Off and on Again Read online

  Yeah, better windows would definitely be needed.

  “The house itself has been fixed so that there’s proper insulation everywhere. It won’t help if the windows let the warmth out, though,” Noah mused.

  “Can I at least pay some of the window costs?” Derek asked.

  “No, the Council is paying for everything,” Mikael said as he came around the corner just in time to hear him.

  “I hate taking anything from them,” Derek spat out. “I got hurt and they fucking wanted me to be their computer tech.”

  “Have you tried turning it off and on again?” Dallas grinned.

  “Yes! And I get that I’m a fragile human but I have pretty much twenty years of experience in only security. Working for them. It’s not like I forgot to do my job when I lost my eye.” Derek stopped and leaned his back to the closest wall. Yeah, he got so riled up about this all still.

  A tentative almost-meow sounded from the stairs across the yard where Cal’s cat side had been supervising their work.

  “At least he knows you’re his mate, no matter his shape,” Mikael murmured very, very quietly.

  Derek sighed. “I guess so.” It did help though, to have Cal react to his emotions like this. To take his mind off things, he asked, “So how close are our closest neighbors?”

  It turned out they were pretty damn secluded, which should’ve made Derek feel bad, maybe. Mostly because he hadn’t minded living in close quarters to a lot of people in Italy. The city hadn’t had more than forty thousand people, but it still felt busy with how he’d lived with people all around him.

  Here, he felt more at peace. Maybe it was because his mate was there, he couldn’t be sure and he sure as hell wouldn’t go asking about it. They’d all agreed that nobody would mention the fact that Derek, a human, felt the mate bond.

  Normally, a human couldn’t feel it. Mikael only felt his with Maxim because Mikael’s mother had been a Siberian tiger like Maxim.

  It also wasn’t any sort of a mystical bond, not like some fiction portrayed it anyway. It was more like this feeling of being settled around that person, but knowing it wasn’t a regular old human kind of falling in love or loving someone.

  When one of Derek’s shifter friends had found her mate in Italy, she’d told him that there was an instant connection, and as soon as she spent time with him, she just knew.

  Maybe that was why Derek had doubted what he’d felt toward Cal at first. He’d thought his feelings were the by-product of being a human and a bit of a closet romantic. Despite the training he’d gotten and the way he’d been made into an asset for the Council, Derek had held onto the way he’d loved the romantic comedies he watched with his mom growing up, and the notions of finding that one special person one day.

  In Cal, he’d found that person. He’d known it from the first time he’d seen him, somehow. He also assumed that Cal had known, too. Cal had known what his cat had recognized, but probably hadn’t believed it, because Derek was a human. And then, just as their tentative flirting had turned into something more, Cal had gotten the call to be ready for one last emergency job and… that was it.

  Cal still slept in Kit’s bed. He’d been in his cat form, stuck or choosing it willingly, for two weeks, when Derek had had enough.

  Kit had gone riding the Jarvela farm’s horses with the other boys, and Derek and Cal were alone together at home. Cal was curled up in an old rocking chair while Derek cooked dinner. He could feel the cat’s gaze on his back, and for a while, he could let it be.

  Then, something shifted inside him, and he turned around to lean to the cabinet and looked at the cat.

  “However improbable, we’re mates. We both know that. So how about you let Cal out, cat,” he spoke evenly. “I need my mate. I need to be close to him, and this just isn’t doing it. You’re making me unhappy, do you understand?” The cat blinked at him slowly, which meant—at least in regular domestic pet cats—that they loved you. Yeah, right. He rubbed a hand over his face and crossed the floor to kneel by the chair. He wouldn’t touch the cat, but he needed to say this to be able to hold onto hope that he wasn’t losing Cal to his feline side.

  “Cal, if you can understand me, I want you to come back. Kit needs you. I need you. We’re mates, we’re supposed to be a family, and you need to let go of whatever it is you’re clinging to that makes you feel so guilty—actually, you know what,” Derek said, thoroughly tired as he glared at the cat with his one good eye. “Give me my mate back, cat.” The words came out with force that surprised him, his tone enough to make the cat pull back, but not cower.

