Roar, Lioness. Roar

Cat in the Rabbit's Nest

Curious hands explore her body, prodding, testing. Three, four, possibly five hands at once, timid, and fumbling. They brush her lips, poke her breasts. Someone boldly squeezes her rear before trailing over to her hips. Those same hands roughly part her legs. Latisha grabs their wrist and kicks out as hard as she can. Her eyes snap open and she reels from what she sees.

Seedboys. A dozen of them of various sizes and skin tones. Tall, short, dark, tan. All with collars around their necks and Bellgrave's mark tattooed on their heads or branded into their shoulders. Each is dressed in a pair of gray shorts and a small shirt that covers the chest, but leaves the arms exposed.

A young man backs away, eyes downcast and hands up. The older seedboy beside him leers at Latisha, but keeps his hands raised as he gives her space. At her feet a third curses as he tries to staunch the blood spraying from his nose. He tries to pull away, but she holds him with a vise-like grip.

"Get off me," he cries, his words nearly ruined by the damage to his face.

Latisha sits up and pain rips up her side, stealing her breath. The seedboy jerks free and scurries out of her reach. Feeling the bandages, she looks down and sees they've wrapped her ribs. She tries to take a deep breath and finds it only possible with effort. The bandages are all the slavers have left her. Her body is exposed for all to see and the gathered seedboys are too curious to look away.

She carefully gets to her feet and points at the one looking at the ground.

"You. Look at me, I'm talking to you! Give me your shorts."

He hesitates for a moment then takes them off. A big man, probably the largest uninfected man she's ever seen, steps forward. He's rippling with muscles and looks like he could easily out wrestle Rebel. Latisha assumes a fighting stance.

"What are you?" he asks. Despite his size, his voice is gentle.

"What do you mean, what am I?"

The gentle giant reaches into his shorts and pulls out a footlong seed pole. Latisha backpedals.

"You look like one of the masters with a woman cave and everything, but you have a seed pole too." The innocent look on his face, makes her relax a fraction.

Her hands go down to cover her secret place.

"I am a Lioness, born with both pole and cave." To say it out loud is equal parts humiliating and liberating. Part of her wishes she could have said it in front of the clan.

The seedboys whisper among each other, saying the word over and over.

Lioness.

"She is meat," the seedboy with the broken nose declares. "Seedboys with no seedbag are meat! Meat are beneath us!"

"Do I look like meat, waster?"

She cracks her neck and walks towards him. His eyes widen, but he doesn't retreat, instead raising his hands to guard his face. The big man steps between them before Latisha can show them exactly what she is.

"She says she's a Lioness. Doesn't sound like meat to me."

The waster stares up at the big man for a long moment before shoving him and walking away. The leering seedboy follows, never taking his eyes off of Latisha. The group disperses, spreading out into smaller groups. The pantless seedboy walks over to Latisha and hands her his shorts, unfazed by his seed pole and bag flopping about.

"By The Waste, this one is also walking around with a club." She snatches the shorts and climbs into them. While fighting to get the waistline over her hips, she pokes him in the chest. "Don't ever touch me again."