My Three Protectors [MXMXMXM]

Chapter 5

I glance up to see who the owner of the growl belongs to only to see simmering amber eyes staring me down. The lions' eyes seem to darken considerably, hunger creeping back into his iris' eventually engulfing them whole.

What caused this reaction is unknown to me and I fear I've somehow unsettled him in some way, but when I've retraced my actions in my head I come up blank.

This reminds me of an insistence I had in the past whereby one of my old college classmate's Rottweiler attacked me even though they were fine the last few times I had encountered them. The scars on my wrist are a constant reminder of that day and I'm still confused on what triggered the random attack. To say I'm not cautious of dogs would be a lie. Ironic since I'm in a room with three dangerous predators that could kill me in a split second.

Movement in front of me brings me back to the present. The lion steadily rises up from his hind legs and starts to slowly stalk towards my crossed legged form, his eyes never straying and solely watching me.

What should I do?

It's common knowledge that when in the presence of a predator you don't challenge them or run away screaming like a soon-to-be headless-chicken. I'm pretty sure there's some scientific reasoning behind it but one of my worst subjects in school - if not the worst - was the sciences.

My inner turmoil is solved as something in his dark eyes compels me to stay still, and I listen to the silent command no matter how dumb it may seem to an outsider.

He dauntingly strides the last couple of steps closer, the last little bit of distance between us dwindling, my heart beat increases and my breath comes out in shallow pants, and when he's as close as possible he stops.

His warm breath fans over my face, his searing amber eyes staring into my mine a hairs breath away, and then it happens.

Instead of the sharp pain of teeth tearing into my flesh, a big warm wet tongue licks all over my face not leaving any place free of saliva, even knocking my glasses off in the process. A closed-lipped shriek leaves me at the weird sticky sensation as he continues for a good few minutes.

A deep guttural purr starts up and surprise crosses my features when he goes past my hairline and starts to groom my hair. I'm completely flabbergasted.

Once he's content he stops, drawing back to stare at me and with a satisfied nod he turns his attention to the bottle of cream, as if he didn't just give me the definition of a bath except instead of making me clean I now smell faintly of meat and bad breath (new scent out now).

He saunters over to the bottle to paw at it which makes it slide across the concrete floor creating a scratching noise.

The sound echoes of the concrete walls, catching the attention of the panther and tiger making them stop what they were doing (which was them licking all over their muzzles since they too had licked their buckets clean, innocently oblivious to the growl and bath their fellow big cat just gave me).

All three trot over to it and the lion grabs it with his mouth, nibbling it to try and pierce the plastic to get to the cream.

While he gnaws on the bottle with some of the cream spilling out the holes that he's created, I just watch the scene in utter shock and fondness still trying to process what happened a few minutes earlier. Shock because a lion just bathed me like they would their cub. And fondness because a lion just bathed me like they would their cub.

That's got to mean something good right?

Rather than dwelling on it I search for one of the packets of wet wipes in my backpack, wanting to clean my face and hair since both have turned kind of stiff from the now dried saliva.