  Derek got to his feet and went back to food prep.

  That evening, after he’d showered and gone to bed to read, he felt the cat jump on top of his covers. It didn’t make eye contact, but it settled down next to Derek’s feet.

  He guessed that was enough for now.

  Cal

  Cal was afraid to face Derek. He’d accepted that fact after a while. The cat was relaxing and letting Cal be more conscious now, and he had some hope that it would let him out soon.

  He realized he wanted to keep shifting back and forth again, like he once had. He wasn’t sure how… sustainable that idea would be, because he knew that the morphine was now gone from his system and the things he’d been hiding from would return into his mind as soon as he was in full control.

  The cat had been a buffer. When Cal used morphine to keep the cat at bay, the cat was also a weird sort of barrier between the destructive thoughts about what had happened. Now that the cat was active again, Cal knew that once he shifted back, those memories and thoughts would be back, too.

  He didn’t know if this was how all shifters’ brains worked, but it was his truth, and… yeah.

  When Derek gave the cat, and Cal, his passionate speech that day in the kitchen, Cal felt scolded. By staying hidden, by not fighting more now that the cat was loosening the reins, he was failing his mate even more.

  He just… wasn’t ready.

  So he observed, he watched Derek with the others like he had thus far. Seeing his mate look happy and relaxed felt… it felt like everything good in the world. Well, except Kit. Seeing Kit happy, too, completed the circle for Cal.

  It also cemented the fact that Cal needed to shift. But the cat didn’t let him.

  It wasn’t ready. It knew what happened when it gave the man control. It would be pushed back, hazy and hurt, for a long, long time. So it wouldn’t let the man out, not yet. Not until the time was right.

  The mate… the mate had scolded it as if it was a kitten. So it had gone closer, stayed night after night at the foot of the bed to make sure Mate was all right.

  It wasn’t enough, but it was a compromise.

  For now.

  Derek

  Sometime in mid-August, Cal still hadn’t shifted back. He now spent nights on the other side of the large bed, but at pillow level. Close enough to touch, but not close enough to accidentally hurt Derek if startled. At least that’s what Derek thought the reasoning had to be.

  Derek and Kit were painting the rebuilt outbuilding in a red shade that Mikael had said was traditional, and the cat roamed around the yard, peering into nooks and crannies, surveying its territory.

  “He’s closer to the surface now,” Kit spoke quietly. “I’ve been feeling him much closer whenever I’m next to the cat.”

  Derek nodded. He’d thought he felt the same thing, but without actual shifter senses, he couldn’t be sure.

  Suddenly he saw the cat freeze in his peripheral vision. At the same time, Kit’s head whipped around in that direction.

  Kit had just enough time to say, “Something’s coming” before a fluffy gray and black dog burst through the brushes from the woods and into the yard.

  It seemed friendly when it saw Derek and Kit, but then the cat moved and the dog’s gaze locked on to the tabby form.

  “No!” Derek yelled and ran toward the dog. “Go! Get away from here!”

  The cat moved in
that slinky, dangerous way to get between the threat and its family. It fluffed up and hissed, looking dangerous as hell.

  The dog didn’t seem to think so, and before Derek got to them, it attacked.

  The growls and hissing yowls were horrible, and all he could do was to stand there and watch the ball of animals rolling around.

  “Dad, no!” Kit screamed, and Derek grabbed him as he tried to run past him.

  “No Kit! Call Mikael, right now!”

  There was a horrible shriek of pain and Derek couldn’t tell which animal it came from. Then all of a sudden, a loud growling filled the yard and Derek froze completely. Kit had run inside for his phone, and when Derek ever so slowly turned his head, he saw two large wolves running from behind him and into the fray.

  The dog was startled enough that it stopped fighting, but not before it gave the much smaller cat body one final shake.

  One of the wolves charged the dog and managed to knock it down. The dog yelped and fell, and didn’t get up.

  As Derek watched, the cat’s body jerked as if having a seizure and then Cal was lying on the grass, bleeding from… somewhere.

  The wolves shifted seamlessly, Rider going to the dog and Sean to Cal. Derek made it to his mate at the same time with Sean.

