by Tia Wylder
My secluded location in northeastern Russia made shipping one of the premiere costs of my growing business, but those costs were quickly balanced by the ludicrous rates shifters were willing to pay for their supplies of Instinct. To prevent copycats, I made all the batches myself, which meant that I spent a majority of my time in my lab in the bowels of the castle.
Centuries of lifetime had afforded me not only strength and brawn, but also a genius intellect in the field of medicine. I refined Instinct with each batch I created, and while others made pitiful attempts to recreate the recipe, no one has been able to touch my empire. My connections with shifters in powerful positions of government also ensured that my products made it across international and state lines without hassle.
As I perfected the formula for Instinct, I found ways to allow the strengths of the beast to meld with the human side. Even in my human form, I had impeccable hearing, however it was not consistent. I had a theory that it was only triggered by adrenaline. Danger was the only thing that could awaken the sleeping beast within me.
My hands shook as I worked tirelessly with the equipment that lined my lab. Winding glass tubes travelled from basins to flasks. The process was complex and long. A single batch could easily take eight hours or more. I would often work through the night, pausing to sleep only if absolutely necessary. I picked up one of the flasks that contained a mixture of fermented liquids and breathed in the pungent scent.
A loud crash came from the floor above me. I set the flask down as my heart galloped in my chest. I heard methodical footsteps as adrenaline flooded my veins. As I made my way up the darkened stone stairway to the main floor, my heightened senses kicked in. I heard the ragged breathing of beasts and the slow pace of a predator.
I carefully approached the door at the top of the stairs. With as little pressure as possible, I pushed the door open and looked through the sliver of light. Moonlight passed through the glass windows of the main hall. I couldn’t see the intruders, but I could hear them. I stepped out of the doorway and into the main hall. I heard the low growl of a beast to my right. I turned and saw a lion standing before me. It bared its teeth as it slowly approached.
Another emerged from the shadows to my left. These lions were a long way from home, they had to be shifters.
“Do you know who I am? I am Sergei Ivanov, creator of Instinct and last of the dire wolf clan! You will abandon your beast forms, or you will die by my hand!” I shouted.
The lion to my right leapt forward. Its claws dug deep into the flesh of my shoulder as I fell to the ground. I threw the lion off and relinquished control as rage consumed me. The beast within was more than happy to come forth. Thick fur ripped through my skin as my bones shattered and reformed. Instinct worked against the process, but with enough focus and a catalyst like danger, the beast would break free.
It was painful beyond measure. I could feel the very structure of my body, my organs, and bones changing. Perhaps the most terrifying aspect was the change in facial structure. My eyes shattered like glass and I was submerged in darkness as my entire head formed into a long snout and my teeth grew into thick teeth.
I stood to my feet as a dire wolf and looked through the eyes of a predator that hasn’t roamed this world for thousands of years. The two lions stood on either side of me. I had some control over the dire wolf, but its instincts were sometimes too powerful to control. I was forced to watch as the violence unfolded in moments like these.
The lions made the first move and charged toward me. I felt my legs clench and I shot off just as the lions closed in. I ran to the far end of the hall and spun around to face them. They regrouped and came at me again. My lips peeled back, and a fierce snarling bark came from deep in my throat. The lions showed no signs of stopping. The wolf took over and leapt with incredible speed onto the back of the right lion. It let loose a shriek of pain as my nails dug into the flesh of its back. I brought my open jaws down around its neck and bit with incredible force.
Even though the blood tasted bitter to me, the dire wolf relished in the flavor; it eased up on the bite for only a moment before clenching its jaw down again. The lion collapsed from blood loss and lay silent on the ground beneath me. I could feel the thundering rhythm of the lion’s heart as its blood filled my mouth. It soared and pounded fiercely as it clung to life, but soon I felt that life fade until there was nothing left.
I heard the other lion to my left and swung around to face it. The lion roared, sending a deafening echo through the main hall. I replied with deep howl filled with bloodlust. The lion and I stared each other down from across the main hall. The ecstasy of the kill still flowed through my veins. I was eager for another and ready to fight. The lion made the first move.
“Stand down!” A booming voice shouted.
The lion stopped and looked to the doorway. I followed its gaze and saw a towering black man standing in the entrance of my castle. He wore a pair of black pants, but his chest was bare. He had a long thick coat made from animal skin and fur. The moonlight glistened on his chiseled abdomen and his bald head. I looked back to the lion to ensure it wasn’t going to try anything while my attention was divided. It remained still.
“Return to your human form, now! Do it or he dies!” The man shouted. He spoke with a thick Creole accent that told me he was a long way from home.
He snapped his fingers and stepped to the side. Another, much smaller man in thick winter clothing stepped through the doorway with a man whose hands were handcuffed behind his back. This man I recognized. I had no choice but to shift back. Thankfully the lion did the same. I stood to my feet, naked and freezing as I faced the only connection I had left to the woman I ever truly loved.
