Panthers luck, p.2
Panther's Luck, page 2
With clawing desperation, he turned the key, almost expecting it to break, but the deadbolt slid back with a click, and he pressed down the door handle.
Chapter 2
Ciar Moonlight watched the human enter the lion’s house. It had a key, and the rules said they couldn’t attack the one who had the key.
He turned to Draven. “Inform Thano.”
Draven hooted low before flapping his wings and leaving Ciar to guard the ranch on his own. He wasn’t on his own. The arrival of a human vehicle had everyone within miles moving in this direction. Crows landed silently in the trees after Draven had left. He never ate any of the Moonlight crows, but he had a reputation as the great crow killer, which made smaller bird shifters a little wary.
Ciar would’ve been wary, too. He didn’t want a taste of Draven’s claws or beak. It had happened often enough when they’d run around as youngsters, and then it had been playing. Some scrunched their noses at them. A panther and an eagle-owl shouldn’t spend as much time together as they did, but neither Ciar nor Draven cared. They’d both protect The Moonlight Ranch with their lives. It was their home, but they had little interest in the power play between the breeds and the humans. Both because they were so superior, they could eliminate the humans in a couple of days if they wanted to, and because their lives were here. They didn’t need the humans, didn’t need their towns or their things to live.
Sure, some things were nice—electricity, running water, chocolate. And Ciar had to agree he’d been fascinated with the fairy tales he’d been told as a kitten. Aunt Kerrin had a book she’d gotten from the lion with several stories in it and a few colorful pictures. The lion had taught her how to read and write, and she had taught them all to write their names because humans often demanded your signature on things. No kitten, cub, pup, or baby vampire was allowed to leave their dens until they’d worked with Auntie Kerrin.
Knowledge is power, and despite wanting nothing to do with humans, Ciar understood the importance of knowing about their world. He didn’t have to interact with them, he wasn’t a vampire.
The vampires were more invested in the humans since they needed them to feed, and he’d support their request to keep the humans around, but he had never wanted to talk to them. Not until lately. He and Draven had been talking about what they should do. The Moonlight Ranch was their home, and they didn’t want to move, but since neither of them was interested in forming a pride or a parliament, they’d talked about starting some kind of business.
Some of the wolves built things for a human company. Draven had gone with them a few times some years ago, but he soon figured out he didn’t want to hit nails for money. He learned a few things about humans, though, so it wasn’t a complete waste of time.
No one living at the ranch needed money. They survived fine without, but there were things only money could buy. Humans refused to trade favors for items the way most people did here, so Ciar didn’t blame the wolves. But he didn’t want to build things. He didn’t know what he wanted to do. Something everyone at The Moonlight Ranch would benefit from.
The air stirred next to him, and Thano appeared. He wore a black suit, and if it hadn’t been for the sharp fangs showing when he spoke, he could have passed for a human. Thano was on the board or council or whatever the humans called it in Last Hope, a small settlement they’d allowed about six miles from the ranch. He went there for work almost every day, was their eyes and ears among the humans, and therefore the one who knew the most about them.
“There is a human in the lion’s den.” Unnecessary information, since Draven already would have told him, and he could see the vehicle in front of the building.
“With a key?”
Ciar nodded.
“We don’t do anything if they have the key.”
“As long as it is inside.”
Thano pursed his lips. “No. If they have the key, they’re Leo’s trusted people.”
Ciar swallowed a growl. “But the road is not paved.” They’d all promised not to touch anything moving on the paved roads between Last Hope and here, but the ranch didn’t have a paved road.
“If they have the key, they’re allowed to be here. It’s all in the agreement.”
Humans and their agreements. They wanted papers for everything, and yet they forbade papers. Auntie Kerrin used to hide the fairy tale book after every lesson in case a human would manage to sneak onto ranch land.
Ciar had never understood her fear. If a human showed up at the ranch and didn’t have a key, they were fair game, but she was always careful. The lion had told her to be careful.
Ciar remembered the lion from when he’d been a kitten, but he’d been too young to learn the details behind his death when it had happened. He didn’t know the details now either, but humans had come here and had tried to hunt one of the wolves. The lion had stopped them, but they’d stabbed him with a knife. He’d lived for a few days, had arranged things in his house despite being injured, and had asked Raven to take care of it when he was gone. He’d given the key and a letter to Thano and told him to make sure it got to someone, an attorney or something, Ciar wasn’t sure, and the story differed depending on who told it. It was something with an important paper and the key. They all understood the key, but the paper?
If you had a paper, you were breaking the law. If you didn’t have a paper, you couldn’t prove you were right. Humans were an illogical breed.
He wondered how Thano hadn’t slaughtered each and every one in Last Hope yet. He wasn’t allowed papers, and yet he worked with papers. A growl escaped, and Thano raised an eyebrow at him. It was something he’d started doing since he got the job in Last Hope. Before then he’d never raised his eyebrows.
“Keep an eye on him.” Then Thano disappeared.
Keep an eye. Ciar huffed but shifted into panther form and stalked closer to the house. Maybe he could peek inside and see what the human was up to.
