Prideful

Jamieson Uw watched the young woman from beneath the shelter of a large tree. She was beautiful in the crisp night air and amber light of the setting sun. Her hair formed almost perfect burnished ringlet curls that hung half way down her back. Her eyes were a light brown with green flecks that reminded him of the big cats that they studied. He knew that a car accident at sixteen had left burn scars that marred the otherwise perfect beauty of her mixed heritage.

Katrina Negron stared out over the rocky ridge that rose high above the grasslands. She watched as the lionesses below ripped at the raw meat; each offering small morsels to the young cubs that pounced and played nearby. She was not as tall perhaps as the women from his homeland. She would easily fit beneath the protective embrace of his arms. Her breasts were shapely and high. They were the perfect size to fit into his hands. Her hips too flared out to fit perfectly in a man's hands.

Jamieson shook his head as he felt his body stir within the uncomfortable confines of his clothes. He longed to be free this night. To throw off not only his clothes, but the conventionalities of polite society and run unbound as he had in his homeland. As the woman stretched with the same grace as the lionesses she observed, he realized that he longed too to fulfill other urges that had been denied for too long.

Although they had worked closely for almost two years now, he realized that neither knew much of the others background. He knew that she was an intelligent woman and capable animal behaviourist. He knew that her love for animals, especially exotic cats, was as deep and genuine as his own.

Something deep inside of his tortured soul urged him to break the companionable silence, to reach out to the woman. "Beautiful, is it not?" came the deep, accented voice of her mentor.

Turning her head so that the physical scars glistened in the waning sun light, she nodded. "I've always felt...at home here," she replied as she quickly turned back to the pride to hide her scars.

"It is much like Nigeria," he smiled as he thought of the land that he had not seen in almost a decade. The land of his birth that had been his home for most of his life. A land that was plagued with strife and war. Yet whose peoples held a nobility and beauty as wild as the land itself.

"You miss it very much?" Trina's words sounded more like a statement of fact than a question.

Jamieson simply nodded his dark head, increasingly more grey sprinkled among the cap of tight black curls that boasted his deep African heritage. His dark skin shone under the last rays of the setting sun. "It is deep inside of me," he thumped his chest with his fist.

Trina watched the pride of lions with something more than scientific curiosity. "Why don't you return?" she questioned.

Jamieson paused. "Situations change," was his stoic answer. At moments like this, secrets hung like a dark curtain between mentor and protégé. As much as he might respect the young woman's courage and passion for her work, he was not free to discuss this matter. Or so many other things. Lives depended upon his silence...and his work. The fate of his race in fact rested upon it.

"I'll make certain that the camera equipment is set up," she excused herself.

* * *

Jamieson took his protégé's place at the edge of the cliff. Even as far inland as the wild game preserve was he could feel the faint cool of the ocean breeze as it came off of the Pacific Ocean. He might be thousands of miles from his native Nigeria, but his mind traversed time and space to take him once more to the home that he had left behind over eight years ago.

His brief explanation to Trina of 'situations change' hid a much deeper secret. The centuries old mystery of his people and their unique gifts. His was an ancient race; part human and part lion. Their very origins sheathed in mystery and legend.

The story handed down from generation to generations was that once long, long, long ago, there lived a young girl. She was the daughter of the greatest medicine man in all of Africa. One day when she was little, she was playing on the savannah and found a lion cub whose mother had been killed by hunters. The little girl took the lion cub home and cared for it. She had a magical way with all animals and the cub grew under her care.

As they grew together, the world intruded upon their happiness. The lion was growing so large that the villagers demanded that the chief and medicine man have the animal killed. The girl too had grown into a beautiful young woman. Warriors from tribes across Africa came to win her love and marry her. Not only was she the only child of a powerful medicine man, but her beauty was legendary. Her heart though belonged to her lion.

The chief and medicine man continued to pressure her to select a mate, but she resisted. Eventually, they told her that the lion would be destroyed and she would be given in marriage to a man of their choosing. In desperation she set a plan into motion that would ripple through time. She would free her beloved lion then take her own life rather than marry a man she did not love.

She was able to free her lion and then took a strong poison from her father's medicines. Her father found her, but he knew it was too late to save her. The only thing that he could do was turn her into a lioness. The poison would still make her sick, but there was a chance that the larger form would allow her to live.

She did survive, but her father had lost his beautiful daughter nonetheless. Eventually, when she was well enough, he released her into the wild, where her true love was waiting in the bush. The odd thing was that over time as they lived and loved as lions in the wild, their children were born in human form. They would take the babies and leave them on the steps of her father, who would raise them and teach them magic and medicine.

