by K.E. Rodgers
Chapter 2-
“Kasa, wake up.”
Kasa opened her eyes a fraction, the long dark lashes over her pale gold eyes fluttering for a moment until she opened them wide, seeing the face hovering over her head. It was her roommate, Natalie Quinn. Her high glossed lips were just inches above Kasa’s and it took everything in her not to push the other woman away.
She’d hurt her if she did that.
Natalie pulled back, a smile creeping over her mouth as she stood next to Kasa’s bed. “You can’t possibly be sleeping.” The younger woman was dressed in a pair of tight skinny jeans, a sheer top that refused to be modest no matter how you layered over it and strappy heels that said that they meant business. And the product they were selling was pure and simple sex.
Kasa Pamuya let air flow in and out of her lungs as she slowly sat up. A quick look at her alarm clock next to her on the night stand revealed that it was around three in the morning. She reached over and switched on her table lamp.
“Yes,” she answered with a slight squint as her eyes became accustomed to the soft light of the lamp. “The eyes closed thing usually means I’m sleeping.” It wasn’t overly bright, but Kasa would have been just as comfortable without the light. She could see every detail of Natalie in total darkness, but it would have seemed odd, not human, if they continued conversing in the dark.
Throwing back the covers, Kasa sat up revealing her red silk pajamas that felt so soft against her skin and the stripped red and blue printed sheets on her bed. She watched carefully as Natalie sauntered about the room in her heels and if the younger woman had been paying attention she would have thought Kasa’s stare almost predatory.
Kasa never wore heels and she had no idea why so many of woman-kind would put themselves at such a disadvantage in them.
“You are aware that it’s the weekend.” Natalie said smartly. “And that going out at night is practically expected with the college student lifestyle. It’s seriously a crime against nature to sleep through these most precious hours of your life.”
What did Natalie know about nature, Kasa thought, beyond her human manicured lawns and self contained parks? Nothing.
Natalie flipped on more lights, the room becoming overly bright. Kasa squinted with pain this time. Some would say she was solophobic or photophobic, but that wasn’t true. The day light hours were just fine and she enjoyed spending time under the rays of an afternoon sun. Kasa just needed the appropriate protection against it.
“I don’t like to drink and loud noises in tiny places irritate me.” Kasa folded her legs in front of her, her tan arms resting lightly over them. Her dark blonde locks fanned out around her small but sturdy body, the ends resting on the sheets. Kasa took a section of her hair, bringing it over her lap and running her fingers through it.
She’d threatened her mother with cutting it all off if she wouldn’t allow her to go to university. Secretly, Meda had worried her lips till they bled over that threat. Then she’d cried herself to sleep for weeks. But on one rainy day in early spring her mother had come to her room in the wee hours of dawn to whisper in her daughter’s ear.
“You may go to your university, but know this daughter of mine,” she had paused, her breathing cut short as if she were holding her breath. When she continued it was with a strained voice that Kasa could not have made out if not for being what she was. “When you return home it will be to take your place as your father’s daughter and to secure our place in this world. If not then don't return at all. I give you this freedom for only a short time, a choice I never had at your age.”
Kasa opened her eyes at that last statement, only to find she was once again alone in her dimly lit room. Meda had spoken little since then, shutting herself away as if in preparation for Kasa’s departure. Several months later Kasa had packed up her belongings, what few there were, and set herself up in the dormitories of Flagler College.
She had thought she’d interred her old life along with her father’s body miles away in South Florida. Lately though, as much as she tried to prevent it, she found her baser nature calling from within her soul. It was angry at being left so long inside this singular form and the panther wanted free.
Training herself to sleep like a human had been difficult at first. But she had grown accustomed to sleeping during the night. The truth was, though, that Kasa had not been asleep as Natalie had accused. But it was better Kasa feigned sleep than to allow her-self the freedom to wander the streets; as her other self yearned to seek out the night, to seek out the hunt.
