by Zoe Chant
Slowly, she pulled out Ethel’s chair and sat down at the desk. There was paper in one of the drawers. She tugged out a piece and picked up a pencil.
Dear Mom, she wrote.
I moved again. I live right near Glacier National Park now. The mountains here are very beautiful. I have a job at a diner. It’s called Oliver’s, but I don’t know if there ever was an Oliver because the owner now is named Ethel.
Nina’s hand clenched on the pencil. She forced her grip to loosen before she snapped it accidentally.
I met a guy today. That never happens. And I met someone I think would be a great friend. I wish I could stay here, and have friends, and see what might happen with the guy, but I can’t. I can never stay anywhere. It sucks.
Nina stared at the page. She was never going to be a writer, that was for sure. But she couldn’t think of any more elegant way to say it. She could never stay anywhere, not for the rest of her life. And it sucked.
I wish I could see you again, she wrote in a sudden, furious scrawl. I wish things were different. Your daughter, Nina.
She set down the pen and read it over. She’d written a lot of these letters to her mom, over the years. Sometimes they made her feel better.
She never sent them. The last memory of her parents was too much. The way her mother had sobbed in fear, her father’s rage and disgust: “Get out of here! You’re some kind of monster! Stay away from me and my wife!”
Her mother’s tearful whisper: “Nina, what are you? What are you?”
In seven years, she’d never sent a letter to her mother. Because what if she wrote back: Stay away, you’re a monster?
Or what if she didn’t write back at all?
She read the letter over again. I wish things were different.
There were envelopes and stamps on the desk.
Nothing was ever going to be different for Nina. She was always going to be who she was. She would always have the terrible secret of her leopard.
Her leopard, who had been her only friend for seven years. Her snarling, purring, protective leopard. Nina had hated her at first, but slowly, she’d grown to love her. Slowly, she’d decided that if she was a monster, she would just be a monster, and if no one could love her for it, she’d be alone.
She didn’t wish her leopard away. She couldn’t.
That was never going to change. But...she wished other things would.
Her mother, at least. Her father—her father had always been strict and uncompromising. He wasn’t the sort of man to change his mind, and he definitely wasn’t the sort of man to accept differences. He’d always been the one who made the decisions, and her mother went along with him every time.
But who knew what might have happened in seven years?
Slowly, she folded the letter. She picked up an envelope. In careful, precise script, she wrote the address of her childhood home on the front of it. She gave the diner as the return address. She took a stamp from the desk—and then, feeling guilty, left fifty cents of her tip money in its place.
She put the stamp on the envelope, put the letter inside without thinking about what it said, or what her mom might think when she read it, if she ever got it. Then she licked the envelope and sealed it.
Nina left the diner with the envelope starting to crumple in her hand with how hard she was clenching it. There was a public mailbox just down the street, and she stood in front of it for a full minute before opening it, throwing the letter inside, and letting it bang shut. The sound seemed to echo in her ears.
She didn’t know what had made today so different. What had made today, instead of any other day, the day that she finally sent a letter.
Nothing’s going to change, she told herself. They’d probably moved. It had been seven years, after all. They probably wouldn’t get it, and if they did, her father would probably take it, shred it, throw it away before her mother even saw it.
And even if she read it, she might not care at all. And even if she cared...
What would she do? Probably nothing.
Nina shivered in the cool night air. She stared up at the black shapes of the mountains, reaching out into the distance.
“Hey there, honey,” said a voice.
Nina jumped a mile and spun around, her leopard growling. She was halfway to shifting before she caught herself—she couldn’t shift in public. The consequences would much worse than whatever might have happened otherwise.
Although...she was staring at the group of rowdy drunks from the diner. And they were looking at her with interest.
Oh, no.
***
Joel’s phone buzzed in his pocket for the fifth time.
Annoyed, he pulled it out, saw Zach’s name repeating itself on the home screen, and turned it off.
He didn’t need to answer to know what his older brother had to say. What was that, why did you leave, the one time you agree to come out with us...!
All perfectly natural questions to ask. The problem was, he didn’t have any answers.
Not any answers that made sense, anyway. Which was why he was out here behind the diner, staring at the mountains and going over the evening in his mind, trying to figure it out.
He didn’t know what had driven him to go help the waitress. Nina, her nametag had said. Something about her—something about her.
When he’d come in, she’d been standing by the table, and he’d almost tripped over his own feet trying to sit down. His eyes had caught on her curves, and then traveled upward to the graceful curve of her neck, the line of her cheek, and finally locked on her gorgeous grey-green eyes, so clear he almost felt like he could see right down to the center of her.
It was ridiculous. Joel had never had any sort of weakness for beautiful women; he’d dated a little here and there, but always with the understanding that there was no commitment involved. And he’d never felt this much of a pull toward any of the women he’d dated.
Feeling it toward a waitress he’d never met, never spoken to? That never happened.
He’d had a hard time hearing the conversation at the table, because he was too aware of the waitress—Nina—moving around the restaurant. Even when she was behind him, he seemed to have a sense of her, of how her body moved through space.
