by Susan Hayes
“Teamwork is one part of this exercise, but I want to see how you manage on your own, too. If you followed my instructions, then each of you should be able to stay sufficiently warm and dry tonight. If you didn’t? Then tomorrow, you’ll be well motivated to do better the next time we make camp.”
He stayed by the fire while everyone else settled in, watching the flames die down until there was nothing left by a few glowing coals. There were eight smaller fires scattered around the area, marking the location of everyone’s shelters, including his. He’d picked a spot some distance from the others. It was the only privacy he’d get until this trip was over.
Normally, he loved the solitude he could only find when he was out in the wilds, but tonight, he didn’t relish the idea of spending time alone. His gaze drifted to Tabi’s little abode. Her fire gave off enough light he could see she wasn’t inside. She was likely foraging for more food or looking for a bush to crouch behind.
He should be doing the same thing. He got to his feet and flicked on an LED flashlight he always carried. As his night vision improved, he spotted a couple of lights moving through the trees beyond the camp, but only one was relatively close to Tabi’s shelter. He picked a parallel course and made his way through the snow-covered woods, scanning the ground for anything he could use.
It took him less than a minute to catch her scent, confirming she was the source of the light dancing between the trees. Damn, she smelled good. Her personal scent was tinged with wood smoke and pine, and it was enough to make his currently non-existent tail twitch.
They’d settled into a détente of sorts, both of them working on getting the camp set up, but they were missing the easy rapport they’d had before. Apologizing, yet again, would be lamer than a three-legged goat with a bad case of gout. He could hear his father in his head already. “Women don’t like weak men, son. You see one you like? You take her. Simple.”
It had seemed like good advice at the time. But his old man was now on his fourth wife… or was it his fifth? Maybe it was time to try another approach. There had to be a middle ground between grovelling and knocking her on the head with a club and taking her back to his shelter for a night of naked debauchery.
He mused to himself as he gathered more firewood. It would be a cold night, and he’d need to keep the fire stoked from now until daybreak. He wouldn’t admit it, but he was with Joshua about doubling up for warmth. He’d far prefer to cuddle Tabi tonight than the stones currently heating at the edge of his fire.
He was pondering how to fix things between them when all hell broke loose. There was a dull whump, and then a scream of shock. Tabi. He dropped his armload of wood, turned, and ran.
It wasn’t easy to sprint through a snowy forest in the dark, and it took him longer than he liked to get back to camp. By the time he got there, Tabi wasn’t the only one yelling. Someone, he thought it was Josh, was wailing like a banshee.
“Get this psycho stabby bitch away from me! Jeeze, it was a joke! That’s all, just a fucking joke!”
There was a crash, followed by the sound of splintering wood, and a huge black something charged into the clearing, trailing the remains of a tree like streamers in its wake.
Holy Bast in a wicker basket. Was that Tabi?
The word unicorn had conjured visions of a delicate, ethereal creature prancing through a flower-filled meadow. He flicked his flashlight to its widest setting and finally got a good look at her.
She was a magnificent nightmare. As dark as night, with blue and purple streaks flowing through her mane and tail. She was almost two metres tall at the shoulder, built on the scale of a knight’s warhorse or one of those horses from the beer commercials. Her hooves were as broad as dinner plates, and she moved with deadly power and grace.
She halted at the base of a tree and shook her head hard enough to clear the debris from her horn. Then she reared up on her back legs and slammed her hooves against the tree trunk. Her strikes gouged great chunks of wood from the bole and triggered a miniature landslide of snow from the branches.
“For fuck's sake. Help. She’s gone full Stabitha,” Joshua wailed.
Sergei played the light higher into the tree and spotted the traumatized cadet clinging to a branch just out of Tabi’s reach.
“Shut up,” he barked at Josh. “You’re not helping.”
Tabi squealed in fury, spun, and lashed out with both hind legs, taking an impressive chunk out of the trunk. A few more kicks like that, and either she’d shake Joshua loose or bring the whole tree crashing down. He needed to calm her before that happened.