  “He’s injured, but not too badly, let’s get him inside,” Sean said and Derek went into rescue mode.

  That, he could do. He wasn’t sure what was happening to Cal, but he guessed that the cat had freaked out enough to let Cal push through.

  Cal let out a pained sound when Sean and Derek lifted him, but didn’t regain consciousness.

  “It shook him around the shoulder, not the neck,” Sean said as they moved as one up the stairs.

  Derek felt his knees shake with relief.

  “I don’t know where the dog came from,” he said. “It was just there, and looked friendly, and then….”

  “It’s a Norwegian Elkhound. They’re used in moose and bear hunting here. I forgot to tell you it’s now officially hunting season so hunting dogs can be off-leash.”

  Derek nodded. “Do you get a lot of them here?”

  “Not really,” Sean grunted as he lifted Cal onto the bed where Kit had already spread clean towels.

  “It’s alive,” Rider said from the doorway. “I put it in the wood shed. It’s waking up. It had this on,” he lifted a hand, showing a bright orange collar with a bulky thing attached.

  “Ah, a tracking collar. Does it have a phone number?” Sean asked as he turned to his mate.

  “Yeah. Someone needs to call them to come get it, but it should be Mikael,” Rider stated.

  The sound of the ATV came from the direction of the path, and soon Mikael and Dallas stomped up the stairs. Dallas was holding a bag of supplies and Mikael had a plastic bag on his arm.

  When a sleek black jaguar slunk inside after them, it took Derek a few seconds to realize it was Noah. Mikael tossed the bag onto the table and Noah shifted, then grabbed his clothes from the bag and put them on. Efficient.

  Dallas ushered everyone else out of the bedroom while Mikael went to deal with the dog situation. Derek rounded the bed to be closer to his mate and help Dallas and Noah with turning him.

  ”These are superficial injuries,” Noah murmured thoughtfully as he examined the puncture wounds.

  “It looked horrible,” Kit said in a small voice, and somehow Derek hadn’t seen him in the corner where he was hiding from everything. It was a miracle he hadn’t shifted, he was so distraught.

  Derek held out a hand and the boy came to him, shaking with tears and adrenaline. Derek held Kit close to his side as he watched Noah and Dallas work.

  “The good thing is, the dog wasn’t ready for a cat like Cal. A regular cat would’ve been dead, but Cal knows how to move and protect himself,” Dallas murmured as he examined a nasty-looking gash on Cal’s shoulder.

  “How does it look?” Derek asked.

  Noah had fetched a bowl of water and a roll of paper towels from the kitchen and helped Dallas clean up the blood that was sluggishly pumping out of several punctures. At least none of them were on Cal’s head or neck.

  “I think we need to flush these out for bacteria so we can leave them all open. It didn’t manage to tear anything, I don’t think,” Dallas finally stated and they went on to clean the wounds and bandage Cal’s left shoulder and upper arm.

  “Derek?” Mikael stood in the doorway.

  “Kit, you stay with your dad and the guys, I’ll be right back.”

  Kit cuddled up to his father and kept an eye on Noah who was putting Cal on a drip. Fluids would be good for sure.

  “What’s up?” Derek asked, following Mikael out of the house.

  “I called the guy whose dog it is. Also checked the dog. It’s upset but friendly and not that badly hurt. Rider tackled it well and Cal couldn’t get through the thick fur. But it has blood on its muzzle and a deep scratch, too. It’s obvious it’s been fighting.”

  “Okay…?”

  “I wanted to know how you wanted to deal with it,” Mikael said and Derek saw the dog that looked confused, sitting by the wood shed. It had the collar back on and Mikael had used rope to secure the dog to a tree.

  “What do you mean?” Derek asked, walking to the animal.

  It felt so weird seeing a regular dog like this. To Derek, most animals weren’t just that.

  “Well, we can clean the dog up and say we don’t know where it got the cut or give the guy a reason to feel worse about it by telling him it attacked your cat. It would keep him from letting the dog loose anywhere too close again,” Mikael murmured as they both crouched down to pet the dog.

  It seemed so happy again, as if nothing was wrong at all. Other than it had tried to kill Derek’s mate.

