by Meg Ripley
“How are we supposed to bring the groups together?” Keira noticed that the question had come from a member of Raul’s Pack; Raul’s mind, mingled with hers, identified the source as his second, Cam.
“That is for Keira and Raul, the new leaders of the combined group, to decide,” the Elementals said, speaking as one.
“We’ve had too much distrust between us for too long,” Raul told the group. “Too many secrets, too much hatred. Keira and I are calling a new law right now: the next person to raid a panther or a wolf will be brought to justice.”
“If anyone kills or injures any member of the other clan, they will be challenged,” Keira said. She flashed her teeth in an expression that wasn’t quite a smile. “If you’re going to come up against us, you’d better find a damn good second to do it with.”
“Keira and Raul have proven that they are stronger than the strongest members of their respective clans,” Fintan told the two groups.
“If anyone goes against their rule without following the proper channels, they will be punished,” Tara added.
“We will hold the allegiance ceremony in three days’ time,” Raul told the two clans. “Keira and I both expect to see every one of you there. If you will not give us your allegiance, you will leave this town.”
The two groups looked uncertain, and unsettled, but Keira knew that she and Raul had made the right choice; she looked out over the assembled group of shifters, and held each gaze in turn, asserting herself over every member of the community that had come to the challenge. She knew that there would be more battles to come—that there would be unrest from both groups as she and Raul brought them together—but Keira knew that she and Raul could handle anything that either the clan or the pack could dish out. They had survived, and stayed bonded, in spite of such long odds that it seemed to Keira that nothing would ever separate them; in the back of her mind, she felt the pulse of Raul’s agreement.
That was all she needed.
THE END
Lion’s Love And Honor
Part One
Saved By The Alpha Lion
When Charlie Flax gets wind of a burst of troubling criminal activity interrupting his family’s planned move, his pregnant wife Natalie urges him not to worry; after all, things like this tend to happen in their little Southern California town during the summer, but it always dies down by fall.
The other members of his pride hear the same from their mates, but something about their letters and calls doesn’t sit right with the Marine. After seven long months, he’s eager to return home and see what’s really happening for himself.
The truth is worse than he could imagine; a group of rogue lions has moved into their territory and are trying to wrest power from their matriarchal clan. Natalie and their unborn cub have been threatened and targeted so many times that she no longer leaves the house unless she’s surrounded by people capable of astounding violence.
Charlie is furious, but before he can form a plan, he’s face to face with a lion shapeshifter from the gang—and he has some dangerous decisions to make. What do these lion shifters really want—and how far are they willing to go to get it?
“Flight One eighteen now boarding first class passengers at gate three B; would first class passengers on flight One eighteen to Puerto Vallarta please begin boarding at gate three B now?”
Charlie was standing next to the terminal’s enormous conveyor belt, staring blankly at one spot and waiting for his vermillion duffle bag to float before his unfocused eyes. He was distantly aware that he hadn’t moved in a full minute—maybe more—but he was too absorbed in the task of trying to monitor every change in his environment to care about how strange he looked. Evan wasn’t around yet to remind him to be “normal,” so he was happy to keep twitching his ears toward the sound of rapidly moving feet even though the tiny human bones in his ear canal weren’t nearly as sensitive as the ones in beast form. He wanted to be alert, but his eyes were fatigued from the flight, and it was starting to make him jumpy.
Captain Roberts, please call gate seven; your co-pilot is holding. Captain Roberts, please head to the nearest courtesy phone to speak with your co-pilot who is holding at gate seven.
The announcements were clashing with his train of thought more solidly than usual, and he knew why; automatically, his right hand moved to the pocket of his jeans, where Natalie’s letter was folded into a compact rectangle already worn from being handled so much. He’d memorized its contents, but he kept pressing it to the tip of his nose to try to drag a few more particles of her scent into his lungs. Even months into her pregnancy, she still retained the same base scent: warm honey and sharp, sweet smoke, a heady aroma that warned of an intensity he knew could be fatal. She was the strongest person he knew, and the brightest; she often taught him something in her missives or phone calls without even meaning to, and never backed down when she knew she was right.
I got into a fight with Ariel while she was helping me pack up the basement because she wouldn’t believe that bears don’t really hibernate. My mother called and complimented me on my all-fruit dressing; she usually hates avocados, I was so surprised. Did you see that news story about all those diners that got sick—can you believe that waiter thought salt in coffee was a harmless prank? Grade school mistake.
This time, however, her letters had been cheery but sparse; they lacked the bubbly detail that usually padded out the thick envelopes she sent weekly, and sometimes even twice a week. Natalie no longer spoke of her chance meetings with old high school friends, or whose wife was having a hard time dealing with loneliness; now it was just pregnancy symptoms and a series of oddly detached retellings of incidents around their neighborhood. Their last phone call—right before the plane took off—had been the worst.
“Nat, I know something isn’t right.” His hand was sweaty so the slim black cell phone kept threatening to squirt from his grip. Evan was buckling into the seat next to him and fixating on the threads at the hem of his shirt, but Charlie knew he could hear every word. “I can hear it in your voice. I see it in your letters. Evan says Ariel isn’t acting right, either.”
