Dragons of Cinderhollow Bundle

by Hawke Oakley

  My heart raced. I was really doing this!

  As I made the final leap to clear the space between a tree inside the village and a tree outside the boundary, a wave of excitement flooded over me. I was breaking every rule my parents set to protect me - and I felt good doing it.

  I landed. I was outside the village now. I didn’t burst into flames or instantly fall and break my bones. I was alive, and free.

  But I knew I had a job to do. Not letting my excitement get the better of me, I focused and picked up the scent of my clanmates up ahead. Mixed in with their scents was a strong, musky one - boar. I licked my lips and continued on their trail.

  Koto, Zumi and Bodi’s scents diverged. Instantly I knew they must have split up. Leopards were solitary hunters by nature, and even though we were shifters and often worked as a group, that powerful instinct still kicked in. My eyes flickered below, gauging whose scent trail I should follow. At first, I almost decided to follow Koto, since he knew the boar’s scent most intimately. But from experience, Zumi always brought in more kills. Nobody ever walked into the village with more game meat than her.

  One thing I hadn’t anticipated was that leaping from tree-to-tree was a lot more physically demanding than just running on ground level. I grunted heavier with each landing, and my muscles began to burn. It was true I spent a lot of time climbing trees, but never with this much distance added. I growled to myself, feeling once again that being treated like a glass doll had taken its toll on my life.

  A branch snapped in the undergrowth.

  I stopped, muscles tensing. The sound came from slightly ahead. I leaned through the leaves and peered sharply towards the noise, hoping to see the cause with my night vision. But the rainforest was too full of foliage, vines and tree trunks. I was too high up.

  Carefully, I lowered myself on the tree.

  Something snapped again. This time, a resounding crack thundered through the rainforest. My skin tightened with anticipation.

  A loud, primal squeal split the air.

  A chill ran down my spine. It wasn’t just any pig’s squeal - it was obviously from a huge, frightened animal. Had the others found it already?

  I wouldn’t wait to find out. Bunching my muscles, I leapt through the canopy, getting closer to the sound.

  Then, I saw it.

  My claws flexed in awe and excitement. An enormous animal crashed through the low-hanging branches below. Coarse silver-brown hairs carpeted its thick body, and two intimidating tusks jutted out from its face. Koto wasn’t lying. This was no small boar. It was easily twice the size of a normal adult male boar. It was the ultimate prize.

  And I wanted to be the one to kill it.

  Judging by the lack of thrashing, none of the others were on the boar yet. It must have known predators were around, but wasn’t threatened by them. Until now, it had no reason to be - it was huge, armed and dangerous. But we were leopards - expert killers - and there were four of us.

  And I had the biggest advantage of all.

  With adrenaline pumping through my veins, I locked on visually to my target. My tail lashed in excitement. All I had to do was jump down and bite.

  If I could kill this boar, my whole life would be different.

  I leapt down from the branch.

  Wind streamed harshly through my whiskers. My claws extended and my body braced for landing on top of the beast’s back.

  Moments before I could dig my claws into the boar’s skin, it turned and looked me in the eye.

  Fear jolted me.

  Those weren’t the dumb fearful eyes of a real boar. They were intelligent and cunning. In that moment I realized it wasn’t just a wild boar.

  It was another shifter.

  The astonishment broke my landing. Instead of landing on all four feet like I was supposed to, my body twisted, trying to get away. At the same time, the boar reared up with a loud, angry squeal and tossed its head back against my body. It caught my side, and body was thrown across the rainforest floor. I yowled with terror.

  “Raja!”

  Many things happened at once.

  The boar - the shifter - in front of me stopped and stared me hatefully in the eyes. A man jumped out of the bushes with a long gun slung over his back. Someone put a hand on my shoulder, which streaked with pain from my bad landing.

  On either side of me were two leopards, snarling and spitting - Koto and Bodi. That meant the human hand on my shoulder belonged to Zumi.

  “Stand down,” Zumi stated firmly to the man. “Who are you? Are you Skrofa clan?”

