Chapter 16 City of Gold
City of Gold
Locke
The five minutes are nearly up, and I’m still sitting on the floor. At least I’m not lying down anymore, incapable of catching my breath.
The tiger is less interested in me now that he has his two handlers. They’ve hooked long rods onto his thick collar and are using blasts of fire retardant to wrangle him back to one side of the fighting cage. Once the timer is up, they unhook the rods and make their exit.
But as they leave the cage, Mads is thrown in.
Fucking hell.
I grab him by the collar—the shirt collar, and pull him to my corner.
“What the fuck are you doing here?!”
“Aurora sent me to help you. She tells me you have a boon. You can bark at the tiger.”
“Yeah, I fucking know that!”
“Then why are you not doing it!” The timer starts anew. The crowd goes wild, and Maximus prowls forward.
“I am! It only works for a moment before the command slips away. I can’t get them to stick, unless Maximus wants it to stick.”
“Oh.”
“‘Oh’ is right!”
“How do you shake that?”
“I can’t fucking shake it!”
“But you’re an alpha. You have Oscar, Kol, and an omega. You have a beta! Doesn’t that count for your…” He wiggles his arm to indicate I use magic or something to overpower the bark. “Aura.”
He’s not wrong. Aura and influence are known to get more powerful with stronger bonds. But I wasn’t bonded by a pack lead. And they are far away.
And I’m scared, if I’m being honest.
Maximus sets his sights on me, ignoring my beta. I take a few steps away from Mads, and Maximus follows.
“Hey, no, pspsps! Kitty! Come here!”
What the fuck is Mads doing?! He’s wiggling his fingers and trying to get Maximus to pay attention to him and not me. He makes more kissy noises, and I want to rip my hair out.
“Don’t pspsps the tiger, Mads!“ I shout. But it’s too late, Maximus finds him more interesting than me. The tiger lowers its head and, without preamble, Mads lifts his cane and swings the head down, scaring the cat. It hops away and chitters low in its throat.
Wow.
Ok.
Go Mads.
Tiger tamer.
“How does one harness an alpha bark?”
“Would if I knew!”
I’ve never had much opportunity to explore my alpha bark. I talked to Mads’s mother’s dog for a moment. Told him to be a good boy. It was easy. The dog was more than happy to take my commands.
Tigers, unfortunately, are a different animal.
The tiger lifts up on its back legs, and Mads swings the cane again, but this time he tings the metal head with the metal grate on the edge of the cage. The sound makes the cat back up.
It also sends sparks flying.
“Do that again, Mads,” I say. He shrugs and throws his cane back like a baseball bat and swings it forward, connecting the vulture head again with the metal. Sparks fly across the cage and down to the people below.
The crowd goes wild.
The way bonds feel to me is like a light. I feel a beacon of light connecting Kol to myself. Another light connecting Oscar to me. The light can be warm and bright or cool and low. I can flash it to get their attention. I can feel their emotions over me like sunbeams against my skin.
Alpha barks are the same. It’s bright and obnoxious. It demands to be noticed.
The sparks from Mads’s cane give me an idea. Maybe I shouldn’t try to bark at the cat in an attempt to make it submissive. Maybe I need to use it to tame.
Like throwing sparks out.
I throw my hand forward just as the tiger, irritated by the cane and the nose, finally decides to pounce. He’s aiming for Mads and his evil, scary cane. I step between them, throw my hand out, and shout, “Back! Back! Back! Back!”
I spit out the command quickly, not aiming for permanence.
The moment Maximus touches down, he jerks back in surprise. It’s so sudden, and his center of gravity is off, so his hind legs slide out from underneath him.
“Down! Back! Don’t! Away! Ah! Ah! Ah!“ and then, like the crack of a whip, I shout, “Fuck off!”
The weight of the tiger hitting the bottom of the suspended cage makes the whole thing jump and shake against the iron chains holding it in the air.
Mads loses his footing and falls down. I don’t.
My legs are spread apart, and I remain steadfast. I catch Legs’s eyes, and for a split second, he confirms why he’s always wanted to cage me. To control me. To subjugate me.
It’s because, like the tiger, I scare him.
That brief moment of fear is gone, and he’s back to his cocky, asshole self.
It must be hard to be the man on the hill, always looking down at your enemies, knowing some of them possess things you do not.
Knowing all it can take is a single push, and you are no longer the man on the hill.
Mads is still on the floor, so I step one foot overtop of him, so he’s underneath me, in case Maximus decides he suddenly doesn’t want to listen.
I lower my voice, lacing my alpha bark in each word I say to the beast, “Be calm, Maximus. We are not your enemy. We are not food.“ I wait until his eyes lock with mine and I have him in a trance. “Roar, Maximus.”
The cat prowls up and down the edges of the fighting cage, roaring for the cheering crowd, because he wants to. Not because I told him to.
The large cat passes by me and rubs his entire body against mine. I lay my hands on his back and stroke him as he circles. He does it once more, as if to say, yeah, you saw that right.
I look down at my beta. He’s resting. Poor guy. I don’t want to leave him. I will stay above him, covering him with my body, for as long as it takes. He’s mine.