Page 60 of Brody
“I spent years running,” I admitted.“Convinced all mate bonds were tragedies waiting to happen.That when I rejected you, it was for your protection.”My laugh was hollow.“Now I’m going feral because I rejected what the universe offered us.”
Something softened in her expression.“Life has a twisted sense of humor.”
“Una said fate gives us what we need, not what we want.”I turned my hand beneath hers, our palms meeting in a touch more intimate than any kiss.“And we rarely recognize the difference until it’s too late.”I paused, staring into her eyes.“Is it too late for us?”
The question was loaded with years of missed chances.My wolf surged forward, desperate to claim what we’d lost.
“I don’t know,” she answered, her gaze dropping to our joined hands before pulling away.“Your mother,” she said after a moment, changing the subject.“What was her name?”
“Genevieve,” I replied, grateful for the simple question.“Genevieve Thornbern.”
“What was she like?”Rozi asked, settling more comfortably beside me.
The question opened a flood of memories I usually kept carefully contained.“She laughed all the time.Had this way of finding joy in the smallest things.”I smiled despite the ache in my chest.“She was the one who taught me to carve.Said my hands were meant to create beauty, not just strength.”
Rozi smiled, a genuine expression that transformed her face.“I’d like to have known her.”
“She would have loved you,” I said without thinking.“Your intelligence, your determination.The way you never back down from a challenge.”
She looked away.“Do you have any pictures of her?”
I reached for my wallet, extracting a worn photograph I’d carried for decades.“Just this one.”
Rozi took it carefully, studying the image of a woman with my eyes and smile, her arm around a gangly eleven-year-old version of me.“You have her smile,” she observed softly.“And her kindness, I think.”
The observation caught me off guard.No one had ever said I resembled my mother in anything but physical features.The thought that Rozi could see beyond that, could recognize parts of Genevieve’s spirit in me, felt like a gift I hadn’t known I needed.
“Thank you,” I said simply, unable to articulate the complex emotions her words had stirred.
She returned the photograph, our fingers brushing in a contact that sent warmth through me.“For what?”
“For seeing me,” I replied.“Not just who I am now, but where I came from.Who I might still become.”
Her eyes softened, vulnerability and strength coexisting in her gaze.“That’s what mates are supposed to do, isn’t it?See each other clearly, even the parts we try to hide.”
The wordmateslingered between us, neither accepted nor rejected outright.Progress, of a sort.
Rozi nodded, her throat working as she swallowed hard.“The same genetic quirk that makes king cheetahs vulnerable as cubs makes us susceptible to certain aggressive cancers later in life.”She stared into the fire for a few beats.“My mother knew the risks and had studied them extensively.Still, when the diagnosis came…” Her voice faltered, the sound like glass shattering in the quiet night.Something in my chest cracked open, raw and bleeding at the pain she couldn’t hide.
Rozi hesitated, her fingers absently tracing patterns on the cushion between us.The motion was so hypnotic, I wondered if she even realized she was doing it.
“My mother… she wasn’t always absent,” she began reluctantly.“When I was seven, I got very sick.There’s a rare condition that affects king cheetah shifters, something in our unique coat pattern genetics.It weakens our immune system temporarily during childhood.”
My brows furrowed in concern.“I thought shifters don’t get human illnesses?”
“Most don’t,” she explained, her voice taking on that professorial tone that made my wolf rumble with appreciation.Even as she explained something painful, her mind shone through.“The same genetic mutation that gives king cheetahs our distinctive coat pattern creates a vulnerability in childhood.My mother called it the price of biological distinctiveness.”
Her eyes grew distant, remembering.“Most king cheetah cubs don’t survive their first decade.I was lucky.”
The thought of Rozi as a vulnerable child, fighting for her life, sent a protective surge through me so powerful I had to clench my fists to keep from reaching for her.My wolf snarled at the mere concept of her in danger, even decades in the past.
“That’s why there are so few king cheetah shifters,” I said.How close had I come to never meeting her at all?
A strand of caramel-blond hair fell across her face.My fingers itched to tuck it back.“My mother took two weeks off from her research, something she never did, and set up a little lab in my bedroom.Said if we had to be quarantined together, we might as well do science.”
I couldn’t help smiling at the image.“Little Rozi, feverish but still running experiments.”
A small smile curved her full lips, transforming her face in a way that made my heart clench painfully.“We tested different natural remedies.Created this elaborate scoring system.Turned me into a meticulous recordkeeper.”The smile faded, shadows returning to her eyes.“It was the last time I remember feeling like I was more important than her research.After my father left, she retreated.Physically there but mentally gone.”