  “That is none of your concern,” the man grunted. His hand reached slowly for the gun in the sling. “And you’re in no position to be making demands.”

  Before his fingers could reach the gun, Koto darted out with lightning-fast reflexes. He snarled and clawed the man’s hand, leaving bright red gashes in his skin and sending the gun sprawling past his grasp. Bodi instantly leapt on it, shifted back, and kept the firearm safely out of their reach. With his weapon lost, the man spat on the ground.

  “You’re poachers!” Zumi snapped. “Are you a shifter, too?”

  The man said nothing, but his angry silence was clear enough.

  “Despicable,” Bodi growled. “You’re one of us. You baited us into hunting you on purpose, didn’t you?”

  The huge boar shifter suddenly squealed and charged. It was a bluff - he stopped before his tusks jammed into any of us - but the scare made everyone leap back, except me. I was still frightened out of my skin and painfully collapsed on the ground. The boar’s sharp tusks were inches from my face and his hot, sour breath filled my nostrils.

  In the moment that the boar charged, the poacher man ran to my side and grabbed the scruff of my neck. He tried to haul me towards him - and because of my small size, he was succeeding. Scared out of my wits, all I could do was mewl pathetically.

  “Keep the others away!” the poacher yelled to the boar shifter. “This one is black, we don’t need the rest!”

  Fear tainted my blood. Was this how I was going to die? Poached for being a black panther, just like my father was always afraid of?

  As the boar created a dangerous tusked wall and blocked my friends, the man shook me until I shifted back into human form, terrified.

  “You’re an omega, aren’t you?” he grunted, gripping the back of my neck tightly. “You really are a prize.”

  “Let go of me, freak!” I yelled.

  Adrenaline and my animal instinct took over. I punched him in his most sensitive area, then scrambled out of his grip when he was doubled over and cursing.

  “Koto!” I cried out. “Help!”

  As soon as the cry left my lips, the rainforest broke out in a chorus of raging leopard snarls. Leopard shifters streamed from every corner of the ferns, all bared teeth and claws. The thicket became a mass of gold and black. Almost all of Pardus clan had come - and they easily outnumbered the poachers.

  At the front of the group I recognized my father - a pale gold leopard with fading black rosettes, but wearing the most ferocious expression of them all.

  “Shit,” the poacher man growled.

  The poachers wasted no time in escaping. They didn’t wait for the leopards to attack before they darted away into the rainforest and disappeared.

  “Shit, they got away,” Zumi growled. “Should we follow them?”

  “No,” chief Eka growled. “It’s not safe.”

  “We didn’t even learn their identities,” Bodi grumbled.

  As the adrenaline rush faded, I knew with growing dread that I was about to get the scolding of a lifetime. I groaned inwardly as I saw my father approach me from the corner of my eye.

  Before he could get to me, Koto cuffed me over the head. “What the fuck were you thinking, Raja? You could have been killed! You weren’t even supposed to be out here!”

  As the chief reached my side, Koto bowed deeply to him, obviously ashamed of the coarse language he just used. “Chief, I am so sorry. I take responsib
ility for my cousin breaking the rules. Please punish me.”

  “No, Koto,” the chief said, raising a hand to him. His gaze burned, and I couldn’t force myself to meet it. “This is Raja’s responsibility alone.”

  Koto nodded respectfully and stepped away. I got to my feet, which felt like lead.

  Every able-bodied person from the village had come to chase the poachers away and save me. My skin burned with shame. I wished I would just die on the spot.

  In a deathly calm voice, the chief said to me, “Come, Raja. We will talk about this at home.”

  * * *

  “I won’t ask you what you were thinking,” the chief began, “because you clearly weren’t thinking.”

  “No, he wasn’t!” my mother, Kali, added shrilly. If getting yelled at by my father wasn’t enough already, my mother was there to make it worse. “He obviously wanted to get himself killed tonight!”

