Tamed for the Lion

by Annabelle Winters

  Lacy felt her bobcat snarl in delight as she raced toward her lion, picking off the rats like they were M&Ms, gobbling them up without even thinking about it. She wasn’t gonna kill any dogs or cats or monkeys. But you can’t stop a cat from killing mice. Circle of life, baby. Girl’s gotta eat.

  “Now that’s what I call stress eating!” growled the lion with a wink.

  “If by stress eating you mean it relieves you of stress, then yeah,” snapped Lacy’s bobcat, grinning wide as it let out a feminine burp. “And talk about overreacting! Those rats weren’t going to eat you! They barely got a nibble out of your big thighs!”

  “There you go with the body shaming again,” rumbled Darius, swatting away a pack of rabid Chihuahuas with his tail as Lacy herded some wailing cats with her paws.

  Lacy mewed with laughter as the cats hissed and snarled but stood down to the queen’s authority. And when she looked up at Darius again, she saw that he was controlling the larger beasts with his supreme authority as King of the Jungle. Slowly but surely the powerful Shifters were controlling the animals, restoring the natural order in a world literally gone wild.

  Slowly the surreal battle wound down, and then Darius and Lacy were standing together on the almost comical battlefield, both of them panting, their jaws hanging open in grins as the energy of their divine animals flowed through their sleek, glistening bodies. Around them the dogs and cats and monkeys were milling about like ashamed children, licking their wounds in submission to their King and Queen. It was over. They’d won, and it had been fun!

  Lacy nuzzled up to her lion, licking its big face as he slobbered over her nose and made her sneeze. She felt at peace, in harmony, powerful and beautiful. Hell, she could get used to being Queen of the Jungle!

  “Excellent performance, Circus Freak,” she whispered. “I loved how you knocked those dangerous sparrows out of the air with your powerful paws.”

  “That took precision and timing,” Darius growled, his gold eyes twinkling with warm delight. “Not to mention supreme control. I could have just killed them all, you know. Like you did with the rats.” He sniffed her mouth. “I suggest some breath mints, by the way.”

  Lacy hissed at him. Then she opened her bobcat’s maws and breathed out, making sure her mate got the full effect of the rats she’d swallowed.

  Then they were both laughing, their animals nuzzling against one another as a peaceful silence descended upon the city. The humans were barricaded indoors by now, and the streets were eerily empty. It was strange, Lacy thought as she felt her bobcat’s preternatural sense for danger being activated by a sudden tension in the air. A new tension.

  She glanced up at Darius. The lion was standing still and tall, its mane billowing in the breeze. As she watched, the breeze began to pick up, and with it came the unmistakable scent of animal musk.

  Big animals.

  The animals of the jungle.

  “No,” she whispered, alarm bells going off in her head. “Darius, you don’t think . . .”

  “It’s classic battle strategy,” Darius muttered. “Send in a weaker force to tire out your enemy and give them a false sense of victory. Then bring in the big guns.”

  As he said it, Lacy heard the sound of trumpets. Of course, it wasn’t trumpets. It was elephants. Hundreds of them. Maybe thousands. Soon she could heard the grunts of male rhinos, the squealing of hippos, the snarl of Africa’s leopards, the screeching of the larger, more dangerous monkeys.

  “Brace yourself, honey,” whispered the lion, standing in front of her as the roar of the incoming madness rose to the level of thunder. “These aren’t sparrows and mice. We aren’t gonna be able to swat these beasts away.” He turned to her, and the look in his eye made Lacy want to cry. “We’re going to have to play for keeps.”

  “You mean . . .” Lacy whispered. “You mean we’re going to have to kill them?! Darius, no! We can’t! You know we can’t! We’re animals too! It’s . . . it’s genocide!” She swallowed hard, going closer to Darius, her pitch rising as the sound of the attack drew closer. “Darius, maybe that’s exactly what the Black Dragon wants! He wants us to fight the animals, to believe that we have no choice but to kill them! But we can’t! It’s a violation of natural law! We kill for food and to protect our young. But this . . . this is wrong! It’s murder!”

