Stealing the Snow Leopard's Heart

by Zoe Chant

  “I thought I felt you dying,” she whispered. “But it wasn’t that, was it? It was—whatever was between us—it’s gone.”

  Lance and his snow leopard watched the blood drain from her face. Just when he thought his heart couldn’t break any more, she smiled brokenly.

  “It’s gone. That means you’re free.”

  Keeley

  Keeley wrapped her arms around herself.

  Lance had brought her to this meeting room and left her. It felt like hours ago, but the clock on the wall told her it was only a few minutes. She supposed there was a lot to do, right after you discover that one of your high-level employees is actually a psychopath who’d tried to kill off half his colleagues. Lots of paperwork, probably. Lots of hushed conversations.

  At least one thing was going right. She wasn’t his mate anymore. And that must be such a fucking relief for him, now that he knows…

  Keeley sank down in the chair and buried her face in her hands. She couldn’t gather the vitriol to be angry, even inside her own head. Everything hurt too much.

  But it shouldn’t. Maggie is safe. Carol’s going to be fine, and no one got blown up at the warehouse anyway and they’ve caught Briers and Sean, and… this doesn’t have anything to do with me, not anymore.

  Lance is free.

  And if it hurt, deep in her heart like someone had taken a hacksaw to her chest, well, she should stop being so fucking selfish. He was better off without her.

  Everyone was.

  They’d left her in a meeting room, not the cell again, which she supposed meant Lance had been telling the truth about trusting her. Then again, from the number of whispered conversations she’d heard through the door, it sounded like there was a guard outside. So maybe it was just that the cell was otherwise occupied.

  There was a knock on the door.

  Keeley’s head snapped up. The room wobbled in front of her, and when she blinked, she felt wetness on her cheeks. “Oh, shit.”

  She dragged her sleeve across her eyes, grimacing. By the time she looked up again, eyes clear, Lance was standing in front of her.

  Keeley fought the impulse to jump out of her chair. Her hands made fists on the desktop, and she quickly put them in her lap.

  “Um. Hi.”

  “I brought you something to eat.” Lance placed a tray on the desk in front of her. His movements were stiff.

  “Thanks.” If Lance’s movements were stiff, Keeley’s voice could have been used for scaffolding. He’d brought her food? Why? “How’s C-Carol?”

  She winced. Great. Her voice could either be stiff or crumble completely. What a great couple of options.

  “She’ll be fine. Chloe’s looking after her.”

  He fell silent, his face getting the distracted look Keeley was beginning to recognize as the tell that he was using telepathic speech.

  She dragged her eyes away from him. She didn’t know why she bothered noticing stuff like that. It wasn’t like she was going to be around him long enough to do anything with the information.

  Her stomach twisted as she looked at the tray of food Lance had brought her. Pastries, savory rolls, cookies…

  Not that she had any appetite. She grabbed the paper cup of coffee from the side of the tray and cradled it in her hands.

  “Sorry about that.” Lance straightened his jacket and sat down opposite her. “That was Chloe. Carol’s just woken up. She was asking after you.”

  “I’m surprised anyone wants to talk to the human who almost got everyone killed.”

  “Keeley, no one believes that. We know Briers lied about your involvement.” Lance swore under his breath. “Along with other things. He’s been selling scale shields on the black market for months, apparently. Not to mention…” His voice softened. “Sorry. You don’t need to know any of that.”

  “Yeah, need-to-know, right? And I’m the last person who needs to know.” The paper cup began to buckle between Keeley’s hands, and she quickly put it back on the table. “So what happens next? When do I get to leave? Or are you keeping me here?”

  Her voice grated against her ears. She sounded like a sulky teenager, and she still couldn’t make herself even look at Lance. She glared at her hands.

  “No, I thought… we need to talk.”

  “What about?” Keeley shot back. “You know the whole story now, and you’ve got Briers—that’s everything, isn’t it?”