He hadn’t been able to pay attention to the other four talking about the deck Zach was building. Not even when Teri nudged him and asked how the cabin restoration was going.
“We’d love to come out and help you sometime,” she’d said hopefully. “We could make a day of it, everyone pitching in. Bring a picnic, all that.”
“I need a chance to test my skills on something harder than a deck,” Zach had added.
Joel had just said, “Sure,” instead of trying to muster the explanation that the whole reason he was repairing the cabin was to get away from all the happy togetherness.
They all gave off cheerful, loving devotion like some kind of thick, strong perfume—all of them: Zach and Teri, Jeff and Leah, even Grey and Alethia. Grey was always quiet, and was plenty easy to spend time with on his own, but when he was with his mate, he carried this deep, almost palpable contentment, edging on satisfaction.
Joel couldn’t be around any of them for too long before he started to choke on it all.
Mates. It was such a stupid idea. Why was it like this? Why could the hand of God, or shifter genetics, or whatever, just reach down and declare, You and you, and that was it? It didn’t matter if someone’s life was ruined, if people had to leave their home or their family behind.
It especially didn’t matter that it made those people so vulnerable—to each other, to circumstance, to anything. They’d never be able to stand on their own two feet, ever again.
And no one seemed to realize it. Even Teri, who’d been rejected by her entire family for being with Zach, was stuck in this miasma of happy couple-ness, as though there was nothing wrong with it at all. The mate-bond really must be a weird compulsion that overwhelmed your judgment and your self-preservation.<
br />
Zach, especially, should’ve known better. Because Joel and Zach’s parents had been mates, and it had been a tragedy from start to finish.
But Zach and Teri were both determined to ignore reality, and Joel wasn’t so much of a jerk that he’d purposefully try to ruin their happiness.
So, he spent a lot of time out at the cabin.
He was going to have to remember to argue Teri out of a happy-family construction outing. He’d been too distracted by that damn waitress to try.
Joel's leopard snarled.
Joel sat up instantly, looking around—was there danger somewhere? Had something happened while he was stuck in his thoughts?
He couldn't see anything. No one was around. The diner was closed. The mountains were the same still, dark presence looming over the empty street.
Danger, his leopard insisted.
Then Joel heard a faint echo of voices. They sounded worked up, the tone annoyed and jeering.
Normally, he would've left well enough alone. He didn't make a habit of interfering in other people's business. But something drove him to stand up and head in the direction of the noise. His leopard hissed approval.
When he got to the main road, he could see the crowd of men a ways down. They were clustered around someone else. Joel started forward, speeding up as he went. Were they harassing someone, getting ready to beat someone up?
When he got close enough, though, he saw who it was.
The waitress. Nina.
She was glaring at all of them, but that didn't hide the fear in her eyes, or the way she kept searching for a way out. She was poised to run, but they hadn't given her an opening.
"Now, honey," the ringleader was saying, "you didn't give us the time of day when we were inside. So we're thinking we'll just take that time of day from you right now."
"Or time of night," another one put in, and they all laughed.
Joel's lip curled. Men who harassed or intimidated women were the worst of the lowlifes to him. It was a sign that the man was a lonely, pathetic coward who couldn't bring himself to face the possibility that a woman wouldn't want him.
And anyone who could see the fear on Nina's face and decide that that was what he wanted—
These men had just sunk down below any human consideration, in Joel's opinion.
"Hey!" he shouted. His voice echoed down the street, and the group spun around as one. Six of them, Joel counted, utterly disgusted. Six of them facing down one lone woman.
The ringleader saw him, and his face twisted. "Oh, look, it's your boyfriend from the diner," he said to Nina. "Is he here to save you?"
"I'm here to give you the thrashing you deserve," Joel bit out. "Unless you're afraid. Can you face a real man, or do you have to get your kicks scaring women with five of your friends?"
The men were coming forward to face him, Joel noted approvingly, turning away from Nina. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her edge backwards. He kept his gaze firmly on the group's leader, not wanting to look directly at her and remind the men that she was there.
"I can take you," the ringleader blustered, although he was eyeing Joel up and down like he suddenly wasn't so sure. He was noticeably shorter and skinnier than Joel was. Joel was pretty sure he'd have been able to take him even without shifter strength and reflexes.
"Alone?" Joel asked, lifting an eyebrow.
The man's eyes shifted nervously. "Aw, come on. You're like twice the size of me."
That was a huge exaggeration, but Joel just nodded seriously. "Okay. You and one of your friends. Pick any of 'em."
All of the friends suddenly found something else to look at. Behind them, Nina paced back a few more steps. A few more.
She was still frightened, Joel could tell. She wasn't taking her eyes off the men, wary of what they might do. Joel made the decision for them.
"Well, if you can't decide," he said, and waded in.
Joel had been a troublesome, rebellious teenager, and it had gotten him in some trouble. He regretted a lot of the choices he'd made back then, but there was one thing he'd learned, and it was how to fight a crowd of guys when you were just one skinny kid with shifter reflexes and a burning determination to win.
