by Cardeno C.
With so many lions clamoring for his attention, he never needed to jerk off.
“Don’t remember it feeling this good.”
He took hold of his heavy balls and massaged them as he dragged his thumb over his crown.
“Ah, damn, there already.” He thrust his hips forward. “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck!” Ejaculate sprayed out of his slit, shooting over his palm and up his chest in spurt after spurt until hot cream coated him from chin to belly.
“Mmm,” he sighed as he lazily skated his palm over his torso, rubbing the semen into his skin. His mind was hazy with satisfaction and his knees were wobbly, something that didn’t happen even after he screwed half a dozen lions in a row. “Now, I really need a shower.”
He chuckled and took a deep, relaxed breath. After several long seconds, he started regaining his mental faculties and realized he was looking at Johnnie’s blue eyes, had been the entire time. And Johnnie had been looking at him.
“Can…can…can I go to my room and change?” Johnnie slowly backed away. “I promise I won’t do anything.” He thumped against the wall. “You already took all the blades and ropes.” His hands flat against the plaster, he moved sideways until he reached the closet opening and then he stumbled out. “I’ll be right back.”
When Hugh stepped out of the shower, Johnnie was sitting on the bathroom floor, his legs folded against his chest and a huge sweatshirt pulled over them.
“Feeling better?” he asked, glancing up at Hugh while fidgeting with the hem of his heavy shirt.
“Yes. Tension’s gone.”
The hot shower had helped with that, but the orgasm was the main stress reliever. Hugh had never come as hard and he’d never enjoyed it as much. Usually sex was about emptying himself of seed to relieve an ache; it was more relief than pleasure. But those short minutes in the closet had been all pleasure. Maybe denying himself for a little while wasn’t such a bad thing. If he kept rubbing his towel over his dick though, he wouldn’t be denying anything, so, with a chuckle, he dragged his towel up his belly, across his shoulders, and over his hair for a quick dry.
“Good,” Johnnie squeaked. He cleared his throat and then repeated himself in a normal voice. “Good. Glad you feel better.”
“Yup.” Hugh grinned. “Now, I need food.” He tossed his towel over the hook. “I could eat a buffalo.”
“You just got clean,” Johnnie said, flicking his gaze away. “Now’s probably not the best time to shift and hunt.”
“True.” Hugh chuckled. “We can save the hunt for tomorrow’s dinner. Tonight we have a refrigerator full of steak.” He stepped toward the door and stopped in front of Johnnie. “Need help?” He reached down.
Slowly, Johnnie raised his gaze from Hugh’s shins, up his body to his face.
“No thanks,” he said hoarsely. “I’m okay.” He swallowed hard, waited until Hugh walked past, and then stood and followed him. “I was, uh, thinking of making spinach too. To go with the steak.”
“Sure. I’m not picky.” Hugh walked into his closet and rustled through his drawer for underwear.
“Not picky, huh?” Johnnie said from behind him, his tone amused.
“What?” Hugh stepped into this briefs and turned around as he dropped his hand down the front to adjust himself. “I’m not. I eat everything.”
Blinking rapidly, Johnnie opened his mouth, took in a deep breath, closed it, and then said, “Remember the time you were visiting the Horizon pride?”
“The Horizon pride…” Hugh furrowed his brow in concentration. The Horizon pride was small, weak, and irrelevant. “I haven’t been there in at least eight years. Maybe nine.”
“Right.” Johnnie nodded, a slow grin spreading across his face. “I’d say refusing the meal served to you and shifting into your lion form to hunt for your own dinner counts as picky.”
That reminder helped jog Hugh’s memory. “I’d forgotten about that.” He groaned. “Who serves a visiting contingent of lion shifters lasagna?”
“You didn’t mind the lasagna we had a couple of months ago at Georgia Pilling’s pride house.” Johnnie’s eyes twinkled. “I remember you having seconds.”
After a few moments to think back to that night, Hugh said, “That was beef lasagna and it was served as a side dish to a rotisserie chicken.”
“The main dish was a roast. Remember how you said it was perfect because it wasn’t too dry?”
