Page 1 of Catastrophe

CHAPTER 1

CLAWDIA

Ididn’t sleep well, so I was grateful when the sun peeked above the trees outside and thin streams of light seeped into the cave. It meant I could stop pretending to rest.

Stop pretending my thoughts weren’t shouting and spiraling inside my mind. Stop pretending the ache inside my chest where Charlie used to be didn’t hurt like I’d lost my heart.

I could stop hoping my small feline body was going to suddenly turn back into the woman I was before. Because it was clear after hours since I’d returned to my familiar form, hours spent trying to find the magic inside me, the magic to turn me human, that the magic was gone.

Missing.

Just as my bond with Charlie was gone.

If this had happened at the beginning of our adventure, losing my human body wouldn’t have been a loss. In fact, I would have celebrated going back to my simple and safe existence. But now I had so much more to live for. So much to enjoy as a human.

Zaide and Charlie had brought me back to life. The thought of never returning to my human form made me feel sick. And the thought of never seeing Charlie again broke my heart into infinitesimally small pieces.

I can’t think about that. I can’t believe that. Charlie isn’t gone. And I won’t believe it until I saw him with my own eyes.

I didn’t want to be sick on Baelen’s chest, so I distracted myself by counting his breaths and enjoying the rhythmic motion of his chest moving me up and down like a ship bobbing freely on the water.

He’d been through a lot and had barely moved through the night. If I hadn’t been sitting on his chest, I might have thought him dead. His beautiful dark skin was ashen, and his stillness scared me.

There was so much I wanted to say and ask about the shadow, his possession of Baelen, how much of our interactions had been the shadow, and how much had been Baelen. But as a cat, I couldn’t.

If Baelen was as innocent as I believed he was, I’m sure he would want to tell his story and get the trauma off his chest, but I wouldn’t be able to provide comfort. I would only be able to sit on his lap and hope the pets he gave me soothed him.

My stomach rumbled a while later as I stared into the mesmerizing blue swirl of the portal. The sound must have woken Baelen, because he groaned and shifted, tipping me off his chest and onto the cold stone. I huffed and shook my fur out, my feline irritation coming back to me with ease.

Yet I was sympathetic as he winced. A cut on his cheek where a stone scratched him, reopened as he moved. He was too weak for it to heal as it should have.

Baelen’s red eyes took in the world around him and I head-butted him, which, in cat, is like a hug.

“You’re still a cat. Are you hurt?” He coughed and sat up. His shoulders shook with the effort, and his dark skin looked pale and glossy with sweat. When I didn’t reply, he raised an eyebrow. “Can you turn back?”

I shook my head, which was a very unnatural move for a cat, but yes, no, and meow would be all the communication we could have until I could turn back.

If I can turn back.

As though in response to my thoughts, Baelen rubbed his head and muttered a curse before explaining, “Not completely unexpected since we learned your ability to shift to human form and speak to humans depends on the shadow magic left from the portal.”

With a heavy sigh that almost made him melt into the gravel, he looked at me and said, “I’m sorry. It must be frustrating.”

The pain in his eyes hurt my heart, and with no other way to comfort him, to tell him it wasn’t his fault, I nuzzled into his bent knee. He picked me up, hugging me to his chest.

He huffed out a breath into my fur and muttered, “I need blood.”

From anyone else, it might have been threatening or creepy to hear whilst being held against their face, but Baelen’s bite was always so pleasurable that I didn’t think to say no and tilted my head to the side.

He frowned. “I’m not taking it from you when you’re so … small and … fluffy.”

I stiffened in his arms, hurt. It was fair enough that he didn’t want to bite me with all my fur in the way—cleaning blood out of it would be a pain—but was I not small when I’m human? Was I a bigger meal? Big? I didn’t know if it was feline or female tendencies making me so angry, but I squirmed out of his arms and turned my back on him, my tail flicking with agitation.

He sighed, and rocks clinked together as he shifted behind me. “I don’t know why that has upset you, Clawdia, but my head is throbbing, and I don’t have the energy to figure it out.”

Perhaps it was unfair of me to act on my turbulent emotions when we couldn’t communicate properly and he was still recovering, but emotions were rarely fair or logical. I turned to see Baelen close his eyes and massage his temples. He looked awful.

It wasn’t an apology, but I rubbed my head against his leg and meowed softly. Perhaps my hormones were all messy since I was a menstruating female only hours ago and now I’m a cat.

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