Page 19 of A Cougar's Kiss
“But now she’s gone.”
His voice almost startled her even though she knew he was there. She’d just been so in to telling this part of her story that she’d felt as if she were talking to herself and not him.
“I changed before she left. I mean, I started to feel different about my life before she met Decan and moved away.” That was true enough, the more frequently the pain came, the more Shya knew she had to take her chance on living the life she wanted before it was too late.
She did look down at her hands then because emotion was starting to overwhelm her—fear of what living the life she wanted might bring, hurt because she knew her parents would be furious that she hadn’t shared the change in her physical condition with them, and worry because she really had no idea how all of this was going to turn out.
“Move over,” he said gruffly.
The change in his tone irritated her cat and she frowned at him before crawling back to her side of the bed and getting under the comforter and sheet again. This time she rolled onto her side and pulled them up to her neck, refusing to say another word or even look back at him. But she didn’t have to, because a few seconds later the light in the room went out and Keller came up behind her. Wrapping an arm around her waist he pulled her back against him.
That’s how they fell asleep—with him holding her close and her deciding to enjoy the moment and to think about the rest later.
* * *
He vaguely knew this place. Remnants of the buildings that used to stand tall and prestigious on this very street were abandoned and bleak. Everything down this street and wherever he went in this new world looked this way, it had for a very long time. All color had been washed away so that the sky appeared to be a dusky gray even during the daylight hours and at night grew to the most ominous black. Buildings, cars, roads, windows, everything looked ashen and rundown. That wasn’t how he remembered it, but it was the present.
His arms shook while his legs moved the rest of his body along as if it were in a trance. He’d found clothes by breaking through a store window and knocking down displays until his eyes could see something that might fit. This place had a better selection than those he’d encountered before, and now he walked the streets with jeans that fell over the top of boots he’d laced up tight. The shirt fit completely over his arms and did not split when he lifted them up into the air.
The cat hated clothes. It hated confinement. Hated walking upright. Hated this life it had been forced to live.
Until it picked up a scent.
Sweet, like peaches and cream and his body jerked with the flash of memory. He’d loved peaches and cream because it was soft and tasted so good when he touched and licked…it was everything pure and good…and honest. He stopped walking, needing to hold onto that scent for just a moment longer. Where was it coming from? Who did it belong to? He had no idea, but he needed to find out.
There was a car to his left, parked at the curb with nobody inside. He walked over to it and kicked in each window, sticking his head inside and inhaling deeply. The scent was still tickling his nostrils, but not from here. He turned to the right and looked up at the building. Half of it was gone, but the structure still stood. All those windows were already broken out so that a scent couldn’t hide inside, it would have to be released. He pushed through the door that was barely hanging onto its hinges. A few steps inside there were steps and he ran up them so fast that he never felt his feet touching the dilapidated wood. It wasn’t until he was five flights up that he stopped because the scent was strongest there. But this was where half the structure was missing so that the sky could be seen if he looked in one direction and a wall bubbled from fire in the other.
The scent was here, another deep inhale reinforced that fact and he walked across the broken floor without any thought to safety. He only needed to find the origination of the scent, to hold it again, touch it, whisper to it the way he used to. But there was nothing, not until he came to the very edge of the floor, where it dropped into nothing. The weakened planks whined beneath his weight but he didn’t back away. He couldn’t. It was too familiar, every inhale coming now too essential to walk away from.
He needed…and he’d never needed anything before.
He hungered…and starving had never been a problem for him before.
He tossed his head back and roared until he hoped the sound echoed from city to city. And then he fell.
The floor gave way and his body tumbled down with the wood and debris. The sensation of being adrift was new and he welcomed the promise of finding that scent if he just kept falling. Maybe it would be wherever he landed, then he could touch it again, stroke it, kiss it…because she would be there. She would be in his arms, belonging to him once again.
