The Panther and the Thief

by Veronica Sommers

  I'll never see him again. The thought incites an ache in my chest—an ache that shouldn't be there, because I don't trust people or connect with them easily, thanks to my oh-so-wonderful parents. I shouldn't be feeling this way about a guy I just met.

  "Are you mad?" Ryden asks without looking at me, as he unfolds bandages.

  "Mad?"

  His eyes lock with mine, green-gray and apprehensive. "Because I kissed you."

  "Um... no."

  His smile illuminates his entire face. "Good."

  "Hey, how come you don't have any wounds?" I touch his chest lightly with two fingers and then snatch them back guiltily.

  "I moved too fast for them." He grins. "And we heal quickly. Don't you know your mythical lore? You watch TV, right?"

  "The shows with shifters in them are usually about werewolves."

  He swears. "Werewolves are overrated. Those shows usually get one thing right—we do heal fast. But real shifters—wolf, cat, whatever—can change anytime. The moon has nothing to do with it. Although if we don't change often enough, we get nervous and sick."

  "How—where did your kind originate?" I never learned much about shifters. The magical history course I took a few years ago focused on the origins of high-class magic and rune sorcery, but mentioned little about low-class carnal magic.

  He shrugs, his fingers brushing my skin as he places the bandages. "Who knows? There are legends about shifter cats all over the world. We've got Mongolian blood, a little African, some Japanese. My father and grandfather taught us that we originated somewhere in the mountains of Japan. Over there, they call our kind yōkai, or more specifically, nekomata. But there's no way to know for sure where we came from."

  "How old are you?"

  "Twenty-five."

  I take a deep breath, and the corner of my mouth twitches as I ask, "How long have you been twenty-five?" There's a chance he's never seen the Twilight movie and won't get my joke—but I'm betting he has, since it includes werewolves.

  And I'm right. He bursts into laughter. "Good one. I'm twenty-five for real. Although our kind do live a couple centuries longer than humans."

  That's news to me. "How old was your father when he died?"

  "Three hundred and two. He had kids late in life."

  "And your mother?"

  "Died about a decade ago." A shadow crosses his face as he says it.

  "I'm sorry."

  "Thanks." He's done with my wounds, but he hesitates, fingers tracing the edges of the bandage tape, moving to my bare flesh. I hold my breath as his hand travels across my stomach.

  "You have such soft skin," he murmurs.

  His other hand cups my left knee, moving upward along my thigh, and the sensations flooding me are so delicious that I don't stop him. I haven't been touched like this in a very long time. No, scratch that—I haven't ever been touched like this. My college boyfriend was a quick screw—he never had time for foreplay. But this—this is heaven.

  And then Ryden's fingertips encounter the scars on my thighs, and he stops. When he looks up, I bite my lip and turn away, suddenly raw and exposed.

  "You were in pain once," he says soberly. "Are you still?"

  "No. I mean, I don't deal with it that way anymore." I want to shrink into the mirror behind me, to fall through it into some other dimension where life is clear-cut and simple—without evil emotion-sucking mothers or confusing shifter men with warm hands and sun-bright smiles. I shut my eyes, because I don't want to see the pity in his gaze. I don't want to watch him pull away as he realizes that I'm too damaged, too complicated, too much work to be worth it.

  A soft press on my inner thigh. His mouth. My eyes fly open in time to see his dark head lift again.

  The tenderness in his eyes—it's too much. Too sudden, too weird—I can't handle it. I swing my legs away, hop off the counter, and race down the dark hall.

  "Cilla!" he calls after me, but I don't stop. I flee up the stairs, and then down a hallway and up another flight of steps to the third floor, where it's inky black and I have to stop running and fumble along the wall for a light switch. I can't find one, so I sink to the floor in the dark and pull my knees to my chest while my body shudders.

  This isn't happening. How is this happening? Stupid, stupid, beautiful man. Damn his face, and that body, and that awful, horrible, incredibly sweet look he gave me. I've waited my whole life for someone to look at me that way, and I didn't even know it—and then I ran away. Damn it! Damn, damn. I jerk my head backward till it hits the wall, again and again.

