
damn
, the man was sexy from top to bottom. His thick erection glistened at the tip, and she licked her lips, imagining how he would taste.

He stroked his length, running his thumb from the base of his shaft to the tip. Oh God. So freaking sexy. She admired him for a lingering moment, letting him see in her eyes how much she wanted and desired him, before she turned her attention to Adam.

His hair was pulled back as usual, and Maddie wanted to see him in all his glory. “Take down your hair first.”

“As you wish, my queen,” he said without any hint of humor.

Moisture pooled between her thighs as Adam shook out his hair, his blond mane cascading over his shoulders. She held her breath. He was so startling beautiful, she couldn’t keep the tears from her eyes. He took his shirt and pants off. His erection was as long as Cage’s, not as thick, but just as potent.

Her overwhelming lust made her whimper. “We’re all naked now,” she said with an unsteady voice.

“Yes,” Cage answered, his expression predatorial. He dropped to the floor with the unique grace of cat and crawled to Maddie. Her breath hitched when he put both hands on her knees and spread her thighs. She didn’t resist, her stomach a mad frenzy of butterflies. He placed his hands under her buttocks and yanked her forward with a growl.

Maddie yelped in surprise, and then moan loudly when he stroked a finger gently between her slick folds, opened her with two fingers, and licked her swollen sex.

“Mmm,” he hummed then dragged his tongue from the bottom to the top. “You taste so sweet.”

He reached behind her and lifted her farther back onto the bed, crawling up with her, even though his legs hung off the edge. That’s when she noticed Adam sliding in beside her. He kissed Maddie, his tongue exploring her mouth with hungry desire. She squirmed as passion stirred her body, making her crave more.

Adam broke from the kiss and began his descent down her chest, giving both nipples a laving before moving to her stomach. She stared down her belly at the two men. Cage held her open and Adam dipped his head between her thighs. Almost of their own volition, her fingers laced in Adam’s hair as she rolled her hips to meet every intimate caress of his tongue.