Stealing the Snow Leopard's Heart

by Zoe Chant

  Bad Keeley. Don’t tease the nice man who saved your life.

  But she’d already decided she was going to leave as soon as she could. A little flirting couldn’t hurt. Could it?

  Bad, Keeley. Very bad.

  Lance narrowed his eyes—Bad—and a smile danced around his lips. Double bad. A thrill went up Keeley’s spine.

  “Actually, if you’d like a closer—” Lance staggered, his face going gray. He staggered backward, barely managing to support himself against the wall, and Keeley was at his side in an instant, jamming her shoulder under his arm.

  His head fell onto her other shoulder, his breath hard and hot on her collarbone. Another shiver went through Keeley, but this one had nothing to do with lust. All the warmth and life had gone out of his face in an instant.

  Just like the night before.

  “Sorry,” Lance grunted. Keeley had flung her arms around him and felt his back muscles spasm as he tried to stand upright. “Might be—more exhausted than I thought. Healing—”

  “So that’s a no on you making breakfast, then?” Keeley’s voice blared in her own ears, so loud and sharp that she winced. Her heart was pounding like she was the one about to pass out, not him, and something inside her—

  She shook her head. She was being stupid, panicking and imagining things that weren’t there.

  Lance laughed weakly into her shoulder. “Not today. Sorry.”

  “Well, then.” Keeley anchored herself under his shoulder. “I hope you like sandwiches.”

  Fanciest fucking sandwiches I ever made, Keeley thought five minutes later.

  She’d helped Lance to the kitchen. He’d made it—barely. Keeley’s legs were shaking by the time she dropped him into a chair at the kitchen table.

  At least seeing him almost pass out had made her libido calm down. And the cool blast of air from the fridge when she opened it helped on that front, too.

  Lance had more food in his fridge and pantry than Keeley had seen outside of a grocery store. She grabbed a loaf of bread—the fancy stuff that didn’t come pre-sliced—and an armful of cheese and deli meats, and began blindly slapping sandwiches together.

  “You really don’t need to do this,” Lance protested as she dropped a plate of sandwiches in front of him. “I—is this salmon and pastrami?”

  He sniffed the top sandwich warily, and Keeley winced as he bit into it.

  “Mf’s del’cious,” Lance murmured through a mouthful of mixed fish and meat.

  Keeley picked at a hunk of bread as he demolished the sandwiches. She knew that if she thought about it, she would realize she was actually hungry, but her brain was busy. Without Lance’s hot bod to obsess over, it had moved onto more serious things.

  Like the fact that she’d almost been murdered. Twice. Or three times, maybe. It depends on how you look at it.

  Anyway, as it was, if she did eat anything, she’d probably throw it up.

  “Talk to me, Keeley.”

  Keeley jumped in her seat, making Maggie cheep in alarm. She reached into her pocket to calm the baby dragon while she tried desperately to haul her thoughts into order. “About what?”

  “You’ve been glaring at me the whole time I’ve been eating. Something’s got to be on your mind.”

  Keeley pinched her eyes shut. “Sorry. I was just—staring into space.” Or staring at you like a creep. Take your pick. “How are you feeling?”

  “Better. Thank you.” Lance smiled.

  He’s looking better, too—oh, for fuck’s sake. Whatever protective home-maker urge Lance’s weakness had awoken inside her was shoved aside by another entirely different urge. Keeley gritted her teeth.

  “Sorry about the weird sandwiches. There’s a reason I’m a maid, not a cook,” she said, glaring at the top of the table.

  “They were just what I needed.” As if to prove the point, Lance bit into what she was pretty sure was a slab of salmon-and-some sort of goopy white cheese. “Now. I told you I’d answer any questions you had, and I will.”

  “Okay,” she began slowly. Where to start? Dragons? Giant cats? Getting shot at and blown up?

  Keeley took a deep breath. “You can turn into a… giant cat. Snow leopard. Let’s start with that.”

  She tipped her head back in time to see Lance set down his sandwich. Just for a second, his eyes gleamed silver, the pupils flaring out into cat-like slits.

  A moment later, his eyes were normal, and Keeley’s heart was racing.