  The memory of Lance teleporting across the room struck her like a train. His arms around her, his lips pressing against her forehead—

  She untwisted her fingers and ran them through her hair, scraping at her scalp with her fingernails. “Unless you want another official statement from me, I mean, a real one, not just me lying like last time.”

  “I meant we need to talk about us.”

  Keeley froze. “What us? There isn’t—” She swallowed and rubbed her chest. “There isn’t any us. Is there. It was just the mate bond, and now it’s gone.”

  Her voice was flat. Lance was silent, long enough that her eyes started to wander towards him of their own accord.

  She wrenched them back to her hands.

  Lance cleared his throat. There was another short pause and a movement at the edge of Keeley’s vision. She guessed he was repositioning his glasses. God, he was so adorable when he did that.

  “You thought I was dead,” he said, his voice painfully slow. “And I thought—”

  Keeley flinched, and he didn’t finish the sentence.

  He doesn’t need to. I already know what he was going to say.

  He thought I betrayed him.

  Lance kept talking. “It can happen. The mate bond breaking. Not… frequently, and it isn’t something shifters like to talk about.” He cleared his throat again. “Finding your mate is meant to be like finding the other half of your soul, and to lose that—”

  “Could be pretty good luck, if the other half of your soul turns out to be a piece of shit?” Keeley muttered under her breath.

  Lance hissed in a sharp breath.

  “You can’t think that.” His voice was incredulous. “Keeley, you’re not—you’re everything I could have hoped for. More.”

  “Bullshit!”

  This time, she was too slow to stop herself looking at Lance. Their eyes met, and there was no sizzle, no heart-yanking pull of connection. Just pain in Lance’s eyes, and a hollowness that wrenched at Keeley’s insides.

  She caught her breath, and with it, the rush of emotion that had made her interrupt him.

  “Bullshit. You don’t even know me. I’ve lied to you since the moment I met you. You don’t know anything about me, you don’t know who I used to be, who I really am.”

  “So tell me.”

  No. No, no, no, I can’t.

  The words died on Keeley’s lips. What did it matter, now? It wasn’t like it would make any difference. Lance wasn’t tied to her anymore, so what she was shouldn’t hurt him.

  Maybe it would even help. If he knew what sort of a bullet he’d dodged.

  Keeley swallowed hard.

  “Look, Sean, all of this—it’s just the way my family is, you know? Criminals, but shitty criminals. Someone says ‘jump’ and the Baileys say ‘how high’, and then act all confused when it turns out they wanted us to jump in front of bullets, or the cops, or whatever. We’re bad, but we’re bad at being bad. And ever since I can remember, Sean always wanted more.”

  She tried to shrug, but her shoulders were already up around her ears. She rolled them back, trying to ease the tension that was crackling through her whole body.

  “Sorry. I’ve never… talked to anyone about this before. Not even after…” She bit her lip. “Well. That part’s coming up.” What better way to convince him he’s better off without me than to tell the whole story?

  “I’m glad you’re telling me.” Lance’s voice was gentle. And it was a good thing he was sitting between her and the door, because if he hadn’t been, she would have bolted.

  Instead,
she had to keep going, and wait for that gentle voice to harden up again.

  “Anyway, when my uncles weren’t all signing up to get shot at, we did basic jobs. Burglary, mostly. Nothing big, because big meant security systems, instead of just normal people’s houses.”

  She risked a glimpse at Lance. He was sitting completely still, his expression neutral.

  “So basically, I spent my childhood fucking up other people’s lives because they could afford a big TV but not a security camera,” she continued, her fists clenching as she waited for Lance’s reaction.

  His eyelids flickered. Nothing else.

  “Don’t you have anything to say about that?” Her fingernails were digging into her palms. “I was good at it. It was fun. Like solving a puzzle and hide-and-seek rolled into one.”

  Lance lowered his head. What was he going to do, feed her some line about it not being her fault? She’d gone along with all of it.

  “Everything that’s gone wrong these last few days has happened because I jumped in without knowing the full story,” Lance said quietly. He rubbed his forehead, a line forming between his eyebrows.