  I need to pull it together. I need to go back down there and face him, somehow. I need to refocus on what's actually important here—the mission. Nali and I have to get the Sedona Madstone and take it back to the Sages at the Patronage. We have to. No excuses, no explanations. No room for failure.

  -6-

  Shake It Off

  Since the front entry windows were smashed and the sunroom screens shredded, everyone gathers in the great room with blankets and sleeping bags. I come down after the rest of them are already settled, but there's an open couch, with Ryden stretched out on the floor beside it. He clearly left it for me.

  I don't speak to him, but I do feel sorry for running out on him so abruptly when he was being sweet. I step over his legs and lie down on the couch, tucking a pillow under my head and pulling a throw over myself.

  We pass the rest of the night fitfully, taking sleep by turns. It's hard to relax, hard to sleep with Ryden sprawled on the rug a few feet away, but I manage to get some rest.

  Finally, lavender light pours into the room—another strange dawn in the dome. I swing my legs off the couch, noting that Ryden is already gone. Probably somewhere upstairs.

  When I stretch, I catch a whiff of myself and grimace. There's a faint stench of demon bile hovering over my skin, and I have to get rid of it.

  "I'm going up to shower," I tell Nali.

  She nods. "I'll start working on one of the third-floor rooms, and then you can take over later while I shower."

  The rooms Nali and I are using are connected by a shared bathroom. I close both doors, turn on the shower, and undress. I hate having to remove the bandages Ryden placed so carefully, but it needs to be done, so I peel them away, one at a time, and then step into the steaming shower.

  Nearly every horror movie I've seen has a bath or shower scene. In the shower, humans are alone. Naked. Vulnerable. Distracted by the delicious sensation of cleansing. It's an ideal moment for sadistic ghosts or murderous psychos to creep up and cause trouble.

  Thinking about it sets my nerves on edge, so I quickly soap up and rinse off. Daera left disposable razors out for us, so I employ one of those—but when I'm nearly done, I look up at the shower wall, straight at the quivering antennae of a cockroach the size of my palm.

  My scream rivals that of any horror movie star.

  I leap out of the shower, nearly tearing the heavy curtain from its rod. The cockroach scuttles out of the shower, along the wall, to the floor, and I shriek again, crouching on top of the toilet lid.

  "Oh no. Oh my gosh, oh my gosh." I can do spiders, barely—but cockroaches? No. No, no, no. Nasty unnatural creepy things—

  The door bangs open, and I yelp. I don't even care that it's Ryden, or that I'm naked. "Cockroach!" I squeal, pointing.

  The creature starts running, but Ryden is lightning-quick even in human form, and he crunches it under his bare foot. I cringe at the sound. He picks it up, its carapace bent and legs dangling. "This is what scared you? This little guy?" He holds it out, and I cower.

  "Don't! Seriously, don't," I snap. "Flush it, or something."

  "I would, but you're in the way."

  "Oh." I step off the toilet and dodge behind him while he disposes of the creature.

  I'm stark naked, dripping wet, my heart kicking up to a new gear, transitioning from fear mode into something else. When Ryden turns back to me, I'm tempted to reach for the shower curtain to cover myself—but I don't.
<
br />   Nakedness can also be power. Power is fun.

  I lift my head and straighten my back, daring him to look.

  And he does. His eyes travel every inch of me, and my skin warms and tightens under his gaze, a dark heat beginning deep inside my body. The evidence of his physical attraction to me becomes obvious, and he shifts his hips.

  A knock on the other bathroom door, the one that's still closed. "Cilla, you okay?" Nali's voice.

  "Yes, I'm fine. Just a cockroach."

  "Want me to kill it?"

  "I got it," I say, never breaking eye contact with Ryden.

  "Okay, well, hurry up. We've got work to do."

  "I know."

  After her footfalls have faded, I move closer to Ryden, inch by inch, until my bare breasts nearly graze his T-shirt. He swallows, his chest rising and falling fast. But he doesn't touch me. He's probably afraid to, after the incident earlier.

  I splay my fingers over those gorgeous shoulders and stand on tiptoe, bringing my face closer to his. Nose to nose, lips hovering, skin barely brushing skin. I'm teasing him cruelly.