The man was my son, Dmitri. Over the course of my centuries of life, his mother was the only woman that I felt truly bonded to. I did not believe in soulmates or destiny, but when I met her, I became a believer in the romantic story. Of course, she was human, and even knowing what I was, she still stayed with me until time wore her down to nothing. Our son was only half-shifter. He could not transform into a beast, but he still had the blood of the wolf within him.
It gave him instinct, strength, and the longevity that we shifters enjoy. When he mother was taken by death, I wanted to disappear into the folds of time and abandon my quest. Dmitri did not let me; he helped me find some kind of peace between the pain. He was my last connection to her. I would die before watching harm come to him.
“I stand before you, bare and unarmed. I mean you no harm, so long as you release my son,” I said.
The black man’s eyes went wide as he looked past me and saw the corpse of the lion I killed.
“You wish to speak like men, and yet you slaughter one of my own like the dog that you are? I should have you killed, but you’re no use to me or any of us if you’re dead. Instinct is a powerful drug, you were smart to keep the formula a secret,” he said.
“Is that why you are here, to try and steal the formula? Far greater men than you have tried. None of them left this place alive.”
The man laughed. “No, I am not here for your empire. I have my own clan to watch over. I am here because I have been a long time purchaser of Instinct and recently I’ve been missing my shipments. What’s more is that my supplier has mysteriously vanished.”
“Who are you?” I asked.
“I am Brakha, leader of the lion shifter clan in south Louisiana. When I couldn’t reach my supplier, I decided to go over his head and talk to the one in charge.”
“Well, Brakha, I fail to see how this is my concern. I do not handle shipment, only creating the product. I know you’ve come a long way, but I cannot help you. You’ll just have to deal with your problem yourself.”
Brakha growled and grabbed Dmitri from the other man’s hand. He pulled back his coat and ripped a long machete out of a sheath that dangled on his leg. He pressed the blade against Dmitri’s throat. The boy stood silent in the face of death.
“Without Instinct, I have lo
st many of my brothers. They turn and threaten to undo all the work we have done to stay secret! I have had to kill them myself to protect our people! The blood of my people is on my hands, and soon it will be on yours! The Black Hand will not stop with my clan, soon they will cut more ties until your entire empire comes crashing down! Without you, without Instinct, the humans will discover us, and we will be outnumbered. If you truly wish to see our people survive, then you will come with me and end this menace!”
“You have my attention, Brakha. I will come with you, but only if you release my son,” I said.
Brakha lowered the machete and sheathed it. “Your son stays here with my men. You will come with me and find the leader of the Black Hand. When she has been caught, we will return here and you will give me the Instinct that has been taken from me, at no cost.”
I had never been in such a situation before. In all my years I was the one with the power, with nothing to lose. Dmitri made me weak in as many ways as he made me strong.
“Very well, I accept your terms,” I said.
Brakha released my son to one of the other men. I looked at him and he looked at me. A thousand words were said with a single glance. He thanked me, told me to come back alive. I told him to cooperate until this ordeal was at an end. All of this was said in silent passing as I followed Brakha out into the cold.
“Shift and follow me. We have a long road ahead of us,” Brakha said.
Brakha turned into his lion form and I returned to my dire wolf. Together we charged off into the snow covered forest. For a brief moment my thoughts wandered to her, to Dmitri’s mother Svetlana. Every time I looked at him I saw her. If she were here, she would tell me to go and do what must be done. She would tell me to save our son. Wherever she was, I wouldn’t disappoint her,
I will do what must be done.
Chapter Three
I remember the first time I saw Instinct. It was a sickly green colored liquid suspended in a syringe. Brakha told me I had to take it, that not only the lions, but the panthers, the wolves, the bears, and all of the shifters would die without it. I saw it a different way, I saw it as yet another means of controlling us. Why do we cower in fear of humans? Is it simply because they have the advantage of numbers? Shifters are stronger, shifters are smarter, and shifters deserve this world far more than they do.
I left the clan and gathered the other panthers to my side. We met in darkness and slept in the sewers beneath the city and the swamps that surrounded it. During the day, the French Quarter was our territory, and for a time Brakha respected that. He knew that I believed in our gifts, that I could control the panther within, and I didn’t need a drug to do it for me. Instead of trying to change our nature, I sought to embrace it.
The other panthers in my clan, like most shifters, couldn’t control when the beast took over. As animals, they would wander the streets of the French Quarter and wreak havoc. They would wander into Brakha’s territory and wound or kill his people all while under the influence of their other halves.
Brakha became furious, demanded that we take the drug and control ourselves. I still refused, and soon he declared war on the Black Hand, on my people. He was blinded by the drug, perhaps even addicted to it. I had to clear his mind to avoid more bloodshed among our people. I cared not about the humans, but it wounded me deeply to see shifters fight, brother against brother or sister.
I had to remove the drug, maybe then his mind would clear and Brakha would see that these are not gifts to suppress, but instead something we should embrace. If the humans would stand in our way, then they would become our new prey.
And so, plans were laid. I would join my fellow panthers and stop not only his incoming shipment of Instinct, but all of the ones coming into New Orleans. He would have nowhere to go, no one to turn to. I already destroyed two shipments over the last several weeks, and then this new one came to my attention. Perhaps Brakha paid for a rush delivery? It didn’t matter, when this one was gone, he would be left without recourse. Shipments came rarely so I only had one shot at this to prevent war between our people.
