Exclusive Extra 1: Psy-Changeling Short Story
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Author’s Note: When I asked which couples you missed seeing, I received a lot of requests to revisit the early Psy-Changeling couples, so I thought I’d go back to where it all began, to an alpha panther and an empath whose mating changed the course of Psy-Changeling history. Timeline-wise, this fits in after Alpha Night.
Mate
by Nalini Singh
Lucas opened his eyes to the awareness that all was well in their aerie, the world yet soft with the last part of night. He could see the charcoal gray of it beyond the windows—against which brushed the branches of the enormous and ancient tree in which their aerie sat warm and quiet.
Having woken on his back, he turned with panther stealth…and felt his lips curve even before his eyes landed on the woman who slept curled up on her side facing him. It had been years of waking like this and still his heart kicked each and every time. His Sascha. His mate.
Reaching out a hand, he gently brushed a long strand of hair off her face. She always put her hair in a braid prior to sleep, but the lush thickness of it had ideas of its own and he often found her like this. Always facing him, both hands under one side of her face, her knees slightly raised.
How did I get so lucky?
His heart ached, his panther as astonished by her as the human part of him. One thing both parts knew—his world had changed forever the day he walked into a meeting with an ice-cold Psy Councilor…and met her smart, beautiful, and dangerously tender-hearted empath of a daughter.
“What will we do about that heart of yours, hmm, my darling?” His voice was a purr, man and cat both loathe to disturb her rest even though he wanted to wake her so they could exchange the most intimate of skin privileges before their tiny one-person cyclone rose to run riot.
Their green-eyed baby panther had no compunction in interrupting any naked time should she wake up in the midst of it. His poor Sascha was still coming to terms with that and their baby was already two years old. His panther heart chuckled when he remembered her horrified “eep” the first time Naya busted them. She’d then ducked under the sheets.
Naya had thought Sascha was playing hide and seek, and had laughed uproariously while trying to “find” her mortified mother. Lucas, changeling to the core, had been amused—his mate, however, had not appreciated his huge grin.
He’d redeemed himself by swinging Naya up into his arms and throwing her over his shoulder to walk out into the living area. Of course then, she’d wanted to practice jumping off the balcony, so Sascha—robe hastily wrapped around her—had walked out to find her baby daughter in panther form taking flight from the balcony with a “roar” of sheer glee.
Lucas had felt her fear like a hammer against his heart, but she’d clapped, then petted Naya when their daughter made her way back up the tree with feline pride, her tiny claws gripping carefully at the trunk—and her indulgent papa catching her when she slid backward.
“I might be a scaredy cat,” his mate had said to him later, while Naya was playing with the wildcats that liked to visit them, “but I’ll never let Naya see that. She’s going to grow up free, a primal creature at home in her skin. Just like her papa.”
If anything, Lucas thought as he lay there watching the woman who held his heart and always would, Sascha was too soft a touch when it came to their daughter. Lucas was definitely the one who had to maintain discipline. Intellectually, Sascha understood that little cats needed boundaries, strong ones. Especially a little cat who’d been born of an alpha father and was already showing strong signs of dominance.
But intellectual knowledge had no chance against the hurts done to Sascha’s own heart when she’d been a child herself. She’d never been shown tenderness, never been allowed to play, never had a mother who baked cookies with her and walked hand in hand with her through the falling autumn leaves.
She was an extraordinary mother, her love for her child a fierce storm. As for their cub—Naya knew exactly how far she could go without getting into trouble with her much tougher father. He didn’t fall for those big green eyes when she tried out her wiles on him.
“Of course you don’t,” Sascha had complained. “You have the same eyes. I’m the one madly in love with those eyes and unable to resist either one of you.”
Laughing, he’d grabbed her around the waist and spun her in the air…all the way into their bed. Because their little panther had been away at play group for the morning, and they’d had the aerie to themselves.
Watching his Sascha’s body arch under his touch, her lush curves becoming a taut bow of pleasure was still one of his all time favorite things in this world.
His panther stirred against his skin.
He gave in. He might not fall for big green eyes, but he was a slave to the sleepy eyes of cardinal night-sky that met his when he disturbed her rest by running his knuckles over her cheek and down her neck. “Lucas.” Husky with sleep, her voice was a caress of love.
She snuggled closer, happy for him to roll over her and press her hands to the bed as he nuzzled her throat.