“Oh, right.” He didn’t actually remember, but that didn’t matter. “The point is, we had meat. The Horizon pride served us vegetable lasagna with sides of vegetables. There was no meat. None.”
Johnnie laughed. “Okay, so you’re not picky as long as there’s meat involved, is that it?”
Hugh grunted and reached for a pair of jeans.
“I’m a carnivore. I need meat. And now that I’m remembering that visit, the Horizon lions were uppity assholes the entire time and the dinner menu was a power play.”
He stepped into his jeans and buttoned up.
“Really?” Johnnie asked.
“Yes.” Hugh pulled a T-shirt off a hanger and tugged it over his head.
“What kind of power play?”
“They had a history with your old pride and wanted to make a point that they were better than Westgate even after it merged into Berk, which shows their folly because we’re a Premier Pride.” He shook his head disgustedly. “They’ll never come close to measuring up to us.”
“Oh.” Johnnie squeezed his lips together and knit his eyebrows as he seemed to think that over. “I didn’t know about any history between Westgate and Horizon.”
Not sure how best to respond to yet more proof of how isolated Johnnie had been from everything related to the pride, Hugh put his hand on Johnnie’s shoulder and led him out of the closet and bedroom in silence.
“Did you say something about the history or the power play during that visit?” Johnnie gazed up at him as they walked. “I was with you the whole time, like always, and I didn’t hear anything. I’m sure I’d remember if you’d said it.”
“I bet you would. I can tell you have a great memory.” Concerned Johnnie would trip by watching him instead of looking forward but not wanting the blue eyes to look away, Hugh slid his hand to Johnnie’s back and kept him steady. “And no, I’m sure I wouldn’t have said anything. I wouldn’t call a pride out on something like that.”
“Why not?”
Hugh didn’t normally talk about his leadership strategy because explaining why he did things opened the door for others to question his motives and possibly his actions. The whys shouldn’t matter—his pride members needed to trust him implicitly. But Johnnie was different from the rest of the pride. Hugh didn’t need to impress or intimidate him, and he found he enjoyed sharing his thoughts with his new friend.
“I don’t address that kind of behavior for a couple of reasons,” Hugh explained as they began walking down the stairs. Johnnie still watched him, his expression interested, so he curled his fingers around Johnnie’s hip, keeping him close as he answered his question. “First, when people are so overtly antagonistic, they’re looking for a reaction. Not giving them what they want strips them of their perceived power.”
“Oh.” Johnnie nodded. “That makes sense.” They reached the bottom of the stairs and turned toward the kitchen. “You said a couple of reasons. What’s the other one?”
“I’m a Premier. I’ve been leading a Premier Pride for going on eighty years.” He paused. “Seventy years at that time. None of the Horizon shifters had even been alive that long.” He shook his head. “A ragtag group of wet-behind-the-ears lions thinks serving us a mediocre dinner makes some sort of a statement about us?” He scoffed. “If they’re not sophisticated enough to know the only statement made that evening was about them, then they don’t matter enough to waste my time.”
Once they reached the kitchen, Hugh opened the refrigerator and got the dinner ingredients. He handed them to Johnnie, who set them on the counter.
�
�Why did you go to Horizon in the first place?” Johnnie asked.
Hugh brought the butter and lemon to the counter and looked at Johnnie. “My memory isn’t as good as yours.” Johnnie’s straight, brown hair slid over one eye and Hugh reached down and brushed it back. “But that visit was right after our prides merged so based on the timing, I’d guess it was one of the trips I took to send a message that Westgate’s lions were part of my pride and under my protection.”
“We traveled a lot after the merger,” Johnnie agreed.
“Yes. Westgate was incredibly vulnerable when I stepped in. No useful land, no assets, disease ridden, weak lions. The only reason they’d managed to stay autonomous up until then was that other prides didn’t consider any of the members worth having. If anyone had seen value in the pride, it would have been taken over by force and, more than likely, all but a few lions would have been decimated.”
“But you saw the value in the pride?” Johnnie asked, his eyes wide.
