Ursanthropy

Doreen

I was watching with awe towards the boy that was fighting off all the cats that were surrounding him. I guess that with all those tattoos on his body, he tried to hide the fact that he was still a young person, but it wouldn’t fool me. There had been plenty of things happening in my life, the past few years, for me to be trained to notice little things that made the persons who they were today. But even though I knew that he was still young, even underaged perhaps, there was also something that I couldn’t read about him, something that perhaps he didn’t know either.

His anger and disdain look upon his face towards us, while he must be just like one of us, as he isn’t fazed by the fact that he is being attacked by these animals, was confusing me to say the least. Why would he be thinking bad of us? Isn’t he aware of being a shifter himself as well? I mean, he definitely smells like one, although its faint.

Maybe his lack of shifter-smell was the thing that made us not aware of his presence in the first place. But as soon as he had made those soft sounds, right behind the fallen log on the little elevation, the protective cats had immediately shifted and soared their way to him.

He was a good fighter, a strong one too, as he managed to fight off all of the attackers without himself getting hurt once. But as there were too many, he only knocked them away or hit them unconscious, so that he could focus on the others that attacked him.

As I walked closer by, to see more clearly what he was doing, something else occurred as well. I don’t know what it was, but I felt the dire need to protect this boy from being hurt or killed. But it wasn’t because he could perhaps be a part of the pack, as I had never seen him before, no this was something else, something I couldn’t yet figure out.

“Stop, don’t hurt him.” I said in a clear voice, at which some of the cats bounced back in hearing.

But the boy continued to fight, to swing away at the ones that were still close to him. He even had his bulky arm around one of the leopard’s necks, and only then I realized that this ‘boy’ has far more strength than an person of his age should have. He is larger, bulkier and stronger than any of these cats on its own! He even has some wild patches of fur on the back of his neck, trailing down his now bare back, right in between several more tattoos. The way his body held up to the young looks on his face, just didn’t add up, it was as if his body was manufactured for fighting, while his age wasn’t ready for it yet.

But his looks weren’t frightening me one bit, not that a boy would frighten me at all, but his looks could bestow fear on a regular woman my age. Actually, him being almost able to kill one of the cats here, made me a little angry now.

“Stop fighting!” I yelled a lot louder now and he even managed to flinch once at my yell, but still continued to fight the animals.

“Please my Queen, don’t come too close. I think he is a feral rogue.” One of the tigers told me, when he had shifted back to human. But I didn’t care if he would turn out to be a rogue or not, I was determined to find out what he was doing here, why he was fighting others, so I just kept on walking.

I am a Queen, and it is my right to find out about his motives! I roared in annoyance as the boy still didn’t stop when I asked for it again. My anger was rising and I couldn’t stop myself any longer when another tiger had been knocked unconscious.

I nearly shifted here, right on the spot, but I contained myself and roared really loudly! “STOP!” I bellowed one last time, before I would truly lose my shit.

Every cat shifted back to its human form and instantly let themselves drop on one knee. The boy on his turn fought the urge to do that as well, as I could see the utter confusion written on his face. But he couldn’t fight off the power that I was radiating at this moment.

I had been angry before, just like that moment, just a few hours ago, where I found all those women in the barn. But this feeling inside me wasn’t only anger, it was something far more complicated. I tried to compose thoughts about what I was feeling, but all I could come up with, was the need to protect my kind, the need to carefully figure this out, the need to not judge a situation just by looking at it from one angle. It’s rather selfish to think about this, but I guess that my inheritable Queen genes are coming through here, to act upon this event in a justifiable way, and not in utter rage.

“Who are you, and what are you doing here?” I asked him.

“I’m not going to tell you anything!” He shouted. “And what is this, that you are doing to me!?” He continued and now I was a little confused. I was doing something to him? I looked around and all the cats that had been bend down to the knee, were still in that seated position. They could have risen up already, but as they still hadn’t, it made me a little uncomfortable.

I tried to remember what I had read about Queens, but all I could think of, was that the book had explained them to be strong-willed females, but that was something that was making me uncertain if I was a Queen at all, because I thought that ‘strong-willed’ was just a subtle way to say that they were stubborn and selfish. And even though I could relate to being perhaps stubborn, I never thought of myself as being selfish.

But now that I see all these people bending their knee, not being able to stand up again, as I had commanded respect from everyone around me, just a few moments ago, I was hesitant about the ‘strong-willed’ statement in the book. Was it some form of power, that only the Queen had? A power to command people to do things? Was I able to use my sheer will to make shifters do what I wanted from them? I didn’t know, but I had to make the people around me be able to stand up again.

“Rise.” I hesitantly said to all the cats, and when they all sighed and managed to stand up again, my cheeks burned with red. “I, I’m sorry that I did that.” I excused myself, while looking around me.

Vic and Cindy came closer as well, curious about what was happening. “Don’t say sorry for something that you are, Doreen.” Vic said with a smile. “Thor, honey, could you please make sure that this fighter here, can’t go anywhere?” Vic continued and Thor didn’t have to be told twice.

And I just stood there, watching at how he still sat on his knees, trying to fight off the men that were now binding his arms and legs together, in a way that he couldn’t build up a momentum to break through the ropes.

Slowly but certainly, I felt really tired and I figured that whatever it is that I was doing to him, cost me a lot of energy. I tried to let go of the boy’s command and took a few deep sighs. Eventually, when my mind was calmed down again, I could see him try to squirm his limbs out of the ropes, as his body was free to follow his own command again.

I sat myself down, nearly falling to the side, as I was really exhausted. But Vic caught me at the last moment. “You good?” She asked me and I slightly nodded. “What more do you have up that sleeve of yours, that we don’t know about?” She asked me then, with a smile on her face.

“I don’t know. I don’t even know what this was, that just happened to them.” I said as I pointed to all the people around me, but Vic just shrugged.

“I guess that you are growing, my dear Queen.” She chuckled and gave me a hug.

A few minutes later, Thor had taken the boy’s phone but didn’t know what to do with it now, as normal shifter packs hardly ever carried phones with them. So I took it from him and unlocked it with the tied-up boy’s thumbprint. Immediately, I searched for anything remotely explaining of who this boy was and why he was here. But when I read his last send messages, which were to ‘the King’ I thought for a moment that he was one of Dennis’ men. But that thought didn’t sit well with me, as I remembered the looks on his face, of that of disgust and hatred, not for just us being the opposite party, but for us being shifters. So, I figured that he must be one of my father’s men.

So, my initial thoughts about the possibility of my father being here as well, which could make this whole situation an even bigger mess than it already was, had been true. But looking down towards the young shackled shifter, this whole event gave me even more questions to be answered. There where we had figured out what the roots were of Dennis, another problem arose instead.

I was still rather tired from what I did earlier, but we didn’t have the luxury to wait around, picking out our noses. Jack was inside, with the new shifter King and probably my father as well, and we would have to get him out of there as soon as possible. Because as probably all of the Alphas in there have agreed to Dennis becoming King, Jack, and also Maxwell, were in danger.

It’s time to end this, once and for all.