Leo laid on the floor next to his bed. He no longer deserved his bed. He scared and almost hurt his Sara. His once powerful arms wrapped around his deteriorated legs even more tightly than before, his claws digging into his flesh. Maybe if he never let go he wouldn't have to feel the pain of his missing mate. He wouldn't have her terrified, beautiful face reflected against the backs of his eyelids. Maybe he wouldn't feel the hollow, stabbing pain where his heart should be.
My heart, he snorted in his thoughts, my heart is with my Sara.
With even the slightest whisper of her name, fire flared all around his an encompassed his shaking figure. Pain sliced through him and he had to gasp for breath.
His Sara. Mine.
He foolishly thought for a fleeing second those weeks ago when he left her that she would seek him out. That his mate would want him and that she would come to him so that he could pleasure her and show her how strong of a male he could be. Well, he couldn't do that now anyway. He couldn't remember the last time he left his curled up spot, let alone ate.
Agonizing tears slid down his face and he tried to blink them from his eyes. They had been recurring since she was no longer by his side.
On some level the tears, the pain, the hollowness… they were all comforting because it reminded him that his mate was alive and that he was protecting her. It reminded him that he had her for a few short hours. For fleeting seconds.
Unfortunately, it also reminded him that he was the one that could hurt her. The memories reminded him that she thought him ugly; terrifying.
His heart squeezed to the point that he almost wished for sweet death to release him from his torment.
Many months ago when Valiant's Tammy left him, he felt bad for the male but he could not understand how such a strong male resorted to crying. He didn't get, at the time, how the male became a shell of himself and yet refused to go after his mate.
He remembered a conversation they had:
He had been tracking a few bear cubs when he smelled wet salt. It was peculiar and incredibly strange due to the fact that he was dangerously close to encroaching on Valiant's territory.
He tried to push it out of his mind and go back to tracking the little sleuths when he heard a growling sob. It made him jump and it caused his heart rate to speed up dramatically.
It almost sounded like… "My tammy. tammy. tammy", Valiant's voice sobbed from a distance.
What the fuck, Leo thought to himself- he was proud of his new vernacular given that he picked it up from one of the many times that Tiger tried to stop by and talk to him. He thinks it means 'what in the sex' but Tiger used it in a way to express surprise or even anger so Leo stuck with it.- is that Valiant?
He pushed closer toward Valiant's territory and scented his marking of territory everywhere. The smell both disgusted him and frightened him given that it was almost faded away. When was the last time that Valiant left his house to protect his lands? Doesn't he know that the others will take his lands if there is no warning?
He stepped into Valiant's territory and headed towards his cabin. The cabin was surrounded by a fence and it was one of the larger homes in Reservation. If he had been from the same testing facility as Valiant he would have fought the male for it. However, Valiant had lived in it for months before Leo was even rescued, much less sane. He did not want to live in a cabin that wreaked of another male's scent. It would enrage his beast and what if he ever found a mate that didn't care about his tail and wanted to take her home? He would never allow his soul to scent another male while they mated.
When he got closer to the house a loud roar sounded. Valiant. Leo rolled his eyes and had to restrain himself from roaring back and issuing a challenge to the other male lion species. He had to remember that he walked into someone else's territory and wanted to know what the fuck was going on.
He froze his movements and leaned against a tree. He thought that he was putting on a pretty peaceful persona but knew that his tail was giving him away. It always did. Stupid thing. He had to force himself not to grab it and thought briefly about just cutting it off. The only thing that stopped him was what Justice said. Justice had told him that he would never be able to walk again if he did that and would most likely bleed out and die. He snorted to himself in durision, if he didn't die at the testing facilities, what could possibly kill him now?
That's when a hulking figure caught his attention. Valiant stood there and Leo barely had enough time to suppress a shiver. His eyes were red-rimmed and swollen. He was definitely crying. How utterly terrifying.
Leo was unable to keep himself from wrinkling his nose, however. When was the last time that Valiant took a shower? He smelled like rotten meat and sadness.
Valiant growled, "What do you want?", taking a hostile stance with his arms folded across his large chest and his feet placed shoulder-length apart. This male looked about as New Species as he did except that the other male didn't have eyes that were quite as slanted and was sans tail. He was, however, slightly smaller than Leo and not quite as muscular.
Apparently when he was rescued by the other New Species from Mercile, the species were terrified of him and said that he would be, "worse than fucking valiant". He didn't know what a valiant was until he came to Reservation and was face-to-face with the other male. Somehow they both refrained from fighting each other despite the fact that they were both Lion species. Leo was more mellow in general but he had a beast. His beast killed and tore his victims to shreds when he lost control. Luckily, the two males had respect for each other and he knew that if it came down to it, a fight between him and Valiant would be difficult but there is no doubt in his mind that he would win.
Leo responded to Valiant's question with his own, "Why have you been crying?", the male gained an even more aggressive stance with his muscles blunging and his body rocking back into a slight crouch.
"Crying, what crying? Are you accusing me of being a little bitch?", Leo had no response to that. He did not know what was going on. He knew that a bitch was a female dog but Valiant was neither a female or a canine species. Perhaps that is the insult in itself, he contemplated. However, he had a sinking suspicion that his explanation wasn't a full one and that it was another one of Tiger's favorite curses and the other male just picked up on it. He stored the definition in his mind and forced himself to speak again. He hated speaking to others.
"You were crying about a 'tammy'. What are those?", he asked. As soon as he uttered the word 'tammy', Valiant roared and Leo caught another tear slip down his neighbor's cheek.
"My Tammy. My mate.", Valiant forced out gruffly, "My Tammy, my human, left me. She mated me and then escaped in order to never see me again. She has taken my heart."
Leo remembered the rest of their baffling encounter. Valiant, the other leader of the Wild Zone, one of the biggest and most feared species, had mated a human and apparently even completed the physical act of mating with her. She left and Valiant did not know what to do without her. It hurt this make so much that tears were in his eyes and evidenced upon his face.
He had no idea what to make of the encounter. After Valiant had told him his story, Leo had said that he was sorry and then quickly left.
He had heard stories about some of the other more sane and human-like New Species that mated humans. He figured that they were smaller and prettier to the human eye so it made sense that they were mated quickly. He never thought that a human would mate with a Wild ZOne resident, much less Valiant.
Even more baffling than the ugliness and size difference was the fact that the male was so torn up. He eventually came to the conclusion that much like wolves, New Species mated quickly and for life. He just never expected mates to bring heartbreak to their males.
Now, Leo still laid curled up on the cold, dirt floor. He felt his mind become a little bit hazy and wanted his mate close to him before he passed on to an unfeeling bliss. A darkness where there was no remembrance of happiness. No memories of his mate and the beginning of their physical act of mating. His tale curled up toward his nose and tied very carefully around it was a now dirty piece of cloth. He breathed in deeply and imagined that he could still smell his mates delicate and entrancing scent. It wasn't there but just the small cloth being near him helped soothe the pain and his beast. He tucked his head against his chest and his tail against his heart so that the cloth was near his face and his heart. 'She has stolen my heart', that was his last thought before he was swallowed up into eternal misery.
Little did the tortured male know that Sara had wanted to see him but was shut down because the NSO determined that he was too dangerous for her to be around. After that, she was forced to leave because of the chance that he would come in the night and hunt for her. They knew that if he tried to take her, regardless of how many vuard they gave her, he would succeed. The males that escorted her off of NSO lands later revealed to their commanding officers- Tiger namely- that is was sad to see their friend leave and that it was heartbreaking to hear that a male was torn from his mate. She was forced back into the world sans New Species and no one had heard from her since.
Where was Dr. Sara?