The Reason

Bonsa steeped to him. “Boy hear me now...I need to understand something and answering me clearly will help me determine if there is foul play at hand. You must tell me the honest truth of how Jacob Elicist fell and how you know he succumbed to death.”

Ezekiel felt his inner Leopard snap and snarl, and outwardly, he turned away, balled a hand at his heart, and flexed his fangs in discomfort at the beast's rage. The beast didn’t want him to do what he was about to do, to cooperate in any shape or fashion. Ezekiel fought the powerful sense of deepening betrayal the beast felt as he tried to open his mouth and speak his answer to Bonsa’s question.

Stop her! Protect Mate! Protect Mate!

Snarled the Leopard in his mind with hideous fury dripping from its emotions, driving him to panting as he felt his eyes mid-shift and burn with the cobalt blue displeasure of his inner beast.

Ezekiel put a clawed hand to his temple, then flinched as he realized that he was losing control trying to subdue his incensed beast and his own emotions, the rage of the beast summoning guilt as he understood that his actions/words truly could put Brandon in danger but the analytical side of him was sure that he had to give Elder Balder the answers she needed so that whatever was going on could be seen, understood and perhaps used to keep both his family and Brandon from even greater harm.

He had no plans of revealing Brandon's origin, but in a split second, Ezekiel determined how he could frame his answer so that very little about Brandon's connection to the Druids or the Acris stone had to be revealed.

“Elder, my mate is...” Ezekiel choked out and stopped. His head was pounding as the Leopard literally began to rip into his soul; it fought him for every syllable. Brandon is capable of...”

STOP!! DON’T BETRAY MATE! DANGEROUS!

Ezekiel put a shaking clawed fist over his mouth and shook his head as the beast began to bellow so ferociously he felt nauseated by its extreme feelings and refusal to cooperate.

I'm not trying to betray him. I won't reveal everything, but something has to be done to get to the bottom of this Treason accusation! We have to protect all of them, not just our Mate!

Feeling like he was being torn in two as the beast started to overwhelm him Ezekiel closed his eyes and reached out to Lander.

Lander!? Help me. Read my mind and tell her what I can't...!

Having heard his plea for help, Lander's power slammed into the back of his brain like an icy nail to his senses, and his brother opened his mouth, looked at Bonsa, and said.

“My brother, Brandon, is capable of using innate abilities.” Lander smoothed his voice up, drawing the hisses of all of the other Guardians.

Ezekiel heard their outrage and disbelief. Perhaps they thought Lander was throwing Brandon under the bus, but Ezekiel turned back to them and he shook his head.

“Let him talk...he’s speaking for me because my Leopard won’t let me....He feels that me revealing this information will endanger Brandon and I don’t...” Ezekiel sighed and dropped his hands. His eyes were stinging as the power of the shift bled over him, his fangs and claws inches long without his permission. Bonsa eyes him in silence, but he glimpsed something like sympathetic unease in her expression.

His Leopard's displeasure with him and the whole situation grew by leaps and bounds. “I just don't have the energy or desire to hurt him or myself more by continuing to fight him.”

Ezekiel understood the creature’s unease, but he also understood that more than Brandon's future was on the line, and no matter what, Ezekiel wasn’t willing to just sweep aside his duty over emotion, wild instincts, or the intensity of the Mate Bond.

Lander's green eyes locked with Ezekiel's, and then he spoke again, reiterating his earlier sentence and letting Ezekiel’s quickly-fashioned lies fall off his lips as if they were cold, hard facts. The words were fabricated on the spot, and yet as quickly as Ezekiel could concoct the story being told, Lander was telling it to the Elder.

“Brandon came to us needing our protection from the men hunting him. Jacob Elicist was one of them, and Hovel the Great was the other, as you know.”

Bonsa nodded quickly and Lander moved on, his cold powers roiling over Ezekiel’s mind

In tandem with the discomfort and anger of Ezekiel’s inner Leopard. Ezekiel let him speak as he continued to fight off the sweltering fury growing inside.

“Well, Brandon was not a normal mortal at all; he was a special man who had an innate ability, the supernatural ability to suck in energy around him.” Lander rumbled.

The Elder growled back at him, gut Ezekiel a look of disbelief and she cut in. “What! Are you saying that this Mortal was half Shifter? Only those who a half beast can access the supernatural abilities we carry, so he must be a mix of Shifter and human.”

