Page 64 of Primal Mirror

“Hi,” he said. “Angel said you were awake.”

Angel must be the tiger, she thought. “Hold on, I’ll open the door.”

“I’ll shift back,” he said, those eyes gleaming at her primal and potent. “Save your eyes from my birthday suit.”

Flushing as she realized he’d be fully visible to her if he rose from his crouch, she couldn’t help but watch the transition again. His body breaking apart into a million pieces of light before forming once again into the powerful shape of the leopard that was his other half. Her fingers curled into her palm, the urge to touch almost overwhelming.

He looked over.

“Just a second,” she said, and closed the window before walking over to unlock the door. “Come in.”

The leopard on the doorstep hesitated.

“Oh,” she said, her eyes flaring. “I’ve never knowingly touched a new changeling imprint when a changeling is in their other form. I don’t know the impact.”

Raising one deadly-looking paw, his claws out, Remi just brushed the side of the doorway. Auden went to touch it, test her senses—and hit an immediate snag. “I can’t bend that far.”

They stared at each other, her halfway down, him looking up. And suddenly, she felt a snort of laughter leave her lips, followed by another and another, until she was laughing so hard that she had to brace her hand against the door to keep herself upright. The leopard’s eyes gleamed, as if he was laughing along with her.

It was the first time in her life she could remember feeling untrammeled joy.

After she recovered enough to think, she said, “Can you touch anything higher?”

The leopard padded back and back, before bunching up its body into a pounding run toward her door. Her eyes widened as it went airborne. A bang from above as the cat landed on her roof.

She was staring upward in shock when the leopard curled its paws over the top of the doorway, and peered down at her. So close, she could see all the striations in the yellow-green of its irises, sense how the eyes held both an intense wildness and something that wasn’t animal at all, but the human part of his self.

“Beautiful,” she whispered, her hand rising before she was aware of it.

The leopard didn’t attempt to escape her touch, and she found her fingers brushing the soft fur below its jaw. It grumbled and made a movement as if it tickled, but still let her touch. He was warmth and power and patience, and he compelled her.

When he growled again with more intent, she finally dropped her hand. But he wasn’t mad, was just patting at the bit of the doorjamb he’d touched.

“Right,” she said, and took a deep breath before brushing her fingers over the spot.

Wildness. Warmth. Remi. Red leaves shaped like stars under paws. Moonbathing. The scent of ozone before a rolling storm. Hunting, slowly stalking prey. The satisfaction of a hunt completed. Blood so hot and fresh.

“It’s so different,” she whispered. “I can sense you, but mostly, I sense the part of you that’s the leopard.” Because the leopard was in charge right now, she thought, understanding now that when a changeling shifted, they truly shifted. They weren’t human in a cat’s skin. They were a cat with a human part deep within.

No imprint this half of Remi left in her home would cause her hurt. Because even though the leopard had hunted, it hadn’t killed for the joy of it. While she’d picked up its satisfaction, it was a satisfaction without cruelty—a simple pragmatic thing that she would’ve never been able to understand without touching this imprint.

“You can come inside,” she said, and moved back from the doorway.

The leopard’s face and paws vanished, only for his body to land in front of her not long afterward. She gasped, having no idea how such a muscular creature could land so lightly. Tail flicking, Remi prowled in and did what felt like a perimeter check to her. After which, he walked to the kitchen and looked back at her in a pointed way.

“I’ve eaten,” she told him. “Baby here was hungry.” She patted her belly, then winced.

When the leopard rumbled a question, she said, “Backache. I’m controlling it using my usual methods, but it’s persistent.”

Rising, the leopard prowled around, managing to open cupboards and poke its head inside as it did so. She watched, utterly fascinated by this beautiful, wild beast inside her home. She wanted to touch him again, feel the living warmth of him.

When he finally returned after his exploration, he stared at her again until she threw up her hands. “I don’t need to lie down! I need to move and stretch it out.”

A shimmer around the cat.

Her breath caught.

She knew she should shut her eyes to give him privacy, but she couldn’t have torn away her gaze if her life depended on it—so she was looking right at him when a tall and muscular man appeared where the cat had been a heartbeat ago.

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