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It also didn’t shift back to its human form.
“Wait a minute,” Tabitha said, scrambling to her feet. She shook her head. How could she have made such a silly mistake?
The lion looked at her.
“You aren’t a shifter at all, are you?”
The lion blinked.
“You also aren’t trying to eat me,” she said, considering the creature in front of her.
Another blink.
“Are you injured?”
The lion seemed to understand her question, and it held up its paw. Sure enough, he was wounded.
“You know,” she muttered, sitting back down, “I read a fairytale about this once.”
The lion only looked at her.
“Come on, then. Lie down.” Tabitha gestured to the ground, and the lion dropped to the grass in front of her. Its paws were in front of it, and she looked at him carefully. It was a male lion. She knew that much. He was big and lovely, and he had a nice, big mane that surrounded his face.
She reached for his paw, and he flinched, but he let her take it.
“What the fuck happened to you?” Tabitha looked at his paw. “You know, when I read a story about this once. Long ago, I read a tale. Do you want to hear it?”
The lion looked at her, but made no noise. It said nothing at all. Perhaps that was for the best. What would she even do if there were two shifters on this island? One, she could handle. Well, maybe she could.
Two, though?
That might be a bit much.
“Once upon a time, there was a lion who was very grumpy. He kept attacking people and everyone was scared of him. Sound familiar?”
The lion had the decency to look ashamed.
“One day, he broke into a monastery, and everyone fled. All of the monks ran away. All except for one.”
The lion closed his eyes as Tabitha examined the wound on his paw. He’d been cut badly, but she could fix him. Luckily, she still had some magic left. Despite making that huge energy ball, she felt stronger than she had in years.
Maybe ever.
“The lion had a thorn in his paw,” she continued the story as she waved her hands in front of the lion’s paw. She closed her eyes, breathing deeply, as she let her healing powers out. If Felix was here and not a total prick, she could have asked for a drop of his blood. Everyone knew that dragons had special blood with healing powers.
She had always liked that story as a kid. It was strange now to be sitting in front of this lion. How long had he wandered around the island in pain? And what had happened to him? The wound in front of him looked painful, but it also looked magical.
Had Ursula attacked him?
“Once the thorn was out,” she whispered, “the lion felt better. He wasn’t mean or cruel after that.”
The lion in front of Tabitha opened his eyes.
“You’re okay now,” she told him.
He was going to be just fine.
He was going to be safe.
