by Nikki Winter
Verochka? She’d mated one of them? As long as he could remember, Nico had been hearing whispers of the pride’s name along with stories of Taras the killer. He’d never been one to believe rumors, had even blatantly challenged storytellers, but he’d been a witness to the things these tigers could do—had admired the cold precision of their choices.
The fact Kamali had found her way to one…
She laughed behind him. “It’s astonishing what a girl can stumble into when she’s looking for solace. It’s astonishing the connections she can make just when she thinks all hope is lost.”
Walking past him, she ran her hand over the white tiger’s head and between his ears. In return, it nuzzled her side.
“His love for me is so strong that he asked if I was positive I wanted to do this. He suggested that we hand you over to the elders because he wasn’t sure I wouldn’t lose my sanity if I faced you again,” Kamali murmured. She kissed the tiger’s forehead and stood straight once more, her eyes flicking back to Nico. “He suggested that we allow them to execute your punishment for your crimes.”
Nico clenched his jaw, stood tall. “And?”
She didn’t answer, only snapped her fingers.
His own pride members poured into the room and three grasped him and jerked him forward. Nico pulled away. “What…let go of me!”
They didn’t listen, only kept pushing, pulling, and dragging him until they managed to get him to the back door. Despite his snarls and snaps, they tossed him off the patio and let him roll as he hit the ground.
When he got to his feet, Kamali stood on the steps, tigers and lions alike behind her.
“I decided that handing you over to the elders would be graceful—rational.” She stepped down and the shifters followed. “But rationality and grace require something imperative, something I no longer have: mercy.” Another step. “You took my father, you took my home, and you massacred my family. Albeit dysfunctional, I still needed them, loved them.” Another step. “And you didn’t care. You showed me there are times that you just. Can’t. Be. Merciful.”
“So what are you going to do?” Nico roared. “Are you going to kill me, Kamali? Are you going to get your revenge?”
Her mouth curved. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you? You’d like to have a quick death.” She shook her head. “No, Nico. There will be no sudden end. There will be no easy way out of the misery you caused.” Kamali waved a hand behind herself. “Your precious pride, the ones you wanted to elevate, were willing to sell you out without a single thought when I made them an offer. I leave them alive and allow them a fair chance with the elders and they do me a favor.”
Disgusted, he stared at the shifters behind her. “You would do this to me?” Nico slapped his chest. “I made you! I brought you here! I gave you all this! And now you’re going to turn your backs while she murders me?” He pointed at the lions. “You’re weak! All of you! Cowards!”
“Who’s truly the coward, Nico?” she questioned. “The ones that stand with me in order to be rid of a psychopath with a superiority complex, or the one who stands before me ready to run because he senses his end is near?”
His hands fisted at his sides. “Why would I run? Why would I give you the satisfaction?”
“Because self-preservation will prevail,” Kamali answered.
To the large group behind her she growled, “I want him torn apart.”
Nico took a step back as several pairs of gold, amber, and pale blue eyes turned on him.
“You wouldn’t,” he blurted. “What happens when you tell my nephew you had his uncle slaughtered?”
That didn’t even give her pause. “I’m sorry, is that sudden revelation supposed to endear me to you?” She searched his face. “Nico, Alfre died because he made the same decision you did. You were both so set on using Callum that you were willing to sacrifice an innocent child. The only difference is, I didn’t hate Alfre nearly as much as I hate you.”
She knew! She fucking knew.
“How…?”
“I told you,” Kamali stated. “There are truly gifted individuals among my family.” Taking a seat on the steps, she waved a hand in Nico’s direction and commanded in a low chilling voice, “Treat him the way you would prey.”
They began to leap, one by one, charging at him. Nico turned to flee, hating himself for that one act of vulnerability but knowing if he didn’t try, if he didn’t at least attempt to escape, then everything he’d done—everything that had led to this moment—would mean nothing.
He made it all of twenty yards before a paw swipe to his lower back snapped his spine. The last things he heard before he died were the violent sounds of lions and tigers fighting for the chance to rip him apart.
