“Nice place,” Amara said, looking around the cosy cabin. Kane had to admit, even though he had been brought up in the big mansion belonging to Darius, he would have been quite happy living in a cabin like this with Amara and their kids. It made him happy that she wasn’t like some of the socialites he had dated, who judged everyone by the size of their house, or their bank balance.
“Thanks. It’s where I call home when I’m over this way.”
“So you don’t live here permanently?” Kane asked, becoming more and more intrigued by this man. His uncle had kept so much from him, including his contacts over in Shifters Prime.
“No, me and my brothers work the border, or the frontier as it’s called by most people. Anyway, we move around a lot, depending on where business takes us,” Frasier said, putting the kettle on to boil.
“And what exactly do you and your brothers do along the frontier?” Kane asked. “I take it some of your work has a lot to do with my uncle.”
“It does. We are finders.”
“Finders?” Kane asked frowning.
“Yes, we find buyers, or sellers, for goods. Then there are people. People are often good at needing to be found.”
“What kind of people?” Amara asked.
“Mainly those on the run. Sometimes the people from the other side want us to find those who have run from their contracts, but we won’t touch things like that.” He looked at Amara pointedly.
“My contract is paid,” she said.
“Honey, your contract never really existed.”
“What?” she asked, going pale.
“You were another thing I found.”
“I don’t understand,” Amara said. “Why wasn’t there a contract? My father told me he owed money, and that’s why I went.”
“You went because they needed rich boy here to remember who he was. You were sent to wake the lion.” Frasier poured the coffee and handed her a cup. “Sugar?”
“No, thank you,” she said. “My parents lied to me.”
“Your family wasn’t in on it. They’ve been trying it for a while, getting potential mates to get close to Kane, so that his lion would wake up. They were afraid that it had been asleep too long.”
“You’re making this up,” Kane accused.
“Believe what you like.” He gave a mug of coffee to Kane and leaned back on the counter to nurse his. “I am about the only one who has nothing to hide here. So believe me or not, but I want you to be going into this with your eyes open.”
Kane shook his head. “OK. Whether what you say is true or not…”
“It is true,” Frasier said.
“Is there a tree in the Talamo Pride Lands that is carved into the face of a lion? It has a cherry tree next to it that blossoms white in the spring. I remember it, or at least my lion remembers it.”
“There was one; I never saw it. The new pride leader had it cut down. The carving was of your father, Remus. Rumour is, Serrif couldn’t stand the sight of the thing, so he took an axe to it.”
“But it was there. I saw it, and next to it my lion remembers my father. He’s holding hands with my mother, they look so happy,” Kane said.
“And they most likely were, but nostalgia isn’t going to help you now.”
“That’s where you are wrong,” Kane said gruffly. “It gives me the desire to fight.”
“And that brings us to the other thing your uncle paid me to do. You need to learn to fight before you take on Serrif.”
“I can fight.”
“Not as a lion, you can’t.”
“We had a thought about that,” Amara said. “What if we simply put a collar on Serrif?” She held up the silver collar that had hung around her neck.
“That won’t work. To gain back what was stolen from your family, you have to fight him in the old way; he invoked Pride Law. You have to fight him as a lion if you want to succeed.”
“And my uncle told you to teach me?” Kane asked. “Why am I not surprised.”
“Because you can see when it comes to fighting, I am a master.” Frasier said, flexing his muscles. “No one fights better than a bear.”
“Except a lion,” Amara said.
Frasier laughed. “In your case, little lady, I can believe it.”
“Just remember she’s mine,” Kane said quietly.
“Don’t worry, honey, fighting isn’t the only thing a lion is better at.” She moved over to him and kissed him. “A lady would never look at a bear when she could have a lion in her bed.”
Behind her Frasier laughed. “The whole pride thing really is an inside joke, right? I mean, lions are so full of themselves.”
“Jealous, Frasier?” Amara teased.
“Go get some rest. Tomorrow we’ll start your training.”
But the look in his lioness’s eyes told him that rest was not on the menu tonight.
18
“When you said we would get started, this was not what I had in mind,” Kane said, standing up.
Amara came over and offered him a drink, her face concerned. “I think that’s enough for now.”
“Listen, mastering your lion is one of the most important things to learn.”
“I don’t see how getting him to change and run the same circuit over and over again is going to help,” Amara argued.
“Really? Well, how about the fact he knocked a whole minute off his previous best, that time around,” Frasier said. “Do you know what that means?”