  My head hung low. I wished this chewing out would just be over already. I wanted to go to my hammock and sulk for the rest of my life.

  “What have I always told you?” my father continued. When I didn’t respond, he prompted, “Answer me, Raja.”

  I resisted the urge to groan. “That it’s not safe out there for me. Because I’m a black panther and an omega.”

  “And what happened to you tonight?”

  My throat was tight and hot. Admitting it felt like poison burning my mouth. “I was almost poached for being both of those things.”

  “Who knows what would have happened to you?” my mother yelled. “Now we know our worst fears are true! There are poachers, not humans but shifters like us, out there wanting to get their hands on you! Was it the Skrofa clan? Do you know?”

  “No,” I admitted. “They wouldn’t say who they were.”

  My father let out a deep sigh. Slowly, he sat down across from me on the straw mat on the floor. “Raja, tell me what was going through your mind tonight.”

  I brought my knees up to my chest and rested my chin on them, feeling like a petulant child. “Nothing different. I just wanted to get out.”

  “I didn’t know leaving the village was so important to you.”

  “Of course it is!” I blurted out.

  The chief held my gaze steadily. “I didn’t know it was worth risking your life.”

  “Well, what else can I do? I’m not a child and I don’t want to be treated like a breakable object anymore!” My voice came out whiny and frustrated, but truth be told, that was exactly how I felt. I didn’t know how to get my displeasure across any other way at this point.

  “You can sit in the village like we tell you to,” my mother growled.

  “But mom, I’m twenty years old! I’m a grown man!” I objected. “Koto and everyone else gets to do whatever they want and I can’t do anything!”

  “Koto and the others have nothing to do with you,” she scolded. “It’s their parents’ job to worry about them, not mine. You’re our responsibility.”

  My father chimed in. “They’re not precious omegas like you, and they have normal coloring. They do not have to worry about the same things that you do.”

  “Well, what can I do, then?” I cried, throwing up my hands in frustration. “Just sit here in this village until I die?”

  My mother clucked her tongue. “No, Raja, don’t speak like that.” She huddled to my side and tried to give me a hug, but I was so not in the mood. I leaned away from her, which only angered her more. “Stop acting like a baby!”

  “I am not,” I muttered.

  My father spoke up. “You know, Raja, there is one way your mother and I would feel comfortable with you leaving the village.”

  My heart leapt into my throat. I sat up quickly. “What!?”

  My mother nodded and said, “Yes, that’s right. We always believed that if you had a strong alpha to protect you, you could go wherever you’d like.”

  I could not believe what I was hearing. “What?”

  “We know there aren’t any alphas in our own clan, but certainly another clan in the rainforest must have alphas seeking an omega mate,” she continued.

  My enthusiasm drained instantly. I sat back on the straw mat, limp and disappointed. “You want me to get a mate.”

  “Yes, but only a powerful alpha,” my mother clarified. “One who will protect you, darling.”

  “You don’t think I can protect myself?” I muttered irritably.

  My mother frowned, instantly cross. “Well, you made it quite clear tonight that you can’t take care of yourself.”

  I cringed, my cheeks burning hot with shame. The worst part was I couldn’t even deny that. I’d put myself, my family, and my clan in danger by disobeying the rules put upon me. I had no right to talk back right now.

  “But we don’t want you to just go pick the first alpha you find,” she continued. “Find a nice alpha, spend some time with him, figure out if you want to spend your life with him… And then when you finally find the right person, you can get married.”

  “Married?” I echoed.This conversation was only getting worse. Not only did I have to find an alpha, I had to marry him too? No thanks.

  “Yes.” My mother grasped my hands. “Then when you’re married, you can go wherever you like. You’ll have a life and family of your own, and we won’t be afraid to let you leave the clan.”

  Hearing the optimism in her voice, I sighed. They weren’t joking. This was really the life they had planned out for me, and I didn’t have any say in it.

  “Go, now,” the chief said. “We will not punish you any longer. You know what you must do now, yes?”

