Serafina and the Black Cloak - Robert Beatty Page 0,75

Serafina’s defense, the mountain lion stared her down with her huge, penetrating yellow eyes. Serafina gasped. The cat’s eyes were the exact same color as her own.

She looked into the cat’s face. And then, in the next second, she saw what appeared to be a flicker of recognition in the lioness’s eyes.

The lioness hesitated, stopping just a few inches in front of her.

She could see in the animal’s expression that the lioness was thinking the same thing she was: their eyes were the same.

They weren’t predator and prey.

They weren’t protector and intruder.

They were connected.

She looked into the lioness’s eyes, and the lioness looked into hers. There were no words between them. There could not be. But in that moment, there was understanding. There was a bond between them. They were the same. They were hunters. They were prowlers of the night.

But even more than all that, they were kin.

With her back crammed up against the rear wall of the den and her knees pulled up to her chest, Serafina stared at the mountain lion in amazement. Her heart pounded. Her body was folded up so tightly that she could only take short, shallow breaths.

The lioness gazed at her with the most mesmerizing amber-gold eyes she had ever seen. How was it possible that they looked just like hers? Images and ideas flashed through her mind in a swirling confusion, but none of it made sense.

The lioness took another step toward her.

Serafina remained perfectly still, trying to breathe as steady as she could. She made no sudden movements.

She saw an intelligence and awareness in the lioness’s eyes. They were filled with a gentleness and understanding far beyond that of a wild animal. She knew she could not speak to the lioness in words, but she yearned to.

The lioness pushed her nose against Serafina’s shoulder and smelled her. The lioness’s breath was loud in her ears, her lungs sounding like a bellows, the air rushing in and out. The moisture around the lioness’s partially open mouth glistened, and her teeth shone. Her deep scent was both foreign and familiar to Serafina. She’d never smelled a lion in her life, but it smelled exactly the way she expected it would.

As she looked at the lioness, she wished more than anything in the world that she could somehow communicate with her. She felt a deep longing to know what she was thinking and feeling in that moment.

Serafina exhaled gently and then took in a breath and held it as she slowly raised her trembling hand and touched the side of the lioness’s head. She caressed the lioness’s fur.

The lioness stared at her, her eyes locked on her, but the lioness did not move, she did not growl or bite, and Serafina began to breathe again.

She stroked the side of the lioness’s head and then down her neck. The lioness rubbed her shoulder against Serafina’s body, and Serafina felt the power and weight of the animal against her, so much weight that it prevented her from breathing for several seconds and she almost panicked, but then the lioness moved again and she could breathe once more. When Serafina relaxed her folded knees, the lioness put her head against Serafina’s chest. Serafina touched the back of her neck and her ears. Then the lioness slowly leaned down and lay down beside her, with her cubs around her, and swished her long tail.

Serafina held the fuzzy little mewing cubs in her arms and hugged them. She felt her chest swelling and her limbs tingling. She was filled with pride and happiness. The little lions were welcoming her—they loved her—and for a moment she was swept up with the feeling that she had finally come home.

She thought about how she was different from other people, the seeing in the dark, the moving quietly, the hunting at night. She looked at the palm of her hand and opened her fingers, and then examined her fingertips one by one. Were they fingernails or were they claws? What was her connection to the lioness? Why did she feel like she belonged here?

But the more she thought about it, the more ludicrous it became in her mind. She was a person. She was wearing clothes. She lived in a house full of human beings. And that’s where she wanted to be. She had to get back to Braeden and her pa and the world she knew, the world she loved.

Clenching her teeth and shaking her head, she crawled out of the lioness’s