Feral Pride (17 page)

DAD GOES HEAD OVER FEET
, round and round. His eyes are shut tight. Is he crying?

At least now I know he’s not one of the bad guys.

“Stop that,” I yell. “He’ll throw up!”

“Boreal,” Seth calls. “Spin it again!”

“I thought you might fasten the governor to the wheel, spin her, and throw until you . . . miss.” Boreal rushes to present Seth with a selection of butcher knives on a literal silver platter. “The circus theme could still serve, and it’s already paid for.”

“You don’t have arms!” I shout. “How are you going to throw anything?”

I try to bite the snowman to my left and end up with a mouthful of white fur. “You are
not
going to kill my father!” I exclaim, spitting it out.

“Silence,” Seth says, and a thick, heavy palm covers half of my face.

“Greetings, Mr. Barnard.” Arms ending in tapered hands extend from Seth’s scaly torso. He throws and misses. His blade strikes wood between Dad’s neck and left shoulder. “We instructed you to personally resolve, by which we meant
eliminate
, or contain, your child.”

Or maybe Dad was pretending to be one of the bad guys, but he betrayed them.

“I did contain her!” my father insists. “She’s not a werebeast. She’s not disposable like the others. I brought her here to prove she’s no threat.” Disposable?

“You think not?” Boreal asks. “Junior is gone! His reintroduction to the human-shifter world could prove the existence of my species. It was up to me to contain him! It would be my failure, my responsibility.”

The snowman spins Dad again, and Seth selects another knife to throw, this time missing my father’s crotch by two inches. When the wheel slows to a teeter, Seth asks, “Last words?”

“Yes!” My father is hanging upside down. “Let me and Aimee live, and I’ll return the
Homo deific
boy to you.”

“I don’t trust the human,” Boreal says. “He’s losing his hair and has an MBA.”

“You can hold on to Aimee as collateral,” Dad tells him.

He’s not seriously planning to leave me here and go kidnap Junior. When Mom finds out about this, he can kiss his visitation rights good-bye.

“Think about it. She and I also are the only
Homo sapiens
here. I’m a well-known media spokesperson for a major international conglomerate,
your
major international conglomerate. She’s a cute blond middle-class girl child. We would be missed. Questions would be asked. Human authorities would be persistent. Human media would make sure of it.”

Demons are known to enjoy deal making and to honor the letter — if not the spirit — of their agreements. Still wielding the knife, Seth circles the amphitheater. “Go on.”

Dad brings his pitch home: “I’ll return the boy to you. Then you return my daughter to me, along with a buyout, a six-figure bonus, and a full benefits package. As a result, these
Homo deific
, under the formidable guidance of . . .”

Seth’s bow is almost courtly. “I am Seth, the Original Sower of Discord!”

“Pleased to meet you, Mr. Seth. Bottom line: Y’all can execute the governor, start an interspecies war, make billions on MCC’s anti-shifter product line, and nobody will be the wiser.” Who
is
this person who looks like my father?

“Very well!” Seth replies. “Return with Junior — just the two of you — here to the theater in time for the show, and our agreement will be sealed.” Seth tosses the butcher knife, and it goes wide. “You have until 8:30
P.M.
central, or your ‘cute blond middle-class girl child’ is forfeit.”

ON SUNDAY
the sun sets in a smear of tangerine and lavender. I’m seated, cross-legged, on the long-leaf pine floor in the attic of the hideout house, staring out the arched window at the treetops. Leaves bud, blue jays battle, squirrels race. “We’re playing into Seth’s . . . fangs.”

“Yeah,” Yoshi agrees, coming up the stairs. “On the other hand, we’ve got no reason to doubt he’ll execute the governor. Our Lion king video is a hit, but most people still think Seth is a weresnake. They don’t believe in demons — they don’t want to. If Lawson dies and the public buys in to Seth’s declaration of war, it won’t be phony feds out for our skins. It’ll be real ones. And they’ll be gunning for anybody who can take animal form.”

Yoshi sounds so grown-up and responsible. I was sure, of the two of us, I was the more mature one. I tilt my head at a mournful, distant sound.

“Train whistle,” Yoshi muses. “The tracks run along Highway One.” He lowers himself behind me, straddles my back with his legs, and rests his chin on my shoulder. “You and me, kitten, we could hop a train tonight, ride it out of town, out of state, out of the country.”

It’s a seductive fantasy, but . . . “I’m all over the Internet, millions of views already.”

“You don’t look like that girl anymore.” His breath is hot against my ear. “Change your name. We could start over. Or forget me. You can have my car, Kayla. Go home to Pine Ridge, skip the big showdown. Take a page from the yetis. Claim the park video was a hoax. It might take some doing, but you can have your old life back.”

True, my future isn’t written. It wouldn’t be easy, but I might still be able find a way to pass for a human being again. I could, for the most part, go back to the Kayla I was before I confessed my heritage to Ben. Or I could put myself on the line, end up dead tomorrow, and I’ll have wasted tonight worrying about it. “I want to do something that matters.”

“Me, too,” Yoshi admits, his body heavy against mine. “But I’d rather do some
one
who matters.”

Did he really say that? I growl, twist to pounce, holding his hands above his head at the wrists, our bodies parallel. “We were having a serious conversation.”

“I offered you my car!” he replies. “I don’t get more serious than that.”

