Mated To The Ruthless Savanna King

Outside the thicket, Phillip stared at the tracks in the mud. They were unlike anything he had ever seen—flat-soled impressions, longer than they were wide, with a clear curve where the ball of the foot had pushed off. Five distinct toe marks at the front. They weren't paws. They weren't hooves. They looked like... nothing. They were wrong. Everything about this cheetah was wrong. "Forget it," Aaron grumbled, shaking his head to clear the stars from his vision. "That thing is a demon. Let's go find a normal zebra." Phillip cuffed his brother on the head. "You idiot. Normal cheetahs don't land a kill every single time. This one does." His eyes gleamed with a cunning that was unusual for a lion. "We don't have to hunt. We just have to follow him." Inside the thicket, Franco had already shifted back to his cheetah form. He was meticulously licking the mud from his fur, trying to erase the memory of the last ten minutes. Sean and Roy circled him, sniffing curiously. He still smelled faintly of that strange, hairless ape. Franco nudged them away, feigning nonchalance. If I don't make a big deal out of it, maybe they'll forget, he thought, a very human and very futile hope. The last of the rain evaporated as the dry season began to assert its brutal authority. The world turned brown and brittle. The water holes shrank, and the great herds began their long, slow march to the north. Food became scarce. Days were spent in a haze of heat and hunger. Franco's ribs began to show. He lay on a sun-scorched rock, staring at the shimmering heat haze on the horizon, feeling a profound despair. Then, a memory surfaced. A documentary he had once filmed about elephants in a drought. He led the cubs to a dry riverbed, the cracked mud like a shattered mosaic. He started digging, his claws scraping at the hard-packed earth. He dug until his paws were raw, but finally, a foot down, the soil turned damp. A few more frantic scrapes, and muddy, life-giving water began to seep into the hole. The cubs lapped at it greedily while Franco stood guard, his eyes scanning the horizon. Fifty yards away, hidden in the shade of a thorn tree, Phillip and Aaron watched. Aaron was stunned. Phillip just flicked his tail, a smug, I-told-you-so expression on his face. This weird cheetah was a walking, talking survival guide. After drinking, the hunger returned, sharper than before. Franco decided to risk a trip to a distant patch of scrubland. The journey was a grim parade of death. The carcasses of animals who hadn't been smart enough or strong enough littered the landscape. Vultures circled lazily overhead. Franco's human sensibilities made him steer clear of the rotting flesh. The risk of disease was a screaming siren in his human mind. He could feel the eyes of the lions tailing him, and guessed they must think him a fool for passing up a free meal. Let them think it. Roy, the younger cub, finally collapsed, his legs giving out from exhaustion. He sat down with a soft thud and let out a weak, heartbreaking whimper. Franco's heart ached. He went back, nudged the cub with his head, and then carefully lifted him onto his back. Sean walked silently at his side, his small body trembling with fatigue but his spirit unbroken. Just as Franco was beginning to think he'd have to resort to eating bark, a new scent hit his nostrils. It was a rich, gamey smell. He lowered Roy to the ground and crept toward a tall patch of grass. Peeking through the stalks, he saw it. A shallow depression in the earth, filled with more than a dozen enormous, cream-colored eggs. An ostrich nest. It was a jackpot. A protein-packed, all-you-can-eat buffet. But then, a problem. He tried to bite one of the eggs, but his jaw wasn't wide enough. He tried to crack it with his paw, but the shell was like concrete. In the distance, Phillip drooled at the sight of the eggs, but he knew even a lion would have trouble with them. He settled in to watch the weird cheetah's next trick. Franco paced around the nest, his mind racing. He was so close. He couldn't fail now. He looked at his paws, then at the eggs. He thought of his hungry cubs. A look of crazed, human determination flashed in his eyes. He took a deep breath, and his body began to glow with that now-familiar golden light. He was about to use the one trick that was both his salvation and his deepest humiliation.