  “Yes,” I said, getting to my feet. As relieved as I was that this conversation was over, it also opened up a brand new source of anxiety and stress. “I’m sorry again for what happened tonight.”

  They both nodded at me.

  “Goodnight, Raja,” my mother said.

  “Goodnight, mom.”

  I left the old wooden hut, closing the door behind me. To my surprise, my cousin Koto was waiting for me outside. He leaned against the tree with his arms crossed.

  “Great, are you here to yell at me, too?” I asked.

  “Well, I was going to,” he muttered, “but I heard what auntie said to you.”

  “You were eavesdropping?”

  Koto smirked and raised a brow. “It must run in the family.”

  “Can’t argue with that,” I mumbled.

  We sat down on the wooden platform, our legs dangling over the edge. We watched the lights in the village below, flickering off for the night as people went to bed. Although the human government didn’t purposely extend the grid for shifter communities, we lived close enough to human settlements that we could use their power. I knew of some shifter clans who still used oil lamps and candles, so we considered ourselves lucky. I supposed there were good and bad things about living close to humans.

  “What do you think about it?” Koto asked after a moment.

  “About what? The marriage thing?”

  Koto nodded.

  “I hate it,” I admitted. “To be honest, I’m jealous of you. You get to do whatever you want, go anywhere you want, mate with anyone you want…”

  “That is true,” Koto agreed. “I’m sorry, man.”

  I shrugged. “It’s not your fault. It’s just the way we were born. I wish I was a beta instead.”

  “I guess, but it’s still not fair,” Koto grumbled.

  I rolled my eyes and quoted my parents. “Life’s not fair.”

  We sat in silence, listening to the buzzing night insects and high-pitched cries of the bats that hunted them. I watched a particularly big moth - drawn to the light of the elder’s hut - get swallowed up by a furry bat in one gulp. For some reason, it made me think about how close I’d come to death tonight. I shivered.

  “Hey, Raja,” Koto said suddenly. There was a mischievous glint in his eyes. “I have an idea.”

  “What?”

  “Well, they want you to get married
, right? So why don’t you just get married?”

  I stared at him, dumbfounded. “Gee, thanks. That instantly solves all my problems.”

  “Oh, you’re such a brat sometimes.” He shoved my shoulder. “I mean, you don’t have to stay married, right? You just have to be married long enough to leave the village.”

  I paused. “You mean like a fake marriage?”

  “Exactly!” He gestured proudly, like he’d come up with the best idea ever.

  “Do you know how much trouble I’ll get into if I get caught?” I asked. Faking a mate and eloping all sounded like fun and games until I thought about my potential punishment. Given the high status marriage was given in our clan, I knew that being caught faking it could end up with my banishment - or worse.

  “Then just don’t get caught,” Koto said with a shrug. “Besides, it only has to work until you get out of here anyway. Then you’re home free.”

  “Okay, great idea, genius. You’re missing a major piece of the problem - there are no alphas in the clan. And it’s not exactly like I can walk out to a different clan in the rainforest and just find one!”

  “You’re right, you can’t,” Koto said. “So we’re gonna need to bring the alpha to you.”

  I frowned. “What are you talking about?”

  Koto stood and offered me a hand up. “Come over to my place. I have something to show you, and I think you’re gonna like it.”

  * * *

  “Here. Take a seat over there.”

  Koto gestured to the low table in the middle of the floor. Raising a brow, I slid onto the straw mat and waited for whatever he decided to pull out.

  After digging out cables and miscellaneous electronics from an old wooden crate, Koto returned to the table and propped up an old laptop.

  “You like?” he asked, looking smug.

  “Is that a computer? Where the hell did you get that?” I asked.

  He leaned in, glancing suspiciously over his shoulder. “Okay, well, don’t tell the chief, but Bodi and I stole this from a neighboring human village a while back.”

  “You what!?” I sputtered.

  He flailed his hand in my face. “Shh! Keep it down. Oh, don’t look at me like that. They had a bunch, it’s not like they’re going to miss just one…”