Page 38 of Found in Obscurity

And her shifter familiar.

There was no other explanation for the way she greeted the eagle in the photo. With open arms and a gentle look on her face. Her palm was extended toward him and the eagle’s wings were visible on the inside of her fingers. Tattooed on her skin.

Kit perked up, hopping around as he stared at the eagle, his wings spread wide but feathers already making way for smooth skin. Face in a grotesque but magical midpoint between animal and man. Kit could almost sense the stretch in the bones, the itch in the muscles, the rush inside the head as more complex thoughts overpowered the simplicity of the animal ones.

He could recall how it felt to allow your entire being to transform into something else. Something bigger. More complicated.

He closed his eyes, his entire body tense as he tried to will himself to do it. To just go back to who he really was. To break the wall someone had built between his fox and the human he could be.

Echoes of it were there, he could tell. It wasn’t an itch so much as a tingle. There was no real stretch, but there was somethingthere. Small and barely noticeable. But something more than what he had managed to feel in years.

He pushed himself harder.

Until a scream broke his focus and he scrambled away from the book as fast as he could, body still small. Compact. Fox-like.

Chapter ten

Lorin

He was pretty surehe wasn’t dreaming. Or hallucinating. Or just straight up going through a mental breakdown.

There was a man standing at the foot of the sofa Lorin was sleeping on. A very real, very naked man Lorin was pretty sure was the same one he had seen reflected in the mirror in his mother’s magic room. Without the distortion from before, Lorin could see pale skin, amber eyes, and very light hair on a short, wiry-looking man.

He felt the scream rippling through his throat before he heard it, thundering against the walls and nearly deafening him. He scrambled to get off the sofa, the blankets acting like shackles as he tried to throw them off his body to get away.

It felt like hours, but in reality he had probably only blinked once or twice, because before he could even attempt to ask the man anything, or fight him, or react in any sort of way that wasn’t mindless screaming, the man was gone.

The spot where he had stood was empty and Lorin’s cabin was deserted again.

He looked around himself frantically, keeping his back toward the walls and away from any semblance of an open space. He didn’t want to be exposed. Didn’t want to be caught off guard.

Something brushed against his ankles and he jumped a foot in the air, screaming once again before he could stop himself. He looked down and found Kit scrambling to climb up his pajama pants, scratching at his ankles, pulling at the fabric with his claws, and chattering to Lorin at the speed of light.

“Kit!” Lorin sighed in relief, bending to scoop the fox up in his arms, burying his face in the soft fur. “Did you see who that was? Did you see where he came from?”

Kit squirmed in his arms with jerky, staccato movements that made it hard to hold on to him. He was still pawing at Lorin, his head turning in every direction imaginable as he vocalized something. He seemed to be distressed, and while Lorin felt the same way, he wanted to make Kit feel better.

“It’s okay,” he whispered into Kit’s fur. “I got you. We’re safe. We’re okay.”

It didn’t help. Kit kicked his hind legs and nearly launched himself out of Lorin’s arms.

“Hey—” Lorin crouched down to let go of him. “—easy there. You can’t keep doing that. You’ll hurt yourself.”

He could hear the tremble in his own voice. His heart was still drumming against his ribs and he swore he could feel the echoes of it in his ears. His eyes were still darting everywhere, trying to make sense of what he had seen.

He walked over to the back door, the windows, the front door. Everything was closed and locked. No window broken, no lock picked. And yet Lorin had woken up to someone standing by his side as he slept.

He ran a hand through his hair, too wired to even attempt to go back to sleep. But it was the middle of the night, and he had no idea what he was supposed to be doing. He turned to look for Kit and found him pawing at the books by the sofa, both of them closed now.

Lorin was sure he had left one of them open before he fell asleep. Or was it just his mind telling him everything around him was suspicious and he should trust nothing and no one.

Kit was pushing against the book on familiars, insistently trying to get it closer to Lorin. Nudging it with his nose and paws until Lorin finally picked up on his intent.

“I don’t think I can read now, Kit,” Lorin said, still standing up and scanning the room around him. As if someone would emerge from the walls and come at him.

Kit pushed the book again, whining low in his throat.

“In the morning, fluffball,” Lorin said, the cutesy nickname slipping out without him really registering it.