He lowered the beam of his flashlight and walked over to her, careful to stay out of range. “Tabi. I need to know what happened, and I know you can’t talk to me in that form. So, how about you shift back and let me know what this idiot did to you?”
“It was just a stupid prank,” Josh protested.
“What are you, twelve? This isn’t fucking summer camp. Now shut up before I decide that the easiest way to deal with this is to let Tabi skewer you so we can all get some sleep.”
Tabi stamped her foot and tossed her head with a whicker that sounded suspiciously like laughter. He took that as a good sign.
“Tabi, you ready to shift back?”
She swung her head around to glower at him. Okay then. Not ready. He threw up his hands in a placating gesture. “Hey, beautiful. I’m not rushing you. You take as long as you need. This is the first chance I’ve had to see you this way, and I have to say, I’m impressed. You are gorgeous.”
“Is… is he flirting with the psycho?” Guy asked in a hushed whisper. It was too dark to see him, but Sergei tracked his voice to a tree not far from Joshua.
“She’s not a psycho. And shut up. I think it’s romantic,” Annie shot back from her spot on the far side of the clearing.
“Yeah. And you’ve got to admit, Ms. Willows is seriously badass like this. I mean, look at her,” Peter chimed in. The lynx shifter was looking at Tabi like she was Bast herself, and Sergei had a sudden urge to swat the cub on the head and drop him in the nearest snowbank. No one was allowed to look at Tabi that way except him.
Tabi took a step back from the tree and lowered her head.
“You’re breathtaking, Tabi. Truly. But I think it’s time to shift back now. I want to know what happened, and you’re the only one I trust to tell me the truth.”
She pawed the ground once, whinnied softly, and a few seconds later, she was human again, kneeling naked in the churn of mud and snow.
He covered the ground between them in a heartbeat, already tearing off his jacket so he could wrap it around her. Modesty might not be an issue among their kind, but hypothermia was. He needed to get her bundled up and someplace warm, quickly.
One look at the remains of her shelter and he knew she wouldn’t be using it again. It had collapsed under the weight of a massive dump of snow. Her fire was out and her gear buried. Joshua’s prank. Asshole.
He covered Tabi with his coat and crouched at her side. “You okay?”
She nodded, but he could see she was already shivering.
“Arms around my neck. Hold tight. I’m getting you somewhere warm.”
She threw her arms around him, clinging like a burr as he gathered her up and rose to his feet.
“I got you, beautiful.”
“I wrecked the camp.”
“No. That was Joshua. You brought in extra firewood and scared the crap out of that idiot in the process.”
She uttered a strangled laugh. “Maybe I can get hired as a lumberjack after Director Cooper fires me.”
“You’re not getting fired. If anyone is leaving the academy, it’ll be Josh. He doesn’t have the temperament to be a FUC agent.”
“He’s at the top of his class, and his father’s got serious pull with FUC,”
“So, he’s a smart, connected asshole. Still not agent material.”
“And yet they let you in,” she muttered so softly he barely heard her.
; “I was a smart, charming asshole. Plus, I never did anything that endangered someone else’s life. Thanks to Josh, you’ve lost your gear and shelter. You’re staying with me tonight.”
She lifted her head and gave him a look that was equal parts gratitude, amusement, and irritation. “Is that an order?”
He considered his next words carefully and opted for honesty. “Uh… no. It’s a badly worded request because I’m worried about you.”
Her expression softened. “Oh. Well, in that case, I’m happy to share your shelter tonight.”
He lowered her to the ground and took advantage of the darkness to do something he’d been aching to do all day. He leaned in and kissed her. He didn’t care if she slapped him for it. Now she was back in his arms, he wasn’t letting go until he’d gotten another taste.
The moment she rose on her toes to kiss him back, he knew—one taste wouldn’t be enough.
