Zach kissed her again, more gently this time. “You aren’t anymore.”
Teri sighed and curled up against him. This was her mate. She tested the thought, exploring how it felt in her head. Mate. Partner. Husband, maybe. Maybe soon.
It felt like, for the first time in her life, she had something to lean on, something to hold her up, something to spur her on other than her own determined will. It felt like home.
***
They spent the night pressed up tight and close against each other. Teri slept, and woke, and slept again, drifting along in a light doze that broke away whenever Zach sighed or shifted.
It wasn’t a deep and restful sleep, but she didn’t want to fall deeply asleep. She wanted to keep as much of this night in her memory as possible, to know that she was sleeping beside her mate. To feel him breathing, hear his deep and quiet night noises.
She woke for good just as dawn was sending hints of greyness into the sky. Zach was looking at her, his silvery eyes almost seeming to be lit from within.
“Hi,” Teri said softly.
“Hi.” His voice was quiet, but she could feel the rumble of it in his chest. “Did you sleep okay?”
She nodded. Waking up to Zach asking her that, casually and automatically, as though they’d spent many nights here in his bed together, brought an almost painful warmth rising in her chest. “Did you?”
“Better than I’ve slept in a while.” He combed her hair back from her face with his fingers. “This is wild in the morning.”
Teri made a face. “Taming it is a whole daily routine. I thought about chopping it all off when I was in the hospital, but...” But her accident had changed her body in so many ways, she hadn’t been able to bear the thought of one more.
“I’m glad you didn’t.” His voice was serious, as though the length of her hair were something truly important. “It’s beautiful.”
Teri blushed. She should protest, she thought. Lillian had always been the one with the gorgeous, perfect blonde curls, while Teri’s hair was more likely to be a mess than not.
But she didn’t want to protest. She wanted this compliment, wanted to take it in and hoard it close to her chest, because Zach had given it to her. “Thank you.” She smiled at him, and said the first thing that came into her head, which was, “You have beautiful eyes.”
And she would swear that he blushed. It was too dim to see his skin, really, but she thought she could feel the wash of heat. Unless it was just her imagination.
But she wasn’t imagining the bashful tone when he said, “I’m glad you think so. It’s a snow leopard color. I always just thought it was a family thing, because Joel’s are the same, but a lot of the rangers’ are similar.”
Shifter eyes. Teri thought she’d have to pay attention when she met the other rangers, although she couldn’t imagine any of them had the depth and luminescence of Zach’s.
When she met the other rangers. Because she would, wouldn’t she? She was a ranger’s partner now. She wondered what they were like. Zach had said they were all men—did any of them have mates? What were they like? Could she be friends with them?
Were any of them also snow leopards? Snow leopardesses. That thought filled her with a longing ache, like there was a sudden empty space in her chest that she’d never noticed before.
“Could I see you change?” she asked suddenly. Her voice sounded almost airless, but she wanted it more than she’d ever wanted anything.
“Of course.” Zach kissed her softly, carding his fingers through her hair one more time, and then
pulled back to get up. “Let’s go outside.”
They got dressed quickly. Zach lent Teri a T-shirt and workout shorts, since all she had was her dress from last night, and she wasn’t in the mood for evening wear right out of bed. The shorts came down past her knees, but Zach’s trim waist meant that they weren’t falling off of her, thankfully.
The grass was damp underfoot as they stepped outside, and dawn light was only just filtering through the misty air. Zach went out to the middle of the yard and smiled at her. “Ready?”
Teri nodded, not trusting her voice.
And Zach changed.
The shifting and blurring of his body was startling, almost frightening to watch. Teri flashed back to his story about Joel being temporarily stuck halfway-shifted, and understood even better how horrifying it must have been to see.
But Zach kept going smoothly into his other form. In just a few seconds, there was a snow leopard standing in the yard where Zach had been.
His body was lower to the ground than Teri had expected, but he was large and muscular—bigger, she thought, than the leopard she’d briefly seen in the Park so long ago. His tail was large and powerful-looking, heavily furred, and his paws were enormous.