A Lion's Heart (10 page)

“Where are you taking me?” Tamarind asked weakly.

“Home,” she replied simply.

It should have made Tamarind feel less afraid, but he knew what waited for him there. “What does Katze want with me?”

She snickered. “He thinks that it was a mistake to send you away. He wants reconciliation.”

“Liar,” Tamarind snorted.

She smiled and her mouth was full of very long and very sharp teeth. “Not so innocent, I see,” she almost purred. “It's politics, cub, and that's the truth. He hasn't had any cubs with his females. The werelions ridiculously made engendering cubs a requirement for their rulers. Kiva claims Katze is his father, and his mother supports his claim.”

“Another lie,” Tamarind growled. “He was born before Katze took the Sun pride.”

She shrugged. “Who's to say if the female will not tell? Your
mother
has promised to claim the same for you. Katze, King of all the prides, will claim you as his son. Two cubs will be enough to satisfy nervous old weres and his rule will not be questioned afterward.”

“I saw him mate, Kiva as well,” Tamarind told her, puzzled. “Why haven't there been any cubs?”

“Are you certain they were mating with females, young cub?” the weretigress asked archly.

Tamarind thought about that, trying to remember half seen figures in the tall grasses. He wasn't sure, but Kiva had bragged... another lie?

“There are only you and his second, Kiva,” she told him. “You can become a prince. You can live at your ease with Kiva as sons of King Katze. You can make my job much easier by coming willingly, or... I can skin you and take your pelt back as proof of your unwillingness instead.” She ran a hand over his cinnamon fur. “It’s such unusual fur for a werelion. It's beautiful and so much better on a living were.”

Tamarind cringed, but his mind was already working. He could return home without fear and be adopted by a King. He could have Kiva at his side again. The bond a werelion male formed with other chosen males was very strong. Outside of that bond, or claiming a pride for himself, a male's life was solitary and short. Tamarind was being handed the best a werelion male could hope for and Tamarind warmed to it... until he remembered what his duty in that triad would be; mating females and taking his turn creating the next generation. Tamarind blanched at the thought of it and knew that he couldn't do it. Three male werelions, who would never have cubs, ruling all the prides. It was against everything that he had been taught, but so was one male trying to rule females and males outside of his pride.

“Why are the prides following him?” Tamarind wondered. “Why are they breaking tradition for this?”

She grinned and laughed. “Power, young cub, and solitary males wanting a place other than on the dangerous, open Savannah. Katze has promised them a great deal, even the prides of kings who will not bow to his rule.”

“But why war with the forest weres?” Tamarind persisted.

She sighed and paced away as if weary of his questions. “You make a common enemy if you want to bring warring prides together. The forest weres have been encroaching on our borders and making their houses there. It was easy to paint them as potential conquerors.”

“Is this King Katze’s plan, or yours?” Tamarind retorted.

Her tail twitched and her eyes glowed as she looked back at him. “I follow his orders, but I will take actions I deem necessary. Remember that.” She stretched out on the ground and made a yawning sound. “Sleep, cub. You have only a few hours before we need to travel again. By then, you must make a decision about the path your life is going to take.” She went very still then and her stripes made her one with the shadows.

Tamarind stared at the spot where he thought she was, but, when he moved to make himself more comfortable in his bonds, her glowing eyes opened elsewhere, studied him, and then closed again.

Tamarind closed his own eyes against the ache of his head and his muscles and tried to think about his future. He sensed danger and half-truths, but there was a chance that everything the weretigress was saying would come to pass. He tried to imagine himself at King Katze’s side, leading the combined prides into war with the forest weres. He shivered. If what the weretigress said was true, then the forest weres were trespassing. The war was just. The prides could only push them back by combining together.... yet, politics and power were behind it, he was sure. It came to him that maybe Shakra's Warden Kol might be playing the same game of false accusation and war.

“Sleep,” the voice of the weretigress murmured and her eyes opened in a completely different place. “Your choice is not so hard. Return home and live, or remain and die. It shouldn't be such a dilemma.”