8
The last thing she should be doing right now was kissing Sergei, but if she were honest, it was the only thing she wanted to do. He was arrogant, annoying, and a speciest jerk, but he was also kind, caring, and no matter how hard she tried, she kept forgetting to be mad at him. The big cat made her crazy, in more ways than one.
His kiss was as hot as a branding iron, driving away the cold and replacing it with a heat that seared her all the way to her soul. For one perfect moment, she forgot about everything else. Her humiliating loss of control, her fear that she would never be in harmony with her shifter side again, even the fact she was standing barefoot in the snow. It all faded away, leaving her breathless and clinging to the only source of warmth and strength she had. Sergei.
She had to bite back a whimper of disappointment when he broke their kiss and gave her a gentle nudge toward the shelter.
“Get inside before you freeze your bits off. There are a couple of rocks warming by the fire. Wrap one in my sweater and curl up under the thermal blanket with it. I’ll be in once I’ve dealt with Joshua and done what I can to enlarge the shelter.” He grinned. “I’ve never made one for two people before.”
“Once I’m warm, I can rebuild mine. I just need someone to grab my clothes and boots.” The clothes she’d been wearing hadn’t survived her transformation, but she had enough spares to get by. She’d have to wear everything she had left to compensate for the loss of her jacket, but she’d manage.
“Your shelter was totalled, and everything you owned is buried under the snow. You won’t get any sleep at all if you try to start over now.” He kissed her forehead. “Go inside. Get warm. I’ll be back soon.” He paused, then added. “You’ll be totally safe with me. I swear. I’m not going to take advantage of you.”
Being taken advantage of sounded really good to her, but she appreciated the sentiment. “I trust you.”
He touched a hand to his heart. “I’m honoured.” Then he turned and strode off into the darkness.
She crawled into the shelter and sighed in relief once she was nestled under his thermal blanket with the heat from the fire, taking the worst of the chill off the air. It was cramped and damp, but the air smelled of earth and fresh pine, and the makeshift mattress was surprisingly comfortable. She settled in and closed her eyes. That’s when reality came crashing down on her.
All jokes aside, she would lose her job for this. Everyone at the academy had been supportive until now, but the only damage she’d done up to this point had been to minor structures and a card catalogue. This time, she’d gone after a cadet. And not just any cadet. Oh no. She’d tried to skewer the only son of a member of the Cryptozoian council, the people who oversaw FUC.
She wrapped her arms around herself, fighting back tears of frustration. Why was it that every time she tried to step outside her comfort zone, the universe sent a wrecking ball her way? For fuck’s sake, she couldn’t even last a single day in the forest without losing her temper, her job, and even her damned clothes. Maybe she should give up and go back to the farm. Her family would love that. They hadn’t understood her decision to leave in the first place, and since the incident, they’d been dropping boulder-sized hints that it was time for her to come home.
She was still adrift in a sea of self-recrimination and embarrassment when Sergei returned. “You warming up?”
“Getting there.”
He crouched down at the entrance. “Annie and Pete recovered your things. The pack got enough snow inside to soak your clothing, so everyone is doing what they can to dry it all out over their fires. They rescued your thermal blanket, though.” He set down her boots, and the partially emptied backpack with the silver, heat-retaining sheet tucked inside. “These will need time by the fire, but I’m glad you didn’t lose the footwear.”
“Me too, but it was pure luck that I’d taken them off before Joshua pulled that stupid prank and I went full Stabitha.”
He frowned. “I’m not a fan of that nickname.”
“That’s what everyone else calls it.”
“Not it. You. That gorgeous creature in the clearing was you, Tabi. No wonder you’re having trouble connecting with your other half. Everyone keeps treating her like she’s a separate entity.”
She opened her mouth to argue and then stopped. Son of a seahorse, he was right. Everyone, including her, always referred to her new form by another name, like Stabitha or simply, it.
“You may have a point. But she is not gorgeous. She’s homicidal.”