  "Cilla," he breathes. "What do you want from me?"

  "I'm not sure." I kiss him lightly. "Maybe—this?" My hand travels down, below his belt, touching the hardness beneath the fabric. I'm breathing fast, shocked at my own boldness, shocked at how alive, how deliciously wicked I'm feeling right now.

  "You're the queen of mixed signals." His hands grip my upper arms as if he's trying to steady himself.

  "Sorry." But I've made up my mind. Our stay here isn't going to be long, and afterward I won't see him again. For some reason this beautiful man is attracted to me, and I may as well enjoy the attention while I can.

  "So you just want sex?" He sounds a little disappointed.

  I draw back, alarm spiking in my heart. "What else would there be?"

  He sighs. "There you go again, getting ready to run. What are you afraid of? Is it so terrible that I like you? All of you, not just this." He gestures to my body.

  "I don't want you to like me," I tell him. "I just want to feel something good, in spite of this mess we're in."

  Isn't that what every guy wants to hear? Sex, with no strings attached? But Ryden looks dissatisfied, even as he gently steers me to the bathroom wall and presses me against it. He kisses me, pushing against my thigh so I can feel how much he wants me. I turn liquid inside. I can barely breathe.

  "I don't want half of you, Cilla," he says. "I want everything."

  And then he's gone, and I'm shuddering against the wall, cold and alone again.

  He can't really mean it. He only thinks he wants all of me because he has no idea how emotionally stunted I am, how my heart has been torn and stitched together again.

  But hope is irrational, growing when there's barely any soil at all, and it sprouts in my soul, new leaves curling fresh and sweet.

  I dry off and dress in more borrowed clothing—underwear and a sundress of Daera's. Nali is already banging on the door again, as she used to do back in college—as she still does now, when we're home in our shared apartment. The normalcy of it comforts me.

  I let her in, then walk through my room to grab my phone. I haven't charged it, because Oakland begged us to use as little electricity as possible; but it still has about fifty percent left.

  Daera meets me on the third floor. "Good, you're finally here. Oak and I are going through the master suite again, so you can do the music room. I'll send Ry in to help you as soon as he gets his ass up here."

  I suspect Ryden had to go relieve a little pressure after our encounter, and the thought of him handling himself while thinking of me makes a stupid, schoolgirl grin spread over my face.

  Struggling to control my expression, I follow Daera to the music room, where several electronic instruments sit in stands around the room. There's a vintage record player, a huge old-school boombox, and a state-of-the-art sound system. If we weren't conserving electricity, I could have so much fun in here.

  "Start with all the old sheet music," says Daera. "Then go through the cables and things—try to label which one goes with each device. Get rid of duplicates. And keep your eyes open for any papers about magical artifacts, or any boxes where Dad might have hidden the Madstone."

  "What is the Madstone, exactly?" I ask.

  She frowns, her fine features hardening. "Why?"

  "So I know what to look for."

  Sighing, she relents. "Madstones have been around for centuries. The prevailing human myth is that the stones can suck out poison or illness from the body. But actually, they're used to negate harmful spellwork. The stones absorb the power that was used for the spell, but they also absorb the evil intent behind it. The Sedona Madstone, the one my father has, is the oldest madstone in the United States, and it's glutted with evil magic."

  "But magic can't be evil," I say. "It's not good or bad. It just—is."

  Daera frowns again. "Why do you say that?"

  I open my mouth and close it again. No use telling her that the Sages of the secret order I work for taught me everything I know about magic, including its neutrality. For a quivering moment, I wonder if maybe they were wrong, or if maybe they taught me wrong on purpose, so I wouldn't question the tasks they set me.

  "No reason," I say. "I'm just guessing."

  "Well, you're partly right. Magic like ours, shifter magic, or carnal magic as some call it, can't be harnessed or altered, and it's neutral. Class magic appears neutral, but since it's tied to the user's energy and motives, it takes on a positive or negative aura. Think of it like protons, electrons, and neutrons. The kind of charge a particle has depends on its—"

  "You're doing it again, Dae," says Ryden, shouldering past her. "Turning magic into science."

