Page 30 of The Healer and the Wolf: Part One

She was in a hurry, as she often was whenever she was about to leave the house. I rather enjoyed watching her hop around on one foot while trying to put a sock on. She could sit down to make the task a lot easier, but I found no reason to tell her that. Ven did things the way Ven wanted to do things, and who was I to tell her otherwise? It wasn’t like I was an expert on humanity anyway.

“Is there anything else you need?”

A large part of me hoped there was, if only to make her life easier. I would be lying if I denied being completely enamored with Ven in every single aspect. Not just her physical stature, because while I loved that she was tall and muscled, yet still soft (and had belatedly remembered I was very much a thigh and ass man), but her personality, too. Her compassion. Her intelligence. Even down to the way she talked about her cats and her plants. I was besotted, yet I was comfortable being that way from afar. While Ven was endlessly kind to me, I saw it for what it was—her being the sweet soul she was. Someone like me had no chance with someone like her.

That didn’t mean I couldn’t appreciate what time we did have together, even if I didn’t know how long that would last. While I still had so much to remember, enough had come back to me that I could recall things like rent and bills. Really depressing stuff. Every day I lingered here, I was costing Ven money, hence my desire to try to make up for that in any way possible. The last thing I wanted to do was to be a burden when she had saved my life.

“Uhm, could you put the dishes away? If that’s not too much trouble?”

It saddened me that she was so reticent to ask for anything. Putting the dishes away was a nothing task, yet she acted as if she were selfish for even daring to request it.

“It’s not too much trouble at all. I’m happy to. Anything else?”

“Uh, no, I think that’s it. I gotta go. Be safe.”

She gave me a little salute, then hurried out. My heart clenched as I watched her go, and I wondered about her life outside of these four walls. Perhaps it was my misconceptions from being a wolf, but she seemed as lonely as I was. Maybe her life in human society wasn’t that fulfilling?

Once I was a bit more caught up with everything it meant to be human again, maybe I’d ask her about it. I still felt like I had a laundry list of questions a million miles long that my brain was still meticulously going through.

I stood there for a long while, completely lost in thought. It wasn’t a rare occurrence lately—I definitely had a lot of thoughts to work through. However, my contemplation was cut off by claws slipping on something a little too smooth, followed by a sharp yowl.

“Hello?” I asked, heading toward the noise. “Are there kitties in here getting into trouble?”

Another yowl answered me as I rounded the corner into the kitchen to see the orange cat, Fork, hanging from the fridge with the leader of their cat colony, Mudpie, sitting atop it, her paw raised as she was about to step down onto Fork’s own paws. His singular eye was opened wide like he was truly in the climax of a great Shakespearian tragedy.

It reminded me of a movie, but I couldn’t place which one, and Goober’s anxious meow below prompted me to move instead of getting stuck in another recollection loop. He was pacing back and forth, occasionally standing on his hind legs like he wanted to give Fork a boost back to safety. But while the gray cat was large, he wasn’tthatlarge, and couldn’t quite reach Fork’s dangling feet.

“Would your mother approve of this?” I asked, looking straight into Mudpie’s bright, yellow eyes. “I’m sure she raised you to have better manners.”

Even though I was a shifter, it wasn’t like I had a special way to communicate with most animals. It didn’t work like that. But Ven spoke to her cats like they understood so often that I assumed they would do the same for me.

And for a moment, Mud Pie did look at me as if she were considering my words. But that lasted only a few seconds before she reared her paw back and skibbity-bapped Fork in the head until he let go and tumbled to the floor.

For some reason, wildebeest came to my mind. I had no idea why. Probably the root of another phantom memory. But I knew Ven would be horrified if one of her cats ended up hurt on my watch, so I scooped Fork up to make sure that he was okay. After a couple of treats, exactly two kisses, and five minutes of being cradled upside down, the orange menace was perfectly fine and raced up the cat tree to give himself a bath.

It was funny. I had almost no memory of interacting with domestic cats before, but I was slowly growing to like the trio of chaotic creatures. They all had their own distinct personalities, and the hijinks they got into were low stakes but endlessly entertaining. After everything I’d been through, low stakes was more than welcome.

Also, a regular steak would be welcome. I’d been having more and more memories of cooking red meat on an outdoor fire for some reason, and my body craved it something fierce. However, I got the impression that red meat was expensive, and Ven didn’t have much money as it was, so I wouldn’t ask.

Hmm, maybe there was a way I could get money myself to purchase some? It would be a nice way to thank the woman who had literally changed everything for me.

That seemed like something a book could help me with, so once I was sure the cats were settled, I returned to the living room and dived into some of the nonfiction pages.

I didn’t realize quitehow much time had passed until the front door opened and Ven stepped in. Like usual, all the cats ran to greet her, but unlike usual, she didn’t call out her normal phrase.

Something was wrong.

I was on my feet in an instant and rounded the corner to the small foyer at the front of the house. I could tell just by looking at the beautiful woman that she seemed so very defeated, and when her scent hit me, it confirmed it. It was bitter, acrid, with a strong rush of melancholy. My nose burned, and my heart ached for her. What was wrong? What could have happened? Not for the first time, I wished that there was something I could do for her.

“Are you okay?” I asked cautiously, not wanting to pry too much.

“I’ll survive,” she said flatly. “I need to feed the cats.”

She drifted past me, her scent lingering like camphor from a fire. I didn’t know if she wanted privacy, but since she hadn’t said it directly, I followed after her.

She didn’t say anything for a long while, but that was okay. I was comfortable with the silence. I was used to weeks of it at a time when I was a wolf. She uttered the occasional request, like to pull something out of the fridge or grab something from a shelf, but that was about it. She didn’t seem irritated at my presence, though. Not even when I followed her out to the garden.

Perhaps it was strange, but it made me feel incredibly close to her. Something was clearly troubling Vanessa, and I remembered that usually meant people wanted space. To be alone. But Ven didn’t seem to mind my presence at all. No, to me, it seemed like she appreciated it. Especially when I helped her carry several trays of her plants to the garden.

---