Chapter 28 #2
Every individual pine needle glittered beneath the moonlight.
I could hear snow sliding from distant branches.
The fire no longer smelled simply of smoke but of resin, sap, charred bark and the life the wood had lived before it burned, and when I looked down, I saw broad white paws.
My tail swept behind me, thick and familiar and a sound escaped me.
Not a sob, or a laugh, but a rough, questioning chuff I somehow knew I’d never made before.
Cassian crouched a few feet away, making himself smaller without ever taking his eyes off me, and his smile stole what remained of my breath.
“Oh,” he whispered, his voice thick. “Oh, my sweet snow cat.” My ears flicked towards him. “I’ve never seen anything so beautiful.”
I understood every word, and warmth unfurled inside my chest. A strange, wonderful feeling rippled through me, and before I knew what I was doing, I lifted my head a little higher, my whiskers twitching as my cat soaked in the praise.
He was…
Preening.
The ridiculous certainty of it made my human mind want to laugh, but my cat saw nothing ridiculous about it at all.
Alpha sees us.
Alpha approves.
We are beautiful.
My tail gave one slow, satisfied sweep across the snow.
And for the first time in eight years…
I felt whole.
Cassian stayed where he was until I made the first move and padded towards him, each step becoming surer than the last. It was astonishing how natural it felt.
My paws barely disturbed the snow despite my size, my shoulders rolling beneath thick white fur while my tail swayed behind me as though it had never been absent.
Somewhere inside me my human mind was still trying to understand how this could be real, but my cat wasn’t questioning anything as Cassian slowly lifted one hand.
He didn’t reach for me. He didn’t assume I wanted to be touched.
He offered his hand and left the choice with me.
I closed the final few inches between us and rubbed my cheek against his palm, scenting him, feeling his wolf close to the surface as his fingers disappeared into the thick ruff around my neck, scratching beneath my jaw.
My eyes slipped closed, a deep rumble building in my chest until it rolled through me in a powerful purr that seemed to vibrate all the way to the tip of my tail.
My cat leaned into the affection, and with every stroke of Cassian’s hand, I felt safer.
My body wasn’t preparing to defend itself.
It wasn’t waiting for the next command or anticipating pain.
Every instinct told me I was exactly where I was supposed to be.
Without thinking, I pressed harder into his hand until he laughed.
“There you are.”
His fingers drifted over the top of my head and between my ears, and I pushed upwards, butting his hand with enough enthusiasm to rock him backward a step.
A warm chuckle escaped him.
“I thought you might do that.”
I did it again and this time I put my whole weight behind it.
He landed on his ass, and his laughter burst out across the mountainside, loud and unrestrained, echoing through the trees until even the silence seemed warmer for hearing it. I’d never heard Cassian properly laugh before and my cat adored the sound.
I made a rough little chuff in response.
Cassian blinked at me. “Don’t you like that noise?”
Before I could decide, I shook my head, sending a spray of powdery snow straight into his face, and he froze for a heartbeat before wiping melting snow from his cheek. I sent him my widest kitten eyes, but he wasn’t falling for it.
“You absolutely meant to do that, menace.” Cassian shook his head, still smiling, before standing and then taking a couple of slow steps backward and slipping his hands into the pockets of his coat.
“So,” he said, amusement dancing in his eyes, “what now?”
I didn’t stop to think.
Thinking belonged to the human part of me that had spent years second-guessing every decision, every movement, and every breath. My cat didn’t hesitate because he didn’t need to. He knew exactly what came next.
I spun away from Cassian and launched myself into the untouched snow.
Power surged through every muscle as though I’d finally remembered how my body was always supposed to work.
I covered an impossible distance in a single leap, landed without effort, twisted in mid-stride, and ran again, sending clouds of glittering powder high into the moonlight.
I raced in widening circles around the clearing, then threw myself sideways into a drift so deep it swallowed me whole before I exploded back out again, snow cascading from my fur as I bounded away with another burst of energy.
