by Zoe Chant
She grinned to herself, mind made up. There was nothing here that wouldn’t wait for another day or two. There was nothing holding her back now. She reached into her desk drawer to find her phone.
She was surprised to find a missed text message, before she remembered that she had put the phone on silent in order to get through things with no distractions. With a flick of her thumb, she opened the message.
As if he had been thinking of her, as she was thinking of him, it was from Luke. The contents of the message weren’t as pleasant as her thoughts had been.
It’s over. It read in stark black and white.
Octavia felt more confused than angry, and quickly typed back a response.
?
She only had to wait a few moments before her phone buzzed again.
It’s over. We’re finished.
Her next reply was a little more thoughtful.
Not funny, Luke.
I’m not joking. We’re done. Stop contacting me.
Octavia gritted her teeth, and instead of replying, tried to ring him. The number went straight to answerphone. She tried again, with the same result.
Can’t we even talk about this? she settled for texting back, unsure if she wanted to scream or to cry.
No. We’re through.
And that’s it? No explanations, we’re just done because you say we’re done? She texted back angrily.
Exactly.
And what if I don’t want it to be done?
Tough. You’re a rich snob with no idea of what it is like to live in the real world. Goodbye, Octavia. Move on. I have.
It was the last two words that made her decision for her. Her mind filled with the image of Luke with another woman, and she yelled, throwing her phone across the room where it bounced off the wall with a crack.
How dare he! She had thought that there was something special between them. She had thought that they were getting on well with each other. Yes, the party last night had been bad, but he had seemed so understanding.
As she slumped back into her seat, the tears came, flowing freely down her face. How could something so special be over that quickly? What had she done to push him away? Why would he not even let her explain, or give her an explanation. It was baffling, and heart-breaking.
Her jaguar paced the confines of her mind.
Lies, it insisted. Words from another. Not his. Never his.
The jaguar’s hissing drowned out everything else, and her skin itched with the need to shift, to change and to find him.
Octavia shook her head and wiped away the tears with the back of her hand, sniffing to try and regain some sense of composure. Fur brushed her cheek, and she saw with a start that the distinctive patterns of her other self were already appearing on her skin.
With force of will, she pushed back the change, pushed back her inner cat, confining it by will alone. It hissed and spat, raged and clawed, but Octavia refused to allow it to win.
Luke had dropped her as if she was worthless. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of proving him right.
She was Octavia Mateo, and she was not worthless.
***
The city of Tucson stretched out beneath her, lights glittering into the night, but Octavia barely saw it. On the open laptop screen, Nicodemus watched her, frowning pensively, but still bearing traces of anger around his mouth. He had been furious at her decision to come to Tucson. He said that it was because she was giving too much leeway to the company she was here to negotiate with, but she thought it was something else. Her jaguar yowled mournfully, and Octavia sighed. Luke. This was his city, but she wasn’t sure if she should try to find him, to hear his cruel words from his own lips.
But her jaguar raged. It hissed and spat in fury and sharp denial, until she had returned to her sanctuary and let the cat free.
Lies, all lies it had insisted. He is ours, it had sworn. Go to him.
But every time she had mentioned it, Nicodemus had always been able to come up with a reason that it was unwise. She had listened to him, trusted him. But her jaguar had not. It had hissed and spat and insisted that she go and find their other half. And eventually, she had listened.
The negotiations in Tucson were her excuse for being in the city, but now, she wasn’t sure if it was the right thing to do. Her jaguar was still insistently pushing at her to go out into the city and find him. But she hesitated.
Nicodemus cleared his through, dragging her attention back to the internet call.
“You shouldn’t be doing this,” he reprimanded her from her computer speakers.
“I’m here now,” she told him flatly. “Deal with it.”
Offended indignation flashed across his face, and abruptly, the call was terminated. She scowled, feeling a pang of guilt. He was only looking out for her, and she really shouldn’t take out her cat-self’s aggression on him.
She turned away from the screen again, and back to the Tucson vista. Somewhere down there below her was Luke.
The man who had taken her trust.
Our heart, whispered the jaguar.
The man she had shared herself with.
Who had shared himself, reminded the jaguar.
The man she could have seen herself loving.
As he loved you, purred the jaguar.
The man who betrayed her.
Lies! the jaguar roared.
For a moment, she felt the roar of her cat-self in her blood and her bones. She shook with the power of it, before she realized that it wasn’t just her— that the building she was standing in had just quivered. She listened carefully, her jaguar falling silent again, but there was nothing obvious to hear. This building was home to many different offices, although the man she had been meeting with had assured her that he was working on buying them out. She really had not cared, and had not done a good job of hiding her apathy. The meeting had ended quickly, and her check-in call with Nicodemus had gone poorly.
She walked over to the window and placed her hands flat on the cool glass, hoping to soothe herself. Ever since she had arrived and checked into her hotel, she had felt on edge. And now, again, her jaguar was stirring restlessly. She was not one to get spooked by dark rooms and dark buildings, but this place was weighing on her. That made up her mind, and she pulled her hands away from the glass, turning to leave the conference room.