  “You think I don’t know that?” snapped Darius. He turned slowly, his majestic lion’s body rigid, head held high as he surveyed the scene. The streets were still deserted, but window shades and shutters were moving as people nervously peeked out. Lacy could see that Darius was listening, and soon she could make out the panicked voices of the locals in the distance. No doubt they were calling the police, the military, animal-control, perhaps even the goddamn mafia! This could turn into a bloodbath if the stampeding animals of the deep jungle came rumbling into the city. “But what choice do we have, Lacy? Yes, we’re animals. But we’re humans too. We’re humans first, aren’t we?”

  Lacy hissed through her bobcat’s maws. She understood what her mate was saying. They were being forced to make an impossible choice: Choose between humans and the animals. If the Black Dragon’s intention was to throw conflict at them—at all Shifters—by forcing them to choose between humans and animals, it was working. She could already feel her animal’s restlessness as the trumpeting of the elephants drew near. Could she actually command her bobcat to kill other animals, innocent beasts that were somehow being controlled by the Darkness? Could Darius’s lion be commanded to violate its natural position as King of the Jungle by murdering the very creatures it was supposed to lead?!

  “No,” she said firmly, padding slowly on all fours towards her lion, her bobcat’s eyes focused with all the power of the woman in her. “We can’t. We won’t. We have to stand down, Darius. If we take the bait, we might destroy ourselves, destroy everything that’s good in us. Lose control of our animals. Perhaps even lose our animals completely.”

  The lion turned his head and looked at his queen, and Lacy saw the anguish in his eyes of melting gold. “I can’t stand down,” he said softly. “These animals are my responsibility. I feel it. I know it. If they’ve gone wild, then it’s up to me to stop them. And I’ll do it alone. Get out of here, Lacy. I can’t be worrying about your safety when the battle starts. Find Everett the Tiger Shifter. Find your sister.” He paused and took a breath, nuzzling her bobcat’s neck and then sniffing her scent. “Protect my children. Raise them. Love them. Tell them about me.” He blinked away what Lacy swore was a big fat lion-tear. “Make sure you describe me as heroic and powerful, OK?”

  Lacy just stared as she tried to process everything Darius had just said. His children?! Was she pregnant?! Of course she was! His seed would have taken the very first time they mated! That was fate, wasn’t it?

  The moment the realization hit, Lacy’s bobcat tensed up and mewed, and Lacy sensed that it was withdrawing, retreating, desperate to go into hiding. Now that it knew it was carrying its mate’s cubs, nothing else mattered but their safety. Reproduction. Survival. The continuation of the bloodline. Millions of years of instinct were damned hard to fight!

  “Melodramatic and macho is a better description, actually,” Lacy said, trying to smile even though she felt a lump forming in her throat. “I’m not going anywhere. You know I’m not. I’m standing right here, Darius. Right beside you. Either we both run or neither of us runs. If we die, we die together. You said it to me before. Now I’m saying it to you. If we die, we die together.”

  Don’t be a fool, whispered her bobcat from inside. The lion is right. We are carrying his seed, and we have to protect it at all costs. The lion wants to protect his seed, and so do I. The right answer is to run. That is fate.

  “That may be your idea of fate—to mate, get knocked up, and then protect your cubs at the expense of everything and everyone else,” Lacy said firmly to her animal. “But a human’s fate is larger than tha
t, more complex than that.”

  “Why are you still here?” roared the lion as the background noise rose to a deafening pitch, with wailing police sirens, whirring helicopter blades, and perhaps even fighter planes getting added to the chaotic roar of the approaching animal army. “I told you to go! Now go! Run!”

  But Lacy felt a stubbornness settle into her, and although her animal and her mate both wanted her to run, the woman in her wasn’t having any of it.

  “Nope,” she said with a calm determination. “Fate may have brought us together as mates. But fate also put us in this spot, in this place, in the middle of these events. We were meant to solve this somehow, Darius. Think about it: The King of the Jungle smack in the middle of a situation where the jungle has gone insane?! We can’t turn away from this!”

