Chapter 2 - Kion

Kion awoke slowly.

He felt amazing. This was the most rested he’d felt in weeks. He almost thought he’d been asleep for days; the stresses of everything that had been going on lately had been catching up with him and caused a few sleepless nights, so the chance to get a few hours of good, uninterrupted sleep was just what he’d needed. He was vaguely aware that today was an important day, but he decided to ignore that for the time being and just enjoy the feeling of being well-rested for a little while.

In his sleepy state, his mind was playing catch up with his body, sluggishly registering things about the world. Firstly, there was a heavy, but not uncomfortable, weight on his chest which he was dimly aware was vibrating. This was unusual, he could tell he was on his back, so something must be on top of him, it wasn’t causing him any pain though so he decided to ignore it for now. 

What was less good, however, was that he had no feeling whatsoever in one of his front paws. The fact that one of his paws was dead wasn’t worrying by itself, he woke up with dead paws after falling asleep on them all the time, but he was on his back, so something else must be on him. It was probably the same thing that was on his chest, it wasn’t really causing him any real discomfort though, he’d have trouble walking when he got up but it was otherwise probably not something to worry too much about.

As the rest of his senses started to wake up he became aware of a few other things. There was an odd smell in the air, it didn’t smell like his family’s den in pride rock, or the guard den, the two places he most often woke up, must be somewhere else then, he thought. The smell was musty and pungent, not entirely unpleasant, but if it was coming from him, he was sure he didn’t want anyone else smelling it. He was also aware of a tightness in the fur between his hind legs, almost like something was stuck there. He wondered idly whether that had anything to do with the weight on his chest or the smell in the air.

He lay motionless for what seemed to him, in his dozy state, like hours while he considered everything he’d learned. He'd have to open his eyes eventually, and now that he was aware of it, his paw was starting to hurt a little. With a sigh he cracked open his eyes, slightly; it was still dark out, the sun just now starting to rise above the horizon, painting the sky a deep red. The first thing he saw after his eyes adjusted to the dim light was Fuli lying atop his chest, sleeping peacefully. This answered a number of his questions, she accounted for the weight and the dead paw since she had fallen asleep on his foreleg, he now also knew that the vibrating was Fuli purring. 

He began to wonder why Fuli would be asleep on his chest, that was quite unlike her; when his groggy mind started to recall what had happened the previous evening. He’d found her sitting by herself near the watering hole, they had spoken about their anxieties for today, he now also knew why today was important, and then they … Well, that explained the smell, he suddenly recognised it as the smell of sweat and sex, and it also explained the sticky fur between his legs. Considering everything that had been going on, it was certainly an enjoyable night. He wanted to reflect on it a while longer, but the pain in his paw was now becoming quite hard to ignore.

He gently nudged Fuli with his other paw and watched as she awoke, saw the same thoughts §go through her mind as went through his, what had seemed to him like hours was actually no longer than a minute. Her eyes blinked open and she looked up at him with a relaxed smile, Kion smiled apologetically back down at her. “Sorry for waking you.” He whispered and nodded towards the leg that she was laying on with his head.

“It’s fine, we need to get up anyway. Busy day.” She began to stand when she caught a whiff of their combined scent causing her nose to wrinkle, she then looked down at the state of their fur and giggled. “Some night, huh?”

“Oh yeah, we really did a number on each other,” Kion said with a laugh. He attempted to roll over, the sudden rush of blood back to his paw causing a severe case of pins and needles. The early morning air was still and cool, the water of the lake reflecting the slowly rising sun on its unmoving surface, Kion turned to face pride rock and watched on as the last embers of the previous night’s fire burned out.

He turned back to see Fuli in the middle of a big stretch, her back arched, toes splayed and claws fully extended. Her eyes were closed and she had a blissful smile on her face as she worked out all the knots in her muscles. The sight was almost enough to make him hard all over again, but he was still too sleepy to fully appreciate it. He tried to shake some life back into his paw as he admired the view before him. Limping around a little to try and get some feeling back in it again, he watched as Fuli started to groom herself.

