Chapter 7 #3
“Still holding?” Luca asked me, stepping closer as he ran careful fingers around the healing scar with the same practiced attention he'd given it every day since the trap.
“Evie checked it two hours ago,” I told Luca, pulling my shirt over one shoulder while I let him examine the scar anyway.
“Evie checks it because she thinks you're still recovering. I check it because I know what happens when you decide you're healed three days before everyone else agrees,” Luca replied, glancing up at me while his thumb pressed carefully beside the wound.
“I rested,” I told Luca, although the defense sounded questionable even to me as I pulled the shirt down over my waist. Tavian laughed as he dragged his own shirt over his head, leaving his hair considerably worse than it had been before.
“You rearranged your patrol schedule so you could lie under a tree every afternoon while an Omega brought you chicken. I've never seen you commit this thoroughly to recovery,” Tavian told me, leaning against a moss-covered stone with his arms folded while a wide grin spread across his face.
“Keep talking and you're carrying the next boar home alone,” I warned Tavian, smoothing the shirt carefully over my side.
“Still worth it,” Tavian told me, settling more comfortably against the stone without showing the slightest concern about the threat. Luca finished his inspection and stepped back, but his eyes remained on me.
“You don't need the creek anymore,” Luca said, crossing his arms loosely while water trickled over stone behind him. The words were casual, although the question he'd politely avoided asking all week was obvious beneath them.
“No, I don't,” I told Luca, meeting his gaze.
Tavian's grin faded. Not because the answer surprised him. Because I'd finally admitted it aloud.
“Oh,” Tavian said, pushing away from the stone as his expression changed. “We're finally talking about her.”
“You knew that when I asked you both to come,” I told Tavian, crouching beside the ledge to retrieve the water we'd stored there.
“I hoped,” Tavian replied, watching me take a drink before he shoved his hands into the pockets of his trousers. “There was still a possibility you planned to stand around looking serious until Luca and I somehow guessed the rest.”
“He does expect that sometimes,” Luca told Tavian, retightening the tie at the nape of his hair while one corner of his mouth lifted.
“I do not,” I told Luca, replacing the water beneath the ledge before leaning back against the cool stone.
Both men looked at me. I chose not to continue that argument.
“Her name is Evelyn Halden. Evie,” I told my packmates, and whatever teasing remained in their faces eased enough for me to continue.
Luca repeated the shortened name under his breath before his eyes returned to mine.
“Evie,” Luca said, watching me with quiet interest as though that detail had confirmed something.
“Yes,” I told Luca, already knowing what he'd noticed. Tavian caught it a second later.
“You know her nickname,” Tavian told me, rubbing one hand along his jaw while another grin threatened to appear. “And she calls you Cat. This relationship seems very balanced.”
“She's twenty-eight, a wildlife photographer, and she's been doing it professionally for almost nine years,” I told Tavian, ignoring the comment while I folded my arms. “She's at the research station temporarily for an assignment.”
“Unbonded?” Luca asked me, leaning one shoulder against the stone as his focus shifted toward the information itself.
“Yes. She's on blockers too,” I told Luca, watching recognition pass between both men.
“That part we'd worked out,” Tavian said, his voice losing some of its humor as he remembered the traces he'd been smelling for days. “They're strong. I can barely separate her natural scent from whatever you carry back.”
“They're meant for human noses,” I explained to Tavian, glancing toward the spring. “Ours are harder to fool.”
Luca's mouth twitched.
“Especially when she spends half the night sleeping against you,” Luca remarked, delivering the observation so calmly that Tavian's head snapped toward him.
“She slept with you?” Tavian asked me, pushing away from the rock so quickly that leaves shifted beneath his bare feet.
“Beside me,” I corrected Tavian, fixing him with a stare while his eyebrows climbed.
“That's what I meant,” Tavian replied, lifting both hands even though his grin made the lie obvious.
“It wasn't,” I told Tavian, while Luca's quiet laugh disappeared beneath the sound of the spring.
“She chose to stay beside you?” Luca asked me, the humor fading from his face as he shifted his attention back toward me.
“There was a storm. Going back would've been unsafe, so she stayed beneath the roots,” I explained to Luca, remembering Evie's body gradually relaxing beside mine while rain hammered through the canopy outside our shelter.
“With what she believes is a wild leopard,” Luca said, rubbing his thumb over one of the old scars crossing his palm.
