by Zoe Chant
And more than that, it was...joyful. Nina couldn’t remember the last time she’d just been happy like this. Happy with someone, Joel happy alongside her.
She didn’t want to leave this behind.
If she stayed here, they could do this same thing tomorrow, run through the trees together. They could explore the mountains together. Joel could show her the Park, and Nina could show him the wilder territory where she’d been living. The caves, the rocks, the ancient trees.
She didn’t have to ask him if he’d like that.
She turned her head to look at him, resting with his head on his paws and his tail curled around him, eyes half-lidded as he took some time to build his energy back up, and she knew. He’d be excited for that. He’d say, Let’s do it. Can’t wait.
Joel stretched his paws out, his body rippling. He looked like he was getting ready for a nap. What if they did this in the daytime sometime? They could find a warm rock and soak in the sunshine, take an afternoon nap, and then get up and run some more.
They stayed sprawled on the rock together—not open in the sunshine tonight, but hidden in the dark, and Nina let this secret imagining of the future spool out in her head. The idea that there could be something there in the future, something to look forward to, was a hope she thought she’d abandoned for good.
Was it safe to let it back in? Was she setting herself up for disappointment, again?
She didn’t think so. She honestly, truly didn’t think so, and that was making excitement bubble up in her chest.
Yes, her leopard purred. Stay here. Stay with him. That will be good. That will be best.
Her leopard never trusted anyone. Nina was used to having to quiet its growls, calm it down, keep it from clawing at the space inside Nina’s self where it lived. The leopard only ever purred when they were alone.
But it was purring with Joel. Surely that meant something. Surely it was safe to trust him.
They stayed there, invisible in the rocky darkness, for a while. Joel napped, but Nina stayed awake, her thoughts chasing each other back and forth through her mind.
Finally, though, Joel lifted his head and looked over. He leaned in again, and this time Nina didn’t startle, just let him touch his nose to hers. It was a close little moment, a soft brush of a touch. She liked it.
Then he stood up, stretched mightily, and hopped down off the rock. He looked around the wild, rocky slope, then looked back up at her. The message was clear. Play some more?
Nina smiled to herself, stood, and jumped down next to him. Time to play.
***
Joel had never had such a good time with anyone.
Zach wasn’t naturally a risk-taker. He’d run around and play-pounce and wrestle and all of that, but he refused to compete for who could jump the farthest from one rock to another, or climb trees until they threatened to crack until his weight. He was always cautious, always conservative.
Joel, on the other hand, just wanted to break free, do the most and the farthest and the hardest his leopard body could manage.
And Nina was exactly the same.
Her body was honed like the blade of a knife. She was sleekly muscled, graceful, and packed as much power into every ounce as she possibly could. And she was utterly fearless.
She was just like Joel, in a way. Back in town, he’d recognized that innate wariness around people. She was afraid of what could happen if she told someone her secrets. She didn’t like to get too close to someone, because she knew that things could go wrong.
But once she was alone, in the wilderness, she lost that layer of fear like she was taking off a heavy coat and throwing it away.
They spent hours running around the forest, then up in the mountains, racing each other, leaping from rock to rock, playing hide-and-seek—which was especially difficult in snow leopard form, since the leopard coloring blended perfectly into the rocks. Since it was nighttime and all they had was the moonlight, if they stayed still, they were almost invisible.
Eventually they exhausted themselves, and Joel could feel it getting later and later. He didn’t want the evening to end, though; every part of him protested at letting Nina go off to...wherever she’d been staying. He was afraid that if he let her out of his sight, he might never see her again.
So when he finally shifted back to human, and she followed suit, he turned to her. And stopped for a second, because he’d forgotten, somehow, how beautiful she was. Her curly black hair, her wide grey-green eyes, her full lips, her generous curves...
He’d been about to say something. Right. “Do you want to come see the cabin I’ve been fixing up?” he asked her.
She hesitated. Joel wanted to reassure her—don’t worry, it’s not a line, I actually just want to show you my cabin—but he stayed quiet and waited. He didn’t want to put on pressure that she didn’t need.
“All right,” she said finally. “Yes. Show me your cabin.”
Joel bit down on his smile, keeping it small. “It’s this way.”
They shifted again to head down the mountain, but this time they just moved at a walk. It was surprisingly nice, having someone alongside him as he made his way through the woods. Joel was used to doing this alone, and had always thought that that was best: he felt like part of the environment when he was alone. His eyes, ears, and nose were focused only on the natural world around him, and no one was distracting him.
But having Nina by his side didn’t take away from the experience of nature. She was at home out here, at least as much as Joel was. Her paws didn’t make a sound, and her ears twitched at the slightest indication of some other life scurrying or flapping around the night.
And knowing she was there...it gave him a sense of security, somehow. Of solidarity. It wasn’t just Joel facing the wilds on his own, it was the two of them together, watching each other’s backs.
Joel wanted Nina to stay in Glacier. He wanted her to be out here with him every day, just like this.
He was determined that Cal would be all right with it. And if he said no, well, Joel had never sworn any loyalty oaths or anything medieval like that. He was going to make sure Nina had somewhere safe and secure to be no matter what happened.