“Fuli?” He said, quietly.  She paused her grooming and looked up, meeting his eyes.  “Thanks, for last night. I didn’t realise how worried I was about today. A lot’s riding on us, a lot riding on me, and I guess it was affecting me more than I thought. I really needed someone to talk it all through with, and I’m glad it was you.” His words were sombre, full of meaning. He didn’t know how to fully express his gratitude for Fuli’s help last night, he hoped this was enough.

She padded over to him to nuzzle him and brought him into a hug. “Any time, Kion.” She said, simply. “You’ve always been there when we needed you. Not just us on the guard, but everyone in the pridelands. Anytime someone is in need you’re always first in line to help them out. So, I’m glad I could be there for you when you needed help, and I’ll always be here when you need me.”

The pair sat in silence, hugging, for a few moments. Kion put every ounce of feeling he could into it. If this was to be the last time they were together like this, he wanted Fuli to know how much he appreciated her friendship, even if he couldn’t put that into words. Eventually, they split, and they looked each other in the eye again. “We’ve got a lot to do today,” Fuli continued. “We need to get back to the others, so go bathe ‘cause you stink!” she said with a gentle punch to his shoulder. 

Moment over, they both started laughing, Fuli returned to her grooming and Kion picked himself up and started towards the water’s edge. ”Kion!” He’d made it about halfway to the water’s edge before Fuli shouted, “Not in the water we drink from.” It took half a second for Kion’s sleepy mind to realise what he was about to do, shaking his head with a small chuckle, he made his way back to Fuli, sat down and began grooming himself alongside her.

It was definitely going to be another long day.

-------------

The last few weeks had been challenging for Kion. He stood on the bank of the hot spring, Fuli at his side, watching as his friends had fun playing in the warm water and reflected on the events that had brought him and the guard here. His eye throbbed dully. They had finally found some tuliza which helped with the pain and made it easier to ignore, but it didn’t remove it entirely. The pain in his eye was now a constant reminder of their mission and its urgency and his failure at the volcano.

It all started at the battle for the pride lands. Kion and Fuli made it back to the others just after the sun had risen, the guard assembled and they began rounding up the pridelanders. Now fully awake, Kion began to walk around the campsite, a reassuring face to everyone. They were all worried about the upcoming battle, the tension in the air was palpable. They all knew how important this fight was and so took these last moments to prepare themselves, there was very little conversation, a nod here, a hug there, even Bunga refrained from making jokes. Once he was sure they were all ready they attacked, Kion leading the charge.

The battle was long and arduous but the pridelanders handled themselves admirably, acting as a distraction, keeping Scar’s army occupied while the guard made their way to the caldera of the volcano. Kion led them into the caldera with little trouble and found it largely unguarded, unaware of the trap he was about to walk into. He was attacked by Ushari and bitten on his left eye. Unknown to Kion this was part of Scar’s plan, to make Kion like himself, to twist Kion into a being of malice and hate. It had almost succeeded, but remembering the words spoken to him by his grandfather, Kion forgave Scar, despite his injury, defeating him without using the roar.

For all intents and purposes, the battle had been a success, Scar had been defeated and the outlands liberated and put under the control of Jasari. With the exception of Ushari, who had been tackled into the volcano by Bunga, they’d managed it without any loss of life on either side.  And yet, Kion still felt like he’d failed, he’d walked into a trap he should have seen, which had left him seriously injured. Scared like his grand-uncle. But worse than that, Ono had also been badly hurt. While in time he could have come to accept his wound as a result of his lapse in judgement, he also blamed himself for Ono’s injury and he couldn’t forgive himself for that.
Ono had shown great bravery and strength in rescuing Bunga as he fell, but in doing so had inhaled a lot of volcanic fumes and his eyes had been burned by the dust and high temperatures, leaving him near blind. His injuries were too severe for Rafiki to heal and the prospect that Ono might be permanently wounded compounded Kion’s feelings of guilt.  

