The Lion's Pride

Prologue

Cayne Sandson king in the free land. Orphaned and abandoned deep in the free land at only a few days old. He was raised by the people of the free land and treated as family by the rouges and castaways that were either rejected or cast out of there family groups. He was strong as a child so it was known that he would be a great male it was just unclear what shifter species he belonged to so he was raised as if was them all. Jemma the woman who raised him who he considered his mother was a Koala shifter his father Thomas a wolf shifter. He grew and learned along side the other cubs of the pack wolves, bears, cats, foxes, all species were welcomed into there family. Most shifter species are either born with the ability to transform, are born in their animal form, or as in Cayne's case transform later in life when both spirits have a connection strong enough to withstand the transformation. It is always said in the case of shifters who transform later in life that the later the shift the stronger the spirit. If the animal spirit is strong it takes a longer time for a strong enough connection to be made especially if the human also has a strong spirit if the connection is too weak when the transformation first happens then the relationship between human and animal will be strained and lead to one of the spirits taking complete control and casting the other aside. It was expected of Cayne to shift on his eighth birthday when that came and went with no shift it was expected that he would shift on his thirteenth birthday that too came and went. Eventually they quit anticipating his shift since he had surpassed any age that the known species tended to shift at. The night of his Eighteenth birthday he was helping the men of the pack skin the deer that had been killed for dinner that night. He felt a sharp pain radiate through his spine. He ignored the pain as he didn't want to complain since he felt he had to prove himself especially with it being his 18 birthday and he still had not shifted. He knew that everyone used to say that it was because he was going to have a strong animal but now he knew they thought there was something wrong with him and that maybe he didn't have an animal spirit. He himself didn't know if he had one but he knew that he wouldn't lose hope in it if he did. If he lost hope then it would damage whatever connection he had possibly made with his animal spirit and he wouldn't risk that for anything because through anything that could possibly happen his animal spirit would always be there with him going through it too. He had just finished pulling the hide off the shoulders of the deer when he felt another wave of pain race through him but this lasted longer and was much more intense. He took a deep breath and continued on with his task pushing through the pain as best he could. It was only another five minutes when another wave of pain runs through him this one strong enough that it drops him to his knees. His father who had been across from him working on his own deer ran towards him and grabbed him as he hit the ground. Thomas laid him on his back and called for his mother to come. In his mind it seemed to take hours for Jemma to arrive however it was only a few minutes. He took deep breathes in an effort to manage the amount of pain he was feeling. He couldn't hear anything over the sound of his heart beating in his ears. So he didn't hear his mother when she started crying in joy, her baby was finally shifting. Cain was starting to freak out he couldn't hear anything and all he was experiencing was excruciating pain. It wasn't until he felt his shoulder snap out of place that he realized what was happening, finally after all these years he was shifting. It took nearly three hours for him to fully transform especially since he kept passing out from the pain his body was exhausted but his mind was going a mile a minute. He couldn't wait to see what his animal was he hoped that he was something amazing like Baba, the elder in the village who was a sun bear. He weakly started to stand up it took him a few minutes to get used to standing on four feet when suddenly he realized that he was still rather tall he could easily look his mother in the face at her 5'3" stature. He looked down at his paws and saw a deep golden fur though it was slightly obscured by a darker almost amber colored fur that seemed to hang around his neck and continue down his chest. His brain quickly ran through all the animals he knew that had such coloring but the only thing that came to mind was the king of the jungle a lion. He jerked his head up and looked at mom with wide excited eyes. She stared back at him in amazement with a hand held to her chest. He then glanced towards his father who also seemed to be in a daze while looking at Cayne's new form. He could no longer contain the excited urge to see his full form and quickly raced towards the lake not far from their settlement. He reached the lake in no time he held his breath and slowly walked towards the edge of the water. Once he reached it the only thing he could do was stare at his reflection in amazement, not only was he a lion he was a Barbary Lion the rarest of the lion shifters. He had bright golden eyes that were surrounded by a deep golden colored fur that was offset by the long dark black mane that covered his neck and shoulders and continued down his stomach. Looking down at his reflection he completely understood why it took so long for his animal spirit to have a deep enough connection with him and transform he now knew that if it had been any earlier then his animal spirit would have definitely taken control of him and they would have gone feral or died. He took one last glance at his new form and turned around heading back to camp to spend the rest of the night with his family and enjoy the experience of his transformation.

!!!I do not own any of the images in this book including the cover all credits go to the owners of said images!!!