Pride

eXcessica publishing

Pride
© August 2015 by Candace Blevins

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This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental. All sexually active characters in this work are 18 years of age or older.

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First Edition August 2015

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Pride

A short story from the world of

The Chattanooga Supernaturals.

by Candace Blevins

Chapter One

I’d fucked up, and I knew it.

In Lion society, the males rule. Period. It isn’t open for discussion. A woman can never lead a pride. It isn’t like this for all animal groups, but it is for us and I’d long ago had to come to terms with it.

And then, of course, find a way to break the rules.

One by one, a group of women werelions had followed me to the fucking middle of nowhere, determined to be autonomous without a man over us. In the wild, if the male lion screws up too bad, the women can work together to get rid of him.

So, we lived in Trezevant, Tennessee, population eight hundred and fifty nine, if you count the nine werelions as people. There’s zero nightlife, but plenty of woods we can run through.

So, how had I fucked up?

We may not have a normal pride, with a lion we have to submit to and eat after on a daily basis, but we still have an Amakhosi, which is a fancy word for the Lion King. Of the
planet
. And he lives on the other side of the fucking state.

Except now, he was in my office.

In my defense, I had no idea who he was when he walked in. He’d been shielding his power, and I’d not only refused to show respect, I’d been openly hostile.

Now, I was cowering on the floor in front of him, my arms and legs under me, curled in a ball. Remember tornado drills in school? A lot like that.

“I’m sorry, My King. I had no idea it was you!”

Now, he was throwing so much power around the room, I could barely breathe. My ribcage felt like a drum at the bottom of the ocean, caving in from the pressure, and I fought to pull air into my chest.

When he finally pulled his power back, I sucked air into my lungs, lightheaded. I stayed on the floor, curled in a ball.

“You challenged me.” He didn’t sound cruel or angry. Just a statement of fact.

“I didn’t know it was you! I’d have never challenged you, if I’d known, Your Majesty.”

“Do you recognize the name Tim Baker?”

Fuck
.

The bitch of talking to other supernaturals is not being able to lie. “Yes, Your Majesty.”

“Do you know where he is?”

I nodded, realized he might see that as impertinent, and answered, “I do, Your Highness.”

I wasn’t prepared for this. I didn’t know for sure how to address him. I was flailing in the wind.

He sighed, sat in a chair, and said, “Permission to kneel, so we can converse. Tell me the story.”

I lifted my torso, balanced on my knees, and looked at his feet. “He wouldn’t leave.”

Another sigh. “Did you kill him in human form, or lion?”

“Lion, Your Majesty.”

“Where’s the body?”

“Under a building. Buried just before the footings were poured.”

There isn’t a lot of industry in the middle of nowhere. I own a construction company. Mostly, I make a living doing kitchen and bathroom renovations, or other home additions, but I’m occasionally hired to build a house or office building from scratch.

“Patrick Johansson?” The Amakhosi’s voice terrified me, even though he spoke soft.

I looked up, met his gaze, and realized just how fucked we were.

“He’s the reason you’re really here? Your Highness?
God
, what do I call you!”

He smirked. “
God
might be pushing it a little, but otherwise, you’re doing okay. Your group drugged him, put him in a cage, drove him to the Memphis Zoo parking lot, and then trapped him in animal form so the zoo workers found a lion in their parking lot when they arrived for work.”

I shook my head. “I didn’t know about it until after the fact, Your Highness, but I’m in charge so I take responsibility.”

“What did you do to them for going behind your back?”

“I don’t suppose you’ll take my word for it that I disciplined them?”

He didn’t say yes or no, didn’t tilt his head, didn’t move a muscle. Total deadpan face, waiting for me to answer.

“I have a strap-on I use, when we’re in human form. I reasserted my dominance with it, as well as a whip, and I made sure we
changed
in smaller groups for a while. I took on three of them in lion form the first time. They helped me bring the others in line a few nights later. I still haven’t allowed the ringleader, Becca, to
change
. I’ve been regularly fucking and whipping her, and she can’t heal, can’t
change
, can’t run, can’t hunt. She’s miserable.” And still wasn’t sorry for her actions, but I didn’t tell him that part.