  “That’s as good a place to start as any,” Lance said, and began to explain.

  Ten minutes later, the whirlpool in Keeley’s brain was no calmer, and she felt as though the top of her head was about to fall off.

  “Wait,” she said, holding up a hand. “Just—let me see if I’ve got everything straight?”

  Lance nodded, and Keeley swallowed, looking down at Maggie curled up in her pocket.

  “You’re a shifter. Is that what you called it? Which means you can turn into a snow leopard. Which I saw earlier, thanks for the surprise demonstration, by the way.”

  Lance’s eyes crinkled. “It’s not just snow leopards. Other shifters have other animals. Meerkats, panthers, lions—even sharks.”

  “Sharks.” Keeley stared flatly at him as she waited for her brain to process the new information. “Okay, no. Giant cats, yes, tiny dragons, yes, but sharks—no, thank you.”

  “Oh, come on. Zhang’s great. You might not have realized she’s a shifter, of course. It’s not like she would have had the opportunity to shift here in the city.”

  “Who’s Zhang?” Keeley stared at him, running the last few minutes of conversation over in her head. Had she missed something?

  Lance sat back, frowning. “I’ll admit I don’t remember much after we shielded on top of the shipping container, but I do remember feeling Zhang and the others approaching. I assumed they brought you here.”

  “N-no…” Maggie wriggled around in Keeley’s pocket, and she automatically wrapped a hand around the tiny dragon.

  “Then how did we get here?”

  Keeley stared at Lance, and he stared back, honest confusion radiating from his face. She took a deep breath as Maggie poked her head out of her pocket.

  “You really don’t remember?”

  Maggie cheeped, and Lance’s eyes flicked from Keeley’s, to the baby dragon, and back. Keeley took a deep breath.

  “Okay. Well, that was actually going to be my second question, anyway. Do we need to be worried about Maggie randomly teleporting us places?”

  Lance stared. His stare turned into a frown, and his frown deepened into confusion.

  “What?” He sat back in his chair like all the breath had been knocked out of him. “Teleporting?”

  Lance

  Dragons. Lance groaned internally. Every time he thought he had them pinned down…

  Lance had expected his explanation of shifters to blow Keeley’s mind. He hadn’t expected to have the rug pulled out from under his feet, too.

  “The hatchling teleported us here? To my apartment?”

  “Maggie, yeah. Um. Which is short for Magpie, because she… likes shiny things?” Keeley’s voice trailed off uncertainly. In her lap, the hatchling—Maggie—cheeped happily. The gold chain was wrapped in a triple loop around her long, scaly neck.

  Lance ran his fingers over his head, digging his fingertips into his short, curly hair. Teleportation. The hatchling can teleport.

  “You’re sure?”

  Keeley threw her hands up. “Oh, yeah, sorry, I forgot. Actually I carried you here, while you were bleeding to death and also a giant cat, to this apartment I didn’t even know was yours. I remember now.” She put her elbows on the table, her gaze tense. “Lance, I’ve got a baby dragon making a nest in my work uniform, and you’ve just told me that there are people all over the world who can turn into wild animals. Is teleporting really that much of a stretch?”

  Lance sighed. “It’s only been a few months since we discovered some dragon shifter
s could make themselves invisible. Teleportation is… something else.” Something else I didn’t know. Something else I wasn’t prepared for.

  His stomach went cold. How many other surprises are out there, waiting for someone to use them for evil?

  “Invisible—you mean the shield thing you gave me, right? That’s a dragon thing?” Keeley absently scratched Maggie under the chin, and then froze. “Wait—so that was a part of a dragon?”

  Lance nodded. “Yes, a scale. It—”

  “Oh, God. Oh, fuck no.” Keeley gathered Maggie up in her arms, squeezing her tight despite the baby dragon’s indignant squawks. “They wanted to—to—oh, God.”

  She went so pale that Lance was afraid she was about to pass out. He reached across the small kitchen table and held her shoulders, staring into her eyes.

  “Hey. Easy. They didn’t get her. She’s safe. Because you saved her.”

  “Because I…” Keeley’s eyes settled on Lance’s. “Because I got her out of the subway station. I didn’t leave her in the car.”

