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  “Oh, yeah, I was just making a phone call. Be easy,” I replied. I tossed up the peace sign before pulling off. It took twenty minutes to get to my home. My cabin was deep in the woods by a river. It was my father’s old home before he built his mansion. He wanted me to move in with him, but I needed my space. Often, our beasts bumped heads. Two dominant males of our kind couldn’t live together or even be in the same room for a long period of time. My animal was vicious, territorial, and untamed.

  After punching in the code to my home, the thick metal glass door opened. Lynx ran into me and jumped in my arms. She purred and stretched her oversized paws over my shoulders. Lynx was a mountain lion I found on a ski trip a year ago. She was badly injured by a pack of wolves and was left to die. She jumped out of my arms and shifted into her human form. I closed my eyes and she giggled.

  “Damn it, Eze. You’ve seen me naked before,” she said.

  “Yeah, but you’re like my little sister. Put some fuckin’ clothes on, Lynx,” I replied. Lynx was a young lion, around nineteen in human years. Her skin was the color of bark and she wore her kinky hair in twists. Nonetheless, she was beautiful.

  “Come on, don’t be like that. I know you watch me,” she said. She turned around so I could get an eyeful of her round backside.

  “Did you find a place yet?” I asked, walking off.

  “Are you kicking me out?” she asked and crawled up the wall. She hung upside down from the ceiling looking at me with her pretty brown cat eyes.

  “I’m not kicking you out, but I need my space. I feel like I’m shacking up with a mate,” I replied, and she jumped down.

  “Is that a bad thing?” she asked.

  “What do you think? You scared my piece of ass off last week. I had to swim in the cold lake because of you. This is becoming bad for me and him,” I said, pointing to my dick.

  “I have everything you need, Eze. We’ve known each other for months, so I think it’s time to make it official. I’ll be going in heat in a few months and will be a grown female by then,” she said. I kissed her forehead and she purred.

  “Sorry, beautiful. I can’t help you with that. I’m not fuckin’ you, period,” I replied.

  “You’re gonna regret this,” she said, and playfully pushed me.

  “Clothes on now, please,” I replied.

  “Fine, Daddy!” she said as she stormed down the hall.

  “Stop callin’ me that, too!” I yelled out after her, and she gave me the middle finger. The meat cellar was in the basement of my house. Three fresh cows hung from the ceiling.

  “I got them for you. Happy Birthday,” Lynx said from behind me. When I turned around, she was wearing a long, black silk kimono robe.

  “Three whole cows? I wasn’t expecting all of this,” I replied and she giggled.

  “Anything for my king. Quanir just called and told me about your ritual. What should I wear?” she asked.

  “Whatever you want to wear,” I replied.

  “Are you nervous about tonight?” she asked.

  “It’s life-changing. I’ll be more than just a shapeshifter, I’ll be the king of the clan. I’m not ready for this,” I admitted and she rubbed my back.

  “It’s a part of your kind. You can’t fight fate. I’ll be there right by your side, the same way you were there for me when I was dying,” she replied.

  “Go get ready,” I said and she left the cellar.

  My life had been simple since I could remember. I graduated from college, and after college, I opened a business selling exotic animals. It wasn’t nothing big, but I enjoyed the nature of capturing animals from all over the world—endangered animals who needed a home instead of being extinct. The humans mated the animals so they wouldn’t die out. The way I saw it, I was saving them. Often times, I wondered how life would be if I were human, but they eventually died. Immortal souls recycled through ancestry. Many humans thought the sabertooths became extinct during the Ice Age but we have our own story. Ten thousand years ago, there was a huge earthquake that wiped out most of the species. Somehow, another world opened when the earthquake happened. A sabertooth and caveman fell into the portal. My father said their souls were combined, and when the caveman resurfaced, he was a shapeshifter. The shapeshifter was the patriarch of our tribe whom I never met. My father doesn’t know how true the story is himself, because my great, great-great grandfather only came around during rituals. However it happened, I was certain that Earth held its own experiments. Sabertooth shapeshifters were all related, so they had to mate outside of their own, more than likely with a human. I never met my mother because she died giving birth to me. My father said she bled out, and although he tried to save her, it wasn’t good enough because she wasn’t immortal. The ringing of my cellphone brought me out of my thoughts.

  “What’s good?” I answered.

  “Tonight is the big night, cuz. How do you feel about that?” my cousin, Quanir, asked me.

  “Fuck you, bruh. It should’ve been your dumb ass,” I replied and he chuckled.

  “It should’ve been, but for some reason, you’re the chosen one. It gotta be the complexion, bruh,” he said.

  “Bruh, seriously?” I asked.

  “Seriously, nobody is feelin’ light skinned niggas anymore,” he said.

  “You gotta’ take that up with your mother. She should’ve mated with a chocolate brutha,” I replied.

  “Yeah, whatever. How are we celebratin’?” he asked.

  “You do know I might die tonight, right?” I replied.

