Port in the Storm

  Port in a Storm

  By K.L. Noone

  Published by JMS Books LLC

  Visit jms-books.com for more information.

  Copyright 2019 K.L. Noone

  ISBN 9781646560400

  Cover Design: Natasha Snow

  Image(s) used under a Standard Royalty-Free License.

  All rights reserved.

  WARNING: This book is not transferable. It is for your own personal use. If it is sold, shared, or given away, it is an infringement of the copyright of this work and violators will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

  No portion of this book may be transmitted or reproduced in any form, or by any means, without permission in writing from the publisher, with the exception of brief excerpts used for the purposes of review.

  This book is for ADULT AUDIENCES ONLY. It may contain sexually explicit scenes and graphic language which might be considered offensive by some readers. Please store your files where they cannot be accessed by minors.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are solely the product of the author’s imagination and/or are used fictitiously, though reference may be made to actual historical events or existing locations. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Published in the United States of America.

  * * * *

  For all lovers of cats, magic, and happy endings.

  * * * *

  Port in a Storm

  By K.L. Noone

  Rain. Rain and grimy city streets and cars.

  Cars were the worst, Colin Rue decided. He could hate cars. They splashed through puddles and sent waves across already soaked kitten fur. Cars were terrible.

  The latest minivan, not caring what one drenched feline shapeshifter thought of it, made a right turn at the base of the hill. Water fountained up. Colin stared at the street, which was busy being an ocean. Rain dripped onto his head.

  He could’ve become human. He could’ve escaped like that. In human form.

  He would’ve been naked, and scared, and shaken to the core.

  He was all of those anyway. For a fleeting second, he heard a warlock’s laugh, felt a hand caressing his head—

  No. He’d run. He’d gotten out of his collar, and he’d run.

  Colin hid behind a dilapidated rosebush and peeked at street signs and tried to think only about the next move, the next breath, staying free.

  He didn’t even know where he was. Los Angeles, or a dependency thereof. Southern California, anyway. He’d been running for hours; he knew he was out of the heart of the city, away from a tasteless lurid sky-view penthouse and diamonds at his throat and lazy commands. But he didn’t know where he’d ended up. Some neighborhood. Suburbia. Roughly middle-class homes with their matching level of care given to appearance. Rose bushes.

  Street signs weren’t designed for people of feline height. He spared a moment to add those to the list of terrible things. Street signs and cars.

  Himself. His choices.

  No, he told himself again, firmly. You got out. You did get out. You’re Colin Rue, descendent of one of the original twelve shapeshifter families, you once had the North American Arch-Mage offering to buy you drinks and sweep you off your feet. You can handle this. You can handle anything.

  That kind of thinking had, of course, led him here: hiding in kitten shape, naked and scared and shaken, as he’d already admitted to the rosebush.

  The storm got worse. Lightning. Hail. Unseasonably angry thunderclouds. Colin Rue, who knew exactly why the lightning, inched back into leaves and branches.

  He didn’t want to. He didn’t even mean to. He couldn’t help it.

  He knew he couldn’t handle anything. He couldn’t do anything. He was alone and lost and exhausted, and he might be free, but he’d just made a very petulant warlock very annoyed. He was still a kitten in cat shape, small and huddled and hungry; he did not want to be human yet.

  He did not like those recent memories. He also did not want to have to explain the sudden appearance of his naked self, without identification, roughly twenty-six years old and shimmering with undeniable magical reserves, if any witches or warlocks discovered him first.

  If a particular warlock discovered him—

  He pushed that thought down and buried it. He wasn’t going back.

  Lightning stabbed the pavement. A block ahead. Searing through the afternoon.

  Colin flinched, collided with his rosebush, hissed at it and the world, and ran.

  A block or two later he remembered to breathe. The lightning had to be coincidence. His warlock had no way of knowing where he’d gone.

  His legs wobbled. His legs were muddy. He was muddy. He’d once spent nights on silk sheets, wearing rubies, letting people woo him for the privilege of playing with his magic, his human self.

