by Jade White
*
Amelia shed her winter gear efficiently, finishing by kicking her boots off. She dropped down onto Aibek’s couch, tumbling down over one of the arms and linking her fingers together behind her head.
“Your family is too nice,” she informed Aibek blandly, sliding him a sideways glance without getting up.
He joined her on the couch a few moments later, sounding amused as he asked, “How is that?”
“I gave everyone the news,” she explained, closing her eyes and shifting back and forth to get comfortable. “Multiple times, actually. Your family really likes to spread out during the day, you know that?”
“We are related, not interchangeable,” he pointed out wryly, nudging the top of her head with his knee. “We do have our own hobbies. Are you going to explain how they are too nice?”
“Oh, right.” Amelia cracked an eye open to glance at him before she closed her eye again. “So, I told everyone the news, and there were barely even any questions. Everyone basically just said ‘okay.’ Asked if we were happy about it. Serik seemed a bit shaky on the concept of being an uncle, but Sezim was all for being an aunt. Anara was a bit harder to read, but she didn’t make a big deal about it or anything like that.”
“Were you hoping they would?” Aibek wondered, nudging her with his knee again until she pulled one hand from beneath her head to swat at him.
“I wasn’t hoping they would, I was just expecting that at least one of them would,” she protested. “The closest any of them came was Sezim being grossed out at the idea of her brother being involved with someone.”
“I am pretty sure that is standard younger sibling behavior,” Aibek pointed out.
“Serik seemed fine with it,” Amelia protested, letting her head thump down onto the couch cushion so she could instead link her hands together on top of her belly.
“How do you know?” Aibek returned, sounding amused. “Maybe he was just playing nice. Maybe he was horrified.”
“Well, if he put in the effort to play nice, that still counts as being too nice,” Amelia drawled. “Snow leopards are all goody-goods. It’s been decided.”
“By a council of one?” Aibek asked wryly.
“By a council of me, yes,” Amelia confirmed. “It’s okay, though. More people in the world could stand to be too nice, if you ask me.”
“Then I am glad they pass your test.” Aibek still sounded playful, but there was something sincere there, as well. He was glad, truly, that she liked his family.
“It’d be kind of monstrous of me if I didn’t like them,” Amelia mused reasonably, opening one eye and tipping her head back to look at him. “Granted, I don’t think they would have blamed me if I didn’t.”
“Probably not,” Aibek agreed pleasantly, offering a crooked smile.
“You see what I mean?” Amelia scoffed good-naturedly. “They’re all just too damned nice.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
The next morning, Amelia and Aibek woke with a start as the door was thrown open, snow and the frigid wind spilling in. A man stood outlined in the doorway while the door itself slammed back into the wall with a bang, and a lioness threw herself into the room, aiming straight at the bed like an archer’s arrow.
Aibek rolled, landing on the floor with a thump just in time to avoid the lioness landing on him. The bed creaked, and Amelia tossed herself off of it, landing on all fours on the carpet.
“Good morning, Amelia,” Darius greeted placidly from his place in the doorway. “You’ve certainly taken your sweet time leaving this place, haven’t you? I’m afraid I’ve gotten a little impatient. If you’d be so kind as to come with me? Otherwise, the younger leopards just over there might not be in such amazing shape.” He lifted a hand to gesture absentmindedly toward the twins’ room.
Darius looked much the same as Amelia remembered him. In a petty way, Amelia had almost hoped he would have gotten less attractive. Not because she was tempted by him, but simply because it would have seemed more fitting. He didn’t deserve to be attractive. He didn’t deserve to be desirable. He was threatening a pair of kids in the hopes that it would make it easier for him to kidnap her. He deserved to look like the monster that he was.
Amelia’s eyes narrowed and she scowled, and from the opposite side of the bed, Aibek demanded, “What did you do to them?”
Rage surged through Amelia like a tidal wave, but she had no time to wonder at the feeling; she had no time to wonder at how the twins were as dear to her as if they were her own siblings. All she knew was that she was prepared to rip Darius or his lackeys apart if it would keep the twins safe.
The answer, unexpectedly, came from the twins. The sounds of a startled snarl drifted through the air and two spotted, feline forms fled into the snow, soon followed by a larger beige form, chasing the twins toward the emergency path.
Amelia smiled to herself, just for a moment. She supposed she should have known better than to underestimate them. She knew they weren’t the type to let themselves be turned into damsels, and they had been in the middle of things for as long as Amelia had been on the mountain.
“Yeah, your threat’s working out real well,” Amelia drawled blandly before she transformed. She straightened up, standing tall on all four legs as she stared Darius down. He looked almost offended for a moment, as if he was taking it as a personal affront that that Sezim and Serik had not simply meekly rolled over like a pair of cubs. How little he knew.
Across the bed, Aibek transformed and then hauled the lioness down from the bed, tossing her across the floor. She tumbled, sprang to her feet, and bolted out the door, forcing Darius to back up and hop down from the porch, lest he get bowled over by her. Amelia shot after her, leaping down from the porch, the snow crunching beneath her. The sound of Aibek landing just a moment after her was comforting.