It absolutely devastated him to have to replace Ono on the guard as the keenest of sight, Anga was a fine replacement for him, but it tore him up inside when he saw the disappointment on Ono’s face. There was a little consolation, though, as Kion was able to give Ono another job on the guard, that of the smartest.

Kion’s injury was a little more complicated, the scar that resulted from Ushari’s bite was unlikely to ever fully heal but, worse than that, the venom from the bite was still in the wound. Unless the venom was cured it would eventually turn Kion into a creature of evil, unable to tell the difference between right and wrong, just like Scar. The prospect of this terrified Kion, he’d worked so hard to defeat Scar, to prove him wrong that they weren’t the same, the last thing he wanted was to become just like him.

Rafiki was unable to do anything more to help either Ono or Kion, he told them that the only place they could both properly heal was the tree of life, a place that was home to many varied and rare animals and provided shelter and protection to those who needed it. With the pridelands now at peace, the guard had agreed to accompany Kion and Ono, Makini, who had visited the tree before, was to lead them and Ono had memorised the map that led the way.

And so, wasting little time, the guard left the pridelands for the tree of life, the pridelanders were all there to see them off and wish them well on their journey. Kion took one last look back at pride rock, a mixture of emotions going through him, he still felt tremendous guilt and shame that the journey was even necessary in the first place and on top of this was sadness at leaving his home and his family. And yet, beneath all that, there was a sense of excitement, despite the reason for the journey, it was going to be a great adventure and he was taking it with his best friends. Under different circumstances, he would probably have thoroughly enjoyed the journey, but he didn’t know how long it would take for Ushari’s venom to take full effect. He would fight it, but already he could feel it affect him and as such he wanted to reach the tree as soon as possible.

Their journey didn’t have the best of starts, before they had even left Kion had roared at Bunga. While Bunga was unhurt, and actually seemed to quite enjoy the experience, it was not something Kion would ever have done under normal circumstances. This outburst had left him feeling worried that he was going to lose control of the roar, and this was only a few hours after he had been bitten. If the venom was working this fast, they couldn’t have very long to reach the tree of life.

Not long after leaving the pridelands, Kion’s temper had gotten the best of him again. The guard had unknowingly wandered into Makucha’s territory after finding the first of the Moja Kwa Moja stones. The pain in Kion’s eye had been slowly worsening since the bite and his frustration at being in constant pain and the venom that had been left in the wound had made him quite short-tempered. They had already had one fight with Makucha and his leap, and now during a harmattan storm, he had snapped at Makini when she tried to offer him some tuliza to ease his pain.

Once his head had cleared a bit, he felt incredibly guilty for having treated her like that. It scared him that these outbursts were becoming more frequent, it had only been a few days since he was injured and like roaring at Bunga, the venom was once again causing him to lash out at his friends. He vowed to himself to try harder to keep a check on his temper, the last thing he needed right now was to drive his friends away.

After saving Makini from Makucha, and escaping from the rising winds, Kion led the guard out of the back lands and the guard resumed their journey. For the next few weeks, the journey passed largely without incident. Kion’s eye was still bothering him, but he found as long as the group was moving and making progress towards their destination it gave him something else to focus on and he was better able to ignore the pain. However, it became much more noticeable whenever they were held up, even the slightest delay would cause his temper to flair up. Despite this, he had managed to not lash out at his friends again.

The group’s pace was slowed down a bit when they reached a snow-capped mountain, according to Ono the map’s path took them around the mountain to the next moja kwa moja stone, but in his impatience to carry on moving, Kion thought they could save time by going over the mountain.

The snow made the mountain path treacherous to navigate and they’d had to take more breaks than Kion was happy with. His eye had been particularly sore all day, something to do with the cold weather he guessed, and it was beginning to drive him to distraction. He could feel himself losing his temper at even the smallest setbacks.

For the sake of his friends he really tried to keep his temper under control but eventually, with the group out of tuliza he grew too frustrated at their slow pace and became angry with Bunga and Anga who had become distracted fooling around with a small family of snow monkeys. Anxious to continue moving as soon as possible, and against Fuli’s objections, he decided to roar the snow out of their way. Fuli had tried to warn him of his difficulties controlling the roar since his injury, but he went ahead anyway.

