Sascha just pointed to the table and waved him down onto his knees. Awareness dawning in eyes that rapidly went from human to panther, he came down beside her. Then, together, they both pressed their weight onto their palms and looked under the table Naya liked to use to put her toys on when she was “tidying.”
Bright green leopard eyes glowed at them before a tiny panther cub bounded out into their arms—or tried to. She wasn’t very coordinated, more slid across the floor than ran. Pride burned in her eyes, in her mental presence, in her growling.
Lucas growled back, chuckling and rubbing Naya’s little head when she tried to pounce on him. Her concentration that of the very young child she was, she then turned to Sascha and tried to climb into her lap, Sascha having sat up on her knees.
Sascha’s heart had burst open at first sight of her child’s new form. Jet-black like her father except for those bright green eyes, her leopard rosettes hidden in the black, Naya was astonishingly beautiful.
Fighting happy tears, she said, “Clever, clever girl.” She’d been told changeling children shifted around one year of age, and with Naya’s birthday a bare week away, Sascha had been watchful—but she’d thought she would feel a mental change when Naya shifted for the first time. “Why didn’t I feel you shift?”
“Because it’s normal for her.” Lucas turned over onto his back on the play mat, uncaring of his wet state.
Taking the silent invitation, Naya immediately ran over to climb laboriously onto his chest. She had to rest afterward, her tiny body heaving up and down under Lucas’s hand. Once recovered, she stood on his chest and tried to bat playfully at his face. He deflected her with gentle hands, but in a way that told Naya it was all right to continue this game. “She’s always Naya, whatever form she takes.”
“But when you shift, you feel wilder.” Sascha didn’t know how else to explain it.
“She’s a baby, closer to her primal state.”
Naya looked up and purred when Sascha petted her, then fell flat on her belly, legs splayed out. Sascha helped her get back on her feet, where she once again started to “fight” with her father, safe in the knowledge that Lucas could easily handle her mock-attack.
“No claws.” Lucas caught one small paw and tapped on the claws.
When Naya made mewling sounds, claws still out, Lucas released his own claws, then retracted them. One second, two, three, Naya’s head tilted to the side . . . and her claws slid back in. “Good girl.” Lucas kissed her face.
Happy, Naya turned to Sascha. Unable to resist, Sascha picked up their sweet baby and held her close. Her tiny heart beat so fast, her fur soft. Memories crashed into Sascha of the day she’d first held a cub in animal form. Julian had been bigger than Naya then, but just as gorgeous. Never could she have imagined that one day she’d be holding her own cub. Her eyes stung.
Naya only allowed Sascha’s hold for a little while before wriggling to be put down. Circling Lucas and Sascha—falling and getting up and slipping—Naya growled and purred and had a rest every so often against her parents.
Sascha, one hand on Lucas’s bare chest, couldn’t stop watching her. “Remember that day I held Julian for the first time?”
“You mean the day you gave yourself away?”
Sascha smiled through her incipient tears. “I wish I could’ve kept that boot he chewed on.”
“You kept me. I’m a better souvenir.” Lucas raised one leg so it was bent at the knee, the towel immediately falling open on either side of his muscled thigh.
Her mind split in two. “Stop that,” she ordered the gorgeous adult panther on the floor while a gorgeous baby panther tried to bite at his arm with tiny panther teeth. “I can’t have you being all sexy while Naya’s being all adorable.”
Her heart might explode permanently.
He chuckled, moved over onto his front—and that towel, it just couldn’t keep up. Before she could drag it back into place, the air filled with shattered light and a large black panther now sat beside her. Delighted, Naya tried to bite at Lucas’s tail but she couldn’t catch it because he’d swept it over. Moving in that adorable, stumbling way, she tried to chase it—and Lucas swiped it back.
Sascha laughed as Naya tried to catch it again.
The simple game kept her amused and excited until she crawled into Sascha’s lap and fell fast asleep with the quickness of the toddler that she was. Stroking her hands through Naya’s soft fur, Sascha caught light from the corner of her eye. “Now you’re naked.” She tried to glare at her mate without looking at his body. “Do you want me dead?”
Chuckling, Lucas moved so that he was leaning on his arm behind her, his lower body mostly out of her range of vision. “I can’t wait to take her for runs, to teach her the forest, show her how to climb to the aerie.”
Sascha’s overworked heart thumped. “Oh God, she’s going to be so much more mobile.” While still a baby in every other way.
Lucas tapped her on the nose. “She’s a cat. We’ll also teach her the rules.”
“Is she going to start jumping off the balcony?” It was strength in motion when Lucas did it. The idea of Naya’s tiny body flying through that much air had Sascha close to hyperventilating.
Rubbing her back, Lucas made a reassuring purring sound in his chest. “Not tomorrow or the day after. She’s going to need time to build her strength.”