Chapter 3: Apex Of My World (part 1)

“Whiplash?”

Shira’s worried voice barely reached my ears- I was fixated on the monkeys. I saw the worried look on Shira’s face out of the corner of my eye and it snapped me out of it. The monkeys had long past and I had to comfort her. We walked back, all the while I reassured and soothed her. The dragon-lizards had sent their best after the monkeys and their eggs, and our leaders insured the safety of our young and females. Shira was told to stay with me, and I to stay with Shira. Malice, a Shadowmane about our age tried to get Shira to stay with him (he kept trying to win over her and treated me as a lesser, I hated him for it) but Shira and I snuck away. We decided that a stroll through the forest was the way to ease our minds.

We trekked through the bushes along a small path deep into the forest when the light in the sky was past its peak. Shira lay down and I curled up beside her. We grew weary. Our eyelids became heavier and heavier, and in the end we fell asleep. I dreamed- I dreamed of the monkeys and their behemoth; of Shira and her beauty; and of fish. Of plump, juicy fish that could fill you for weeks splashing about in the water. I could see it in my head, I could smell it… I could TASTE it. Mmmm… wait… I could TASTE IT! I startled awake. Shira woke too.

“Whiplash, what’s…” she was too tired to finish her sentence. Then she caught it too. The scent of the monkeys. We cloaked and ran about everywhere, searching for them. In the end we found a pig with a metal cage on its back, and a metal pole jutting out of the metal cage. It was foraging about for berries, and it smelled of the monkeys. I drew back, ready to strike but I received an impact to my side. It immobilised me- I couldn’t move. I heard something coming towards me. I couldn’t see it. I was gonna die.

“NOOO!” Shira leaped into action, her eyes blazing her fangs slicing. Their weapons were crushed under her bite and their pig struck dead by her claws. She came and cut me free of the web, but a monkey had snuck round and pointed their fire stick at my head. My eyes opened wipe with fear as I thought I took my last breath. But he didn’t fire. He panicked. He waved his stick around, as if he couldn’t see us. I looked at my paw, and I was… cloaked? I wasn’t cloaking, so how…I turned round and saw Shira, her eyes wide in fear and her jaw hanging open- and she was cloaking me. We stood there for what seemed like an eternity, but a whimper from the monkey snapped us out of it. I turned round and finished him in one blow. As we began walking back to the pack, it was all we could talk about. You see, only a female Shadowmane who had found her mate could cloak others, and a male Shadowmane who had found his mate can muster a call the shakes the very worlds our God made for us. Shira had found her mate. Me. She was blushing the whole way until we saw it: the behemoth. It roared and swooped towards us, but I wasn’t letting anyone touch her. So long as I lived, Shira WILL be safe. I sprung towards it before it could reach the ground and grappled with its neck in my steel jaw. I thrashed around it and it burned me with its flames: but I drew so much blood from it that it was forced to pull away. I left a scar that ran the whole way down its neck to its wing joint. I fell back down and climbed up a rock to see it off. I let out a cry that shook the ground beneath us, and I felt complete. I had done as our God made us to do: to kill those monkeys. I had killed one, and I had the power coursing through my veins to fell any foe: and that is exactly what I would’ve done if that behemoth stayed. I looked down on Shira and saw the glow in her eyes and I realised it too: we were a couple now. We spent the whole time next to each other, our shoulders side by side as we made our way back to the pack.

When we got there, we went to our pride’s leader, Conquest, and told him about what happened and Shira cloaked me and I showed that power to prove it. He gathered us all together to announce it: the union of our families. Whiplash and Shira. After the announcement and everyone’s congratulations, Malice came up to Shira and said:

“You chose that idiot over me? I have everything! No one is stronger than me! And you go after him? Pff- it’s cause you blinked your pretty little brown eyes at him isn’t it?”

“They’re green,” Replied Shira, blinking rapidly at him and continuing: “And besides, you almost peed your silly little heart out when you saw that beast- and Whiplash took thrashed open its neck. I bet you could never pull that off, like the way you’ll never get a girl.”

I laughed at that- he just got violated. He came up to me and slashed at my face with his claws.