As she laid her hand on the door handle, an alarm began to shrill, ringing in her ears. She opened the door, and immediately caught the smell of smoke. It was weak and nebulous, but there was certainly something wrong.
In a day that she had thought couldn’t get any worse, life had to go and prove her wrong. She blotted out the sound of the alarm as best she could, and followed the signs to the nearest fire exit.
The door was locked. And as she numbly rattled it in the vain hope it would unlock, she heard chains. On the other side.
The smell of smoke was growing stronger now. With a click, the sprinkler system activated. Octavia looked up, expecting to feel the water, but there was nothing. Well, there was a good reason not to buy into this business, she thought, a touch hysterically. Breach of building code.
Lifts were not safe in fires, and she wasn’t going to stand around and wait for the fire to come to her. That left the stairs. As the alarm continued to wail, Octavia felt panic starting to rise in her. She quickened her step, turning her walk into a jog. The grey carpet and beige walls were off-putting and confusing in their blandness, making everywhere she turned look the same, and the slowly rising haze of smoke did nothing to help her navigate. She passed the same set of desks twice before she found the nearly concealed stairwell.
She clattered down the first flight of stairs, the second and then the third. There was not another soul trying to make their way out by the stairs, and when she reached the fifth flight, she saw why. It was still a construction zone, tarp and caution tape surrounding the gaping hole where her exit route was supposed to be. Of course, there had to be something else, she thought. Not
willing to backtrack or risk finding another locked fire door, Octavia weighed her options before stripping off her clothes and putting them in a neat bundle, secured with her belt. She shifted.
The smoke stung her eyes and made her sneeze. She shifted her weight from paw to paw, nervously, before grabbing the bundle by the belt and jumping over the first obstacle. Where her human-self could not have made the descent, her cat-self could. But where her human-self could remain calm, her cat-self couldn’t. There was fire nearby, she could hear it. It was closer to her now, and her whiskers twitched with the slowly rising heat.
Jumping downwards, she managed to descend another two floors before it became totally impassable. She hesitated, listening to the roar of the flames, before nudging the door to the main floor open.
Smoke hung in the air, a thick choking cloud, and Octavia pressed her belly to the ground to avoid breathing in any more than she had to. The floor was hot— not quite unbearably so, but getting close. She crawled her way across the floor, heading to where she thought the fire door should be.
Only to be confronted with a blank wall. She yowled in frustration, and the room roared in response. Flame licked up through the floor as the temperature rose sharply.
Heat and smoke burnt her lungs as she tried to draw breath. It was terrifying how quickly the flames were taking hold, how quickly the office was turning into an inferno. The smoke was choking her, blinding her, and she didn’t know where to turn. Her human-self and cat-self were locked together in fear and confusion.
She fell to the floor, finding herself shifting back into human form and dropping her bundle of clothes, feeling the heat biting into her bare human skin. She crawled, choosing a direction, mindlessly trying to do something, anything, rather than wait for the flames to take her.
She heard glass shattering from her left, as it was overcome by the heat. A brief blessed blast of cold air drifted over her, before the chill was burned away by the heat. She gasped, reaching for the last tenuous thread of rational thought, pushing towards the area the sound had come from, chasing them down.
Out of the flames rose a monster, walking through them as if they didn’t exist. It was tall, yellow and faceless and Octavia shrieked at it, feeling fear and defiance in equal measure. Her jaguar shrieked too, but in joy and delight, writhing just beneath her skin.
Flames leapt, and Octavia crumpled at the rush of heated pain. The monster leapt forward at her, and as Octavia slipped into unconsciousness, the last thing she felt was strong arms closing around her. Her jaguar growled contentedly.
***
Her jaguar was still growling contentedly as she opened her eyes. Above her, the night sky was filled with the glow of the lights of Tucson, and a deliciously cool breeze drifted across her skin. Sirens wailed nearby, but the sound felt strangely muted to her. She was cradled tight in the arms of someone, and they— he— were muttering a string of nonsense reassurance into her hair. Lips brushed her forehead and a sweet thrill of electricity shot through her at the touch. Desperate to see who was holding her, she twisted and sat upright, looking straight into the surprised face of Luke.
The voice of Nicodemus in the back of her mind tried to tell her that he was just a dirty user, but she blasted it aside. Cradled in Luke’s arms, staring straight into his gorgeous eyes, she knew the truth. They were meant to be together. Everything that Nicodemus had told her was a well-crafted lie. Even the text messages were no longer the proof that she had thought they were.
Mated. My mate. My heart. My soul, her jaguar whispered, and curiously, was echoed by another feline tone.
Luke’s eyes widened as if he had heard the declaration as well, and Octavia couldn’t restrain herself any longer.
She kissed him, pressing tightly against him, moulding her body to his and wrapping her arms tight around him. He responded immediately, holding her firmly and letting her take what she needed from him. It was as if they had never been apart.
Time seemed to stand still as they kissed. Octavia was jolted out of the pleasant reverie eventually by a teasing wolf whistle.
“Wasting no time, Luke,” a voice said.