  And then, to Keeley’s surprise, a smile flashed across his face. “Besides. I’m convinced that if I tell you it’s okay, you were only a kid, you’d throw it back in my face.”

  “Well. Yeah.” Keeley’s hands relaxed. “I mean, even a kid knows that stealing’s wrong. I spent enough time in school to know that.”

  “But if it’s what you grew up with—sorry.” Lance held out his hands in surrender. “The whole story. Go on. Convince me that you’re really a terrible person.”

  Keeley glared at him. That was—no. Too close to flirting.

  Stop kidding yourself, she thought, rubbing her chest. You’re imagining things.

  “Anyway. So, Sean was always looking for his next big shot, and one day he thought he’d found it. And he wanted me on the job with him, because I was good at being small and breaking into places, basically.”

  Keeley hesitated. This was the hard bit. She wasn’t sure she’d even gone over all of it in her own head, before.

  She’d just run away and never looked back.

  “I thought it was just another burglary. The house was fancier than we usually hit, but Sean told me he had everything under control. We got in easy enough, and then the plan changed…” She licked her lips and shrugged to cover the shiver that went through her. “Turns out it was another case where someone said ‘jump’ and Sean said ‘how high?’ Only I didn’t know it until we were there.”

  “What happened?”

  Keeley sucked down a mouthful of coffee before she returned to the story. Her mouth was dry, and it got dryer as she kept talking.

  “We got in all right. Almost freakily easily, really, so I should have figured something was up.” Keeley ran her fingers through her hair agitatedly, pulling at the knots as though untangling her hair would help her straighten out her thoughts. Why was it so hard to tell this story? “It was a nice house. Nice neighbourhood. But as soon as we were in, Sean let slip that this wasn’t just a normal job. One of the local gang bosses had told him to shake down a competitor, and that’s what we were there to do.” Her fingers caught on another knot, and she jerked at it so hard the coffee in her other hand almost spilled. “I was so mad. I should have left, but…”

  She swallowed. But I knew what Sean would be like if I ditched him.

  Keeley glanced at Lance, and the concern in his eyes made her throat close up for a moment. She coughed and made sure she wasn’t looking at him as she continued.

  “Anyway. I wasted time arguing with Sean, and getting angrier, and then I did what he wanted anyway. His boss wanted stuff smashed, well, I was already mad enough for that. I went crazy, and I was so wound up already that it was fun. Like breaking in had been fun. He had this living room full of display cases with fancy plates and stuff, and big sea chests full of other really smashable valuables, and I just—lost it. I didn’t even hear the front door open.”

  She paused and rubbed her eyes. “Sean was upstairs. It was a really big house, so I don’t know, he probably didn’t hear…” Another gulp of coffee. The cup was shaking.

  “Keeley—”

  “So the guy came home. I was in the living room, just… smashing shit. Then I turn around and he’s there, and—I ran, and I don’t even know if I hit him first or he just hit me back, and I tripped and fell over one of the chests I’d been pulling stuff out of…”

  Her throat closed over as the memory flew to the top of her mind. Everything had hurt and the world was still spinning from when the man punched her, and then—

  “Your nightmare.” Lance’s voice was heavy. “You said everything was dark, and you couldn’t move.”

  “Something like that.” Keeley’s voice shook. “Anyway, I was there for—I don’t know, a few days? Eventually I guess my Gran got the story out of Sean and came and found me. He’d taken off as soon as the guy came home, of course.”

  She grinned, because the sight of her old Gran coming into the house like a knight in shining armour probably would have been funny, if she’d been conscious enough to remember it. Then she made the mistake of looking up at Lance.

  His face was ashen.

  Keeley looked away quickly. Her fingers were twisting together in her lap. “And… that was that, basically. Gran sorted it out with the guy whose house it was. He wouldn’t report the break-in, she wouldn’t report him for not calling an ambulance or whatever.” Her voice dropped. “And Sean got paid. His boss was happy enough with how things went, I guess.”

  “Jesus.” Chair legs scraped across the floor as Lance stood up. He moved towards Keeley, and then paced away, one hand to his mouth. “Your uncle set you up.”