  Eight months ago. It felt like a lifetime. Eight of them. One for every month he’d worn a collar.

  He tried to sneeze—water and mud in his nose—and couldn’t, because he did have water in his nose, and his legs wobbled and gave out. In a puddle. Of course.

  When he glanced around he discovered that he’d landed at the edges of a gas station. The scents of oil and hot cars and steaming ground wafted across kitten senses. The ground was hard and the puddle was deep. A truck pulled in while he watched, and men grumbled about the rain. Sorry, Colin told them silently. My fault. Sort of. You sleep with a warlock one time, he turns out to be a megalomaniac who sticks you in an enchanted compulsion collar, you run away, and, hey, thunderstorms.

  He even liked rain, or he had before. He liked rain the way that cats liked rain: indoors, with a fire and a soft blanket and someone’s lap to sit on. If he were human at the time, that might even lead to more than simply sitting, under the drumming vibrant heartbeat of drops.

  He did not like collapsing in a puddle, being rained on, and now beginning to wonder whether he had the energy to move.

  I can handle this, he thought one more time. Even the thought came out small and unhappy. He wasn’t going to die and he wasn’t going to get caught again. He could get up and get moving. He should get moving. But he was miserable and starving and so wet and so tired, tired of warlocks and commands and bodies—

  A different car appeared. A blatantly normal car, in fact: one that screamed ordinary and boring so loudly it might’ve been wearing a flag. Colin’s whiskers pricked forward.

  Because that car was not normal. It sat there and radiated harmlessness as if that were its job. It carried touches of gentle magic: delicate cinnamon threads of safe traveling, homecoming beacons, nodding sunflower traces of energy. The person who owned that car knew about simple magic, domestic magic, herb-infusions and charms. The person who owned that car was often tired—sparkles around the weave of spells suggested the satisfied weariness of someone who did a job that needed doing—and also, Colin observed, had a very neat hand at braiding strands of power so they’d buttress each other, not interfere or distract.

  The person got out of the car. Colin’s immediate impression was of cheerful woodsy masculinity: jeans, plaid shirt, boots. The man looked tall, but from this angle everyone did.

  The person started humming absentmindedly under his breath, filling the car’s tank. Vaguely classic rock. Colin couldn’t recall the song, though he thought he might’ve heard it once or twice, maybe. The cheerfulness depressed him more. Didn’t the man realize the world was highly unpleasant? Epically flooded? Full of terrible things like deep puddles and too-high street signs and angry warlocks?

  But that energy, that gentleness, oh, that was tempting. He put chin on paws and considered options.

  Colin, not being a witch or wizard or sorcerer, couldn’t reach
out and take magic. He wouldn’t be able to pull that sunny strength into himself. But he could hide under it for a moment or two. Could bask in reflected warmth.

  Besides, blanketing himself under another magician’s power would be an extra disguise, even if a brief one.

  The man’s back was turned. Colin gathered kitten-legs, flung himself out of the puddle, and dove across asphalt and under the car. Kindness. That impression of sunflowers again. Herbs and grasses and sunshine on waterfalls. Oh yes. Yes.

  He knew he couldn’t stay. He knew this was borrowed comfort. He wanted it anyway. He wanted to cry, because it felt good, it felt warm, it felt like everything he wasn’t. Deep down inside him the cold aching core wanted to thaw: someone like this existed in the world.

  He would’ve laughed at himself, then, if he could. Someone like this would never help him willingly. Someone this shiningly obviously good had no doubt passed through life believing that the world was good, too. Would likely back away in horror at the recognition: Colin Rue, scandalous shapeshifter, the party child who traded his legendary reservoirs of power for fireflower drops and one-night stands and dazzling heights of euphoria.

  Then again, someone like this man wouldn’t recognize someone like him. So that wouldn’t be a problem. At least one thing wouldn’t.

  Tears burned, unexpected as the storm. He blinked them back. He didn’t even know why they’d arrived.

