‘Watch out!’ Leo’s warning cut through Dominic’s thoughts – he’d been paying more attention to his plans for the Pride than the forest through which he was walking. Even if it was his territory, that didn’t make it safe. Spatial Awareness indicated that he was about to step on a rather large snake.

  Instead of putting his foot down, he used the other three paws which were still on the ground to propel himself up into the air, his wings beating down to keep him up there a little longer than would otherwise. The snake bit at empty space as it struck at where his body had been just a moment ago.

  Quick Strike ended its life as Dominic bit straight through its vulnerable spine and the light faded from its eyes.

  [You have killed: Puff Adder (Evolved Beast level 11)]

  [You have earned 78 PP]

  ‘Are we going to dedicate this kill to Selessa?’ Leo asked him curiously. Dominic hesitated and then sighed with slight disappointment.

  ‘I suppose we’d better. I did promise, after all.’

  Touching the carcass with his nose, he focussed on his desire to dedicate the kill to his patron goddess.

  [You have indicated that you wish to dedicate this kill to your patron deity: Selessa of the Hunt. Please confirm.]

  ‘Yes,’ Dominic sighed.

  [As your patron deity is connected to the Hunt and the kill is fresh, you may also choose to sacrifice the Prey Points you gained from it for further favour from your deity. Do you wish to sacrifice the carcass, the Prey Points, or both to your patron deity?]

  ‘Selessa didn’t mention this,’ Dominic commented thoughtfully. ‘I understood that to dedicate the Prey Points, I had to have the intention in mind before we got into the fight.’

  ‘The System seems to have explained it well enough,’ Leo told him impatiently. ‘I don’t see what your problem with it is. Just do both of them – it says that it will gain increased favour with our deity. Maybe enough kills and she’ll agree to join our Pride!’

  ‘You’re obsessed with that, aren’t you?’ Dominic complained, but he chose the option nonetheless. After all, even if he wasn’t sure about Leo’s plan to convert Selessa to a Pride-mate, there wasn’t any point in holding back right now. He said he’d dedicate a few kills to the goddess, so he might as well go the whole hog.

  He felt a slight stinging sensation deep inside him at the same time as the carcass disintegrated into golden dust. Unlike what normally happened, though, the golden dust just sank into the earth below the carcass.

  ‘Interesting,’ Dominic murmured.

  Since he’d promised more than just one kill, he decided to do a little bit of additional hunting. He’d kill two birds with one stone – rid the forest of dangers like that snake which could easily have killed one of his Pride and fulfil his promise to the goddess at the same time.

  Eventually getting back to the clearing, Dominic greeted the Pride members currently resting there. He then let Leo take over for a bit since a couple of the lionesses in heat were present and immediately came over to rub themselves against him.

  Deciding that, although the sensations were undoubtedly pleasant, he didn’t feel like playing voyeur right at that moment, Dominic retreated back into their mental space. Appearing in his lion body, he quickly decided to transform into his human one instead. Recent events had highlighted just how comfortable he had become with his leonine form, but also gave the possibility that he might regain proper access to a human form sometime soon.

  Wanting to figure out something once and for all, he lay down on the couch and checked his progress towards his next level on the ‘TV’ screen.

  Progress to Evolution: 674/991 PP

  “Nice,” he said to himself, relishing the opportunity to speak aloud. “I swear the last time I checked that it was three hundred and sixty something.” Which meant that he’d earned over three hundred points in the last twelve hours or so. But he wanted more exact figures than that.

  “Now, how do I put a timer on?” he muttered quietly, then smiled when he saw a timer flashing at the corner of the screen, just where he wanted it. Setting it to an hour, he lay back on the sofa and relaxed a bit with one of the books of his memories.

  An hour passed pleasantly for Dominic, and for Leo too, he suspected. At least, when he briefly tuned the TV in to see through Leo’s eyes, the lion was in the middle of mating with a female.

