Chapter 9
Maverick
Maybe I was hamming it up a little, peeking out from behind a tree and giving my mate my best curious kitty expression, but the joy of finally having a mate and sharing that mate with Briar had tripped me into full-on playful mode.
Digging my claws into the bark, I stretched, then scampered up the tree to stretch out on a branch and playfully pose for him.
The clicking was almost constant as he swung the lens from me to where Briar was rolling around on his back, waving his paws in the air.
“You two are fuckin’ adorable goofballs, and I know you know it too,” Leo said as he continued taking pictures of us.
I leaned off the edge of my branch, practically dangling, with just my claws to keep me anchored to the trunk, tail dangling as I cocked my head and squeaked out a high-pitched, chirping roar.
I put far too much emphasis on looking ferocious for him and lost my grip, dangled, claws scrabbling for purchase for a moment before I dropped tail first into a bush, sending a puff of snow into the air in the process, while the rest came tumbling down off the branches and onto my head.
Poking my head up, I was met with laughter and the clicking of the camera before Leo turned it around so I could see what I looked like. Snow clung to my ears, the scruffy fur on my cheeks, my whiskers, and even the tip of my nose.
“I am so framing that,” Leo said, still chuckling.
He snapped off a few more pictures as Briar went up on his back paws so he could shake more snow off the bush onto me.
Oh, he wanted to play, did he?
Hunkering down, I hid at the bottom of the bush until he poked his head through the branches and murphed at me, then I launched myself over his head and out of the bush.
Sort of. The bush was a tad too tall, and I failed to generate enough spring in my leap, so I wound up with my back paws springboarding off his back and flattening him into the poor bush in the process, with Leo taking pictures the whole time.
By the time he clawed his way out of the mess, with greenery and snow clinging to the fur around his face and shoulders, I was several feet away, crouched and ready to see what he did in retaliation.
His leopard had always been bigger than mine, even back when we were kids, but mine had always been faster.
I needed every bit of that speed to go bounding and scampering down the trail, only letting him get close enough for me to smack him across the face with my tail, just to keep him chasing me.
Round and round we went, always keeping one eye on Leo to make sure he could keep up with us. On those snowshoes of his, he had no trouble traversing the snowy landscape, especially when we stuck to the trail and refrained from darting off into the forest.
Eventually I zigged instead of zagged, and Briar pounced, his shadow on the snow the only indication I had of him flying in my direction, paws outstretched. Somehow, I managed to turn in time for him to tackle me, which allowed me to flip him over my head and send him rolling into a snowbank.
He came up looking around wildly. I just knew that he expected me to have a sneak attack planned. Instead, I tucked myself behind our mate’s leg and peered out at him from there, trusting Leo to protect me.
When his hand landed on my head and rubbed, I let out a rumbling purr and nuzzled the leg of his jeans.
“Awe, is he picking on you?” Leo asked, kneeling to rub noses with me.
Briar chuffed and flicked snow at us with his tail, then sat and nudged Leo’s shoulder until he got nose rubs too.
It put Leo at the perfect level for me to rub against his shoulder and slink around behind him to rub against his back too.
He smelled positively delicious, like snow and cedar and the beautiful balsam firs and snow pines that surrounded us.
I couldn’t get enough of that scent and shoved my nose behind his ear to sniff deeper, which prompted a yelp from him.
“Dude, your nose is like an icicle,” Leo groaned, but he didn’t move away.
Instead, he took the camera bag off his shoulder and tucked the camera inside, then sat right there in the snow while Briar and I rubbed our scents all over him.
Briar climbed into his lap, purring while I walked around them, rubbing against them both, chuffing and sniffing as I rubbed my cheek against the side of Leo’s head.
“Guess I’m the center of attention now,” Leo muttered as he petted us with gloved fingers.
I’d refrained from mentally communicating with Briar the way we typically did, just in case Leo picked up on it and felt left out. But the scent of him was beginning to cause my lower belly to cramp and ache with need.
Briar? Do you smell that?
You’ll have to be more specific.
Leo, do you smell Leo?
I smell you both, and it smells like you might be going into heat soon and dragging Leo right along with you.
Me? It's him! I think he’s an omega too.
Remember biology class, when they explained that most humans were betas and never experienced the mating pull, but that there were many omegas among the humans, as well as numerous alphas, who might even have latent shifter genes way back in their family tree?
Vaguely, you always paid more attention in class than I did.
Only because you preferred hands-on classes where you learned things with practical applications, while all I cared about was keeping my grades up so I could spend as much time with you in your grandmother’s kitchen as my folks would allow me to.
True. Are you trying to say that you think Leo might have had an ancestor who was a shifter?
I don’t know about that part, but I’m getting super turned on just rubbing against him, and it smells like he’s reacting the same way.
Yeah, I am picking up on some of that from him, but I’m also picking up on something else that I’m not sure is a good thing.
What?
Not sure; I've never smelled it before, but it’s kind of pungent.
Please say it’s not a skunk; the last time we got sprayed, it took forever to get the icky stench out of our fur.
In all fairness, I did try to warn you to turn around after I got sprayed, but oh no, you had to barrel right into it and get sprayed too. I hope it was a real skunk and not a shifted one, or I’d bet we owed it one hell of a therapy bill after the way we scared the shit out of it.
“I get the strangest impression you two are having a whole-ass conversation that I’m not privy to,” Leo said as he wrapped an arm around me and tugged me until I was half on his lap too.
Our mate was super perceptive, so instead of continuing our conversation, I scent-marked just beneath his chin and purred loudly.
“Uh-huh, I’ll take that as a yes,” Leo remarked, gently stroking his hand over the fur on my head and down my back. “I hope you’ll share whatever it was later. I’m not a big fan of being left in the dark.”
