by Jade Allen
****
He dreamt of the night they got pregnant. Natalie was reclining on the pink satin sheets—a gift from her to herself, she’d joked on Valentine’s Day the year before. If they were aiming for a cub before he shipped out, she needed to feel regal, queenly, divine; her words, all spoken casually as though these were everyday demands. Charlie would have brought her the ocean if he could, and she knew it; luckily, all she’d ever needed since they’d met eight years before had been him, his heart, and his body. Natalie made him feel complete without implying that he wasn’t whole without her. Her constant strength fed directly into his. Other prides avoided their dynamic because masculine mates felt they wouldn’t feel right showing submission, but it had only ever been a source of tenderness and love between them.
So that night, he rubbed scented oils down the curve of her back, massaging the plumpness of her ass as she undulated in bliss on the sheets below him. The golden brown of her skin against the pale pink satin was so beautiful that soon he was planting kisses on the backs of her soft thighs and calves, licking and nipping the sensitive skin and relishing her sharp, delirious cries as he slipped a finger into the warm nectar between the folds of her vulva.
“Charlie,” Natalie moaned after his tongue as tasted her, raising her hips slightly as Charlie rose and rested his naked body on hers. His rigid cock nestled between her warm cheeks, and she eagerly ground her ass against him, the slickness of her warm, oiled skin allowing his long shaft to glide between her flesh. “Please, just take me. I’m so fucking wet.”
“Are you?” Charlie teased, pressing his hips against her round ass and slipping one hand beneath her to knead her breast. Natalie cried out as his fingers dug into her soft tissue and thumbed her soft nipple, his breath coming hot and fast against her ear. “Let’s see.”
He pulled back his muscled hips and pressed the head of his cock against Natalie’s slick opening, groaning softly as he submerged his head between her tight walls. She gasped and arched her back, trying to push herself further down his thick, heavy shaft, but Charlie held her ass still with one hand. “You’re wet, alright,” he admitted teasingly, and sank deeper into her soaking wet pussy. “God…you’re so…fucking…wet.”
“Charlie!” Natalie cried, closing her eyes as he slowly sheathed his thick member inside her. Pleasure enveloped his body as her walls wrapped snugly around his cock, and he concentrated on fucking her deep and hard. His mate moaned loudly, urgently pressing her hips back against his fervent strokes as he twisted her hard, puckered nipple. “Fuck me, Charlie, yes! Harder, please!”
“Hold on,” Charlie grunted, watching his cock quickly slip inside her, slick from her hot juices. He felt his lion’s energy uncurl inside him and wander out to mingle with hers, warm and amorous beasts romping together and melding as he slammed against her tender G-spot. His heart was pounding, and already Natalie’s cries were coming high and breathy, her body twitching with the waves of pleasure the motion of his thick cock sent through her, and he held both of her hips as he drove himself against her wildly.
“I love you,” Charlie groaned through gritted teeth. Natalie’s hips were slamming back against his strokes, and one hand was moving frantically under her body, massaging the swollen nub of her clit to stir more pleasure from their passionate romp.
“I love you!” Natalie called back, and her teeth closed over her bottom lip at the same time that her left hand fisted violently on the sheets. “I’m coming! Baby, I’m coming!”
Charlie moaned throatily, thrusting his heavy member between the spasming walls of her pussy and raking his blunt nails down the slick skin of Natalie’s back as he exploded inside of her. Her hips rose emphatically a few more times, and she cried out as he sank against her, covered in sweat. He thrust against her once, twice, a third time, then lay still as her body cooled and grew quiet. For a long time, he lay listening to her heartbeat with one ear pressed against her back, monitoring the racing pulse behind her shoulder blades.
“Charlie?” Natalie said sheepishly. “I think it worked.”
Charlie laughed. “You can’t tell yet,” he said lightly.
“I mean it,” Natalie insisted, her hesitancy falling away into dreamy certainty. “I know this is gonna work. And she’ll be strong. I know it.”
Charlie pressed his lips to her neck and peered at the side of her face. “Okay,” he said. “You’re the boss, after all.”
