Once he’d got over his objections to mating with Sekhmet, Dominic found himself mourning the fact that he hadn’t got over it sooner – then again, he wasn’t sure whether he’d have ever got over it for a lioness he was less attached to than Sekhmet. He begrudgingly admitted that maybe Leo had a reason for his obsession with mating.

  It wasn’t like he’d been a virgin before all of this – though admittedly he hadn’t exactly been experienced either – but now everything felt more…urgent. It was all over quicker than he remembered, but lions seemed to more than make up for that with frequency. Perhaps he could work on that? Push for bouts with longer duration and enjoy more frequency? Then again, he’d spend his life mating that way – which might suit Leo perfectly well, but risked him losing his momentum in terms of getting stronger.

  Their return to join the others took about four times the amount of time it should have because they kept stopping to have ‘just one more’ round – which was never just one more. Fortunately, the journey had been without incident – they hadn’t seen huge numbers of creatures anyway, and those they’d seen had run away instead of trying to attack them.

  ‘See, I told you it’s the best thing ever,’ Leo proclaimed, the dictionary definition of smug.

  ‘What do you want me to say? You were right? Well fine, you were,’ Dominic answered with an attempt at snapping, but he was honestly feeling too content as he affectionately rubbed against Sekhmet.

  The lioness always snapped at him after the act was done and continued to be prickly with him for a few minutes before returning to her affectionate self – not that Dominic blamed her considering a lion’s phallus shape.

  The first time it had happened, he’d worried that he’d hurt her, but her reassurances after she had stopped being prickly had soothed his fears. When she’d started flirting with him again and asking him to mate with her a second time, those worries had been definitively put to bed.

  ‘As long as you acknowledge it,’ Leo replied – it barely seemed possible, but he was even more smug now. ‘Are you still sure you’d make us unattractive as you threatened?’

  ‘Play well with any males in our group and we won’t have to find out,’ Dominic shot back.

  Having said lion as a voyeuristic presence in the back of his mind had also taken some getting used to. Leo had thankfully been silent in the first couple of rounds, presumably letting Dominic get used to the whole thing – or just letting Dominic make a fool out of himself while silently sniggering to himself. Who knew that targeting without hands would be so difficult? He was still grateful for the consideration since the helpful ‘advice’ or ‘performance review’ the lion gave him afterwards would probably have put him off completely in the middle of the act. And maybe Leo had realised that. Fortunately, Dominic had already had plenty of practice at tuning him out.

  ‘Want more?’ Sekhmet asked hopefully, once more rubbing herself under Dominic’s chin and lifting her tail flirtatiously.

  Dominic eyed her, highly tempted. But he saw that the others were up ahead and, beyond them, the forest which held their Place of Power was already in view. They’d made much better time on the way back: the way there had taken much longer, primarily because of Prince. Lionel and Fang had also been pretty low level and had had relatively little stamina too.

  Now, though, the lowest level were the albuhas who were naturally fast if they used their wings to fly and had good endurance if they ran on the ground. Dominic suspected that it had taken half the time to return as it had to go. But still, he was aware that they only had five more days before they needed to be back at the dungeon site again.

  ‘Not right now,’ he answered regretfully. Sekhmet made a quiet yowl of protest. ‘We’ve almost caught up with the group,’ he justified.

  ‘Why matter? Everyone understands.’

  ‘I’d rather not have an audience,’ Dominic answered. ‘Leo is already more than enough,’ he added. Sekhmet made another quiet sound, but this one sounded more like amusement than protest. ‘And besides, we’re not far from home by now and, with that, the rest of the Pride.’

  ‘It will be nice to see everyone again,’ Sekhmet answered, her longer sentences indicating that she’d moved out of her ‘mate now’ mindset. She took a step away from Dominic and stretched. That her stretch caused her butt to rise high in the air as she leaned down on her front paws was surely just a coincidence.

  ‘Tell you what, let’s meet up with the others, check how things are going with them and then we can go on ahead. As long as we travel fast enough, we should have time for a few rounds while the others catch up.’ After all, Dominic was definitely faster than any of the others, and Sekhmet was pretty quick too, even if not quite able to keep up with him.

  It didn’t take them long to catch up with the group ahead. The other two males greeted him with wariness from Fang and curiosity from Lionel who came over to sniff at them both. Dominic twisted away with a growl as the young male started sniffing a little close to a certain area.

  They stared at each other eye to eye for a moment before Lionel looked away and lazily lay down as if that was what he was intending to do all along. Dominic eyed him a little longer. Weird, he thought before dismissing it. Jenkins, after licking at the face of an apparently long-suffering winged-coyote was the next to greet him, bounding right over and rubbing herself against him. But not before sniffing him curiously. Fortunately, it didn’t feel weird like when Lionel did it.

  In fact…. Dominic instinctively sniffed at her in response, his nose telling him that she was just about to go into heat too. By this point she would no doubt be starting to experience the prickly heat which Sekhmet had told him about during one of the breaks between their rounds.

