HAPTER FOUR
Kim woke up the next morning sore from last night’s escapades. She stretched out on her bed, reluctant to get out because she didn’t want to face Tony this morning. She wrapped herself in her duvet, put the pillow over her head and groaned to herself. How could she be so stupid? Not one, but two guys in a month. That was totally not like her. Not only that, it seemed that at least both men had some sort of feelings for her.
Her nostrils were tickled by the scent of cooking bacon and brewing coffee. Her stomach growled in response to the delicious scents. No... Just no. Fuck you stomach. Fuck you, body, you betraying whore. Just ugh, she thought to herself. What the hell do those guys have over her anyway? She had no idea, but the smell of that bacon was driving her insane, she had to get up or she’d wind up eating her pillow at this rate.
Kim threw on her pink terry cloth bathrobe and wandered to the kitchen. At her table sat Tony, and at the stove stood Keith, cooking away.
“Umm, good morning?” she inquired, arching an eyebrow.
“Hey, you slept pretty late,” Tony said. “I asked Keith over because we needed to talk to you about something. Rusty is coming over in a bit too. Don’t worry, it’s nothing really bad.”
Keith’s shoulders were tense as he whisked the eggs in the pan. He was able to smell what went on the night before. He was not impressed. He needed to talk to Tony about it, outside, away from Kim, before it ate him alive inside. Hot jealousy had a way of causing shifters to permanently stay in their animal forms, his dad told him. It was one of the reasons why he stayed single for so long. He couldn’t risk it, but now here he was, falling in love with this beautiful and kind woman, and she was pushing him away in favor of Tony.
Tony put his feet up on one of the empty kitchen chairs. He was more difficult to read, but was just as tense under his lackadaisical facade. He knew Keith was pissed at him. He just needed to explain to his cousin that he really couldn’t control himself. Keith laid with the woman so he knows what kind of power she has over un-mated males. She had a greater pull than most.
Keith put a scoop of scrambled eggs along with a couple of rashers of bacon and some toast on a plate for Kim. He looked at her and smiled shyly as he handed it to her. She met his gaze and couldn’t help but return his genuine affection with a smile of her own. At that moment, she felt horrible for sleeping with Tony.
Kim sat down at the kitchen table and ate her breakfast. Keith came over and put a cup of coffee on the table for her. She gently touched his hand as she went to pick up the cup.
Keith’s eyes widened as he felt her soft hand touch his. If he were alone with her, he would probably have taken her right then and there. With that single touch, his anger evaporated. He was no longer mad at his cousin. He understood completely what had happened.
There was a polite knock at the front door. “I’ll get it,” Tony announced as he got up from the table, leaving Keith and Kim sitting in an awkward silence in the kitchen.
“Hey...I’m sorry about the other day,” Kim said. “Did you get the tools?”
“Yeah, thanks for bringing them back. I noticed I was missing a trowel though,” he said with a sly smile.
“Well, I might need it to dig out weeds or something,” she replied evasively. She couldn’t bring herself to say that she wanted him to come back.
“Ah.” They both deftly danced around the elephant in the room. Neither one was willing to face it quite yet.
Tony returned to the kitchen, followed by Rusty. “Hello there, Kim,” Rusty greeted her. “Hope to see you back at the shop soon.”
“I hope to go back soon,” she replied. “I really enjoy working there.”
“I like having you. I hope this personal issue of yours gets sorted out sooner rather than later,” Rusty said while pulling up a seat.
Tony reverently went to the coffee pot to fix the elder a coffee and Keith stood there wide eyed as the elder sat down.
“You’re probably wondering why I’m here,” Rusty began. “It’s not just because I want you back to work. I think it’s about time you learned about this place. Your grandfather, when he came to the village, half frozen, found out our secret before we were ready to tell him. He vowed to never tell a soul, and from the looks of things, he kept his word.”
Rusty nodded to Tony who placed the hot cup on the table. He placed his hands on the mug and looked at it pensively, trying to find a way to explain the village to the poor woman who had already been through so much.
Keith and Tony looked at their feet and shuffled around nervously. They knew what the elder was about to say and they were both worried about Kim’s reaction.
“I am the head elder, and shaman of the Predator Springs band of the Cree nation,” Rusty announced formally. “Our band has been purposefully isolated from the rest of the Cree nation for hundreds of years, almost thousands. Ever since the Cree settled the prairies of Alberta and the mountains of British Columbia, we have endured. In the Cree myths and legends, there are rumors of shape shifters. People gifted by the Great Spirit to change into the village’s totem animal. We are one of those villages.”
Kim’s eyes went wide. She remembered hearing stories from her grandma when she was a little kid about the various villages with shape shifters. They purposefully stayed away from the main nation to keep themselves and the other villages safe, especially after the white man appeared.
“Our totem animal is the mountain lion. The great and powerful cougar. All offspring in the village have the ability to shift when they come of age. There’s only one problem. Most of the offspring for the past fifty years have been male. So we need to try to bring women from outside to form bonds with so our men can find mates to pass on the ability to the next generation.”