“Charlie, everything is fine,” Natalie said soothingly for the fifth time in as many minutes. “A few busted windows, some kids jumping other kids…you know it happens.” The gentle rasp of her voice was carefully avoiding taking on heavy undertones, but Charlie could almost see her anxiously winding her dark brown hair around one finger as she paced around the living room. “We’ll start the move again when you get here. It’ll be fine.”
“Why did you have to stop the move in the first place?” Charlie asked. “I don’t understand that. The boxes were all finished five months ago. You said someone damaged the truck?” He remembered when he was younger having his property stolen or smashed when people found out he was a shifter. It was illegal, but it never stopped them, and the cops were often in on the games, since the shifter population intersected with the inner cities so often.
“The axle is bent,” Natalie answered, interrupting his reverie. “I want you to take a look at it before I get it messed with first. You know I’m useless with that sort of thing.”
Charlie closed his eyes, trying to keep the panic from spilling into his voice. His broad chest was tight with anxiety. “No, I don’t know that, Nat. Are you kidding me? I was with you when you made our old mechanic cry.”
“And I never got to know the new one!” Natalie retorted, her voice shrill. “I’m afraid of pissing this one off, too. Charlie, I don’t get what the big deal is. You’ll be home soon, and you’ll have all your answers then.” Her forced nonchalance snapped something inside him, and suddenly he was shouting.
“The big deal is that something crazy is happening and my wife is acting like it isn’t!”
A red-faced man twisted around in his seat to look at Charlie after he finished, and Evan laid a hand on his broad shoulder. The marine swallowed his anger with extreme difficulty and lowered his voice.
“I’m s
orry,” he murmured into the phone. “But I’m scared. Evan is scared, because Ariel won’t talk to him about their garage burning down— he had to hear it from Riley. You’re not telling me what’s stopping us from moving, and I know it’s more than the truck, because we have more than two friends with trucks and SUVs. And I’m hearing about people—grown men and women, not just kids—getting beaten and left in the streets. What’s going on, Natalie? And why won’t you tell me about it?”
The silence stretched on for so long that Evan turned to look at Charlie, his brown face forming a question when he didn’t hear Natalie speak. Charlie was about to ask if she’d hung up on him when she drew a deep, shaky breath and slowly let it out.
“Charlie. I…just trust me, okay? You’re right. You’re absolutely right, but I need to you trust me. Okay?”
It was the raw quality of her voice that finally broke the shell of tension around his heart and allowed him to relax. “Okay,” he answered. “Okay. I trust you.” Even though this is killing me.
“Thank you,” Natalie said, and there were tears in her voice. He realized then that the weight of holding this back from him was killing her, too. Whatever this is had better be worth it.
His bag came crawling by him on the carousel just as he snapped out of his memory, and he almost didn’t catch it in time. Charlie thrust one long arm out and closed his fingers around the bag’s thick strap just before it disappeared behind the curtain to be spun around the carousel again.
“Nice catch, Flax,” Evan said behind him. He’d already located his suitcase and was pulling it behind his body as he strolled up to Charlie, his wiry frame far too relaxed given their situation. “Got everything?”
“Yeah.” Charlie slung the bag across his shoulders and playfully popped his friend on one of his narrow shoulders. “How the hell are you so calm, Reynolds? You’re like a wind-up toy whenever we’re on deployment, and you’re the one who told me about all the attacks. Are you high?”
Evan grinned and fell in step beside his taller friend as they headed for the exit. “Just on life, Flax. Besides, we’re finally home. That means we can get to the bottom of this.”
Charlie looked sharply at Evan, whose dark chocolate face was mostly hidden behind a pair of huge sunglasses, but he could still see the grim determination on his face. “You sounded…very certain about that,” he said slowly, dragging his green eyes up and down his best friend’s stoic expression. “Did you find out something more when you called Ariel in the bathroom?”
Evan gave a single curt nod that set Charlie’s heart racing.
“Well why didn’t you say so!” Charlie yelped, and several people in the crowd ahead of them turned toward his raised voice. He felt blood rush to his cheeks and he cursed himself for losing control of his volume again.
A man caught his gaze in the crowd, short and incredibly tanned, with dark blue eyes and a full mouth pinched together in what seemed to be surprise. His sandy blonde hair was being lovingly ruffled by a lovely copper-skinned woman with black curls who seemed to be trying to style his wavy coif, but he was staring so intently at Charlie that he was ignoring all of her muttered instructions. Charlie felt a curious ripple of power pass between them, and it intensified as they got closer. Eventually the charge was unbearable, and he broke their gaze and lowered his head as they hurried past the couple. What was that about? Charlie thought, but as soon as they were out of the doorway and under the blazing Southern Californian sun, he grabbed Evan by his forearm and pulled him into the shade of the parking garage to their right, the incident driven from his mind.
“Okay.” When they’d stopped, Charlie pushed both of his hands through his short black hair excitedly, willing his pulse to reign itself in. “Tell me. Tell me what you know.” It’s the cops again, he thought. Trying to find a reason to stamp out the shifters, like last time.