Maybe he should tell her that. Although, speaking of medieval, he’d probably sound like some kind of overbearing jerk, insisting that he could control what happened to her.
He’d wait. He’d talk to Cal, and see what happened. And no matter what, he’d make sure Nina was all right.
They came over the shallow ridge that hid the cabin from view, and Joel paused, struck with a sudden and strange apprehension. He wanted Nina to appreciate the cabin as much as he did. He wanted her to understand what it meant to him. And he was oddly nervous that she wouldn’t.
Well, he’d never find out if he hesitated at the top of the ridge forever. He started downward at a trot, and Nina followed him. When he reached the cabin’s front door, he shifted, and she followed suit. She came back into human form already looking up at the compact wooden building.
The cabin was almost two stories; there was a lofted area that old Mr. Walton had used for storage, but where Joel planned to put a bed, once he had all the repairs finished. It was made of good western red cedar, both beautiful and sturdy. And local, which made repairs easier.
Overall, it was a solid, snug, decent-sized cabin, nothing fancy or extra-special, but perfect for Joel’s needs. He watched Nina’s face as she studied it.
She looked at the building, lit by the nearly-full moonlight, then around at the mountain forest surrounding it, then at the building again.
“This would be a nice place to live,” she said finally.
Something warm rose in Joel’s chest. “Want to see inside?”
She nodded, looking up at him with a ghost of a smile. He smiled back, stupidly happy that she liked it, and unlocked the door and ushered her inside.
The inside was more in need of repairs. Joel had had to get rid of several different species of small animal that
had been nesting, and he still needed to finish repairing the damage done by their occupancy. A couple of the windows were still boarded shut, because he was leaving the issue of glass transportation and installation until the very end. The roof was patched, but not fully fixed yet. The old stove still had to be replaced. Mr. Walton was keeping most of the furniture, so it was pretty bare.
“There’s still some serious work to do,” Joel told Nina as she looked around, biting down on the desire to apologize. He wished he could’ve shown her the cabin as he imagined it when it was finished, complete with cozy furniture in front of the fireplace.
She wasn’t smiling any longer, but the serious look on her face somehow meant more to him than the smile had. “It looks like a future,” she told him. “Like it’s going to be built into something more than it is.”
He let out his breath. “That’s what I think whenever I come here. The house I live in with my brother—that’s his future. He and his mate are going to live there, maybe forever. Maybe have kids there. But this is something I’m making for myself.”
Nina bit her lip. “I understand. Or, I think I do. I don’t like to look ahead. It always seems to go wrong, somehow.”
She said it quietly, the sadness present in the set of her mouth, the fall of her eyelashes. No dramatic emotions, no tears, nothing. And yet, that soft little statement wrenched Joel’s heart.
It spoke of years of disappointments, of hurting, of wanting and not getting. And the way she kept it all locked down suggested to him that it hurt too badly to let it out.
This was going to be the moment where that changed for Nina, Joel vowed. From now on, she was going to be able to look ahead with confidence and excitement. He was going to make sure of it.
“I’m looking forward to having lights in here,” Joel told her. “But for now, all we’ve got is the fireplace, so I’m going to go ahead and get it lit.”
He went to do that, and when he’d gotten a good little flame going, licking over the logs he’d set up, he looked back to see that Nina was exploring around, checking out the kitchen area and curiously examining the boards on the windows.
"Still a work in progress," he said. "As you can see."
"Is it fun to work on?" she asked, turning back to him.
Joel nodded immediately. "I like doing things with results you can see. When I'm working on the cabin, I'm finding problems, fixing them, and then seeing the finished product right away. It's satisfying."
Nina said thoughtfully, "I've never fixed anything up like this. Well, I've never owned a place to live, so I guess I haven't had a chance."
"I don't technically own this place," Joel admitted. "Yet. I'm fixing it up as part of a deal with Mr. Walton—he's letting me occupy the place while I work on it, and once I've saved up enough money, I'm going to buy it. The furniture was all his, which is why there isn’t much.”
Nina nodded toward the nest of sleeping bags, pillows, and blankets he'd created right by the fire, in lieu of an actual bed. “That looks pretty comfortable.”
Joel smiled. “Want to have a seat?”
They arranged themselves amid all of the soft things spread on the floor. Joel gave Nina most of the pillows and stopped himself from asking five or six times if she was comfortable. She sat cross-legged on a pillow and seemed just fine.
Joel kept a few inches between them. Having her so close was reminding him that she smelled intoxicating, like the forest and wildness and woman all mixed up together. Joel watched her face, looking pensive, the firelight illuminating her deep brown skin and making it look like it was lit from within.
“Can I ask you something?” he said softly.
Nina’s eyes flicked up to his. They seemed to look right through him, clear and endless. “All right.”
“You seem like you've had a lot of trouble in your life. You were ready to skip town just because I noticed you. What happened to you?"
Nina was quiet for a long, long moment, long enough that Joel thought he’d gone too far and she was going to run away again.
But finally, she said, "I'm adopted."
"Okay," Joel said slowly. And then it clicked. "By human parents?"
