Kinira's Decision
Kinira's Decision
This is the continuation of my story, 'Kinira, daughter of Kiara'. In this one, the remainder of the Outlanders have found Kinira.........
How long she lay upon the cool ground of the African savanna, Kinira did not know. She was prodded rudely into wakefullness by a rough claw. The young daughter of Kiara opened her eyes, but closed them as the moon shone down into her face. "Get up," a rasping voice snarled angrily. The young lioness was yanked to her four paws, and a broad muzzle was shoved against her tailhole. Kinira yelped and shuddered as a long tongue licked her, savoring her taste, and then the grating voice sounded again. "She's fresh, Zasti. What will you do with her?" Another voice sounded, feminine but harsh. "Bring her to the camp, Nufei. I will decide what to do with her there." Kinira felt a set of huge paws grab her up; then she was dangling upside down, gazing at the long tail and swinging balls of a large male lion. Her head throbbed unmercifully, her senses swam, and soon she passed out again, hoisted over Nufei's shoulder.
Kinira was dumped unceremoniously down into the dust after a while, the impact jarring her awake. The young lioness struggled to her feet, but a rough paw shoved her back down. "Lie still," another lion's voice growled. Kinira lay in the dirt, trying to collect her senses and wondering why she was so lightheaded. After a few moments, the large paws of a lioness appeared before her, and Kinira was hauled to her feet once more. The lioness, Zasti, who was the Outlanders' leader, sneered as she gazed at Kinira's soft, tawnyfurred body, lightly muscled, unlike the bulging muscles and lean, sinewy bodies of Zasti's wild lions. "So, you're a Pridelander." Kinira nodded. "Yes. Who are you?" Zasti's face twisted into a snarl, and she struck Kinira full across the face, open-clawed. The young lioness gasped and fell to the ground, blood running across her face from a cut across her left eye, a cut that would turn into a scar, and another upon her brow. Zasti gazed down at her, her heart seeming to stop as she recognized Ranti's dark features and yellow eyes, along with the fresh scar that had marked every lion of Scar's line since Mufasa's death. Kinira was undoubtedly one of them. Zasti regained her calm, and nudged Kinira roughly. "On your paws, softcat!" Kinira got to her feet, tail switching, yellow eyes blazing with anger. The gathered lions gasped at the young lioness's uncanny resemblance to Scar, Zira, and Kovu, and their eyes shone with new respect. Zasti saw this, and knew that she looked nothing like the lions of Scar's blood, even though she was the Outlanders' leader. If Kinira decided to fight her, Zasti knew that her days as pride leader were numbered, for in this young Pridelander's veins ran the true blood of Scar's pride. Zasti pinned her ears back and snarled angrily. "One does not ask a prideleader who they are, especially if one is an intruder!" Kinira bared her fangs. She was stunned by the feeling of intense evil that swept through her, not knowing that the wicked spirit of Scar was calling her. "I am no intruder; I am a chintu!" the young lioness snarled. Scar's spirit filled her, pounding in her head, flowing with her blood. She was of this pride, this pride was hers, their blood was hers, her blood was theirs. "I am Kinira!"
Zasti was taken aback, and Kinira continued to round on the prideleader. "I was born of Kovu's elder brother, Ranti, and a Pridelands lioness, Kiara. My stepfather, Kovu, is a traitor to this pride, Scar's pride. He is a traitor to our blood! He allowed my so-called grandfather, Simba, to take his brother, Nuka's, life! He must die!" Zasti backed away as Kinira whirled upon the assembled lions. "Answer me, sons and daughters of Scar's pride! We will fight the Pridelanders! We will drive them out, as they have done to us! We will kill the lionesses of Zira who dared to ally with Simba, and eat the flesh of Kovu!" The Outlanders roared and snarled their approval. Kinira's eyes blazed with wicked delight as she strode toward Zasti, who crouched, shaking, on the ground. "Get up!" Kinira kicked Zasti and leapt upon her. Scar's strength filled her body. Hurling the former prideleader away, Kinira set her claws against the rock behind her, and slashed it, roaring with delight. Long, thick, razor-sharp black claws leapt from her paws to score the black rock. Scar's claws. Kinira sprang to the top of the rock, her voice snarling wickedly. "I will no longer be known as Kinira, 'chosen to be great,' but instead shall be called Tazu, 'daughter of darkness!'" The Outlanders roared, lifting clawed paws to the air, saluting their young new leader. "Tazu! Tazu! Tazu!" Tazu roared with them, the moon shining down upon her yellow eyes and scarred face. Scar lived again.
