Freeing A Lion: BBW Paranormal Lion Shape Shifter Romance (Sleeping Lions - Shifters Prime Book 2) by Harmony Raines Page A

go,” Lottie said, turning to them. “Please, just go.”
    “What happened?” Daniel said, his voice tense, anger laced with concern.
    “You need to back away, shifter,” one of the guards said, his gun now in his hand.
    “It’s OK. Go.” Lottie shooed them away.
    “Lottie, I can’t leave you like this,” Daniel said.
    “You heard the lady, she wants you to go. Now you have been through security, and the border is that way. If you come back, I will be forced to arrest you. You were lucky we let you go with no papers.” The guard positioned himself between Daniel and Lottie, doing his job of protecting humans.
    “Come with us,” Lea said, holding out her hand.
    Lottie looked at it, and her heart ached. If Daniel had asked her, she would have found it easier to say no, but Lea’s face was so much harder to resist. But she didn’t want to say no, she wanted to go with them. However, she wasn’t one of them and she would never fit in; she would just take her trouble with her across the border.
    “I can’t,” Lottie said.
    “Why not? Just come for a while, see if you like it?” Daniel said, and she looked into his eyes and saw he meant it.
    “Are you one of those?” the guard suddenly asked, his hand going to the handheld device and then he approached her.
    “No,” she said, shaking her head.
    “I have to check.” He put the device against her neck and pressed the button.
    “Ouch,” she said, surprised that he had used it on her.
    “Clear.” He put the device away. “Now, unless you have a visa, you need to step away.”
    “You mean I can’t go across?” she asked.
    “No visa, no crossing. It’s for your own safety, ma’am.”
    “But someone is chasing her,” Daniel said, scanning the hill.
    “Backup will be here shortly. Now, I suggest you go back over there.” The guard indicated the gate on the other side, the gate that led to safety.
    “Is there nothing I can do?” Lottie asked.
    “No, ma’am. Like I said, they can go, you need to stay here.”
    “I am in complete control of my faculties,” she said. “Why can’t I cross?”
    “Go get a visa, then you can cross. If we let you through and there is trouble on that side,” he cast his thumb in the direction of Shifters Prime, “then it will come back to us. There’s been a crackdown due to all the … women, who think it would be a good idea to go over there and … well, I won’t say in front of the girl.”
    “What if she was one of us?” Daniel asked quietly.
    “But she’s not,” the guard said. “And don’t think I won’t shoot you if you do anything … disgusting.”
    “What do you mean?” Lottie asked. “There’s a way?”
    Did she want that? Did she want to be one of them? A shifter. She had always considered them dangerous, but after being with Daniel and Lea, they were normal, maybe more normal than anyone she had known since her parents were killed.
    “Lottie. I think you are my mate,” Daniel said.
    “Right, that’s it.” The guard drew a thing that looked like a stick from his belt. “Walk away while you still can.”
    Daniel shied away, and beside him Lea started crying; it was like the prod Trevor had used on him. She couldn’t let him get hurt because of her. “Go,” Lottie said. “Take Lea to safety.”
    Daniel took Lea’s hand and led her back across the open courtyard, the gun above them trailing their every step. She watched them reach the gate, where Daniel turned around and called, “Would you?”
    She knew what he meant. If you had a choice, would you be one of us?
    “Yes,” she whispered. And he saw, or heard, or just knew. But then he slipped through the gate and into Shifters Prime.
    “Right, ma’am. Now they’ve gone, let’s get you to safety.”
    “I think the only place I’m ever going to be safe is in there,” she said, meaning Shifters Prime.
    “You can’t mean that. They are animals,” he said, as if describing something so terrible it shouldn’t be spoken