He’s landed in front of me in his panther form.Deadly, silent, and utterly beautiful.His yellow eyes flash and he bares his teeth and looks left and right.A few snowflakes have caught in his whiskers.
“Iamkeeping an eye out,” Elias says.“I wouldn’t leave her alone.Not a chance.”
“Have you heard too?”I ask.
Branson stares at me.
“About the moon fever,” I elaborate.
His head dips down and back up again.
“It’s bad news,” Elias says, stepping past him with me in tow.“Come on, let’s all get inside.”
I stick to Elias as we go into my apartment block.
Branson takes the stairs at speed, galloping up them in an impressive display of muscle and agility.I hope my neighbors don’t decide to poke their heads from their doors.They’d get quite the shock to see a panther in the stairwell.
Soon we are in the warmth and I remove my coat and boots and turn up the heat.I set coffee on and then draw the curtains.
Elias puts his phone on the table and shoves his hand through his damp hair causing it to stick up at all angles.He’s worried, it’s etched on his features.
“I think I’ll take a shower,” I say.“Warm myself up.”
“Sure, you do that.I’ll make the coffee.”
Branson is sniffing in the corner of the room, his kinked tail low and his pointed ears flicking forward and backward.
I head into my bathroom and twist on the shower faucet.I sigh and look in the mirror.I’m a mess, my hair as wild as the wolves I’ve met tonight, and there are dark rings beneath my eyes.But there’s something different.A sense of calm despite the chaos.It’s as if I’m seeing myself for the first time.All these years I’ve had odd feelings, known things I shouldn’t have known, seemed to have a sixth sense I was embarrassed to even acknowledge to myself, let alone tell anyone else about.And now.Now I understand.
I am different.
I am magical.
And this new world I’ve discovered.Perhaps it’smyworld.The place I’ve been looking for all these years but didn’t know where the key was.
I strip and step under the hot water, hold my face to the stream.I wash my hair and condition it.My shower gel is lavender-scented and that calms me further.
Soon I am stepping out and drying.After my hair is brushed, I wrap myself in a fluffy white towel and head out of the steam-filled room in search of sweats and a sweater.
Branson is in his human form now and sipping coffee on my sofa.He’s wearing a pair of pale cream pants, I don’t know where he got them.His dark eyes follow me as I walk to the kitchen area and I’m hyperaware of my bare shoulders and the fact the towel hits mid-thigh and I have no underwear on.
“Coffee.”Elias hands me a steaming red mug.
“Thanks.”
“Feel better?”
“Yes.”I take a sip and walk into my bedroom.
He follows me.“The panthers had a similar meeting to ours about moon fever.”
I nod and open a drawer.“Good, the more shifters who know about it, the better.”
“I filled Branson in on your premonition.”
“Is that what it was?Or was it a window only I can see through that shows me what’s happening somewhere else?”
He sits on the end of the bed, knees apart and hands behind himself.“I don’t have the answer to that.”