* * * *
Romeo had hardly slept at all. There was an eerie silence around the house. The sun had risen about an hour before and had Romeo still been at home, he would have been fast asleep still. All he could think about now was that there should be birds tweeting, but they weren’t. The ranch was surrounded by forest. There should be birds, squirrels, something.
He got out of bed and sneezed. The house was in good shape, much better shape than it should be, but the layer of dust was thick. His footsteps were visible on the floor, and while he’d tried to shake the cover and pillow before he’d laid on top of them yesterday evening, it was as if he had a cold judging by how stuffed his nose was.
A good scrub was what the house needed.
He’d only taken a quick tour in the waning light yesterday before going to bed. Now, in the light streaming through the windows, it was easier to see what he was dealing with.
Slowly, he walked down the creaking stair and sneezed yet again. As he entered the kitchen, he winced as his eyes fell on the basket with the eggs, seeds, and the food his mother had packed. He needed to sort out some kind of cooler or what little food he had would spoil.
He’d looked through all the cupboards, and apart from some utensils, all he’d found was a can of peaches.
What the hell had he been thinking? How had he believed he could live here?
Leo had, so it had to be possible, and he would die if he stayed in New Town.
He grabbed a bread bun, some salami, and a bottle of water. He needed to locate the well, too. There had to be a well. Was there an outhouse? He had to sort out the bathroom situation sooner rather than later.
Taking his breakfast with him—he would kill for a cup of coffee—he stepped out onto the terrace. The wooden fence was rotten and had fallen apart in a couple of places, but the morning sun was greeting him with open arms and his lungs thanked him profoundly for giving them access to fresh air. He bit into the bread and took in his surroundings. There was mostly forest, but he spotted what he believed was a garden shed between the trees.
Before he could talk himself into walking over there to see what it was, there was a crash on the other side of the house, followed by loud caws.
Romeo ran into the kitchen again, out into the hallway, and fiddled with the lock before he rushed out the front door. In the closest cabin, a baby bear looked to be stuck in the window—a still intact window. It was the kind where you slid up the glass pane to open it, and it looked like it had slid down on top of the bear’s back when it was trying to climb out of the cabin.
Fuck. Hesitantly, he took a step closer. Was it a bear-bear or a shifter bear? It looked like a baby, but Romeo had no illusions it could kill him if it wanted to. And where was its mother? He looked around and took another step closer. “Easy, easy.” He dropped his water bottle to the ground and held up a disarming hand while scanning the other cabins and the tree line. He couldn’t see another bear, or any other animal for that matter.
Looking at his sandwich, he sighed. He didn’t want to drop it to the ground. He had no idea when he’d be able to get food again, but he couldn’t stand there and eat when there was a bear caught in his window.
The cub struggled, and the window creaked.
“Don’t break the glass!” He still didn’t know if it was a supernatural or a natural bear, but considering the bear stilled, he was suspecting a supernatural.
“Easy, so you don’t cut yourself. Is your mom around?” He looked around again, and the bear deflated and hung limply out the window. A crow cawed and then a murder of them lifted from a tree.
“I’m coming closer to help you, okay?”
The bear tilted his head to watch Romeo approach, and Romeo swallowed hard. How fast did a mama bear attack? He glanced around again and took another few steps to round the rotted gate post and into the tiny once-fenced-in front yard of the cabin. The fence had collapsed, a few posts still standing but looking to be on their way down. Another couple of steps, and he would be within touching range of the bear, but he hesitated.
“When I raise the window, you’ll run away, right?”
The bear didn’t make a sound.
“You won’t attack me or call your mother, so she’ll attack me. I don’t want to prove my mother right on the first morning I’m here, okay?”
The bear tilted his head again, and Romeo was sure he was watching a bear version of a frown.
“Okay, do we have a deal?”
Another crow cawed. Funny how there were birds all of a sudden. Romeo huffed but stepped up to the window. His hand was shaking as he reached under the bottom sash and pushed. It was stuck, and he had to use all his strength. It groaned and moved a fraction, but not enough. The fluffy bear butt was still too thick to get through.
“Here. Hold my sandwich.” He held it out in front of the bear. He needed both hands and if it got the bear focused on something other than him, it was worth the trade.
He grabbed the sash and yanked. The sound made him wince, but it slid up a few inches. “There. Try to either squeeze through or back into the cabin again and use one of the shattered windows or the door to get out.” The door hung limply on one hinge and the entire cabin looked like it would fall in the next storm.
The bear squeezed and huffed as its butt almost got stuck again, and Romeo refrained from rolling his eyes. When he fell to the ground headfirst, a sympathetic moan escaped Romeo’s lips. Then the bear shape melted into something else, and a…boy with bear ears, bear eyes, and bear feet got up to stand in front of him. Not human passing. It was hard to tell, but Romeo would guess he was about twelve or at least in the younger teen years. Not a young child, but not near adulthood yet. Though, did shifters age as humans did? Vampires didn’t.
“Eh…hi.” Stupidly, Romeo waved a hand.
“Don’t tell Mom I was in the cabin.”
It took a few seconds before Romeo could find any words. “Wouldn’t dream of it.” It was a lie since he suspected he would dream about it—nightmares about being confronted by an angry mama bear.
