Heart of the Lion (The Heart Chronicles Book 2) Read online

  Heart of the Lion

  The Heart Chronicles

  Alyssa Rose Ivy

  Copyright © 2019 Alyssa Rose Ivy

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written approval of the author.

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

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  Contents

  Books by Alyssa Rose Ivy

  1. Asher

  2. Kelley

  3. Asher

  4. Kelley

  5. Asher

  6. Kelley

  7. Asher

  8. Kelley

  9. Asher

  10. Kelley

  11. Asher

  12. Kelley

  13. Asher

  14. Kelley

  15. Asher

  16. Kelley

  17. Asher

  18. Kelley

  19. Asher

  Thank You

  Afterward

  Dire: The Dire Wolves Chronicles

  Prologue

  Mary Anne

  Books by Alyssa Rose Ivy

  Flight (The Crescent Chronicles #1)

  Focus (The Crescent Chronicles #2)

  Found (The Crescent Chronicles #3)

  First & Forever (The Crescent Chronicles #4)

  Soar (The Empire Chronicles #1)

  Search (The Empire Chronicles #2)

  Stay (The Empire Chronicles #3)

  Savor (The Empire Chronicles #4)

  Storm (The Empire Chronicles #5)

  Seduction’s Kiss (The Allure Chronicles #0.5)

  Lure (The Allure Chronicles #1)

  Lust (The Allure Chronicles #2)

  Lost (The Allure Chronicles #3)

  Love (The Allure Chronicles #4)

  Dire (The Dire Wolves Chronicles #1)

  Dusk (The Dire Wolves Chronicles #2)

  Dawn (The Dire Wolves Chronicles #3)

  Forged in Stone (The Forged Chronicles #1)

  Forged in Ice (The Forged Chronicles #2)

  Forged in Fire (The Forged Chronicles #3)

  Forged in Light (The Forged Chronicles #4)

  Hunt (The Grizzly Brothers Chronicles #1)

  Heat (The Grizzly Brothers Chronicles #2)

  Torn (The Pteron Chronicles #1)

  Tempt (The Pteron Chronicles #2)

  Taken (The Pteron Chronicles #3)

  Heart of the Wolf (The Heart Chronicles)

  Heart of the Lion (The Heart Chronicles)

  Corded (The Corded Saga #1)

  Cornered (The Corded Saga #2)

  Conflicted (The Corded Saga #3)

  The Hazards of Skinny Dipping (Hazards)

  The Hazards of a One Night Stand (Hazards)

  The Hazards of Sex on the Beach (Hazards)

  The Hazards of Mistletoe (Hazards)

  The Hazards of Sleeping with a Friend (Hazards)

  Shaken Not Stirred (Mixology)

  On The Rocks (Mixology)

  Derailed (Clayton Falls)

  Veer (Clayton Falls)

  Wrecked (Clayton Falls)

  Beckoning Light (The Afterglow Trilogy #1)

  Perilous Light (The Afterglow Trilogy #2)

  Enduring Light (The Afterglow Trilogy #3)

  Life After Falling

  Full Moons and Mistletoe

  Full Moons and Candy Canes

  Stardust (Half Light #1)

  Stargaze (Half Light #2)

  Starless (Half Light #3)

  Starburst (Half Light #4)

  Shifter’s Fate (Willow Harbor)

  Warlock’s Embrace (Willow Harbor)

  www.AlyssaRoseIvy.com

  www.facebook.com/AlyssaRoseIvy

  twitter.com/AlyssaRoseIvy

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  [email protected]

  One

  Asher

  “Five years on the job with a perfect track record, and you want me to babysit?” I leaned back in my chair waiting for my boss to tell me he was joking.

  “Who said anything about babysitting?” Alastair chewed on the end of a cigar. “This is a top- level security job.”

  I watched his tan face, looking for a hint of humor. There had to be a punchline waiting somewhere. “Kelley Manner does not need top-level security.” Kelley Manner was a lot of things, but a girl in need of protection was not one of them. I had never met a more fiercely independent girl in my life. Or a more gorgeous one. But her insane attractiveness was entirely beside the point.

  Alastair set the cigar down in an ashtray on the edge of his desk. “Evidently she does. The Elvelos want her for something or think she knows something. There is no other reason for the level of resources they have been throwing at her. She is a target, hence she needs our protection.”

  “Why not put Carter on this one? He and Hope should be done with their current assignment soon.” I couldn’t really imagine my former partner and his fiancée hanging out in my tiny hometown, but it would make things easier on me.

  “Because you have the perfect cover.” Alastair set his steel grey eyes on mine.

  He may have been my boss, but I wouldn’t let him intimidate me. “It’s not perfect. People know I don’t want to be there. No one is going to believe I came back just for my grandmother.” Not after all this time. And no one was going to buy for a second that Gram needed my help.

  “Just for your grandmother? Have you no respect for your elders?” Alastair picked up his cigar and immediately returned it to his lips.