**
Kiara buried her face in Kovu's thick brown mane and inhaled his fresh scent. Although Kovu had visited all of his lionesses the night before, he had fallen asleep with her afterwards. The sunlight shone down on them both. Kovu rolled over and took Kiara in his arms, a rumbling purr starting in his throat as he licked her face. Kiara smiled and pressed her lips to his, and the two shared a long kiss. Kovu felt a jolt in his member, and it swelled, sliding from its furry sheath. Kiara gasped as he took a nipple in his mouth, and felt his hot shaft rubbing along her thigh. Suddenly, a flurry of feathers stopped the head lioness and the prideleader in the middle of their foreplay, and Zazi, Zazu's great-granddaughter, strode in. The little blue hornbill bowed low before the two, and broke into her report. "Kovu, a herd of gazelle has been killed!" So great was the shock of this announcement that Kovu's ready shaft retreated back into its furry casing and softened immediately as Kovu's arousal turned to shock and anger. "Where? Show me where, Zazi!" The counselor nodded, and took to flight as Kovu bounded on all fours out of the cave. Kiara jumped to her own paws and hurried out of the cavern to alert the rest of Kovu's lionesses.
As Kovu raced over the savanna, his thick mane sweeping back, wildebeeste pounded out of his way and impala sprang away from the lion. Kovu slid to a shocked halt as the long grass was cut short and he entered a clearing of flattened turf and bloody bodies. Six gazelle lay dead, their throats and bellies ripped out and their entrails flung across the trampled clearing. Bile rose in Kovu's throat as the scent of lions hit his nostrils and the roof of his mouth, a pride he knew well.
The Outlanders.
Zazi circled overhead, then dropped down from the sky to perch on Kovu's shoulder. The prideleader checked his rage and stepped over to the carcasses, trying to avoid the gruesome pieces of bloody viscera and windpipes that lay strewn everywhere. He sniffed again, and a slightly familiar scent hit him, but he couldn't place it. "Has any Pridelander, lion or other, seen who has done this?" Kovu inquired of the bird on his shoulder. Zazi nodded. "Cheki the leopard, but he refuses to talk of it to anyone but me, for fear the Outlanders will return and kill his leopardess and cubs. Cheki said that he was out hunting last night when he saw the dark lions enter your territory, Sire. He said that they were many, and were led by a young lioness, who bears Scar's mark upon her eye and whom the Outlanders call Tazu." Kovu shook his head. "They have come to take revenge upon me for Zira's death." Suddenly, his yellow eyes widened, for Simba, the ruler before him, had taken some of Zira's lionesses into his pride. Could it be that they had helped the Outlanders responsible for this? After all, blood was thicker than water...and he had left Pride Rock virtually unguarded with them there! "Get the wild dogs to clean up here," Kovu snapped to Zazi, who bowed, and took to the air. "I am going back to get my pride together. Alert the cheetahs of this, but no other beast." Kovu whirled and raced back toward his beloved Pride Rock.
