by Q. Zayne
At night, with Lida in my arms, a contentment so rich and deep claimed me at my heart, that I began to accept this strange world and my place in it. All questions fell away and nothing mattered—our shared lives were enough. It was my stilt house, sports car and doctor life that seemed unreal. Vivid dreams took me to early boyhood in this place, my cub paws covered in honey, slipping down dunes chased by bees, my mother’s fur and heartbeat. Home.
On the third day, I’d calmed down and dropped the sense of having to race all day to get things done. I began to just be. Feel my body on the earth, the air entering my lungs, notice flowers blooming, birds flying, the rush of the creek with its endless varying music. It seemed, as I settled into it, my natural state, more than all the things I strove to keep going in my other life, all the things that seemed so important to do, to own, to keep doing and doing. Had an email ever mattered as much as a cactus flower opening? Had anything in my life been as sweet as Lida’s morning kiss?
I stopped reaching for my phone. I accepted there was no communication with my other life.
Most of the other shifters welcomed us into their homes, but we got a lot of hostile looks.
“They suspect we’re together.” Lida gave me a meaningful look.
“So?” I didn’t get it. Still wrapped up in my old sense of myself. No one here knew I was a doctor and that I took Lida when she came to me as a patient. Was it the age difference?
“It’s a taboo, to mate with a different species, even when both are in human form. To them, you aren’t my kind and I’m not your kind, so it’s unnatural.” She shrugged, but her eyes showed her pain. “Homosexuality is no big deal, it occurs among animals in all known realms, and gender fluidity is more accepted here than in your place, too. But us as a couple? That’s a high violation.” She looked away, color stained her face. “If confirmed, the shifters will want to kill us, too.”
Oh come on! I arrive in paradise, Eden, Shangri La, Valhalla, Nirvana, the core sweet place I came from, my bear spirit’s true home, and every freaking being here wanted to kill me for mating with Lida? A flicker of the depth of that taboo returned to me. I’d remembered it early with Lida, felt its power.
Back at the cave, I mounted her in a frenzy. She was unsurprised and compliant.
I lost all control and fucked her with a fury. Being forbidden to be with her, condemned for having her, made a social outcast in this world before I could even introduce myself, filled me with a violence I needed to expend physically.
She moaned in climax and gushed as my brutal thrusts pushed her across the cave floor.
“You beast,” she whispered. She sounded pleased.
“My love.” I held her and stroked her, crooning to her, treasuring her. She was so much to me now. Everything.
My reception among the shifters wasn’t entirely cold. A few of them seemed to welcome another potential fighter in the coming battle with the invaders.
It seemed an accepted thing that there would be war, although why it was taking decades to reach that head, I wasn’t sure. The truth of the situation and Lida’s role was beginning to tug at me, but as with other undesirable information, I managed to resist my bitter suspicions. Once I knew, I would have to act, and when I did, everything, including our lives, would be on the line.
In the meantime, I treasured those few welcoming shifters, the calm conversations over tea, the intelligent eyes that assessed me without condemning my passion for Lida. For the first time in my long existence as a financially and educationally privileged white man, I began to have an inkling of the toxic nature of prejudice.
Unexpectedly, my status as a silverback meant something here. I suspected it meant something to Lida, but I didn’t ask. Being the old man to her nubile youth alternately gave me a sense of responsibility and an erotic frisson. Hell, it gave me an aching hard-on.
I’d never succumbed to the allure of younger women before, but now I understood it at a visceral level. I suppose I wasn’t immune to how image-enhancing it felt to have such a beauty at my side. Funny how the ego clings to superficial things, even when so much of familiar life is stripped away.
Back home, I’d be the center of envy. Here, unless we were careful, nearly everyone I’d met would take a hand in stoning us. Or did they shift and rend us with teeth, claws, beaks and talons? I didn’t want to find out.
We made love in the woods, far from any shifter habitations and with plenty of cover from flying eyes. In our languor after mating, it took crucial minutes for the danger to register.
