Lynx #3
And eventually, after we made it around the bend and the pen came into view, I lost sight of everything, including my own personality, and raced through the snow to it like a little girl would race to Princess Lyra’s palace at Culpepper’s Land of Wonder.
There were trees. There were small shelters. There was even a bloodstain in the snow, perhaps from an earlier feeding, or an unsuspecting prey entered the pen. And the space was large.
But four adorable white and black-spotted lynx kits were trundling my way.
“Oh my gods,” I breathed before…yes, me…Catla Truelock of the Nocturn Truelocks…climbed that damned fence and jumped to the other side.
I sat in the snow and the kits attacked me.
I started giggling as I fussed and petted.
I felt Tanyn’s presence join me (not to mention, Hurley was there, nosing some of the kits).
“Do they have names? Are they going to be this sweet, like Avie, because they were born in captivity? What do they eat? Where is their mom?” I rattled off.
“Catla.”
At the uber-strange tone of his voice, I looked up to see him looming over me.
And his eyes were again black, that firestorm of red lightning flaring through them, and those eyes were locked on me.
“Should I…not…be doing this?” I asked haltingly in the face of that look.
“Their mother is dead. They were sent here to be nursed by an injured female who’d lost her kits to a predator but still had her milk.”
“Okay,” I said softly, because that storm in his eyes hadn’t abated.
“Get up,” he ordered tersely.
Disengaging with the still playing kits, I took my feet.
I barely got them under me when he had my head in a firm grip between his gloved hands and his face was in my face.
“Tanyn,” I whispered, struck by his look, our proximity, his hold.
“I’ve never heard you laugh before.”
Uh-oh.
“Tanyn,” I whispered again.
“It’s beautiful.”
Oh gods.
“You’re beautiful,” he continued.
Gods!
“I’m so bloody happy you ordered those boots, because I would never have been able to come here if you hadn’t come with me.”
Shit!
He was going to make me cry.
Regrettably, he wasn’t done.
“This was her place. Her project. Her passion. She’d glide up here several times a day, to feed, change dressings, check on the cats and play with the kits.
She was studying to be a veterinarian, intending to specialize in wildlife, when she met my father.
She was at her happiest either when she was with me or when she was up here, with them. ”
I rested my hands on his chest because I couldn’t stop myself.
I had to.
“When Manny found her, there were three lynx circling her. They’d sensed her distress and were taking care of her as best they could. She was gone. To them, she could be easy food. But because she was who she was to them, she was not.”
Yup.
I was going to cry.
And I started to do that, the scarlet tears freezing the instant they hit my cheeks.
His head dropped so his forehead rested on mine, and he grunted, “Don’t.”
“I hate you lost her,” I whispered.
“I do too.”
“I wish I could have met her.”
“I do too.”
I wanted to kiss him. I wanted to wrap my arms around him.
I didn’t do either, because he lifted his head from mine, dropped his hands, stepped away, and said, “Now, I have the memory of Catla Truelock climbing a fence in her zeal to get to some kittens, and giggling as they toddled all over her.”
I frowned.
“I wish I’d pulled out my Palm and vidded that shit,” he continued.
My frown deepened.
“It was fucking adorable,” he finished.
“Stop speaking,” I demanded.
A new smile hit his face, this one arrogant.
“We found something new you like to do outside,” he stated. “When I do the renovations, should I set up a bar out here so you can mix yourself a cocktail and enjoy it while you play with the kits?”
“You’re still speaking,” I warned.
He kept grinning, and this time, when he approached, he threw his arm around my shoulders and turned me to the pen.
“Right, let’s introduce you to all the rest.”
For the next half an hour, I kept frowning.
But it was all for show.
The setup they had was impressive (there was even a medical building where Tanyn told me visiting vets would check on the recuperating or pregnant animals, inject vaccinations or do what they needed to do if there were any new injuries).
The adult lynx were gorgeous. And the kits, Avie and Hurley followed us everywhere we went.
Best of all, Tanyn seemed very un-Tanyn the whole time we were there.
There was nothing broody or blank about him.
I wouldn’t say he was animated, per se.
I would say he was in his place. Settled. Comfortable. Familiar.
He wasn’t overtly happy, like he didn’t bowl me over with a bevy of smiles, but he was most assuredly content.
And I was drawn even closer to him.
We were out there a long time.
By the time Avie crept off into the trees, Tanyn secured the gate to the pen, and we made our way back to the SnowSprint, this far north, even if it was still early, dusk was beginning to fall.
And the whole ride back, pressed close to Tanyn’s back, my face now completely numb with cold, I was quiet and withdrawn.
Because now I knew I hadn’t only screwed myself.
I was in trouble.
Serious trouble.
And I knew that because I understood it.
But now I wasn’t sure I wanted to find my way out.