We approached as humans under the cover of night. A large shipping vessel was coming into port. I stood with six others at the fence that surrounded the docks.
“Give me the wire cutters,” I said.
One of the women with me handed over a pair of cutters and I went to work cutting through the chain-link fence. There was sparse security during these shipments. There were very few people they could trust to keep this secret under wraps. I cut in a circle and pushed out the center to create a simple yet effective hole in their security.
I stepped through first and we quickly made our way to one of the large stacks of metal shipping containers. We regrouped and I looked over to one of my girls. She was holding a large cloth bag with explosives that I acquired through my connections and with a few womanly wiles. There was something men found irresistible about a sleek and sexy black woman known for her roots deep in the Voodoo culture of New Orleans. I was a mystery to them, an enigma that they wanted desperately to solve.
If there’s one thing I learned, it’s that a good mystery on a woman is far more seductive than any dress. Curiosity was the ultimate downfall of any man. Their lust for knowledge and power are the strings I pull to get what I want, when I want it.
I pointed to each of my comrades. “Each of you, take a brick of C4 to your position. You’ve all done this before, and this time is no different. Remember to arm it when you’re finished. We will meet back here in ten minutes. If you’re not here, you get left behind.”
My girls split up and scattered into the shadows. The others were assigned structural weaknesses on the ship. My task was the most important. It wasn’t enough to simply sink the freighter, I had to be certain the Instinct within was eradicated as well. That’s why I always took the hold. The stuff was incredibly volatile when explosives were involved, so it made for the perfect catalyst.
I cut across the graveyard of containers stacked high above. Beams of moonlight broke through the gaps and painted milestones on my path to the ship. I clung tightly to the brick of plastic explosive in my hand. It was no larger than a standard package you’d receive in the mail, but it was enough to bring down an empire.
One of the guards near the ship was already unconscious. He lay sprawled across the ground just beside the bridge that led onto the ship. I told my girls not to kill unless they absolutely had to. I knelt down and pressed my fingers against his neck. I felt a pulse, a weak one, but it was there.
I made my way onto the ship. I expected to see at least one of my girls moving and winding through the maze on the upper deck, but it was deathly silent. The voice of the panther in the back of my mind told me that something was wrong, but I was so close to victory over Brakha that I ignored its cries.
As I made my way down to the lower decks where they kept the supplies of Instinct, I felt the panther’s influence weighing down on me. That side of my being detected danger and it didn’t trust me to handle it properly. A human was nothing compared to the raw power and skill of the Black Panther. I suppressed it and held it back. I needed human hands to arm the bomb.
I reached the hold and saw rusted barrels stacked high that held the raw liquid Instinct. It would be distributed in syringes and rationed out to the shifters in this area for months before another shipment would come. I walked over to one of the barrels and pulled the lid open. It was empty.
“What is this?” I asked.
“This, little panther is a trap,” a voice said. It was low and thick with a Russian accent tying the words together.
I spun around and stared into the darkness. I couldn’t see properly with human eyes. The panther within me screeched and roared for control. Now was the time. My body twisted, broke, mended itself, and then broke again in a hundred different ways before I adopted the sleek and stealthy form of a black panther. I darted behind a stack of barrels and looked through eyes that pierced the darkness.
I
could smell his scent. He wasn’t afraid; in fact, he seemed excited by the thrill of the hunt. I slinked through the shadows and approached him from the left. He had the scent of a wolf on his skin, but he was in human form. It was like no other wolf I had ever smelled. The pieces were falling into place. It quickly became apparent who this was and why he was here. This was Sergei Ivanov. He was the creator and sole distributor of Instinct.
“You’ve made quite the name for yourself over the past few weeks. Our mutual friend, Brakha saw fit to travel halfway round the world to enlist my aid. Beyond your petty protests, I have no quarrel with you or your clan. Show yourself and we can resolve this peacefully,” he said.
His voice sounded tired, as if he had fought enough wars to know when it was time to fight and when it was better to simply speak. I wasn’t about to simply surrender to him. The panther within me would not allow it and for now it was in control. I turned a corner and saw him standing in the center of the dark hold. He was tall with a wide and chiseled frame. I couldn’t make out any other features in the darkness, but he exuded power and wisdom. I heard stories of him, but so few had actually been in his presence that I wrote them off as tall tales of an immortal and dying breed of shifter.
Some say he was thousands of years old. Standing in his presence, I was inclined to believe them. He didn’t look a day over 25, but the way he spoke and carried himself told the story of a man who had seen and done enough to fill a hundred lifetimes. Had we not met as enemies I would have been thrilled to speak with him and listen to the countless stories he could offer.
This was my chance to strike. I charged forward on light footsteps and approached from his left. He turned just as I was about to pounce and I felt his icy blue eyes cut into me through the darkness. He reached out with a thick hand and gripped me by the neck. He fell to his knees and flipped me onto my side. I struggled and shrieked but his strength was overwhelming.
