Page 10 of A Cougar's Kiss
Chapter 4
“Whatch’a writing?”
Shya jumped and clapped her notebook to her chest at the sound of his voice. “Nothing.”
“Liar.” Haven Perry bit loudly into an apple as he lifted a leg to straddle the chair beside her.
She’d been sitting in one of her favorite spots in the corner of the dining hall where there was a glass wall with a terrific view of a waterfall designed to appear similar to the Gungi rainforest—the place where the Shadows originated. The breakfast crowd had dispensed an hour ago leaving the space empty except for the ornery jaguar shifter now sitting beside her.
“Nosey,” she snapped back at him.
He shrugged broad shoulders. “I prefer to call it curious.” He preferred to nag her any time he was here in any way possible.
“It’s a weekday, don’t you have training?” As a second-year guard, Haven was expected to train wherever he was in Oasis.
He took another bite of the apple which made two, one more and he’d be finished with the fruit. His thick hair was braided back into neat cornrows that hung past his shoulders, his eyes—the same as his father’s—a poignant gray that saw much more than they should have.
“We’re done. Got started earlier than usual so they could prepare for a big meeting this afternoon. You coming?” He crunched down on the last of the apple before lifting his arm and aiming toward the trash can at least twenty feet away. Seconds later it went in without a sound.
“I didn’t know anything about it.” She pulled her book away and closed it before setting it on the table in front of them. “I don’t have a comlink, remember.”
There was no use trying to hide the bite in her tone. She was more than salty about the fact that every shifter born into one of the Shadow tribes had a job selected for them by the time they were thirteen. And with that job came their own comlink so that they could always be in touch with their direct supervisors and other tribe members. Shya had no job and thus no need to communicate with anyone, other than her parents and the leadership who somehow always knew where to find her.
“But you’ve got me,” Haven quipped.
“And me!” Camryn Preston dropped down into the chair across the table from them. “There’s a meeting at three this afternoon and it’s big because my dad’s been locked in his office with Baxter since about six this morning. And my mom was in the training center running two tactical teams until they were all ready to collapse from exhaustion.”
Cam’s father, Eli, was a Seer and as a close friend of her Uncle Rome’s, a member of the Assembly leadership. Haven’s father, Bas, was the Mountain Zone Faction Leader. Bas, Priya and Haven normally lived in their zone, but since Cole had been found they’d been here.
“What’s going on?” Because it sounded like the leaders were prepping for something.
Cam shrugged. At nineteen he was taller than both his parents, Shya and Haven. He wore his hair cut close his honey brown skin already marked with several tattoos.
“Not a clue. But I’ll be at that meeting front and center.”
“So, will I,” Shya said before either of them could think of telling her otherwise.
Haven chuckled. “You’re always ready to break the rules.”
He was the youngest of their close-knit group at seventeen, but like most of the shifters he looked and acted much older than his given age. For all the things the shifters endured from birth they had to keep the upper hand in all areas, so for them, age really was just a number.
“Whatever’s going down, they’ve called in everyone. Uncle Jace and his assistant, Amelia, who my mom says has been hanging around him for a while. They’re all here. Plus, there’s a human down here too,” Cam told them.
Now that was unexpected. “A human? Who?”
“Some old dude,” Haven said. “My mom knows him.”
Haven’s mother, Priya, was a human but ever since she fell in love with Uncle Bas and used her job as a reporter to help the shifters before the Unveiling, she’d been considered one of them. She had given up that job, her family and everything she knew to stand beside her mate. Just like Shya’s mother had done, just like Shya believed she would do one day.
Oh no, she shook her head, she was not about to start thinking about Keller again. He was not her mate, the heat she’d felt when they were together last night had dissipated after a few hours in her room alone and she’d almost forgotten his scent. Nocompanheiro calor, no mating. That was a simple Shadow Shifter rule and since she hadn’t seen him at all today, she was guessing he had no plans of being her lover again either. Which all made perfect sense—he’d been her first, but that didn’t mean he had to be her last or only, for that matter. She could have another man in her life, she could have whatever she wanted despite her condition, or her upbringing, or the fact that she’d spent most of her life in this underground haven, or jail cell, depending on the day.
Shya flipped through the pages of her book and when she found what she was looking for, stared up at Cam. “Is it Dorian Wilson?”
He frowned and glanced down at her notebook. “Yeah. How’d you know? And what else have you got written in there?”
“The names of all the young jaguar ladies you’ve snuck out into the Greenway since you had your acordado.”
The Greenway was the miles of space designed to also mimic the Gungi, so the shifters could run free in cat form. She slammed the notebook shut again and kept her hand on top of it. Haven chuckled and Cam’s frown deepened.