  "Magic is science," she says, with an exasperated sigh, but she half-smiles at him. "It's advanced science that we don't fully understand yet."

  "Dae is a physicist," Ryden says, scooping up an acoustic guitar and playing a few chords. "She thinks she can approach magic from a scientific angle."

  "And you don't?" I ask.

  He shrugs. "I think there's more to it than that. I'm a scientist, too, but I tend toward a more metaphysical interpretation of the world and the magical reality."

  Damn. So he's not the brainless jock stereotype after all. Hot, fit, magical, and smart? That's it—I'm done. If he asked me to strip and spread for him on the table right now, I'd probably do it.

  But that's not all he wants. He wants to get inside my mind and my heart, too, not just my body. And I don't think I'm ready for that.

  Daera is arguing with Ryden over the existence of souls, when he puts up a hand to silence her. "Sis, you know I love debating with you, but Cilla and I got work to do, yeah? Go on and help Oak. Talk to him about souls. He'll listen."

  She wanders off down the hall, grumbling, and he rounds on me with a grin. "So, the music room. Let's hit it." He gestures to my phone. "You got a playlist in there?"

  I swipe and unlock the phone, skimming through my playlist to see if there's anything cool and edgy that might impress him—but it's all girly top 40 songs mixed with a few oldies.

  "Let me see what you got." He snatches the phone before I can protest. "Aha! You like Tay-Tay, huh? There's one song of hers that I can get down to." He fiddles with the phone for a minute, and then "Shake It Off" blares from the room's sound system, the beat pounding so hard I can feel it in my bones.

  "You shouldn't," I say. "You're wasting electricity. Oakland will—um, Ryden? What are you doing?"

  He's—twerking. Trying to, anyway.

  "Oh no," I say. "Stop. Please stop."

  "What, girl, you can't handle a little jiggle comin' your way?"

  "There's really nothing for you to jiggle," I say. That butt is perfectly shaped, and all muscle.

  He slides into some hip-hop moves, his eyes twinkling at me. "I think that's a compliment to my physique, yeah?"

  I shrug. "Maybe." The way he's moving—he's not a grea
t dancer, but with a body like that, he could be doing squats while juggling and it would probably still look sexy. My cheeks are warming, and that infuriates me.

  "C'mon, dance," he says. "That stiff little attitude you got there? Shake it off." He grabs my hand, whirling me around, and laughter bubbles out of me, sudden and surprising. Once I've started, I can't stop. I dance with Ryden, loosening my hips, my elbows, my shoulders and knees—setting myself free. How long has it been since I laughed, really laughed, so hard that my lungs ache beautifully with the force of it?

  The song rolls into another, and another, and we're both laughing now, gasping, flailing and spinning and jumping and yelling the lyrics. He doesn't try to cup my ass or palm my breast or kiss me. It's pure fun, sheer release.

  Until an especially wild whirl brings me face to face with Nali in the doorway. It's like the scene in The Sound of Music, when the Captain's sudden appearance interrupts Maria's dance with the children during the storm. Right now, Nali is the living embodiment of the old cliché "if looks could kill."

  I bend over, hands on my thighs, panting, while Ryden turns off the music. Clueless as he sometimes is, he can read Nali's expression easily.

  "What," says Nali, every word clipped, "is going on here?"

  "I—we just—" I scramble for words.

  Ryden interjects. "Fun. It's called fun."

  "Cilla," says Nali. "I need to speak to you. Privately."

  I throw a glance back at Ryden, and he grins, eyebrows quirked apologetically at the trouble he has caused. It's a sorry-not-sorry look, and it's sexy as hell.

  The minute we're out of his sight in the hallway, Nali grips my arm so hard that her nails cut into my skin. "What are you doing?"

  "Dancing."

  "Don't play dumb with me, Cilla. We're here to do a job. You know the consequences if we don't stay focused."

  I jerk my arm away from her. "I do."

  "So why are you flirting with that boy? He's dangerous. They're all dangerous."

  "Maybe he can help us."

  "He doesn't know anything. He's a moron. A muscled, good-looking animal, but an animal all the same." She glares at me. "What's gotten into you? You've never acted this way on a job before."