We sprang apart and ran. By instinct I honed my path, zig zagging through young trees to keep the hunters back and draw them as far away from Lida as I could . All the hiking she put me through to meet every shifter within miles made me faster and more fit than when I arrived. I ran with confidence.
Their mounts came at me from two directions. They didn’t know the cave systems, but I realized too late they knew the above-ground terrain well enough to trap me in it.
I hid in a group of boulders, but climbing out would slow me down and give them a clear shot. If I pushed forward, I might get trapped where the passage between the mammoth rocks narrowed. Naked and unarmed, I did the only thing I could. I crouched and grabbed a stone.
The broad-chested leader of the hunters reached me. I saw his eyes. Gray eyes, pale and cold as frozen ponds. His skin looked thick and seemed to absorb the light around him. He sneered at me, and in the heat behind his look I divined the truth. The enmity spoke of wounded pride. He was the one who hurt Lida, who drove her to me. He hated me for being the one who received her willing passion.
I rose to my full height, filling out, my muscles pumped with fury. I was face to face with the one I vowed to kill.
He raised his spear to impale me. I had no choice. I had to overcome a lifetime of inhibition I instilled in myself to survive. Right now. I must do the thing my parents taught me not to do outside our home. The habits of living in a hostile world fell away, and I claimed my full spirit.
I transformed to bear in the open. I did it faster than I’d ever done it in my life. Gift of the silverback. I came into my power.
His eyes went wide, the pupils going to pinpricks as my pelt came in over my enlarging ursine body. I reached for him with paws bigger than his head. He screamed and dropped his spear. The rapist wet himself and ran away. He slipped, gashing his knee on the boulders, pulled himself up and kept running.
I took advantage of the confusion among the hunters and lumbered away. The others hadn’t seen my transformation from their position below the boulders. They scattered, some going after their leader, others heading back the way they came. The horses nearest me shied from my scent, throwing some of them.
Near the cave, in a clearing hidden by brush and tree cover, I shifted back. I shook myself. I felt like a warrior. Watching the enemy run away gratified me in a deep way. I rubbed my back against a tree and smiled.
In recent days I’d stopped thinking of myself as Doctor Montgomery. Aside from wondering what Jan and Blake made of my disappearance, and concerns about how certain patients were doing—I had two first-time expectant mothers I felt sorry I wouldn’t be seeing through their pregnancies—I sloughed off my old identity like a no-longer needed winter coat.
Victory over the alien leader had me pumped. Accepting my new world, my new life, my role here, freed me. I drew in a long breath. As much as I trusted and respected Lida, I didn’t want to let her know what had happened. She hadn’t told me about the alien leader, hadn’t said a word about what he did to her, and I didn’t want to bring up difficult feelings.
I made the climb and sauntered into our den as though nothing happened. She smiled and stood up to stretch. She had the lovely, sleepy-eyed look she got from napping. Cat naps. We were so different. My eyes treasured the lovely movements of her muscles, her sinuous stretches, her spine so long she moved at all times as though she had a tail. Glorious tigress.
“You’re beautiful, Lida. Love.”
/>
She grinned, the most natural smile I’d seen from her. It confirmed my impulse to say nothing about the hunters.
“We need food. I know you’re a big, strong bear,” she petted my back, “But I know the safe places and have years of experience evading the Scurimun.”
I reached toward her, to stroke her sweet body and to object. She swatted my hand away.
“You don’t know what you’re up against. They can communicate by vibration and have keen eyesight. They work in groups, often divided into two or three arms, so they can maneuver like pincers or close in from all sides. It isn’t safe for you out there, and I didn’t bring you here to lose you.” Her ferocity showed, the protective tigress glowed in her eyes.
I wanted to ask, Why did you bring me here? but I wasn’t sure I wanted the answer. I suspected passion wasn’t the main reason. Lida was like no other woman I ever knew, and I put nothing past her.
