Page 35 of A Lost Light

He arched his brows at me, then looked down at his own body. “Oh, does that bother you?”

I blinked. Tried to keep my eyes pointed at his face. Probably failed. “Um… not really?”

He huffed a half-laugh and gave me a boneless shrug. “You're a witch. I thought witches shared the same beliefs about nudity that shifters do. I'll only be a moment.”

I kept my mouth shut. I could feel his aura swelling, and the nudity made more sense. In a strange shimmer of magic, the hot guy before me morphed into a sleek, beautiful black jaguar.

It wasn't the painful-sounding half-transformation of a werewolf. There as no crunching or grunting. This was a true shifter. His rare and powerful magic was effortless, like breathing. He went from man to cat in the space between inhale and exhale. He stretched his new form and shook himself. Then he jumped, prancing in place, bending his front legs so he could touch his nose to Bis's little head before leaping up to race around the courtyard.

Bis chirped happily and followed suit, and soon the jaguar was chasing my tiny best friend, stalking him through the plants like a hunter stalking prey. I swallowed hard and got to my feet. “River?” I said nervously. One good bite and Bis would be gone.

Just then, the jaguar leapt and landed over the top of Bis, a big paw on either side of the little rodent. Bis squealed in delight and put on a burst of speed, but River just pounced him again. I gasped as the jaguar caught Bis in his massive front paws and rolled, like the little spiny ball that Bis had become was a just a cat toy.

“River!” I shouted, running their way, my magic unspooling, coiling in my hands, ready to be formed into a stun spell. “Drop it!”

The two creatures froze and turned their heads to look at me just as Dyre ran through the door from the house and Aahil burst into existence at my side in a swirl of sparks, no doubt drawn by the alarm they felt through my bond with them. We all stared at each other.

Bis slowly uncurled from his ball to twitch his long nose at me. “Momma? What's wrong?” He didn't seem scared. Merely curious what we were all so riled up about.

River seemed to gradually realize what the problem was here. He slowly rolled over and deposited Bis on the ground, then shimmered again as he shifted. He sat cross-legged in the grass, naked as the day he was born, his black hair tousled and his eyes alight with the fun of a good chase. “I wasn't going tohurtthe little guy,” he said, as if we were all crazy for even thinking it.

Bis huffed and stood up on his back feet, crossing his little front paws like an unimpressed human. “We were justplaying,” he said, rolling his little black eyes.

“Yeah, well,” I said lamely.

Dyre let out a long breath and gave us all an unimpressed look. “I felt you prepare your magic and thought we were under attack,” he told me flatly. His zombie guard shuffled into the courtyard, and he waved him away. “False alarm,” he muttered.

Aahil snorted. “I was really looking forward to setting someone on fire.” His gaze landed on River, and he lifted dark brow. “I still could.” Flames flared up in his hand, dancing with merry threat.

I sighed and bent to pick up my gardening things. “Oh, stop jinn. Clearly, I overreacted.” I glanced at River. Yep, still gloriously naked. “I'm sorry for assuming the worst. It's just…” I waved a hand helplessly. “Big cat. Tiny familiar.”

River shrugged one shoulder, unconcerned. “My jaguarisrather magnificent. It was a natural misunderstanding. But our animals understand each other,” he said with a conspiratorial glance at Bis.

Bis nodded. “River would never hurt me. His cat's too quick and too smart for that.”

I shook my head. “If you say so, I guess.”

The others had all filtered in to quietly observe, probably drawn here by my panic and the magic surge just like Dyre and Aahil. So, they all got an eyeful when River stood up and dusted off his ass. “In my animal form, my instincts are stronger, and I am more animalistic. But I'm still myself. I have full control of my faculties. It feels good to hunt and chase. But I can tell actual prey from friends.”

And with that, he shimmered again, sending out a wash of that strange, powerful shifter magic, and became a sleek, shiny black jaguar once more. Bis head-butted one of the cat's front legs, then took off with a peep, clearly asking to resume their game. River made some sort of stupidly cute chirping noise in reply, and they were off, racing around the courtyard playing chase again.

I headed toward the door with my basket, pausing beside the others to watch the weirdos playing tag in the garden. “I almost fried him,” I muttered tiredly. “He has no sense of self preservation.”

“Or modesty,” Ambrose said with a leer.

I rolled my eyes.

“He'll fit right in around here,” Niamh said dryly as she put her knife back into its sheath at her waist.

I headed back inside to find something else productive to do. At least River's hijinks had taken my mind off all of myotherworries for a while. But of course it couldn't last.

The ground rumbled ominously, almost like… a mild earthquake. Because of course it did. I should have known better than to relax, even for one fucking afternoon.

Chapter 19

Bis

Something felt not right. I tried to ignore it so I could concentrate on reading the book about familiars I had found in the third smallest library. The earthquake earlier had made us all a little nervous. But nothing had happened afterward, so eventually we all went our separate ways. I was probably just still nervous about that. I took a deep breath to focus myself, sneezed at the snoot full of dust that got me, and went back to my reading.

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