****
When he woke, he opened his eyes immediately, then slammed his lids shut when he saw they were still underground. Charlie had slid onto the floor, but Ali hadn’t bothered to tie him up, and his heart raced briefly in celebration. As his pulse sped, his system cleared away the rest of the drug, and he twitched and curled one finger experimentally; then he heard Ali’s voice, and he focused on quieting his heart to hear more clearly. He could vaguely see her figure pacing around in front of the open steel door, with a newly healed Natalie glaring at her in chains from the floor. Ali must have found a way to hear her without letting her shift. He wondered if she was drugged too.
“…Think we wouldn’t find a way to bug your stupid houses,” she was saying gleefully. “God, you were so wrong there. You think steel can stop the kind of tech we use? Brainless. Anyway, it doesn’t matter that little Theodore hasn’t shown up; I can kill your baby myself, and I’ll kill your husband as well. I can’t figure out which of you is the source of power, so I’ll have to off you both. Usually the prides we find have clear signs—one mate is clairvoyant or has super speed or can manipulate an element, like fire. Ariel seems to be able to manipulate earth and mineral. I’m going to get creative with her.” Her nonchalance was chilling.
Charlie’s mind raced, and he debated whether or not he should try to get up. Ali would almost certainly hear him crossing the plastic, and that would put Natalie in harm’s way after she dispatched of him. If he could find a way to distract her, he could buy time to launch himself twenty feet and take her out, but with her fully aware, it wasn’t a sure enough move.
“You don’t see that I’m doing our kind a favor,” Ali was saying, and she seemed to be stalling in case whoever Theodore was showed up. Charlie assumed it was the short blonde man from the tail and the airport. “You attaining these powers is a sign that we’re reaching a ceiling of sorts. Shifters used to be gods, golden idols who looked down on every other being on Earth.” Her voice was dripping with admiration, and Charlie was revolted at her worshipful tone. “They were perfect, so the other gods destroyed them for it. It ended an era, and shifters had to crawl back up again from the bowels of mankind.” Ari stopped pacing and peered down at Natalie’s face, and her words were spiteful and bitter. “I won’t be made to writhe on my belly like a worm or bitch in heat. I won’t have our kind set back just when we are starting to become diverse and unstoppable again!” Ari reached behind her and pulled out a breathtakingly sharp knife about as long as her forearm, and she cast a final look toward the door.
It’s now or never, Charlie realized. How will I do this?
Then he remembered Ali’s words—shifters were showing signs of new powers in the targeted prides. Hadn’t something baffling happened earlier, something that shouldn’t have been possible at all? Charlie held his eyes wide and looked at Natalie, who was looking daggers at Ali from her place on her knees. He focused all of his strength and energy into regaining the link between him and his wife, and desperately thought as hard as he could.
Nat, I’m awake, and I need you to distract this bitch so I can take her out!
Her brown eyes widened ever so slightly, but she didn’t move. He was gathering energy to shout again when her voice sounded in his head, clear as day and as irresistible as any order he’d ever been given.
Why don’t YOU distract her for ME, tough guy?
He drew a deep breath and rose at the same time, and he saw Ali shift her weight and move toward the sudden noise behind her. Time seemed to slow dramatically; he saw each movement dragged out
over space as he ran, so that by the time she locked eyes with him and moved to raise her knife, he had covered ten feet of space between them. Charlie raised his right hand, feeling the red haze of his beast swell in his body as he shifted a deep brown paw bigger than Ali’s human head and sent it toward her neck with his black claws outstretched. He saw the confusion register in her face the moment before Natalie’s paw burst through her chest from behind, shattering her ribcage and taking out a chunk of her beating heart while Ali’s mouth was still open in shock. Charlie closed the space and closed his shifted paw around the flesh of her throat, crushing her vertebrae between the pads of his fingers as her body crumpled to the floor.