All lions had eyes in shades of brown so a Siphon’s eyes had always struck Hugh as strange and unnatural. But in that moment, Johnnie’s blue, sparkling eyes reminded him of the sky on a clear day and the lake water during the middle of summer. Not only were his eyes natural, they were beautiful.
“Yes, I saw value in Westgate,” he said quietly, reflecting back on that time. “Because to get me to take them in, they told me about you.”
Chapter 6
On Saturday evening, Hugh looked out the large picture window in the living room. The sun was starting to go down, the sky filling with oranges and reds. He’d spent the entire day at home, with Johnnie. Not quite a vacation because he’d caught up on calls and emails, scheduled visits to a few prides, and gone over the end-of-month financial reports, but it’d been a quiet slow-paced day nonetheless.
While he had worked, whether in the office or the living room, Johnnie had joined him, quietly finding an out of the way spot to sit, a book always in his hand. The familiarity of Johnnie in that position made Hugh recognize that it was the norm.
“You read a lot,” he observed, looking at Johnnie’s reflection in the glass.
“Yes.” Johnnie glanced up from his book. “It’s something I can do wherever you go without being disruptive.”
Meetings Hugh attended with other Premiers or pride leaders sometimes began in the morning and ran into the night. When he was home, it wasn’t uncommon for the entrance to his office to become a revolving door, with one lion after another coming to share concerns and fears and seek advice and for the lion shifters who worked for the pride-owned investments and businesses to report on their areas and get direction from Hugh. In the evenings, he visited pride homes, where the routine was much the same—pride members constantly needing his attention. And on the rare occasions when nobody was around, Hugh was busy on calls or with paperwork. During all of those times, Johnnie was there, siphoning Hugh’s power, but not speaking or interrupting.
“Do you enjoy it?” he asked as he turned around so he could see Johnnie better.
“Reading?” Johnnie blinked in surprise. “Of course. I meet new people and see new places.” He paused and his neck reddened. “I know they’re not always real and I don’t actually see them, but if it’s a good book, it feels like I do and…” He cleared his throat, rubbed his palm on his pants, and lowered his gaze. “Yes, I like reading.”
“I’m glad you found something you enjoy to pass the time while you’re working with me.” And Johnnie was working. Hugh knew that now. “Constantly being still and silent can’t be easy.” Just thinking about spending his days that way had Hugh’s muscles twitching.
Johnnie jerked his head up and stared at Hugh, his eyes wide and surprised. Maybe he didn’t expect Hugh to understand or maybe he was taken aback that Hugh finally noticed.
“There’s nothing else that has to get done tonight and nobody on the schedule. How about we go for a run and hunt our dinner?” Hugh needed to exert energy, to shift and run and stalk. He felt locked up inside, uncomfortable. “I want to stretch my muscles.”
“Sure.” Johnnie closed the book and set it on the end table before moving his legs out from underneath his butt and standing. “I’ll stay close but not too close, same as always.”
The innocent comment had Hugh reconsidering his plans for their evening. The Siphon had to stay near enough to the Premier to hold his power. But to successfully hunt, Hugh had to track his prey in silence, something that worked best when he was on his own. So when he hunted, Johnnie hung back at a calculated pace, giving him the space he needed to make the kill but not so much distance that their connection suffered. Thinking about it, Hugh realized Johnnie had to work to accomplish that.
“Don’t worry. I promise not to do anything to myself while you hunt,” Johnnie said, apparently noticing Hugh’s distraction but misunderstanding the reason for it. “I’ll keep siphoning your power so you’ll be safe.”
Though he probably should have been worried about leaving Johnnie essentially unattended while he focused on hunting, Hugh hadn’t been thinking about the possibility that Johnnie would take steps to end their lives again. He’d been thinking about how to enjoy the lives they had. Both of them.
“I know you will.” Hugh tried to remember details about his hunts for the past decade but there had been too many to make that possible. “Have you ever hunted?”
“Me?” Johnnie asked disbelievingly.
Hugh nodded.
“I’m a Siphon.” Johnnie fidgeted with his shirt hem and shifted from foot to foot.
