Lynx #2
I struggled to get a lock on it, and succeeded, mostly because I felt better having let some of it go, and asked, “Did you need me for something?”
“Well, I picked the short straw on this, but I’m sensing now I actually didn’t, when I share that I came to ask if you’d be…careful with Tanyn when you go visit the lynx.”
I comprehended this request immediately, and as such, nodded equally immediately.
And my tone was most modulated when I queried, “Has he been back since…?”
He shook his head sadly. “No.”
It was careful when I inquired, “Was it you who found…?”
I couldn’t finish.
He comprehended me and nodded his head, now mournfully. “Yes.”
“I’m so sorry, Mangold.”
“And yes. Agreed. This is a family home. So please call me Manny.”
“Manny,” I mumbled, once again feeling that weird feeling that I supposed was shy.
“She was an extraordinary woman,” Manny stated.
“I’m scared to ask him too much about her,” I admitted.
His features softened. “This is understandable too. Zyr and I have been equally cautious. He was undone when we commed with the news.”
He shook his head again, and his gaze drifted to the windows before he continued speaking.
“He’d always been such a winsome, animated lad.
Every day was a new opportunity. A new adventure.
” He came back to me. “Sometimes, Zyr and I wondered if it was a show to make Darynda feel better about the circumstances. But in the end, we don’t believe it was.
This”—he held both hands up at his sides—“was all he ever knew. He loved being out, fishing, trekking. He could happily pour over a thousand-piece puzzle for hours. He didn’t care that his only friends were canines, because he didn’t know what having a friend was.
Even when he went to the academy, since his life was so physical here and he’d learned to entertain himself, and learn quickly with few distractions, he excelled.
We were surprised he made friends, but not surprised that his group was few, though close. But when she passed…”
I watched how difficult it was for him to swallow, and my heart lurched.
“All that used to be him just drained out of him,” he finished.
“I thought it was his father passing and Arnaud succeeding.”
His shoulders straightened. “Make no mistake, Darynda raised a king. Although she knew Riland intended to try to circumvent succession, his whole life, Tanyn was in no doubt that his mother expected him to assume the throne, and she trained him to do so. So, yes, when Riland died and Arnaud became king, Tanyn assumed a certain determination to right that wrong. But how he is now, so austere, that was never our Tanyn.”
Our Tanyn.
He’d told me they’d been here around thirty years.
Tanyn, I knew, was thirty-six.
Mangold had known him, probably, his entire life.
Oh yes.
This was a family.
“I’ll keep an eye on him when we’re with the lynx,” I promised.
“Thank you, Catla.” He tipped his head to the side, and a small smile hit his lips. “Now, is there anything you need?”
I shook my own head.
“Would you like me to set you up with the screen while Tanyn sees to whatever business he’s seeing to? It’s old, and doesn’t respond to voice commands, but a remote.”
How interesting.
I couldn’t concentrate on anything on screen, but I wanted to see this remote business.
So I said, “That’d be great.”
We went to the family room.
Mangold showed me how to use the remote.
He left and I fiddled with it, not watching anything, just changing channels, adjusting volume, forwarding and rewinding.
After a while, I heard a Heli-Craft approaching.
My boots.
Excellent.
It was time to play with the kits.
This.
Was not.
Okay.
Sure, I was astride the SnowSprint, my front plastered to Tanyn’s back, my arms cinched tight around his trim waist, Hurley joyfully chomping at the air, sitting in a basket behind us.
And all that was lovely.
But we were speeding along the landscape on a snow version of a moto-bike, open to the elements.
So even in my cute creamy knit cap, my shiny-cream puffy parka, my thick cinnamon-colored jeans, wool-lined cream suede snow mittens and adorable new boots, I was freezing my complete ass off.
No, it was my cheeks, and not my ass cheeks. The cheeks on my face (along with my nose…and lips) felt like they’d never dethaw.
And we were going very fast, the wind whipping at us in every direction.
All right, I’d admit, the fast part was a rush.
It was the cold part that sucked.
And the snow that was thrown up by the wind, hitting my face like a million different pin pricks and coating my fabulous, mirrored ski shades with wet…
No.
I didn’t know where this lynx pen was, but it wasn’t close to the citadel, that was for sure.