  “I have plenty of respect for my elders. I have enough respect to realize she most definitely doesn’t need my help.” I loved my Gram, and would move mountains if the woman needed, but she didn’t need it. She’d be offended if I even offered it.

  “The cover will work.” Alastair gazed at something over my head. I knew enough to resist the urge to turn around. There was nothing there. He was testing my concentration.

  “Sir, with all due respect, you don’t know my grandma.” If he’d ever met the spitfire who raised me, he wouldn’t be suggesting the ridiculous idea.

  “She fell, didn’t she?” His eyes returned to my face.

  “Yes.” And I had worried when I got the call from the hospital. But my worry had disappeared when she got on the line and chewed me out for even suggesting I come for a visit. Hence why the cover would never work.

  “She’s in her eighties?” Alastair leaned back in his chair again. If he got any more comfortable his feet would be on his desk.

  “Yes.” Even if she seemed so much younger than that. She’d raised me herself since my parents disappeared when I was a baby. She often joked that becoming a parent again in her sixties was the magic elixir. I think it was just Gram though. She always had spunk in her.

  “People will buy the cover. And if they don’t it’s your job to find another one. I need you in Pepperville, Asher. My word is final.” And at this, his feet went up on the desk as I’d predicted.

  Pushing Alastair was one thing, but there was a fine line one never crossed. “When do I leave?”

  “Now.” He studied his cigar.

  “Now?” I’d expected at least some time. “You want me there now?”

  “Yes. I’ll get a plane ready and have your preferred vehicle waiting for you.” He flipped through some papers on his desk. Alastair was all about new technology for weapons,
not so much when it came to record keeping.

  “There is really nothing I can do to make you change your mind?” I tried one more time even though I knew it was hopeless.

  “I already told you my word is final. You want to start a war with Jared, fine. But trust me, he is going to back me up on this.”

  I had no interest in dealing with the head of all Society security. He wasn’t the kind of man you messed with, especially when you were trying to duck out of an assignment. “I’ll get packed.”

  “Good.”

  I stood, ready to leave.

  “And Asher?” Alastair turned his cigar around in his hand.

  “Yes?”

  “Sometimes facing your past isn’t such a bad thing.”

  “It is in my case.” I nodded and headed out of Alastair’s office. I needed to pack, but first I needed to hit the gym and burn off some steam. Facing Kelley Manner wasn’t going to be easy.

  It took every ounce of self-restraint to keep my car headed east toward Pepperville. There were more than a few reasons I hadn’t been back to my hole-in-the-wall hometown since high school graduation, and yet here I was heading straight back toward one of those reasons.

  Kelly Manner. The boss was making me babysit the one girl I never wanted to see again. Just hearing her name come out of my boss's mouth sent the memories flooding back. The good memories and the bad ones.

  But being a Ranger didn’t come with choices. One didn’t defy orders when they were part of an elite supernatural agency. You did the jobs that needed doing no matter how mucky the waters got or how dangerous the conditions were. This mission wasn’t dangerous, but it didn’t mean there was anything easy about it.

  The road got bumpier the second I crossed the county line. When was the last time they repaved this thing? The poor county must have been getting poorer. Yet here I was heading toward it. My phone rang just after I swerved to avoid a pothole. “Asher.”

  “Is that really how you answer the phone?” Gram’s crisp, no-nonsense flooded from the phone.

  “No. Gram. Sorry.” It was a habit, one she abhorred. How are you?”

  “Someone might get the idea I raised you to do that.” Clearly, she wasn’t ready to drop the topic of conversation yet.

  “No one is going to get that idea. Everyone knows they don’t get more polite than you.”

  “Can the flattery, Asher. You know it will never work on me.” Very little worked on her.

  “But you also taught me flattering a woman can’t hurt as long as it’s from the heart.”

  “And that compliment was not from the heart. Now, you shouldn’t be talking while you drive anyway.”

  “Okay, Gram. I’ll see you in about thirty minutes.”

  “Thirty minutes? You are already in Clarksville?”

  “No, I’m out by the lake road.”

  “Then how can you be here in thirty? You aren’t speeding now, are you?”

  “No. Not at all.” I let my foot off the accelerator and tried not to let the falling speedometer bum me out. “I’ll see you in forty minutes.”

  “That’s my boy. I’ll have brunch ready for you.”

  “Thanks, but I ate—” I stopped myself just in time. “Thanks. I’m glad I ate such a light breakfast.”

  “Good. Drive safe, now.”

  I hung up and tossed my phone on the passenger seat. I couldn’t believe my boss was really going to make me do this.

  Two

  Kelley

  I was ready to toss the whole canvas away. I’d spent days working on this one, yet it looked like something a complete novice would have thrown together. Even the colors were off, and colors were something I was never off on. At the rate I was going I’d have nothing to hang in the exhibition next week.

