Falling in Love with the King of Beasts

GAHRYE

Gahrye froze. Shaw, still fifteen feet away, began towards them, his eyes strangely fixed on Gahrye. The male smelled wary and fearful—also determined. Gahrye settled on the balls of his feet, ready to fight.

"Uncle Shaw, what are you doing?" Kalle asked, her voice a touch too high.

"He isn't to cross again. He's angered them, I'm sorry," Shaw muttered. 

Gahrye wasn't sure Kalle was close enough to have heard him. "Sorry for what?" he spat. 

Shaw made it to a few feet in front of him and stopped, his throat bobbing. Gahrye's arms were far longer and he'd trained. Surely this male didn't think he could—

"Shaw, what are you sorry about?" Kalle asked stepping towards him. 

When the male turned to look at her, Gahrye stepped closer and snapped his hands out to grab Shaw's arms, but the male moved faster than Gahrye would have thought possible, lashing out with a tense grip that Gahrye defended, then jerked away from when his palm was sliced open.

Instinctively, Gahrye assumed it was a claw or tooth—but that made no sense. Shaw had no—

"He's got a knife!" Kalle gasped in the same moment Shaw flowed forward, his squat little body suddenly whip-fast and his short arms moving so quickly they blurred even to Gahrye's sight.

It was reflex to reach for the arm, block the downward slice with an upward forearm to catch the blow and take Shaw's wrist in his other hand to marginalize the weapon. But when his bloodied hand touched Shaw's wrist the male screamed and scrabbled at Gahrye's grip. The knife thudded to the grass beneath them and Gahrye kicked it away, struggling to keep his hold on Shaw's arm, which baffled him. This male was soft and small and had no training—or had he?

"Let me go! Let me gooooooo!" Shaw howled, twisting, panicked, in Gahrye's grip. "It burns, it burns!"

Gahrye struggled with him for several seconds until Shaw dropped to one knee, his joints cracking and groaned. "Please…" he begged. "Please… let me go…" 

Then he hissed, like a cat. Or… 

It hit Gahrye like a club between the eyes. "The voices," he croaked, uncertain Kalle would hear him over the noise the male was making. 

"What?" Kalle asked, holding the blade away from them both. 

"That noise he just made," he said, his voice shaking, "it's exactly the same noise the voices made in the traverse. Kalle…" he risked turning his head to find her wide eyes, "he's not just being pressured. They're… they're here."

Kalle's mouth dropped open. "Uncle," she whispered. "What have you done?"

"Let me go!"

"They're inside him," she said on a hush as Shaw desperately to pry Gahrye's bleeding hand off of his own. His skin was beginning to turn red around where Gahrye had him gripped—not the red of a blood smear, but the angry flush of swelling, the skin shiny, like a burn.

Then they both stared, terrified, as Shaw's head tipped back and his mouth opened, and horrific voices that were not his, surged from his throat.

"Get away from us."

"Unhand us, hero."

"You will regret not listening. You do not understand who you burn."

But Gahrye, his grip so tight his knuckles were white, shook his head. "Who are you?" he snarled through his teeth.

"We are the ancestors."

"The beginning."

"The Alpha of Alllllll…"

"Liars!" Gahrye recoiled, everything within him shuddering, driving him away, away, away. But he knew he couldn't let Shaw go. The male was… not even in his own mind. The voices spoke through him, but his body didn't move naturally, his eyes glazed as his thinning hair fell back from his receding hairline because he'd arched back and wasn't moving.

Unholy laughter erupted in Shaw's throat and his eyes widened in fear, as if they weren't connected to the voices emerging from him. 

"You will see."

"The hero will see—always the yearning to win, to be recognized. We recognize you, hero."

"You will see, but you will be too dead to enjoy it."

Three separate and distinct laughs bubbled out of Shaw and Gahrye shuddered.

Kalle stood with her hands over her mouth. He wasn't sure what she'd done with the knife, but she stared at her uncle, horrified.

"They are liars, Kalle, don't listen to them!"

"I'm not—"

But Shaw interrupted her. "We know the truth—all the truths. All possible truths. Every path, every future. The truth dances in morning light for us." 

"You remember: Are you not a hero? Did you not find your mate and yet cannot take her because you are not with us? Did we not tell you, Broken?"

"You will see… you will see…"

"It isn't too late, hero—she can still be yours. Together forever, but only with us—"

Gahrye ground the male's wrist in his grip and Shaw screamed again, the skin around Gharye's hand beginning to rise and blister. 

The voices began to scream, demanding, begging, insisting on release.

"Tell us what you know or I will paint you in my blood!" Gahrye snapped, his voice hoarse. "Why is Elia's story so important? You were there! You were the ones who spoke with her in the traverse."

But Shaw, his eyes wide and face pale with pain, only groaned and shook his head. 

Gahrye took the arm in the grip of his clean hand, then slid the bloodied palm further up Shaw's arm.

The man screamed like he'd been set on fire. He writhed and fought, spitting and hissing, so much stronger than he should have been. So strong, Gahrye wondered if he would lose his grip. 

"Tell me!"

"She is the one! Hers is the only story that matters! Hers and the heart-sister!"

"How did you even know who she was?!" Gahrye snarled.

Shaw twisted again, groaning when he couldn't break Gahrye's grip. It as the voices that answered him. 

"The wolves…" one of them hissed. "The wolves journeyed the traverse and were… open. They studied the reports, we examined those who tempted the King. The King yearned for her, knew her heart, was drawn. His heart was hers. The ancestors told him she would find another and never be his, yet still he yearned. The wolves discovered this with our help. She is the prophesied one, always intended for the King."

Gahrye looked at Kalle and swallowed. Reth was prophesied too?