11 A Walk In The Woods

Kenneth's POV

We all walked out of our hiding and trotted towards her knowing very well that others will only think of her when they are sure they are out of harms way. Her eyes went wide, her face flushed and a whimper of fear left her throat. 'Thump!' her frail body fell as she fainted. We quickly shifted and grabbed our clothes.

We debated whether we should help her or not. Malcolm and I agreed we should at least carry her to the infirmary whereas Thomas feared that we would be risking exposure. "Man, don't be heartless, it's inhumane to leave her alone out here. What if something happens to her?" I asked.

"Haha! Look who is getting all softy!" I felt angry all of a sudden and wanted to punch this son of a gun in his nose and break it. I grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and pinned him against a tree while extending my claws. I knew Zeus was pissed beyond. He doesn't take kindly to being called weak or soft.

"Leo, calm down! You know this idiot here likes pressing your buttons." Mal, the fire extinguisher calmed my lion. "You know that one day I won't be around to stop Zeus from tearing you apart you twit?" Mal said as he turned to Thomas. "This trap you call your mouth will one day be the death of you. Act like the Duobus you are you idiot," he continued to reprimand Thomas.

"Oh relax, Zeus knows I wouldn't challenge him, I know my position. Why do you two dimwits like a tense environment? Cheer up, I'm just joking around, geez!" Thomas responded.

While we were lost in our own altercations, the human stirred up and began to cough. She was coming through. We needed to do something before she suspected us.

We all walked up to her and crouched down to where she was lying down. "Miss, are you okay? Can you hear me?" I asked her while holding her head.

She cleared her throat and opened her eyes and scanned the environment. She suddenly jolted and sat up. "Where am I? Where are they?" she asked. The guys looked at each other showing confused faces. "Where is who? Were you with someone?" Thomas asked. She looked at all their faces with fear.

"I mean the lions, they were here. My friends fled and I must have fainted" she said. The guys looked at each other and laughed their lungs out. When they turned back to look at her she had a straight face as if saying 'is this a laughing matter to you?'

"Seriously? Lions here? And they didn't maul you to pieces? Do you want us to believe that? Or were you herding the lions?" Thomas said in a mock face.

I scowled at him. He just never stops fooling around. "What were you doing in the bush all by yourself anyway?" he added.

"Like I said, I was with my friends. We are from the University of Agriculture and we were taking a tour of this forestry to see the tree species. We first heard a roar of a lion, while still confused we heard another roar, my friends fled before they saw what I saw." She explained.

"And what did you see miss?" I asked her. She gulped and her eyes were trained on me, as if she was about to say 'I recognized you, you are the lions I saw.'

I cringed a bit, nervous in anticipation of her answer. "I saw three lions strutting towards me. Then I must have fainted." She told us still visibly shaking.

'Poor human, she is literally shaking. I think we should stop making fun of her and help her get back to her school. Otherwise she might just start recognizing our eyes if at all she looked at them while in our lion form.' Malcolm said through our mind link.

We agreed with him. He is always the level headed one. Sometimes I fear that he might become my challenger one day and take my throne. Just that I know he is loyal to his calling as Tribus it's what keeps me at ease.

"Miss, though it's hard to believe your story because we never heard of lions being so close to civilization, and because lions are carnivores which cannot see meat and leave it, we would like to help you get back home. We were just strolling in the woods, we are from this University" I said pointing at our school wall.

"We saw you lying unconscious here so we stopped to check and maybe call the police but we realized you were still alive. It's dangerous to be alone out here, especially for a defenseless woman like you. Do we have the permission to help you?"

I went on and on trying to say words that would make her believe it was all just an illusion or she was hallucinating, there never were any lions.

She sneered but shook her head in the affirmative. "Maybe someone was playing a prank on us. But it all seemed so real." She said as she tried to stand up.

"Exactly, maybe someone played a prank on you guys. But then I wonder what kind of friends you have. You should ditch them. They never came back to check your remains?" the twit Thomas was at it again. I nudged him hard on his chest. "Ouch! What the f**k Kenneth?" he said while rubbing his chest.

We helped her stand up and walked back to the school, gave her a cup of water and took her to a cab, paid for it, she thanked us and left.

We were relieved that she had fainted and couldn't tie us to the lions or else we would be in trouble. We would have been forced to either hurt her or reveal our identity to her and risk our lives.

"Next time I'm not listening to you two dimwits." Malcolm said storming away to his dormitory leaving us standing there.

I shrugged and parted ways with Thomas as I headed back to my room. I missed my angel but I needed a shower first.