by Tia Wylder
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 lost 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 nothin
g 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.
“I do not have time for games! Return to your human form now or I’ll snap your neck!” He shouted.
The panther retreated and my body returned. I was naked; my clothes had been left behind the barrels on the other side of the hold. Sergei’s eyes wandered down my bare body. I could see a spark behind his gaze. How long had it been since he laid eyes on a woman? I heard he was a recluse, but the hunger in his eyes told me he hadn’t felt a woman’s embrace in some time. I could use that against him.
“When you’re finished looking, I’d like to get my clothes,” I said.
Sergei snapped back to the present. “I was not, I mean, I did not expect—”
“Pick your tongue up off the ground and let me get dressed. Don’t worry, I’m not going anywhere. You won this round.”
I caught him off guard. His stone cold exterior was showing its cracks already. This would be too easy. I found my clothes and got dressed. Sergei seemed almost disappointed when I returned fully dressed.
“Lead the way,” I said.
Chapter Four
Madame Aveline was not what I expected. The way Brakha had described her, he made it sound like she and her clan had become feral. He painted the picture of a woman who had lost her humanity and given into the life of the Black Panther regardless of her form. When I encountered her in the trap I had laid, I found myself face-to-face with someone very different.
Even in human form, my eyes had become adapted to darkness. When she shifted back into a human, I felt emotions and sensations that had long been dormant. My eyes immediately took in her soft features and fiery eyes. My gaze wandered down her dark skin as it glistened with sweat. I followed the ample curvature of her breasts and slid down her flat stomach. Her legs were tucked together, offering but a glimpse of what lies between them.
There was no questioning it; she was beautiful, gorgeous even. It had been over a hundred years since I was able to feast on the site of the female form. She was an exquisite example. My lust, however, was quickly replaced with guilt as thoughts of Svetlana flooded my mind. She had been gone for so long, and yet the thought of even touching another woman still made me cringe.
I took control of myself; I had a job to do. She fetched her clothing and we departed the ship. Brakha and several of his clan members stood waiting for us as we emerged. I could feel the tension in the air between him and Madame Aveline. It grew into a powerful force that hung stagnant between us until Brakha spoke and cut the tension.
“You fell right into our trap, Aveline. I knew you would,” Brakha said.
“I see you couldn’t do the job yourself, had to send someone else?” Aveline asked.
“I didn’t want things to get messy. I prefer not to let our conflict of interest get in the way of what needs to be done,” Brakha said.
I looked between them and felt lost in the conversation. There was something Brakha hadn’t told me.
“What are you talking about, how do you know her?” I asked.
Brakha remained silent. Aveline laughed.
“You didn’t tell him?”
“Aveline, don’t.”
She looked over to me. “This pitiful excuse for a lion is my brother. Same mother, different fathers.”
I looked back to Brakha. “Is this true? You didn’t want your sister’s blood on your hands, so you bring me into this feud?”
“I promised our mother that I would never harm her. I cannot break that vow.”
“Of course, but your conscience is clear now because you found someone else to do the job for you? I’m leaving; consider yourself fortunate you still draw breath!”
“You leave and he dies wolf! Or have you forgotten? One call and they will cut him to pieces and feed him to the wolves!”
I reached over and grabbed Aveline by the arm and pulled her over to me.
“Fine, but I’m taking her with me. If he dies, she dies, or is that what you wanted?”
Brakha stood coldly at us. “She is my sister, but she is also my enemy. I wish death on my enemies, but I wouldn’t wish to see my sister suffer. You shall decide wolf, I wash my hands of this. Do with her what you will, but Aveline, if I ever see you again, I won’t hesitate to kill you.”
“Don’t worry brother, you won’t.”
“Go home, wolf. When my men see her with you in the hall of your castle, they will let your son go. I’ll be back in a month for my Instinct. You better have it, and she better be gone when I get there!”
We parted ways. Aveline broke free of my grasp.
“I’ll go quietly; you don’t need to pull me around like your dog. There’s nothing left for me here anyway,” she said.
I pulled out my phone and typed in a text message to one of my local contacts. I chartered a private flight back to Russia and asked him to send a car to pick us up. I slid the phone into my pocket.
“Aren’t you afraid I’ll kill you?” I asked.
“Something tells me you won’t,” she said.
“You don’t know me.”
I stopped at the edge of the dock. “A car is coming to pick us up, wait here.”
I r
eached into my coat and pulled out a hand wrapped cigarillo. It was a concoction of various herbs that calmed my nerves and dulled the wolf senses. Smoking this recipe was the only time I felt human.
I lit the far end and took a long draw. The pungent smoke rolled down my throat, leaving a trail of fire into my lungs. I blew out the white smoke into the night air.
“Would you like some?” I asked, holding it out to her.
“You should know better than to offer someone like me Instinct,” she said.
I smiled as I took another draw. “This isn’t Instinct that only comes in a liquid form.”
“Then what is it?”
“When you’ve learned to create your own medicine, you pick up some techniques. Try some; it will calm your nerves.”
Aveline took it and took a short draw from it. She immediately started coughing. I let loose a chuckle as I took it back from her.
“That tastes like the ass of a swamp!” She shouted.
“I don’t smoke it for the taste. The car’s here.”
As the black SUV pulled up to us, I snuffed out the lit end and placed it into my coat pocket. I couldn’t risk having any of my recipes being revealed.
We climbed inside and the driver locked the doors.
“Feel free to sleep, it’s going to be a long way back,” I said.
“I’ll sleep when I’m dead,” Aveline replied.
“Very well.”
We didn’t speak again for the rest of the trip.
Chapter Five
Brakha’s men were relieved to see us. I suspected that lions didn’t enjoy the cold very much. My son was released and I told him to go far from here. I would find him when things settled down. I took Madame Aveline down to the dungeons beneath the castle. I didn’t trust her or the doors on the cells after all these years. I placed her in the center of the cell, tied down to a chair so she couldn’t move.
