Stranded With The Snow Leopard: A Paranormal Shapeshifter Romance

by Jade White

  Aibek sighed and his expression shifted to one of fond exasperation. “Is it really that hard to guess?” he asked, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. He sat up until he was kneeling over her, his knees on either side of her thighs and his hands on her hips. “I love you,” he stated bluntly. “Why would I not protect you?”

  Amelia blinked up at him, slowly, once and then twice. “Oh,” she breathed quietly, her eyes going wide. “That…isn’t what I was expecting to hear.”

  His eyebrows rose. “Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”

  “…Good?” she hazarded after a moment, before she reached up, curling one hand around the back of his neck. “Good,” she repeated, her tone more assured. With a tug, she drew him down toward her, until she could kiss him. Their lips slid together slowly at first, as if it was a completely new situation. Even if it lacked haste, though, it did not lack passion, and soon enough, the tip of her tongue was sliding along the seam of his lips until they parted.

  Aibek’s hands drifted slowly up and down her sides until he cupped her breasts, kneading them gently for a moment before he began to circle his thumbs around her nipples. Quickly, they hardened to nubs, and she broke the leisurely kiss with a gasp when he flicked his thumbs over them. He repeated the motion a few more times before he ducked his head, leaning down to circle the tip of his tongue around one nipple, and then the other. There was a subtle catch of teeth against one nipple before he sat up, his hands resuming their slow, seemingly aimless exploration. Seemingly aimless, though it became clear that was not actually the case when the fingers of one of his hands dipped between her legs.

  Amelia drew in a breath and offered him a slow, impish smirk. “Getting some ideas on how to get us to sleep?” she asked coyly as she started to scoot farther back along the mattress, until she had enough space to begin drawing one of her legs out from beneath the V of his legs.

  “We already know it wears us out,” he replied, trying for an innocent tone, though he didn’t quite hit the mark. He shifted his legs so he was kneeling between hers instead of straddling her.

  Amelia snickered and casually trailed one hand along his abdomen, letting it slide slowly downward until her fingers could brush lightly along his slowly hardening length. “Very resourceful,” she praised him, her smirk growing to a grin when he breathed in sharply, only to sigh out a breath as she curled her fingers around his cock.

  She stroked him slowly, his cock hardening further beneath her touch. As she worked, his hand between her legs delved further, sliding between the lips of her sex. She moaned quietly and tightened her grip slightly, the movement of her hand speeding up as his fingers pressed against her entrance and slipped inside.

  She swiped her thumb over the head of his cock on each upward stroke, and he pressed his thumb to her clit and rubbed it slowly.

  Her other hand continued to explore his chest, fingers pinching one nipple and then the other, before drifting higher. Her fingers ghosted along his collarbones and up the line of his throat and higher still, following the curve of his jaw back until her nails were scratching against his scalp. He hummed in reply, low and content, and Amelia couldn’t help but to ask, “Going to start purring for me?”

  He shifted the angle of his fingers and she gasped, her hips lifting off of the mattress for a moment before falling back down.

  “Alright, alright,” she sighed, both of her hands falling back to the bed. “Come on, I want you in me.” She was practically dripping by that point, and his cock was leaking precum against her skin.

  “You are sure?” he asked wryly, crooking his fingers inside her and grinning when she moaned. “You are ready?”

  She prodded him with her knee. “Yes, I’m sure, I’m ready. Beka, come on.” She arched her back in a manner that somehow managed to be pointed on the last word, her hips pressing toward him.

  “You are so impatient,” he teased good-naturedly, before he pulled his hand from between her legs to instead wrap it around the base of his cock.

  He lined himself up and pressed forward, the head of his cock breaching her entrance. He curled his hands around her thighs, lifting her legs until she wrapped them around his middle, and he grabbed her hips before he thrust into her, sheathing his cock in one swift motion. Amelia drew in a gasp, breathing it out on a moan, and her fingers fisted in the blanket.

  The first few thrusts were slow, almost leisurely. And then Amelia looked up at him through half-lidded eyes and cocked one eyebrow. “Well, come on,” she demanded, one hand releasing the blanket to instead curl around the back of his neck, her nails digging into his skin. “No sense in playing around.”

  Aibek rolled his eyes as he leaned over her, his hold on her waist tightening as her legs tightened around his hips. He gave two more slow thrusts, just to watch her scowl up at him, before he finally picked up the pace. Slow, careful thrusts turned to rapid, hurried pounding, and the room was filled with the sounds of skin against skin, Amelia’s moans, and Aibek’s groans.

  Amelia’s grip on the back of Aibek’s neck tightened, and she dragged him down to kiss him, slow and clumsy and messy. Their rhythm faltered for a moment, and then it was more like they were just panting against each other’s mouths.

  It was Amelia who came first, every muscle drawing taut until she thought she might burst apart into pieces, before she went limp. She rolled her hips sluggishly afterward, encouraging Aibek to keep going.

