How on earth could he have done this to her? She had given her life, and had been so prepared to give him everything else of her as well.. And now this? The heartbreak she might have felt in the beginning was gone. Not a drop of pity remained. Not a drop of love, or compassion. That old part of her, that submitted to everything was being trampled under something so much larger and so much more powerful, and it was not even fighting back.
A lithe fuchsia body roped out of the grasses, bright eyes locked on those beautiful greens. They weren’t so hypnotizing now. Her neck arched as the hair along her spine stood on end, swelling her size to something fearsome. “How dare you.” The low, almost seductive tone was only betrayed by the growl bubbling in her throat. The hussy paled, eyes going wide with fear as her eyes darted between her lover and his betrothed. Like most females in the pride, she knew very little of confrontation. It only took the first few words of true and unabashed anger before she darted into the wood. Her lover, however, was left to fend for himself. He stammered his apologies, but it was only briefly before Saiorse silenced him with a roar.
She did not want his apologies. Saiorse roared her words not inches from his face. Even he now seemed afraid of her--something she realized with a satisfying twist. She hurled words that were ghastly, and improper by pride standards. Words that would make any upstanding lioness of her pride faint on the spot. She wouldn’t remember them after. The entirety of the situation moved too quickly. She was supposed to be just a small, soft spoken and able wife. Docile, and loving. All of that had gone out of here, and this new creature that had taken her place was a force to be reckoned with. She would not have her mate sneaking around with some whore. He would be hers, and hers alone. How dare he betray her.
Her betrothed stumbled back under Saiorse’s barrage of accusations and insults. Fear ran through him as she pushed him back, his feet tangling beneath him and making him stumble for a moment before he remembered. She was little more than a girl. Girls needed to know their place.
The blow landed heavily across her face, and for a long moment things froze. The shock of the blow stunned Saiorse, though she did not move. Her betrothed snarled as he lifted his head, looking down at her with those beautiful green eyes, and whatever kind part of her had loved him, broke.
She was no longer the dapper lady she had been groomed to become. Nor was she the quiet, loving wife she had wanted to become.
Saiorse lunged at her betrothed, teeth seeking whatever they could land on. Claws mauled whatever they could touch. She felt no satisfaction, no remorse, only rage. She had given him everything. All of her life, all of her love. What had he done with it? Thrown it away. He had thrown her away. He had taken her future from her, and robbed her of everything good in her. He was the one who unleashed this. He turned her into this. Now he would pay for everything he had ever done, everything she had so blindly forgiven him of. Tears welled in her eyes even as she ripped into his flesh. She had loved him so much, and this was how she would be treated in return? No. She could not stand for that. She was better than that. To hell with men. To hell with the lot of them. To hell with her idiot mother, and every blow she took. To hell with her father, and all of the women he ground beneath his heel. To hell with the pride that fostered and loved this sick and twisted way of life. To hell with her betrothed, and to hell with that sick, weak and masochistic part of her that had loved him and all of those who had trained her to be so. A hate now burned in her for every one of them.
She was the one who hunted. She was the one who had power in her limbs. The male may have had the advantage of size, but he hardly knew what it meant to pull down the buffalo. He would never know the strength it took to crush the zebra’s windpipe between solid jaws. His muscles, as lithe as they were, were soft. They ripped easily under her claws--weak bones crushed effortlessly between her teeth.
Saiorse relented with a roar, pacing to and fro before the beaten and groaning male. Her heart pounded, and a darker part of her begged for more. It wanted to see him bleed out on the ground. It wanted him cold and dead--but no. That would not be enough. Saiorse restrained her anger, taking deep breaths of the cool and refreshing air to calm herself. No. She would leave him to live and heal. Her wounds would cripple him, and the would see him as the useless mound of flesh he was. He would live, and go on to rear a family perhaps, but Saiorse had been sure to steal away the grand future that he had taken from her. He would sire no heirs to the pride, and his blood would be blackened and muddied, far from the nobility’s bloodline that he should have passed on. With a pass of the tongue, she whipped the blood from her maw. “F*ck you, Bathariel. Have a nice life.”
The lioness turned, rage fueling her steps into the world she had been ever sheltered from. She was a beautiful thing, something massive and strong. She was as volatile as fire in drought, and as dangerous as a croc nestled in waiting. To hell with subjectivity--she was something greater. The lioness trotted towards the unknown. She could take care of herself from here on out, and no male would dictate what she would do. For once in her life, Saiorse was going to do exactly as she pleased.
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