by Jade White
“Seeeee?” Sezim coaxed, drawing the word out. She brought a hand to her chest and added assuredly, “I’m adorable.”
The picture was, indeed, adorable. But it was a picture of a baby snow leopard. It would be rather difficult to make it so it wasn’t adorable. Serik’s was just as adorable just by virtue of being a sulking fluff ball.
Aibek pitched a ball of paper at her head, earning himself a look of indignation that was truly one for the record books. “If you are that adorable, you would not have to inform everyone just how adorable you are,” he informed her dryly, and he ducked aside as she tossed the paper ball back at him. It whapped harmlessly against the wall and fell to the floor.
“Don’t be a dick,” Sezim sulked, her scowl firmly fixed in place. Truth be told, though, it more resembled a pout than any sort of intimidating scowl.
“Then stop bragging,” he sighed in return. “No one cares.”
“Mom!” Sezim called, turning toward the kitchen. “Beka’s being a dick!”
The sound of running water silenced, and Faina’s voice drifted out of the kitchen. “Beka, be nice to your sister. Sezim, language.” The sound of running water resumed.
Amelia couldn’t help but start snickering behind her hands as Aibek and Sezim both scowled at each other, and she clamped her hands over her mouth to muffle a laugh when Sezim stuck her tongue out and blew a raspberry at him.
Their arguing was soothing, in a strange way. It was something harmless for Amelia to focus on, to avoid thinking about the events of the day and what they meant for her. It gave her something to focus on so she wouldn’t do something stupid like ask to call her mom and spill everything. She couldn’t make her parents worry like that when there was nothing they could do to help. It would be like torture.
*
Faina joined Amelia on the couch, scrubbing her hands dry on her pants as she sat. Amelia looked up over the edge of her book. The room was crowded, but quiet, as everyone occupied themselves with their own business.
Sezim and Serik were both splitting a set of ear buds and a laptop. Anara was so absorbed in whatever she was drawing that she may as well have been blind and deaf to the rest of the world. As Faina asked, “How are you holding up, honey?” only Aibek looked up, his brows slightly furrowed in concern for a moment, before he slowly turned his attention back to his book.
“I’m alright,” Amelia assured her, pressing a finger between the pages of her book and closing it. “I mean, it’s a bit much to take in, but I’m doing fine.”
Faina’s brows rose, her expression slightly incredulous. “You’re sure? You don’t need anything?”
“I’m sure,” Amelia replied, nodding earnestly. She could understand the concern, at least. Even she was surprised at how calmly she was taking it. True, she didn’t want to think about it, but she also didn’t feel like she was in any active danger. She felt…safe. She had known the leopard family for only a few days, but she felt like they had her back.
It was a good feeling, even in the midst of the mess she unexpectedly found herself in.
With a crooked smile, Faina squeezed her shoulder and stood back up. She made her way toward the door, where she stepped into her boots and began bundling herself into her winter gear. Amelia felt peculiarly glad that she wasn’t the only one who needed to wear a ludicrous amount of layers to step out of any of the doors.
Faina paused at the door to offer a pleasant, “I’m heading off to bed for the night. Everyone play nice.”
Amelia waved and opened her book back up. Serik and Sezim grunted in unison and spent a few seconds jostling for position in front of the laptop they were both staring at on the floor. Anara saluted sloppily with her pencil. Only Aibek actually offered a quiet, distracted, “Sleep well.”
Faina rolled her eyes fondly and stepped out the door. A blast of frigid air crept in, but it was forgotten in moments once the door was closed again.
The room was quiet after that. It was surprisingly peaceful, considering how many people were clustered there.
*
Amelia looked up when she heard the rustling of paper, just in time to see Anara closing her sketchbook and setting it aside, her pencil tucked into the spiral binding. She stretched, standing up on her toes for a few seconds as her hands flexed toward the ceiling. She gave Aibek’s knee an affectionate kick before she turned and made her way into the kitchen. Amelia peered after her curiously, but once Anara rounded the corner, all Amelia could see was her shadow on the floor, and she could hear some rummaging.
She was about to return to her book when Anara reappeared, holding two cookies in her hand. She was holding a third in her teeth, having evidently staked her claim on it.
One cookie, she handed to Amelia without comment. Amelia blinked at it before she offered a bemused, “Thanks,” and took a bite.
Nodding in silent acknowledgment with her mouth full, Anara glanced down at the twins. Seeing both of them still fully absorbed in the video, she ignored them, to instead hand the other cookie to Aibek. Much like Amelia, he stared at it for a moment, like he wasn’t sure what it was, before he said, “…Thank you?” and took a bite.
There was a muffled, outraged yelp when Anara ruffled his hair in return, but she danced out of reach before he could do anything. With her goal evidently accomplished, she pulled her shoes on and stepped out the door.
Finally, Sezim looked up, pulling the bud from her ear and blinking at the lack of certain people from the room. Before she could say anything, Serik yawned until his jaw cracked, and then he paused the video and closed the laptop with a click. He picked it up and stood, tugging the ear bud from Sezim’s hand as he headed toward the door and left.