  He managed only a handful of stuttering thrusts after that, his face tucked against her neck as he groaned and came, grinding his hips against her as he did. Gradually, both of them stilled, sweaty and panting, their chests heaving.

  Slowly, Aibek pulled out and Amelia let her legs go limp, dropping from where they had been hitched around his hips. They sat in silence for a moment, save for their intermixed, panting breaths and their hearts hammering louder than a pair of freight trains.

  Eventually, Aibek shifted to the side so he could flop down on the bed on his side, close to Amelia but not on top of her. A gentleman wasn’t supposed to squash his partner flat, after all.

  Amelia squirmed against him, rolling onto her side and tucking herself close to his chest, one leg shoved between his and her head tucked under his chin. For a time, neither of them spoke.

  “Hey, Beka?” she asked eventually, after enough time had passed that she thought he might have fallen asleep.

  “Hm?” he hummed, lifting his head to look at her.

  “I love you, too,” she told him, one hand curled along the back of his neck and the other cupping his cheek.

  He smiled gently before he leaned down to kiss her, slow and gentle. “I know,” he assured her once they parted.

  Grinning, Amelia stroked her fingers over his face before she let her eyes slip closed.

  *

  Her dreams were…scattered. In one moment, there was a cub and a feast that could feed fifty, and in another, there was blood and fire and the sounds of a raging storm, with the feeling of power beating through her veins. None of it particularly unnerved her—she did not toss and turn as she slept, and she did not throw herself awake with a gasp—but it was strange, nonetheless, to one accustomed to having fairly standard dreams.

  She dreamed of racing on all fours toward a bright, warming light that called her name in a familiar, soothing voice, and she dreamed of standing on a mountain, a road of victory behind her and a trail of hope beneath her paws. She dreamed of a hand held tightly in hers and lips against her skin.

  The dreams were neither good nor bad, but simply intense. Even in her sleep, she felt like she could run a marathon and wrestle a bear. If it was the result of adrenaline, then she needed to get her heart rate up that high a bit more often.

  *

  They woke up in the early afternoon, and with some reluctance, they actually got dressed. Amelia unenthusiastically pulled on her winter gear before she and Aibek made their way back to the den, where Sezim and Serik were already waiting in the kitchen.


  No sooner did Amelia have her winter gear off again than Faina was ushering them into the kitchen and shoving plates into their hands. There was venison, rice, and potatoes, and Amelia could smell bread cooling on the counter and something sweet baking in the oven. Just as Amelia suspected, Faina had cooked her nerves away, and the result was a veritable feast. The twins were already tucking into theirs, eating like they hadn’t seen food for a month.

  Granted, Amelia wasn’t much better. Once she had a fork in hand, she began to practically inhale her food as if someone was going to steal it from her if she didn’t eat it quickly enough.

  Soon enough, the front door opened again, and Faina bustled into the den and then bustled right back into the kitchen, herding Anara along. Anara stared down at the plate that was shoved into her hands before she shrugged and began to eat without much of a question.

  Faina moved between them, from one to the next, checking bandages and occasionally asking if they were alright. The answer was always yes. They were better than alright, in fact. They were safe, finally, for the first time in weeks. All that was left to do was to move the bodies that were a bit too obvious.

  Amelia almost didn’t know what to do with herself, now that she didn’t need to worry about Darius and his pride lurking on the mountain like vengeful ghosts. For the moment, she contented herself with eating the slice of bread that Faina handed to her, sopping up the venison’s gravy.

  It was over. For the most part, at any rate. She just had to wait for the weather to improve, and she could head home again. Granted, that did still bring up a lot of questions that she wasn’t quite sure how she wanted to answer.

  She loved Aibek. He loved her. They had admitted it. But they lived a world away from each other. Amelia didn’t want to spend the rest of her life in the mountains, isolated from almost the entire world, save for the occasional, brief trek into town. At the same time, she didn’t want to drag Aibek away from his family when he loved them as much as he did. But again, she didn’t want to raise his child without him.

  Her plate was empty, but it took Faina only a moment to refill it, and Amelia let herself be distracted by the food. After all, it had been a busy day, and she hadn’t had a chance to eat beforehand. She couldn’t even imagine what her caloric deficit was, considering she already needed a pretty hefty amount of calories in a day, and it made a lovely distraction from her thoughts.

  *

  “You are quiet,” Aibek observed that evening, as Amelia sat on the rug in the den and stared deep into the fireplace, her fingers knitted together on her lap to keep her from fiddling with everything around her or picking at her nails.

  She looked up at him slowly, smiling crookedly. “I’ve got a lot to think about,” she reminded him. “You’re involved in a lot of it.”

  “I could guess as much,” he returned wryly, taking a seat beside her on the rug and leaning most of his weight back on his hands. “Care to share any of it with me?”

  She was quiet for a moment, mentally sorting through the overly cluttered cluster of information she had been pondering for most of the day. “What happens with us?” she finally asked, since it seemed like the most straightforward way to start. “I mean, you love me. I love you. I’m pregnant with your baby. But I can’t stay here, and I can’t ask you to leave your family.”

