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  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.”

  Yes, I did, but I wasn’t used to the male lions talking to me about it. They usually just tossed me around, did as they pleased, and then ordered me to cook them something to eat.

  “I do, Your Majesty.” I wanted to ask him to just get it over with, but for once, I held my tongue.

  He sighed and leaned back. “Do you know how old I am?”

  I shook my head and he said, “Answer out loud, Jessica.”

  “I don’t know how old you are, Your Majesty.”

  “I’m a little over eight hundred years old. I originally fought for Amakhosi to save the woman I loved. When I took on the mantle, I gained long life, but she didn’t.”

  “Woman? Your Majesty? She was human?”

  He nodded. “But that isn’t the point. The point is, I’ve been King of the Lions for a very long time, and for a while, I lost my humanity. A good friend helped me find my way back, and I try hard to balance my human side with the lion’s.”

  “Is that why I’m sitting on the sofa, and not the floor?”

  He smiled. “Glad you have a brain in that hard-headed skull of yours. The point is that we know what has to happen, but I’d rather not rape you. Lions in the wild don’t see it as rape, and there have been periods of time I didn’t, either. Now, I do. I’ll let the lion’s instincts take over if I must, the hierarchy can’t be fucked with, or bad things happen. However, this’ll go a lot easier if you submit.”

  “So, if I submit, you won’t hurt me?”

  He didn’t try to hide his apparent sadistic streak. “Oh, no, it’s going to hurt no matter what. The only question is how bad it’s gonna hurt.”

  I hadn’t used a term of respect in my last sentence, so I started with one, now. “Your Highness, you know I’ll be fighting the lion’s instincts, too, but I’ll do my best to submit, My King.”

  A curt nod. “Any neighbors who can hear you scream from here?”

  “No, Your Majesty.”

  “And your girlfriend won’t be home until the weekend?”

  “She’ll be home Friday evening, Your Majesty.”

  “Your room downstairs, with the stocks and cage. What do you call it?”

  “The punishment room, Your Majesty.”

  “It isn’t a playroom?”

  “No, Sir.” He looked at me a few heartbeats, and I tried, “No, My King.”

  “So, you aren’t into kink in your human relationships, you only use it for your role as pride leader?”

  “Kink? Sure, we’re kinky, but I don’t whip her or put her in the cage unless I need to assert my dominance, which I never have to do, with my girlfriend. The punishment room is for the pride.” I shrugged. “My upstairs strap-ons are normal, not like the one in the punishment room.”

  He nodded and stood. “Strip and go downstairs. Kneel beside the stocks. I need to step outside to my truck a moment, and then I’ll be down.”

  Chapter Three

  The concrete floor was cold. It was supposed to be, but it wasn’t helping my nerves.

  I felt adrenaline dump into my veins with every step the Amakhosi took on his way down the steps, and I was a bundle of nerves by the time he came into view. I didn’t dare look above his expensive, clean, athletic shoes, though.

  The worn jeans and faded tee had made me think he was another vagabond lion come to try to take over someone else’s pride, when he first stepped into my office. After a long day on the construction site, I’d intended to take care of paperwork long into the evening, but my plans were shot before I even made them. I just hadn’t known.

  “We’re going to drop Your Majesty, and stick to either My King, or Your Highness. Should you decide you can say it and mean it, you have permission to call me Master, if you like. You understand the term is much more personal, and I’d rather you not say it unless you’re feeling it.”

  “I understand, Your Highness.”

  “I assume there are no health issues I should know about, since you’re a strong lioness who leads a pride, but I’ll ask, anyway.”

  “No, You
r Highness, I’m healthy.” And shocked you asked, but I didn’t say that part out loud. I looked at the floor and used every ounce of courage I could muster to tell him, “I don’t want to get pregnant, please, My King?”

  “Hmm. I’m your King when you want something of me?”

  There was no good response, so I looked at the floor and kept my mouth shut.

  Werelion men can wear a condom with human women and stay safe, but when they have sex with a lioness, their cocks grow little sharp barbs shortly before they orgasm. Their last fifteen to thirty thrusts tear us up inside, but our physiology needs this in order for us to ovulate little werelion eggs. If we want to get pregnant with a werelion, we need to have sex dozens of times a day, until we’re pregnant. If he only had sex with me a few times, I wouldn’t be likely to get pregnant. However, in order to impress upon me how dominant he is, he’d likely want to fuck me raw, dozens of times a day.

  He folded his arms, considering, and finally said, “Since you appear to be trying to cooperate, I won’t mindfuck you with this. The Amakhosi has talents other lions do not. I can control whether there’s sperm in my ejaculate, or not. I don’t want babies with you, Jessica, so I won’t impregnate you.”

  He was rewarding me for my submission, showing me he wasn’t the cruel tyrant I’d heard of. I leaned forward, put my forehead on the ground, and said, “Thank you for telling me, My King.”

  “I’m the strongest lion on the planet. Everything I do is a choice. I’m not ruled by my lion, or by my instincts. The barbs on my cock can come out at any time, not just before I release. Or, I can withhold them, even when I’m with a lioness.”

  He squatted down beside me, touched my cheek, and urged it up. I let his hand direct me, until I was kneeling, looking him in the eyes.

  “You’re strong, more powerful than most males, and I need to make sure we both know you’re my lioness. A simple fucking isn’t going to do it. You know I’m going to have to break you. As leader of your little pride, you understand what I have to do, don’t you?”