The boy nodded and stood watching Romeo with unblinking eyes for an eternity. “Can you decide what to dream?”
Oh…“No, I’m afraid not. What were you doing in the cabin? I don’t think they’re safe to be in.” He gestured at the cabins across the road that looked worse in the bright summer morning than they had in the dusk the day before. It would take a lot of work to get them livable.
The boy growled, and Romeo quickly took a step back. He might look like a boy caught between a bear and a human, but Romeo had seen the full bear shape, and he didn’t want to enrage it.
“The adults are taking shifts watching you, and we weren’t allowed to be close. But I’m old enough to help, so I snuck into the cabin while they were talking. I’ve been there all night, and no one spotted me.” He puffed his chest.
“I spotted you.”
“Only after.”
Romeo nodded, not sure after what.
“If you’d gone out on this side of the house, I wouldn’t have had to get to the other side to watch you.”
“True. I walked out from the kitchen onto the terrace.” Unnecessary information. He looked around. Were there adults watching him now? He couldn’t see anyone—animal or human-shaped—among the trees.
The boy bit into the sandwich and chewed. “I like the meat.” It was a struggle to make out the words, but once he did, Romeo nodded.
“My mom got it for me before I drove here. She believes I’ll starve to death within a couple of days.”
“Are you staying in the lion’s den?”
As Romeo stared at him, going through possible answers in his head, the boy gestured at the house.
“Ah, you mean Leo’s house?” Lion’s den. Made sense, kind of.
The boy nodded.
“Yeah, I planned to. I’m Romeo Gallo, Leo’s nephew.” When the boy didn’t say anything, Romeo continued. “What’s your name?”
“Humbert Moonlight.”
“Nice to meet you, Humbert.”
He nodded and took another bite of the sandwich. “Didn’t your parents teach you how to hunt?”
“Ah…No.” Romeo noticed Humbert’s teeth weren’t human either. “My dad died when I was a little kid, and my mom, I don’t think she knows how to hunt.”
Humbert whined, his eyes, if possible, going rounder. “She doesn’t know how to hunt?”
Romeo shook his head. “No, humans buy their meat from the butcher shop.”
“A shop with butchers?”
“No, a shop with meat, owned by a butcher.”
Humbert looked skeptical. “I’ll ask Thano. He knows everything about humans.”
Romeo nodded. “An excellent plan.” He took a step away from the cabin. “I should get back to…I need to clean. I can’t be in the house without sneezing.”
When he walked and Humbert followed, Romeo held his breath while scanning the trees again. How many were watching them? His heart beat faster. How many would be upset with him for talking to Humbert?
“Do you know if there’s a well?” Humbert was too young to have been born while Leo lived, but maybe he knew where Romeo could get water.
“On the other side of the house.” He gestured away from the cabins to the side Romeo had yet to see.
“Great, thanks.” Romeo quickened his steps, thinking maybe Humbert would say goodbye, but he kept pace with Romeo.
“When Raven’s in the house, she uses buckets from the basement.”
Romeo stopped short. “What?”
“Raven. The lion asked her to look after the house, and when she does, she uses the buckets in the basement.”
“Oh…how often does Raven look after the house?”
“Usually in the spring. It’s when birds fix their houses.” Humbert sighed dramatically, and Romeo was almost certain there was a bear version of an eye roll.
Was Raven an actual raven? He didn’t dare ask, not right now, at least. “What does she do when she looks after the house?” It didn’t look like it had been cleaned in thirty years, but maybe ravens didn’t clean.
“She checks if anything needs fixing, and if it does, the wolves come to do it.”
So Raven was the reason the house still was standing while the cabins were collapsing. “That’s kind of her.”
Humbert shrugged. “The lion gave her a book with maps of the entire world.”
Okay. Romeo had seen an atlas once in school, but they hadn’t been allowed to look at it for too long, only so they understood how small New Town was compared to the rest of the world. His teacher had told him New Town had once been named something else, and it had been considered a large city. It was why there were so many abandoned houses surrounding the core.
“Have you seen it?” Romeo walked up the walkway to the house, not surprised when Humbert followed, but it had him casting another look around.
“Only once. She is careful to hide it so no human will steal it from her.”
Romeo nodded. “Wise. My mother has a book she hides too.”
Humbert stopped short and did the already-round-eyes-going-rounder thing. “Your mother isn’t human?”
“Ah…yes, she is, but we aren’t allowed books either.”
“But you’re the writer of books! Breed don’t write books, we can’t write.”
Breed? “Some of you can write.” He’d never heard of a supernatural writer, but since culture was banned, there were no writers anymore. It wasn’t true. Romeo was fully aware of there being storytellers, but since pen and paper were banned for normal people, it was not easy for writers to get their stories out there.
“Some of those who work with humans.” Humbert nodded. “Thano can read and write. He works in Last Hope.”
“Last Hope?”
A roar sounded before Humbert could reply, and he flinched. “I have to go.” And then he melted into a bear right in front of Romeo and ran off. Not wanting to know what had roared—his guess was an enraged mama bear—Romeo hurried into the house and closed the door.
Chapter 3