Kion’s rash decision once again caused trouble for the guard as his roar caused an avalanche. The family of snow monkeys that Anga and Bunga had been playing with were in the direct path of the rushing snow and, with little time to react, the guard sprang into action to save them. The monkeys were saved, but the snow had completely covered their home. What had been meant to save them time had now caused an even larger delay in their journey.

Overcome with guilt once again that his actions had caused harm to innocent animals, Kion vowed to find a new home for the monkeys and refused to continue their journey until the family were safe and happy.

Despite his feeling of guilt and his desire to help the monkeys find a new home, Kion still found himself short-tempered and anxious to continue the guard’s journey to the tree of life. In short order, Anga found a new hot spring and Kion led the monkeys there against Fuli’s advice that it might not be suitable. This in turn led to the monkeys and Bunga becoming trapped in a sinkhole in the snow.

Finally coming to his senses, Kion reluctantly admitted that he wasn’t in control of the situation, the pain in his eye had become almost unbearable and made it difficult for him to think straight. Realising that Fuli had been right about everything and unable to trust himself any further, he relinquished command of the guard to her.

Soon after the monkeys had been rescued and another new hot spring was found for them. He stood on the bank of the spring with Fuli watching as the rest of the guard happily played with the monkeys in the water. His eye still bothered him, though after finally getting some tuliza it was now more of a dull ache than the stabbing pain it had been for most of the day. Rather than continue their journey right away, he allowed the guard some time to relax after the ordeal with the avalanche, smiling to himself as he watched his friends having fun.

Kion tried to collect his thoughts, this past day had been especially bad for him. Try as he might to make things easier first for the guard, then for the monkey family, everything he did had the opposite effect. On top of that, his short temper was causing him to lash out at his friends, he was aware he was doing it but felt powerless to stop himself. Watching his friends now, as they played and had fun, it felt almost like a day back in the pride lands before Scar, if they held any ill will towards him, they weren’t showing it.

But the constant pain in his eye was now a reminder that those days were behind them, he was beginning to think that even if they could cure the venom, the pain was something he was going to have to live with forever, it had been present now for what felt like so long he could hardly remember what it was like to live without it. Sure, the tuliza helped lessen the pain for a while, and he could ignore it from time to time, but it was always there. At times, the pain was almost as draining as the venom.

His biggest fear, though, was that despite his best efforts, he was slowly becoming more and more like Scar. As the days passed and the pain in his eye got worse, the venom made him more short-tempered and impatient with everything, he was losing parts of himself. He feared that if they didn’t reach the tree soon he’d be unable to control himself and would drive his friends away. He had been feeling a lot of guilt lately at his misguided actions, but he’d never be able to forgive himself if he did something to hurt his friends.

He turned to Fuli, who was standing by his side. She had a gentle smile on her face as she watched their friends splashing around in the water playing with the monkeys. She had taken the brunt of most of Kion’s aggression throughout the day and he felt awful about it. He knew that she was only trying to help, and worse still she was right and he had dismissed her suggestions. He wanted to make sure that all his friends knew how sorry he was for his actions, that he was struggling to control his emotions, especially his anger, but none more so than Fuli. 

Since the pair decided to allow the guard some time to relax they had remained silent, Kion lost in his thoughts. He wondered what was going through Fuli’s mind, she had definitely been frustrated with him during the day, but like the others, she had shown no anger towards him since he had let her take command, he hoped his actions had done nothing to damage his friendship with her. He thought back to the morning before the battle, the sex the night before had been great, but even aside from that they had really opened up to each other, and had become much closer because of it, if there was anyone who might understand what Kion was feeling it would be her.

He turned to speak to her but found she was already looking at him, she still wore the gentle smile but it didn’t quite reach her eyes, there was something else behind it that Kion couldn’t quite place. They looked at each other for a few moments, Kion unsure of what to say after everything that he’d done that day, so he simply smiled back at her.