  “I could leave,” he pointed out. “It is not as if I would never see my family again. We love each other. We would make the time and the effort to see each other.” He lapsed into silence, but Amelia could tell he wasn’t quite done speaking. “Besides,” he carried on after a moment, “leaving could be good for me. It is…unusual, I think, to have so little contact with the outside world.”

  Amelia huffed out a good-natured laugh. “Just a little bit, yeah,” she agreed, and she pulled her hands from her lap to instead thread her fingers together with his. He squeezed her fingers.

  “Are you sure you wouldn’t mind?” she asked quietly. “If you want to come with me, that’s great, but if it’s going to turn into some complicated ‘you resent me, I resent you for resenting me’ situation, I think I’d rather…not. It doesn’t really sound enjoyable for anyone involved.”

  “I would not mind,” he replied. “There is time still before you will be able to leave, so I will think on it carefully, but I do not think I will change my mind between now and then.”

  Amelia leaned sideways until her shoulder met his, and he straightened up as she shifted most of her weight toward him. “I just…don’t want you to regret anything, I guess.” After all, they had already dived headlong into things without thinking. It was probably best if they didn’t keep doing that right up until the end.

  If they had to go their separate ways, she would be sad, of course. She would be disappointed. But she knew, eventually, she would move on. But if he rushed into going with her and regretted it? If he regretted being with her? She wasn’t sure if she would move past that. And she wasn’t sure how she would be able to look at her child afterward and explain why Daddy wasn’t there.

  Aibek nudged her with his shoulder. “You are overthinking things,” he informed her dryly. He made it sound very simple, and Amelia couldn’t quite decide if that was comforting or worrying, though she supposed there was no reason it couldn’t be both, albeit in different ways.

  She squinted at him and asked, “How do you know you aren’t under-thinking them?” It seemed like a legitimate question at the time, at least.

  The shoulder she wasn’t leaning on lifted in a brief shrug. “Because I know myself well enough to know what I will decide,” he returned easily. “Not everything needs to be a crisis.”

  “I don’t turn everything into a crisis,” she fired back, pouting, as she bonked her shoulder into his. He hardly even budged.

  He held one hand up in a pacifying motion. “Of course not. Are you coming to bed?” he asked, changing subjects before too much catastrophizing could occur. Not that Amelia needed any help in turning things into catastrophes. She generally managed it quite well on her own, if left to her own devices with unpleasant thoughts.

  She waved him off. “I’ll be there in a bit,” she replied. “I’m not really tired yet, after that nap earlier. You go ahead.”

  He nodded once before he leaned over and kissed first her cheek, then the corner of her mouth, and finally her lips. “I will see you in the morning, then.” He got to his feet, and a moment later the door opened and closed again.

  Amelia spent a few minutes longer enjoying her seat by the fire before she grabbed the most recent book she had been steadily making her way through and sat down on the couch with it.

  For a time, she simply stared down at the pages, rereading the same three sentences over and over again but never processing the words, like a hamster endlessly spinning in its wheel. She was fretting. She knew she was fretting. It was unproductive and stressful, and it was getting her nowhere, but each time she tried to break out of the cycle, another thought would strike her, another ghastly ‘but what if?,’ and she kept on circling the wheel.

  What if he got tired of her? What if he hated not living on the mountain? What if he couldn’t adjust to being around other people? What if he didn’t like being a father? What if he left?

  They were unreasonable concerns that offered him too little credit, and when she thought about it, she could acknowledge that. But human beings were rarely logical, and so still they nagged at her like mosquitos. She almost wanted to try physically waving the thoughts away, just to see if it might help her at all. Even sitting on her own, though, she wasn’t quite willing to descend that low.

  She didn’t mean to fall asleep on the couch fifteen minutes later, but she supposed she should’ve seen it coming.

  *

  She dreamed that she was walking down a path that had no end, through light and darkness, through warmth and frigid coldness. Her paws were weary, but every step of the way, there was another cat beside her, his presence strong and steadfast and constant
, no matter how rough and rocky the path got.

  It was a good dream, all things considered. At least part of her, perhaps, knew the truth, regardless of how much she worried over the details.

  *

  Amelia woke up the next morning to Faina shaking her shoulder and eyeing her in concern. “Everything alright, honey?” she wondered, leaning away as Amelia sat up.

  “Huh?” Amelia squinted at her as she stretched, and her jaw cracked when she yawned. It took a moment for it to occur to her that it probably seemed a bit strange, her sleeping in the den when she had been consistently sleeping in Aibek’s room for weeks. “Oh, yeah. Yeah, everything’s fine. I just fell asleep on my book last night.”

  Faina didn’t look entirely convinced, but she let the topic drop as she made her way into the kitchen. Amelia debated for a moment before trotting after her. They did need to have a chat, after all, and it would probably be easiest if they had privacy.