***
“How much of this stuff are we clearing out?”
Kamali unfolded her arms and let out a little sigh. Running her hand through her hair, she pushed away from the door of her father’s office and turned to Kaisal. “Anything that looks like a keepsake or something valuable to the original pride can be taken. Superficial things like furniture or any of the cars will be sold and put into funds for cubs who won’t have their parents around.”
He nodded inside of the room. “And Enilo’s property?”
“Keepsakes,” she answered. “All of it.”
Taking back all of what Nico and his rogues had stolen from her didn’t close the wound of her father’s death, but it helped it to heal. Hearing Nico’s screams as they shoved him into the afterlife had given her a satisfaction that was fathomless, and knowing the very ones he’d used to get here had aided in his demise made that feeling more profound.
When she’d originally told Kaisal her plan, he had been worried she might come to regret her choice, but then he’d seen the same steely determination she’d exhibited the first night they’d met and relented. Nico’s last-ditch effort to play on her emotions had disgusted her. Dublhainn had revealed days ago that her now-dead enemy was Alfre’s brother, and it only made her decision to kill him uncompromising.
Getting to Nico had been easy and so was facing him. Realizing she’d never see Enilo seated behind his desk again was the hard part. As she’d told Nico, her pride and her relationship with her father may have been dysfunctional and skewed at best but deep down, she’d loved them.
Kaisal caressed her cheek and nodded. “You finish up in here and I’m going to help Naresh load up the rest of the rogues. We want to make sure they keep good on their word to be delivered to the elders.”
She kissed his palm. “All right.”
He wandered away and she walked further into the office, looking about at all the things that were originally Enilo’s. She stopped when her gaze landed on his broken desk. Just beneath it, she could see that a drawer had fallen out. Kamali went to pick it up but the seemingly empty piece of wood felt heavier than it should have.
Frowning, she knocked on the inside and listened to a hollow sound ring out. She tapped it and found a little handle at the corner. With a tug, she discovered that the drawer actually had a false bottom. Opening the small door, she peered into it and saw what appeared to be a photo album and several tapes along with a letter.
Kamali swallowed and took a seat on the floor, digging through the contents. She pulled out the letter first, praying that Enilo hadn’t been involved in some crooked scheme and she’d just found a record of it.
To Kamali,
If you’re reading this and I didn’t hand it to your personally it means you have either been snooping through my things like the curious cub you always were or the worse has happened and I am no longer around to admonish you for all your mischievous ways. Neither really matter because you’ve found what I’ve struggled to keep from you all these years. I have a story to tell you, ÌmÍ-binrin Íba. It is a story of love…
***
“Kamali’s been in there for a bit,” Naresh said as he closed the doors on his Suburban. “Maybe you should go check on her.”
Kaisa
l looked down at his phone and peeked at the time. Over the last hour they’d gotten things wrapped up as well as they could for now. The rogues were separated, and the cubs left behind had already been sheltered back on Verochka territory until verdicts came down from the elders. He’d left Kamali to look through her father’s office but it had been quite a while since she’d gone in.
He pushed away from the truck. “I’ll go see what’s keeping her.”
The moment he hit the foyer he could hear it. The sound of wailing. It was acute and pained and it was coming from his mate. Running through the home, Kaisal found the office once again and burst through the door. On the floor sat Kamali, her knees to her chest, her arms wrapped around them as she rocked and sobs racked her.
“Princess?”
She looked up, her eyes so full of heartbreak that it made him stumble. Kaisal carefully walked over to her and dropped to his knees. He reached out and swiped some of the tears from her face. “Tell me.”
Seemingly unable to stop crying, she waved to an album by her feet. He picked it up and flipped through several different photos before halting. “Kamali?” His voice was whisper soft. “Who is this?”
Kamali gazed at the picture he was pointing to—one that looked like her—and answered, “My mother. That’s my mother.”