  Boots moved around, beyond the car. Finishing up. They came over to the driver’s side, opened the door, paused.

  Colin shifted weight. He would move. Once the car moved. Once they both moved on.

  The boots came back. A voice came with them, getting closer to the ground, deep and rich as forest earth. “Hey.”

  That couldn’t be for him.

  “Hey, kitty cat?” One hand beckoned at the underside of the car. “I know I saw you under there. Come on out, kitty, it’s okay.”

  Kitty cat. Colin glared. He might be in kitten-shape, but he had some pride.

  “I don’t want to leave you out here,” the man suggested, “you’re pretty small and that’s a lot of rain and I can at least take you home for tonight? And we’ll see if you belong to anybody?”

  Colin growled. Couldn’t help it. That phrasing.

  “Okay, sorry.” The man was laughing, honest good humor, even as he got down on his knees in the rain to peer under his car. “You’re clearly independent and absolutely self-sufficient. But everybody could use a warm place to wait out the weather, right?”

  Colin wavered. He shouldn’t, but he did. Safety, security, behind those car-wards. Behind house-wards, which judging from the car ought to be strong. Four walls and a roof.

  He could leave in the morning. The man didn’t know he was anything other than a cat. He wouldn’t be in danger.

  He inched forward.

  “That’s right,” said the forest-floor voice encouragingly, “come on, I promise not to hurt you, baby.”

  Colin couldn’t help a skeptical noise. Nobody could promise that.

  “Aww, hi!” The man sounded delighted at getting a response. Colin sighed internally at the enthusiasm, but came a few steps closer.

  Funny, though. That excitement seemed so honest. Heartfelt. A little chilly spot someplace in his chest took notice. He twitched whiskers at it. Ridiculous. He needed a refuge. This would be a good one.

  When he emerged, he found himself unceremoniously scooped into big broad hands, bundled into a jacket, and plopped into a makeshift nest on the passenger seat. Bemused, he couldn’t form a protest.

  “I know that’s not very safe,” his rescuer explained, as if Colin might express concern, “but it’s just up the hill, and this car’s got wards on it, you’ll be okay. You’re pretty quiet, aren’t you? But you keep staring at me. Is that a cat thing? Judging people who’re trying to help?”

  Colin scowled, a cat-scowl, and promptly turned his back. Hunkered down into the jacket. Swished his tail. Mud everywhere. Good.

  The man laughed. Colin shut his eyes and wondered what he’d gotten himself into this time, and whether he’d have to run again, and how soon.

  The answer to this question, as it turned out, required further consideration. Running might not be a requirement the way it’d been last time, but there might be a limit to the amount of rescuing he could tolerate. Colin, water getting in his eyes from the kitchen sink, cursed his life and his poor decision-making skills. Not for the first time. Not for the last, either, probably.

  “Oh, shh, hold still, baby,” David Stanton admonished, and continued trying to get mud off of Colin’s paws. “Such a sweet little guy, aren’t you.”

  Colin was exceedingly tempted to hiss. He refrained. He was currently stuck in kitten shape and hiding from a cranky warlock, being bathed by the white witch and graphomancer—and he did recognize David now, out from under a car and away from rain and panic, and this opened up a whole host of new difficulties that he was presently ignoring—who’d rescued him, and possessing pretty much no usable magic of his own. Annoying yet another witch was low on his list of good choices, which was a very short list, because Colin had been historically not spectacular at good choices.

  “Almost done,” David reassured him, scooping him out of the sink, bundling him into a hot towel. Colin decided he was too worn out, and too soaked, to protest. Anyway, the heat and softness felt practically orgasmic. He leaned into David’s gentle rubbing and purred.

  David Stanton said, sounding unreasonably pleased by this, “Aww, you’re so affectionate, such a sweetheart…you like attention, don’t you?” Yes. He always had. Shamelessly so. Which was part of why he’d ended up in this mess. But David had such lovely hands, artist’s hands, magician’s hands, big and strong and gentle…excellent for petting, oh yes…

  “Wonder if you have an owner,” David mused, toweling his back. “Someone might be missing you.”

