Seeing Spots (6 page)

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Tangled with Warren, Sable slowly opened her eyes. “I suppose that we have to leave soon, and I still haven’t shown you my nephew’s note.”

“That is the established pattern. We come, we meet, we mate, we go. I promise to frame the note and hang it on the wall of our home.” He stroked her hair.

“I feel like I just got here.”

He stroked a hand down her back, and she moved against his touch. She loved being stroked, whether it was her cat or her human form.

“You have been here long enough to find a mate, Sable. I am just lucky that I was here when you arrived.”

She chuckled and rubbed her head against his chest. “I am just lucky you weren’t ugly.”

“You are very lucky. My brother is hideous. A disgrace. I don’t know why my sister-in-law ever gets near him.”

She looked up. “It must be his charm.”

“It would have to be. That or his money.” He nuzzled her cheek.

She felt the prickly scratch of his stubble and wished that she could shift in his arms, but from her count, she still had another day to go.

“I think we will need to locate near your family. Mine is not likely to be favourably disposed to my finding a mate. I mean, my immediate family will, but the community at large will be a little grumpy about it.”

“My family will be delighted.”

“What do you do?”

He laughed and she felt his chest rise and fall against her. “We have designed jewelry since the days when my ancestors sat at the side of a pasha.”

“Yours too? Mine were couriers and guards for their ladies. We now own a small courier company that does secure transports.” She smiled. “The more things change the more they stay the same.”

He kept stroking her back, and she went boneless with bliss. Having a man around to ease her into a relaxed state was not something she had counted on. It was a definite perk though.

Dressed, packed and ready to leave, Sable and Warren took one final round of tea and sandwiches with Teebie, with Spike popping in to check on her patient.

“I am giving you the address of a friend who is a little better versed in this sort of situation. She can recommend a specialist to check on you if she can’t keep an eye on you herself.”

Warren tensed. “What is wrong?”

“You need to see her as well. You both are showing traces of magic that isn’t precisely what we would expect to see in a shifter. Since I have only heard of one previous instance of this kind of blend, we need to keep an eye on you two.”

Sable cocked her head. “I can’t believe that this has happened before.”

“Not precisely. A baby was infused with fey magic while still in the womb at the request of her mother. She found her mate here at the Crossroads, so some discrete investigations were done on her. She is currently studying and practicing as the first shifter transporter.”

Sable perked up. “Transporter?”

“Yes. Once on the other side, you can get your guild master to make the enquiries for you.” Spike smiled. “If the magic doesn’t dissipate, you will have a new career option.”

“Do you think it will fade?”

Spike shrugged. “I don’t know. Like I said, this hasn’t happened before.”

Sable sat back and sighed. “I still have to wait for another sixteen hours?”

Spike snickered. “Counting down, are we? Yes, it is better that you tread lightly when it comes to your beast. You don’t want to spend your first few days as a newly mated couple at a guild hall waiting for specialists.”

Warren chuckled. “I could think of a few other uses for our first days together.”

Sable blushed lightly and sipped at her tea. “As could I.”

Spike put the stone to Sable that changed colour when it neared a living being and determined their energy through colour.

Sable remembered the stone from the first time Spike had used it, and the current white gleam was far different than the golden colour she had first exhibited.

Once they had grabbed their bags and were walking down the street, the sound of hammers and saws drew them toward the Meditation Centre.

Sable looked at the construction and repair work going on. “They work fast.”

“Sixty-five percent of the residents here are beavers. When something breaks, it gets fixed in a hurry.” He smiled. “We have some living near the house. A shifter family, not the true beavers. They run a general repair company.”

He was keeping an arm around her waist as they made their progress to the domain of the guardians.

Teal got up from her studying of building plans and smiled brightly. “Ready to go?”

Tony came around a pile of lumber and smiled. He was sweaty, wearing a tight black tank top and jeans that let him move just enough to be comfortable.

Warren cleared his throat. “I am standing right here, Sable.”

She sighed. “I know, but I can still look. Aesthetically, he is very nicely put together.”

Teal grinned and glanced at her mate. “He really is. If I could figure out a way for him to rebuild the roof on a weekly basis, I would charge for viewing. I could make a fortune.”

Warren sighed. “I thought that you would have more decorum.”

Teal hooted and Tony came up to her side.

“Decorum? My home has been blown up twice in the last two years. I am dealing with it in my own particular way, and if that happens to involve me licking my way down my mate in the middle of the work yard, then I will.” Teal smiled and showed a lot of teeth for a swan.

Tony held up both hands in surrender. “I am all for it.”

Sable snickered. “Is Dira still stuck as a dragon?”

Teal smiled. “She is. She will shift back to human when she has regained her power level. The large form is her natural shape; it takes effort for her to hold herself in.”

Sable knew about the dragon, the elves and mages who came along and everyone who put magic into the Crossroads. Tony and Teal had been the guardians here for decades.

She whispered to Warren. “Do you know more than you should?”

He looked at her, at the couple facing them and some of the folk visible through the roof. He nodded. “And their beasts are on their faces.”

She held his hand tightly and squeezed. This was an odd turn of events. She had heard of folk who could determine what a shifter was by watching them or by scent, but she had never heard of being able to see the beast overlaid on the human before.

“We are going to have to talk to our council member about this.” She bit her lip.

“It would be a sound thing to do.”

Teal cleared her throat. “If you two are ready, we can get your documents signed and you can be on your way.”

Warren nodded, “And you can continue the process of rebuilding.”

Tony nodded and waggled his dark eyebrows. “And I can get that licking I was promised.”

Sable grinned as Teal elbowed Tony, but it didn’t make a dent in the muscles of his abdomen.

“Paperwork it is then.”

