“Can you shift into any animal? Tiger, sparrow, catfish?” He hesitated. “Mountain lion?”
“I need bones or skin to change. I use DNA to adopt the shape I want. I can’t change mass very well. It’s dangerous. So I stay with animals of my mass most of the time.” He wasn’t looking at me like I was an escapee from a supernat zoo. That did happy weird things to my insides, and I clenched my hands into fists before relaxing them again. “I’ve never tried water animals. Only land mammals. Rarely birds. We were protectors so predators are easier.”
I stopped. He’d asked about mountain lions. Though he’d been on the brink of death, Rick had seen me in my Beast-form once, the first time I’d saved his life; I’d made a habit of that lately, in between occasions of leaving him in danger. I knew what he was asking.
I drained the rest of my drink. “I usually choose mountain lion. And yes, that was me you saw when the sabertooth attacked you.” I’d been at a larger mass than my own, thanks to a glitch in the shifting process. That was what I was calling it, a glitch. Not a Beast-took-control-and-forced-a-mass-change-to-the-top-of-the-genetic-range-situation, which was
closer to the truth.
Rick nodded, which I saw in my peripheral vision. I risked a direct look at him. His eyes were steady, calm, nonreactionary. “Have you been in counseling or something?” I blurted.
He laughed and said, “No. Not unless you count Kemnebi’s drunken ramblings. Not since I woke up sick, in pain, and bleeding, with the Mercy Blade. Gee DiMercy talks a lot, and I was too sick to push him out of the room, so I listened.” He waved that away, wry, self-deprecating. “But I’ve had time to do a lot of thinking.” He bent over the table and rested his weight on his elbows, chin in hand, holding my gaze. “Time to get over the anger. Time to remember. So that was you.”
He was back at the memory we shared of Beast. Rick being attacked by a shape-changer in sabertooth lion form. Me saving him. Beast having forced the mass increase was the only reason I’d been big enough to fight the sabertooth lion off.
“Yeah. Me. I chased the sabertooth off you and got help.”
He nodded. “Okay. So if I go furry, can you do the whole black leopard thing?”
Beast moved closer inside me, padding, shoulders hunched, belly tight against me, the way she would hunt unwary prey. I smiled slightly. “If I have the bones or skin or teeth of a female black leopard, yes. Probably.”
Good mate. Strong, Beast thought.
“A real one?” he asked. “Not the bones or teeth of a were-female. Not Safia’s bones?”
“No! That’s black magic.” And besides, I wasn’t sure how the DNA of a were differed from the DNA of a normal animal or mundane human or skinwalker. And I wasn’t curious to find out. “I can become a real black leopard. If I want to. If I have the DNA material. Soooo. Are we . . . good?” I asked, not sure what I meant by that. Beast hacked in amusement. I ignored her.
Rick extended his hands across the table and I placed mine into them. “We’re good. Or as good as we can be until we find out if I survive the next full moon, furry, or not. Till then, it’s a good day to be outside and free.” He lifted my hand to his mouth and kissed the back of my fingers. His lips were warmer than a human’s and soft, and something melted inside me. Beast purred. This man was one of very few people on the face of the earth—to include Molly, her husband Evan, and Angie Baby—who knew I was a skinwalker. And he was okay with it. His scent warmed as if he knew my thoughts, and he pressed my Leo key chain into my palm. “Let’s go for a ride.”
We helmeted up and I followed Rick’s red crotch-rocket Kawasaki out of the small parking lot and up and down switchback roads. We didn’t talk. We roamed the hills, catching one another’s eyes, much like mated big-cats might, pointing to prey and old barns and cabins covered in undergrowth. We followed the scent of grindy and once of werewolf until it faded.
At the first shadows of night, we were back at the campground. I keyed off Fang, set the kick, and straddled the bike while the engines cooled, studying Ricky Bo. While I watched, he secured his bike for the night, his movements more graceful than once upon a time. Though he hadn’t gone furry, he was picking up the traits of a cat: stealth, grace, improved senses. He unstrapped his helmet and I pulled off mine. His hair swung forward, damp, matted by sweat.
I caught the scent of him, musky, salty, cat, all male. I stood and took a step toward him. He met my eyes for a single moment. Heat flared between us, and I was in his arms, his mouth on mine. The world tilted, my hands clawing under his shirt. I was slammed against something hard. Pinned. Bark gouging through my leather jacket. I curled a leg around his, pulling him close. Breath hot. Tongue and mouths and the rising scent of musk. One hand cupped my head. The other my butt. Pulling me close into him. Grinding.
“Get a room,” someone said. Too close.
Rick jerked back, baring teeth. But the man was gone, the scent of sweat and irritation on the air, footsteps receding. Rick huffed a laugh and I made a sound perilously close to a giggle. He bent his forehead against mine, our hearts pounding together. “Holy Mary, Mother of Jesus,” he whispered, catching his breath. “What the hell was that?”
“Cat scent?” I gasped. “Mating pheromones? It’s just a guess.”
“You never did it . . . I mean not with another skinwalker?”
My smile faded. So did my joy. I put my hands against his chest between us. Pressed until he let me to the ground and stepped back, though Rick refused to be pushed entirely away. His hand was still on my nape. I turned my head and rested my cheek in his palm.
“What?” he asked, and I could smell Rick’s confusion, his worry. His cat.
“There are no other skinwalkers,” I said. I tilted my head and searched his eyes. “I killed the last one when it went crazy and started eating people.”
I could see him putting things together. “Leo Pellissier’s son? Was a skinwalker?”
“Maybe. Probably. One who did black magic, took a vamp’s DNA, and the two natures didn’t mesh.” When he didn’t comment, I said, “It was a lot older, I think. Like weres, walkers live a long time. They don’t get nutso until they get very old, or do something stupid like try to become vampire on top of being a walker. I’ve never met another one.”
“Once Kem goes back to Africa, I’ll be the only black were-leopard on this continent, and the only one on the face of the earth who might not be able to change at the full moon. Looks like we get to be singularities together.” He gathered up my hands and pulled me away from the tree, back to Fang. “You’ve got a long ride back. Be careful, Jane Yellowrock.”
I helmeted up, feeling curiously empty and full all at once, drained and vacant and joyful. “You too, Rick LaFleur. I’ll be back.”
“I’ll be here,” he said, “at least until the day after the full moon. If I’m alive then, my whole world will be different.” I reached for Fang’s key. “But I’ll still want you, Jane.”
I looked up at that, but Rick was gone, fading into the lengthening shadows.
Back in my suite in the Regal Imperial Hotel, I rushed through a shower, looking longingly at the whirlpool tub with its candleholders and plush towels. And at the bed I hadn’t used in a day and a half. Maybe at dawn. Which seemed a long time away. I braided my black hair, which was windblown and needed a scrubbing it wasn’t going to get anytime soon, and tucked it up into a tight, compact queue. It could still be used as a handle in a fight, but the bun was better than loose hair over three feet long. I wasn’t vain, and I could be called beautiful only by the most generous or the most inebriated, but my long hair was gorgeous.