Some of the children though had special gifts. They could transform into their lion cousins; powerful, strong, running free and hunting. Then just as simply, they could return to human form; appearing as normal as any man or woman from the village. Over the years, these gifted individuals formed a new race that lived along aside their human ancestors.

For centuries before the arrival of the white man to Africa, his people had lived in small prides across the vast continent, isolated from their human cousins and sometimes even from one another. Because theirs was a genetically recessive trait, they never posed a significant risk to the humans and rarely grew into prides that were too large for the land. On those rare occasions where the pride did grow too large, a couple of the young males would simply take off on their own to form a new pride.

Their fate had been intertwined with humans and the African story. They tried hard to live in peace with all their neighbors, but on occasion wars and tribal strife would kill whole prides. During those dark days, when European ships dotted the West African coast, some of their number were taken and sold into slavery along with their human cousins. Most recently they have lost prides to civil uprisings and genocide.

Over the centuries, as the white man 'discovered' their homeland, their existence came under scrutiny. The white governors found their skills as trackers and hunters especially useful. They had acquired wealth and favor, because of these gifts; often rising to positions of power and privilege.

Small prides continued to live across much of sub-Saharan Africa. Each was self-contained, but they remained in close contact to ensure the continuation of their species. Although they generally lived in remote villages, their wealth and privilege acquired over the centuries due to their gifts allowed them to enjoy many modern conveniences such as solar power, laptops, mobile phones and even satellite television.

Unfortunately they now faced an enemy that was more menacing than slavery, war or the white. They now faced the possibility of extinction for much the same reasons as their animal cousins. The lands upon which they have lived and hunted for centuries were being taken over for human use, mining and farming. They found it increasingly difficult to maintain sufficient space for hunting the fresh game they required. Their world was shrinking as were their numbers.

Without a thought, Jamieson tossed aside the khaki pants and shirt that clothed his muscled ebony body. It felt good to be free once more. For a moment, he closed his eyes and threw back his head; deeply breathing in the night air. His sense had dulled only marginally over the years. They were still hundreds of times sharper than his human cousins. The pride that they had studied for months was less than a quarter of a mile below the rocky outcropping.

In the space of a single heart beat, he stepped from beneath the tree transformed. His head now covered in a thick, dark mane that regally framed his long nose, ferocious teeth glistened white in the moon light. Only his dark brown eyes, remained unchanged...intelligent and serious. His normally lithe human form had burgeoned with power and grace in its lion form. He stretched and scraped his claws deep into the dirt and grass.

He knew that this game that he played was dangerous. Although he had walked among the pride hundreds of times, he knew that his presence in this form might be resented by the alpha male. Even in lion form, he could be injured or even killed by the sharp claws and teeth of a rival. His human form bore many scars and marks from his years protecting his pride from just such encroachers.

He realized too that simply the transformation from human to lion would require more energy than he could easily acquire. It was the reason why few of their kind dared such tricks except upon the open plains of their homeland. He would need almost twenty pounds of fresh, raw meat this night simply to undergo the transformation back to man. But it had been years, a lifetime. And this night something inside of him cried out to be free. To run wild with his brethren. To be unfettered as he could only be in this form.

With a graceful pound he jumped to the rocks below. Lifting his head, he daringly threw it back until the breeze whipped through the thick mane. Opening his wide jaws, he ushered forth his challenge to the quiet night air.

"I am here...I am as I was meant to be...free," his mind proclaimed as he revelled in the wild emotions that coursed through his animal form.

Stretching muscles that were tight from long years of unuse, he sprang through the air once more. He landed almost silently upon the sandy earth. He luxuriated in the feel of the grit crunching beneath his deadly claws and squishing between his toes. He took to the night with speed that he knew he could not long sustain. But he did not care. This night was about feeling...not logic or mysteries that threatened the very existence of his people.

He had chosen as a young man to study veterinary medicine, because of the clues it might hold. He had utilized his skills to care for the tribe's herds during his time as its leader. Now that he had turned the reigns of leadership over to the next generation, he was focused upon the one challenge that might spell the end of his people. Since the birth of his younger brother a quarter of a century before, not a single male had been born with the gift.

It was a failure that he had felt to the depths of his soul as even his mate had failed to produce a coveted male. She had born him three daughters, two of whom were gifted. But neither of the two sons that she had born him showed any signs of the gifts. Eventually, the failure had hung like an accuser between them. Each blaming the other.

