Chapter 15 #2
“Keep it to yourself.” Luca warned Tavian, though the amusement in his own face told me he knew exactly what the other man had noticed.
“Keep what to himself?” I turned toward Luca, catching Malek taking another quiet breath beside him.
Then I understood. It was my scent.
Even through the blockers, something sweeter had slipped beneath the usual muted honey and jasmine, apparently encouraged by how relieved I was to find all three of them exactly where they said they would be.
Their noses were better than mine. They knew what the change meant, and judging from Tavian’s expression, they also knew I had figured it out.
Great. So much for keeping that reaction to myself.
“Whatever thought is happening behind that smile can stay there.” I pointed toward Tavian before he had a chance to share it with the group.
“I haven’t said a word.” Tavian lifted his hands away from his sides, amusement still written all over him.
“Your face is doing enough.” I passed Tavian and started down the narrower trail toward the creek, adjusting the camera at my hip.
“That feels like a difficult standard.” Tavian fell into step beside me, his voice still carrying laughter.
“You’ll manage.” I glanced at him long enough to see his smile widen before returning my attention to the path. Luca laughed softly behind us. Malek said nothing, but when I looked back, he was watching Tavian with the long-suffering patience of someone who had been dealing with him for years.
“I did come out here to work, by the way.” I tapped two fingers against the camera as we reached the creek trail.
“I remember.” Tavian moved several feet away without being asked, his teasing easing enough to show he was taking me seriously. The quick adjustment surprised me.
“Don’t look so shocked. He can follow directions when he wants to.” Malek stepped past me, dry amusement briefly softening his voice as he checked the vegetation ahead.
“Why does everyone talk about me like I’m difficult?” Tavian called after Malek, genuinely sounding as though the answer remained a mystery.
“Experience.” Luca supplied from behind me, barely hiding a smile when Tavian turned an offended stare on him.
I laughed and kept walking. We followed the creek south, moving slowly enough that I could stop whenever the canopy opened or something shifted between the trees.
Having them in human form changed the entire rhythm of the outing.
As leopards, they had blended into the forest so easily that I could forget they were nearby until a spotted head appeared from the vegetation.
Three men were considerably harder to ignore, especially now that I knew their attention toward me hadn’t been entirely platonic.
Tavian kept drifting closer before catching himself and giving me room. Luca seemed to understand what I needed without much instruction, positioning himself where his shadow wouldn’t fall across whatever I was watching. Malek ranged ahead with the same quiet vigilance he’d shown as Cat.
That created the first problem.
“Malek, come back a little. You’re getting too far ahead.” I kept my voice low and lifted one hand, my attention fixed on movement in a cluster of branches farther along the creek.
Malek stopped and retraced several steps.
“I’m not disturbing anything.” Malek lowered his voice to match mine, glancing toward the vegetation he had just passed.
“You don’t have to touch anything. You’re still a large predator walking directly toward everything I’m trying to photograph.” I crouched beside a broad buttress root and adjusted my settings.
A strangled sound came from behind me. I turned enough to catch Tavian pressing his lips together.
“Whatever it is, save it.” I warned Tavian before returning my eye to the viewfinder.
“I’m behaving.” Tavian backed against a nearby tree, his shoulders shaking once with the effort of not laughing.
“Barely.” Luca crouched several feet to my right, his attention moving between Tavian and the branches I was watching.
A small troop of capuchins worked their way through the lower canopy, mostly hidden behind leaves.
One female carried an infant tight against her chest while a younger monkey hung from a branch and stared down at us.
You brought the spotted ones back wrong. The young capuchin leaned farther over the branch, clearly studying the men behind me.
I nearly lowered the camera.
“They aren’t wrong.” I whispered toward the capuchin while keeping the viewfinder against my eye.
No spots. Too tall. The capuchin scratched beneath one arm, unimpressed by my explanation. My shoulders shook with a laugh I managed to keep quiet.
“What’s he saying?” Tavian whispered from behind me, curiosity apparently stronger than his commitment to silence.
“He liked you better with spots.” I kept tracking the female carrying the infant.
A pause followed.
“That is insulting.” Tavian kept his voice low, but the offense in it was unmistakable.