We bust up laughing, and Yoshi rolls us, so we’re lying side by side. I keep my voice light. “You think we’ll be all right?”

“Us?” He stays man-shaped but releases his saber teeth and glossy black fur. “We’re too pretty to die.” He’s resting one hand on the curve of my hip and the other under my breast. “Show me.”

Show him . . . oh. That’s sexy. I don’t have Yoshi’s control, but Cats are better at shifting than other werepeople. With superficial features, we can linger seconds longer in between. I showed Ben, and he ran from me, but Yoshi would never do that. I unleash, feral and needy, cradle the back of his neck, and urge his lips to mine.

We shove away the crisis, the clock. I show Yoshi my spots, and he traces them with his tongue. This is how Cats were meant to be. I loop my legs around his waist, sinking into fur, flesh, and friendship. He knows what he’s doing, and I’ve always been a gifted student.

I can’t say that I love Yoshi, not yet, but I love all of myself when I’m with him.

MOUNT BONNELL ISN’T SO TALL
that you can’t jog up it. If you’re in good shape or a Lion-Possum, or, in my case, both. There’s a long limestone staircase, complete with metal handrail. It cuts through the sage and cacti from the curving road to the top.

The summit is popular with tourists. At night the white stone and wood patio looks spooky and sacred. Vaggio Bianchi, the original chef at Sanguini’s, his funeral was held here. On that big flattish rock off to the downward-sloping side, that’s where my parents got engaged.

I requested this midnight meeting. Yeah, the midnight part was mostly me being dramatic. I’m surprised that Leander came alone. It’s a relief, though, that I’m not going to have to throw down with his ginormous Liger. The darkness is no problem. Both my animal forms see well in low light. That ability hangs on.

“It’s late, my son.” His broad back is to me. King Leander surveys the scattered lights below and across Lake Austin.

My son? Who does he think he is, Darth Vader? “I’m here to talk about Seth.”

“As am I.” Leander glances over his shoulder. “You had no right to call him out on my behalf. You are not the king of the werelions. I am.”

“Like I care. Besides, you’re not my father. You’re not my king. I was raised a Possum. I’m proud of the dad who’s there for me.”

“He’s not here for you now.” Leander turns. He raises a hand to say stop. “Now that you have invoked my name, the Pride fully supports my taking a stand against Seth.” Golden fur ripples across his face, his body. “It is expected that I thwart his attempt to stir hostilities between
Homo shifters
and
Homo sapiens.
”

His subjects all believe Leander’s playing hero. He’s pissed at me for putting his royal ass on the line. I step up on a stone border. “How did you get to be king?”

“By birth right,” he replies. “As will my eldest full-blooded Lion son after me.”

Good luck, bro, whoever you are. “You didn’t fight to the death?”

As he yanks back his shift, Leander’s scowl is epic. “We are not animals.”

Touchy. Shows how much I don’t know about my Lion heritage. “I’ve battled Dracula Prime,” I announce without mentioning that the Count left me in a coma. “I killed a Scholomance-trained sorceress.” An accident. “I rode a wereorca in triumph as Daemon Island burned in my wake.” I didn’t start the fire. The Orca saved me from drowning.

I rehearsed this on the way over. I don’t only want Leander to step aside.

I want him to look at me and regret what he’s missing.

Channeling
Camelot
, I ratchet up my best kingly voice. “Of the two of us, who is more likely to triumph over Seth? I have no interest in revealing my true self as the victor. Should I perish, you will live on to rule as a symbol of courage and shifter solidarity.”

“I’ve had worse offers.” The scowl fades. Leander sinks to sit on the rock wall. “Seth relishes conflict and trades in children. His venom is deadly, excruciating, and acts quickly. He can also constrict, crushing his opponent, a combination that is unusual —”

“You said Seth is a shape-changer.” I jump down but remain standing. “Can he morph three heads? Become a machine-gun robot? Turn into supermodel Saffron Flynn? Split into an army of snakes —
what
?”

“Such an imagination.” Leander’s chuckle is weary. “
The Book of Lions, the Book of Old
refers to him as ‘the serpent.’ The Sower of Discord, the first of his breed. They say he can take the form of man, but no animal except the snake. The snake is his base form.”

“That’s it? He can turn into some guy?”

Leander isn’t amused. “In man form, he’s much of the reason being a wereperson is punishable by death in nations like Morocco, Saudi Arabia, and Singapore. That Iowa state senator who wanted to legalize human-shifter marriage? Seth was the one who released his sex tape with the weregenyornis.” The Genyornis are werebirds, originally from Australia.
Homo sapiens
’ bias is greater against shifters whose animal-form cousins have gone extinct.

Leander glances at his gaudy watch. “It’s even allowed him to infiltrate shape-shifter communities. This isn’t the first time he’s pretended to be a weresnake. He’s indulged his hunger for attention, traveling with shifter-owned sideshows and carnivals.”

I’m reminded of the “Man-Eating Snake” carnival poster in Granny Z’s cabin. The two snake figures on the Pine Ridge carousel. “Sure, but in battle —”

“It was Seth . . . or another demon of his ilk . . . who assassinated civil-rights leader Palpate Kith,” the king declares. “Should Seth slay you, masquerading as me, how will I explain myself to other werepeople, to the Pride?”

“Tell them you came back from the dead,” I reply. “That’ll do wonders for your rep.”

Leander’s already rocking a major Aslan complex.