Free Alpha Lion: BBW Lion Shifter Paranormal Romance by Zoe Chant

man to grow up with,” Sam said softly.
    Dale nodded. “My mother left him. I think if I’d been a girl she’d have taken me with her, but he would have fought her tooth and nail for me, and she believed in some of the traditional things, too. He needed an heir to take over the pack.”
    Sam felt a little sick. “How old were you?” she asked.
    “Eight.” Dale’s face was still as stone.
    Sam took a long breath. If Dale could do it…“I was six when my father left,” she said, and Dale’s eyes immediately focused on her, instead of on the past. He leaned forward, his lips parting.
    “My mother couldn’t handle it,” Sam continued, before she could chicken out and stop there. “She wasn’t a very good parent, either. I think I reminded her of him.”
    Her mother had had a way of looking over Sam’s right shoulder, as though it was too much to actually see her face. As far as Sam could remember, they’d had most of their conversations without meeting each other’s eyes.
    “She had a hard time holding a job,” Sam kept going, determined to finish. “She did drugs sometimes. She had some useless boyfriends. I was sure I didn’t want to end up like that, so I worked all through high school and I went to community college for a business degree. I got a good job, and I really felt like I was leaving it all behind…until I got laid off.”
    “You have left it behind,” Dale said, leaning forward. He took her hand. “You’re not doing drugs, you’re not neglecting a child. You have a job, and you’re sticking with it, even though it’s dangerous. You’re taking self-defense, for God’s sake.”
    Sam smiled. “The self-defense was because of you. But thanks. I really do know that. And I wasn’t fired. I didn’t screw up at all. I know I’ll get another good job, I just have to keep applying. It can just be hard to remember sometimes.”
    Like at three in the morning on a cold November night.
    “Now you have me to remind you,” Dale said firmly.
    “Thanks,” Sam said. “I mean it. Thank you for rescuing me, and thank you for getting me into that class. I’ve said all that before, but mostly…thank you for being you.”
    “I can’t help it,” Dale said, starting to blush a little. Now that they were together, Sam finally allowed herself to notice how adorable it was.
    “You can help it,” Sam said. “This is what I mean. You left it behind, too. You’re not a tyrant like your father, and you didn’t leave like your mother.”
    Dale smiled, his real, full-on smile, and he brought her hands up to his lips. “Then congratulations to both of us. For transcending our upbringings. And for finding each other.”
    “Congratulations,” Sam repeated fervently.
    * * *
    Dale couldn’t believe—almost literally could not believe—how lucky he was.
    It had taken him a while to accept that Sam was his mate. Now that he’d acknowledged it, he realized that he’d known it from the very start, that he’d felt it so strongly while walking her home at dawn the other day that he’d had to try and rationalize it away.
    But when they’d been in bed together, when he’d looked down at her beautiful face and known she was his—when he’d been overwhelmed by how she felt climaxing around him, and she’d wrapped her arms around him and pulled him as close as he could get—he hadn’t been able to rationalize anymore.
    Samantha Holt was it. His mate.
    And now that he’d admitted it, he couldn’t believe he’d ever tried to resist. Everything was better now. Any problem that he could picture having seemed easier with her there to help.
    And knowing that she’d call on him if she had a problem was such a relief, compared to thinking she might be out there somewhere in trouble and he couldn’t come to help.
    Speaking of which. “Where’s your phone?” he asked her. “I don’t have your number.”
    “That’s right!” she said, half-laughing in surprise. “I can’t believe we’re mates