This was far easier than any of those fights had been. They were all cowards, just as he'd figured. He laid out the ringleader with one heavy hit to the stomach, and brushed aside a few sorry attempts at punches from the rest. Once two more of them were moaning on the ground, clutching their jaws, the rest scattered.
When he looked up from the fight, Nina had disappeared. He had no idea which direction she'd gone.
That was good. Joel was glad she'd gotten away.
Even though another part of him was wishing she was still here, so he could talk to her. Ask her if she was all right.
Joel shook his head to clear it. What was it about that waitress?
He made himself focus on the present. Casting a critical eye over the remaining assholes, he decided they were out of commission, and weren’t going to get up. It was a shame, almost; he couldn’t hit them when they were down, even if they did deserve it.
He left them behind before the temptation became any greater, and headed for the woods.
Getting out into the wild air of the forest felt good, and shifting felt even better. He always felt lighter in his leopard form. Not in weight, but in himself. Like all of his problems had flown away.
He let that random thought go, and set off at a trot to explore some of the territory to the south of the cabin. The place was well below the tree line, but he might scale a bit higher to spend some time in the rocky, cavernous area above.
Then he caught the scent again.
The strange leopard. Definitely not any of the rangers, or their mates; he’d met them all in shifted form and he knew what they smelled like. This was someone else.
And it was fresh. A strong, rich scent, almost—feminine? Joel didn’t know what about the scent suggested female to him, but there was something.
The leopard was out here right now. Joel sat back on his haunches, thinking about his options. Should he follow the scent? It might be better to wait until he had another leopard or two from the Glacier pack out here with him, in case the strange leopard was aggressive, or violent. Even if the leopard was female, well, Joel had seen Alethia and Teri in their shifted forms, and he had no illusions about how strong and powerful a female snow leopard could be.
If she was friendly, Joel wasn’t the best representative of the Glacier pack for her to meet. He’d been raised in a city away from other shifters, and he was surly and distrustful on top of that. Jeff or Cal would be much better. He suddenly regretted not telling Cal about the leopard during their meeting this morning.
He sniffed again. There was something about the scent...it caught his curiosity. He wanted to know more. His leopard growled inside him. Find her.
Instinct won out, and he surged forward despite his misgivings. This might be a mistake, but Joel needed to find this leopard and see who she was.
The scent was strong, easy to follow, and the further he went, the closer he came. He could almost sense the other snow leopard now. It was like he could feel her moving in the trees ahead of him. His leopard urged him forward.
Finally, he caught sight of a pale form darting away into the dark forest. The sight sent a jolt of adrenaline through him, and he leapt forward, using his powerful hindquarters to propel himself into a jump that turned into a flat-out run.
The strange leopard’s scent was all around, now, but there was no need to use it anymore, because he could see her, running away deeper into the mountains. He raced after her, pelting forward, trying to close the distance between them. He needed to catch up to her, to learn who she was—
Joel was faster, but not by much, and the female leopard clearly knew this particular territory better than he did. She dodged around rocks and leapt over logs without having to think twice about it, while Joel had to keep an eye on the terrain as he ran.
<
br /> On the other hand, she started to tire out much sooner, slowing bit by bit until he could clearly see her white-and-gray form in the bright moonlight. She was heading up past the tree line, and Joel put on a burst of speed and caught up to her just as she crouched and jumped up to the top of a rocky outcropping.
She stopped, poised on the rock, looking down at him as he reached her. Joel came to a halt, staring up at her.
She’d stopped on purpose. She could’ve run away through the rocks, maybe found a stream and confused her scent, but instead she was waiting for him. She had to be curious about who he was, what he wanted.
Joel shifted. All at once, he was standing on the cold mountainside in his human form, craning his neck to look up at the snow leopard perched on the rock above.
“Hello,” he called up to her. “I’m Joel. Can we talk?”
The moon brightened as he spoke, clouds moving away from it, and the light caught the leopard’s eyes, illuminating them as they stared down at him. Joel’s own eyes widened as he took in their color, a green-tinted grey.
He recognized those eyes.
But before he could say anything else, the leopard crouched, gathering herself, and made a great leap away into the darkness. Joel watched her dart away into the rocks and vanish.
He let her go, despite his leopard’s snarl of disappointment. Because he knew where he was going to eat tomorrow.
***
Nina couldn’t believe she’d been so stupid.
She’d come up here to northern Montana because she’d thought it was perfect. Both the middle of nowhere, surrounded by mountains, and a travel spot for tourists.
It had seemed like the best possible place to hide in plain sight; she’d get an anonymous job and place to stay for her human side, and her leopard side could shift and run as much as she wanted in the mountains.
She hadn’t ever considered that other snow leopard shifters might have made the same decision.
Last night wasn’t the first time Nina had been chased by another shifter. She’d learned the hard way that shapeshifters were insular and suspicious people. They didn’t like strangers invading their territory and they didn’t want new or different shifters around to attract potentially dangerous attention.