"Murph!"
“It’s gonna take me awhile before I’m able to interpret some of the sounds you guys make. You might have to help me out, though. Was that 'murph' a yes or an adorable attempt at distracting me?”
I had to hand it to him; his imitation of me was super cute, even if it didn’t come anywhere close to the sound I’d made.
I murphed again, this time closer to his ear, scent marking more aggressively as my belly tightened again the moment his hand drifted from the small of my back to the base of my tail.
“Hmmm, now it's truly starting to feel like a distraction,” he murmured in my ear. “And I don’t mind the least little bit.”
We need to get moving; whatever that smell is, it’s getting closer.
Chuffing, I slid reluctantly out of Leo’s lap, shook my fur, and did a little sidestep, sniffing to see if I could pick up the scent Briar was referring to, but all I could smell was Leo and the spicy undertone of Briar’s rut scent beginning to creep out the longer he remained in our mate’s lap.
Oh yeah, things were going to get interesting if we didn’t get our tails in gear and put a little cold snow and distance between ourselves and our mate.
“Murrrrrr!”
Briar’s grumble as he moved away was a sure sign that he knew it too.
We led Leo further down the path, picking up on the sound of water crashing against rock, and veered that way.
Not only would it offer him plenty of opportunities to take pictures, but it would provide the perfect backdrop for our picnic too.
“Whoa,” Leo muttered, keeping his voice low.
I loved the soothing tone of his voice and the way he understood that our hearing, especially in this form, was far keener than his and super sensitive.
We circled his legs, then bounded over to a flat, snow-covered rock and scrambled up on it, getting comfortable in the hope of conveying that this would be the perfect spot for our picnic, once he’d gotten his fill of taking pictures.
Ice crusted several sections of the large waterfall, but water still splashed into the pool at the base of it, where other rocks were covered in amazing ice formations, having frozen while some of the water was still in motion.
The crystalline perfection of it was stunning.
Pressed against Briar’s side, I nuzzled his fur and groomed a section that still had pine needles embedded in it.
He purred and turned his head to rub noses with me while Leo moved about with his camera, taking shots from different angles while muttering beneath his breath about the different hues of ice that almost made it look like there were images embedded in them.
He gets as into his work as we do.
Briar’s voice in my head was a mix of awe and admiration.
That’s a good thing, right? That means he won’t get upset with us for working on recipes at three in the morning.
He’ll probably be right there at the kitchen table drawing and taste-testing our efforts to get the recipes right, once we work out our living arrangements, that is.
Do you think he’ll want to live with us?
You don’t think he’ll want to do some kind of long-distance thing, do you?
I think that would suck. I’m already growing attached to him, and it’s only been a day.
What happens if he decides on long distance and then meets a human that he likes better than us?
We’d lose our mate. I don’t want to lose our mate when we’ve only just found him.
Mav, breathe. You’re getting spun out again, and I’m starting to think it’s because your hormones have been going crazy ever since you caught the first whiff of him.
Shit, I’d forgotten that lesson from biology class.
Maybe I hadn’t been paying as close attention as Briar thought I had.
I recalled it now that his words had a chance to sink in.
It was on multiple mates in a household, and the way omegas in a home together tended to sync up their heat cycles, ensuring that batches of younglings born to them would be close in age.
Shit. That was a hell of a thing to forget.
I’d gotten so spun out I hadn’t even noticed that he’d finished taking pictures, not until he brushed off a spot on the rock beside ours, sat down, and started studying us.
“It’s weird, but I was just hit with the sudden impression that you guys were worried about something,” he said as he leaned in and rubbed noses with each of us, staring us in the eyes as he did it.
“I really think we need to have a conversation when we get back to the cabin to make sure we’re on the same page about this whole mate thing and get a bunch of questions out in the open, ‘cause I’ve got more than a few, and I’m sure you do too.
I’ve loved watching you guys romp and enjoy the snow today, but next time we come out exploring, I hope you’ll do it in skin so we can interact more.
Please don’t take that wrong; I don’t ever want you guys to feel like you can’t be shifted when we’re together ‘cause I’d be super sad to ever learn that I’d made you feel that way. ”
Leaning in, I placed my head on his shoulder, wanting to reassure him that I understood where he was coming from and his need to be able to talk to us the way Briar and I were naturally able to do with one another when we were in our snow leopard forms. He was right, though.
There was a ton of talking that needed to take place and questions we had too.
“Thank you,” he replied, hugging me tight.
Briar got one paw on my shoulder and another on Leo’s, joining in the hug. If another human had happened upon us, they’d have probably mistaken the moment and confused it for an attack, with the way he was teetering, like we were about to topple him over.
Then my stomach growled, and I let out a grumble and a huff as Leo chuckled.
“Guess we’d better get you guys fed, huh?”
I licked his face in response and scooted back on the rock I was sharing with Briar to give Leo room to unpack the picnic he’d tucked in his backpack along with the rest of his things.
I really expected him to just unwrap the wax paper Briar had rolled each sandwich in and lay it on the rock in front of us.
Instead, he fed us by hand, breaking off bite-sized pieces of our lobster rolls for us in between taking bites of his.
“I can get used to picnics like this,” he remarked. “Usually, I’m off in the woods on my own, since most of my friends don’t really enjoy being outside, unless it’s on a patio or poolside with a drink in their hands.”
He’d never have to worry about that with us; we loved being outdoors, for obvious reasons, though it would be a bit of an adjustment for us, doing it in human form.
We’d figure it out though; we’d have to now that we had Leo in our lives, because the last thing either of us wanted to do was lose him.