Amelia slapped one paw across the lioness’s face, and as the lioness stumbled, Amelia turned and bolted as fast as her legs could carry her, straight as an arrow until she got to the rocky incline, her spine flexing like a slinky and her tail keeping her paws steady beneath her. Behind her, Darius shouted, “Go after her! She can only run for so long!” He sounded angry, of course, but worse than that, he sounded indignant, like Amelia was depriving him of something he was entitled to. Even when she was covered in fur, the idea made her skin crawl, and it only got worse when she remembered just how close he had come to having her.
She flung herself downward, landing halfway down the slope, her claws scraping against the rocks as they dug in for balance, and then she immediately sent herself flying again before she could lose her balance. She would be sore later, but it was an easy price to pay. Her speed was her offense. She wasn’t going to sacrifice it for something as insignificant as comfort.
She landed in the snow at the bottom of the incline, tumbled down into a heap of long legs and an even longer tail, and rolled through the snow like a tumbling stone before she leapt back to her feet and kept running. But it was true; she could only run for so long, before she had to slow to an uneasy lope. Not long after, as she looked behind her, she could see the lioness charging after her. Even stumbling every so often, she was gaining on Amelia.
Heaving a sigh, Amelia slowed to a halt, turning to face the oncoming lioness. Brute strength would not be on her side, but there was more than one way to win a fight, and if she just kept running, then all she would accomplish would be wearing herself out and probably getting frostbite.
She tensed, muscles ready for anything, her tail twitching behind her. The lioness got closer, until at last she pounced, and Amelia hurled herself out of the way like a bottle rocket taking off, springing sideways. With a yowl, the lioness landed where Amelia had been standing just an instant before, and she tumbled into a heap in the snow. She scrambled back to her feet just in time for Amelia to latch onto her tail with her jaws and pull, only to dash out of the way again before the lioness could smack her across the side of the head.
Amelia swatted at the liones
s’s flank next, her claws catching on fur and skin and ripping loose, only to skitter backwards as the lioness tried to crane around to get at her face. She just had to stay out of reach for as long as she could. If she could do that, then she would be just fine. And really, running circles around a lion felt like something she had been bred to do.
The space between them grew as Amelia continued to back up, until she bared her teeth in a snarl, turned, and bolted. She heard the lion grunt, and then she heard the heavier cat bounding after her.
Amelia did not know the mountain well. Between the cold and the snow, she hadn’t gotten many opportunities to explore. It was her chief complaint about the mountain. But she did know parts of it better than the lioness did. She ran at an easy lope to let the lioness stay close and to avoid wearing herself out, long enough and far enough that it wouldn’t be readily apparent that she was looping back in the direction they had just come from, leading the lioness back toward the incline. She had an idea, but she would need to gain a bit of height in order for it to work. She just hoped she didn’t get herself killed trying to pull it off. If someone was going to die during her stunt, she sure as hell wanted it to be the lioness snapping at her heels.
The lioness slowed to a halt as the incline came into view, only to jerk back into motion as Amelia turned and leapt at her, claws raking across the side of the lioness’s face. Amelia ducked under the swipe aimed at her head and turned, bolting up the incline, the lioness following her up.
Amelia climbed only halfway up the incline, her claws scraping on the rocks. She slowed then, purposely wobbling as if she was almost out of steam. The lioness, energized by Amelia’s apparent faltering, put on a burst of speed up the rocks, claws extended and scratching loudly over the stone, until at last she pounced.
Amelia crouched, ducking her head low for safety, and she let the lioness land on her back. Gathering all of her strength, Amelia launched herself off of the rocks, twisting through the air to throw the lioness off, sending her tumbling down the incline. Amelia’s paws touched the stones again, and she threw herself downward.
She heard the loud cracking sound of snapping ribs as she landed on the lioness’s chest, and the lioness’s pained yowl trickled off to a rough, soggy wheeze, and after a moment, blood began to bubble from her nose, dripping to the snow and sinking through it before it cooled. She thrashed weakly, her paws scrabbling through the reddening snow and staining it pink, but she didn’t stand a chance of winning when Amelia lashed out, her jaws closing tight around the lioness’s throat. Her claws dug in, holding on tightly as the lioness struggled fitfully for only a moment more before she finally fell still.
Brute force was all well and good, but even the queen of the jungle didn’t have much of a defense against 112 pounds of cat barreling into her at highway speed.
Slowly, Amelia relaxed her jaws and hopped off of what had been a lioness but had rather quickly become a corpse. She gave her head a quick shake, blood sprinkling over the snow from her muzzle.
She turned to face the top of the incline again, and she heaved herself forward, climbing upward once again. Her paw prints were red as they followed her up the slope.
*
Sezim woke up with a scream when the door was thrown open with enough force that one of the hinges broke. In an instant, Serik was awake, throwing himself upright in his bed so quickly that he tumbled right down to the floor.