“I’ve got a theory about that, too. But first, I’m going to do a little home renovation. Take down a wall, maybe build a deck.” He left again, but she could tell by the crunch of his boots that he hadn’t gone far.
“I vote we add a hot tub while you’re at it,” she called out.
The wall of greenery behind her shifted as he started rearranging things. “Might take a few days to cobble something like that together. You really want to stay out here that long?”
“Good point. How about I make us a nice cup of spruce tea instead?”
“Ugh. Don’t tell anyone I said this, but I hate the way it tastes. It’s like gargling my mother’s floor cleaner.” A gap appeared in the greenery and a silver hipflask appeared. “Good thing we’ve got this.”
“That’s contraband. And I thought you said you were using it for firestarter.” She took the flask and moved out from beneath the blanket just far enough to grab her pack and looked for the tin cup they’d each been issued.
“I’m Sergei Molotov, survivalist extraordinaire. I don’t need accelerant to start a fire. Just give me a bit of tinder and something to strike a spark.”
She privately mused the cocky cat could probably start a blaze with his mouth alone. She’d certainly felt a few sparks when he’d kissed her.
“It’s still contraband.”
“It’s for medicinal purposes. Nerve tonic.”
“I don’t need nerve tonic. I’m fine.” Which was a lie, but one she wasn’t ready to admit to. She needed to be fine, because they had two more days to get through, and she would not to be the reason they had to cut things short.
He snorted from the other side of the barrier which was now almost a foot further back and rapidly being returned to its previous thickness. “Who said it was for you? I’m out here in the middle of the woods with fools who think they’re at summer camp. Sneaking food, playing pranks. What’s next? They going to TP my shelter? I need a damned drink.”
“Well, if the survivalist extraordinaire needs it… I suppose that makes it okay.”
He chuckled and part of the roof vanished a few seconds later. “Incoming.”
She almost ducked back under the blanket, but quickly reminded herself there was no point. He’d already seen her naked, and she was going to have to reach up to grab the branches he was holding out. “More bedding?”
The night sky was strewn with more stars than she’d seen since she’d left home, their tiny light winking through the branches of the trees overhead. There was a thin sliver of moon rising, and it cast just enough light t
o highlight Sergei’s pale blonde hair, making him easy to mark in the darkness. He blinked down at her, the gleam in his eyes more than just a reflection of the flames. “Uh. Bedding. Yeah. For our bed. For sleeping on.”
“For sleeping on,” she agreed, trying like hell not to blush, and failing miserably.
The temperature inside the little shelter dropped quickly now that it was open to the elements, and her next words came out accompanied by a puff of frosted breath. “We better be quick or we’ll lose all the heat.”
His pale eyes lit up with wry amusement. “I’m pretty sure heat is not going to be a problem for us, my little gothicus.”
“You did not just call me that.” She tried to glower at him, but he started handing her branches so she couldn’t see his face.
“What? Gothicus is your name, yes?”
“Part of it.” She added foliage to their bed, expanding it so it was large enough for both of them to sleep without touching the frozen ground.
“And you have lovely multicoloured hair.” He handed her more branches.
“One more word and I’ll consider putting skewered tiger on the breakfast menu.”
When she looked up again, he was laughing.
She shook a finger up at him. “I am not a My Little Pony!”
“Pony? No. Little? In this form, yes, at least compared to me.” He lifted the portion of interwoven greenery that formed the shelter’s roof and she hunkered down so he could fit it into place again. “But I am starting to suspect that you are meant to be mine, Tabitha Willows.”
She stared up at the roof as he settled it back into place and tried to wrap her head around what the crazy tiger had just said. His? That had a ring of possessive permanence that went way beyond flirting and toe-curling kisses.
She retreated beneath the blankets with a cup full of scotch as goosebumps that had nothing to do with the chilly temperatures chased down her spine. Why wasn’t he afraid of her? Everyone else was. Hell, even she was terrified of her new form.