“She trusts you,” Tavian said, his voice losing the teasing edge for once as he watched me.
“Yes, she does,” I told Tavian, unable to keep some of the satisfaction from my answer. Luca studied me for another moment.
“How much does she know?” Luca asked me, straightening away from the stone as his thoughts moved toward the obvious problem.
“Almost nothing about us. She thinks I'm an ordinary leopard,” I told Luca before reconsidering the description. “An ordinary leopard she can talk to because, apparently, she can understand animals.”
Tavian stared at me.
“She can what?” Tavian asked, taking a step forward as disbelief spread across his face.
“She understands animals. All of them, as far as I can tell,” I repeated to Tavian while Luca's brow furrowed.
“Why?” Tavian asked me, glancing toward Luca as though he might have somehow learned the answer while standing there.
“I don't know. She gave me a vague answer involving a strange animal and said it was a long story,” I told Tavian, remembering the way Evie had smoothly redirected the conversation afterward.
“And you just let that go?” Tavian asked me, staring as though my lack of interrogation might be stranger than her ability.
“She didn't want to talk about it,” I told Tavian, lifting one shoulder. Tavian slowly turned toward Luca.
“He voluntarily stopped asking questions,” Tavian told Luca, lowering his voice with exaggerated concern as if reporting a troubling symptom.
“I heard him,” Luca replied, his eyes briefly meeting mine while amusement tugged at his mouth.
“I had something else on my mind,” I told both of them, and the change in my voice pulled Tavian away from the joke.
They waited.
“I want to court her,” I told my packmates.
Neither man looked surprised. Tavian gave a slow nod and rocked once onto his heels, while Luca's shoulders loosened as though I'd finally confirmed something he'd already accepted.
“You decided that days ago,” Luca said, studying me from beside the spring.
“Yes,” I told Luca, pushing away from the stone. “I wanted to be certain before I involved either of you.”
Tavian snorted.
“You've been coming home smelling like her for nearly a week, rearranging patrols, and apparently sleeping beside her during storms,” Tavian told me, counting the offenses on his fingers. “I think we were involved the moment you started making us pretend not to notice.”
“You were curious,” I told Tavian, giving him a flat stare.
“I remain extremely curious,” Tavian replied, dropping his hand with absolutely no shame. Luca shook his head, but there was a faint smile on his face.
“You want us to meet her,” Luca said, looking toward me as he understood where the conversation was going.
“Yes,” I told Luca. The three of us had built our lives together years before Evie entered the rainforest. We shared the temple, the territory, the work required to maintain both, and nearly every decision large enough to affect our future.
The possibility that we'd eventually court one Omega together had always been part of that future, just as it was for many established leopard packs.
There were practical advantages, particularly in a territory like ours.
Patrols could take one Alpha away for days, meetings with neighboring communities sometimes required another to travel.
An Omega's heat didn't care whether the rest of life had become inconvenient that week.
A larger household meant more support, more hands, and more people available when someone needed something.
If there were cubs someday, there would be three Alphas teaching them, feeding them, protecting them, and hauling them down from whatever dangerous place they'd decided they could climb despite being told not to.
It was ordinary to us.
What wasn't ordinary was finding a woman all three of us might genuinely want.
“I want you to meet Evie yourselves,” I told my packmates, looking from Tavian's obvious excitement to Luca's more measured interest. “Spend time around her. Then we'll see.”
“When?” Tavian asked me, straightening immediately as though there was a chance I might tell him to return to the creek right now.
“Tomorrow,” I told Tavian, already wondering whether giving him an entire night to become more curious had been a mistake.
“As ourselves?” Tavian asked me, glancing down at his human body before turning his gaze in the distant direction of the creek.
“As leopards,” I told Tavian, crossing my arms as disappointment flashed across his face. “She already has talking animals to deal with. I'm not adding men turning into leopards to the list tomorrow.”
“I wasn't suggesting that,” Tavian protested, though the way his eyes shifted toward Luca said he had at least considered it.
“You absolutely were,” Luca told Tavian, bending to retrieve his shirt from the stone ledge.
“I was considering possibilities,” Tavian corrected Luca, spreading one hand in his defense.
“You were considering introducing yourself,” Luca said, pulling the shirt over his shoulders before gathering his hair out from beneath the collar.