Kiara breathed a sigh of relief as her mate leapt onto the cliff jutting out from Pride Rock, but Kovu swept past her. Vitani, Kovu's halfsister, lay in the cave's entrance, nursing her son, Nali. She had been pregnant with him during the battle between Simba and Zira; Nali's father had been Zira's brother Renza, Vitani's uncle. Vitani licked Nali's softly rounded ears and smiled up at her halfbrother, but her smile faded as Kovu began to shout and snarl at the Outlands lionesses who had joined the Pridelands after Zira's death. The she-lions leapt to their feet, confused and startled by their leader's anger. Using pricks of his claws and bites of his fangs, Kovu herded the baffled lionesses into a smaller cave beside the first one used for sleeping. Snarling, the prideleader shoved the last lioness inside and, using all of his frenzied strength, yanked a huge rock across the entrance, sealing them inside. Kiara stared at him. "Kovu...?" Vitani leapt to her feet. "Kovu! What are you doing?!" The lion whirled on her, ignoring the sorrowful moans and stunned cries from inside the closed cave. "Silence! Be thankful that I don't lock you up with them, and your precious son too!" Vitani backed away, stunned into speechlessness, nearly tripping over Nali as he whimpered with fear and cowered at her heels. Kiara ran to her mate's side. "Kovu, what's going on? Why have you locked them up?" By now, Nala and the other true Prideland lionesses had crept to Kiara's side. Sheko, one of Kovu's young sons, blurted, "Father? Why have you locked Nikai up? She's my friend!" Other lionesses began to voice their questions, until Kovu thundered, "Silence!" The lionesses cowered in shock; Vitani and Kiara flinched. Kovu's yellow eyes were wide with panic and anger and his chest heaved as he spoke. "Six gazelle have been killed, out on the border between the Outlands and my lands. Zazi speaks of a leopard who has seen these dark lions crossing our boundary, led by a young lioness who wears Scar's mark and....." Kovu's eyes narrowed. "Where's Kinira?" Kiara bit her lip, but before she could speak, another of Kovu's sons, Kazi, who was Kinira's age, gasped, "She's gone!" Kovu looked at Kazi, then at Kiara, and then he turned pale under his fur. "By Mufasa's mane, Kinira's run away and joined the Outlanders! She's leading them against me, under the name of Tazu!" Kiara gasped. "Daughter of Darkness! Why would she----" Kovu whirled on her. "She's your daughter, Kiara! You're responsible for this!"
**
Tazu was in heat.
It had come sometime during the night, she realized, after she had led her new pride across Kovu's border to kill. The young lioness rolled in the dust, unable to control the sensual yowls that ripped from her throat. Her skin was hot and her opening throbbed, aching for a male's touch. It was her first heat. Tazu moaned and yowled, writhing ecstatically in the dirt. Nearby, Zasti crouched, sneering at Tazu's predicament, but dared not say anything. Tazu hilted herself as she heard pawsteps nearby and rolled into a sitting position as three of her dark warriors approached, Nufei, Zaki, and Tufa. With them trooped a pack of hyenas, their eyes wild and savage for the blood that Tazu's lions had promised them. The prideleader rose stiffly to greet her warriors, and could not help noticing the thick rod that slid from one of the hyenas' sheaths as she advanced, the canine aroused by her musky heatscent. Tufa, Nufei, and Zaki smelled her tempting odor as well, but dared not make advances toward her. Tazu curled her lip in disgust at the stench that rose from the hyenas' fur, but nodded at her lions. "Well done. Is this all of them?" Tufa nodded. "We searched high and low for other hyenas," the young lion murmured, "but this is all we found." Tazu nodded, but her yellow eyes gleamed at Nufei, and the dark lion looked away. he had been in charge of the recruiting party, and it was his fault that they had not press-ganged more fighters. "Zaki, Tufa," Tazu snapped, "take these hyenas to their sleeping places and feed them." The two nodded, and Tazu turned her yellow Scar-gaze back upon Nufei. "Come with me."
The young lioness led Nufei away from the rest of the camp, down to the stream by which she had been captured in the first place. Tazu flopped down in the dust, trying hard not to yowl and roll, and let her narrow yellow gaze rest on Nufei. "Well? Do the Pridelanders know that I am here?" Nufei shook his head. "I can't say for sure, Tazu, but they soon will." The young prideleader sighed, and then a spasm of heat jerked through her. A soft whimper broke from her throat, and her Scar-gaze softened. Stiffly she rose, and padded toward Nufei, his dusty masculine scent driving her wild with lust. Tazu rubbed her face along his thick mane, a growling purr rising from her lungs, and nuzzled at his cheek. Nufei kept still, but four of his five senses were tormented by his prideleader: her sensual purr, her musky heatsmell, the seductive look in her yellow eyes, the feel of her sinewy body brushing against his own. The only sense that was not tortured was taste, and even that was to come. Tazu gasped as she felt Nufei's broad muzzle press against her throbbing opening and savor her with a long, torturing lick of his raspy tongue. "What have you brought me here to talk about, Scar's Chosen?" Tazu's breath came in short pants as Nufei lay her down upon the cool ground. "To...talk...about...the...Pridelanders...ohhhh!"
