Page 60 of A Lion's Heart
“Me,” Decan answered as he looked into the eyes of the one who had put many of those scars on his back and torso.
“Kill him!” Mackey shouted at Lial.
The cougar still in his human form was dressed in all black with some form of body armor around his upper body and a long black leather jacket. He made a move, his teeth bared, a wicked ugly jagged edged blade in his hand as he leapt toward Decan. But he was quickly cut off as Gold roared into the room clamping his lion’s teeth into Lial’s side and taking the cougar down to the floor. They were rumbling and tussling on the floor when Decan moved quickly, leaping over their bodies and going for Mackey. He heard the shots more than he felt them and came down on top of the man, sending the gun rolling across the floor.
His clawed hands immediately went around the man’s plump neck. Mackey immediately grabbed his wrists in a futile attempt to push Decan away.
“No you bastard, this is the time we’ve both known would come,” Decan said, his lion pressing hard against the man’s body.
It wanted out. It wanted this kill for itself.
Decan couldn’t let it, not yet.
“I told you I’d kill you,” he continued, the memory of the night he’d said those words flashing quickly through his mind.
“I’ll kill you!” he’d yelled that last night as Mackey had stood behind him, wielding that steel rod that had been laced with some type of poison so that it stuck to Decan’s skin with every contact, ripping his flesh in a way that could never be repaired. In the five years that he’d been held captive at SIC he’d never been able to completely heal from the beatings Mackey liked to personally give him.
“No, you dirty animal, I’m gonna kill you, just like I’ve been exterminating the rest of your kind!” Mackey had continued. “And when we find that cowardly leader of yours I’m gonna put his head on the end of my staff and hold it for all to see. We’re in charge here, the humans! Not some twisted ass breed of feline monsters!”
He’d slapped that staff as he’d called it over Decan’s skin once more.
“You won’t,” Decan had told him. “You will die instead. Mark my words.”
The fear that instantly rose in Mackey’s eyes was all the motivation Decan needed to remain in human form. He would take the beatings for now. He would not shift and give in to the lesser persona some of the humans had given them the moment they found out they were different. He had to be better. His father had told him that often. “Be better than any other shifter, or human for that matter. Show them that it can be done.”
And Decan had. He’d gone to school and he’d served in their military. He’d walked like them, talked like them, lived and regretted in the same way that man had and still they hated him.
Now, was his chance for revenge. He leaned in closer to Mackey’s face, roaring so loud and so long, tears poured from the man’s eyes.
“Decan! Stop!”
Her voice was like spikes of ice piercing through the heat of his blood in painful intervals that snapped his head back as he struggled to distinguish between memory and the present.
“Stop!” she yelled again. “You don’t have to do this. You’re better than this. Better than him.”
Decan roared again, this time feeling the crack of his bones as his body prepared to shift into the animal that wanted desperately to sink his teeth into Mackey’s throat. The hand on his shoulder stopped everything. Her scent seeped inside him, filtering through his nostrils and moving quickly to fill each corner of his body, warming him until he wanted to lay docile on the floor. The animal bucked against the submission, but the sound of the jaguar’s low murmur calmed the animal’s soul.
“We’ll take him with us. He’s more valuable to our cause that way,” Nisa said.
Mackey’s grip on Decan’s wrists slackened, the man’s face turning an ashen color.
“Let him go,” Nisa said, this time her lips close to his ear. “Take a deep breath and let him go.”
Decan took that deep breath, his head throbbing with the effort. His fingers ached, claws sinking into the man’s flesh. He could hear Nisa’s heartbeat. It matched his own. He took another deep breath and even though he was still staring down at Mackey, he could see Nisa’s face. She was everywhere and, Decan thought as the calm he’d always possessed covered him once more, she was everything.
He pulled his hands from Mackey’s throat just in time for the man to choke out a breath just as an unfamiliar sound rocked them and everything in that house.
After gagging and tying Mackey as quickly as they could, Nisa and Decan ran down the steps toward the light that poured in through the front door. The rain had stopped and as they stepped through the door it was to see nothing but fog surrounding them. A thick fog that even their extra-sensory vision couldn’t pierce through.
It had grown colder, the wind still blowing as an eerie sound filled the air.
“What is it?” she sked Decan, but before he could answer someone else did.
“It is Death.”
Blaez Trekas with three other lycans stepped from around the side of the house. Decan hadn’t even known the lycans were there.
Nisa didn’t bother with introductions, but asked yet another question, “What or who is Death?”
