Page 64 of Fastlander Fighter

The others grew silent, and she tried to understand the loaded expressions they exchanged.

“How do I protect him?” she demanded louder.

It was Silver who answered. “You become the lioness.”

Those four words made no sense in that order. That word combination was incomprehensible. She locked her arms against the table. “I just…become the lioness.”

“I’m allowed one Turn in my lifetime,” Silver murmured. “My mate is a shifter. I didn’t have to use my one Turn on him.”

“I can Turn her too,” Corey offered.

“Yeah, but Lucia sees a lioness,” Silver pointed out.

All of them were staring at Sloane, and what was she supposed to say? “Why would I become a lion?” she demanded. “I like being a human, like my son.”

Corey inhaled deeply. “Look, you and Captain are doing your thing—”

“Were! Gunner made him forget me!”

“I can handle Gunner,” Hallie assured her.

Corey continued. “Your timing isn’t great. We’re on the brink of war, and your man is a huge weapon for the Fastlanders. He’s the Fastlander Fighter. He’s maimed all of our mates recently, so I physically can’t even imagine what he would do to someone who threatened the people he loved. But if you want a piece of his life before the war? You have to be able to protect yourself and your son. If not, you just have to wait until after the war and hope…”

“Hope what?” she demanded.

Corey got really quiet and looked anywhere but at Sloane.

“Hope what?” she asked, louder.

“Hope he survives,” Lucia said, filling in the blank.

She felt slapped.

Sloane felt like someone had reared back and slapped her. She took a step back, her thoughts racing like mad. The thought of him not existing anymore was unbearable. It was unacceptable.

“So my choices are what?” she asked, wanting to know exactly what the proposal was.

“You stay human and go back to your life, date a normal human man someday when you are ready, and Ruger grows up outside of shifter culture. Human. You continue your normal human life.”

“Without Captain,” she interjected.

After a few beats of silence, Hallie nodded and said, “Without Captain.”

“And the other option?” she asked.

It was Corey who answered. “You let Silver Turn you. You’ll do it here, in the lair of the blue dragon, where you can transition safely. We will be there for you. We will teach you about control. And when the war happens, in three months to a year’s time, you will have a part of you that is capable of protecting your son.”

“From the shifter shit I will expose him to,” she whispered. “I just want to be clear.”

Lucia leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms over her chest, then agreed. “From the shifter shit you will expose him to.”

“All so I can be with the man I love?”

Clara canted her head, and her eyes were full of some emotion Sloane couldn’t fathom. “We’ve all had to make sacrifices, Sloane. But given the chance to do it all over again, I bet all of us would do it the same way.”

“Safe life, or deep life,” Silver said. “There’s your two options. Go find your safe human man someday and live a mediocre life, or feel the devotion of a mating bond, and see what your animal, and what Captain’s animal, will do when your cub is threatened.”

Her mind was racing in circles.

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