She shifted and I stared, like a guy watching a strip tease for the first time. She planted her paws on the ground and her pelt came in with its gorgeous stripes, her soft, well-tended fur gleaming in the sunlight. Her shape slid from curvy woman to sleek cat. Her skull grew feline, alert ears topped her head and whiskers came into being on her sensual face. Her haunches tightened to spring and her long tail flicked.
Wow. From all woman to all tiger. Hell, she was so hot I envied myself. Taboos be damned.
Lida slipped out of the cave, all great cat blowing steam from her nostrils in the frosty pre-morning moonlight. Despite the crunchy frosted leaves and patches of ice that could break as loudly as glass to those listening for prey, she slunk soundlessly into the frozen wood below. Her long moon shadow preceded her down the hillside, elongating over ice-rimed boulders. Her grace entranced me. And she looked lethal. She turned and grinned, moonlight glinting on her fangs. Damn, she was beautiful.
Not a single paw print showed. Yes, she knew how to survive here and her prowess suited this terrain.
I replaced the brush we used to camoflauge our den’s entrance. The prospect of waiting for her return tore at me. If I’d been wearing a watch, or if my phone battery hadn’t long since lost it’s charge, I’d be checking the time, tracking the minutes since her departure. How did anyone stand waiting for their loved one to return from war? I walked the length of the cage, fighting the urge to go after her.
She was right. I had my skills, but I didn’t know this place well enough to move through it undetected. Human phrases such as bear in a china shop were unfair, but it was true I wasn’t the most graceful of animals in my bear form. I’d just experienced the strangers’ divide-and-conquer strategy up close. It could have ended badly. If I got myself killed, I’d be no good to Lida, and I wouldn’t get the chance to tear that hard-muscled violating bastard apart.
My sightings of him told me he was much younger than me, agile, a good rider. He had the advantages of stronger eyesight, and as much as I disliked admitting it, his reflexes, agility, speed, and possibly his strength, were most likely superior to mine. He was mounted and knew this land. My disadvantages were significant. I didn’t want to distract Lida or damage her growing trust in me. I paced the cave, staying away from the doorway. Even with the brush covering it, a sharp-eyed hunter might detect movement. If they weren’t good at finding prey, they wouldn’t have survived here. I’d never been prey before.
Staying put in our den strained all of my will power.
I paced the cave. My disquiet about her hunting alone amid the alien hunters and hostile shifters grew as her absence lengthened. I missed her, too. The cave was a quiet and barren place without her vibrant presenceI slept in brief, restless shifts, getting up often to listen at the cave mouth for her approach. As the light intensified I drilled all the warning sounds Lida taught me from the various shifter kind, vocalizing them in my mind to recognize and mimic them if the need arose. It was a useful task, but it didn’t stop me from worrying about her. I devoured a few berries and a honeycomb to keep up my energy. Paced again, stepping fast and high to burn through the tension that kept a grip on my chest.
The sun was well up and I couldn’t stand it any more. She’d been gone for many hours, too many. My heart hammered as I stared through the brush over the cave opening and saw no sign of her.
I hiked to the highest point above the cave. Shading my eyes from the dazzle on the ice, I searched in every direction. I made the slow turn three times, forcing myself take it slow. Running off in the wrong direction would waste time and I couldn’t spare any. Tiring myself would increase my risk of being caught by the hunters. If they had her, they could take her far away or harm her before I found them. Making a mistake was not an option.
I made myself calm down, breathing slow and deep, using measured breaths with long exhalations. It was a technique I learned during biofeedback sessions during my drug and alcohol recovery. Now as then, it brought me back from the brink of panic.
Movement in the distance to the west caught my attention. Dust roiled on the plain beyond the wood’s borders: a band of hunters on horseback.
I held my hands to my eyes as I used to in my boyhood play at having binoculars, trying to get clearer focus. I couldn’t tell if Lida was among them. She wouldn’t be willingly. I suppressed the thought that if they’d caught her she might be dead. I’d seen the look in the leader’s eyes. He wanted her back. He’d want to punish her, not in a way she’d enjoy. I wished I’d ripped his throat out when he was so near me.
