by Zoe Chant
Zach’s arms tightened around her again, and Teri kissed the warm skin in front of her. “I’m sorry you had to grow up away from other shifters,” she said. “I’m so, so sorry about your parents, and about what happened to Joel. But I’m glad you came here as an adult, not as one of those kids who was told to stay away.”
Zach’s hold relaxed a little, so that Teri could pull back and see his face. He was smiling again. “I wouldn’t have been able to. Shifters feel the pull to their mates. I don’t think I would’ve been able to tell as a kid, but by high school...I wouldn’t have been able to stay away, even if I didn’t know why.”
Teri tried to picture that. “We would’ve been star-crossed lovers.”
“Romeo and Juliet,” Zach agreed.
As romantic as that sounded, Teri knew how Romeo and Juliet ended. “This is better.”
Zach nodded. “I liked being able to take you on a date without having to worry about a family feud getting in the way. I’m looking forward to doing it again.”
“Although I’m still stuck sneaking out of the house.” Teri looked away. She knew it wasn’t her fault, but it felt embarrassing. “I had to hold off on mentioning I was going out until I was halfway out the door, earlier.”
Zach kissed her forehead, and then her mouth, gently. “Teri, I know this is probably too sudden, and it’s just a suggestion, but I want to ask you. It doesn’t sound like you’re very happy at home. Would you like to stay here instead?”
Teri’s immediate gut reaction to the question was, Yes! When can I move in? But she made herself take a few minutes to think about it, knowing that there were more issues to think about than her feelings for Zach, which were screaming at her to get as close as possible, as soon as she could manage it.
“I want to,” she said slowly. “But...it’s so fast. And your brother lives here. I can’t just suddenly move in without even asking him first, or giving him some time to get used to the idea.”
There was a long pause. Then Zach said, “You’re right.” He sighed. “I shouldn’t have offered without asking him first. It wouldn’t be right to do something like that without talking to him.”
“Ask him, then,” Teri said. “Because I want to—I want to so badly. But make sure he understands that I won’t just invade his home. I don’t want him to feel like he has to say yes. I’m not in danger of being homeless, after all. I’ve lived at home for months already, I can keep going. And now that I can walk around just fine by myself, or catch the bus to the park, it’s going to be easier to handle it.”
“I’ll ask him tomorrow,” Zach said firmly. “And don’t worry—Joel’s never had any trouble speaking his mind. Especially to me.”
The wry tone made her laugh. “That sounds like a pair of siblings, definitely.”
“What about you and your sister?” Now he sounded tentative. “It sounds like she’s, um, difficult.”
Teri laughed again, but this time it came out sounding a little too short and sharp. “She’d say that I was the difficult one. I don’t listen to Mom, I don’t do everything I can to smooth the way with her, I don’t make myself disappear so that I can become her perfect little clone...”
“Somehow, I find it hard to picture you doing that,” Zach said.
The hint of a laugh in his voice calmed Teri down a lot, and she found herself able to smile at him. “Nope. I’ve always had to go my own way. Lillian doesn’t understand that. She puts family first, before everything. And I know that’s a good thing to do, but...” She couldn’t quite articulate what was wrong with how Lillian did it.
“But it’s not right if your family’s also putting themselves first,” Zach said softly.
“That’s it.” Teri could hear how fierce she sounded. “That’s it exactly. Of course I want to help my family. Of course I’m grateful that they gave their money to help me recover, and of course I want to pay them back. But I’m not doing it at the price of my own identity. I’m not letting my mother walk all over me, and force me to dance attendance on every whim she has. I won’t. I just won’t.”
Zach kissed her hard. “You shouldn’t. And I...” he hesitated. “Is it wrong to say I’m proud of you? I don’t want to sound like I’m being condescending.”
Teri shook her head fiercely, blinking back the tears prickling behind her eyes. “You don’t. Thank you. It’s hard work sometimes, being the only person who’s proud of me.” She blinked again.
Zach kissed her again, more gently this time. “You aren’t anymore.”
Teri sighed and curled up against him. This was her mate. She tested the thought, exploring how it felt in her head. Mate. Partner. Husband, maybe. Maybe soon.
It felt like, for the first time in her life, she had something to lean on, something to hold her up, something to spur her on other than her own determined will. It felt like home.
***
They spent the night pressed up tight and close against each other. Teri slept, and woke, and slept again, drifting along in a light doze that broke away whenever Zach sighed or shifted.
It wasn’t a deep and restful sleep, but she didn’t want to fall deeply asleep. She wanted to keep as much of this night in her memory as possible, to know that she was sleeping beside her mate. To feel him breathing, hear his deep and quiet night noises.
She woke for good just as dawn was sending hints of greyness into the sky. Zach was looking at her, his silvery eyes almost seeming to be lit from within.
“Hi,” Teri said softly.
“Hi.” His voice was quiet, but she could feel the rumble of it in his chest. “Did you sleep okay?”
She nodded. Waking up to Zach asking her that, casually and automatically, as though they’d spent many nights here in his bed together, brought an almost painful warmth rising in her chest. “Did you?”
