Chapter Six #3
The pain only grew worse as he fell to the floor, his body unable to support itself as it became caught between shapes, between worlds.
A roar echoed around the room as the lion side of Cameron finally won out over the human part of him.
His claws scrabbled at the rug as he lurched himself up onto four large paws.
Large teeth snapped at the empty air around him as a full lion’s mane replaced his long blond hair.
A shifter that was still in his human form rushed up to him. Cameron didn’t even look at who it was. His paw swiped across the man’s body. The scent of blood filled the air as his claws left deep gouges in their wake.
The figure gasped, tumbling backward from the force of the blow. And, suddenly, there were men all around Cameron, lions on all sides of him. The world was full of movement and pain and confusion, and he was trapped in the middle of it all.
Cameron tried to push them away, to tear at them with his claws and with his teeth. Nothing he did made any difference. There were too many of them—too many hands, too many bodies pressing him down toward the floor, holding him still as he roared and railed against them.
Cameron arched and twisted, but neither his teeth nor his claws were able to find any target within their reach now.
Words started to flow around him, but Cameron couldn’t make them out, couldn’t concentrate on them through the pain.
He roared again, but when the harsh, agonised sound faded from the air, the words were still there, still caressing and sliding over him no matter what he did, seeping into his mind, whether he wanted them in there or not.
With the last scrap of energy he could summon up, Cameron tried to buck and free himself from the hundreds of limbs that seemed determined to hold him down.
His struggles were all in vain. Together, a pride would always be stronger than one lion would ever be—there’d been a time when he knew that without ever needing to think about it.
Cameron collapsed back against the rug, exhausted, defeated.
The men pinning him down him failed to disappear the way he assumed they would once they’d realised they’d won.
Bodies still surrounded him as he lay there in his feline form.
Half of them were covered in the dense fur of a lion, the rest were just bare human skin, but all of them were hot the way only a shifter could be.
Hands and paws moved across Cameron’s fur again and again, but there was no lust in their touch. The men’s bodies moved against him the same way his little brothers had when they were all nothing more than cubs, bringing back more memories than he’d even known he possessed.
The only things he felt from the men around him now were care and concern, and acceptance—so much acceptance.
Cameron struggled to draw air into his lungs, barely able to breathe while the other lions were wrapped so tightly around him, filling his world and reminding him of a time when he had a pride, when everything was right with the world, and he’d felt safe.
His form faltered as his mind once more struggled to find a way to cope. If a lion’s brain couldn’t understand what was happening, perhaps a human’s psyche could.
The shifters around him curled in closer as Cameron morphed back into his human shape between them. A human shaped hand brushed against his arm, a lion’s fur covered shoulder rubbed against his leg, fingers stroked through his hair.
So many memories, so many things he’d tried not to think about, that he’d tried not to feel lost and empty without, rushed through Cameron.
A time where there had been both a pride around him, and he’d had nothing in his past to be ashamed of…
There was no going back to that now, Cameron knew that. A lion who was nothing more than a whore couldn’t hope to be anything but an outcast to his pride, to any pride.
Cameron closed his eyes as tightly as he could and turned his head to the side in the hope none of the lions would see his weakness.
“I don’t know all the reasons why you left your last pride, cub. But you’ve got a new pride now, and everything will be fine.”
The sound of Arslan’s voice let him know that he had somehow turned his face into the older man’s chest as he tried to find a place to hide his emotions.
A strong arm wrapped around him, holding him there, welcoming him just as easily as all the others that cocooned him.
If the leader of the pride felt silent tears fall against his skin, he didn’t mention them.
The whole pride merely curled a little closer around Cameron in response.
“I…” He bit back the rest of the words as he realised how weak his voice sounded.
Soothing noises immediately surround him, a full orchestra of purrs and murmurs ranging from the deep bass that vibrated through Arslan’s chest through to a sweet top note that could only have come from Kefir.
“I thought they’d come after me,” Cameron whispered.
It had just been an argument, some stupid little argument. He hadn’t wished to follow his leader’s demands, hadn’t wished to bow and scrape the same way all the other lions seemed to.
The freedom to do whatever he wished with no one to answer to—it had seemed so beautiful, something to be sought out and cherished, until his pride finally tracked him down and dragged him back to their den. Except… “They didn’t.”
Cameron turned his face more firmly into Arslan’s chest, and there was no way for him to hide the pain and the shame that coursed through him then.
“It was all their fault,” Cameron whispered, anger creeping back into his voice, despite his exhaustion.
“Your pride didn’t realise—”
“Not them,” Cameron snarled. “The men who… If I hadn’t… How could I go back to my pride after I…? I thought it would be no big deal. That it would be like the sacrifices, but it wasn’t… It…”
The rest of the lions pressed still closer around him, cocooning him in the middle of them as they sensed his pain and instinctively tried to soothe it with their presence.
“A pride doesn’t abandon one of its number,” Arslan said firmly. “No lion will be cast out of this pride, not for any reason.”
Cameron struggled to take a deep breath. “I want Franklin.” He had no idea he intended to say the words aloud until he heard his whisper hit the air.
“As your mate?” Arslan asked, as he rubbed his palm in soothing circles over Cameron’s back, the same way someone would a sniffling baby.
Cameron nodded, his cheek rubbing against Arslan’s chest.
“Then, your new pride will teach you how to look after him properly,” Arslan promised. “And everything will be fine.”
Cameron nodded again, more in the hope that what Arslan said was true than because he actually believed it.
He wanted Franklin. He needed Franklin—maybe even as much as he needed his pride.
“I won’t take his money.” Even Cameron wasn’t sure if the words were intended to be a warning or a protest.
“No,” Arslan agreed. “You won’t.”
Cameron nipped at his bottom lip. His instincts remembered what it was like to be part of a pride, especially when they physically surrounded him the way they did right then.
Those same instincts remembered what it was like to feel pride rather than shame, too.
It was only his mind that wasn’t so sure it would ever be possible to go back to that time.