𝙍𝙚𝙖𝙥𝙚𝙧

I was not born into the prides. I came to them wreathed in shadow, my mane thick with the blood of those who stood in my path.

I remember the night I first set foot on their lands. The moon hung high, silver and watching, but it did not see me. The wind carried the scent of prey, but I was not there to hunt. I was the thing that turned predators into prey.

They called this place sacred, a land ruled by kings and their legacies. I laughed at their kings. I had seen greater beasts fall with my claws at their throats. Their laws, their traditions—none of it mattered when the darkness came crawling. And I was that darkness.

The first lion to challenge me was a fool, all muscle and pride. I let him strike first, let his claws rake against my hide like whispers in the wind. Then I answered. His bones cracked like dry branches beneath my weight, his roar strangled in his throat before he could finish. The others watched, frozen, their golden eyes wide with fear.

I did not come to beg for a place in their prides. I came to take.

And so they let me. They whispered my name in fear, the ghost-lion, the reaper of prides. I did not rule as a king, but as a monster that kings feared. They obeyed because they had no choice, because the alternative was to join the carrion left in my wake.

But power is a fleeting thing. Even monsters are hunted, and the shadows I once controlled grew long with the weight of another presence—Talon. They came not as prey, but as something else entirely. A force I could not break with fang and claw alone. They did not fear me. They saw me for what I was. And they took me for themselves.

Now I prowl these lands as their beast, their executioner, their enforcer. I tear, I kill, I obey. But the hunger inside me remains, a fire that no blood can quench. One day, the shadows will shift once more. And when they do, I will remind them all that even the hunters can bleed.