“Kion …” Fuli started and then paused. He wondered if she was having as much trouble as him starting a conversation. With a sigh, she gave up. It was obvious to Kion that they both had things they needed to say, looking for somewhere private to talk he saw a treeline not far from the spring and, indicating that Fuli should follow him, moved off in the direction of the trees. Fuli followed him, the pair walking in silence. A short way into the trees, he turned to face Fuli again and sat on the ground. He hoped they were far enough away from their friends that they could talk without being heard.

“Fuli, I…,” he began and then stopped as she sat beside him. He didn’t know how to even begin to apologise for all the trouble he’d caused that day, for the way he’d behaved towards her. “Fuli, I’m so sorry.” He said quietly, turning to face Fuli he found her watching him, the same gentle smile on her face. She reached over and laid a paw over one of his, that one simple gesture was all it took. In that moment Kion knew everything was going to be alright, that Fuli felt no animosity towards him. Relief flooded his body as tears began to fill his eyes, he had never felt so powerless, so vulnerable before, and the thought of losing his support, his friends, terrified him.

“Oh, Kion. I know.” Fuli responded, concern in her eyes. He allowed himself to be brought into a hug as he cried, what felt like seasons worth of built up worry and frustration and pain drained away as Fuli held him in those few minutes.

Being held by Fuli made him feel better, he allowed himself to cry into her shoulder for a few minutes before composing himself again. Never before had he felt so helpless or scared. Scared of what was happening to him, what he was turning into, and scared that he was driving his friends away from him. Fear was not something new to him, his job with the lion guard put him in a lot of frightening situations, but this was the first time it had become overwhelming. Whenever he had been in scary situations before, there was always a solution, something he could work out, this time he saw no solution, no way out, if they didn’t get to the tree in time Ushari’s venom would take him over. He would become the thing he feared most.

Once his sobs had died down, Fuli moved back, she maintained contact with him holding his paws in her own. “Kion, we really need to figure this out,” she said gently. 

“You’re right, I could really use someone to talk to.” Of course, he knew he couldn’t carry on like this, their journey had been so fast-paced so far they’d not had a lot of time to talk things out and he was bottling up a lot of these feelings.

“You know I’m always here for you, Kion.” Fuli smiled warmly at him before she continued, “Talk to me, I don’t know what you’re going through but maybe if I understood better I’d be able to help. You’ve been so impatient and reckless lately and I know that’s not you. You never act before you think something through, that’s more Bunga’s thing.” In spite of the situation, Kion chuckled. That was more like Bunga. He thought fondly of his friend, out of everyone Bunga was having the most fun on this journey, perhaps he could learn something from the honey badger, try to take things less seriously. 

He rubbed at his eye again, the tuliza had kicked in now and the splitting pain had been dulled. “My eye hurts all the time,” he spoke, finally putting into words what he had been feeling for the past few weeks. “The tuliza helps, but the pain is still there. It’s exhausting, the pain takes so much out of me that I find it hard to keep going sometimes.” He spoke quietly, the fatigue evident in his voice. “And I can feel the venom in me, I can ignore it all the time we’re on the move, but as soon as we stop … It’s hard to put into words,” Kion let go of Fuli’s paws and began pacing around the clearing, “It makes me feel almost claustrophobic like I can’t breathe, and when the pain’s really bad that’s when my temper starts getting the better of me. I get frustrated at the smallest things and I can’t help but lash out.” He stopped his pacing and looked at Fuli, breathing heavily. His speech had been getting faster as he spoke.

Fuli reached a foreleg out to him, he took her paw and sat down beside her, he barely felt it when she put a paw on his shoulder, only now noticing how tense he had become. He took a couple of deep breaths and tried to relax his muscles, only to realise that this was how he’d been feeling ever since they’d set off. After all these weeks he was so worked up, so on edge that his entire body felt like one big knot.

“Kion, I had no idea things were so bad.” She ran her paw along his arm, feeling his tight muscles before continuing, “I wish you’d said something sooner, we might have been able to help before it got this bad. We all want to get to the tree as quickly as possible, but we also need to find time to relax. You might actually be making things worse by pushing yourself this hard.” Fuli reasoned.