  “She’s lucky you were there.”

  “Lucky…” Keeley squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head. Maggie took advantage of her distraction to wriggle free and jump onto the kitchen table.

  “Yes. Lucky. I don’t want to think about what might have happened if you hadn’t been there.” Lance sent out a tentative psychic greeting to the hatchling as she sniffed around the table. Maggie’s psychic pepper-and-fireworks signature was stronger than it had been the night before.

  Lance rubbed his nose. His snow leopard was intent on the baby dragon; it was almost as enraptured by Maggie as it was by his mate. To the extent that I’m trying not to sneeze from sniffing psychic pepper, Lance thought wryly.

  “But everything that happened…” Keeley’s voice was tight with worry. Lance smiled reassuringly at her as his snow leopard gave the hatchling a psychic nudge.

  Maggie reared up, cheeping indignantly, and Lance laughed.

  “She isn’t suffering any ill effects from last night. Of all of us, I’d say she got off the lightest.” Lance smiled at Keeley, and she grimaced back.

  “Not shot, not getting her head almost bashed in… yeah, I’d say so.” Keeley frowned. “She can’t remember almost getting blown up, though, can she?”

  “I can’t read minds,” Lance explained, letting Maggie sniff his fingers. “But infant shifters are a bit freer with their feelings than adults. I can see enough to know she’s fine. She feels safe here, and happy.” His snow leopard nudged him, and he corrected himself. “Safe here with you, I should say.”

  “Safe with me?” Keeley pushed herself back in her chair. “Are you sure about that?”

  Lance raised one eyebrow. “As sure as I am that she’s about to steal one of the delicious sandwiches you made for me.”

  He nodded down to where Maggie was creeping inch by inch across the table, as though, if she moved slowly enough, no one would notice a shining, gold-scaled baby dragon on her way to steal breakfast.

  The kitten is already an excellent hunter, his snow leopard commentated. Look at that focus!

  It’s a sandwich, Lance replied, amused. It’s not like it’s going to run away.

  His snow leopard flicked its tail derisively. That is not the point. The point is—she got it! Yes! The mightiest hunter!

  The mightiest hunter’s butt wiggled madly as she raced back to dive into Keeley’s lap.

  “Oh, you—” Keeley giggled helplessly. It was the most beautiful sound Lance had ever heard. “Is it okay for her to eat that?”

  Lance shrugged. “If she was in human form, no, but dragon? I guess we’ll find out.”

  I should call Julian. Ask him. He filed the thought under “Things to do later”. Right now, he was sitting in his kitchen with his mate and a baby dragon his snow leopard insisted on referring to as a kitten, and nothing else seemed important.

  “Human form.” Keeley stopped giggling, her eyes shooting to Lance’s. “You mean she’s—there’s a baby in there?”

  Her voice rose into a squeak at the end. Lance nodded, trying not to grin at how shocked she looked. “Same as me. Same as any shifter.”

  Keeley sat completely still as Maggie wriggled back into her apron pocket. “Oh,” she said at last. “A baby. You know… I think I’ve reached my brain’s reached its limit for crazy new things, now.”

  “Most shifters are born in human form, but from what I understand about this particular family, they’re more dragon than human to begin with.” Lance set his elbows on the table.

  Keeley raised her hands. “Really. Brain completely full. Unless you want me to freak out and collapse in your arms again like at the station…”

  She stopped, her eyes meeting his like they were being dragged by magnets. Slowly, very slowly, her cheeks went pink.

  Lance’s snow leopard whipped its tail back and forth. Yes!

  No, Lance told it.

  She wants to! Look at her face! You should tell her everything now. She—

  Lance gritted his teeth. No. I saw her face. I saw how terrified she was last night. How lost she feels now. I will not burden her with this now, on top of everything else. Besides. You heard her. Her brain’s reached its limit. We’re not going to make her feel safer by pushing more world-changing information on her.

  He forced a light smile on his face, pushing back his snow leopard’s insistence that he openly pledge himself to his mate and her “kitten”.

  “I meant to reassure you. Most shifter kids don’t actually shift until around puberty, so she’ll probably stay in her dragon form for a few years, at least.”