  “Yeah. Anything to keep this or any other hunting dogs from coming here.”

  “Okay, so I’ll lay it on a bit thick and when the guy talks to you, look sad and angry.” Mikael got to his feet and slapped Derek’s shoulder firmly, smiling a little.

  Derek snorted and got up. The dog looked okay.

  A minute or so later, the dog perked up and began to wag its tail. Derek noticed that the said tail was curled over the dog’s back, much like the Akita’s Derek’s neighbors had had when he was a kid.

  A dirty, older model Mitsubishi SUV rolled into the yard. The dog went nuts. Derek didn’t have to ask who the guy stepping out of the car was.

  A rapid-fire exchange in Finnish followed, as Mikael and the man who was in his mid-fifties maybe, talked and gestured. The guy went and calmed the dog down, then frowned at the scratch on its nose and the blood on the fur and around its mouth.

  Mikael said something including Derek’s name, then gestured at him. The guy walked to Derek and held out a hand.

  “Derek, this is Hannu,” Mikael introduced the man. “Hannu, meet Derek.”

  Derek shook his hand. The guy said something that sounded like apologetic and weird.

  Mikael replied to it, then translated to Derek. “He says he’s sorry about your cat. He thinks the dog killed it and I’m going to let him believe so, especially with your shirt like that.”

  Derek looked down at himself, and noticed that his long-sleeved shift had Cal’s blood all over the front and one sleeve. Shit.

  “It’s… it’s okay,” he told Hannu, who seemed to understand that much in English, as he seemed relieved.

  Hannu frowned, then said with difficulty, but clearly enough, “I’m sorry, very sorry.”

  Derek smiled tightly, then gestured at his shirt and excused himself, leaving Mikael to deal with the rest. He needed to get the shirt off right now.

  Cal

  Cal woke up to feeling warm. When he blinked a few times, he realized it was still daylight. Then again, it was late summer or early fall, so it was still light outside a lot longer than his brain thought it should’ve been.

  He felt a pang of pain, and looked down at his shoulder—wait, he wasn’t a cat anymore? He stared
at his shoulder and arm that were the sources of his hurting and had thick bandages that smelled of blood covering them, although he hadn’t bled through them yet at least. There was a needle on the back of his hand, and he saw that he’d been on a drip. Likely Noah or Dallas had decided to wait and see before attaching another one but they’d left the cannula for now.

  Wincing, he decided moving wasn’t an option right then. He felt weak as a kitten—hah—and when he glanced around, he realized Derek was asleep on the other side of the bed, and Kit in his tiny fox form, slept between their pillows.

  Everything that had happened slowly came back to him. He remembered patrolling the yard while Mate and his child were painting. The dog, it hadn’t been a threat until it had seen him. The fight had been brutal, but Cal had managed to grab the reins from the cat and keep it from going all-in.

  Cal had kept the dog from biting him too much, while also hoping not to have done much damage to the animal. It hadn’t known what it was doing, its prey drive had kicked in at the sight of a cat—that was all.

  Sighing, Cal wondered how much of his being this tired was about the shift itself. Normally, he would’ve brushed away fast. He was a seasoned fighter. Dog bites painful as they could get, were not enough to zap his energy like this.

  As he watched Derek sleep, his heart ached. His handsome mate. Derek was tall and lean, he had corded muscle that suggested he was younger than his actual years. Cal remembered him working out a lot in Italy. The salt and pepper hair was even more gray now, and Cal wondered if he’d caused any of the almost-premature graying. Derek’s features were a bit sharp; he could look cold when he was in work mode, working as security. But Cal knew the real man, his Derek laughed easily, smiled a lot, and looked… gorgeous.

  Derek must’ve not meant to fall asleep, as his right eye was still covered by the black eye patch. Cal hadn’t meant what he’d done. Of course he hadn’t. Who would hurt their mate like that voluntarily?

  There was still the mystery of how they could be mates when Derek was human. They’d never discussed it, so maybe it was time. He remembered hearing that someone in the Council was looking into it. He wasn’t sure though, he’d been in cat form and that always made things fuzzier.