Meaning he didn't have any choice. Tamarind thought about Shakra and his heart ached. He missed him already, a part of him burning for his touch and the sight of his dark blue eyes. Shakra was foolish, childish, and arrogant. Shakra wore arm bands, ate cooked meat, and lived confined to houses. He was a werewolf, colored like a half breed dog, and as musky as any animal in rut. A beast, Tamarind's mind thought derisively and refused to remember that he had returned that scent with one of his own and just as powerfully. His aching heart overrode all of those thoughts and Tamarind just... wanted... wanted the werewolf's touch, his strong hands, his soft nuzzle, and his thick fur brushing against his own.

“Cub!” The tigress was suddenly on him, jaws nearly at his throat and eyes like lamps in the moonlight. “Curb your scent or I will kill you here and now!”

Tamarind realized then that his scent was heavy on the air. Her near attack was cold water on his desire and the scent banked and died. That wasn't good enough for her, though. She spat angrily, “We must go. We will rest higher in the mountains. Betray me again, cub, and I will leave you in chunks for the buzzards and your wereprince to find.”

She gagged Tamarind again and then tossed him like a sack onto her back. She tied him there tightly and then ran with powerful bounds as if he weighed nothing.

Chapter Ten
 

“I can smell him, but it's old,” Shakra said, his ears laid back in anger. “Lormar, it smells like...”

Lormar was frowning and Kyrill looked frightened. “I only smell her, not anyone else,” Lormar said after a long moment of lifting his nose to the light breeze. “I doubt that a female were tigress would take a... sexual interest in an unwilling werelion and I doubt someone could force one without serious wounds. “

“But...” Shakra tried to think and then his ears went up. “He might have been trying to scent a stronger trail for us.”

Kyrill brightened as well. “Yes, I'm sure that's it. I think I've rested enough, my Prince. We should run again.”

“Your paws are getting raw,” Lormar told him worriedly. “You should stay behind. You're not a tracker or a hunter, Kyrill.”

Kyrill growled and his large ears twitched in annoyance. “I am not soft. I'll run as long as I can.”

Lormar began to argue some more, but Shakra began running again. Let them argue, he thought, or stay behind. He wouldn't let them slow him down. He knew he was good for a few miles more.

Shakra squinted up at the afternoon sun. The weretigress would have to rest and, sooner or later, they would catch up to her. Shakra thought of her large claws and teeth, her incredible strength and agility, and worried. With Tamarind loose, they might have a chance to defeat her, but a slight werefox and two young werewolves were hardly a match. He had to come up with a strategy.

“You have to be fast,” Lormar panted, suddenly beside Shakra. “You have to get on her back and snap her neck or stab her. It’s dirty fighting, but necessary. A full frontal fight will get us quickly killed.”

Shakra nodded, not sparing breath to reply.

Kyrill was falling behind already. If they had other enemies than the weretigress, he was vulnerable. Shakra made a decision. “Stay back with Kyrill. Follow as you can.”

Lormar's momentary hesitation was testament to his feelings for Kyrill, but he knew his duty too. “I have to protect you. If something happened to you, your werelizard would kill both Kyrill and me.”

Shakra smiled grimly, but the smile was lost a second later. He couldn't help wondering what chaos he had left at home. Shang would defend his throne, Shakra didn't have a doubt, but what were Tikena and Warden Tal doing now that she was ruler in his stead? What would that dangerous old werewolf, Warden Kol, do now that his power was no more? The longer he was away, the more likely it would be that Warden Kol would move against Tikena in the worst way.

There was a sound of alarm from Kyrill. He put on a burst of speed and caught up to them, tail like a banner behind him. “Wolves!” he shouted.

Shakra looked back, expecting weres, but saw plain wolves tracking them, following at an easy lope. They were big, pale like ghosts, and known for having such a dislike for weres, that they killed them where ever they found them.

Shakra knew their plan; wait until they tired, until someone lagged behind, and then attack that one with the entire pack. As long as they stayed strong and together... but Kyrill was glassy eyed from the pain of his paws and his weariness. His panic was keeping him in step with them, but that wasn't going to last. If they stopped and tried to defend themselves, the pack would circle and pull them down. They had to keep running.

“Up ahead,” Lormar panted. “The road.”

Shakra could see it, a tall marker of stone and a tumble of rocks that was the beginning of a ragged chain of mountains. He could also see the weretigress, her stripes and bright orange a flag in the sun as she left the hills and the green grass.

“Hurry!” Shakra begged. “Kyrill! You must make it!”

“I will, my Prince!” Kyrill promised.