“Whatever,” Natalie replied in a manner that greatly irritated Kasa. She had not fully grown accustomed to these idioms in human culture. Nor did she appreciate her roommate’s disrespectful attitude. If she had been one of her kind, she would have paid most dearly for her impudent tone.
But this was not Kasa’s familiar domain and like it or not she was a commoner among these singularly formed humans. And Kasa could blame no one but Kasa for putting herself in this world.
Someone knocked on the door. Natalie went to answer it, throwing the door open wide to reveal a guy Kasa had never seen before. Though she rarely paid much attention to the details of these humans, after a while one looked very much like another and it was sometimes difficult to differentiate between them. Only their smells were unique, but Kasa never allowed herself close enough to remember these distinct perfumes. Living with Natalie these few weeks, she was probably the only one Kasa could properly track the scent of.
“How did you get up here?” Kasa heard Natalie ask. They lived in the female dormitories in the Ponce de Leon Hall that also housed the administration building and dining hall. It was off limits for anyone of the male gender which was the reason for Natalie’s question.
“I snuck up when she wasn’t looking downstairs,” Chris answered with his perfected male grin. Kasa thought he might be a nice enough guy, but the look of him, right now leaning against the door frame, read ‘smarmy jerk’ all over his tall athletic physic. The perfect posture, the tailored clothes and pristinely placed locks of product coated cranium follicles. He wore an aura that said he was well aware that he was one of the most attractive of his species. But he was weak in areas that would matter to Kasa and her own kind.
Natalie pulled him into the room before any of their neighbors decided to peek out of their rooms at that moment. She quickly closed the door, turning around to lean against it.
Christopher Evans, a third year sports management major, made himself at home on Natalie’s brown and sea foam green bed spread.
Kasa’s expression drew into a frown, her teeth biting down in her mouth so the elongated canines scraped against the inside of her lip almost drawing blood. It was a bold gesture for a male to rub his scent on a female’s property; it said ownership, not just of the object, but of the owner of that object.
If this male touched anything that belonged to Kasa, she would kill him. It was not an act of violence, but those that did not protect all that they treasured with loved ones included in that assessment then they did not deserve to have anything at all.
Christopher scanned Natalie’s room, his gaze traveling to the young woman on the other bed. At first he hadn’t even noticed she was sitting there, so quiet and still with her red silk pajamas blending into the red coloring of her bed. She was shorter than Natalie. Where Natalie was long and lanky with sharp angles and short dark brown hair, this woman was soft and curvy with long blonde hair all packed inside a body that seemed vulnerable, making her seem younger than she should be.
But it was an illusion.
Somehow, despite her childlike exterior, there was an overwhelming aura of lethal intensity in this woman. The set of those pale gold eyes that matched the sun kissed skin tone and the shinning halo of hair, all of it combining to create the picture of a golden goddess; a goddess that was at that moment glaring angry golden rays of hate at him.
“How did you manage to sneak past her?” Natalie asked, forcing Chris�
�s attention back to her. The woman in the administrative office at the base of the staircase that lead up to the girl’s dormitories was extremely watchful of those that passed by her window.
“I used some girls who were going up as well placed decoys. It was actually quite easy once I got past her window.” Chris reclined on the bed, his hands placed behind his head. Still, though, he felt those pale gold eyes on him; watching.
“Kasa,” he heard Natalie bark at her roommate. “Stop glaring at Chris like that, you’re making him uncomfortable.”
Kasa shrugged her shoulders, but did not apologize to the man. She was a powerful figure in her community and he was just another silly human man. She didn’t have to apologize to him.
Once again she had to remind herself that she was the minority in this world. It was her pride and that of her kind that had allowed them to become the few in a world of human dominance.
Kasa turned away, letting her long dark blonde hair cover her in a veil of obscurity. It was only when she knew that the humans could not see her that she let her mouth open revealing the long canine points of her teeth. Kasa allowed herself the luxury of making a horrible enraged face to the poster of a Don Juan print on the wall, one that she would have rather made at the man and woman across from her. Then she composed herself with a quiet exhalation of breath.