“Better than I’ve slept in a while.” He combed her hair back from her face with his fingers. “This is wild in the morning.”
Teri made a face. “Taming it is a whole daily routine. I thought about chopping it all off when I was in the hospital, but...” But her accident had changed her body in so many ways, she hadn’t been able to bear the thought of one more.
“I’m glad you didn’t.” His voice was serious, as though the length of her hair were something truly important. “It’s beautiful.”
Teri blushed. She should protest, she thought. Lillian had always been the one with the gorgeous, perfect blonde curls, while Teri’s hair was more likely to be a mess than not.
But she didn’t want to protest. She wanted this compliment, wanted to take it in and hoard it close to her chest, because Zach had given it to her. “Thank you.” She smiled at him, and said the first thing that came into her head, which was, “You have beautiful eyes.”
And she would swear that he blushed. It was too dim to see his skin, really, but she thought she could feel the wash of heat. Unless it was just her imagination.
But she wasn’t imagining the bashful tone when he said, “I’m glad you think so. It’s a snow leopard color. I always just thought it was a family thing, because Joel’s are the same, but a lot of the rangers’ are similar.”
Shifter eyes. Teri thought she’d have to pay attention when she met the other rangers, although she couldn’t imagine any of them had the depth and luminescence of Zach’s.
When she met the other rangers. Because she would, wouldn’t she? She was a ranger’s partner now. She wondered what they were like. Zach had said they were all men—did any of them have mates? What were they like? Could she be friends with them?
Were any of them also snow leopards? Snow leopardesses. That thought filled her with a longing ache, like there was a sudden empty space in her chest that she’d never noticed before.
“Could I see you change?” she asked suddenly. Her voice sounded almost airless, but she wanted it more than she’d ever wanted anything.
“Of course.” Zach kissed her softly, carding his fingers through her hair one more time, and then
pulled back to get up. “Let’s go outside.”
They got dressed quickly. Zach lent Teri a T-shirt and workout shorts, since all she had was her dress from last night, and she wasn’t in the mood for evening wear right out of bed. The shorts came down past her knees, but Zach’s trim waist meant that they weren’t falling off of her, thankfully.
The grass was damp underfoot as they stepped outside, and dawn light was only just filtering through the misty air. Zach went out to the middle of the yard and smiled at her. “Ready?”
Teri nodded, not trusting her voice.
And Zach changed.
The shifting and blurring of his body was startling, almost frightening to watch. Teri flashed back to his story about Joel being temporarily stuck halfway-shifted, and understood even better how horrifying it must have been to see.
But Zach kept going smoothly into his other form. In just a few seconds, there was a snow leopard standing in the yard where Zach had been.
His body was lower to the ground than Teri had expected, but he was large and muscular—bigger, she thought, than the leopard she’d briefly seen in the Park so long ago. His tail was large and powerful-looking, heavily furred, and his paws were enormous.
His fur was gorgeously patterned, a grey-white with hints of burnished gold all throughout, and dramatic black spots. His eyes looked exactly the same.
Teri held out a hand. “May I...?”
He came up to her immediately, nudging his head against her hip. She buried her hands in his fur, marveling at how warm and soft it was in the chilly dawn air. His tongue rasped against her wrist, and she laughed a little.
“You’re magnificent,” she told him, because it was true.
All at once, he turned and bounded off into the yard, gathering himself for a leap. Teri stifled a warning shout, aware that Zach had to know what he was doing—and then watched in astonishment as he leapt delicately up onto the sturdy fence that surrounded the backyard, padded along it, and then jumped at least ten feet to land in the branches of the big tree that took up one corner.
“I’m impressed!” Teri called, laughing.
Zach scaled the trunk of the tree, higher and higher until Teri started to worry about the thin upper branches’ ability to support him. Then he leapt again, landing in the branches of a tree in his neighbors’ yard. Teri shook her head in amazement. There had been no hesitation, no indication that he was performing an insane stunt, and could’ve fallen to his death if he’d missed his footing.
She saw the branches of the neighbors’ tree shake as Zach descended again...and then there was nothing.
Teri waited, staring over at the tree, but she didn’t see anything. There was no sound, either, nothing other than birdcalls filtering through the misty morning.
The seconds stretched out into a minute, and Teri was just starting to wonder if Zach had spontaneously decided to go get them breakfast or something when there was a swirl of movement in the corner of her eye.
She spun around. Zach had appeared behind her, although the dim light and the mist combined to make him almost invisible. All she could see was a ghostly outline and the silvery light of his eyes.
He padded forward, seeming to materialize directly out of the fog. Teri let out a breath. “Wow,” she murmured. “Zach. You’re amazing.”
His shape blurred and shivered again, and a moment later, he was standing in front of her in his human form. “Thanks. I was showing off a little,” he confessed.
Teri smiled. “I’m not complaining.” She couldn’t believe that she was—dating? In a relationship with? Mated to?—someone who could do astonishing, magical things like that.
Zach grinned back. “Come on inside, and let’s have breakfast.”
