Remy answered the door bare-chested in just a pair of
boxers. For the first time, Nathan noticed that the faint happy trail that ran
between extremely well-defined abs was as pale as the white-gold hair that
spilled over Remy’s shoulders. White lions were the rarest of their species, a
mutation really. Nathan was painfully aware of the fact that some communities
would take him in for that reason only, simply so they could boast that they
had one. Here, Remy could expect to be treated the same as any other lion. Was
that going to be a problem for him? Had he been expecting there to be
preferential treatment only to lash out when he’d received none?
Those were definitely questions Nathan intended to ask
before their conversation was over.
“Can I come in?”
“It’s your house.”
“Technically, it’s the communities house, but even if it
belonged to me, it would still be the polite thing to do for me to ask to enter
your room before presuming it was okay to do so.”
Remy shrugged at that, but he did step back out of the doorway.
Nathan took it as an invitation to step inside the space and look around.
Little had changed since they’d given the room to Remy two weeks before,
though, it was nice to see that he’d unpacked the backpack he’d been staggering
beneath the weight of when he’d arrived. A few little things, like the
blue-green pendulum hanging in front of the window and a small photograph
wedged into the corner of the mirror, gave a few personal touches.
Remy sat on the edge of the slightly rumpled bed, brushing
his hand over the surface in an effort to smooth out the wrinkles. Nathan
caught him glancing from them, to Nathan and back again, like he was
embarrassed for Nathan to see the slightest imperfection. Or maybe it was fear.
Was Remy scared that he would get in trouble if the littlest thing was out of
place?
Nathan filed that thought away for later, along with the
others, pulled out the desk chair and straddled it so they were nearly eye to
eye. Even then, he could only hold Remy’s gaze for several seconds before Remy turned
his attention towards studying the floor. The handbook lay there beside a
battered paperback, the cover too creased and worn for Nathan to read what the
title was.
“I hear you had a rough afternoon,” Nathan ventured.
Remy’s only response was a snort.
“It happens, you know. Things don’t go as planned and that’s
okay. You just have to learn how to handle it when something goes wrong.”
“How am I supposed to handle it when I didn’t have any
control over the disaster in the first place?”
“Perhaps. But you do have control over how you react to it,
or at least, one would hope you would at your age.”
Remy shrugged, shoulders slumping as he traced a pattern on
the floor with his big toe. “I paged through the handbook, but I didn’t see
anything in the section on changing residence about if requests needed to be in
writing or if I could just ask.
“You’re first mistake was in not reading it cover to cover. Leafing through
won’t get you the answers you need to survive here.”
“Tired of just surviving,” Remy muttered.
Okay, that was a start, a good one as far as Nathan was
concerned. It spoke to his hope that Remy wanted more than a place to live.
“How long has that been the only thing you’ve been focused
on?” Nathan asked.
Another snort, but those pale golden-green eyes flickered
upward for a moment, meeting his before once again looking away. “All my life.”
“What you’re looking for, a chance to know what real living
is, you can find that here, if you give it a proper chance.”
“A proper….” Nathan glimpsed his eyes again, and the utter
look of disbelief locked within them. “Can you just tell me if I have to make a
written or a verbal request to move to a different household?”
Nathan schooled his features, refusing to let Remy see the
disappointment he felt at hearing that.
“You can consider your request made, but that’s the easy
part.”
“Okay.”
“There’s a community meeting on Friday, we’re planning to
introduce you to everyone there. Hopefully, you’ll be able to explain the type
of household you wish to live in, and with any luck, an offer will be made.”
“It’s that easy?”
“I wouldn’t call it easy. Our pride mates will want to know
where you came from, the type of upbringing you’ve had, your skills and
education level, and how you see yourself fitting into pride life here. You’ll
also need to explain what went wrong in this house, as well as what you said to
Ira and why you said it.”
A low roar rumbled through the room, Remy’s lion clearly not
liking something Nathan said. “What went wrong was that he ruined something
that I was trying to do for the house and the only one any of you is upset at
is me! I didn’t ruin dinner. I was prepared to make something awesome!”
Nathan held up his hand as Remy started getting louder, the
younger lion clearly understanding the symbol for what it was, a desire for him
to settle back down. He’d come half up off the bed in his outrage, now, he
settled back down on the comforter, swiping at the wrinkles once more.
“Regardless of your intentions, name-calling isn’t tolerated
here,” Nathan explained. “Ira made an honest mistake in trying to do something
kind, you were simply cruel for cruelties sake. Now, from here until you either
find that new placement you’d like or learn to work within the rules of this
home, you will not be doing the cooking, Ira will. Pike is going to teach him,
as you should have offered to do when you saw him struggling.”
“There was no reason for him to struggle with my task!” Remy
snapped. “I set everything up so I could put the dish together and he came
along and hacked it to shit!”
“And just who made it your task?” Nathan asked, letting a
hint of his own lion’s rumbling voice echo through the room.
He watched in silent satisfaction as Remy’s mouth dropped
open and he sat staring for several seconds before snapping it shut, his fair
skin flushing as he failed to produce an answer.
“Now, there’s no guarantee you’ll be invited into another
home,” Nathan said with the hope that Remy was listening to him and not just letting
his words wash over him. “If that’s the case, you’ll have a decision to make. Remain in our home or leave the community.”
“Can’t I just camp out in the woods or something?”
Nathan shook his head, taking note of the hint of
desperation in Remy’s voice. Now might finally be the time to ask what it was
he’d been running away from.
“We don’t allow that here. It gives cubs the wrong impression
about society and it breeds rogues,” Nathan explained. “If that’s the kind of
life you want, you’ll have to leave here to find it. I’ll caution you now that
few prides would allow you to live on the fringes that way. You may want to
research before you arrive on another community’s doorstep.”
He sighed heavily and ran a hand through his hair. “Didn’t
research to get here.”
“Okay, so how did you find us?”
Remy was fidgeting again, hand repeatedly brushing over the
comforter, even though he’d already smoothed the wrinkles out. “Been hitchin’
for a couple days with no destination in mind, I just knew I couldn’t keep
living with my old man and his newest woman. Was tired of…I was just tired.”
“No, you headed down that road, you need to finish. Talk to
me, and maybe we can figure out how to get you what you need.”
Remy rubbed the back of his neck, shooting Nathan a look
that was part sad and one part exhausted. “Pike made it pretty clear he doesn’t
like me, so I don’t see why it matters what I need.”
“It matters to me, so if it’s all the same to you, I’m going
to sit right here until you talk to me.”
As if to drive his point home, Nathan crossed his arms over
the back of the chair and laid his head on it, fixing Remy with a look he hoped
would convey his intent to remain indefinitely.
You can check out my snake shifters here.
Wolf shifters here.
And Ferret shifters here.