As a child she had been warned repeatedly not to show her teeth at the singular formed beings, that they would take her away and do horrible things to her if she revealed her otherworldly difference. At the time Kasa didn’t understand that she was different from other children. At home she was just like everyone else, her teeth and bi-form body was no different or special than any other.
At one time her kind had been the elite in this world, stretching across the Eastern border of the United States. Then, several hundred years ago the human pilgrims from across the sea had staked a claim on protected land. These humans lived a different culture, a superior culture to their way of thinking, and believed fearfully that Kasa’s ancestors were soulless animals to be used or destroyed. Their numbers steadily depleted from unusual sickness and diminishing land and as a result their once expansive population was relegated to the areas in the southern states of America: Louisiana, South Carolina, Georgia and Florida. In the following decades their numbers had dwindled to so few that now all that was left of the were-panther species lived in a small pocket of land in South Florida.
Kasa was one of the last of the ancient ones through her father. She was a figure head for her people, the physical personification of their culture and values that was fast crumbling with forced assimilation and modernization. The fact that Kasa was even now attending a university that valued human ideals above her own said that the strength of the were-panther was all but a dead mythology in American culture.
Natalie was preening in front of Chris, an act that in some respects ran consistent with other animals of this world. And whether the humans liked/believed it or not they too were an animal species. Their proud civilized nature was merely a shroud about their forms, like their clothing, hiding the natural beast within. Though Kasa was wise enough to give them credit; from a scholarly and objective perspective the humans were beautiful at times. Their love of art and music was something her kind did not think as important, not when compared to more practical crafts. Her species did not have the luxury of idleness. Survival was the singular objective in these modern times.
Secreted in her heart, though, where none could see, Kasa wanted to be a painter.
Watching the couple from the privacy of her hair Kasa observed the mating rituals of these odd species. How strange, she thought, how they looked so similar to her own form and yet they were not. After a few more moments of watching them she had had quite enough. And not particularly interested in voyeurism, Kasa rose from her bed to go to her dresser.
“Where are you going?” she heard Natalie say to her as she pulled out some articles of clothing. It was more for show than need.
For what Kasa had in mind she would not need these confining garments. Humans had a very strong sense of modesty that her kind did not possess. Yes, they liked pretty clothes and wore them with pride. Yet clothes were cumbersome and ill suited for her other half. And unlike the humans her species had great pride in their animal counterpart; what the humans feared in themselves as well as in others.
“I’m going out, just like you advised,” Kasa said smartly, adapting the same tone her roommate had cultivated over her short lifetime and which Kasa quickly learned in the weeks rooming with her. Using such a tone would have been seen as disrespect in her world, but Kasa was finding that the humans did not always take it as such. And they did not always adhere to their own rules of inflection and meaning in their words. So Kasa was fairly sure that Natalie would think nothing of her tone, or she wouldn’t care.
“Don’t go too far off campus,” Chris commented, his arm slinking around Natalie’s barely covered back. “It’s not safe this late at night. Several students were found dead a few months back from an unknown cause. The authorities are still investigating the crimes. So far, though, all the leads seem to run a dead end in one way or another.”
“I will keep that in mind, thank you,” Kasa answered back, her mismatched clothes tucked in her arms. Meda had never really taken the time to instruct her daughter on current fashion. Nor did she impart any judgment on what Kasa chose to wear as no one in her small community would even think to ridicule Kasa’s fashion decisions.
Kasa left the room, forgetting at the last moment her keys. Turning back to the room she found Natalie with her set of keys looped through her perfectly polished fingers. “I thought you might need these.”
“Thanks,” Kasa said, taking them from her roommate. “Don’t wait up,” she said and walked away. If Natalie noticed that she wasn’t wearing any shoes she didn’t have time to comment.