Lander shook his head. “I just said he was special Elder. A mortal with innate abilities is nothing we had ever known. He had this Innate power, which he used to defend himself when he was attacked.”

Bonsa tilted her chin up in denial. “This is all very hard to believe...” She mused, but then she continued. “So are you trying to tell me that Jacob Elicist was put down by this unfathomable power your Mate carried even though he was mortal?”

Ezekiel let out a strained sigh and he snapped. “Yes! Jacob died having his very essence sucked out of him. He was left as nothing but a desiccated husk, and what was left of him was taken by Hovel far away following the incident! Alright!?”

The Elder hissed lightly at his tone and she said. “Reaver do not forget your place. I acknowledge that this exchange is hard for you because you want to protect this mortal, but you will curb your aggression with me or I will curb it for you!”

Ezekiel tried hard not to, but against his will he hissed back at her and snarled. “You have no goddamn idea how hard I'm trying not to put my fangs on you, Elder...I have not made a move to harm you simply because I do know my place, but don’t think that I am going to be happy about any of this when I know you were sent to investigate the death of a man my Mate killed by our enemies!”

Elder Bonsa’s gaze drifted to a light brown and flashed yellow like sunlight, almost as if she wanted to challenge him, but a moment later, her expression slacked slightly, and she dropped her hands. “Heavens...I think I do understand...”

Ezekiel frowned, and across the small clearing Mantilo spoke up.

“You understand...what?” the Clan head asked.

The Elder nodded and replied. “I know why I was sent here. I know what happened to Jacob Elicist...and why the Lions came to the Heavens supplicating and begging for our aid.” The Elders words were weighted and measured, but in the air Ezekiel felt concern and unease drawing tight in all of the Guardians hearts.

“How can you say that with so much conviction...We saw it...” Walter called out next. “Brandon killed Jacob there is no denying that...”

“Killed,” Elder Bonsa scoffed. She glanced at Ezekiel, and her expression became deeply somber as she continued. “....Boy, I do not wish to alarm you, but the loss of energy for one such as Jacob Elicist would not be his final end. The Lions... my fellow Lions and I also suffer a unique condition.”

Ezekiel instantly knew exactly what she was speaking of: the Blood Fever. The compulsion that they carried to feed on blood, the sickness that had forced Jacob to align with Hovel, who promised a cure, Forced Jacob to allow Brandon to suffer unimaginable trauma. “The...Blood Fever...” Ezekiel breathed, his mind swirling as a horrible realization began to form. You and the other Lion are sick with Blood Fever...”

Bonsa flinched unexpectedly, and she glared at him in disbelief and snarled. “Surprising to hear a Leopard speak of the sickness the Prides have carried for centuries.” Bonsa’s face dropped into a deep frown. “I left the Lion Prides behind me long ago, but even then, the sickness was not spoken of with outsiders... and I hadn’t been aware that the Blood Fever was being spoken of freely with other Clans.”

Glen cut in, his mother large green eye narrowed at the Elder. “Bonsa, we all know of the Blood Fever, and honestly, the fact that we do doesn’t really need to be explored right now.”

The Elder chuckled and she tapped her cheek. “Leopard Queen it is understandable that I am curious how you came across this knowledge...”

Ezekiel gripped his clawed and he cast her a frustrated sound. “Elder does it matter that my clan knows this information right now!? Please just explain to my why you believe Jacob isn’t dead!?”

“Hump, I guess my curiosity can wait...”

The Elder shook her head and stepped back, putting a hand on her throat as she spoke. “Listen well, the only way to kill a Lion Shifter is for you to take off our head, bleed us utterly dry, or cut the heart from our chest...but the use of any power or magic that deals in the taking of the essence or “soul” as it were will simply put us out of commission until we are able to feed on fresh life again....in this the Blood Fever is a blessing, making the Lion Shifters exceptionally durable but we are short-lived and sickness consumes our minds easily.”

Bonsa shrugged. “Jacob Elicist is not dead...and I can say this with mild certainty because if he died the way you speak of, he could easily be brought back. You Mate did not kill Jacob or take his essence, for a Lion has no soul and they have no inner essence to lose.”

“I don’t....” Ezekiel stepped back, stricken and not even trying to hide it. He felt like the woman had just cocked him in the jaw with a razor-sharp mountain of nightmares. “What do you mean...I saw him...”

