Chapter 53
I’m so happy you never wear any skin but your own around me.
—Andromeda to her Naasir (Once, on the Hunt for the Silver-Winged Sleeper)
Naasir had already visited Phoenix, but he dropped by again the day after Illium’s lightning stopover. And though their child was awash in gifts hand-delivered as well as sent by messengers and couriers, Elena still waited on tenterhooks to see what their tiger creature would bring.
While it was possible that Andi might temper his tendency toward “interesting” gifts, Elena didn’t think so. Andi loved Naasir exactly as he was—which meant she could be an enabler of the highest order.
When the chimera walked in with Andromeda and Izar, however, he had nothing in hand. “I will bring the gift later,” he promised, the metallic silver of his hair in a neat GQ-style cut that was startling. “It’s not quite ready.”
“What did you do to your hair?” Elena blurted out.
Andromeda threw up her hands. “See! I told you it was too much!”
“It was annoying, getting in my eyes.” Naasir tugged a scowling Andi close to play with her curls, his voice a rumbling purr as he said, “I’ll grow it back for you. I know how much you like to—”
“Hush.” Andromeda’s blush was red against the freckled honey of her skin. “We’re in company.” But she stayed tucked to his side, sliding her arm around him.
Izar, meanwhile, stole Nix and flew up to sit in the rafters with the baby. What conversations the two had, Elena didn’t know, but her son was smiling sleepily by the time Izar decided to come back down.
As for Naasir’s “later,” it proved to be around sunset, as the sky was darkening and the stronghold staff was lighting up the house.
This time, it was just Naasir and Andi, and Naasir carried a cat in his arms. “A pet for the little one,” he said, and put the striped golden creature on the floor of the stronghold’s living room, the fire from the hearth flickering against its fur. “A Bengal kitten.”
The cat extended its paws and arched its back in a luxuriant stretch.
Elena stared at it from her position on the sofa, where she’d just finished feeding Nix ten minutes earlier. “Naasir, that is not a housecat. Not Bengal, not anything.”
“Yes it is. It will stay in the house with the cub and protect it. A housecat.”
Elena looked at Raphael where he stood by the fire for help, but his shoulders were shaking too hard to offer any assistance. “What did you do, kidnap some wild feline’s baby and bring it here?”
The cat yowled up at Naasir, its head turned to expose one very large ear. Pointed and fluffy on the inside, it was not the ear of any known housecat.
“He’s insulted,” Naasir whispered. “Would like me to point out that while he might be a kitten, he would not allow himself to get stolen.”
Elena rocked Nix more because she liked holding him than because he needed it—he was fast asleep.
Meanwhile, the cat that wasn’t a housecat looked at her with an affronted expression.
“Sorry,” she said, unable to believe she was talking to a cat like it understood her—but then again, it was a friend of Naasir’s. “Blame it on surprise.”
Apparently mollified, the cat padded over to put its—enormous—forepaws on the arm of the sofa so it could peer at the babe. Elena held Nix closer to it, because one thing she knew—whatever Naasir had brought them, it wouldn’t harm their child.
The cat sniffed at the baby before dropping down to prowl around the room, including twining through Raphael’s legs.
“Seriously,” Elena hissed under her breath at Naasir, while Andromeda pressed her lips together and tried to look innocent. “Did you talk a feral creature into pretending to be tame?”
He shrugged. “He’s interested in life in a stronghold, and in a Tower, and he likes cubs. One of his forefathers was a friend to my cubs and didn’t eat any of them.”
Elena swore the not-housecat cackled at that.
Sprawling on the sofa beside her, from where he could boop the baby on the nose, Naasir said, “Don’t worry, Ellie. He’ll protect your cub and be his friend. I promise.”
Sighing, Elena gave in to the idea that she’d be living with a not-housecat for the foreseeable future. “What’s his name?”
Naasir looked over and made some very not-human—but very feline—sounds.
Got sounds back.
“He doesn’t have a name you can say,” he said. “But he’s happy to respond to a name you give him.”
Elena narrowed her eyes as the not-housecat jumped up onto the sofa and curled up on her other side. “I think I’ll call you Bengal, then, since you’re pretending to be one.”
This time the not-housecat definitely laughed a huff-huff laugh, while Naasir grinned, his silver eyes bright against the tiger stripes that rippled under the rich dark of his skin.
He’d kept her going for a long, long time about his exact species, but even now that she knew he was a chimera, she preferred to call him a “tiger creature”—that was far more indicative of his personality.
“No more pets,” Raphael said at last, lips curved but in a tone that said he was serious. “Not without checking with us.”
Naasir nodded. “That’s what Andi said when I brought the boys puppies.”
“They were wolf pups!” Andromeda protested.
Raphael turned away to face the fire, his hands braced on the mantle as he struggled not to laugh again.
“Wait,” Elena said, her own lips twitching, “will Bengal be lonely by himself in the city?” He no doubt had family in and around the Refuge—along with a friend in Naasir.
“No. He wants to travel, see the world.” Naasir booped Nix again, who grabbed at his finger with his tiny hands. “He’ll make it clear if he wants to return to the Refuge.”
At this point, Elena wasn’t sure Naasir wasn’t pulling her leg with the sentient cat schtick, but then the cat lifted its head and made a purring sound at her, as if reassuring her it would be fine, and she decided to drop the subject, and instead—after passing the baby to Naasir—began to stroke the not-housecat’s plush fur.
It flicked its tail lazily.