  When the timer ticked away to zero, Dominic again pulled up his progress, putting the new one below the old one.

  Progress to Evolution: 701/991 PP

  “Twenty-seven points,” he murmured to himself. “Not bad for doing nothing. But is that affected by Pride Enhancement?”

  He cocked his head to one side in an unconsciously leonine gesture as he tried to figure out the maths. It wasn’t hard to determine that he should be earning 27 Prey Points per hour considering that he received 10% of the Place of Power’s 272 Points per hour benefit. Which indicated that Pride Enhancement wasn’t impacting the Place of Power’s offerings since then he should have earned more Points in the hour.

  “Well, that’s disappointing,” Dominic sighed, leaning back to stare at the ceiling. “Though I suppose it would be a bit of a cheat since we already gain more Prey Points by levelling up the Place of Power.”

  Imagining a tablet into existence for comfort’s sake, he pulled the Pride Enhancements back up onto the screen and browsed through them.

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  After having used Pride Tribute twice, he had only 2 Pride Enhancement points left and wasn’t actually able to buy anything anyway. But he could at least make plans for when he did have the Pride Points. Which should be soon enough when the group of kesh came to join the Pride.

  Dominic suddenly sat up as a thought occurred to him. Waiting for the kesh to arrive wasn’t the only source of Pride Points: the cubs! He’d temporarily forgotten their plan to check whether any of the cubs had got old enough to join the Pride – their hunt had put it out of his mind.

  Now impatient to try, Dominic immediately left his mental space and settled back into his body’s senses. He waited quietly for Leo to finish his current activity, and then spoke up as the lion disengaged. Whether it was his distraction or Leo’s reflexes weren’t fast enough, but they actually got a claw-filled paw across their face as the lioness snarled at him. It was Jenkins, as it turned out, apparently in the mood for something fast.

  ‘You know, you’re supposed to dodge that, not get hit by it,’ Dominic teased Leo, thrilled to be on the other side of it this time.

  ‘You distracted me!’ Leo complained, but apparently even he couldn’t be grumpy after having so much fun with his Pride. He did need a little bit of convincing not to just go and bask in the post-orgasmic haze, but willingly ceded control of their body back to Dominic.

  To his alarm, Jenkins seemed to notice, looking at him thoughtfully even as she washed herself. Dominic quickly padded away – not that he wouldn’t mind a round with her himself, but he did have other things to do too! The lion approached the various cubs lying in piles or playing in the clearing.

  It always surprised him just how many there were – at least twenty cubs of different ages – everything from the size of a puppy to almost a full-grown lion.

  ‘Are there usually this many in a pride?’ he asked Leo curiously.

  ‘It depends on the pride,’ Leo answered with a mental yawn. ‘And we haven’t lost any since we took over which, apart from the fact that normally I would have just killed all of my rivals’ offspring anyway, is unusual.’ Dominic made note of what Leo wasn’t saying – that he would have kicked the older male cubs out in any case. He took it as a good sign.

  Since he was giving off distinct vibes of ‘don’t disturb me any more’ Dominic let him go back to his relaxing. Though he did wonder again what was happening in the larger ecosystem as a consequence of all the changes the System had brought.

  Checking with each of the cubs which looked as if they were approaching adulthood, Dominic was pleased when several of them were able to join the Pride. Six in total, from two different litters. One of the litters was that of Isis, the matriarch of Dominic’s first pride. Her three cubs had survived a lot – attacks by hyenas, combining with another pride, moving twice to create a new territory – Dominic actually felt proud that he was finally able to add them to the Pride.

  ‘Welcome, Siera, Bella, and Elsa,’ Dominic greeted the cubs of Isis’s litter – though they weren’t really cubs any more, not considering they had been allowed into the Pride. ‘And welcome too Cecilia, Devi, and Max,’ he greeted the cubs of Saffron’s litter. It was interesting that only one of the group was male – as far as he could tell, lions tended to have an even distribution of males and females among their offspring. Then again, it was quite likely that the cubs present weren’t all the ones who had been born in their litters – life in the savannah had been hard even before the System arrived.