I breathed and watched. Know thy enemy. Instead of racing down the rocks crazed, I had to know what I was up against. I needed to use strategy. There was only one of me, and I might be the only hope Lida had.
The women and men rode together. There was no division between them that I’d seen, none of the male condescension toward females still so prevalent in many occupations in my former realm. I watched them, seeing the tall, toned bodies of all of them. They were real, yet they looked like a group of models, chosen to represent genetic uniformity, the men broad in the shoulders and narrow at the hips, the women athletic and small compared to Lida’s lush curves. Their saddlebags showed wear, marked with finger oils. I noted saddles shiny from use, and clothes trail-soiled and mended.
They resembled a cross between desert nomads and cowboys and cowgirls, if the latter group had fallen on hard times.
The fine-boned faces and muscular bodies had an androgynous quality. I fought the probable xenophobia that made it difficult to see people from unfamiliar cultures as individuals. I stared at each woman. Each could be called attractive, but none of them possessed the feminine qualities that drew me to Lida. Lida, in her own place, had greater strength, strategic mastery and leadership than I’d imagined when I was first drawn to her wounded vulnerability. She was everything delicious in a woman.
I suppressed my instant arousal at the memories of mating with her. I couldn’t wait any longer. Something was wrong. She wouldn’t still be hunting this late, in bright sunlight.
The likely truth speared my heart. They had her. If they hadn’t killed her, they had her captive.
I had to go find out. I felt like I’d know if she were dead. We were already that close. Bonded. Whatever it was we were doing together, why ever she brought me here, we had something special. It was already more than I’d admitted to myself.
Me, Doctor Ian Montgomery, I was in love with a feline shifter from another realm. That was difficult enough to take in. And here I was in her world and she was missing. Not a damned thing I could do now but shift and search for her—and try not to get my ass killed by one of those wicked barbed spears in the process.
I shifted, pushing myself to concentrate, lowering myself to the cold ground to brace myself with my hands and feet. I shuddered into silverback bear. I had to find her. I loved her as much as life.
As I loped in my ungainly way down the hill, taking an oblique route across the rocks to keep the cave entrance secret, it hit me that if I didn’t find her, I was trapped here and my lif
e as Doctor Montgomery was over. But my perspective had changed during my days here with her. Those losses of all I was were a small thing next to the incalculable abyss that losing Lida would leave in my heart and my life.
My body spoke to me of pain with every step. If it wasn’t for my urgent need to find Lida, I would have taken the descent far slower.
If I was back home, I would have soothed my aching muscles and dissolved the chill from my bones in a deep hot tub. I had one indoors in the master bath and a second one on the deck under the stars overlooking the Pacific.
Blake warned that my house would fall to the beach in the next big earthquake if not sooner, but I had pylons anchored in bedrock and a flexible frame. No point worrying about it. I imagined myself shifting into bear form in free fall when the Big One hit. I figure I’d shift before I was awake if I felt that level of danger, and have a better chance of surviving the drop in my ursine form. But hey, if a high magnitude quake hit the Hayward fault, the whole coast was liable to break off, so whether I could survive a football-field-length drop as a bear was a moot point.
After the hot tub and an espresso, with a pastry if I felt indulgent—ignoring Blake the cardiologist’s inner finger-wagging— or some kefir if I was toeing the line—I’d drive to the office. I’d watch for black ice if it was a rare day as cold as this one. I felt my Porsche Carrera’s purr in my hands as I commuted down highway 1, an exquisite drive to work with its snaking curves above the ocean and the contrast between pastures and huge rock formations. As sinuous as Lida, that highway rocked me in my seat as I drove its hairpins.
My California. I was so rooted in that place. And where was I now? I had no idea. An immeasurable distance yet close enough that Lida’s hand tugging mine brought me here. Here, eons before my own time, yet right in the roots of my being.
The only thing that kept me going, ignoring my cold toes and the body aches that made me feel older and had me inwardly cussing Blake for his use-it or lose-it reminders, was my belief that Lida was alive.