  “I agree,” growled the King of the Jungle. “Do you see me turning away? Godammit, Lacy, you stubborn little—”

  But Darius’s words were drowned out by a rush of air from above, and Lacy gasped as a massive shadow fell upon them. She looked up and almost fainted when she saw something she’d never believed even existed: A massive dragon, its wings spread wide as it glided low, its scales shining green and gold in the blazing Kenyan sun, its eyes the size of wrecking balls . . . one eye gold, the other green.

  “Need some help, big shot?” came a voice from the dragon. But it wasn’t the dragon speaking, and when Lacy looked harder she saw three animals on the dragon’s broad back: A bear, a wolf, and a fox!

  “Caleb the Wolf!” Darius whispered, his gold eyes going wide with surprise. “Bart the Bear! Adam Drake the Dragon! And is that . . .” He raised his snout and sniffed the air like he was trying to figure out who the fox Shifter was. “The Witch? Magda the Dark Witch? What the motherfu—”

  His words were once again drowned out by the rush of air, and the dragon swooped down low with supreme control, its massive talons reaching out and grabbing the lion and the bobcat and tossing them onto its back.

  Lacy hissed in delight as her bobcat landed on all fours and instinctively dug its claws between the dragon’s interlaced scales. The lion landed with a thud right beside her, the big cat maintaining perfect balance as the dragon took to the skies again, heading straight for the outskirts of the city, to where the jungle met civilization, to the front-lines of the battle.

  14

  “This is my battle,” growled Darius as the wind screamed past his ears. He narrowed his eyes and looked down, his throat tightening when he saw thousands of the jungle’s animals rumbling through forest and underbrush, the elephants leading the way like bulldozers, knocking down trees as the other beasts raged along behind them. “Drop me off here. I’ll handle this. Take my mate to safety.”

  “There isn’t going to be a battle,” came a woman’s whisper from the left, and Darius turned. It was Magda the Dark Witch speaking through her fox. “That’s what Murad wants. That’s what the Darkness wants. That’s all the Darkness wants: To split humans and animals. That is its essence, and we cannot fight it by allowing our own animals to violate natural law by killing without reason.”

  “Without reason? Look at these beasts!” Darius roared, glancing at Caleb the Wolf and then Bart the Bear before gesturing down at the nightmarish scene below them. “They’re feral! Wild! Rabid! What do you do with an animal gone mad? You put it down! And that’s my responsibility! I’m the King of the Jungle!”

  Bart the Bear raised a furry eyebrow and then winked at Caleb the Wolf. “I thought he was a circus freak. When did he turn into the King of the Jungle!”

  Darius almost leapt at the bear, teeth bared, claws ready. But then the Dragon turned in the air and Darius had to dig in and hang on or else he’d have to learn the fine art of trapeze really damned quickly.

  From the corner of his eye he could see Lacy smirk, like she was actually enjoying this. He growled sulkily at her, but he could feel the warmth building inside him when he took in the sight of his mate, the bobcat by her lion’s side, powerful and courageous, a true queen.

  He was about to say something to her, but through the scream of the wind he heard Magda’s low voice. She was muttering something. It sounded like gibberish, but when Darius looked at the witch, he saw that her fox’s eyes were burning bright red. Magic! Was she going to control a thousand wild beasts with some spell?! Hah!

  “It’s not working,” Magda muttered, her eyes darting towards Darius for a moment like she’d read his mind, felt his skepticism, his lack of faith in her power. “I’m not strong enough yet.”

  “Well, I am,” Darius growled, crouching down as he wondered if he’d survive the jump from this height. He could land on those trees and break his fall. Perhaps land on one of the elephants.

  But the moment he thought of sinking his claws into one of those elephants, a feeling of sickness washed through him like a wave of pure darkness. And in that moment he understood what Lacy had been saying to him, what she’d already understood before his macho ass figured it out:

  He couldn’t kill those animals.

  He had to find another way.

  And he couldn’t do it alone.

  “Try again,” growled Caleb the Wolf Shifter. The Wolf glanced over toward the horizon, and Darius followed his gaze until he saw what Caleb was staring at: Attack choppers flying in low over the jungle, cannons set to fire upon the animals before they reached the city.