  Leo was obviously sleeping as he didn’t say anything about the new ‘rival’ male. Dominic decided not to tell him about it even when he woke up – let the young male have a bit of time to establish himself and prove whether he was more like Fang or Lionel, or Prince.

  Starting at level 1, all of the new Pride members would need to work hard to catch up with everyone else. But they at least had an advantage – even if they didn’t do any hunting, they would probably gain their first level in just a couple of days due solely to the Place of Power, less time if they did actually do some hunting. That was assuming he didn’t take them with him, of course, something he was in two minds about.

  On the one hand, taking the new members of the Pride with him would be a bit risky since they were so low level. On the other, there was no better way to shoot up the ranks than to take on enemies with the might of the Pride surrounding them. As long as they played at least some role in the fight, they’d benefit from it as much as anyone else would. And ultimately, increasing in power was the best way to keep them safe in the long term….

  With the addition of six new members to his Pride, Dominic now had 8 Pride Enhancement points – enough to get something nice for the group. He moved away from the new members of the Pride after instructing them to find a hunting party to work with, and lay down, pulling up the options available again as well as what they’d already taken.

  21% increase in Prey Points for all Pride members – level 7

  Increased damage for Pride members fighting together by ((number of pride members in the fight/Pride level)*level of enhancement)% – level 4

  Equally shared Prey Points for all Pride members (within a single fight) – on

  20% increased chance of Pride members gaining a higher tier Ability on their next Tier or Half-Tier – level 4

  Intra-group communication system – on, range level 2

  Lion’s Share – 90% of the points of all kills made by pride members to the leader – off

  Immunity – no direct negative effects will be sustained from Abilities used by a member of the Pride – on

  Pride defence level 1 – create a shield over the Pride which is strengthened by the combined defences of all Pride members within a certain radius. If the shield is forcibly broken, defences will take X time to return: X = 10-n (where n is Defence level - current level 1). If the shield is voluntarily released, defences will return immediately. Cooldown: 5 mins

  Lion’s Generosity – (Powerful Swipe –> Sekhmet)

  Pride’s Tribute – (Healing Cloud, Group Enhancement)

  [Pride enhancements

  (Points available: 8)

  Increase the number of Prey Points gained by 7% (repeatable) (7)

  Increase the damage for Pride members fighting together by ((number of enemies/number of pride members in the fight)*level of enhancement)%(repeatable) (5)

  Increase the chance of Pride members gaining a higher tier Ability on their next Tier or Half-Tier by 5% (repeatable) (4)

  Increase the chance of being able to determine the type of Ability a Pride member will gain on their next Tier or Half-Tier by 5% (repeatable) (5)

  Intra-group communication system (repeatable to extend range) (4)

  Lion’s Generosity – give one of your Pride one of your Abilities (note: Ability will be at level 1 regardless of your original ability. Additional note: for every level above 0 you have raised the Ability, you have a 20% chance of retaining the Ability and/or its level. (5)

  Pride’s Tribute – one of your Pride can give you one of their Abilities (note: Ability will be at level 1 regardless of their original ability. Additional note: for every level above 0 they have raised the Ability, they have a 20% chance of retaining the Ability and/or its level. (5)

  Pride defence II – improve your Pride defence shield – double the defences of your Pride in exchange for doubling the cooldown and the time required for the defences of individual Pride members to return if the shield is forcibly broken. If the shield is voluntarily released, defences will still return immediately. (20)

  Pride defence (enhancement): increase range, reduce defence return time after forcible fracturing of the shield, or reduce the cooldown) (10)

  Anti-immunity – Enable some negative and neutral affect Abilities to affect Pride members at will either individually or as a group. (15)

  Note: more options may be added later depending on your actions with the Pride.]

  here!