The elder took a sip of his coffee, to let his story slowly sink in. Kim was amazed at the sheepish look on the men’s faces. Her mind was going a mile a minute. Shifters? Mating? What the hell was going on?
Rusty studied Kim’s face to gauge her reaction and continued. “The fact that you’re here at the beginning of the season bodes well. You have two strapping young men willing to become your life mate. You can only pick one, though. I know that some tribes encourage their women to have more than one, since it means that her children would be better provided for, but ours, you can only pick one to be your mate.”
Kim looked at Tony, then to Keith, then back to Tony again. She looked at Rusty helplessly. “But...what if I’m not ready to pick?” she asked.
“Well, if you’re not ready to pick this year, the burning will get stronger. You will become more influenced by their pheromones as they yours. You will drive them to heights of animalistic lust to the point that they might not be able to control themselves. Their animal natures will take over, and eventually they will stay in their shifted forms forever,“ Rusty answered with a ring of doom.
Keith piped up. “You know, I’ve felt attracted to you ever since you moved in. I mean, not just physically but I know there’s something more there. I can feel it, you can feel it. I would love for you to stand up with me on the mating day. I will take good care of you and keep you safe. Please don’t let what I am put you off. If anything, I can keep you extra warm on long winter’s nights,” he said with a wink.
Tony cleared his throat. “I feel the draw to you, and I want you to be mine. I couldn’t help myself yesterday. You drove me to the madness. Just the scent of you makes me wild. I want to possess every part of you. Please accept my offer,” he pleaded.
Rusty looked at Kim, his black eyes piercing her very soul. He could see the conflict deep within her and knew she wasn’t ready to make a choice just yet. Eventually, though she’ll have to, he saw it in the bones last night.
Kim looked at both the men and tears began to stream down her face. “I just can’t. I can’t get involved in a relationship yet. Not with anyone. I’m just not ready after all the stuff I’ve been through. Please let me keep my freedom just a little longer? I don’t want Smiley coming after you guys either, I couldn’t live with myself if anything happened to either of you because of me.” She was already having a tough time coping with the fact he probably murdered her aunt and uncle because of her. If she would have just gone with him, they would still be alive. She wouldn’t, but one life versus the lives of an entire family, the trade-off seemed unfair.
Rusty seemed to know what she was thinking. “Look, don’t you go and get some cockamamie notion in your head to go off and let Smiley kill you thinking it’ll keep us safe. It won’t. He knows where we are. He might not know what we are, but it has been the first time a white man has ever set foot in our village uninvited. That is a crime in these lands. Our ancestors fought to eke out this small bit of land away from the white settlers who tried to kill us off. We managed to preserve the old ways and the old legends while the rest of you were systematically brainwashed through residential schools. No white person is allowed here without express invitation of the Elder council, especially that white man.”
Kim nodded as the elder spoke. “Don’t worry, I won’t,” she whispered. “I still, I’m still not ready for this kind of commitment, and especially to someone I have just met. I need to get to know them a bit better before I can choose. I’ll also feel safer if Smiley were caught.”
“We can arrange that,” Rusty said confidently. “You have three months to pick. The autumn equinox marks the end of the mating season. If you don’t pick by then, the winter will become unbearable for you, Keith and Tony. The one you don’t choose will go back to being his normal good-natured self, don’t you worry. He won’t go feral because of a little rejection, but both will go feral if you don’t mate with one of them by the equinox, whether this Smiley fella is caught or not.”
Kim nodded. What had she gotten herself into by moving here? she thought. Cougar shape shifters, life mates, and a shaman that seemed to be a genuine legitimate shaman, not just one in name, like on her home reservation.
Rusty looked at her. “Do you have any questions for me?” he asked.
“Well, kind of, but, I don’t know how to phrase it,” Kim stammered.
“Try me,” Rusty said. “I’ve been around for quite some time and I have fielded many a question from a young woman about to go up for the ceremony. Everything from how the people shape shift to if their penis goes barbed during sex.”
Kim blushed furiously. She didn’t want to talk about sex to her actual boss.
“I can see you’ve already been with both of them, so you can answer that question for yourself,” Rusty chuckled.
“That wasn’t my question. I think it’s more along the lines of, how bad will it get, like the mating burn, if I don’t choose by the equinox.”
“It will drive you insane. You can’t shift into mountain lion form. You can’t escape the burn like Keith and Tony here can. Even in our human form, we have a heightened sense of smell. You’ve already been exposed to the mating pheromones of both Keith and Tony. You’ve had a double dose, so if you don’t mate with one of them, you’ll slowly go insane, eventually killing yourself to make it stop.”
“Wow,” Kim said looking at both Tony and Keith. Their lives, as they knew them, were in her hands. She didn’t want them going off and living as cougars for the rest of their lives, but she didn’t want to make any kind of long term commitment to either of them right away.
“Okay, I’ll give it until the autumn equinox,” she agreed. Neither Tony nor Keith seemed like bad guys. Three months seemed like a reasonable time to get to know the guy one was going to settle down with.
Rusty smiled slyly, knowing she might not have three months to make the choice, but he kept that little secret to himself for the time being.