  “Oh.” Keeley broke eye contact, her cheeks still pink. “Thanks. Yeah. Freaking out a bit less, now, actually.”

  She wrapped her arms around her stomach, where Maggie made a wriggling lump in her apron pocket. A surge of warmth flooded through Lance. Through everything that had happened, all the violence and fear, she had never once stopped protecting the hatchling.

  My mate, he thought, the warmth sharpening to a longing that went deeper than lust. I wish I could tell you how much that means to me. How much you mean, with your kindness and your courage.

  He frowned. Kindness and courage, yes—and shadows under her eyes, and hands that shook with exhaustion. “Have you slept at all since we got here?”

  “Me?” Keeley blinked at him. “No. Too busy watching you not die, remember?”

  “You must be exhausted. And you haven’t eaten anything.” Lance stood up. “I’ll show you to—” Your bed, his snow leopard urged him, OUR bed, and he just managed to catch the words before they leapt onto his tongue “—the guest bedroom.”

  “What? No, you don’t need to…” Keeley smothered a yawn as her body betrayed her words. She grimaced. “Okay. Maybe I am a bit tired. I feel like my brain’s going to fall out the back of my head.”

  Lance showed her to the guest room, and left her to shower and change while he made her a cup of hot cocoa. By the time he knocked on the door again, she was fast asleep.

  He put the hot cocoa on the bedside table—it would still be chocolatey when she woke up, even if it was no longer hot—and looked around for Maggie. The hatchling was snoozing on the dresser, curled up in a nest made of pillows from the bed and Keeley’s apron. Her psychic aura was calm and happy. No lingering ill effects from the people who had tried to capture her.

  Or the salmon and brie sandwich, Lance thought, smiling fondly.

  He stopped at the door, and his gaze caught on Keeley’s sleeping face. She was so expressive when she was awake that, relaxed in sleep, her face looked strangely vulnerable.

  A protective urge rose up in Lance. He couldn’t let anything like last night happen again. Keeley might not know she was his mate, but that didn’t matter. Her safety, her happiness, were his one priority. So long as he was alive, he swore, he would never let any harm come to her.

  With one last lingering look at her sleeping face, Lance turned off the light and he
aded for his own room. The mezzanine mountaintop-style bed seemed colder and emptier than usual, but he was too exhausted to let it bother him. Still exhausted from the healing, he was asleep before his head hit the pillow.

  A few hours later, the sound of Keeley’s screams jerked him awake.

  Keeley

  The darkness pressed in on her, dense and suffocating.

  No. No, this isn’t happening, Keeley thought desperately. The taste of dust in her throat, the splinters under her fingernails—It’s not real. It’s a dream. Just a dream. You’re not back there. You just need to open your eyes, and—

  Fighting against the nightmare, Keeley dragged her eyes open.

  Oh God, no.

  The endless pitch black of her dream was still there. Pressing against her eyes. Squeezing the breath from her lungs.

  Keeley tried to sit up, but something yanked at her limbs, trapping her in place.

  It was too dark. Too close, walls on every side, ceiling so low her knees barely fit, muscles screaming to stretch out.

  No room, too dark to see, no space to move, no way out NO WAY OUT—

  “Keeley!”

  Strong hands grabbed her shoulders. Suddenly there was light, not outside, but inside her. The barest glimmer, like a candle flame behind foggy glass. Keeley grabbed hold of it with all her heart and heard a hoarse gasp.

  Lance’s voice cut through her panic.

  “Keeley. Keeley, I’m here. Tell me what’s wrong. Tell me what you need.”

  Keeley’s tongue felt thick. There was too much dust, too much—No. There’s no dust. No trap. It was just a dream. It was just a—

  Another wave of panic crashed over her.

  “Light,” she croaked. Her legs kicked out automatically, and even though she knew now that she was tangled up in her blankets, not trapped, her heart started hammering even harder. Can’t escape. “Get this off me!”

  Lance tore the blanket away with one arm. Keeley sucked in a breath—Which is stupid, because you could breathe before, it’s all in your head, it’s not real—and then choked on it as Lance lifted her up.