No wonder his mother couldn’t make it back with a broken ankle.
Suddenly, Tanyn slowed, then stopped, and I looked around and saw nothing but snow, snow-capped trees, also snow-capped mountains.
No pen.
Hurley barked.
“Just a sec,” Tanyn said, prying my arms loose from his waist. I swung back as he swung off and ordered, “Stay here.”
Wait.
Was there some threat?
If so, where were the stupid Grenadiers?
I stilled as I saw a flurry of motion in the not-so-distance get closer.
Closer.
And closer!
Hurley, staying put for some unhinged reason, barked again.
“Tanyn,” I called urgently.
He did not jump on the SnowSprint and take off to get us to safety.
He crouched.
And the creature hit Tanyn full bore in the chest, taking him to his back in the snow.
I stood, still straddling the Sprint, and cried, “Tanyn!”
They were wrestling, snow churning all around, and Hurley wasn’t moving to intervene, for some ungodsly reason.
Was it going to have to be me who saved King Tanyn from certain death at the claws of a snow lynx?
It was then I was certain I couldn’t believe my ears because I heard loud…
Purring.
And it was then, on his back, his arms around the beast, my body emotionally froze (rather than temperature froze), because right there, in front of me, Tanyn Firefierce was smiling, beautifully, broadly and carefree.
He took his feet, taking the lynx with him, and held the beast on his hip with its limbs dangling across Tanyn’s front and back, like it was a toddler.
If that wasn’t adorable enough, Tanyn was covered in snow, from his dark hair to his booted feet, and he didn’t seem to care.
“Catla, I want you to meet Avie,” he introduced me to the creature like it was actually a toddler. “Short for Avalanche,” he went on. “One of our rescues.”
I saw nothing damaged on this gorgeous, furry thing with its white pelt with black spots, golden eyes, with those tufts of black fur spiking from the tips of his ears and the biggest, fluffiest paws I’d ever seen.
I loved him on eye contact.
“How much does he weigh?” I asked.
“Just under twenty-five pounds.”
Carefully, I alighted the SnowSprint. “He looks like he could sleep in bed with us.”
Tanyn hefted him up higher on his hip, and the furry baby started purring again.
“He probably would. Alternatively, he’d eat our toes.”
Gingerly, I offered a gloved hand for Avalanche to sniff.
He did not.
He dismissed me and rubbed his face against Tanyn’s shoulder and neck.
With his free hand, Tanyn dug his fingers into the fur at the creature’s ruff and started scratching.
The purring got louder.
“He loves you,” I whispered.
“I nursed him from an injured kit,” he replied.
“I thought you said they were mostly wild.”
“The others are. Or most of them. If they come to us as kits, they’re like this.”
“There are more you wrestle in the snow with and hold like they’re your children?”
That smile came back, huge, free and cheerful.
It hit me so hard, I nearly went back on a boot in the snow.
“Yes,” he answered.
“There doesn’t look to be anything wrong with him,” I noted.
Tanyn put him down, and only then did Hurley jump out of his basket so the two animals could sniff each other, then pounce and play, sending out great swells of snow all around them in their tussle.
“Kits with significant injuries that take significant time to heal, by the time they’ve healed, they’re more tame than wild.
There’s nothing wrong with him. He was fully restored.
But he’d come to depend too much on beings.
He can hunt. He can defend himself. But he comes to the pen often, and even to the citadel for company when beings are around, or for a juicy steak he doesn’t have to bother with killing. ”
Avalanche had tired of the tussle and was now slithering between Tanyn’s ankles.
Oh, Lilith, I needed to quit watching.
Pronto.
“Where’s this pen?” I asked Tanyn.
“About a hundred yards, around that bend. Can you walk it?”
Hmm.
Sit on a SnowSprint with thousands of tiny daggers of snow assaulting my face or walk a hundred yards in the freezing cold to see more cuties like the one at Tanyn’s feet?
“I can walk.”
Another smile hit Tanyn’s face, it wasn’t as big, or as free, but it was still damned pretty.
He threw out an arm for me to get going, and I was bummed he didn’t toss it around my shoulders when we started walking side by side.
Or take my hand.
But he didn’t.