by Meg Ripley
Nat! he shouted, but she didn’t acknowledge him—then he realized his mouth hadn’t really moved. I’m drugged, he realized, and his mind flashed back to the water the human driver had given him in the van. That’s why he was so nervous, the bastard.
Charlies groaned and tried to pull himself from the bed with his hands. His shoulders jerked stiffly in the space around him, but they were far too rigid and refused to obey his commands; all he could move was head and neck. His eyes were wide with terror as he watched Natalie swing her hands—which were now completely shifted into huge sable paws, bloodied and alien at the end of her sinewy human arms—toward whoever was trying to advance into the room. She was screaming wordlessly, her beautiful face a portrait of defiance and bloodlust, her hair flecked with the scarlet rain from her assailant’s neck. She jerked back as they struck her upper body, but immediately after, she sank her paws into flesh somewhere around the other person’s stomach, and Charlie watched her lead a tall, heavily muscled man to the floor, jerking her claws back to show they were covered in his entrails. His body twitched and he tried to shift to heal the damage, but he never got far enough before his form stilled and flowed back to his human shape. Charlie still couldn’t move, so he blinked his panic to Natalie as she staggered toward him, clutching her bloody chest.
“Charlie…” she wheezed. “Char…” she sank to her knees a foot away from the bed and held her reddened palm upward, and Charlie could see through that the lion had ripped out part of her shoulder and neck. She needed to shift and heal, soon.
Natalie! Charlie wailed internally.
Her eyes sparkled for a second after he screamed her name in his mind, and she cocked her head to one side as though she had heard him. The confusion was plain on her face, and he shouted her name again. Nat!
“Charlie,” she answered, smiling beatifically. She’d heard him! How?
The sound of footsteps sapped the short-lived happiness from the moment, and Charlie snapped his eyes toward the door. A figure rounded the partition and stood behind Natalie, looking between the two of them with a kind of detached interest. The woman was tall and willowy, with dark brown skin and a high, dark ponytail thrown over one shoulder. She smiled, and Charlie realized it was the woman from the airport—the one who had been affectionately ruffling the strange man’s hair.
“Hello,” she said, and her voice was low and cool. “Just in time. Your friend is smaller, so he froze up a lot sooner than you. His wife was easy to take out. Oh, don’t worry!” she said at the look of terror on their faces, and a smile light up her angular face. “They’re still alive, for now.”
She pressed her fingers to the collar of black sweater and adjusted the waistband of her jeans. “All in due time. For now, I just want to make sure you two know your little plan to ambush us didn’t completely work. I still have lions all around the country, after all.” She stepped over to Natalie and pressed a hand to her cheek, laughing bitterly when the lioness jerked away in disgust.
“Yes, you wouldn’t want my comfort, would you? Too proud. There was never any hope for you. Too bad; you’re awfully powerful. Both of you.” Her tone was mocking, a simpering drawl that showed she took far too much pleasure from watching them suffer in silence. “That little cub was going to be a piece of work! Probably already is.” She sauntered over to Charlie and placed an oddly cold hand on his jaw.
“I’m Ali, by the way. You’re a lot more handsome in person,” she purred, lowering her lips to his cheek.
She pressed her mouth against him, and it was like being doused in ice. Her laugh was high and cruel as she pulled away. “So much fear. So much…righteous anger. And I can feel that ancient power waking between you and your wife…I came just in time.” The artificial warmth dropped out of her dark brown eyes, and her smile faded. “In fact, as much as I love soliloquizing…there is work that must be done.” She stood straight and pulled a slim black club from her back pocket; Charlie realized it was a cop’s riot stick.
“Sorry about this,” Ali said sweetly. “There really isn’t a better way.”
Charlie kept his eyes on Natalie as the club came crashing down, and the last thing he saw before his vision cut to black was a look of cold murder sweeping over his wife’s features. He hoped it would be enough to save him, but somehow, the hope felt in vain.
****
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 in
side 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 pride mate’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 a
t 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!
PART TWO
A Shift In Power
“Okay, what’s our final count?”
Thomas looked up from the stack of papers fanned out on the glass table before him and removed his glasses, bleakly rubbing the bridge of his nose. “Seven buildings irreparably damaged. Two will have to be shut down for expedited repairs. Three we can keep operational during cleanup, but two we’re going to need to pull down and rebuild. Frank’s Tires and the pie shop just aren’t capable of standing for repairs.”