by Jae
The tightening of his jaw told her he had gotten the silent message.
"Goodnight, Tarquin," she said pleasantly, dismissing him. "And thanks again for coming over to make sure I'm all right. I've been trying to get Griffin to realize that such concern and loyalty is one of the perks of living in a pride."
Tarquin blinked. His scent fluctuated between shame and anger; then he whirled around and stormed away.
* * *
Griffin was leaning against the wall next to the door when Jorie left the kitchen. She didn't even try to hide that she'd been there the whole time. "So you finally taught my stubborn sister that you have a name," Griffin said.
Jorie glanced back toward the kitchen, very aware that Leigh with her catlike hearing could probably hear every word they said. "You didn't need to stand guard," she said, letting both Griffin and Leigh know that she was not helpless and not afraid of Leigh.
Griffin's protectiveness evoked a mixture of emotions in her. A part of her was annoyed that Griffin didn't trust her to take care of herself and acted like her bodyguard, especially since Griffin had been the one who had tried to kill her just a few days ago. At the same time, she had to admit that she felt safer with Griffin sticking around, just in case Leigh lost control again.
Griffin shrugged. "Better safe than sorry."
That seemed to be the Wrasa's life philosophy. They were even willing to kill just as a precaution. Not all of them, Jorie reminded herself. She was trying hard to see them as individuals, not as a species of murderous monsters that she had first thought them to be.
They wandered back to the guest room and closed the door behind them.
"I don't think Leigh really wanted to kill me," Jorie said and realized that it was true. "It was just convenient to take her anger out on me, a human, when she thought you had taken Rhonda away from her."
"You impressed her," Griffin said. "She's learning that you're different from other humans."
"That's just it — every human is different from the others," Jorie objected. "We don't have standardized traits or reactions. I'm not denying that some of us might react with fear or hatred when they learn of your existence, but I'm sure others will be curious and will want to get to know you. We're not just a race of hunters and killers as Leigh seems to think."
"Neither are we," Griffin answered. She settled down into the easy chair and plucked some lint off the knees of her pants. "And even those of us who have killed aren't necessarily proud of it. We're not bloodthirsty monsters."
She's talking about herself, Jorie realized. She believed her. Although she knew Griffin could be a lethal fighter, she had a hard time picturing her as someone who took pleasure in killing. "Then why did you get involved in this job as a... saru?" she asked.
Broad shoulders lifted and then fell when Griffin blew out a breath. "I took the easy way out," she said. "I wanted a job that lets me stay away from the pride, my family, and most other Wrasa, but still lets me be a part of it somehow. Me being a saru was the only thing my mother and my fathers were proud of, so I stayed."
Jorie understood. She's half Kasari and half... whatever the Wrasa word for tiger-shifters is. If they are anything like their animal counterparts, that means she's torn between wanting to live a solitary life and wanting to belong. The Saru gave her a socially accepted compromise. Jorie knew that feeling well. Living as a writer offered her the same balance between solitude and social interactions. How weird that I have more in common with a shape-shifter than with anyone else I've ever known.
"I always tried to avoid killing, and with most missions, there were other ways, but sometimes..." Griffin trailed off and shook her head. "I thought it was justified, the only possible solution."
"And now?" Jorie asked, holding her breath. Something trembled deep inside of her. Was Griffin still contemplating killing her if everything else failed?
"Now I realize my people took things way too far," Griffin said. "The First Law might have been useful and justified when it was first established, but over the centuries, things snowballed. We convinced ourselves that killing as a precaution is just self-defense, but it's not."
Did she mean it? Jorie studied her. Everything in Griffin's voice and expression said that she was truthful, but the cautious part of Jorie clung to remains of doubt.
"Jorie," Griffin said, her voice low and intent, "I know I have no way to prove to you that I'm not your enemy. I know dropping the knife doesn't really prove anything. But I asked my fathers and both of my sisters for help even though I'd usually rather shovel snow in arctic temperatures for three hours straight than ask my family for a favor." She shivered dramatically, then smiled at herself. "I endangered them and myself; I torpedoed my career, and I'm more of an outcast than I've ever been — all because I didn't want to kill you. If that doesn't convince you that I don't want to kill you, I don't know what will."