Bonsa cut into his stuttering.

“Dos nos furatu....an archaic term synonymous with the fictional identity of blood suckers. The term originally came from the Greek nosophoros meaning “disease-bearing.” The Elder quietly and plainly said. She tilted up her lips, flashing her thin fangs and she smiled. “I am of the Lion Clan boy. Long ago before I was an Elder I was born for the savanna fields and we born of the savanna cannot be killed by having our energy taken, for we feed on the energies of others to live....”

Ezekiel listened to this information. Much of it he already knew and had shared with his family along with Brandon shortly after they returned from being kidnapped, but some of what the Elder had said was compelling none the less. mostly because her words sent a blade of absolute dread that cleaved deep into Ezekiel’s soul, and he felt alarms go off in his mind. He felt his knees lock, and his senses explode wide in shocked unease.

At that moment, almost as if in response to the flagrant horror dancing through all of their hearts, each of the Guardians started to call out.

“That impossible! We saw him die!” Drin hissed beside Erin who also snarled and her small face contorted with fear and anger.

Erin gasped looking at Ezekiel and asked him. “Ezekiel what if its true? What if Jacobs alive!?

Lander suddenly reached deep into his mind making Ezekiel jump at the painful cold intrusion of his mind.

Ezkeiel what are you going to do!? Brandon had no idea and we have no idea where he is so we can warn him...

Nate cut across all of the noise with a ferocious shout. “This makes no fucking sense! Elder if Jacob isn’t dead then why are you here!? Why would you accuse us of Treason!?

Mantilo suddenly vacated a harsh and rumbling snarl as he turned on his family and cast an unyielding glare of yellow displeasure upon them all. “Calm yourselves,” Their Clan Head demanded sternly. "Calm your voices. Screeching over each other like children will solve nothing!”

All of the Guardians grew silent at his rebuke, but Ezekiel only felt his own panic buck wild in the sudden silence.

“Elder, what does this mean? If Jacob is alive and if both the Alchemists and Lions are working together, then why exactly did they send you here to investigate charges of treason they knew weren’t real?” Ezekiel's mind stopped and shuttered as he fought to stay focused past the choking sense of trepidation he felt for Brandon. Ezekiel put a hand to his head in an effort to fight to stay on track. “What...what was the point of this?”

At that moment the Elders voice came out weak and quite filled with breathless disbelief. “Me....” She breathed. “They wanted me! I am one of the closest to the King, and I am one of the oldest of the Elders living. The Lions called on me because they knew that I would be quick to seek justice for my old Clans...”

Bonsa stopped, and her brown eyes lit up with genuine apprehension. “I was the point. The reason for all of this confusion was to create this situation. And I'm here because someone wanted to get me alone and isolate me from the Dragon, the King, and the rest of the Heavens.”

Ezekiel’s confusion knew no bounds, but a part of him sensed the genuine distress begging to dawn on the Elder.

“Because whoever is pulling the strings knows that if they want to hurt the Elders or the Dragons...they will have to kill me first...”

Ezekiel shook his head. “Why?” he asked

Bonsa looked at him and snarled like a feral monster. “Because no being on this earth can stand before the might that I wield in a fair fight.”

Bonsa cast him a look of soft alarm before she put her hands into her robes, hiked them up over her feet, and turned from him. He only had the soft prickle of awareness on his skin to alert him before the woman looked back to him, but her eyes had been a stern brown; they now danced with cobalt blue flames and a suffocating amount of power that he struggled not to flinch away from.

“Someone is here!” Bonsa suddenly shouted...and at that exact moment Ezekiel looked over her shoulder...just in time for him to see the giant swath of burning black energy.

The bristling, shifting, but also obviously solid form was shaped like a jagged icicle made of pure, seething power. It looked like a blade made of living darkness, and Ezekiel feared that it would be just as sharp—and it was hurtling directly for the Elder's spine. For the kill.

Ezekiel moved more on instinct than anything else. 

Then he felt His body swerving past the Elder and his breath screamed out of him as the sharp power slammed into his chest with horrifying strength, dashing him backward like he was a fly being swat by a god. Trown back over his own axis he collapsed hard, his claws clutching at the solid burning black object protruding from the center of his chest. Stabbing him nearly all the way through his sternum...out the back of his chest with a gush of glittering blood.