Falling in Love with the King of Beasts

GAHRYE

Hours later, Gahrye sat on the couch, hunched over the book in front of him on the coffee table, staring at the page of one of the oldest books he'd touched yet. It smelled like oak and dust, but it still didn't overwhelm Kalle's scent to him. 

She sat next to him on the couch. He had one hand cupped on her thigh and stroked it with his thumb absentmindedly. Her scent was distracting, but also so comforting. He needed her close enough to touch, to be certain she was there, because with every passing moment, with every line of text he read, he was becoming more and more convinced that he needed to get Elia back to Anima, regardless of the risk. 

Dying here—or being absorbed by her beast—didn't save her from the wolves. And if she really was trying to go Silent, he'd take the risk with the wolves anyway. 

But how did he get a massive lioness across the traverse?

He gripped Kalle's thigh harder, but she was distracted. She'd insisted that they needed some order. Some way to keep the book straight, to know what they had, what they'd read, and to cross reference when they started finding things. 

She'd brough out something called a lap top that she was writing on. 

The thing stank, and it was noisy, but she was saying she had ways to categorize the books and be able to search for them, find them when they needed them…

Gahrye was afraid it was a waste of time, but she insisted in the long run it would make them faster. So he agreed. He wondered if they were both trying to put off the moment when they found what they needed and he had to go…?

With a sigh, he forced himself to turn back to the book. It was one of the medical journals. Elia had left it open on her table and he was wondering if she'd perhaps found something—bad news—that had made her lose hope so desperately. He didn't know whether to pray he found something like that, or didn't. 

He rubbed his face and stifled a groan. He felt like he was being torn in half. He'd never expected—

"Why would they put a children's book in the hidden histories?" Kalle said, turning a small, square, hardcover book over in her hands. "It seems unlikely they'd accidentally put anything in here, surely? Maybe it was just to save it for history or something?"

"In the hidden volumes?" Gahrye said, frowning. "Seems very unlikely. What's it about?"

Kalle flipped it open and started to read quickly through the first few pages. "Oh, I know this story," she said with a faint smile. "It's like the Anima version of a fairytale. It's cute. There's a King and a Princess—look they've even drawn pictures." She showed him the page where a man built like Reth who looked like a human with lion ears and mane, stood with a crown on his head, speaking to a female that looked something like him, except she had the lion nose and ears, no mane. 

Gahrye struggled to find any enthusiasm for a child's tale, but Kalle seemed taken with it. She flipped through the pages faster and faster, her eyes zipping around the pages.

"Let's put it in Elia's room. She's going to have a cub. Maybe when it's older—"

"No, Gahrye," Kalle said, her voice hushed.

He turned to look at her and realized she'd gone pale. "What is it?"

She continued flipping through the book, biting her lip and reading faster and faster. "It can't be… it can't be that simple…"

"What?"

"Have you… Gahrye remember that day we brought back all the stories of Queens from the libraries? When we were looking for humans in Anima. The books weren't the really old ones. There was a kids book in that lot too. Do you remember where we put it?"

He vaguely remembered, but it had been weeks earlier. "Didn't we take them back?"

She shook her head. "No, I switched topics, but I didn't want to have to look the books up again and I always meant to go back to it. I put them aside. Shit. Where did I put them?"

Still clutching the little volume under her arm, open to a specific page, she hurried into Gahrye's room and thumped around for a few minutes.

Gahrye could smell the tension on her, even from this distance and got to his feet. She was worried about something, but excited too. 

He walked over to the door and stood inside, watching her pull books out of a bag in the corner, and another stack out of a deep drawer under the bed. "I think they're here," she said hushed and started pulling books out, looking at the covers, then throwing them on the bed.

"Do you want to tell me what you're looking for? Can I help?" he asked carefully. Sometimes when his mate got going on something important she got irritated by having her train of thought broken. 

"No, I—here it is!" she gasped, standing up quickly. Gahrye hurried over to stand behind her and look over her shoulder as she opened another smaller book and started flipping through. 

He saw a lot of similar drawings, these clearer because the book was newer, but he hadn't read the pages before she flipped through them, so he wasn't sure what she thought she was finding until she gasped and, with shaking hands, pointed at one of the pages.

It showed a male, small and thin, entirely human and hunched over in submission, speaking to the King, while another male, big and strong—also with a mane and lion nose, stood nearby, smiling smugly. 

"They changed it. They changed it to hide the truth!" Kalle whisper-screamed.

"Kalle, what are you talking about?"

"Look, Gahrye, look. This story, the one that's newer, it tells about a Leonine Princess who wanted to go to the human world for an adventure, and she gets over there, but she gets in trouble and this Guard comes to save her—look, it doesn't matter. The point is, when she has to cross into the human world there's a disformed servant who's supposed to go first and make sure she has someone waiting for her. But he gets scared and won't go, so he convinces another male to go instead. I was so mad when I read it because it just stank of this prejudice—gah! It doesn't matter look. Look at the old book. From the hidden histories—Gahrye look!"

Her fingers trembling, she flipped the square book open and through the pages until she reached a certain point, then turned around and shoved it under his nose, pointing at the second page.

He searched the pictures, shaking his head. It was just the Princess under guard from a tall, strong male with no animal features. "So… the disformed went across in this one?"

"No! Gahrye, look at what it calls him!"

Heart beginning to pound, Gahrye scanned the writing at the bottom of the book. It was old enough to have been handwritten, but one word screamed off the page.

Protector.

Ghayre grabbed both books from Kalle and, ignoring the pictures, read the story. 

In the first, the Princess convinced her father to let her go on the adventure, then the servant let her down and she almost died. But another Guard—a Leonine—went after her and saved her. Then she had her adventure and returned to Anima, bringing a small cast of humans with her who had taught her many lessons and returned with her to make their new lives in Anima.

The second—the older version—had entirely the same story, except for those few pages in the middle. Instead of the disformed servant being afraid and letting her cross alone…

He was a Protector. 

A male who looked human. No animal features.

He crossed the traverse with her. At the same time. He helped keep her safe in the human world until she returned with her new friends, now wiser and better prepared to be Queen.

Gahrye read it twice, then again, his stomach flipping more than the pages.

"Kalle," he whispered. "This… this is saying… this can't be real."

"Gahrye, it's real. It's in the hidden histories." Kalle swallowed hard and he looked up to find her eyes wide and shining. "Gahrye… You aren't disformed. You're a Protector."

*****

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