22
KOJO
The reality of this land has not fully hit me until now. Kendra moves through the market stalls like she has lived here for years, not days. She stops at a produce stand, asks the vendor about the cantaloupe, and within a minute they are talking like old friends. Then she turns and introduces me, and I watch the vendor’s gaze travel from my face to the ridge visible through my shirt and back again without flinching.
“This is Kojo,” Kendra says. “He’s Bouda.”
“Welcome to Wintermoon, Bouda,” the vendor says, and the word sounds like something she has said a hundred times to a hundred different shifters. Simple acknowledgment.
Easy, Alemayehu,my Bouda says, pressing forward behind my eyes.You stand too rigid. These are not enemies. Calm yourself before you embarrass us in front of the cantaloupe woman.
I am not rigid. I am adjusting, but my Bouda disagrees.You are rigid. Your ridge is doing that thing where it cannot decide whether to spike or flatten. Pick one.I press it flat and follow Kendra deeper into the market.
She moves from stall to stall collecting things I did not know she needed. Soap that smells of coconut. A set of hair ties. A jar of something called shea butter that she opens, sniffs, and clutches to her chest like it is sacred.
A pair of lionesses pass us on the main path, their tails swaying behind them as they carry woven baskets on their hips. I smile and dip my chin, and they return the gesture, their eyes lingering on me for a moment before moving on. When a male lion shifter rounds the corner from the butcher stall, I press my fist to my chest and dip my chin. He stops, studies me, then mirrors the gesture, his mane shifting across his broad shoulders.
“Bouda,” he says.
“Lion,” I reply. He nods once and keeps walking.
They know who we are,my Bouda observes.And they treat it like a fact instead of a problem.He pauses, and when he speaks again the sarcasm is gone from his voice.This is what the Matriarch wanted, what she fought for, why she chose to stay on our land rather than flee to safety. She believed our people could build this without leaving. She was wrong about the method but right about the dream.
Something in me saddens at that. I stop walking in the middle of the path and my hand loosens from Kendra’s.
I miss her too, Alemayehu. I miss her every day.I breathe through it and keep moving.
Inside a retail building near the east end of the market, Kendra fills a basket ---a thermal blanket, two pairs of thick socks, a set of kitchen towels, and a ceramic mug with a chipped handle that she turns over twice before dropping it in on top of everything else. I do not understand why the mug appeals to her, but my Bouda says it does not matter and to carry the basket when it gets heavy.
She gravitates toward a human woman near the clothing racks, and within thirty seconds they are laughing. The woman holds up a dress and Kendra waves it off with a grin, then holds up a sweater and they both nod like they have settled a dispute. I stand near the entrance and watch. The Matriarch’s compound had this. Women gathering, sharing, sorting through fabrics and provisions while the men stood at the edges and waited. Not because we were excluded but because this was their domain, and we understood our role within it. I had forgotten what it looked like. Watching Kendra in this store, basket in hand, laughing with a stranger, I remember.
My scent shifts before my mind registers the cause. The fur along my back stiffens into the precursor of a blade.
Ah,my Bouda says, snapping to attention.Meekah. He is close. I can smell the musk from here.
Kendra notices the change in me before I can smooth it. The basket swings against her hip as she crosses the store and stops in front of me, her brow creased. “What’s wrong?” She tilts her head, scanning my face. “If this is too much, we can go back. I just wanted to get out for a little while.”
I smile at her and reach for the basket, pulling it from her hand. “No, Kendra. Everything is fine.”
“Your ridge is acting weird again.”
“There is a scent nearby that I recognize. Another shifter I knew before Wintermoon.”
Her eyes widen. “Is it another Bouda?”
I shake my head. Her first instinct is to check whether I am safe rather than whether she should be worried, and it does something to me that I cannot hold at a distance. I want to kiss her again. So I do.
She gasps when I grab her arm and pull her close. I plant a kiss on her forehead, and when I pull back she looks up at me with wide eyes.
You are finally going against our customs, Alemayehu. A male does not initiate intimacy in public before the claiming. The Matriarch would have---
“I do not care,” I say out loud.
Kendra blinks. “Don’t care about what?”
“I am speaking to my Bouda.”
“Oh.” She looks up at me, narrowing her eyes. “Did he tell you it was wrong to kiss me?”