  She tried to laugh it off. “You catch on fast! It took me until Gran came and rescued me to figure it out.” Her hand went to her neck. Nothing there. Of course, Maggie still had her necklace.

  Good. She should keep it.

  “That was it, for me. I couldn’t hack it anymore. It wasn’t just that Sean left me there, no one else even—anyway. Gran gave me some money and her old locket, and I got out. I haven’t looked back since. Or, not until Sean found me…”

  “And blackmailed you into transferring the egg for him.”

  Keeley nodded. Her forehead itched, and when she scratched it, she felt dampness. She’d been sweating? But I don’t feel warm. I feel cold…

  Lance swore and charged across the room. The next thing Keeley knew, he was kneeling in front of her, folding her in his arms like she was the most precious thing he’d ever touched.

  She put her hands on his chest to push him away. “You don’t need to—I know I’m not your mate anymore—”

  “The hell with that.” Lance pushed his fingers through her hair, cradling her head against his shoulder. “God, Keeley. Everything you’ve been through… How could you think I’d hold that against you?”

  “What?” Keeley pulled away, just far enough so she could look into his face. “I just told you! I hurt people. I didn’t even care that I was doing it. I stole things and made people feel like they weren’t safe in their own homes, and…”

  “When was the last time you felt safe?”

  Keeley just stared at him. Lance shook his head slightly, his eyes troubled.

  “Not living there, I’ll bet. And since then?”

  Once. Keeley tried to fight the thought back, but it escaped her. Just once, when you carried me out of my nightmare. Just for a moment.

  She kept her mouth shut tight. What would be the point of telling him? It was stupid, anyway, to feel safe in the middle of all of her lies. She was still the same as she had been then. Still lying. Still out for herself. Still hurting people.

  But just for that moment…

  Something stirred in her chest, like the remains of a fire shifting to reveal one last ember, already cooling to dull, dead gray.

  “Keeley, look at me.” Lance’s voice was suddenly
urgent. “Did you feel that?”

  Lance

  A flicker. Barely even that. A sudden glimpse of light, like a sunbeam hitting a single mote of dust.

  Lance’s snow leopard was faster than he was. While he was still staring into Keeley’s eyes, hoping against hope for some glimmer of recognition, it leapt.

  Lance didn’t wait to see whether it caught the lone spark of light, or what would happen if it did. Or didn’t. He grabbed Keeley’s hand.

  “Tell me you can feel that.”

  She bit her lip, her gaze going hazy. “I did feel it. Before. Like being filled with light. But that stopped after—” Her eyes sharpened again, and Lance almost groaned with frustration. “It hurt. But it wasn’t me who was hurting.”

  The frustration disappeared in an instant, replaced by horror. “The explosion. You felt that?”

  Keeley shrugged tightly. A hole opened in the bottom of Lance’s stomach.

  He’d felt it too. Not the hurt. The moment of connection, of calm, in the middle of the chaos.

  “It was like touching a live wire, and afterwards—boom. No more light.” Keeley grimaced. “Sorry. ‘Boom’ probably isn’t the best word. But maybe we, I don’t know, overloaded it. Like plugging too many things in, and the fuse box blows. I mean, it makes sense, doesn’t it? I’m not a shifter. I don’t have any of these powers, and I’m not as strong as you, so… it just didn’t hold up.”

  Lance shook his head. “No. You are strong, Keeley, even if you can’t see it.” Guilt burned at the back of his throat. Everything Keeley had said about her childhood—how had he not seen that she was hiding so much pain?

  She’d been so full of love and hope all the time they’d been together—and Briers had destroyed that.

  No. Lance had destroyed it.

  “I gave up on you. That must be what did it. I gave up, and when you thought I was dead, the bond needed my faith in you to survive. Instead, it broke. All because I believed Briers’ lies. Of all the mistakes I’ve made, that’s the worst.”

  He took a deep breath, slowly, as though any sudden movement would disturb the hunt going on inside his soul.