Shakra put on speed. Lormar stayed at his side and, incredibly, Kyrill kept their pace. So, unfortunately, did the wolves. They were going to make it, Shakra felt as he saw the weretigress struggling through the rocks with Tamarind on her back, hampering her movements. He doubted that the territory of the wolves extended into the mountains, and he doubted very much that the weretigress could outdistance them now.

Jaws grabbed his ankle and jerked Shakra off his feet. Then a large, white male wolf was suddenly on him, fangs snapping. It had outpaced the others to catch what it considered another dominant male and it was determined to kill Shakra.

Shakra slammed his back paws into the beast's gut and shoved it off of him hard. He sprang after it, but Lormar was there before him, stabbing it in the heart with his blade. The other wolves stopped, scenting the death of their pack leader, but then they slowly began advancing again, wary, but still wanting their deaths.

“Leave me!” Kyrill panted. “I will hold them back!”

“No!” Shakra shouted in reply. “They would kill you quickly and still come after us. Run ahead. We will cover your retreat. Once we reach the mountains, I think they will stop.”

“But-” Kyrill began to argue.

“Go!” Shakra snarled.

Kyrill ran. Shakra and Lormar slowed their pace and kept their bodies between the smaller werefox and the pursuing wolves. The wolves could sense that they weren't the weaker of the group, even though Shakra was limping from his ankle wound, and hesitated. That allowed them to reach their goal.

The rocks were hard on padded feet and hands. Shakra winced and Lormar swore.

“I've grown soft on wood floors,” Lormar lamented sourly.

The wolves stopped at the rock line, sniffed the edge of their territory, and then marked the rocks as if warning them not to return.

“Blood!” Shakra exclaimed and pointed to the splotches along the rocks leading to the road. Lormar sniffed and ran ahead.

“Kyrill!” Lormar called.

They found him sprawled and unconscious among the rocks. Shakra checked him carefully and then sighed in relief. “He's exhausted himself, but he isn't harmed.”

“Except for the pads on his hands and feet,” Lormar sighed as he looked at the bloody pads. “He won't be able to go on. I can find a hiding place for him...” and leave him there, Shakra finished silently, but he could see Lormar's unspoken pain.

“No,” Shakra sighed and went to a high rock to look for the weretigress. The scent came to him faintly. “She can't go quickly carrying Tamarind and she has to rest after this climb. We... We should rest too. We have to be strong when we attack her.”

“Thank you, my Prince,” Lormar replied and Shakra looked back at him in surprise. The mountain were had not called him that in such a reverential tone before. Perhaps he had just earned it, Shakra thought. It didn't make the decision any easier for him.

**************

“Quiet,” Shakra said very softly as he inched up to where Tamarind was laying on the edge of the encampment. Tamarind's round ears swiveled back and his shoulders twitched, but he didn't make any other sign that he had heard. Flat to the ground, Shakra was one with the shadows, his black patches, inherited from his part mountain werewolf mother, useful for once as more than a source of embarrassment.

Tamarind's tail lashed back in agitation, almost catching Shakra in the nose. He scented fear.

“I will rescue you,” Shakra whispered. “I have other weres with me.” Shakra didn't say that it was a wild mountain werewolf and a foot sore desert werefox.

“No,” Tamarind whispered back. “Dangerous.”

The weretigress was sitting near a fire and gnawing on the shin bone of some animal with relish. She had met with a pack of bandits made up of many different types of weres, and she looked in complete command of the ragged, but well-armed band. The weretigress bit down on her bone and it snapped loudly in the quiet.

“If you keep eating like that, we will all starve,” a gray werewolf grumbled. “Hunting is lean in these mountains.”

A werecheetah sneered. “Rat-eater. If it wasn't for me, you wouldn't be able to get at the cliff goats.”

A were that Shakra had never seen before looked part goat. It grunted as it tore into a roasted bone. “You wouldn't last a minute in these mountains, skinny were,” he said around his mouthful. “We can always go back to eating mountain rats.”

The weretigress looked disgusted. She delicately wiped her mouth. “Enough talk. Now that Tamarind... Prince Tamarind, has decided to accompany us willingly, we have an easy journey to the Savannah.”

“Easy?” The gray werewolf spat aside. “Not so easy on this road, especially at this time of year.”

“Your reward will make it worth your while,” the weretigress growled.