  This comment snapped him right out of the contented daze. Tail fluffed. Spine stiffened. He tried not to bite David’s finger. Reflex.

  “Okay, okay. Sorry.” David held up hands, laughing. Forest-hazel eyes laughing too, merriment in the woods. “I swear it’s like you know what I’m saying. Anyway, you don’t have a collar or anything. And you were a total mudball—not like anyone was takin’ care of you.”

  You try staying dry and fluffy while running from a warlock in a temper-tantrum thunderstorm, Colin wanted to snap. He settled for turning himself into an offended cat-loaf on the proffered towel atop the kitchen counter.

  He knew who David was. Most of the North American witches, sorcerers, and this-side-of-dark warlocks got together a couple times a year, ostensibly to catch up and show off new magical insights, mostly to one-up each other in terms of spells, albeit in a friendly-competitive way. Colin had in fact met David Stanton twice, not that David would remember. David mostly worked as a very definitely white witch and magical artist; as a graphomancer, his talent lay in his hands, his ink. At the last coven gathering, Colin had seen David sketch flowers into blooming roseate life; David Stanton did a lot of work with kids, with families, with dream-soothing and therapeutic healing.

  Not the most powerful or the most flashy. Just kind. Good-hearted.

  The sort of man who’d pick up a stray shivering kitten, fur damp from an unseasonal thunderstorm, cold from unrelenting water, and carry it carefully home.

  David might’ve seen him at that last gathering. David wouldn’t recognize him.

  David wouldn’t recognize him even if he were human. Colin didn’t generally think of himself as special.

  If he were really being honest with himself, which he occasionally was, he knew this was technically untrue. Proper therianthropes were rare, always had been, and people kept an eye out. A lot of witches could transform themselves for short periods, but they, as Colin’s mother liked to say, were faking it.

  Not for the first time since running, he found himself grateful to be an unremarkable brown tabby. Fluffy and long-legged, ye
s, with swiveling ears and big silvery eyes which might be less usual and definitely hinted at magic, but at a fleeting glance he looked like any one of a hundred feral cats roaming city streets.

  He sighed. A cat-sigh.

  “Hey,” David said, worried all over again, “you’re not getting sick, are you?” and large strong arms collected him, cradling him against a chest which was also large and strong. Colin wondered mildly whether this was odd to appreciate in cat-form, but mentally shrugged and did so anyway. “Sitting on my counter’s probably not the best place for you. Hey, are you hungry, I’ve got…um…oh, I’ve got half a leftover sandwich? Pastrami? Do cats eat pastrami? I wasn’t expecting company.”

  Colin dove into the sandwich. He wasn’t starving; his warlock hadn’t wanted him wasting away. But oh fuck David Stanton had good taste in sandwich shops.

  He got pastrami on his nose. He didn’t care.

  “You might want to slow down,” David suggested, “or I’ll have to bathe you again.”

  Colin stopped eating to send him a dirty look. Thunder snickered at them from outside.

  “I’ll buy you kibble or something in the morning.” David picked him up again and brought him over to the couch. It was a nice couch. Squashable, sturdy, meant for sitting on and lazing around on, being used, being friendly. In fact, David’s whole house radiated friendliness. The purposeful herb-garden in the kitchen spilled green leaves outward in invitation. Well-loved books on space and astrology and magical botany and the history of art decorated wood-plank shelves. Ink pots with neat labels lined an open chest near a tall window, along with paper and parchment on a table; David Stanton worked through art and magic-infused creation, rescuing the world one sketch at a time.

  David also apparently thought he ate kibble. Colin stretched out a paw and stuck claws into the nearest impressively muscular thigh, though politely, because the kind witch was taking care of him.

  “Ow! Hey, don’t do that.”

  Colin gave him an innocent who, me? look. David asked, grinning, “Are all cats such assholes? I was always more of a dog person, y’know. Also, I like these jeans, no holes, please.”