Beauties and Beasts

Chapter 26: brought to you by selfishness

We stray further from the original plot because we aren't original! Shay is sick, Neara is more of a proper protagonist, but once she leaves things get kinda ruined. Sorry, cat might be out of the bag, or in this case a leopard, a panther, and a tiger.

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For a few days, Shay appreciated laying on stuffed furs and not having to worry where her food or drink came from. On the night of the first day, she woke up in the middle of the night to go pee to find a leopard curled about her, keeping her warm. When she came back from the 'human litterbox,' the leopard had been replaced by a large panther with a pouch strapped to one of its thighs and scars on its muzzle.

Groggy, she had nothing in her to stop her goopy smile or the zing of delight at the sight, though the sounds of growling in the corner did stop her from jumping over and hugging the panther.

Instead, she returned to her place on the furs, just stopping herself from diving into the cozy black fur of a friend.

"Parker, you can sleep on the other side, if you want. I can try to make room for you if you're uncomfortable."

"I'm a male, Shay, I can handle sleeping on stone. Freaking panther. She's not your mate!"

Shay sighed. "Don't wake up everyone, this isn't our house."

"Exactly. I'm getting Winston."

"Winston already knows he's here," said Shay, ending it with some coughing. The colder air outside, heavy with oncoming rain, didn't do well on her lungs.

Parker's head and shoulders appeared in the square of moonlight allowed by the room's one glassless window. His eyebrows had puckered again.

Just as he appeared, the panther's tail flicked out, wapping him across the collarbone.

Parker bared his fangs.

"Fight and I'm kicking you both out," said Shay irritably, not mentioning the fact that it was a fuzzy big cat body that had been keeping her warm all night...and that she had fallen deliriously in love with cuddly big, warm, fuzzy body pillows to sleep. And ones that purred, oh gall, ten times better than lullabies ever.

With one last glare at the panther, Parker ducked his head, shifting into a leopard as he did so, and laying down beneath the window on Shay's other side, far out of touching distance of the black panther.

The whipping tail calmed around Shay's hips.

She went to sleep determined to not hug another in front of Parker in order to keep the peace, but woke up snuggled against Ryan's side and belly anyways. In the other room, Orson and Winston talked over the sound of a crackling fire.

"Oh no, a tetra-mark can't hear everything. What a shock."

"Three-stripes aren't that stealthy. He shouldn't have been able to escape my hearing."

"He's a panther. They're nothing if not stealthy, even unmarked." There came a low snort. "It's not like he's hiding a mark."

Ryan's shoulder shifted beneath her hand. A whuffle of air puffed across her head.

Shay smiled and nuzzled the extra fine fur at his throat, which started to rumble like an engine.

"Yeah, I'm awake," she murmured.

A rough tongue feathered across her shoulder.

And since she was still technically sick and exhausted she didn't bother getting up, and neither did Ryan until Parker came in to scowl and hand Shay medicine.