Monday, May 16, 2022

Manic Monday with a hint of maybe mates...a sneak peek at my new lion shifters

 



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.



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