Kenneth's POV
"How dare she speak ill of Lucy? Man, if only she knew how much more I'm drawn to Lucy—a gazillion times more than I would ever be to her. She is playing with fire," I told them, feeling that bile of anger rise again.
"Oh man, I can't believe that's what she wanted to talk to you about. The nerve she has to irk a royal lion in that way, princess or not. She should know better than to offend a lion in an environment filled with humans like this —let alone a royal one," Thomas reiterated, making me fume even more.
"Calm down, Ken. And you, Tom, stop adding fuel to the fire," Malcom snapped at Tom, who snarled back. "Ken, she isn't worth your anger. What if she just has a crush on you and just wants to get you worked up like she already has? Just to mess with things between you and Lucy? Are you going to give in to her prodding?"
Mal was making sense, but I was still so pissed off.
"Man, I wish I could let Zeus loose and run out this anger that's choking me up," I said matter-of-factly.
Tom was already done removing his clothes before I could even finish. Yeah, that's Tom for you—very impulsive and spontaneous, I must say. Mal tried talking us out of it, but my clothes were already off by the time he was mid-sentence.
"Guys, this place has occasional human visitors… do you want to risk being exposed? What about our clothes? What if someone takes them before we come back? What if we're being watched…?" He went on and on.
"Maybe you can stay behind and guard our clothes, Mal, because I ain't changing my mind. Bridge is already giving me a hell of a headache," Tom said with sarcasm.
"I ain't changing mine either," I added.
"Fine! Let's get caught together then," Mal said, removing his clothes, and we hid them in a thicket.
Eyes closed, bones cracking, our structures changed one by one, tails shooting out—and we stood there as huge lions with bushy manes. My lion, Zeus, is golden with a dark black mane. Bridge, Tom's lion, is light brown with a dark brown mane, whereas Luis, Malcolm's lion, is almost dark brown with a reddish mane. Weird as it sounds, werelions have different colors from real lions. The goddess has not only endowed us with supernatural speed, strength, and agility, but she also made us unique enough that if humans were super-intelligent, they could tell the difference between werelions and real lions.
We took off at an exhilarating speed, the wind brushing over my fur and melting that anger away. There was a stream at the end of the forest stretch, and we sat there lapping water from it and swimming a bit. I wished I could hunt, but I knew it's impossible here. I can't wait to go home, where I can freely be myself without all these constraints.
My mind raced back to Lucy, wondering if she would be able to accept me for who I am. I can't force her, and I won't. I just hope she will willingly accept me on her own will.
I felt a wet nose nudging me and looked toward its direction. How long had I zoned out? Bridge and Luis were staring at me like I was some funny movie.
"What?" I queried through our mind link.
"You zoned out on us for a good twenty minutes, you twit. Are you getting comfortable in here? We might get caught, the wildlife department could get called on our asses, and we could be caged. Come off it and let's get going," the only one who could impulsively drag you into a situation and then turn against you responded. Tom can be a damn splinter in your paw at times.
We headed back to where we left our clothes only to find a group of boys and girls roaming the place.
"Oh no! What do we do?" cried Tom.
"I don't know, man. Why don't you come up with one of those brilliant solutions of yours?" snarled Mal through our mind link.
"Guys, stop bickering like teenage girls. We should think fast," I snapped at both of them. "They haven't seen us yet. Let's hide and make a roar—not too loud to alert the whole place, but enough to scare them. Then we can grab our clothes as soon as they run off," I suggested.
"Good idea, Leo. But what if they faint or don't run away? Will we shift and appear before them naked? Man, that would be the hottest topic on the school blog. I can imagine the headline: 'The Secretary General Caught in the Bush Stark Naked… Hahaha!'" Tom was now rolling with ripples of laughter, irritating the heck out of us through our mind link.
"The idea is worth trying, though," said Malcolm.
We all agreed to try, without Tom making fun of our predicament. We hid, and I roared just enough to scare them. They looked toward the direction of the sound.
"What the heck was that?" one of them asked.
"A roar. Of a lion," another responded.
"Do we have lions around? So close to civilization and outside a park?" another shouted, his voice laced with fear.
They all mumbled whatever they were mumbling amongst themselves with incoherent voices, fear and confusion settling in. And just then, our impulsive Tom let out another roar—a little louder than mine—and they all scrambled and scattered, running for their dear lives.
A girl stood frozen on the spot. I guess she was so scared that she couldn't move.