Her body lay in a ruined mess between them, a scarlet pool rapidly growing around her broken form. Charlie kept looking from her head—nearly completely separated from her body—and her chest, which was mostly dripping from Natalie’s hand. He felt numb, but Natalie’s shoulders were beginning to shake. He stepped over Ali’s body and unshifted his hand, reaching for her to pull her into his arms.
When he locked his arms around her, he finally realized she was laughing.
“What’s so funny?” he asked uncertainly. All he could feel was an impossible mixture of panic and relief.
“Nothing,” Natalie admitted, and he felt tears soak through the fabric of his shirt. “I just…love you so much.” He had a feeling she wanted to say more, but it was lost in her uncontrollable giggling.
Charlie smiled and gingerly kissed the top of her blood-soaked head. I love you, too.
****
In the days that followed, the human residents of Sierra Leandra all returned from mysterious vacations or snapped out of a light trance, and they couldn’t seem to agree on what had caused all the damage in town. A lot of it was quickly repaired with the help of the remaining lions, and no one had to explain away any of the painful absences caused by the rash of violence the Golden Claws had wrought—because none of the humans noticed a thing.
“They’ve been dosing the humans with some kind of drug so they would stay docile and out of the way, or at least open to suggestion,” a recovered Evan said in their newly cleaned up living room days after the lions conducted a private investigation. “Once the leader was gone, all the henchmen moved out real quick. It actually seems like they don’t have it down to an exact science, drugging people. I woke up like five minutes after Ali and the big guy left.” He shivered, and Ariel slipped an arm around his neck and kissed his cheek. They had been so close to death, and had escaped based on mostly luck. They both seemed to need more contact after the ordeal; Charlie supposed they all did.
“So we’re safe?” Ariel asked again. It was a question their community was asking a lot—when they dropped by to check on Natalie, when Charlie visited his missing pridemate’s families, at funeral and wakes; it was the one question that no one tired of hearing an affirmative answer to every few moments.
“We’re safe,” Natalie said. “And even better, we’re growing stronger. Susan Doyle can predict things a few hours into the future, Charlie and I can communicate with our minds, and Ariel, you can lift almost five hundred pounds now.”
Ariel blushed, her flaming red hair accentuating the scarlet of her cheeks. “Yeah. But I don’t know how useful it’ll be for everyone. Not like your healing,” she muttered. “It’s useful being able to share healing powers.”
“You’re far more useful than you give yourself credit for,” Natalie assured her best friend, smiling warmly at her from her recliner. “Besides, you don’t even know what I have planned.”
Evan sat up straighter at her words. “Plans?”
Natalie looked at Charlie for confirmation and nodded. “We’re going to help other prides reach their potential while we reach for ours,” she said, and the joy was bursting through every word. She held her palm against her stomach as she spoke, and Charlie felt his heart swell and lighten as she told their friends what she’d told him. “This new era those scumbags were afraid of…let’s go for it. Let’s find out what our potential is. Lions are such a small group nationwide, wouldn’t it be wonderful to strengthen and rally around this cause?” Her golden brown skin was bright and flushed, and her words were impossibly buoyant. “I don’t think it’s just us; I think we can all do it, and I think we owe it to other prides to let them know.” She looked from Evan to Ariel, encouraged by the growing smiles on their faces. Charlie was already there, high on the spirt of togetherness with her. She pressed her hand more firmly against her stomach; they knew now that the baby really was the link between them, the reason for their power.
“So what do you say?” Natalie asked. “I want to make history. I want to make the best available for everyone. Are you ready?”
“Ready!” Evan cheered, carried away by passion.
“Ready!” Ariel echoed, bouncing in her seat.
Natalie turned to her mate, pure happiness radiating from her determined features. She slipped her hand against his cheek, her brown eyes consumed with love. Ready?
Charlie grabbed her hand and sent a gentle pulse of dizzying energy into her palm as he pressed his jaw firmly against it and answered her, with a single word packed with unwavering devotion: Ready!
THE END
Dragon’s Loving Desire
"If I have to attend one more simpering, shallow, saccharine display of fake mourning, I might have to throw myself off of the balcony."