  Sekhmet moved forwards and stood between Dominic and Jenkins, not appearing angry, just…insistent. The two lionesses seemed to communicate silently – perhaps they were. Sekhmet did have Telepathy all on her own, after all. Dominic moved over to greet Procyon and Sirius who looked at him with an air of comradery.

  ‘It is hard to satisfy the females, is it not?’ Procyon asked him quietly.

  ‘Yeah, why do you think there are so many of us males for our female? When it is her season, she is insatiable.’ Sirius made a low humming moan. ‘With so many of us lost, we are going to be completely exhausted when mating season comes around again.’

  ‘Wait,’ Dominic stopped him. ‘You’re all male except for Nyx?’

  Sirius and Procyon both looked at him a little oddly.

  ‘You did not know?’ Procyon asked slowly. Dominic was once again glad that lions couldn’t blush.

  ‘I’m not familiar enough with your species to tell,’ he justified defensively.

  ‘Well, we are,’ Procyon clarified after a pause.

  ‘We seem to operate a bit differently from your species,’ Sirius added helpfully. ‘I don’t know how you manage to keep all your females satisfied, but we build a brotherhood of multiple males to satisfy our one female and then to defend the clutch after the eggs are laid.’

  Dominic noticed the words ‘clutch’ and ‘eggs’. It seemed like he was learning a lot of new things about the amesheks today. Apparently they weren’t even mammals. Though he supposed that them being from another world entirely meant that the rules from Earth didn’t apply. Though, he supposed that the Earth had had one egg-laying mammal – the platypus. Perhaps it wasn’t outside the realms of possibility that another world would have more platypus-style mammals…. Though he wondered whether they gave their offspring milk like the platypus too.

  ‘Well, whatever works for you, I guess,’ he answered, trying to stop thinking about it. He turned to greet the lead albuha – he really needed to come up with names for the winged-coyotes. Well, no time like the present – Sekhmet was still communicating with Jenkins, so there was clearly no rush on that side of things. ‘Do you have a name?’ Dominic asked the albuha as they trotted along together.

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  ‘A name…. Like our leader? – ‘Jenkins’?’ the albuha asked thoughtfully.

  ‘Yes,’ Dominic answered easily.

  ‘Not have names, exactly. Designations – based on ranking in hierarchy.’

  ‘That’s not quite the same thing, though,’ Dominic disagreed. ‘If you changed position in the hierarchy, you would change designation, right?’

  ‘Yes,’ the albuha agreed.

  ‘Well, a name is something you keep for your whole life and don’t change.’ Although that wasn’t quite correct, Dominic realised. While he as a man would have kept his name permanently, if he’d married a woman, she would have changed her last name to match him. Or at least, that was the tradition. Either way, she would have kept her first name, at least, so he felt his point still stood. ‘Do you have something you would like to be called? Or shall I pick something?’

  The albuha was silent for a long moment.

  ‘I think about it,’ he said finally. ‘You don’t mind?’

  Dominic shook his head in a very human gesture of negation.

  ‘No, take your time. Heck, talk with the others about it if you like. And then come to me when you’ve decided.’

  Upon leaving the leader, Dominic took a few moments to pad between the other albuhas, greeting all of them individually, even if briefly. Once he’d done that, he noticed that Sekhmet appeared to be ready, trotting at the front of the group and frequently sending him impatient glances.

  He leaped to join her, and they took off – not literally – into the savannah ahead.

  ‘What was that about with Jenkins?’ Dominic asked curiously. ‘Were you warning her off or something?’ He hadn’t thought about what impact more intelligence might have on the lionesses in that aspect – it might be that they developed a dislike for sharing their male. If so, he wasn’t sure what Leo would have to say about it.

  Correction: he knew what Leo would say about it; what he didn’t know was how Leo would be able to deal with it.

  ‘Warning her off?’ Sekhmet repeated, sounding startled. Apparently it wasn’t that then. ‘No. I was finding out if she wanted you or Leo. And was telling her how good mating with you is.’

  ‘What?’ Dominic asked, startled and more than a little pleased at the compliment. Sekhmet made an impatient huff.

  ‘I was finding out which of you she would prefer for her heat,’ the lioness repeated, this time clearly making an effort to make it crystal-clear. ‘I want Dominic, not Leo. I was finding out if she wanted the same, or would prefer Leo and not Dominic, or would be happy with both.’

  That was…also something Dominic hadn’t even considered.

  ‘And?’ he asked slightly nervously, feeling like he was waiting for some test results or something.

  ‘She wants to try you both,’ Sekhmet answered. ‘Will decide then.’ Her tone was so matter-of-fact, as if talking about one of the lionesses being keen on experimenting with him and his body-sharing leonine counterpart to decide whose style of mating she preferred was an everyday thing.

  ‘Don’t I get a say in this?’ Dominic asked almost desperately. Sekhmet looked at him in surprise.

  ‘You want a say? I thought you would say ‘yes’.’