Nina nodded. "They got me when I was a baby. And it was never a problem—they loved me just as much as they would have if I'd been theirs. I never worried about that at all. Until I shifted in front of them for the first time."
Joel felt himself go cold. "How old were you?"
"Sixteen," she whispered. "I'd known I was a shifter for a couple of years already. I'd felt the leopard inside me for my whole life, but until I was thirteen or fourteen, I thought it was just this...growly inner voice."
In spite of himself, Joel smiled faintly. He’d had that growly voice inside him for as long as he could remember, too.
"When I shifted for the first time, I didn’t know what had happened or what I was. I thought I was this insane freak.” Nina wrapped her arms around herself, as though she was cold. “I tried to research shifters on the Internet, figure out if there were others, where they might be...but it was totally impossible to find any real information. There are all these crazy made-up websites out there."
Joel nodded sympathetically. "I did the same thing when I was a kid. Tried to find my people online. It's the worst. There's no way to tell what's real."
Nina's eyes snapped to his. "Did you not have a shifter family? But there was your brother—"
"Our parents were from different packs," Joel said. “And—it’s kind of a long story.”
Nina’s eyes stayed on him. “Tell me.”
Joel wanted to hear what Nina had to say, not rehash his own stupid past. But he couldn’t ask her to tell him about her painful history if he wasn’t willing to do the same.
"My parents were a wolf and a snow leopard, from totally different packs.” He kept it brief, not wanting to get caught up in the memories. “They were mates, but their families couldn’t accept it, so they ran away together. Zach and I grew up in the city, far away from any other shifters. And then they died when I was thirteen. My mom got sick, there weren’t any shifter doctors around, and she just kept getting worse. After she was gone, my dad...couldn’t go on without her. Neither of us knew where they'd come from, because they never told us, so we were stuck there, alone.”
“Thirteen,” Nina said in a low voice. “That’s terrible.”
Despite himself, the memories were flooding in: the anger, the tearing grief, the frustration. “We didn’t know of anywhere we could go. I hated shifters so much for exiling my parents, but I still desperately wanted a pack to belong to.”
Nina’s mouth was an unhappy line. "I wish it was easier. It seems so hard, unless you're born into the right pack."
Joel nodded. “And being alone can be fatal.”
Nina’s mouth twisted. “One more thing to worry about, I guess.”
Joel thought of Nina getting sick like his mother had, and it twisted inside him like a knife. Unable to help himself, he shifted position, moving closer to her. When he paused, not sure of his welcome, she leaned toward him, settling in close.
The feeling of her small body tucked in next to his was like coming home.
Nina might’ve been alone before, but now Joel was there. He was going to make sure she never had to suffer like his parents had. “What happened to you after you figured out what you were?” he asked softly.
After a second, Nina drew in a breath and answered. "I couldn't find any other shifters, and I couldn't keep from shifting at home sometimes, even though I knew it was stupid and risky. It was like...” She waved a hand, as though she was trying to find it right words. “It was like if I didn't, I'd just start screaming and never stop."
Joel took that hand, wrapping her small fingers in his. She gripped him back, and he said, "I know that. I felt that. When you're a kid and there's nowhere safe and you just want to run..."
Nina bit her lip and nodded. "Yes. Yes, exactly. So. I kept it a secret for a long time—I'm sur
prised how long, looking back. But eventually I got caught. And my parents couldn't handle it. My mom was shocked and afraid, which I can understand—so was I, the first time I shifted.”
She was quiet for a minute. “What about your dad?” Joel said finally, although he was afraid of the answer.
“My dad...sometimes I think that if it had just been my mom, it would’ve been okay. She was afraid, but not angry or disgusted. But my dad called me a monster, a devil-creature. He said I wasn’t his daughter. He kicked me out and told me I could never, ever come back."
Joel closed his eyes. Nina's fingers were cold and shaky in his, despite the fire just a few feet away. He brought her hand to his face, pressed his forehead to the back of her hand, and gripped her hard.
She held his hand just as tight. For a long moment, they sat there together, squeezing each other’s hands and breathing through the pain.
When he opened his eyes, Nina was looking into the fire again. "I think he might've believed that I really wasn’t his daughter anymore, that something had taken me over,” she said. “I don't know. But I left that day, and I never went back."
“How did you survive on your own?” Joel ran his thumb over the back of her hand, stroking the soft skin, the tense knuckles.
“I was lucky,” Nina said frankly. “I was old enough to work, and I got a job waitressing. But I couldn’t stay in the city, because there was nowhere to shift. And I didn’t have enough money, anyway, only working part-time. So I was sleeping outside for a while, which is hard to do in human form.”
Joel’s heart ached for her. She said it so matter-of-factly, it was painful.
“For a while, I thought I’d just turn into a leopard and live out in the forest like that. When I left the city, I tried it. I practiced hunting until I was good at it, found a good place for a den...but it didn’t work.”
“Because you’re human, too,” Joel said softly.
Nina nodded. “It’s the same thing as not shifting into a leopard. If I’m a leopard for too long, it starts feeling like I’m just going to scream. I’m really both, I can’t just be one or the other.”