The cold was glorious, and the snow cushioned every landing before springing me into the next effortless leap.
My muscles worked together with perfect balance and impossible strength, carrying me over drifts that would have reached my waist as a man.
Every breath tasted of pine, frost and freedom, while every heartbeat filled me with a joy so complete it almost hurt.
Behind me, Cassian laughed again.
The sound drew me around almost instantly.
He was standing beside the fire now with his hands buried in the pockets of his coat, watching me with the widest smile I’d ever seen on his face.
There was no sadness in his expression, no shadow of grief or weight of responsibility.
For these few precious moments, he was lighter than I’d ever known him.
I pirouetted in front of him, twisting to snap at my tail mid-jump, and almost caught it.
“Show-off,” he murmured, and the praise warmed something deep inside me.
My cat soaked it up with undisguised delight, and I wheeled around, fixed my gaze on Cassian and sprinted straight towards him.
Snow flew behind me as I gathered speed, every instinct urging me faster until I launched myself into the air.
His eyes widened.
“Soren—”
Too late.
I collided with him chest-first, my forepaws landing square on his shoulders as the impact sent us both tumbling backward into the snow.
For the briefest instant my human mind panicked that I’d hurt him, but the thought vanished the moment I found myself standing over him, staring down into bright amber eyes overflowing with laughter.
Cassian threw his head back.
“Oh,” he gasped between laughs, “I definitely deserved that.”
I lowered my head and ran my tongue up the side of his face.
He spluttered so dramatically I almost purred again.
“That’s cheating.”
His arms came up around my neck without a moment’s hesitation, burying both hands deep into my winter coat while I leaned happily into the embrace. My purr rolled through both of us, deep and powerful, as he scratched behind my ears exactly where my cat wanted him to.
Contentment settled over me so completely there was no divide between my cat and me. There was only us, standing beneath the moon with the man we trusted more than anyone else in the world, and every instinct I possessed recognized the truth before my human heart had found the words.
I love you.
Asha loves you.
Please love us back.
I jumped and spun and ran and watched whenever Cassian went into the house to check on Asha, following him the last time so I could sit by the crib and stare down at my child as my cat.
She was as beautiful through my cat eyes as she was through my human ones, and I purred with contentment and licked a wide stripe on Cassian’s face.
Then, all too soon, I wanted to be back, snuggled into Cassian’s side as a human, and the shift this time was seamless, albeit nearly as painful, and I grabbed clothes, dressed, and hurried inside, swept up in Cassian’s arms and curling my hands into his hair.
“We did it! We did it!”
He kissed me deeply, held me close, and lowered us to the chair, me straddling his lap same as always, and the kisses turned from heated to warm to gentle, with Asha sleeping soundly next to us in her crib.
The silence that followed wrapped itself around us like another blanket, broken by the faint ticking of the old kitchen clock and the occasional creak of the house settling around us. For one perfect moment it felt as though the mountain itself was holding its breath with us.
Then the alarm screamed.
The sharp electronic tone shattered the quiet so violently I jumped, every instinct slamming me straight back into Center 14. My heart lurched into my throat before my mind had even caught up, and for one terrifying second all I could think was they’ve found us.
Cassian was already moving.
One moment I was in his arms; the next he’d set me on my feet, every trace of softness disappearing beneath the calm efficiency I’d only glimpsed in flashes before. His entire posture changed. His shoulders squared; his eyes sharpened.
“Soren.” My name cracked through the panic. “Listen to me.” I forced myself to focus on him. “Take Asha.” He was already crossing the kitchen towards the hallway, one hand reaching for the radio clipped beside the back door. “Go to the safe room.”
My stomach dropped.
“What about—”
“Please Go.”
There wasn’t fear in his voice.
There was certainty.
The kind that made me grab Asha before my mind had finished arguing.
I was already running for the hallway before I realized he’d never once raised his voice. He hadn’t needed to. His expression told me this wasn’t a drill or a false alarm.
Something had come to our mountain.
And whatever it was, Cassian intended to meet it before it reached us.