His Sascha darling refused to sleep naked even though their baby panther was changeling, didn’t care in the slightest. But Lucas wasn’t averse to her choice of lace and silk sleepwear. Today’s was a midnight blue slip with spaghetti straps that had moved up in her sleep to expose the tops of her thighs.
“Mmm.” She sighed, her hands tangled in his hair as he kissed his way down her throat.
He purred deep in his chest, knowing the vibration would go straight through her.
Shivering, she turned her face to kiss his jaw before running her hands down the ridges and valleys of his back. Her love was a hum inside him, the mating bond amplified by the fact that his mate was an empath, her world built of emotion. Sascha touched him as she loved him—with all of her. Nothing held back, no barriers, no hesitation.
And when she shuddered on the crest, her back rising up in that beautiful curve under him as she took him, claimed him, the wild rains of her love drenched him from the inside out. Panther and man, they were both undone, both her willing prisoner.
~
Later, as the dark outside began to merge into gray, she sighed and rose up to rebraid hair that he’d pulled apart in their loving. Naked to the waist, the sheets crumpled against the dark honey of her skin, she smiled. “I can’t believe we got away with that. Our daughter has ears like a bat.”
“Like a cat,” he corrected, lying back with his hands under his head, lazily content to watch her. If he’d been in panther form, his tail would’ve twitched, the rest of him quiescent.
Her lips curved deeper.
Dropping the half-done braid, she reached out to brush her fingers over his stubbled jaw, her eyes soft. When she came down to tuck her head against his shoulder, he shifted to wrap one arm around her shoulders, holding her close to him.
They lay in a silence that didn’t need to be filled. She was in his heart, and he was in hers. They would grow together through the seasons of life—including this one, where small feet were currently tiptoeing through the aerie in an attempt to sneak up on unsuspecting parents.
“Sneak attack in progress,” he warned.
Laughing in silence, her chest heaving, Sascha quickly pulled on her nightgown, then settled back down. And they both obediently closed their eyes so that their daughter—naked as the day she’d been born—jumped on them with a growl, claws out.
Sascha feigned being startled, while Lucas growled back in approval at her stalking technique.
Happily wriggling in between them, Naya said, “Naked cuddling,” very firmly—and very clearly for her age.
Sacha’s cheeks colored. “Naked cuddling,” she conceded, well aware what came with having a baby who was changeling—with the attendant acute sense of smell.
Unbothered, Naya snuggled down deeper. “Papa, walk?” Their cub looked at him in entreaty.
He smiled and met Sascha’s gaze, caught her silent answer. “Walk,” he agreed, and Naya bounced up out of bed, shifting mid-bounce so that it was a tiny green-eyed panther who landed on the wooden floor.
Her claws made little scrabbling sounds as she found purchase.
Lucas rose more slowly, stretching out his body before shaking off sleep and shifting. His panther yawned, displaying sharp white teeth. And when his cub padded over, he bent his head so they were face to face.
Father to daughter. Green eyes to green. Alpha to cub.
Naya quivered, her small heart aware that she was in the presence of a far bigger predator, but also knowing that predator would never hurt her. Lucas’s panther licked its tongue over her face, making her squirm and “laugh.” But she stayed close to her papa.
On the other side of their bed, Sascha pulled on pajama pants, and tied a thick wrap-around cardigan over her slip.
All ready, they headed out. Lucas and Naya jumped off the balcony to the forest floor, then waited patiently for Sascha to climb down the rope ladder to join them. Naya ran over for cuddles and kisses from her mama before she raced off into the forest painted by dawn, stopping every few meters to look back to make sure they were still following her.
Sascha stroked her hand through his fur, crouching down to rub the side of her face against his, her unbound hair a softness of scent and sensation. He leaned into her, both of them watching their curious and clever cub as she explored.
I love you.
A pulse so powerful from his empath mate that he felt it as a physical embrace around his heart. So did their daughter. Running back to her mama’s arms, she smothered Sascha’s face in kisses as Sascha laughed and cuddled her, and Lucas watched, delighted at the joy of these two infinitely precious pieces of his heart.
Then Sascha’s eyes met his.
A profound knowing. A sense of completeness. An awareness that she was the foundation of his world.
His Sascha. His mate.
Copyright © 2023 by Nalini Singh
For more information on the Psy-Changeling series, click here.
