Chapter 7 #4
“I would put clothes on first,” Tavian informed Luca, looking genuinely offended that anyone would think otherwise.
I rubbed one hand over my face.
“This is why you're meeting her as a leopard,” I told Tavian, dropping my hand as he began laughing.
Luca laughed too, the sound quieter but no less amused, and some of the tension I'd carried into the conversation finally eased.
Once Tavian recovered, Luca leaned back against the stone and crossed his arms.
“There is going to be one difficult part,” Luca said, his voice returning to its more thoughtful tone as he looked toward me.
“One?” Tavian asked Luca, turning toward him with exaggerated optimism.
Luca ignored him.
“She is human,” Luca continued, looking at me. “She'll understand courtship. She knows packs, heats, blockers, all of that. She may even know human packs with more than two partners. But she isn't going to know how we live.”
“No,” I told Luca, because that was the part that had occupied far more of my thoughts than deciding whether I wanted Evie. Tavian leaned his shoulder against the stone.
“She can learn,” Tavian said, his answer immediate.
“She can,” Luca agreed, looking toward him. “But Malek said she travels constantly.”
“She does,” I told Luca, remembering the stories Evie had shared beneath the roots. “Sometimes she finishes one assignment, goes home long enough to swap equipment, and leaves again.”
“She likes it?” Tavian asked me, his forehead creasing as though he couldn't understand why I made that sound concerning.
“Yes,” I told Tavian. “She likes moving. She likes new places. Her apartment sounds more like somewhere she stores things between jobs than somewhere she actually wants to be.”
“Then don't ask her to stop,” Tavian replied, turning one palm upward as if I'd presented him with a problem that didn't actually exist.
Luca looked toward him.
“Our home is here,” Luca reminded Tavian, gesturing toward the surrounding forest.
“So?” Tavian asked Luca, shifting away from the rock. “Her work isn't.”
Neither of us answered immediately. Tavian looked between us.
“Malek has more reason to stay near the territory than either of us,” Tavian continued, pointing toward me. “I could travel. You could sometimes. If Evie wants to go somewhere for work, she goes. If she wants one of us with her and we can go, someone goes with her. Then she comes back.”
“You're assuming she wants somewhere here to come back to,” Luca told Tavian, not dismissive so much as cautious.
“I'm assuming that's the point of courting her,” Tavian replied to Luca, lifting his eyebrows. “We find out.”
That silenced Luca for a moment. Tavian seemed encouraged. “If she needs electricity for the cameras, we improve the power system. If she needs better storage, we build it. If she needs hot water—”
“She needs hot water,” I interrupted Tavian, remembering the number of times Evie had complained about Dolores and the station's unreliable shower.
Tavian pointed at me.
“See? Hot water,” Tavian told me, looking entirely too pleased with himself. “We can manage that.”
“Usually,” Luca told Tavian, one corner of his mouth lifting.
“Then we make it more than usually,” Tavian replied, waving away the problem. “Those things are fixable.”
“The cameras are more complicated than electricity,” Luca said, his thoughts already moving ahead as he rubbed his fingers over his jaw. “She'd need somewhere dry for the equipment. Secure storage. Reliable charging. If she works from a computer while she's here, somewhere to—”
“Luca,” Tavian interrupted, lifting one hand as his mouth began to curve. “She doesn't know we're men.”
Luca stopped, his gaze dropped briefly toward the ground.
“Right,” Luca admitted, a small, sheepish smile appearing before he looked back at us.
I laughed quietly despite myself. It faded when I thought about the part that couldn't be fixed by repairing a generator.
“She'd also have to know what we are,” I told my packmates, looking toward the thick vegetation surrounding the spring. “And keep it quiet.”
Tavian's humor disappeared. Human society knew Alphas, Betas, and Omegas. Blockers, suppressants, heats, scent control, pack relationships, and designation-specific medicine were ordinary parts of their lives.
Shifters weren't.
Neither was most old magic.
Humans had spent generations cataloguing forests and naming everything they found while never realizing how much had deliberately stayed out of sight. Our people were able to continue living the way we did because each community protected that secrecy.
Evie complicated it even further. She was a photographer. Her career depended on noticing what other people missed and bringing back proof. Eventually, if this went anywhere, we would have to tell her that the greatest discovery of her career was something she could never publish.
Tavian rubbed a hand over the back of his neck.
“We tell her before anything gets serious,” Tavian said, his voice losing the last of its teasing as he looked between Luca and me. “Not tomorrow. Obviously. But before we're asking anything big from her. She can't figure out whether our life works with hers if she doesn't know what our life is.”
“Agreed,” Luca told Tavian, nodding once while the water continued running quietly over the stones beside him.
I agreed too.
That conversation would come. For now, Evie still believed I was a leopard named Cat. Tomorrow she would meet two more.
I looked toward Tavian. He caught the look immediately.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” Tavian asked, narrowing his eyes as suspicion entered his face.
“I'm reconsidering tomorrow,” I told Tavian, folding my arms.
“You can't reconsider tomorrow,” Tavian protested, pushing away from the rock. “You already told me.”
“I can absolutely reconsider tomorrow,” I told Tavian, watching his expression become increasingly offended. Luca reached for the remainder of his clothing.
“I'd behave if I were you,” Luca told Tavian, fastening his shirt while amusement returned to his eyes. “Otherwise you'll spend the afternoon hiding far enough away that even you can't smell her.”
Tavian stared at him.
“You wouldn't,” Tavian told Luca, then turned quickly toward me when Luca only smiled. “He wouldn't.”
“I would,” I told Tavian, keeping my face perfectly serious. Tavian looked between us before apparently deciding there was enough possibility of truth to make caution worthwhile.
“Fine,” Tavian told us, raising both hands. “I'll behave.”
Luca and I said nothing.
Tavian's eyes narrowed.
“I can behave,” Tavian insisted, lowering his hands as he looked between us.
“Tomorrow,” I told Tavian, turning toward the path leading back to the temple, “you can prove it.”
Tavian muttered something behind me that I chose not to hear. Luca fell into step at my side while Tavian followed several paces behind, unusually quiet for nearly half a minute. Then his voice came through the trees.
“Cat,” Tavian called after me, laughter already breaking through the word as he apparently decided his promise to behave didn't begin until tomorrow.
I kept walking.
Luca made the mistake of laughing. By the time we reached home, I was seriously considering making both of them sleep outside.
Tomorrow, my packmates would finally meet Evie.
I was beginning to suspect introducing her to two additional leopards would be the easy part.