Aurora's hand grabbed at the jutting rock above her head and held tight as she adjusted her foot in the hold beneath her, gave a few small bounces to build up momentum, and launched herself up a few more feet.
"Yes, I could probably come up with several more 'S' words to describe them. How about 'sickening'? That's an 'S' word."
The voice streaming through her headset continued to ramble, but Aurora focused on her hand slipping across the grit on her handhold and tightened her abdominal muscles to keep herself steady. Beads of sweat rolled down her spine and she could feel the burning in her thighs from her exertion. She pushed forward, unwilling to surrender to the rocks.
"No, I do not think I'm being bitter. I'm the one whose father just died, but I seem to be the only one who has managed to keep myself together and not fling myself into despair bemoaning the continuation of life as we know it. I swear, from what everyone is saying, I should be wearing a black veil and wailing. I've already given up my future for my father. Is it too much to ask that I at least get to enjoy the last few days that I have left?"
A surge of energy pulsed through her and Aurora pushed herself up and over the edge of the cliff. She climbed to her feet and turned to look out over the view stretching in front of her. The sun was coming up in the distance, washing the sky in shades of pink and blue that should be giving her a fresh outlook and renewed hope for the day. Unfortunately, they only reminded her of the god-awful bridesmaids' monstrosities the wedding coordinator had brought over the night before and that now lay draped across every piece of furniture in Aurora's bedroom.
"Anson, go to bed. If you haven't noticed yet, the sun is coming up, which means you have, yet again, stayed up all night trying to save the world one political event at a time. Get some rest and I'll see you this afternoon."
Without waiting for her assistant to respond, Aurora tapped the button on her earpiece to end the call. She planted her hands on her hips and let out a long breath. These would be her only moments of peace in the day. Up here on the rocks where she could be alone was the only time when she felt free. Below her, the city looked peaceful and picturesque in the early morning light, but she knew that buried among those pristine houses and perfectly manicured landscapes waited for her an engagement ring she only wore when she had to, a man she didn't want to marry, and a promise to her father that she would soon have to keep.
Aurora waited until the last possible moment to slip her engagement ring onto her finger before stepping out of her bedroom. The gold band felt heavy against her skin, the cushion-cut diamond glinting up at
her with such frustrating perfection it was as if it knew her secret. Smoothing a few wayward strands of coppery hair back into her severe bun she took a steeling breath and started downstairs.
Greyson stood at the bottom of the stairs, gazing up at her with a smile nearly as fake as his tan. Aurora suppressed a sigh and returned his smile with equal sincerity. If someone had taken a picture at that moment they would have looked the image of young prestige and budding political power. From her sleek black dress and the diamond drop at the base of throat to his sharply pointed pocket square and gleaming shoes, they said we've got our shit together.
Right past that thin, glossy surface, though, she felt more along the lines of how the hell did I get here?
Aurora descended the stairs slowly, resting her fingers across Greyson's outstretched palm so he could lead her down the last few. Once she stood beside him his smile became softer and more genuine. He stroked her cheek with the backs of his fingers and Aurora felt an involuntary shudder. It wasn't that she hated Greyson. In fact, they had been friends nearly their entire lives. When he touched her, though, and she saw that look in his eyes, it was like bits of her were disappearing beneath his fingers.
An hour later Aurora stood behind a podium with a stack of note cards in her hands. Her eyes swept across the faces staring up at her from the sea of cream linen and gold chintz in front of her, then back to her father's handwriting sweeping across the cards. The cursive letters seemed to unravel and slither across the thick white cards. She forced herself to focus on them and they slowly recoiled into their words. These were the last words her father ever wrote and it was her responsibility to put a voice to them now that he couldn't.
Aurora finally forced the words through her throat and kept pushing them out, letting them pour from her chest as she worked her way through the cards. Her voice remained steady and strong until she reached the last card. Her father hadn't intended on it being the last and the half-finished sentence looked lost against the pristine expanse of the mostly empty card. Touching her fingertips to the faint streak of blood along the bottom of the card, she completed Lee's final thought and brought the speech to a close.