This was something that hadn’t occurred to Kion, could he be exacerbating his problem? His only goal had been to get to the tree as fast as possible before the venom drove him to madness, but maybe that was the wrong approach to take. He had noticed that the harder he pushed himself, the worse he felt when they eventually stopped. Ignoring the problem by working through it was definitely not the same as trying to resolve the problem, this was the advice he would have given anyone else back in the pridelands, maybe he needed to take his own advice.

“The guys are having fun right now, and I know they’ll feel better for it when we take off again tomorrow. Perhaps you should try having some fun, too.” Fuli said softly. Kion thought this over for a moment, he was very tired, all these weeks of travel combined with the stress of his situation had definitely caught up with him.

“You’re right, Fuli, we do need to take time to relax. The way things are going right now, I’ll have probably driven myself mad before we even get to the tree of life.” He forced a small laugh, trying to get himself to loosen up a bit, and was surprised to find it actually did make him feel a little better. “I don’t think I’m quite up to swimming with the snow monkeys, though.”

Fuli turned to face him, she looked to be in deep thought for a few moments before she broke out into a sly, mischievous grin. “There are other ways to relax.” She shuffled closer to Kion as she spoke before leaning close to him, “Remember the night before the battle?” she whispered into his ear.

It took Kion a second to catch on to what she was referring to. With everything that had happened since the battle for the pride lands, sex had been the last thing on his mind and he was a little surprised that Fuli would suggest it, their situation too dire to be thinking of such things. However, the more he thought about it, the more he realised that she might have a point. The last time they’d had sex was to distract them from their anxieties over the upcoming battle, and it had worked wonderfully. He desperately needed to relax a bit, and this was a pretty good idea, he reasoned, still a little unsure he decided to give it a go, it was worth a try if nothing else. He nuzzled up close to her to show his assent with her plan.

“Lie back and close your eyes,” Fuli said as she helped him into a comfortable position lying on his back. “Try not to think, just feel.” Kion closed his eyes and tried to steady his breathing. Fuli laid atop him and guided his face to hers bringing him into a kiss. They stayed like this for a while, their tongues moving gently against one another, this was not the frantic kissing they had shared last time, this was much more tender. Kion moved his forepaws to Fuli’s back and began to caress her, he stroked one paw from her shoulder all the way down to her rump where he began to play with the base of her tail and tease the powerful muscles of her hind legs. This caused Fuli to start moving against him, his eyes closed as they were, Kion was acutely aware of how much bodily contact they were sharing as she started to wriggle and twitch against him.

Fuli’s paws were far from idle, she had been running them up and down his neck and shoulders as they kissed, her claws making gentle furrows in his fur, she wasn’t applying enough pressure for it to be an effective massage against his tight muscles, but Kion found it pleasurable nonetheless. One of her paws had made its way up his head and was now idly playing with one of his ears, he had never thought of ears, much less his own, as an erogenous zone before, but her ministrations were certainly having an effect on him as he felt himself start to stiffen at her touch. It didn’t take long before he was fully erect, he could feel himself poking Fuli somewhere, but with his eyes closed he couldn’t tell exactly where.

She ended their kiss and pushed herself away from him, “Keep your eyes closed.” she whispered breathily into his ear as she nipped gently at it, this caused Kion to jump slightly and a quiet moan to escape his mouth. Removing his paws from her back, she then started to slowly make her way down his body leaving a trail of small kisses, licks and nibbles in her wake. The sensations felt electrifying to Kion, he shivered and his breath caught in his throat each time her mouth made contact with a part of his body, he was panting before she had made it to his belly.

Her descent was agonisingly slow, by the time she had made it to his groin he was painfully hard, pre flowing copiously from his tip. He felt a paw begin to fondle his balls while another took ahold of his cock and angled it away from his body. The next thing he felt made him see stars behind his closed eyelids, a moist warmth engulfed his cock. At first he thought she’d mounted him until he felt her tongue begin to move around him. The feeling was incredible, her rough tongue was playing around the base of his cock, pulling gently at his spines, just on the edge of painful, but that only served to increase the pleasure he was feeling.