Yes, he was. And Hugh already knew from Johnnie’s brief stories about his childhood that he’d been all but locked away because of it. But even if he had been given the freedom to hunt on Westgate’s old pride lands, Hugh doubted Johnnie would’ve been able to do it successfully when their adult lionesses had struggled to find food on that desolate land. And though access to fruitful hunting grounds had greatly improved after the pride merger, Johnnie’s ability to hunt likely hadn’t.
As a Siphon, Johnnie had to focus on remaining an appropriate distance from Hugh, so he couldn’t search for prey himself. The only way he could have hunted would have been if Hugh had stepped aside and let him. Hugh hadn’t.
“You’re also a lion,” Hugh pointed out. “Lions hunt.”
“But…” Johnnie closed his mouth, drew his eyebrows together, and crinkled his nose, his fingers still furiously working the now wrinkled bottom of his shirt. “How can that work? I need to follow you and make sure I stay close enough to hold your power.”
“I’m perfectly capable of tracking you.” Without conscious thought, Hugh stepped toward Johnnie. “It’ll be fun.”
“Fun?” Johnnie tilted his head back and focused those bright blue eyes on him.
“Sure. I like a challenge.” He liked those eyes. “Usually, I’m either hunting prey, in which case I need to be silent and steady before pouncing and dashing, or I’m chasing an enemy, in which case speed matters but sound and stealth aren’t relevant. This’ll be a combination of both skills.”
And it’d give him an opportunity to observe Johnnie in his lion form. He’d witnessed Johnnie shift hundreds of times, but he’d never paid attention, and suddenly, he very much wanted to see Johnnie’s human features transformed into his beast. How would it feel to have those blue eyes looking at him from a lion’s face?
“Oh.” Johnnie bit his lip and lowered his gaze.
“Tell me what’s bothering you.” With one hand, Hugh plucked Johnnie’s fingers away from his shirt and held them tight. With his other hand, he tipped Johnnie’s chin up so their gazes met.
“I’ve never hunted so I’m not sure I can do it.”
“Well, that’ll definitely be true if you don’t try.” Not that Johnnie’s inability to hunt had been his choice up to that point in his life, but going forward, Hugh would make sure Johnnie had the same opportunities as the other lions in the pride.
“That makes sense.” Johnnie nod
ded, as if in agreement, but he continued nervously chewing on his lip.
“Your lips will get chapped and red if you keep punishing them that way.”
“Yeah, they’re, uh, always dry, so…” He swallowed hard. “Yeah.”
“We’ll get you some Chapstick,” Hugh said with a grin.
“That never works.” Johnnie shook his head.
“No?” Hugh wondered if that was yet another of Johnnie’s physical anomalies—like his eye color, purring ability, sensitive skin, and cool body temperature. “Why not?”
“How can it work when it disappears within two days after I get it?” Johnnie shook his head and chuckled. “Anyone who can figure out what dimension Chapstick travels to and how to get it back can become the Harry Houdini of our generation.”
Laughing, Hugh said, “Aren’t you too young to be a Houdini fan?” He paused and then tilted his head to the side. “How old are you? I don’t think I’ve ever been told.” Nor had he asked. Johnnie knew what Hugh ate for dinner months ago and whether he had seconds and Hugh hadn’t bothered asking a single thing about him.
“I’m twenty-six, I think.” Johnnie’s forehead crinkled. “I don’t know my exact date of birth but I’ve been with you for ten years and the pride was thrilled when I came into my ability to hold a Premier’s power four years earlier than they’d expected.” He glanced at Hugh. “The regular age is twenty, right?”
“That’s usually when people say a Siphon goes into service, but Siphons are so rare it’s hard to know for sure.” And Hugh was starting to understand that another reason so little was known about Siphons might be that, despite their importance, nobody bothered paying them attention.
“I’ve read a few different biographies about him,” Johnnie said.
After a slight pause to follow the conversation thread, Hugh said, “You’re a Houdini fan?”
Johnnie shrugged. “I think it’s neat how he could get out of any situation.”
With the life Johnnie had led, Hugh wasn’t surprised by that answer. He was no longer surprised by a lot of things Johnnie said or even what he’d tried to do two weeks earlier.