Together, the two of them gaped at the strange woman standing on their porch, slowly lowering her leg from where she had kicked the door inward.
“Aw, cute,” she sighed, bringing one hand to her chin. “Cubs.”
Sezim didn’t wait for anything else to happen before she kicked her pajama bottoms off and tore her top over her head. She tumbled sideways off the bed, transforming before she even hit the floor, landing on the carpet on four paws. Across the room, Serik followed suit, and soon the only sound in the room was the low, dual-toned rumbling of a pair of very affronted snow leopards who had not appreciated their rude awakening.
The woman, for her part, looked slightly bemused that the “cubs” were not cowering under their beds. A moment later, her confusion morphed into outright surprise as the twins abruptly barreled right past her, shoving her out of the way of the doorway before they bolted down the porch stairs. Behind her, they could hear cloth rip as she transformed, followed by a snarl as she tore after them. They shared a look, and then they turned to angle themselves toward the emergency incline. If anything was going to qualify as an emergency, this was probably it, even if it was not the path’s intended purpose.
They were only just reaching the bottom of the path when the lioness caught up to them, and with shockingly little effort, she smacked Sezim off of her feet with one well-aimed strike of her paw. Serik had no time to go to his sister’s aid before his back legs were knocked out from under him with a simple hip-check.
Sezim, too angry to bother trying to look cool, instead simply wrapped her jaws around the lioness’ tail while she was distracted with Serik and pulled, only letting go when the lioness yowled and rounded on her. A swat upside the head sent Sezim scampering farther up the slope, Serik clambering after her.
There was a secondary path halfway up the emergency path, hidden behind an outcropping of rock. In general, none of them considered it to be part of the emergency path. It was barely big enough for the twins to fit through it, and it didn’t lead anywhere helpful, considering it just led farther up into the mountain. They knew where it was, though. And in that moment, it was exactly what they needed.
Sezim scrambled between the rocks first, pausing just long enough to make sure Serik was behind her, before both of them bolted ahead, fighting against the wind as they climbed higher. They could hear the clumsy blundering of the lioness behind them, evidently determined to best the children that had made her look bad. Few things bothered adults more, they supposed.
They looked back in time to see the lioness claw her way through the crevice that was too small for her, leaving clumps of fur from her shoulders and hips behind. She stumbled as she emerged, so her face nearly met the snow. She growled as she straightened up, low and sullen, her lips pulling back to bare her teeth.
It was not a pleasant sight, but the twins stood their ground, watching her intently, as if they were daring her to come at them. She complied with the unstated demand after only a moment, bursting toward them as quickly as she could in the snow. Sezim and Serik stood in place until she was nearly upon them, before they turned and bolted away, continuing to wind upward on the rugged, narrow trail. It could hardly even be called a trail, as it was narrow enough that Sezim and Serik had to bound along it in single file, lest they jostle each other right off the path if they tried to walk side by side. Behind them, the lioness had to tread carefully. It was not a task she was well designed for, considering the terrain, the wind, and the snow still falling.
The lioness was getting sluggish, trudging along with her belly dragging in the snow. Soon enough, Sezim and Serik had to actively goad her along, darting toward her and swatting at her face, darting around her to tug at her tail, or snapping at her legs. They only let her slow to a stumbling halt when they came to a ledge. Sezim climbed onto it carefully, crouching low and crawling across it far enough that when she turned around, only her head stuck over the side of the ledge.
The lioness watched warily, standing rooted to one spot, until Serik slammed into her from behind, boosting her forward. Sezim, ever in-sync with her brother, snagged the back of the lioness’s neck in her teeth and hauled backward with all of her strength. Working in tandem, they dragged her onto the ledge.
Only then, when she began to realize what was going on, did the lioness renew the fight, snapping at the twins as they tag-teamed her. There wasn’t enough room on the ledge to properly dodge, so instead, they had to resort to distracting the lioness’ attention away from each other. When she made a go at Sezim, Serik grabbed her ears. When she made a go at Serik, Sezim
grabbed her tail and pulled.
And finally, there was a deep, ominous cracking noise. Without waiting, Sezim and Serik both flung themselves aside, landing back on the path. The lioness whipped around to face them, but she paused when that same crack echoed through the air again.
Both twins ducked their heads as the ledge collapsed, sending the lioness plummeting down the side of the mountain. They took a moment, after that, to just sit in the snow and lean against each other, panting as they caught their breath. Finally, though, once they were sure the lioness wasn’t going to somehow climb back up the mountain, the twins stood up and turned away, heading back along the path until they got to the rock, where they squeezed through to get back to the actual slope. They set off at a trot, side by side, back down the path toward home.
*
Anara woke up with a start when she heard her younger sister scream. She threw herself to her feet, her blanket and her pillow falling to the floor and her bed screeching a few inches across the floor as she did, and she ran for the window, looking out just in time to see the twins go sprinting through the snow with a lioness running hot on their tails. The other shoe, it seemed, had finally dropped. Whatever showdown they had been expecting for the past weeks was finally upon them.