  “I . . . I don’t know if there’s enough time,” Magda stammered, once again narrowing her eyes at Darius as if he was the reason her spell wasn’t working!

  “I’ll give you time,” came a deep, rumbling voice from beneath them. It was Adam the Dragon, and Darius blinked as he felt the heat of dragonfire rip through the dragon, almost setting his paws on fire!

  A streak of white-hot flame shot out of the dragon’s open maws, and Darius stared as he watched Adam set fire to a line of trees a few hundred feet ahead of the stampeding animals. At first Darius wasn’t sure if the animals would even stop, they seemed so out of control. But dragonfire wasn’t something to be trifled with, and he slowly exhaled as he watched the herd of animals pull up and begin to turn away from the line of fire.

  “They’re just going to go around the fire,” Darius declared, again feeling Magda’s gaze upon him.

  But Adam the Dragon shook his massive head. Then slowly he tilted in the air, making a giant turn, the precise jet of dragonfire still pouring from his maws. Darius heard Lacy gasp in delight as the dragon circled the animals from above, creating a ring of burning trees that surrounded the animals.

  “All you did was start a forest fire,” Darius said stubbornly, not sure why he was being so perversely negative. “You’re going to burn them all. Nice job, Dragonbreath.”

  “Darius!” Lacy snapped, her bobcat’s eyes narrowing with surprise and then widening as she glared at him. “What’s wrong with you? Show a little faith!”

  “Faith in what? The Dark Witch who started all this?” Darius growled. “Yeah, bet you didn’t know that. This fox Shifter is the reason the Black Dragon has been unleashed on the world! All of this is her damned fault!”

  “Faith in your crew,” whispered the dragon, turning its head just enough to point its green eye at Darius. “Faith in your mate. Faith in your fate.”

  “What the hell is he talking about?” Darius growled, looking at Caleb, the Shifter who’d recruited him to Murad’s army. “Is he under some dark spell that makes him spout nonsense along with dragonfire? How about you, Wolf?”

  But Caleb didn’t answer. His eyes were closed and he was standing close to the fox Shifter. Darius frowned when he realized that they were mates, that the wolf and the fox were fated mates! As he watched, the dark witch closed her eyes and whispered her spell again, moving closer to her mate like she was drawing strength from him.

  “It’s working,” Lacy whispered, peering down and gesturing with her hea
d. “Look, Darius. The animals are calming down!”

  Darius looked down, and although the animals had by no means stopped, their cries and howls sounded less wild, less out of control, more like animals and less like goddamn demons. He glanced over at Magda and Caleb standing close together. Then he looked at his own mate, feeling an urge to move closer to her.

  “They’re still gonna burn,” he growled, that weird resistance rising up in him again as he watched the ring of fire slowly creep inwards towards the animals.

  “I told you to have some faith in your crew, in the team,” rumbled the dragon. It turned its head once more, its big green eye winking at the Shifters on its back. “Now hang on.”

  Darius felt the wind blow back his ears as the dragon descended into a steep dive, its powerful hind legs extended like an eagle about to snatch its prey. At first Darius thought the dragon was going to land, but instead Adam just dragged his talons along the inside of the flaming ring, ripping out trees and underbrush, opening up a wide path between the animals and the fire.

  “He’s creating a fire-line!” Lacy shouted, grinning at Darius. “Just like firefighters do in California! That way the fire can’t spread.”

  Darius grunted when he realized Lacy was right, and soon he was grinning too when he saw the dragon pull up and create another fire-line on the outside of the flaming ring.

  “It looks like a necklace!” Lacy squealed as the dragon rose up again so they could all look down to see the perfectly controlled circle of dragonfire holding the animals in check without burning a single hair on their furry heads! “So beautiful!”

  “Not bad,” Darius grudgingly admitted. Then he glanced over at the approaching attack-choppers. “But now you’ve just locked down the targets for those cannons. It’ll be like shooting fish in a barrel, Genius.”

  “Ohmygod, Darius! Are you serious?!” Lacy shouted over at him. “Is your ego so damned big you can’t give anyone else credit for doing something useful?! Do you have to do everything yourself?! If you can’t save the day on your own, you don’t want anyone to save the day?!”