This one talks too much either way. The capuchin bounded onto another branch and peered down at Tavian. A laugh escaped again before I could stop it.
“He said something else.” Tavian shifted behind me, immediately suspicious.
“I’m not translating that one.” I took another short burst of photographs as the troop crossed an opening in the leaves.
“Which means it was definitely about me.” Tavian muttered, but he stayed exactly where I needed him.
The monkeys moved farther down the creek, and I followed for another ten minutes before the vegetation grew too thick to keep a clear line of sight.
When I finally lowered my camera, Luca was watching me rather than the canopy.
“What?” I checked the last few images on the screen before lifting my eyes to him.
“You get very still when you work.” Luca stepped closer but stopped far enough away that he wasn’t crowding the camera.
“I’m trying not to frighten my subjects.” I enlarged one photograph of the infant and checked the focus around its face.
“It’s more than that.” Luca rested one hand against the broad root beside me, thinking for a moment. “You’re patient with them.”
“You have to be.” I scrolled to the next frame. “Wildlife doesn’t care that I have a schedule.”
“You don’t chase the shot either.” Malek stayed a few feet behind me, where he had apparently decided he was less likely to accidentally clear the trail. “You wait until the animal gives you an opening.”
I looked up from the camera.
“You’ve been paying that much attention?” I asked Malek, unable to keep a little surprise from my voice.
“Yes.” Malek met my eyes without hesitation, as though the answer should have been obvious. I dropped my attention back to the camera before my face gave away how much I liked that answer.
One of the questions I had been carrying since yesterday surfaced while I checked another photograph. They had explained what they were and how shifting worked in the broad sense, but actually being around them in human form made me notice details I hadn’t thought to ask about in the ruins.
“You said yesterday that both forms are natural for you. Does it actually feel different when you’re shifted?” I lowered the camera against my chest and looked between the three men.
“In some ways.” Luca settled onto the exposed root nearby, resting his forearms loosely against his knees. “My thoughts are still mine, but the body changes what gets my attention first.”
“My sense of smell gets much stronger.” Tavian crouched near the creek and trailed his fingers through the water before flicking the droplets away.
“That explains several things.” I gave Tavian a pointed look, remembering every time his nose had gotten him into my personal space.
Tavian only smiled.
“Hearing too.” Malek leaned one shoulder against a tree, his attention flicking briefly toward a sound deeper in the forest. “We hear movement farther away. Smaller things. It’s easier to track where something is without seeing it.”
“So all those times you suddenly stared into the trees while I heard absolutely nothing, there really was something there.” I thought back to Cat going completely still beside the creek.
“Usually. Sometimes I was watching you.” Malek’s mouth moved at one corner, his gaze settling deliberately on me.
I stared at him.
“That one was less impressive.” I told Malek, though the heat creeping into my face ruined any attempt at sounding unaffected.
“It wasn’t meant to be impressive.” Malek stayed perfectly calm, which somehow made the answer worse. Tavian made a quiet noise that sounded suspiciously like he had swallowed a laugh. I redirected the conversation before he could help.
“Does shifting hurt?” I asked Luca, thinking about the transformations I had watched the day before.
“No. Not normally.” Luca rubbed a thumb over one callused palm while he considered the question. “If we’re badly injured, shifting can be uncomfortable because the injury changes with the body, but the shift itself shouldn’t hurt.”
“So injuries carry over.” I looked toward Malek’s side, remembering the healing wound I had recognized immediately after his first human transformation.
“They do.” Luca followed my attention toward Malek. “Changing shape doesn’t make the damage disappear.”
“We heal faster than humans, but not enough to ignore a bad injury.” Malek touched the side that had once been caught in the wire, his expression briefly sobering.
“Which means you really did need those bandages.” I pointed at Malek, satisfaction creeping into my voice.
“I never said I didn’t.” Malek lowered his hand, already knowing exactly where this was going.
“You complained about almost everything I did.” I reminded Malek, remembering several long afternoons beside the roots.
“I complained about the smell of the antiseptic.” Malek corrected me with maddening calm.
“You complained about resting too.” I folded my arms.
“I rested.” Malek countered, although the slight movement at the corner of his mouth gave away his amusement.