“It’s more stuff about the abductions,” Evan said slowly, his voice cautious and deep. He slid the sunglasses from his face, letting his brown eyes pierce Charlie’s as he spoke. “And it does seem like they’re targeting younger people…but it’s not just jumping, and it isn’t random.”
“What do you mean?”
Pain and anger flashed across Evan’s dark brown eyes, and Charlie caught the scent of the feline beast stirring beneath his skin. “The young men being attacked are sometimes being taken, and they turn up weeks later across the country, or are found with their memories gone, and part of a completely different pride. They can only be identified by their fingerprints. And sometimes they’ve been…mutilated.” Evan paused and swallowed hard.
Charlie shook his head slowly, trying to understand his best friend’s implications. “Mutilated?”
“Like…eunuchs,” Evan finished. “Only some of them, though. And the women…sometimes they’re raped, and if not…they’re mutilated too.”
Charlie shuddered, and the icy terror he’d banished from his blood only hours before came rushing back to fill his veins and freeze his muscles in place. “So, someone is trying to wipe us out with a cull,” Charlie said vehemently. “It’s the lawmen again. They hate us, Evan. They don’t under—”
“I don’t think it’s the cops,” Evan cut in, and he dropped his eyes. “The targets don’t make sense.”
“Evan, they’re stopping us from reproducing,” Charlie spat. “They’re killing us. They tried this a decade ago, and I always knew they’d try again. Their targets make perfect sense. They’re targeting lions, and making sure they can’t ever breed when they’re finished. Setting us up and killing us indiscriminately didn’t work so well last time.” Rage was pounding in his ears, and the heat of the afternoon was finally starting to weigh down his body. “Who else could it be? Why would you think it could be anyone else?”
Evan looked deeply unsettled by his thoughts; he even put his shades back on before he spoke again. “Whoever this is seems to be targeting young lionesses to impregnate them. Some of the girls are four months pregnant. And the ones they’re mutilating are…Charlie, they’re already pregnant.”
“Already pregnant?” Charlie echoed numbly. “They’re…already…?”
Evan nodded. Charlie stared at him, listening to the blood rushing around his ears as he processed what Evan was telling him. Someone was beating and raping lions, and taking their young right from the womb. This was strategic. This was a genocide.
“It isn’t cops,” Charlie whispered. He turned on his heel and stalked away through the parking garage, leaving Evan to trot behind him toward their shuttle.
“I told you it wasn’t cops,” Evan said, annoyed, but Charlie wasn’t listening; he was too busy assembling the growing puzzle in his mind and trying to formulate a plan.
****
Charlie kept whipping his face against the vibrating glass of the shuttle’s window to catch glimpses of the streets and houses zipping by the van, and it was starting to rub the skin of his forehead raw, but he couldn’t help it— the town looked so different. Sierra Leandra was technically in San Diego county, but with its neatly divided sections, it looked more like a mini version of the county itself: wide open spaces for the first ten miles, populated with squat scrubs whose thin soils were graced with sprawling ranch houses and apathetic farm animals who milled border of the town; then came gas stations and main freeway exits; then strip malls started to pop up alongside boxy duplexes and apartment buildings surrounding the three public schools. There were two churches and a community college, a rec center, two malls, then a small business and entertainment district that blended nicely together on Friday evenings. On the other side of the bars and banks were gaudy houses—mini-mansions with huge bay windows and tall cream doors that opened into the sort of meticulously styled and polished rooms that begged to be lounged in by people of the same caliber. Charlie knew the layout of the town like the back of his hand, knew what each building would look like painted blue or yellow or burned down to black ash and rebuilt in brick, but he never thought he’d see it this
way.
The streets were completely empty, save for a few lonely adults strolling along the sidewalks or going into shops. Every window he could see was shuttered, and some were even boarded up. The rural part of town was even empty of llamas and geese—when he tried to focus on smelling them with his eyes closed, he couldn’t catch the scent of a single feather or puff of fur. One gas station looked open for business, but the lights were off inside, and the others looked like they had been closed for months. Horror gripped his stomach as they rode through the business section of town and saw that not only were the main malls closed and vacated, half of their structures had been pulled or knocked down. There was such a profound sense of wrongness about everything that even the warm hum of the engine didn’t do much to mask how quiet it was, and he felt bile start to rise in his throat. What is this? What’s happened? It looks like a ghost town.
“Flax,” Evan said suddenly, breaking him out of his trance. Charlie jumped at the sound of his last name and turned toward the other man, who was holding the now half-full water bottle the driver had offered each of them.
“What’s up?” Charlie asked. The next second he noticed that Evan’s posture had changed— it was ever so slightly, and the human driver almost certainly didn’t notice it, but it was there. His spine was more rigid, but his eyes were darting around the vehicle behind the dark lenses of his shades. He lowered his voice when he spoke so that it wouldn’t register to the driver’s ears.
“We’re being followed,” Evan said casually. “Black sedan with no plates. Big Native American guy driving who kinda looks like your wife’s brother, and a squat looking white guy in the passenger seat. I saw one of them pat a weapon on the ceiling roof to secure it. They’re not human.” His words came blunt and fast, and Charlie knew his military training was kicking in.
