His fur was gorgeously patterned, a grey-white with hints of burnished gold all throughout, and dramatic black spots. His eyes looked exactly the same.
Teri held out a hand. “May I...?”
He came up to her immediately, nudging his head against her hip. She buried her hands in his fur, marveling at how warm and soft it was in the chilly dawn air. His tongue rasped against her wrist, and she laughed a little.
“You’re magnificent,” she told him, because it was true.
All at once, he turned and bounded off into the yard, gathering himself for a leap. Teri stifled a warning shout, aware that Zach had to know what he was doing—and then watched in astonishment as he leapt delicately up onto the sturdy fence that surrounded the backyard, padded along it, and then jumped at least ten feet to land in the branches of the big tree that took up one corner.
“I’m impressed!” Teri called, laughing.
Zach scaled the trunk of the tree, higher and higher until Teri started to worry about the thin upper branches’ ability to support him. Then he leapt again, landing in the branches of a tree in his neighbors’ yard. Teri shook her head in amazement. There had been no hesitation, no indication that he was performing an insane stunt, and could’ve fallen to his death if he’d missed his footing.
She saw the branches of the neighbors’ tree shake as Zach descended again...and then there was nothing.
Teri waited, staring over at the tree, but she didn’t see anything. There was no sound, either, nothing other than birdcalls filtering through the misty morning.
The seconds stretched out into a minute, and Teri was just starting to wonder if Zach had spontaneously decided to go get them breakfast or something when there was a swirl of movement in the corner of her eye.
She spun around. Zach had appeared behind her, although the dim light and the mist combined to make him almost invisible. All she could see was a ghostly outline and the silvery light of his eyes.
He padded forward, seeming to materialize directly out of the fog. Teri let out a breath. “Wow,” she murmured. “Zach. You’re amazing.”
His shape blurred and shivered again, and a moment later, he was standing in front of her in his human form. “Thanks. I was showing off a little,” he confessed.
Teri smiled. “I’m not complaining.” She couldn’t believe that she was—dating? In a relationship with? Mated to?—someone who could do astonishing, magical things like that.
Zach grinned back. “Come on inside, and let’s have breakfast.”
He slung a casual arm around her shoulders as they turned to go in, one hand rubbing her arm to warm her up. Teri basked in the feeling of his body encompassing hers. Her mate. Hers.
Inside, they cooked breakfast together. Teri enjoyed the crazy experience of offering to help and getting a smile and a Thanks, instead of No, you sit down and rest! You don’t want to overtax yourself by being on your feet for too long.
“So,” she said shyly, as they sat down to pancakes and eggs, “was it strange just now, showing your shifted form to a regular human?”
The thought had occurred to her after they’d come inside. She’d remembered him talking about how he was used to keeping his shifter nature a secret, and she’d immediately felt bad for asking Zach to do something that he’d already admitted was weird and difficult.
Although she couldn’t bring herself to regret the sight of Zach’s snow leopard form appearing from the mist as though by magic, or racing up the trunk of a tree like it was a flight of stairs. She was going to treasure that memory for a long, long time.
But Zach shook his head immediately. “No, not at all. You’re not a regular human, Teri, you’re my mate. It’s different. You’re part of my family, my pack, whatever you want to call it. Part of me.”
Teri had to pause at that. Had to take a second to absorb that information into herself. Part of him. She was part of him, and he was part of her.
“Teri?” Zach asked cautiously. “Are you all right?”
She blinked hard. “Yes.” Her voice was a little thick, but it stayed steady. “I keep thinking I understand that we’re mates, what that means, but then something happens, or you say something like that, and suddenly I’m sure it has to be a dream. Nothing this perfect could really be happening to me in real life.”
Zach’s face softened. He leaned across the little kitchen table to kiss her, and Teri turned her face blindly into the touch of his lips. She wanted to feel him, taste him, so she could be certain this was really real.
Zach cupped her face, his thumb stroking her cheek. His kiss was gentle and heartfelt. Teri breathed him in. When he pulled back, she sighed softly.
“That’s real,” Zach told her. “What we were feeling just now. It’s the most real thing I’ve ever felt.”
Teri had thought she knew what it was to feel happy, before all of this. She’d had no idea. “Me too.”
***
Zach had never thought he’d find his mate, not really.