Sezim scowled after him, but she could only bring herself to sit on the floor in isolation in silent protest for about a minute and a half before she, too, clambered to her feet and loped toward the door.
“G’night,” she offered, her voice sounding loud enough to break the glass of the windows, considering all Amelia had heard for most of the night was the click of keyboard keys, the crackle of fire, and the slide of pages turning.
“Night,” Amelia offered in turn, and Aibek simply grunted and hunched closer to his book. The door opened and closed once again, and the room was once more blanketed in companionable silence.
*
“They really did come back,” Amelia observed later that night, sprawled out on her back on the rug, leeching heat from the fire. She was being hunted by a crazy pride of lion shifters. She wasn’t actually sure how she felt about that, other than ‘not great.’ Her life had never been particularly exciting. Danger had never been a frequent companion for her, and suddenly she was being prized like an expensive pelt.
Aibek, the only one left in the room with her, sat down on the only corner of the rug that she hadn’t spread to. “They did,” he sighed. “But they did not make it here. None of us got hurt. They did not make it anywhere near you. They were still fumbling, and they did not truly know what they were doing.”
“But they have numbers,” Amelia pointed out calmly, pushing herself up onto her elbows, and then up until she was sitting. “There are more of them than just the three I…met.” To use the term loosely, of course.
“Yes,” Aibek agreed simply, nodding his head once.
“You could’ve gotten hurt,” Amelia stated, her tone faintly accusing. She couldn’t say she had a perfect understanding of the danger involved, but she could understand enough to know that she didn’t want anyone getting hurt on her behalf.
“We could also get hurt hunting,” he pointed out, “but we do that with some frequency as well. Besides, even if they are here for you, it is still our home. We are not just going to let them wander freely.” His voice had a sharp edge to it at the end.
Slowly, Amelia shifted onto her knees and leaned toward him until she could sling one leg over his lap, her other knee still on the rug. When she kissed him, it was brief, just a short, soft press of her lips aga
inst his. It wasn’t until the last instant that he responded in kind, until she leaned away from him again.
“Thanks,” she offered simply, one corner of her lips quirking up in a crooked smile as he blinked at her in mute surprise. Her smile spread slightly. “It’s not every day a guy puts himself in danger for me.”
Aibek nodded slowly, still looking dumbstruck. After a moment, he managed, “Not a problem.”
Amelia beamed at him pleasantly and finally levered herself up off the floor. She returned to the couch, lying down and pulling the blanket over herself. After a few more moments, Aibek stood up, turned off the lamp, and stepped out the door to return to his own miniature house.
Amelia fell asleep easily that night, and she slept clear through until morning. Her dreams were mild as she chased down arrows and white-tailed deer through the empty, snow-dusted streets of Chicago, occasionally joined by a spotted companion. It was peaceful.
CHAPTER FOUR
A few days passed, and in that time, nothing much happened. Aibek and his siblings continued to patrol, and they caught glimpses of the lions wandering around their camps in their human forms, but that was it. There was tension in the air as they all waited for the other shoe to finally drop.
‘Will there be a confrontation?’ was not the question. The only question was one of ‘when.’ Everyone thought it would happen when they were patrolling. That would make sense, after all. And it seemed like it would be a fairer outcome.
The world, as a general rule, did not care much about ‘sense’ or ‘fairness.’ It was a good lesson to learn, though the methods of learning it were rarely, if ever, pleasant. Aibek had been under the assumption that he had learned that lesson a long time ago, but the world evidently had decided he needed a refresher course. He supposed that went along with the lack of any sort of care for fairness.
He was out hunting, following the track of a wounded goat. How it had been wounded, he wasn’t sure, but learning the cause was secondary to finding the goat and putting it out of its misery if it hadn’t already died on its own.
Aibek learned how it was injured very quickly once he found it. He considered that moment to be about the point where his day began to very rapidly go downhill.
He found it sprawled out in the snow, dead and rapidly cooling, the snow around it red and trampled. A few feet off, a snowmobile waited, a neatly folded stack of clothing sitting on the seat. A lion crouched calmly over the goat’s body, gorging contently until Aibek crept closer.
In that moment, he very much wished the entire mountain didn’t smell like an errant lion. He might have been able to avoid what happened next.
The two of them watched each other for a few moments. It almost seemed placid, save for the agitated twitching of their tails. Beneath the surface, though, their minds both roiled. Given the choice, Aibek would quite contently go fleeing back up the mountain. The lion could keep the goat. There were other things to hunt, and the kitchen was still stocked. If he was lucky, the lion had already been out in the snow for a reasonably long time and was cold enough to want to just walk away. However, Aibek also knew that the odds of him being lucky were incredibly slim.