She began to gently suck, bobbing her head up and down while she continued to play her tongue over his flesh. Going against Fuli’s instructions, Kion peeked down at her through barely open eyes, the sight was nearly enough to make him cum on the spot. He let out a loud groan as he shut his eyes tightly, his back arching and his claws digging into the ground at his sides, he wasn’t going to last much longer.

Kion panted as though he had been running for miles and his muscles were now more tense than they were before they started. Fuli increased the power of her suction and as she did lifted almost completely off him, leaving just the end of his cock in her mouth, as she slowly made her way back down her tongue licked across his tip. That was enough for Kion, his breath caught in his throat and his muscles tensed powerfully as he exploded with pleasure. All other sensations were lost to him as he rode out the intense climax.

With a loud moan he erupted into Fuli’s mouth having no chance to warn her of what was about to happen. As he continued to cum in Fuli’s mouth he felt waves of pleasure pulse all throughout his body with each shot, from the tip of his tail, down his legs to his paws and all the way up to his ears. He lost all track of time, but was dimly aware that the suction around his cock continued adding to the pleasure he felt. 

Eventually his orgasm began to subside, and his other senses started coming back to him. He gasped for breath, his whole body still feeling an electric tingle in his aftershocks, it was almost like he could feel each individual strand of his fur as Fuli gently pulled off of him and started climbing back up his body. He felt her capture his face in her paws and pull him into another kiss, somewhere in the back of his mind he was aware that he could taste himself on Fuli’s tongue, but discovered he really didn’t mind all that much, especially not right now.

He was also surprised to find he was still hard as, breaking off the kiss, Fuli reached back with a paw and took hold of his cock once more. He could smell her arousal in the air around them, could feel the wet patches she left on him as she positioned herself atop him, one paw on his shoulder to steady herself. He felt her claws fully extend and begin to dig into shoulder muscles and she impaled herself on him.

It was her turn to moan and pant now as she began to ride him, unbeknownst to Fuli, this was one of his favourite positions. Holding onto her hips, his own claws digging into her now, he began to thrust up into her, matching her rhythm. The sensation was different to Fuli’s mouth but no less pleasurable, he could feel her clenching around him as he pulled out of her, her vagina muscles trying their best to keep him inside her. He could tell she wouldn’t last much longer, her movements had become erratic and her claws were now digging into both of his shoulders, he wondered briefly whether they were leaving marks on each other, it was going to be difficult enough explaining to the others the smell and the dishevelled state of their fur when they made it back to the group without also having to explain claw marks.

He finally opened his eyes, looking up at Fuli just in time to see her climax, her head thrown back a loud moan escaping her mouth, the gripping around his dick now much stronger. He was pretty close himself, and the vision of Fuli cumming atop him was enough to send him over the edge and with a roar he exploded inside her once again. She looked down at him and the pair made eye contact as they rode out their respective orgasms.

With a gasp, Fuli collapsed on top of Kion, both panting with the exertion of the sex they’d just shared. Their mouths found each other once again, and the pair kissed lazily in between gasps as they each caught their breath.

“How’s that for relaxing?” Fuli asked with a purr, a dopey, post-orgasmic smile upon her face.

Kion felt fantastic, better than he had since before the battle for the pridelands. Despite all the work he’d just done, his muscles had loosened up and while his eye was still painful, it was at the moment a distant feeling somewhere in the back of his mind. Most importantly though, for the time being at least, all thoughts of the venom turning him into another Scar had been driven from his mind. Kion was content for the first time in weeks. He wrapped Fuli in his forelegs, bringing her into a tight hug, he could feel her purring against his chest.

“Thanks, Fuli,” he said quietly, but sincerely. “That actually really helped, I do feel a lot better.” he finished.

Fuli nuzzled against him, burying her face in his chest fur as she accepted his embrace. “Good, I’m glad I could help,” she said. With a quick wink up at him she continued, “Maybe don’t wait so long next time.”