Chapter 8
“Okay, this place is amazing,” Sunny said as she and Seneca walked into the marketplace with all the amazing little shops and the cafeteria.
She’d never seen anything like it.
“We’re really underground,” she said, aware she sounded like a yokel visiting the big city. But the marketplace, as it was colloquially known, was impressive.
“Yep,” Seneca said with a chuckle. “Let me introduce you around. If you need anything, it’s all free of charge too. Then we’ll grab breakfast and an iced coffee.”
“Yum.”
They started at the counter for the food, where Jeanie, a human mated to alpha wolf Joss who Sunny had met when they arrived at the park, greeted her warmly.
Seneca explained that while the bears handled the food for the park, there were others who worked alongside them, like Jeanie as well as several females who ran a candy shop topside.
“We also deliver food to the various private living areas,” Jeanie said with a smile. “You just have to call us here at the market and order whatever you need.”
“That’s so nice,” Sunny said.
“It’s what we do for our people.”
After saying goodbye to the alpha female and promising to be back after the tour for breakfast, Sunny met Dani, who was mated to a gorilla named Neo. Dani gave her a gift bag of toiletries that she’d put together when she heard that Seneca had found his soulmate.
“This is so sweet, thank you,” Sunny said.
She met Adrianna, who was mated to gorilla Zane, and Celeste, who was mated to Jupiter, at the nail salon, and they offered to include her in the weekly get-together of the female soulmates in the park.
After meeting Anke and Zeger, who ran the store that had everything from cell phones to clothes, she and Seneca walked back to the cafeteria and ordered breakfast. When she asked Jeanie if she could have extra caramel in her iced coffee, Jeanie had smiled with a nod and said she’d call when their orders were ready.
“This is amazing,” she said as they sat at a table. She looked around. “Everyone acts like no matter the shift—or even if people can shift or not—they’re all welcome here.”
“The park is special,” Seneca said. “I’ve always thought it would be smart if other shifter groups realized that there’s safety in numbers, but many—probably most—prefer to keep to themselves and will actively shun or drive away other groups.”
They ate overstuffed omelets and sourdough toast, and she had the best caramel iced coffee she’d ever had.
And she got to know Seneca a little better.
Plus, she’d seen him naked, and he’d rocked her world.
Her neck still tingled where he’d given her a love bite. She wanted more.
She wanted him to really mark her.
Her tigress let out a soft purr and it made more than just her neck tingle. She looked down at her hands, where her nails had changed to the claws of a tiger when she’d been in the throes of passion.
“You thinking about earlier?” he asked with a low voice.
Her cheeks flamed, and he chuckled in that low, knowing way.
“You mean my tigress?”
“Yeah. But we could totally talk about a play-by-play, repeat performance? For fun and educational purposes?”
With a giggle that turned into a snort, she reached for his hand and linked their fingers.
“I was thinking about when you bit me and then I was thinking about the claws. That’s the first time I’ve had something like that happen before.
Being with you has made my tigress really come out.
” She paused, but didn’t finish her thought.
“I don’t know if you’ll ever shift, sweetheart, if that’s what you’re thinking about.”
“Yeah.”
“I suspect you would have shifted by now if you were going to, but maybe us finding each other has made the part of you that’s a tiger more pronounced. I’ve never heard of a latent tiger like yourself shifting in their twenties.”
“I’m not getting my hopes up,” she said. “But I am a little worried about not being able to control things. Like what if my eyes turn color in front of a human?”
He hummed in thought. “Maybe it’s only when you get very emotional.” He lowered his voice and raised a brow. “Or very turned-on.”
She rolled her eyes and chuckled.
“I’ll be with you no matter what,” he said. “If you start to get emotional and we’re out in the park, I’ll find a place where you won’t be seen. I don’t want you to worry. I’ve got you.”
Oh man.
He was very good at being a mate.
She was one lucky female.
“I think,” she said, pushing back in the chair and standing, “that we should go back to the house. So we can talk about that repeat performance.”
“You read my mind.”
* * *
After a tumble in the sheets and another world-rocking that left her whole body tingling and her tigress purring like a truck, they pillow-talked until they came down from orbit, then dressed and headed topside to walk around the park.
It was nearly noon and the sunshine made her squint, so she shielded her eyes until she grew accustomed to it.
He'd given her a park employee shirt to wear so they both matched and no one would find it suspicious that she was walking around with him. They started the tour at the safari, walking along the dirt path that the vehicles would follow going from one paddock to the next. Each shifter group had a paddock, and since the tours were starting soon, each space was filled with animals that humans didn’t know were shifters.
They stopped at the paddock with the normal, non-shifting animals and he pointed out Tank, the grumpy moose, who was the park’s unofficial mascot.
“Did you ever work on the tour?” she asked, wrapping her hands around the iron gate and watching the animals.
“No. I’m all about food, burgers in particular.” He leaned against the gate and smiled at her. “Speaking of burgers…”
“You’re hungry?”
“Yes, but also, I was wondering if you’d like to help me out with the burger stall? I need to talk to my dad since he’s in charge of the food for the park, but it is fairly normal for couples to work together if they’re inclined.”
“I’m not great on the grill. It’s either raw or overcooked. By a lot.”
“I can teach you. You’ll be an expert in no time.”
“I can definitely help with the prep, and I’d really love to work with you if it’s okay with your dad.”
“I’m sure it will be. It’ll be fun, plus it’ll give us a chance to really get to know each other.”
When he smiled at her, she got all jelly-kneed and her stomach flipped.
Her tigress was in heaven.
They watched the norms for a little while longer and then continued down the path, waving at the shifters before they backtracked and walked into the park.
At the petting zoo, she fed a little goat named Jonas, who tried to eat her shoelaces. At the aviary, she got to help feed the birds that were being cared for by Auden and his mate Jess, an owl shifter, and she got to meet Maggie, a human mated to the elephant alpha.
As they wound their way around the park, they stopped at the carousel, which was run by Ginny, a hyena shifter who was mated to a gorilla named August.
Sunny leaned against the red-painted railing and watched the slowly spinning horses, mesmerized by the way the sunlight played off the enamel.
After a few quiet moments, she said, “A carousel is the last big memory I have of my parents. I have a ton of little memories of our last days together, but a few days before they died, we went to a local carnival and my dad let me ride the carousel as many times as I wanted. Just riding and laughing, and I felt so free. There was even a tiger carousel animal, which I thought was so cool, all painted orange and black with a saddle like a horse and jaws wide with gleaming fangs.” She shook her head with a smile.
“I ate so much cotton candy and slushies that I barfed on the way home. But I had a ball.”
Seneca put his arm around her with a laugh. “Sounds like an amazing day. I’m glad you have sweet memories with them.”
She looked up at him. “Tell me something about your mom.”
He hummed. “Well, she was an amazing cook. I learned how to cook helping her. She was an all-hands-on-deck sort of female, where me and Dad had to be in the kitchen helping. One time, we made blueberry muffins for a female who’d just had a baby and forgot to put in the baking powder. They were like hockey pucks.”
He’d loved watching his mom cook, and he’d loved watching her and his dad together in the kitchen. He’d always felt so loved in that house. When she died, the house hadn’t felt the same.
“I feel like you’re giving me back a home,” he said softly.
She turned to face him. “What do you mean?”
“I never really felt at home, not after she died. But having you in the house this morning? It feels like home, really like home for the first time.”
She hugged him tightly with a soft purr that she knew only he’d be able to hear. “I totally feel the same way, Seneca. You’re home for me too.”