Jorie thought about it. What else could Griffin do to show her she was trustworthy? Griffin was taking huge risks, had even allowed her to witness her shifting shape, and she had barged through a locked door to defend her from Leigh. What more could she do? Jorie didn't have an answer.
"Come on," Griffin said when the silence grew. "It's late. You should get some sleep." She nodded toward the bed.
It was the only bed in the guest room.
"Um... where will you sleep?" Jorie asked.
Griffin patted the easy chair. "Right here if you don't mind sharing the room."
Jorie's gaze measured the easy chair, then slid over Griffin's tall frame. She didn't need her math skills to realize that a woman of Griffin's height wouldn't get a good night's sleep in that chair. "That doesn't look very comfortable." While Griffin had dozed for a bit in the easy chair last night, having a quick catnap and getting eight hours of sleep were two different things.
"Well," Griffin said hesitantly, "there is one other way to do this."
Jorie glanced at the small bed again. "You're not suggesting we share the bed, are you?" she asked, annoyed to hear that her voice was squeaking with breathless nervousness.
Laughter rumbled through Griffin. "Oh, no. I'm not taking that risk."
"Risk?" Jorie repeated. "I'd like to think that sharing a bed with me would be a pleasure, not a risk." Her eyes widened when she realized what she had said. What are you doing? You're not flirting with her, are you?
"It might be for me," Griffin answered with a grin and a wink, "but I'm not sure how pleasurable you'd find it if I accidentally rolled over in the small bed and squished you beneath me. I'm heavier than I look."
Is that why Leigh knocked me out cold when she pounced on me? Jorie wondered. "How much do you weigh?" she asked.
Griffin wagged her finger at Jorie. "Didn't your mother teach you never to ask a lady her weight or her age?"
"My mother thought I'd end up with a man, so no, she didn't teach me anything about how to treat a woman." Jorie chuckled. While she still didn't trust Griffin completely, she felt herself start to relax in her presence. "And now that you mention your age... How old are you?"
An amused grin darted across Griffin's face, making her look decidedly un-predatory. "We're not immortal if that's what you mean. If the information in your birth certificate is true, I'm almost two years younger than you."
"You have access to my birth certificate?" The old distrust reared its head again, and she eyed Griffin warily. It seemed the Saru were even more effective than she had thought. They had access to everything. Most likely, their spies were everywhere.
"Yes," Griffin said and looked away. "Sorry. I know it's private information, but..."
When Griffin trailed off, Jorie decided to let the topic drop. "So if you're not suggesting sharing the bed, what is this other way you mentioned?"
"Well, I could just shift and curl up on the floor," Griffin said, watching Jorie intently to see her reaction.
Sleeping with a liger in the room... The thought was fascinating and scary at the same time. Would she be able to
even close her eyes and relax with a predator so close? An image of the liger's big head nuzzling her flashed through her mind's eye.
"If you're not comfortable with it, I could —"
"No," Jorie interrupted. "It's fine." She realized she wasn't the only one who made herself vulnerable by letting Griffin shift in her presence. Despite being a large predator, Griffin's animal form appeared also strangely fragile and precious. Maybe because the painful transformation left them defenseless for a few moments. It took a lot of trust for Griffin to let her watch it. "But won't you shift back into your human form once you fall asleep?"
"The cat form is as natural to me as my human form," Griffin said. "It doesn't use up more energy, so we don't shift back when we fall asleep or lose consciousness or even when we die."
She's finally trusting me enough to share information about the Wrasa, Jorie realized. So this is how it's going to work: I show some trust in her, and she shows some trust in me, huh? "So why are you always so hungry after you shift shape?"
"It's the shifting itself that burns a lot of calories, not staying in one shape," Griffin said. "I'll have to have a hearty breakfast tomorrow morning."