“Mordara,” The gray were retorted, “Money is nothing if you are dead.”

Her tail flicked irritably, a flash of orange. She didn't dignify it with a reply, but her large eyes narrowed at the weregoat as if took a sloppy bite of meat dripping with grease. “Isn't that cannibalism?” she sneered.

“Cani-what?” the weregoat replied in confusion.

Shakra's ears were flat. The weretigress, Mordara, had said that Tamarind was going willingly. Tamarind wasn't bound any longer. He was sitting at his ease with leg of meat beside him. It was untouched and Shakra recalled distantly that Tamarind hated cooked meat.

Shakra inched forward until his head was resting against Tamarind's lower back. He nuzzled there and sighed. “Why?” he asked softly.

“It's my home,” Tamarind replied. “They won't harm me.”

“You're so sure?” Shakra wondered angrily. They had come so far, sacrificed so much, for this... for Tamarind to walk away willingly and make their sacrifice for nothing. “I left Tikena on the throne as regent... for you... I left my home, left my title... for you.”

Shakra sank his nose into Tamarind’s thickening mane of hair and smelled it, taking in his heady scent.

“I can't follow you so far, Tamarind.”

“And I can't stay.” Tamarind replied, but then added, “not until I know... until I see for myself.”

“What?” Shakra wondered.

“Whether there is a place for me there,” Tamarind replied in the barest of whispers.

Mordara's ears turned towards Tamarind and then she was rising, “My prince? You haven't touched your meal.”

“Cooked,” Tamarind replied as Shakra backed up into the shadows again. “I-I don't like cooked meat.”

“I can't afford for you to be finicky,” Mordara told him firmly. “There is nothing else for you to eat.”

“There is,” the werecheetah interjected. “Let our
Prince
hunt.”

Mordara raised an eyebrow and then measured Tamarind with her eyes critically. “He's just a cub.”

“I can hunt,” Tamarind replied irritably and stood up to join them at the fire. “You want more goats, I'll get them.”

Mordara licked her lips. “Well, I could use some more meat, but I don't want to delay our travel over much. Hunt cub, but I'll be on your tail.”

Tamarind growled in annoyance. “I said that I would go with you willingly.”

Mordara laughed. “I'm not a fool. Don't make that mistake. I'll trust you only when you are turned over to Katze.”

Shakra watched Tamarind scent the breeze and then he was gone, bounding like a spring over the rocks. The weretigress followed him at a more mature pace, but Shakra knew her power, knew that she could be on him far too quickly for Tamarind to escape. Shakra hugged the shadows and the fallen boulders, skirting the weres, and trying to keep his scent from betraying him.

He was in time to see Tamarind spot his prey, a group of mountain goats cropping the sparse grass on what looked like the sheer side of a mountain. Impossible, Shakra thought, and was afraid for the werelion. Tamarind didn't hesitate though. He used an outcropping for cover as he inched forward, the end of his tail twitching. When he was close enough, he sprang straight at the sheer mountain face. Shakra's mouth dropped open in awe as Tamarind's powerful arms and legs plucked a goat from its perch and the werelion allowed them both to fall down to a lower ledge with incredible accuracy. Tamarind flipped around and landed on his feet at the last moment, jaws crushing the beast's windpipe.

Mordara sat on her haunches with a blood lust grin, but Shakra looked away, nauseated as Tamarind feasted with relish. Shakra crouched in a huddle behind a rock and listened to bones crunch. After a time, Mordara lost patience.

“Stop, pig, or you will be too bloated to walk in the morning!” She jumped to the ledge, hefted the mauled carcass over one shoulder, and leapt down again.

Watching their power and easy grace as they went back to camp, Shakra felt a thread of self-doubt. What did Shakra's home have to offer someone like Tamarind? Werelions almost never left the Savannah. The werecheetah traders, or the more prevalent werecougars, were over large house cats compared to these creatures. Tamarind would be alone, powerful, beautiful, and considered a savage by everyone. Shakra was thinking that himself. Killer, savage: Tamarind wanted the taste of hot blood and fresh meat. He wanted the kill. There wasn't a place for that in the halls of the Keep.

“Careful, Prince,” Lormar's voice said in his ear.

Shakra started badly, tail tucking between his legs and teeth barred as he whirled on the mountain were. Heart pounding, he hissed, “How long have you been there?”