He slung a casual arm around her shoulders as they turned to go in, one hand rubbing her arm to warm her up. Teri basked in the feeling of his body encompassing hers. Her mate. Hers.
Inside, they cooked breakfast together. Teri enjoyed the crazy experience of offering to help and getting a smile and a Thanks, instead of No, you sit down and rest! You don’t want to overtax yourself by being on your feet for too long.
“So,” she said shyly, as they sat down to pancakes and eggs, “was it strange just now, showing your shifted form to a regular human?”
The thought had occurred to her after they’d come inside. She’d remembered him talking about how he was used to keeping his shifter nature a secret, and she’d immediately felt bad for asking Zach to do something that he’d already admitted was weird and difficult.
Although she couldn’t bring herself to regret the sight of Zach’s snow leopard form appearing from the mist as though by magic, or racing up the trunk of a tree like it was a flight of stairs. She was going to treasure that memory for a long, long time.
But Zach shook his head immediately. “No, not at all. You’re not a regular human, Teri, you’re my mate. It’s different. You’re part of my family, my pack, whatever you want to call it. Part of me.”
Teri had to pause at that. Had to take a second to absorb that information into herself. Part of him. She was part of him, and he was part of her.
“Teri?” Zach asked cautiously. “Are you all right?”
She blinked hard. “Yes.” Her voice was a little thick, but it stayed steady. “I keep thinking I understand that we’re mates, what that means, but then something happens, or you say something like that, and suddenly I’m sure it has to be a dream. Nothing this perfect could really be happening to me in real life.”
Zach’s face softened. He leaned across the little kitchen table to kiss her, and Teri turned her face blindly into the touch of his lips. She wanted to feel him, taste him, so she could be certain this was really real.
Zach cupped her face, his thumb stroking her cheek. His kiss was gentle and heartfelt. Teri breathed him in. When he pulled back, she sighed softly.
“That’s real,” Zach told her. “What we were feeling just now. It’s the most real thing I’ve ever felt.”
Teri had thought she knew what it was to feel happy, before all of this. She’d had no idea. “Me too.”
***
Zach had never thought he’d find his mate, not really.
For one thing, he’d thought that she would have to be a shifter, and he hardly knew any shifters. Even in Glacier, there weren’t that many young, single, female shifters around, or at least Zach hadn’t met them.
It hadn’t occurred to him that his mate could be a human. He hadn’t thought that he’d just see her on a sidewalk one day and ask her for directions.
It seemed too impossible to be a coincidence, and it made him wonder what had led him to Glacier after all. Fate? Something innate? Something greater? He didn’t know the answer.
But he was grateful. He was so, so grateful.
Teri was everything he’d never thought he could have. Cheerful, smart, funny, strong, courageous, beautiful...she was absolutely perfect, and he couldn’t believe how lucky he was to have found her.
It was even harder to believe that he was getting ready to get in his car and drive her away from his house, and leave her with people who didn’t seem to understand anything about her.
“Are you sure you don’t want to stay?” he asked for at least the third time. It was probably becoming obnoxious, but he couldn’t seem to keep his mouth shut. “You could just spend the day here. I’ll be at work, and Joel might not even come home; he likes spending the day out in the Park. Sometimes he even sleeps up there.”
But she shook her head. “I have to face my family sometime,” she said firmly. “The longer I put it off, the worse it will be. And I’m not staying in your house when your brother doesn’t even know I might be there, Zach!”
If Zach hadn’t already loved her with every bit of his heart, her careful concern for Joel’s comfort in his home would’ve tipped him over the edge. Plenty of people thought it was a little strange for two adult brothers to live together, and he didn’t think it would’ve occurred to
most people to be so careful of Joel’s feelings.
And Teri was right; Zach had to talk to him before inviting anyone to stay with them, even if it was only for a little while.
Although Zach wanted it to be for more than a little while. If he’d thought Teri would say yes, he would already have suggested that she move in permanently.
Instead, he was taking her back to her parents’ house, where she was miserable.
But it was her choice, he reminded himself. And she was probably right about facing her family sooner rather than later.
“I just don’t like that you’re going to be there without any means of getting away,” he grumbled as he put the car into gear.
She smiled brightly at him, her eyes twinkling. “Aren’t you forgetting? There’s a bus to the Park. I can come find you if I need you.”
That did reassure him a little bit. “I wish I could just be there with you, though. Or at least wait in the car in case you need to leave.”
“You have to go to work,” Teri said. “They’re not monsters. They’re not going to hurt me.”
Not physically, at least, Zach thought privately. Teri’s family had already hurt her. Zach remembered the hunch of her shoulders when mother had been on the phone, and he thought that they’d probably hurt her worse, and more permanently, than the car accident itself had.
But Teri was right again, of course—Zach had to go to work. And even if he didn’t, he couldn’t imagine that confronting her family with her shapeshifter mate at her side would make them any better-disposed toward her.
He still wished he could park outside the house and wait, just in case she needed him. But he had to get to the Park, and he knew Teri could take care of herself.
Still, his leopard growled deep inside him, wanting to protect their mate.
