His lips press into a thin line, but he doesn’t bother continuing the argument again right now with as late as it is. He knows he still has a few months left before it becomes an issue, but I have no illusions he’ll be magically on board. It’s been driving a wedge between us since I brought it up.
“Sleep well, sweetheart.”
With a mock salute, I wait until I’m sure that he’s gone before darting into the bathroom and locking the door. The feline is right where I left him, but his eyes are shut and his chest is barely moving.
“Shit!”
I slide to my knees outside of the claw foot tub, pressing my fingers to his neck and other palm over his heart and praying to feel a pulse or his chest rising. It’s faint, but there, and I exhale a harsh breath of relief.
The next couple of hours are spent scrounging up supplies to clean and bandage his wounds as well as scrub away all of the evidence. All the while he stays passed out, so that at least alleviates the concern of getting mauled when I practically shower him in rubbing alcohol.
By the time I’m crawling back into bed, the sun is already beginning to rise. I’m exhausted before the day’s even begun and I know it’s only going to be worse when I need to find a way to smuggle him out of the house. But at least for a few hours he can heal before having to run, because if the people looking for him raise the alarm claiming that there’s a rabid shifter in town?
May the gods have mercy on his soul.
Two
Rin
There’s a brief moment of blissful ignorance as I start to wake up before reality crashes down on me.
I’m harboring a fugitive. Fuck, I’m going to jail.
Though I’m terrified of being caught, I don’t regret it. Just because something is legal doesn’t make it right, and the way humans treat the mages and shifters? Deplorable.
Driven by fear or jealousy, most people can’t stand either race. It’s worse in the bigger cities like this one, but even the more tolerant, smaller towns have their own sets of issues. Only the very fringes of civilization where the majority of shifters prefer to live are safe for them out in the open, driving a clear divide between us.
Between the checkpoints in and out of this section of the city, along with the blatant hatred prevalent everywhere, I’ve only seen a few from afar over the years. Though even then, they remained in their human skins while forced here to trade. I’ve never actually set eyes on one before yesterday in their shifted form, and I couldn’t even tell you what breed he is.
With all of the predatory animals in the world driven to extinction hundreds of years ago, nature intervened to correct the imbalance as the prey population was left unchecked, ruining ecosystems. Humans, as the highest left on the food chain, started evolving even more. Shifters, mages, and those that were…wrong.
The vampires are a mindless plague and the only thing every race can agree on as a threat big enough to warrant joining forces, no matter how much they hate each other. But when the occasional vamp nest emerges from the shadows to terrorize the city, it’s impossible to keep quiet. Still, I doubt my mystery man came with a pack to help hunt one down. Even if guns are less effective on the creatures than tearing their throats out, enough firepower gets the job done with the added bonus of not needing to ‘lower themselves’ to asking for help from the people they hate.
I head over to my bookshelf, well aware that I’m being a coward and putting off facing him just a little bit longer. Leafing through the pages, I finally get to the section on felines and scan the pictures so I don’t sound like a complete idiot when he shifts back and fills me in on just what the hell he’s doing here.
Ocelot. Not sure I’ve heard the term before, but pretty much a midget jaguar, or a pretty house cat on steroids. At least he isn’t a bear or something, because there’d be no hiding that despite my best intentions.
I take a steadying breath before crossing the room and softly knock, pushing open the bathroom door to see him still in the bathtub, but more alert. “Feeling any better?”
He doesn’t respond as I come over to check his wounds, still looking pretty rough. Shifters have advanced healing, but it’s just a sped up version of human’s. I gently unwrap the bloody bandage and grimace at the tattered flesh, looking him in the eye.
“It’s not exactly good. If you’re scabbed over in a week, I’ll be impressed. They really did a number on you, didn’t they?”
He rests his head on the edge of the tub, blinking up at me pitifully with wide, sad eyes.
“Oh no,” I warn, grabbing the last of the alcohol and a fresh bandage. “You can’t stay. I’m already risking a hell of a lot doing this much.” I glance at all of the matted fur and sigh. “You’re going to need a shower before I do any more or you’re going to end up with a wicked infection.”
Still, he just blinks at me and makes no move to transform.
“Damn it, don’t tell me you can’t shift back until you’re not such a mess?” My voice rises in pitch, nerves making me squeak out my plea. “Please?”
He opens his mouth in a wide yawn, nodding his head weakly before resting it on the lip of the tub again. His eyes drift close and I internally slap myself, knowing this is what I deserve for getting involved.
Grumbling, I start filling the tub with water and grab a water bottle from my room, doing my best to get him cleaned up without jostling him too much. His face contorts, and his lips pull back in a snarl here and there, but he manages to stay relatively silent, with the exception of a few whimpers or justified hisses.
As best as I can from this angle, I towel him off before smothering antibiotic ointment everywhere, wrapping him up like a mummy, he’s so torn up. Honestly, that he isn’t dead is a miracle.
“Shit, okay, so what am I supposed to do with you? You can’t just live in my bathtub.” Naturally, he doesn’t respond, on the verge of passing out again.
