Chapter 44: Chapter Forty-Four--Who I've Become

Sprawled on Kalvyn’s back, we made the long journey back home.

I startled at the thought. Home. When had I magically come to consider a cabin in the mountains as such a thing? Granted, I’d spent weeks there, I was unconscious. I had a house in Harbor. Yet, when I thought of the town, my stomach clutched in fits of uneasiness.

A house is not the same as a home, my cat mused. You haven’t felt true acceptance in Harbor since your mother left.

Obviously.

But it was home. I have Lola.

Your relationship with Lola was never the same as it was with your grandmother. Your attachment to that structure is to a dead woman, not your best friend. Though you feel loyalty to the human, you lie to Lola every day. She can’t handle the darkness and pain inside of you, not as your blood did, she said patiently.

She flipped through all memories to drive her point home. Trips to the grocery store that ended in me quickly leaving with only half of what I’d come for. I fled the intent stares of mere strangers, who knew damned well who I was.

I’d taken walks where the whispers had kept my head down, hair over my face to hide.

The clan has seen you at your worst, and still accept you for exactly who you are. On a fundamental level, you appreciate this, even if your conscious mind hasn’t accepted. When was the last time you could be yourself, and not fear that someone will turn from you? Your terror of only knowing them a few weeks is human. As Kalvyn has pointed out, fear cripples. Instincts are all that any being is, no race or gender is exempt. An animal understands this. Mankind is too terrified to follow them.

So, I’m supposed to uproot everything I’ve ever known and run off into the mountains, out of nowhere?

You already know what you want to do. Look into your heart, Katrina.

I stiffened at her use of my name. As long as she’d used “my human,” the distance between us had been maintained. But the softening of her voice unlatched the first lock I’d bolted inside my head when I’d awoken with her controlling my body. She could take over, if she chose to. And I was pretty sure she’d be unstoppable.

Kalvyn’s thumb caressed my thigh, where the damp t-shirt rode high. I rested my chin on his shoulder as he agilely leapt over fallen logs, and climbed up steep inclines. Deep in thought, he stayed. Distantly, I wondered what he thought about.

I wouldn’t do that to you. I am not here to steal your will or limbs. I wanted to exist alongside you. I loved you long before I came to be in this form, trust in that. Break from trepidation, and learn from me. Just as I can read your thoughts and intentions, you can do the same. I am the foreign entity here, you are not.

I bit my lip. My heart fluttered as I tightened around Kalvyn. Screw it. Now or never, and all that garbage. I opened myself, breaking another metaphorical lock. Warmth and caring filled me, infused with an old power that defied everything my young brain was capable of assimilating.

She showed me those “ripples” she’d felt so long ago when my life was the most shadowed. Her essence was all over these mountains because of the concentration of jaguars back then. My pain had drawn her to the edges of her reach to find a twelve year old girl, hurt and alone, even in a crowd.

At first, I’d intrigued her, unlike any other human she’d encountered. A combination of sharp survival, and the relenting need to end it all by the tip of a knife tearing into my wrists. A paradox. Through her perspective, I viewed myself growing up. Her study of my actions, trials and complexities. Through me, she’d known small joys, and massive sorrows.

The first time I’d sat on the roof of my grandma’s house, butcher knife poised over the delicate skin, the tip penetrating, determined the end my life, she’d made her decision. At that precise moment, the hunters had stumbled upon the Colbanes and sealed the fate of the clan, bisecting them into two sects. Seeing a possible future, she used the power that was only hers to wield, and bound the courageous, tormented Kalvyn to me. That was the first time I’d heard her voice, soaked in promises of hope of a better future. Though I’d thought I’d lost my mind, my heart had listened to her. The knife flew over the edge of the roof. Though that wasn’t the last intention of suicide, she’d always been there, dragging me back from the edge. She’d waited until it was time for her to “encourage” Kalvyn and me to be in the same place, at the same time, and unleash our fate.

I clenched my eyelids shut. A large part of me resented this whole “you can’t decide for yourself, so I will force it on you” bit.

I can seal your basic fate, but I cannot control your emotions. You love him, Katrina. Not even I can force that.

I ignore the last part. You took his choice away.

I did, as is my right as the essence of the jaguar. They are my responsibility and privilege, and always will be. I do not make these decisions lightly. I would not cage either of you to an unsuitable mate. This is why the change worked.

I swallowed thickly. What are you saying?

Not just any human can be changed at the will of one of my race. I have to give my permission. If I find that person worthy, the bite will convert.

And if you don’t?

The human dies in an excruciating manner. And before you reprimand me, I have no control over how they die. I merely judge a person’s meddle. There are enough cats with questionable morals who do not live by a true animal’s code. I need not add to the mix with those who have changed.

That, I agreed to. In my life, I’d met too many cruel people. In her shoes, I’d never give them any more power.