Nufei was on top of her now, Tazu on her back, arching her hips into him, he cupping her slender rump in his rough paws as he licked and tasted her, his young, beautiful leader. His muscled thighs held her own soft ones apart, and his sheath swelled with his arousal. Tazu writhed and moaned quietly, waves of heat sweeping over her; made more so by the thought of being taken by Nufei, an Outlands lion, a handsome, powerful, dark Outlands lion. "Ohhh..Nufei, Nufei, Nufei." She said his name over and over again, chanting it, crying it, as her release came and the torturing heat under her skin increased. Nufei groaned huskily, his slick black rod sliding from his furry sheath, as her sweet aroma tormented him. Tazu shrieked as he entered her, sweaty and panting, her legs wrapped around his lean body by the ankles, drawing him in, weeping his name with joy, as his thrusts, so experienced and controlled, drove her over the edge. Nufei shuddered and thrust faster, sliding in and out of her, aided by her wetness, her scent plaguing him, reveling in the thought that he was indeed taking his own leader. Tazu arched her hips as he took her maidenhead, but felt no pain. Her last thought was of Scar, a lion she had never seen, before the climax came.
**
Kiara was stunned. Her golden eyes filled with fury, then pain, then hurt tears as she stared in shock at her mate. "She is your daughter as well, Kovu," Kiara murmured. Kovu's yellow eyes, Scar's eyes, blazed. "No! No! That...that halfbreed wench is not my daughter! If you had not followed me into the desert after I was exiled from the Pridelands...Simba's lands...the Outlanders would have never found you and Ranti would have never raped you and Kinira...Tazu...would have never been born! She is not my daughter! She has Scar's blood in her!" Kiara took a step back. "And you, Kovu? You do not have Scar's blood? You are his son, the son he chose to take over the Pridelands! And look, you've done it. You, the sole ruler of Pride Rock, have fulfilled Scar's plan. You are Scar!" The minute she said it, Kiara wished that she could take it all back, for Kovu's eyes widened in shock. His mouth worked, but nothing emerged. In a flash, Kovu had raced by them all and was tearing across the savanna below Pride Rock.
**
Zazi crept slowly to the top of Pride Rock, her blue feathers limp and dusty. The savanna animals looked up at her, their anxious stares filling with dismay at seeing the royal counselor in such a state. The little hornbill took a deep breath, and began: "Kovu, your ruler, is dead." A tear fell from her eye as shocked cries rose from the gathered beasts. Kiara moved out from the shadows to stand beside Zazi, and her subjects fell silent. "May he rest in peace with the great leaders; Simba and Mufasa." The head lioness drew a shuddering breath, and lifted her head higher. "I now proclaim myself sole ruler of the Pridelands, until a son of Kovu's line is born to take my place."
The animals were silent.
Rafikia, the old baboon Rafiki's granddaughter, slunk to Kiara side, a fruit in one hand, the long, ancient staff that had belonged to her grandfather clenched tightly in the other. Kiara trembled as Rakfikia ripped the fruit in two, dipped her finger into the pulpy juice, and drew a streak across Kiara's forehead, as if she were a royal cub-heir about to be shown to the savanna. Kiara could not hold back the tears, and they flowed freely as Rafikia picked up a handful of dust and sprinkled it upon the sticky mark, then pushed Kiara forward. Nala watched for the shadows, her heart heavy, as Kiara stepped to the edge of the cliff, weeping, and faced into the rays of the sun as they caressed her tawny pelt and turned it to gold.........
to be continued...