"And there's no limit on the amount of time you can spend in one form or the other? You could choose to live your life in just one form?" Jorie asked, curious to learn more. Her whole life had been spent curbing her active imagination, channeling it into her writing, and now that she knew some of the fantasy creatures in her mind were real, she had a million questions.
"Theoretically, yes, and some of us do. My brother almost went down that road. He prefers to stay in his tiger form as long as possible because animals don't let their lives be dominated by feelings of regret or guilt. There's no emotional pain, no responsibilities weighing you down, no daily hassles of making enough money, and no complicated relationships."
The note of longing in Griffin's voice told Jorie that this way of living held a certain appeal for Griffin too. Jorie could understand it. She had often wished to be someone else, to be one of her animal friends when she had been a child. "But?" she asked, sensing that there was a downside to it.
"But staying in one form the whole time isn't natural for my kind," Griffin said. "Wrasa who stay in their animal form for too long forget their ties to 'humanity' — or whatever you want to call it. Still, they can never be completely animal, and no pride of lions or pack of wolves would accept them as one of their own."
"Is it possible the other way around? Living only in the human form?" Jorie asked while she sat on the edge of the bed.
Again, Griffin shook her head. "Not entirely. Some things just trigger the change. Sometimes it's beyond our control."
"You shift when you get angry," Jorie said, having observed it when Griffin and Leigh had almost fought each other. "Or when you are in pain." It hadn't seemed like a voluntary shifting when she had hurt Griffin by hitting her with the laptop. Thinking about that night still made her shiver, but she quickly suppressed it and focused on the conversation. "You can't control it?"
Griffin curled her legs up under her. It looked a little strange considering her long legs and big body, but she seemed entirely comfortable. "We can," she said, "but only up to a certain point. And some of us are trained to have better control than others."
Jorie's observations confirmed it. Griffin had much better control than her sister. Control your emotions, control the shifting. I bet that's what the Saru taught her. Incidentally, it also makes them good at suppressing emotions like guilt or doubt. They are taught to just follow the orders when they are told to kill a human. Jorie wondered if it was mere coincidence. At the very least, it had to be convenient for the Saru's command staff.
"Is the shifting hormone-based?" Jorie asked. She had chosen that mechanism as a concept for her shape-shifter novel. Was this one of the parallels that had made the Wrasa suspicious of her novel?
"Let's leave the details for tomorrow," Griffin said. "You can't learn everything about the Wrasa in one day, and you have to be exhausted." This time, she sounded as if she was truly worried and not just avoiding Jorie's questions. "Come on. You get into your pajamas, and I'll get into mine."
Griffin's deadpan expression made Jorie laugh. She grabbed the pair of pajamas that Rhonda had given her and stepped into the bathroom to change. While she was brushing her teeth, she heard Griffin's pained groans through the closed door. Her heartbeat picked up. Before she could stop to think about it, she took a step toward the door.
No, she firmly told herself as her hand touched the door handle. There was nothing she could do to help Griffin or to make the change less painful. It might be better to give Griffin some privacy and some time to get herself back under control before she faced her. She finished getting ready for bed and then stood there, listening.
Everything in the bedroom was silent now.
Jorie took a deep breath, then another one. The thought of stepping into a room where a big cat awaited her was still a little disconcerting. Was Griffin's scent still clinging to her like a protective shield? There was no way for Jorie to be sure. Slowly, careful not to startle the cat into attacking, she opened the door and stepped into the bedroom.
The liger was lounging on the bed, her paws kneading the pillow to make it more comfortable. She pretended not to see Jorie when she crossed the room.
Laughter chased away Jorie's nervousness. "Oh, no, Griffin," she said. "You shifted so that you could sleep on the floor. You're not getting the bed. Down!" She pointed at the floor, pretending she was talking to one of her feline roommates.
The big cat yawned, giving her a glimpse of long canines. Then she slowly stood and, acting as if it had all been her own idea and she hadn't wanted the bed anyway, she gracefully leaped to the ground.