“Oh, baby,” Kaisal breathed, running his finger over the face that was an imitation of her own. “She’s beautiful.”
Sniffling, she nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, she is.”
He swallowed and cast his stare back to her. “Where’d you find this?”
“Th-the drawer,” she stuttered. “I found it in the drawer. He left it. He left it for me. My father left it for me.” Her chest pushed out and then the dam broke once again.
Kaisal caught her before she curled into the floor and pulled her into his chest. Kissing her temple and her nose, he softly spoke over her cries and cradled her. “I know, baby…I know…”
She buried her face into his chest. “Why does this hurt now? Why does it hurt so much? I can’t even…my chest…fuck…”
“Because now you see that he loved you,” he mumbled into her hair. “Now you see that he really loved you…”
They didn’t moved after that, remaining on the floor as she poured every ounce of grief she had out in her mourning. Naresh came in with curiosity on his face but left them at the sight of Kaisal comforting her. No one else walked in after that. No one else disturbed her grief.
Epilogue
One year later…
“We call this child Kala, meaning art.” Kaisal’s voice rang out loudly, carrying around the open space of the Colorado woods. “We name her after what moves and inspires others. We name her after something so beautifully and effortlessly created.” He paused, locked eyes with Kamali, and smiled. “We name her after the reason she’s here. Her mother took advantage of my vulnerable desire to be immortalized on canvas. She put paint where paint shouldn’t have gone, and I haven’t felt clean since.”
Laughter went up and Kamali made a face over the head of her daughter while Callum, who was standing next to his father, chuckled and Kaisal’s parents both rolled their eyes. Naresh snickered, Basanti bit her lip, and Dublhainn openly smirked. Tigers, wolves, and lions alike all stood around them, watching intently as Kala’s naming ceremony commenced. The fact they were willing to do this confounded Kamali, and she hadn’t been able to open her mouth for hours after Kaisal suggested it for fear of openly sobbing.
Days after they’d finally settled all the Oriade businesses and decided to continue with the luxury hotel franchise, Kamali went into conception heat. This resulted in herself and Kaisal sequestering themselves in Naresh’s old cabin. It was considered old now because they’d decided to have a bigger, better one built in the mountains for him after all the damage they’d done.
A week hadn’t even gone past before she’d finally recognized she was pregnant. Anxiety and elation made her reveal it to Kaisal who only shrugged and said, “I knew after it happened. Your scent changed but I figured telling you in the middle of you sticking your tongue in my ear would probably dampen the mood so…” That resulted in screeching. A lot of screeching.
The excitement had spread steadily through the pride and their immediate family. Callum hadn’t seemed too pleased when he found out he’d be receiving a girl for a sibling but the first time he held her, Kamali’s son had been shocked into silence. Soon after, Kaisal’s parents—who’d she’d met a few months after reclaiming Oriade property—arrived with gifts and low grumbles about how bad Kaisal was at keeping them updated about his life. Kaisal argued with his father a lot. His father, who Kamali found to be similar to Enilo but a bit sweeter, threatened Kaisal a lot. And Kaisal’s mother, who was all of five feet of kind disposition, had to snap and snarl at the pair to make them stop a lot. Yet, here they all were, gathered around for a tradition that Kamali had honestly never thought she’d experience again. The love she felt radiating from each shifter unburied emotions long hidden. Home. This was home.
“We vow to honor and protect this child, this magnificent gift, with our lives. We vow that she will be loved and cared for. We vow that this cub, one of our own, will know the joy and exasperation of a family,” Kaisal finished.
“So shall it be,” Kamali imparted.
“So shall it be.” Her mate, his parents, his cousin, his sibling, and their friend repeated.
“So shall it be,” the pride announced.
With that, roars and howls sounded in the air. One after another until it was a symphony of noise.
Kala moved about, pale blue eyes blinking wide at the sounds. Kamali rubbed noses with her daughter and whispered for her ears only, “Allow me to tell you a story that you won’t remember later in life when I repeat it, if¹. It’s a story of love…”
The End