  ‘You don’t know that!’ Dominic argued, his mind going into panic mode.

  ‘Don’t be an idiot,’ Leo scolded him. ‘Of course we would say ‘yes’.’

  ‘You would,’ Dominic told him pointedly. ‘You want to mate with every female around. But that’s not me!’ he finished, projecting his ‘voice’ to Sekhmet too. She stopped moving and looked at him, tilting her head to one side. He stopped too, turning so they were facing each other.

  ‘You liked mating me,’ Sekhmet replied, her tone certain. Justifiably so.

  ‘I did,’ Dominic replied, calming down slightly.

  ‘Why did you like mating me?’

  If he could still blush, he bet his ears would be red.

  ‘Because….because I like you. Like like you.”

  Sekhmet tilted her head to one side.

  ‘You don’t like Jenkins?’

  ‘What? No! I like her–’

  ‘Then why not mate with Jenkins.’

  ‘Because…’ Dominic trailed off as he tried to figure out how to put his feelings into words. ‘Because she’s not you. We’ve fought together, got more powerful together, helped each other. We have a connection which isn’t just…mating. Leo is happy to mate with any lioness he can. But…in my culture it’s normal to only…mate with one woman – female – at a time.’

  Though, that wasn’t entirely true, Dominic had to admit to himself as he thought about it more. In the culture he’d grown up in, that was the only socially acceptable relationship. One man, one woman – or at least restricted to two people. And if they were dating for a while, they were probably going to get married or people like Dominic’s paternal grandmother would tut-tut at them, especially if they had already moved in together.

  But in reality, there were always those men everyone knew had an additional girlfriend even when he already had a wife. Or the women who looked for a little something on the side – the ones who often rocked up to the cafe he’d worked in an hour or two before closing time, dressed to the nines and with a guy at least twenty years their junior – and every night a different man. And although Dominic had never been a history buff, even he knew about harems – which he apparently now had, he realised, even if he hadn’t been the one mating with them most of the time.

  Realising he’d been standing still a bit too long, Dominic started moving again. Sekhmet joined him, eyeing him as if he was the weird one.

  ‘An odd point of view,’ she said finally. ‘Only one male and only one female. Very odd.’ She was silent for a few long moments, but it was clearly a thoughtful silence so Dominic didn’t interrupt. ‘It wouldn’t work with lions. Only one male and only one female? What would happen to the rest of the females? Would they just have heats without relief? Or would they separate? If so, what would happen to the sisterhood of hunting? Cubs wouldn’t be protected, hunting would be harder and more dangerous.’ She made a low yowl of protest, eyeing him sideways. ‘I don’t like this possibility.’

  Dominic shook his head in confusion.

  ‘You mean you want me to be with other lionesses?’

  ‘Or Leo – one male body, two minds,’ she said practically. ‘It’s not so different from what we had, only with two minds instead.’ She sighed and then obviously started making an effort to explain properly. ‘A pride is a group of females. Males come, males go. But the pride stays together. Hunts together. Raises cubs together. The current male helps protect cubs from other males because they are his cubs. Other males who will come in will attack and kill the cubs already there. Normally. So if each female is with a male, the cubs are not safe. We cannot protect them as a pride and so we cannot hunt as a pride. You and Leo are our males, and we know you will protect us and protect our cubs. But having one male for each female? No. It won’t work.’

  ‘Is…is that the only reason you wanted to mate with me?’ Dominic asked, a little crestfallen. ‘Because you knew I would protect the cubs?’

  ‘Of course it is part of the reason,’ Sekhmet told him practically. ‘A strong male means a strong protector for my cubs. But mostly I wanted to mate because I am in heat. It feels good to scratch that itch inside.’ That didn’t help at all from Dominic’s point of view.

  ‘Nice to know I’m just an itch-scratcher,’ he told her, intending it to come out sarcastic, but it ended up sounding more disappointed.

  ‘You forget so quickly,’ Sekhmet scolded him. ‘I wanted to mate with you, not Leo, because I like you. Leo is…OK. But I don’t like him so much.’

  That…oddly enough did make things a bit better. Sekhmet might not be approaching this the same way Dominic was, but it seemed like she at least liked him more than Leo, which was good enough. Or at least would have to be good enough.

  ‘Jenkins likes you too,’ Sekhmet added. ‘More than Leo. You more understanding and tolerant. Leo more grumpy. But she wants to try both.’

  And that went right back to being weird.

  ‘Sekhmet…’ he started, not sure how to finish.

  ‘You give her a chance, yes?’ the lioness asked him, her eyes as intent as they were when she was hunting. Dominic hesitated, but then huffed a sigh in surrender. Perhaps the old saying was appropriate here? Though it wasn’t what he had grown up with, he was no longer human. When in Rome, do as the Romans do. When a lion….

  ‘Alright. I’ll think about it.’

  ‘Good,’ the lioness rumbled with satisfaction. ‘We mate now?’

  here!