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“Because he had lost his way as an Alpha. He had grown old, and he was weak, and he did not have the best interest of the pride at heart.”
“What do you mean?”
“It was coming up to a great hunt. Father was still the Alpha, and it was his duty to go and fight. As it happened, it was the great hunt for Gonshu. I had seen my father ailing before my eyes. He was once such a vigorous man, but he had become weak and stooped, even struggling to lift up his sword. There had been no finer warrior, but the sun was beginning to set upon his days as the Alpha. I was his loyal servant, learning everything from him, and I knew that I was ready. I was waiting for the day when he would step back and name me as his successor, but that day did not come. I expected this to happen before it was time to embark upon the great hunt, for I did not think he would wish to face Gonshu again.
But then father began preparing for the hunt. I did not understand. I went to him and asked him if he was being serious. I told him that I was ready, that I could drive Gonshu back and then return to become Alpha. Father laughed at me and said that I was still a boy. He said that he had faced Gonshu many times before, and that only he could drive him back, and he said that, as long as he was alive, nobody else would be Alpha. He said that I still had much to learn, and that he planned to be around for many years after this.
Now, you must understand that there always comes a time when we have lost our strength. It happens to us all. Part of the Alpha’s role is to know that he is but a link in a chain, and at some point, a new link must be forged. Father was already making some… erratic decisions within the pride and people were ready for a change.”
“What did he do?”
“He had shamed himself in some eyes by taking brides that were young enough to be his children, stealing them away from their beloveds by claiming that he was the Alpha and had the right to demand this of them. I could sense the dissension among the other warriors. Some of them had come to me themselves and told me that they wanted his head. It was only fear that stopped any action from being taken, but there is a point where anger overcomes fear. I knew that we were going to reach the breaking point soon. The other thing that played on my mind was that, if he should die, then it would have been demoralizing for the pride. To know that Gonshu slayed an Alpha would have been disastrous. Gonshu might well have grown in confidence and tried to attack the pride itself, and who knows how many people would have died because of it? But when I raised these points to father, he didn’t care. He just laughed in my face and said that he had the right to do this as Alpha, and that he would drive Gonshu back just as he had driven Gonshu back before. He thought of himself as a young man still, and did not heed his limitations, so I could not allow him to act on his instincts for the sake of the pride.”
“So, you killed him.”
“I confronted him,” he growled, his voice taking on a terse tone. I was so intrigued by this, even though I knew he was having a tough time speaking about it. So far, he had painted himself as this brash, arrogant Alpha who was unfazed by anything. It was refreshing to know that he was just like the rest of us deep down, and actually quite touching, in a way, to know that he cared about the pride so much that he was willing to go to any lengths to protect it, even if his father was the one who became the enemy.
“He was insistent in taking on Gonshu, and as he prepared to leave, he handpicked a number of women to wait in his bed for his return, some of whom were already married. I saw their husbands getting angry and knew it was a matter of time before it all erupted, and that it probably wouldn’t wait for him to return. So, I stepped forward and told him that he couldn’t mate these women because they were already taken. He looked at me for a moment, and I think he expected me to stand down. When I didn’t, he told me that these women were his to do with as he pleased because he was the Alpha.
I told him that wasn’t what being an Alpha was about. He laughed and asked me what I knew about being an Alpha. I said everything he had taught me, and that he had clearly forgotten the lessons, because he was proving himself to be less and less an Alpha every day that he continued to do these awful things. He turned his back on me, but then I drew my sword. I told him that I wasn’t going to allow him to face Gonshu when he had forgotten what it meant to be an Alpha. I told him that it was time for a change, and he could either step down as Alpha with dignity, or he could fall to my sword.”
“I’m guessing he thought that he could still defeat you,” I said.
“He told me that it should have been a sin for a father to kill his son, but that he would gladly do it in the face of such impertinence. The rest of the pride couldn’t believe it, but we were circling each other for a fight. I never wanted it to happen, but one thing my father had hammered home was that an Alpha always needed to do the right thing for the pride above all else, so the fact that he was my father had to come secondary to the fact that he was losing sight of what it meant to be an Alpha.
He got his weapon and we fought. Despite his age, he was still a fine warrior, his experience making up for what he lacked in agility. And, of course, he had trained me using all of his techniques. He had spent his life observing me, so he knew all the tricks I had in my arsenal, as well as my weaknesses. It reached a point where he had me on the floor, his blade to my neck, and then I shifted. There was only one way we were going to determine the winner, and that was going to be as lions.