  “We don’t die, so stop actin’ like a human. Look, I’ll slide you a blunt and a bottle of Henny before the ritual. That way you can be relaxed,” he said.

  “Appreciate it,” I said before I hung up.

  Lynx was dancing around wet and naked when I walked upstairs to my bedroom. It was in her nature to be carefree; it was the spirit of her animal. I admired her free spirit and most days, it brought peace to my life. Lynx was a perfect mate but she wasn’t perfect for me. The animal in me rejected her scent. It wasn’t a bad scent but because animals communicated through scent, it was a big factor in our lives.

  It’ll be over soon. Tomorrow will be a new day, I thought, heading toward my bedroom.

  *************

  It was almost midnight when me and Lynx reached our destination. The drive was almost two hours long because of traffic. She happily danced in the passenger seat while listening to a rap song.

  “Come on, baby. This is your song,” Lynx said in excitement.

  “I’m not in the mood right now. I don’t think I can do this,” I said.

  “It’ll be a piece of cake. Why are you scared?” she asked.

  “I’m not scared. I don’t get scared and you know that. What if I fail the clan when I become king? It won’t be just about my life anymore. That’s a huge position,” I said.

  “I’ll be right by your side to make sure you stay on track,” she replied.

  “What would I do without you?” I chuckled.

  She pulled her tight maxi dress up to her hips and slid her thong down to her ankles. I almost swerved off the road and she roared in laughter.

  “Would you chill the fuck out?” I asked her.

  “I hate wearing panties,” she purred.

  “We gotta have a serious talk when all of this is over,” I replied.

  “Okay,” she said, and tossed her panties out the window.

  Minutes later, we arrived in the mountains. The only light we had was from the moon which was hiding behind the trees. A shadow of a sabertooth’s face was in the sky above the cave where the ceremony took place. Lynx got out of the car and shifted into her lion. Her eyes turned in a golden hazel, her pretty tan coat reminding me of silk. She rubbed against my leg with her tail raised straight in the air. The cave was a few miles away. The growls and roars echoed throughout the woods, coming from the caves in the mountains. The sabertooths were already there waiting for me.

  Are you ready? Lynx asked.


  “I’ll beat you there,” I replied. Her lion took off running through the woods. Still in my human form, I climbed up a tree, jumping from tree to tree. I looked below and she was almost beating me. Not one to be outdone, my large hairy beast emerged as I landed on a tree. The tree fell and blocked Lynx from running up the mountain. I jumped over her and landed on the other side of the fallen tree.

  Cheating ass! she thought.

  Give it up, you know you can’t challenge me in a race, I replied and she hissed at me. She shifted back into human form and crawled on my back. Her small hands gripped my mane as I ran the rest of the way up the mountain. The cave was so far up, it would’ve taken a human three or four days to climb the mountain. Lynx almost fell off my back when my paw slipped off a rock.

  Hold tightly, I’m ready to jump, I thought.

  My body made a loud thump when I landed inside the cave. Lynx slid across the floor, digging her nails in to stop herself from sliding off the cliff. She shifted again when the noise in the cave grew louder. Sharp long canines emerged from the darkness of the cave. A large paw, bigger than a grizzly bear’s, stepped into the light. Greenish-gray eyes glowed at me, along with the medallion around the beast’s neck. Fifteen oversized sabertooths emerged from behind the beast wearing the medallion. The beast was my father.

  We’re waiting for you, my father thought.

  I shifted back to human form, my naked body following the clan of sabertooths as they headed further into the cave. Paintings of men and large prehistoric animals were carved into the rocks on the wall. My medallion made the drawings glow. A waterfall was in the cave, and in front of it sat a stone bed made for sacrificing.

  Don’t worry, son. You’ll be safe, my father thought.

  I’m not worried, old man, I replied.

  My cousins and other family members sat at the top of the cave looking down. It was almost like a stadium but full of sabertooths. The growls got quiet and all the sabertooths laid flat on their stomachs. A horn blew and bats flew out of the cave and into the night. A large man came from behind the waterfall with brown matted locs that trailed behind him like a dress. He wore a necklace of two large gold sabertooth’s teeth. The teeth on his necklace were from his beast. The stench that came from him was sickening. He smelled like a dead cow carcass. He was the sabertooths patriarch, Fi. I heard many tales about him but seeing him in person was a different experience. I couldn’t tell if his tar-dark skin was his complexion or dirt. Fi tapped the stone bed for me to lie down.

  I’m worried, Lynx thought.

  Now you wanna be worried, you shouldn’t be, I replied.

  I don’t have a good feeling about this, let’s just go, she thought.

  It’s too late, I replied as I laid on the stone bed.