  I dropped my brushes into a cup of water and went into the kitchen in search of a cup of coffee. It was already pushing early afternoon, but in my world, it was never too late for coffee.

  I stepped back when I came eye to eye with the plywood board spanning the width of one of the sliding glass doors. It had been a week since some jerk smashed through the door, and I knew it would be way more than a week before a new piece of glass would replace it. Insurance was taking time to process the claim, and I couldn’t cover it on my own. My bank account wasn’t looking any better than the canvas set up in my extra bedroom turned studio.

  I poured myself what was left in my coffeepot. About half a cup. It would have to do.

  I eyed the plywood again. The police couldn’t make heads or tails of the break-in. Nothing was missing, although whoever was responsible managed to destroy each and every single one of my paintings. It made the attack seem personal, even though I had no idea who in my life would ever want to do that to me. Not everyone loved me, but that kind of enemy? I couldn’t understand it.

  But there was nothing I could do about that. My mother had taught me that dwelling on what was in the past, or what could have been, served no purpose. You had to live with the cards dealt to you even if the cards were awful. I kept getting really awful cards.

  I took my half cup of coffee, added a splash of milk and headed back down the hall to stare at my canvas again. It looked even worse from this angle. Some artists may have tossed the canvas, but I couldn’t. Another thing my mother had hammered into me over the years was that you can always salvage something from the ashes. Well, unless it came to bad relationships. She told me to avoid those like the plague. Too bad I hadn’t been very good at taking that advice.

  “You know you should probably start locking your door.” Janie’s voice spoke from the doorway. I didn’t even flinch. I was so used to her just walking in.

  “Why change anything now?” I swirled a brush around in the water as if that was somehow going to help me.

  “Because someone broke in and might have killed you.”

  “But they didn’t.” I turned around to look at my best friend.

  “Because you were at my place.” She tilted her head to the side. She wore a long side ponytail that only accentuated her youthful face. She may have been twenty-five, but most people couldn’t believe she was even nineteen.

  “True. But if they were willing to break my glass door, what would stop them from breaking the lock?”

  “Okay. You’ve got me there, but still, I’m worried about you.” Her eyes were honest and clear. She was truly worried about me, and that meant it was time to dial down the snark.

  “Don’t worry about my safety. Worry about my career.”

  “Oh.” She looked at the mess on the canvas. “That’s interesting. Going with a more modern take on the subject?”

  “Don’t bother to sugarcoat it. It’s awful.”

  “It’s not awful, but it’s not you.” Janie had a gift with words. She could spin anything into a package she could work with.

  “Didn’t I just ask you not to sugarcoat?” I stepped closer to the canvas. Was there anything salvageable?

  “It’s not sugarcoating.” She slung an arm over my shoulder. “And it’s kind of cool. Dark but cool.”

  “I think I’m going to have to call the gallery and have them give my spot to someone else.” So much for taking advantage of the first opportunity I’d had to display my work at a regional exhibition. I had my work hanging in various businesses around Pepperville, but getting my work out at an exhibition in Atlanta would give me exposure like nothing I’d done before.

  “No way.” She shook her head. “Not happening. If you do that I’ll call back and tell them not to listen to you.”

  “There’s no point giving them something that isn’t good.”

  “But you can’t give up this opportunity. I won’t let you.” She looked at my cup. “Off topic, is there any more of that coffee? I ran out and forgot to go to the store.” Janie shared my ‘coffee any time of day’ philosophy.

  “I was going to make another pot anyway.”

  “Or we could go out for coffee. You know, get outside for a few minutes.” She
gestured to the window.

  “I can’t right now. I have to finish this.” I pointed to the canvas.

  “Oh? And the inspiration is just flowing?”

  “It might. At any moment.” I held out the coffee cup. “You can have this one. I'll make more later.”

  “You know I'm not drinking anything with milk in it.”

  “Fine. I’ll brew some more.”

  “Nope.” She shook her head. “We’re going out.”

  “Then I have to change.” I looked down at my paint splattered white shirt.

  “You have a tank on under that. And your jeans are fine.”

  I pulled off the shirt. She was right. “All right.” I walked back into the kitchen and set down the cup. “Walk or drive?”

  “Walk. It’s gorgeous out.” She spread her arms out. “Not that you would know that since you have been holed up in here all day.”

  “Walking works. Then I can pretend this is my exercise for the day too.”

  “It’s not pretending. Walking counts.”

  “Says the girl who probably ran five miles this morning.”

  She shrugged. “So? Doesn’t change the fact that walking counts.”

  We headed out the front door, and I locked it behind us. “I do lock it when I leave.”

  “Very impressive.” She waited on the bottom step.

  I avoided the splintered handrail on my way down. It, like many things on my mom’s old ranch-style house, needed to be replaced, but that required money. Money I didn’t have.

  I waved at my neighbor Mr. Nelson where he rocked on his front porch. He hadn’t always lived there; he’d moved in not long after my mother died.