He shifted too and we fought with everything we had. I hated it because he was my father, but in the midst of the fight I did not see my father at all. I saw merely the man who stood in the way of the pride. The fight lasted for a long time, but I was eventually able to overpower him. In the end, I had no choice but to kill him. I watched him take his last breath. I watched the life disappear from his eyes. And then, just like that, he stopped being my enemy and he became my father again. All the memories came flooding back and I wept as I cradled his body, hating that he had driven me to this, wishing that I had been anyone else’s son so I wouldn’t have had to make the terrible choice. But I was the Alpha’s son, and so I had to look after the interests of the pride. If he had only adhered to the lessons he gave me, then things would have been different.”
I thought of a remark that Volkan had made to me, about how I didn’t know what burdens Axanar carried with him. I guess this was one of them, and it was a hell of a burden. I was so angry at the Night Fangs for attacking my parents, but who did Axanar get to be angry at? The one who killed his father was himself, and even though he did it for all the right reasons, it was still a terrible thing to have done. For the first time since we had met, I pitied him, and saw him as more than his brash, arrogant exterior. It also explained why so many people were so fiercely loyal to him, and why Tania had been heartbroken when she realized that she had betrayed him. They all knew what he had been through to become Alpha, what he was willing to sacrifice.
“I’m sorry you had to go through that,” I said, hoping that he would acknowledge the sentiment even though the words were meaningless. “What happened after?”
“I had killed the Alpha. That meant I was the Alpha. I had killed the strongest. There is always a time when one Alpha takes command that anyone else can challenge for the position if they see fit, but there was nobody who wished to challenge me. I went off on the great hunt. It was my first. I drove Gonshu back and I returned the triumphant hero. The only thing was that I had always imagined returning from my first hunt to the welcome embrace of my father, and I had always imagined how proud he would be of me. Those things were denied to me by my own hand.”
“It doesn’t sound like it was your fault. I don’t think you would have gotten those things even had he been around.”
“Perhaps not, but it still stings. I often find myself looking back and thinking about what could have been if things were different.”
“Don’t we all,” I said, for I too knew that pain as I thought of the Night Fangs. If I had stayed with my parents, I might be with them now. If I had run faster, I might have been able to escape this fate, but then again, I wouldn’t have been able to come to another world. Tania had been so excited by the prospect. Perhaps I needed to be too. It was just that the tethers of the world kept me entangled to my past. I was never going to be able to hold on until I made it back there and found my parents again.
Chapter Twenty
Axanar
Morning rose and I descended the tree, dismantling my traps and putting them back in the bag. I felt strange for having opened up to Kara the previous night. I was not used to speaking about these things, and it had been painful to revisit them. I wondered now how my father would view me. Would he be proud of the things I had done, or would he still be sneering at me, deriding me for never being able to become the Alpha that he was? I don’t know when he had turned into that bitter, spiteful man, but I secretly worried that the same thing would happen to me. I wasn’t about to confide that to Kara though. I thought the best thing to do was to focus on the hunt and not get distracted by all this inane chatter.
When she awoke, I was in lion form again, ready to face the day. She looked a little disappointed. Perhaps she hoped that I would want to talk more about what I had shared the previous night. Instead, I turned away and continued through the jungle, with her close behind. I thought of all the times my father must have made this same journey and wondered what he used to think about.
The better part of the day passed before I noticed a change in the air. I stopped suddenly and lifted my head, sniffing the humid air. In the distance, I could hear a faint rumbling, and I knew that something was brewing. I growled in warning at Kara and then broke into a sprint, rushing through the jungle, hoping to find some shelter. It was only a matter of time before the rain poured down. I found a short tree with thick, leathery leaves that were held together, forming the perfect canopy. They were low though, and the space underneath them was cramped. It would have to do, however. I led Kara underneath it and then turned around to face the outer shelter. I heard the worried cry of a bird, warning its brethren to find shelter. Other parts of the jungle rustled as the animals prepared for the storm.
I shifted into my human form, finding that I was better able to shield myself like this. Kara followed suit.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
“It’s about to rain,” I said.
She frowned and looked at me as though I was crazy. “Rain? Why are you so worried about a little rain.” She shook her head and went to leave the shelter. The sky had darkened overhead. I yelled at her and pulled her back, grabbing her wrist. She lost her balance and careened into me, her body falling against my torso. I caught the scent of her hair and held her close, making sure that she was fully under the canopy.