“It’s been nearly two months. He didn’t dare shift to human and walk out, as he didn’t know where video cameras were. He had to wait until a lion shifter came, so he could push energy towards her and then hope she told the local pride leader, which she did. I was then informed of the situation, and I had to get some vampires involved so all of the zoo workers didn’t miss the lion that’d shown up out of the blue, and will destroy evidence of him if we missed something,
and
we had to hire a computer hacker to remove all records of him. For starters, you owe me around ten thousand dollars, and a few favors to some powerful vampires. Not to mention what you may owe Patrick for having to live in lion form for months. He’s having a hard time holding his human form, now.”

My shoulders slumped and I looked at the floor again. His voice was soft, deadly soft, as he asked, “You realize, if he’d been outed as a werelion because of your stunt, your whole pride would’ve likely been slaughtered by the Concilio.”

I nodded. “That’s why Becca, the ringleader, still hasn’t been allowed to
change
, and I’ve been fucking her raw for weeks. She sees me and drops to her knees now, Your Majesty.” But she still had a wall up, keeping me from the center of her.

Unfortunately, the Amakhosi wasn’t likely to let me hide any part of myself from him. He’d have me dropping to my knees when I saw him, too, when he was done with me. We both knew it.

“How many men have you killed, how many wouldn’t leave?”

“Four, Your Majesty.”

“Lions don’t understand murder. Humans do. Tell me, did you murder them, or do you feel it was self-defense?”

“In a human court of law, it’d be self-defense. Some of us, probably all of us, eventually, would’ve been raped — by human standards — had we not killed them.” I took a breath and admitted, “By lion standards? We’re supposed to defer to males. Lions don’t understand rape
or
murder. It’s survival of the fittest. So we were partly in the wrong, for not following the rules, but then again, we proved to be more fit, and we survived.”

“You know you aren’t supposed to be able to control the women the way you are, right?” 

I nodded. “I’m bisexual, and we have a few lesbians. We’ve worked to try to replicate the energy of a male led pack, with my playing the part of the lead male. We have male lions come in all the time, though, Your Majesty, challenging me. I react as a male, and since I have control of our little pride’s combined energy, I’m strong enough to run most off. Some, we all have to get together and run off, as a unit. We’ve probably run off at least fifty in the past two years, but four just wouldn’t leave. Five, counting Patrick.”

I looked up again, met his gaze a split second, and looked back down. “I think the strap-on is the secret. Just as the males want to control us with food and sex, it works for me, also.”

He leaned forward, propped his elbows on his knees. “Eye contact.”

I looked up, met his gaze, and wished I could crawl back down to the floor and curl into a ball again. His power pressed on me, forced me to his will.

“You and I are going to come to our own agreement, make sure you know you’re controlled by me, in
every
way. Depending on how that goes, I’ll either set you up so you aren’t bothered by men constantly coming in and challenging you, or I’ll disband you and send you all to different prides.”

“My life’s here, Your Majesty.” He could send me wherever he wanted. He owned me — I’d just been fortunate to have never come to his attention, before.

“Then I suggest you submit like a good little lioness and convince me you’ll do as you’re told, even when I’m not around to supervise.”

Chapter Two

He made me leave my truck at the office, and he drove us to my house. He took my keys from me as we walked down my sidewalk. He unlocked my door, walked in, and then stood there a few seconds, making sure I wouldn’t presume to walk into my own home without an invitation.

I stood at the door, my head lowered, and after a few seconds, dropped to my knees. Thank goodness my home is surrounded by woods, with no close neighbors.

“You may crawl in, and kneel beside the door while I look through your home.”

What’s mine is his. He was making sure I knew. Shoving it in my face.

I didn’t argue.

And I tried not to get pissed off.
Honest
, I did. I reminded myself of the rules, of what he could do to me, of the fact he could take me home with him, make me leave my life behind. Or, he could send me to another pride. One where I might be bottom of the pecking order.

None of it worked, though, and as I listened to him looking through my closets, opening and closing my drawers, tapping at keys on my computer, I grew more and more pissed.

So when he asked for my computer password, I took a good five seconds to answer. I tried as hard as I could to keep from answering at all, but his energy was so strong, so powerful, I couldn’t resist the order.

I knew I’d pay for those five seconds, though.

When he finally came back into my living room, he sat in the chair I usually sit in, and looked at me a few seconds before he said, “Sit on the sofa, Jessica.”

“Jessie. I go by Jessie, Your Highness.”

“You don’t think I know what you go by? I’ll call you by the feminine version of your name because
I’m
the man in the room, and I’m pretty sure you and I both know I’m going to have to demonstrate just how much of a man I am, and how much of a woman you are, right? You’ve already told me it’s how you assert your dominance to the other women. You know how it works.”