It was the lion who broke the stalemate, lunging over the goat’s body and throwing himself at Aibek. He cleared the entire space between them in a single heave, crashing into Aibek like a wrecking ball. He sank into the snow as he hit the ground, and it was only because of that sinking that he managed to drag himself out from under the lion’s massive paws. Not willing to risk a showdown, Aibek turned and bolted, only to grind to a halt when teeth wrapped around his tail and heaved him back. Yowling his outrage and his pain, he turned, claws bared, and smacked the lion right across the face. With a growl, the lion released his tail.
They circled each other for a moment, Aibek crouched low to the ground as the lion stood tall. It seemed as if the lion was eight times his size, though he knew that wasn’t the case. The case was that he was in trouble. True, it wouldn’t be long before the lion got too cold and had to retreat, but it also wouldn’t take long for the lion to kill Aibek and be done with it.
This was not a fight he was going to win on his own. He either needed a way to stall until the lion succumbed to the cold, or better yet, a way to get away.
Aibek feinted toward the left before he dropped low to the snow and moved to dodge to the right and bolt into the trees, only for one massive paw to slam right across his face, sending him sprawling into the snow. His ears rang, and for a heartbeat he didn’t move, until the surge of adrenaline got him up and onto his feet again.
So just making a break for it was not going to be an option, then. Good to know.
Aibek shook his head briefly, and the ringing in his ears dimmed until he could think past it. He weaved out of the way as the lion struck at him again, only the tip of his ear getting nicked. Aibek fluffed snow into the lion’s face, and when the lion recoiled, Aibek lunged forward, managing a few good swats around the larger cat’s head before he had to retreat again.
Once again, the pair of them circled each other until Aibek tried to bolt again. The lion pounced, his shoulder slamming into Aibek and sending both of them crashing into the snow in a heap of legs and tails and too much fur. Aibek flailed, keeping his face and neck away from the lion’s snapping jaws, only to yowl out his pain and displeasure when teeth sunk into his front right paw, a massive canine tooth sinking through fur and skin and muscle.
Like a viper, Aibek surged forward, teeth bared and ready, forcing the lion to release his foot and toss himself aside, out of the way of Aibek’s teeth. Both of them tumbled back to their feet; Aibek’s injured paw only barely touching the ground so that there was hardly any weight on it. Though both of them dripped blood, Aibek knew that he was the one with a fight-ending injury, and it would likely end very permanently if he didn’t manage to get away.
He had barely regained his footing before he was being swatted aside again, and the lion was upon him, jaws snapping. Aibek held him at bay with one paw at the lion’s throat, his hind legs kicking relentlessly, claws tearing into fur and muscle. Sheer girth meant the lion had the advantage, though, and it was only a matter of time before Aibek likely lost the limb holding the lion’s face at a slightly safe distance.
There came a snarl from the underbrush, vicious and outraged, and soon it was echoed by a second one. Serik hurled himself out of the brush, crashing into the lion’s ribcage like a wrecking ball, his hackles standing on end from his neck down to the base of his thrashing tail. The lion stumbled aside, giving Aibek just enough space to scramble out of the way.
The lion rounded, one massive paw smashing across Serik’s face and sending him tumbling aside. Before he could advance a step farther, though, Sezim bolted from the tree line, her teeth clamping down on the lion’s ear and dragging his head around, away from Serik. The lion tossed his head ineffectually, succeeding only at shredding his own ear in Sezim’s teeth. He batted at her awkwardly, and while he came close to catching her, he couldn’t quite contort himself into that angle.
Aibek dragged himself back to his feet and lunged, landing on the lion’s back. His claws flexed, digging into muscle to keep his balance. His mouth opened and he struck like a snake, teeth sinking into the back of the lion’s neck. The lion yowled fit to shake the mountain, but Aibek held fast, shaking his head in brief, fitful jerks until his muzzle was coated in blood and matted with hair that had been torn loose, and the lion was grunting distressed, bark-like noises as he thrashed back and forth to dislodge his unwanted passenger. To no avail, though, as Aibek’s stubbornness was a force to be reckoned with.
Serik hopped back to his feet, gave his head a quick shake, and prowled forward again. Eyes darting, the lion finally tore his ear from Sezim’s grip and reared up onto his hind legs until he began to tip over backwards. Aibek jumped aside, landing on three legs in the snow and stumbling aside before the lion could crash down on top of him.
Slowly, the lion hauled himself bac
k to his feet and looked around at the trio of snow leopards circling him like carrion birds. Just as slowly, he began to back away, blood lethargically dripping to the snow with each step.
Aibek and the twins let him go. They watched him back away until he turned and bolted, and then Aibek sat down heavily, panting. Sezim prowled over, bumping her head against his chin and circling around him as she inspected him. Aibek prodded her aside with his muzzle and hauled himself back to his feet, pausing to spit out a mouthful of the lion’s mane before he turn to instead investigate Serik.
He dragged his tongue over Serik’s head, grooming him busily, rather like a fretful, clucking hen. Serik tolerated it for a moment before he swatted Aibek aside.