When he had been dispossessed eight years ago by the eldest son of his second and left the care of the pride to him and his younger brother, his mate had chosen to remain with the pride as a valued matron. Each had seen it as a relief to be free of the bonds that had once been loved, but had turned to bitterness and hatred over the years.

He had turned to the skills that he had learned as a young man, finding a post as guest lecturer first at Oxford from which he himself had graduated then eventually making it to one of the most famous zoo in the world. He had specialized in the breeding practices of his lion cousins. Hoping that some of the knowledge he gleaned from the study of their reproduction might hold clues to his own.

Eight years, he screamed in his head, the lion roaring in frustration into the night once more. Eight long and lonely years isolated from his people, trapped in his human form without any release and not a single step closer to the answer. The truth was that if he or one of the other great minds pondering the problem did not soon find a solution, it would be too late. His younger brother was the youngest of their kind at twenty-seven. He and his alpha would be forced to rule well past his own forty-two years...well past their own prime.

He could only hope that they remained strong enough to protect the pride from the growing challenges of civilization that were encroaching upon them: war, drought, global warming and even modern philosophies, The religions of man especially threatened to tear the continent apart as Islam and Christianity, neither of which were indigenious to their lands, warred for supremacy, for the gold, diamonds and oil that were their peoples birth right in this ancient land, the birthplace of civilization. Although not much was civilized these days.

Slowing his pace as he approached a lone lioness, he scented the air. She was in season. Her scent ripe with fertility. He could sense too the approach of another male from downwind. The alpha had already taken his turn at the procreative process, so Jamieson knew that this lesser male would encounter no resistance from their leader.

After all, reproduction was a simple matter of Darwinian evolution. Sperm wars encouraged the survival of the species. It was the same with his own species. While males and their mates might share special emotional bonds, the tribes very existence did not leave room for human conventionalities of monogamy. When a female came into season, all of the males would have their turn at impregnating the female.

It was one of the unique traditions of the pride that set them apart from their human relatives. Not that there were not jealousies among the pride. Occasionally fights even broke out among the males over a coveted mate. But in their world survival meant that emotions must be set aside for the good of all.

He turned his back to the mating pair as the male approached the lioness. It was not their custom to mate with their lion kin or even to mate in lion form. He would not intrude upon the ritual. Well, not personally, but he knew that Trina would have the cameras set up to capture each moment of the intimate act.

It did though remind him of just how long it had been since he last indulged his own sexual needs. Over three years since he had ended his brief alliance with an Oxford colleague. Even that had left him emotionally unsatisfied. His mind remembered the time when he had first returned from his studies to the pride.

He was immediately attracted to the younger of two twins that had recently joined the tribe, an exchange among their people to keep breeding lines mixed. She was breath-taking in her innocence, her shoulders square and proud. Her head freshly shaven as befit her maiden status. One scent of her and he had known that she was his. He had fought the alpha for her...and leadership of the pride.

That night he had taken her into his ancestral home, his chosen mate. They had been happy then. Not even the mating ritual when she had come into season for the first time could drive a wedge between the couple. Both had been raised in prides and accepted what humans would consider infidelity as part of the circle of life.

They had both been proud when she had fallen with child. That pride only grew when she birthed a healthy baby boy. Then twin girls. But time came and went, their son showed no sign of gifts. Then another girl with the coveted gifts. By the time fifteen years ago when their youngest son had been born, it had been a critical issue between them...and among their people across the continent.

Jamieson felt the lethargy and weariness that he had known would come. He had been in his lion form for less than a quarter of an hour and already the measly human reserves of energy were exhausted, depleted. The transformation itself had taken much of it of course, but the much higher metabolism of the muscular lion required that which he did not have access to...raw meat. He considered approaching the feeding area but that would not be wise for two reasons.

First of all, food as well as breeding rights were the reserve of the pride. As a lone male he was an encrouger and likely to be dealt with as one. He was well past his prime and no match for even this pampered cadre of human 'pets.'

The second reason was just as important. The cameras that they used to observe the pride would capture his presence here. They had catalogued every member of the pride and the sudden appearance of a strange lion would warrant an investigation that he could not afford. He had been careful to avoid cameras thus far and he must continue to do so.

No, his only option was to get as close to his tent as possible before attempting to transform back into human form. It was a risk, a careful balancing act, He would require a great deal of energy to transform back, even then he would be extremely weak, sick almost. But it had been worth it, he thought as his tent came into view. He dared only a couple more steps as he felt his energy reserves draining dangerously low. He transformed without a thought even. The world around him blurred out of existence into darkness. Yes, it had been worth it to taste that freedom once more, even only for a heartbeat, he thought.