"Thank you," Jorie said, hoping Griffin's cat form could understand her tone, if not her words. She watched as the liger circled the bedside rug and then finally eased her big body down. Careful not to encroach on the space that the liger might consider her personal territory, Jorie slipped into bed from the foot end. She shook a few reddish hairs off the pillow. A sudden thought occurred to her, and she laughed. "That's why Mom was always sneezing and coughing around you. It wasn't the cats — it was you!" She leaned down and peered at the big cat next to the bed.
The liger squeezed her eyes shut, returning Jorie's grin the cat way.
Jorie chuckled. "Goodnight, Griffin."
A short while later, the start-and-stop purring from next to the bed lulled Jorie to sleep.
CHAPTER 23
A SUDDEN NOISE startled her out of her sleep. Her big body uncurled in one leap. She tilted her head and listened.
The unfamiliar cry came again.
It was the human next to her. The scent of fear wafted up from her in dense waves.
Danger!
Her muscles exploded into action. She took a protective stance next to the human, crouched low, ready to pounce at a possible attacker. Her sharp eyes scanned through the darkness but couldn't detect the source of the danger. There was no one else in the room.
The woman whimpered. The stinging scent of her panic got stronger.
Growling, she put her front paws on the human's den and leaned over to nudge the sleeping woman and make sure she was all right.
The woman screamed. Her eyes shot open, then widened.
Another intense wave of fear hit her sensitive nose as the human screamed again.
The door crashed open, and the sudden light in the room hurt her eyes.
One of her own kind rushed into the room, and she took a protective stance over the woman even though she realized it was her sister who was now shouting at her. "Griffin! What are you doing? Get down from there and shift back! Shift!"
She didn't understand what all the shouting was about, but she heard the urgency in her sister's voice and knew there was a way to find out what was going on.
Panting and groaning, she started to shift.
* * *
With one last gasp of pain, Griffin straightened her now no longer flexible spine, surprised to find herself kneeling in front of the bed, her hands placed to the left and right of Jorie's trembling form. "What's going on?" she asked, looking back and forth between Jorie and Leigh, who was standing in the doorway.
"That's what I want to know from you!" Leigh snarled. "What were you doing, leaning over Jorie in your cat form?"
Griffin squeezed her eyes shut and tried to remember. As always, the memories of events that she had experienced in her cat form where just disjointed images with no causal connections. She remembered the scent of fear, a scream, and the urge to protect.
"Excuse me," Jorie said, her voice slowly gaining strength. "Could you give me a little space here? You're kind of crowding me." She pointed at herself, ducked against the headboard of the bed, and Griffin, who was still leaning over her.
And completely naked, genius! Griffin noticed. "Sorry," she said and quickly moved back, fishing for her clothes with one hand. The scent of Jorie's fear was still permeating the room, and the last thing Griffin wanted was to make her feel even more uncomfortable.
"I'm still waiting for an explanation," Leigh said. "First you're busting my ass for hurting Jorie, and now I find you like this?"
Oh, now she's suddenly appointing herself Jorie's protector? Irritation prickled along Griffin's skin. She hadn't tried to harm Jorie in any way. If she hadn't been sure of that, she wouldn't have suggested she sleep in her cat form.
Rhonda appeared behind Leigh in the doorway, wearing a shirt that was two sizes too large and smelled of Leigh. "What's going on?" she asked.
"I think Jorie screamed," Griffin said.
"Of course I did! There was a giant liger staring at me from only inches away when I woke up!" Jorie blew out an exasperated breath. She was still trembling but trying not to show it.
That wasn't what Griffin meant. "No. You were screaming before that happened. I think you were still asleep."
"Oh." Jorie's trembling fingers rubbed tired eyes. "I think I... I had a nightmare. A predator was hunting me. His eyes were flashing, and he was quickly catching up." She shuddered. "I think I woke myself up with my screaming, and when I saw you in your liger form looming over me..." She groaned and tried to straighten sleep-tangled strands of hair. "I'm sorry for waking you guys up."