  Fi placed his wrist over my mouth and slit it with a sharp stone shaped like a dagger. His blood dripped into my mouth and a deep roar came from the pit of my stomach. The rest of the sabertooths roared. Fi’s pupils turned white and he began chanting in an unfamiliar language. His blood burned the inside of my body and my skin felt like it was melting. Tears filled my eyes as my beast roared in pain. Lynx tried to pull me off the stone bed but a sabertooth tackled her onto the ground. Fi snatched the gold tooth off his necklace and jabbed it into my chest. Surprisingly, it soothed the pain I was in, sending a welcoming and peaceful feeling. Death was what I was experiencing. The blood from my body dripped inside the cracks in the floor. It flowed into the pool of water, turning the water red. The cave was quiet. I thought I was left alone until I felt my arms and legs being chained to the stone bed. At that point, death seemed better than anything. Blood poured out of my mouth and I began to choke. My vision was getting blurry but I could still make out the figure that emerged from the pool of blood—it was me.

  How can this be? What in the fuck is goin’ on? Where did he come from? I thought as I watched myself. Roars shook the cave as the figure walked over to me. Its eyes were different than the ones I had before. Gold and emerald eyes stared into mine. The figure had larger teeth which were made out of gold metal. My heart slowed down, and when I finally took my last breath, the image in front of me turned into a cloud. The dark cloud entered my mouth, bringing me back to life. The sabertooths roared again after Fi disappeared; the ritual was over. My father and Quanir stood over me in human form. Lynx tried to give me some water when Quanir unchained me, but I spit up blood when they sat me up.

  “You’re definitely the chosen one. Some have died during transitioning. Fi’s blood is like poison. Your soul came back to you, stronger than ever before,” my father said.

  “So, Eze would’ve died if his soul didn’t make it back to him? What kind of bullshit is that?” Lynx asked my father.

  “Unlike your kind, our kind is built for this destiny,” my father spat. Quanir helped me off the bed and I almost fell.

  “Damn, bruh. It feels like you gained a hundred pounds,” Quanir said. When I stood up, I was an inch taller. My muscles were lean and I had markings on my legs, arms, and chest.

  “Welcome, Rajan,” my father said.

  “Who the fuck is that?” I asked just above a whisper.

  “The name of your beast means king. When we are born, we are given two names. The second name is given after your rebirth. You sacrificed your soul to your ancestors and they gave you another one in return. Your old soul will create a new life many years from now. It’s how we keep our kind alive. You will be a king until your old soul is born again. The ancestors are very choosey, it might be hundreds of years from now until they find another warrior who is worthy of becoming king. Some aren’t chosen until their twenty-fifth birthday, and even then, it still doesn’t determine their fate. You are special, Eze. You will be a better king than me,” he said.

  “What’s your real name, Father?” I asked. We called him Alexander but Alexander was his rebirth name.

  “Shamkar was my name. I was dead for a day before my soul came back to me. Fi wasn’t sure if I would make a great king. I wasn’t strong enough to come right back after the ritual but I’m very proud of you, son. I gotta go now,” he said.

  “Wait, where are you going?” I asked when he walked towards the waterfall.

  “Home to Camden. I wish there was another way, but unfortunately there isn’t one. I can go home and spend time with our family now. You can see our world whenever you want to. It’s a beautiful place. It’s sorta like a retirement home. Our medallions are the keys to the portals of Camden,” he said. He hugged me tightly and his warm tears soaked my shoulder. Lynx rubbed my father’s back as he cried. Moments later, he pulled away from me and disappeared into the waterfall. He was the last sabertooth to enter before the waterfall disappeared.

  “Here you go, bruh,” Quanir said and handed me a fifth of Henny. I popped the top off with my sharp teeth before I guzzled the warm brown cognac down.

  “Welcome home, Rajan,” Quanir said.

  “I’m still Eze, bruh, remember that,” I replied.

  Lynx and Quanir helped me out of the cave. We had a long way back home.

  **********

  When I woke up the next morning, my head was pounding. I stumbled out of the bed and tripped over the sheets that were wrapped around my body.

  “FUCK!” I yelled out. As soon as I got up, I headed straight to the bathroom.

  “What in th—”

  My dick was bigger than it was before and tribal markings were embedded into the head of my shaft. Lynx came into the bathroom.

  “Why are you making so much noise?” she yawned. Her eyes landed on my shaft and she covered her mouth.

  “It’s beautiful, like artwork,” she said. I used my foot to slam the door in her face.

  “I saw you naked before, Eze!” she yelled out.

  Once I was finished, I flushed the toilet. When I looked in the mirror, I noticed a few things had changed about my face. My cheekbones were higher. My eyes had a gold tint around my pupils and my canine teeth were gold with
small, black tribal symbols at the tips. I wrapped a towel around my waist and opened the door. Lynx was sitting on my bed with her robe open.

  “Your scent is driving me insane,” she said.

  “Look at me, I have gold canines and markings all over my body,” I replied. She handed me the pamphlet my father gave me and I sat on the bed to read it. Lynx seductively purred in my ear as she licked my neck. The language in the book were drawings but my soul understood it.

  “This new you are so hardcore,” Lynx said while massaging my back.

  “It’s the inner me, Lynx. Our animals match our personalities. No wonder my father’s beast was boring. Shit, now I have to run a multibillion-dollar company looking like this,” I chuckled.