Total pages in book: 50
Estimated words: 46078 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 230(@200wpm)___ 184(@250wpm)___ 154(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 46078 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 230(@200wpm)___ 184(@250wpm)___ 154(@300wpm)
“Your human is quite something,” he says, apropos of nothing.
“Yes, she is,” I agree.
“Hello, brothers.”
Kain emerges from the shadows. He does not ever seem to sleep. There is something in him, a wildness, or perhaps a true madness, but he keeps both well in check. Kain has been restless since I first met him as a cub, and he is not comfortable with my approach of a slower response to this latest raid. Everybody is trying to rush to solve these problems, but that is no doubt what Leonidas wants. We must be slow when others want us to be fast. We must be calm when they want us to panic. I refuse to give in to every impulse being created inside me, thanks to this situation.
“We need to talk about our response,” Kain says.
It is all he wants to talk about. It is all anybody wants to talk about.
“Leonidas will be expecting us. Worse, he will be anticipating us. If we go in force, there is every chance innocents will be hurt. Our younger siblings, his other offspring, come to mind,” Skol says, beginning with a point of view I agree with.
“He relies on the fact that we are not willing to kill as he does, and to cause pain as he does,” I reply.
“Which means we need cunning,” Skol says.
“Yes.”
“I have an idea,” Kain says. “But you’re not going to like it.”
“Tell me what it is.”
He tells me.
I do not like it.
I dislike it so much, I forbid it ever be spoken of again.
8
Ava
As days pass by, I start to settle in at the pride lands. I am needed and sought after by many of the young cubs, which gives me not only something to do, but a sense of belonging I haven’t felt in a long time. Azlan was right. They have accepted me as the alpha female. I am unofficially pride mother, until the rest of the females can be freed, a process that is being argued over with increasing intensity by Azlan and his brothers.
“Ava! Herk put mud in his ear!” One of the older cubs calls for me while dragging what I gather is a younger sibling in his wake.
“Why did he do that?”
Herk’s motivations remain unclear, but the mud in his fuzzy ear is stuck fast. He is about four years old, a ginger and white fluff ball, and is complicating matters by being insistent that the mud remain in his ear.
“It hurts!”
“Alright, let me take it out.”
“No!”
“Alright.”
“It hurts!”
This conversation could very well stay on a near infinite loop and does go on for quite some time until Azlan intervenes. Herk is less inclined to disobey the alpha, and finally allows me to remove the mud-plug, which by now has dried out and comes out relatively easily.
“You are good with the young ones,” Azlan says. “I am glad. It bodes well for our own young.”
“You want to have babies here. In this situation. Amid a cluster of young who have no mothers of their own.” I frown. “It doesn’t feel right. We need to get these babies their mothers.”
“We are working on a plan.”
“Are you? What’s the plan?”
“For the moment, we must be careful.”
“So your plan is… be careful.”
It is very hard not to sound doubtful. It’s even harder to get the sneer out of my tone. I don’t understand Azlan’s motivations, he won’t share his thoughts, and my role appears to be being agreeable and helpful and not notice that nothing is being done.
Kain snorts. I didn’t notice he was nearby. I was too busy arguing with Azlan without arguing with him. Azlan did, though, and the look I get is a dark one.
“Let’s go to our ship,” he says.
“Yes. Let’s.”
The four ships have been separated and set up around the perimeter of what has essentially become a home refugee encampment. With so many grown males killed and the females taken, the Leonids left behind are displaced even in their own dens.
“If you are planning on punishing me…”
“I’m not,” he says. “But you cannot disrespect me that way.”
“Disrespect? I think you mean disagree with you. Is that what you need, Azlan? Must I always agree with you?”
“No. You are free to speak your mind, just not in front of Kain.”
“Why not in front of Kain?”
Azlan’s expression becomes unfathomable again. “I do not wish to speak ill of my brother. He is dearly beloved, but…”
“But what?” I need details. I can’t understand this world if nobody will explain it to me. Azlan is very cagey with the information he is prepared to share, and with motherless cubs swarming me almost every hour of the day, I am not having it. Something needs to be done with real urgency.
When Azlan does not immediately reply, I launch into a tirade that I have previously played over so many times in my mind it comes out stiff and forced, more like a speech than a plea to emotion. With the way Azlan is acting now, that might be a good thing.