Octavia felt Luke loosen one hand and make a motion. Reluctantly, Octavia loosened her own grip and pulled back, and settled for taking hold of Luke’s hand. The electric sensation was now a pleasant buzz, and she didn’t want to lose it.
Now she was starting to come back to herself, she took in her surroundings. Luke was still half dressed in his fire-fighter gear, with his helmet and breathing gear lying next to him. He looked strong and powerfully masculine, in his own heroic world. This was where he belonged, saving lives at the risk of his own, not trying to be polite to rude rich people at parties.
His jacket, she realized, was hooked over her shoulders, and a blanket was wrapped around her legs. In the fear and the confusion, and then the joy at being reunited, she had forgotten that she was naked.
There were a lot of fire trucks gathered around, and they were sitting at the back of one. She couldn’t see the building anymore, and while the air still had a hint of smoke, it was not overpowering. The man who had whistled at them was leaning on the back of the truck, his helmet hanging from his fingers. Octavia looked from him to Luke and back again. They bore a striking resemblance to each other, and Octavia swallowed a slightly hysterical giggle. She had wondered about meeting Luke’s family, but hadn’t imagined it would be when they pulled her out of a burning building.
Panic tried to rise up in her again, but her jaguar drove it back with a flash of claws. Luke squeezed her hand reassuringly, most likely feeling her tension rise.
“Before introductions, we need to get things straightened out. Octavia, did you tell your uncle to arrest me?” he asked bluntly.
An icy shock shivered down Octavia’s spine, and her inner jaguar went from purring contentment to screaming rage in a heartbeat.
“He. Did. What?” she asked coldly, the hiss of the jaguar beneath every word.
“I ended up a jail cell, and banned from Mexico on his word alone, all for the crime of trying to see you,” Luke explained.
Luke’s brother looked on, stone-faced. This was obviously not news to him.
“I am going to tear him from shoulder to spleen,” Octavia pronounced, her tone still angry. “And can I presume that you did not break up with me by text, calling me a rich snob with no grasp of the real world?”
As she had done, Luke hissed, but the skin on his face rippled and bulged as his inner jaguar sought to come to the surface. His rage was a balm to her human self, a vicious denial of the hurt that had been done to her.
They were both innocent of the crimes that the other had thought they had committed. They loved each other. How could she have ever have believed otherwise?
“Take it easy, bro.” Luke’s brother stepped forward to rest a calming hand on Luke’s bicep.
Luke growled again, and visibly shook himself to pull himself back from the edge of violence with sheer force of will. He settled for going back to basic politeness.
“Octavia, this is my brother Tomas. Tomas, this is Octavia.” The banality of the introduction broke the tenseness and the ice, and the newly relaxed atmosphere was amplified when Octavia added, “Charmed.”
The three of them began to laugh, sharing in a moment of humor that was sorely needed.
Tomas was the first to sober. “I’d let you two carry on, but Octavia needs to get checked out by the doctor, and you need to give your report, bro. After that, it’s up to you two what you lovebirds get up to,” he winked. “Business before pleasure.”
Luke groaned, and this time it was Octavia who squeezed his hand reassuringly.
“I don’t mind the teasing,” she whispered in his ear.
They rose together, untangling their limbs and finally letting go of their intertwined hands. The electrical buzz faded, and Octavia mourned its loss.
She let the doctor check her over, poking and prodding, asking questions. She answered them
as honestly as she could, but absently, keeping her eyes on the form of Luke as he gave his report. She couldn’t wait to hold him again, and when the doctor made noises about wanting to take her in for monitoring, Octavia flatly refused. The doctor tried to insist, but Octavia kept repeating herself. Finally, the doctor pushed several tubes of ointment, rolls of bandages and a bottle of pills into her hands, pointing at a pair of scrubs, before stalking off angrily.
“He wants to keep an eye on you?” Tomas asked, coming up beside her.
“Yes,” Octavia said. “I’m not leaving Luke.”
Tomas looked at her as if he was measuring her up. For the first time Octavia saw the cat beneath the skin. “You left him once.”
“Not by choice,” she said, certainly. “We were both lied to. But now, we know the truth.”
Tomas slowly nodded. “I believe you.”
Octavia felt a rush of gratitude. Out of the corner of her eye she caught sight of Luke turning away from the chief and making his way towards her. The rush of gratitude morphed into a wave of desire.
Tomas saw the way she was looking, and chuckled under his breath. “I can see I’m about to become a third wheel.”
Luke, striding up quickly, caught the tail end of the conversation, before offering Octavia his hand. She handed him the pile of medications that the doctor had given her and stood, pulling on the scrubs and leaving the jacket and towel in a neat pile. Tomas shook in silent laughter as Luke looked flummoxed. Octavia ignored the ache of her body and the singed smell, and delicately used one finger to close Luke’s jaw.
“Know any hotels?” she asked him, removing her hand.
“I do, but I had hoped you'd stay with me,” Luke said, and Octavia felt warmer.
“I wouldn’t want to impose.”
“You wouldn't be.”
“You two lovebirds head on,” Tomas said. “Just ring home when you want to be picked up tomorrow. You know everyone is going to want to meet Octavia. Mom wants to thank you for helping her baby boy out.”