Warren held her close as they were carefully transported to the Shifter Council headquarters. A party of shifters was waiting for them, and before anything else could be done, they had to take turns in identifying every one of them by animal.

Norman Exeter came forward, every inch the alpha lion and head of the council. “Well, this is unexpected. While I am delighted that you are in good health, younglings, I am not sure what to do with you now.”

Warren kept his arm around Sable. “Give it some thought and find us when you have worked it out. If the plan is to step up the pursuit of shifters in fey custody, I believe we can help.”

Sable nodded as the image of a group of animals being sorted by their own species came into her mind. It must have been something that Warren’s mind had shared with hers. She was focusing on imagining their first night in the human world where her phone could summon pizza at a moment’s notice.

Norman smiled. “I am guessing you will want to be getting home. It has been quite the journey to get you two together.”

Sable smiled. “Worth every minute of the effort to get to this satisfying outcome, though it has taken shapes I never imagined.”

He bent over her hand and brought it to his lips. A sharp spark jumped from her skin to his mouth.

He jerked back. “I see.”

“What?”

Warren bent down and whispered in her ear. “You tasered his face. Fey and human magic.”

Sable blushed. “I apologize.”

“Don’t apologize. You are simply something different, but I am guessing you always were. Now, come this way and I will introduce you to the transporter.”

They walked past the now-dispersing crowd. Norman led them with a fatherly air. “My granddaughter used to live at the Crossroads. She is now living with her husband’s family so that her child will be fully legal and registered.”

Sable blinked. She had not considered that the children of those who lived at the Crossroads would not be legal in the human world. They would have to be born and recorded just like normal babies, even if there wasn’t anything normal about them.

The transporter was a young woman named Helga, and she took into account the fey and human magic blended in their bodies.

A jolt, a flare of light and they were standing in a green space surrounded by trees with a path leading toward a cluster of houses.

“You live in a community?”

“Even in the wild, tigers don’t form large groups. When we are adults, we get our own homes and live our own lives in the territory that our parents staked out. If we have children, we will stake out our own territory and create our own hunting grounds.”

“If? You aren’t counting on kids?”

“If they come, they come; if they don’t, they don’t. I have my mate, my companion for life, and though tigers do not cling to each other in the wild, I am going to be at your side as often as I can.”

Sable rubbed against him. “That sounds like a good philosophy. I am impressed with your ability to think so clearly.”

“Blame it on your illness. All I could think of was the future that I would miss out on if you didn’t survive. I had quite a while to think about it, and this is what I came up with.”

She blinked away the tear that sprang to her eye. “I am sorry that I was so much trouble.”

He squeezed her with one arm. “I am not. It made me slow down and think about things. That rarely happens. I see something and I take action. If I had made a move on you before you were ready, you would have rebuffed me and we both would have missed out on what we are becoming.”

Sable sighed and leaned against him as they made their way out of the woods and into the light.

Sable had lucked out with her new in-laws. The Nobles were fun, cheerful and welcomed her with open arms.

Warren was exaggerating his brother Wendel’s appearance. The underwear modeling that he had engaged in had made him a tidy sum and his wife, Julia, carried a collection of images on her phone that she did not hesitate to share.

Warren’s house was open, the doors were wide enough for him to pass easily no matter which shape he took. Sable planned a few additions to the décor but nothing traumatic. This was a new start for both of them.

After her greeting dinner, they took a long walk in the moonlight and Sable skipped ahead. “How far does the Noble family property extend?”

He chuckled. “A hundred acres. The edge is clearly marked.”

She twirled happily with her arms up toward the moon. “Good, because my time is up. I can shift again.”

She shucked out of her clothing in under a minute and let the rush of fur come over her. She turned and looked back at Warren, but he was leaning against a tree and smiling.

Sable walked up to him and sniffed his hands, chest and groin, taking in all the scents and memorizing each and every one. When he stroked her behind her ears, she purred and it intensified as he knelt to scratch under her chin.

Her beast enjoyed the attention, but running was more important. She broke from his grip and darted into the woods, learning her new territory. Two days locked in her human form had been difficult, but now, it was time to run.

She trotted back to her clothing but her mate was gone. His clothing was in a neat heap, and she nosed at it for a moment before she felt the tingle of a nearby predator.

She sat and looked around her, seeking the location of the tiger when the glow in the tree gave him away. She crouched and lashed her tail, less submissive and more on the alert. She wouldn’t have seen him if her new sight hadn’t lit him up.

The white light shifted, and she made her move, running up the tree and landing on his back. Warren yowled and she disengaged, letting him escape and turning into a human up in the tree. She needed a human voice for her laughter.

The tiger paced below her, and his tail lashed for a moment before he shifted and stood under the tree.

“Are you going to stay up there all night?”

She wiped the tears of hilarity from her eyes. “I might have to. Naked tree climbing has never been a speciality.”

“Jump and I will catch you.”

She was sixteen feet up in the tree and could probably shift and climb down, but if he wanted to catch her…

“On the count of three.”

She sat on the edge of the branch, turned and whispered, “One.”

With her belly against the bark, she lowered herself to hang by her arms until she was dangling over the roots and grass. “Two.”

She heard him moved and she closed her eyes. “Three.”

She let go and fell a short distance, landing in his arms. “You caught me.”

He let her legs slip downward and held her tight. “And I am not letting you go.”

Sable wrapped her arms around his neck and nibbled at his lips. “Good thing for you. Once I have gotten my claws into my prey, I hang on.”

He slid a hand into her hair and gripped her scalp. “It is a premise I can believe in.”

Their kiss began slowly and turned savage as their claws came into it and fur coated their human forms. Time slowed as they moved against each other; she caressed the striped fur on his chest, and he rubbed the base of her tail until she broke their embrace and turned to grip the tree.