Page 8 of Tempest

He tried to speak, but nothing came out, his mouth barely parting. He knew there was something he needed to say, but the longer he fought against the drowsiness tugging at him, the harder it was for him to remember. He needed to warn someone. He needed help… but what did he need help for?

Goddess, everything was so foggy, like his brain was out of fuel. No matter how hard he tried to turn over the engine, it just wouldn’t catch. Maybe after he got some more sleep, he’d be able to focus and remember.

As he drifted off, that firm hand was still gripping his shoulder.

Keeping him safe.

Ore woke up slowly.

He wasn’t sure where he was or what had happened, but he wasn’t afraid. He probably should be, but all he felt was cozy, his body a little heavy from having been asleep too long. Shifting hislimbs, he found there was an ache in his joints he wasn’t used to, but it wasn’t too bad.

Maybe he’d flown too far? But to where and why?

He racked his memory, but there was… nothing. Did he live here and he’d just forgotten?

He looked around the room and was pleasantly surprised by what he found. Nothing was familiar, but it was a lovely space. There were huge windows on the back wall, letting in a ton of sunlight. The ceiling above him came together at a steep angle, making him think he was in a loft in an A-frame house.

Being up off the ground level made him feel a little better, but nothing in the space felt likehis. The bed he was in was soft, almost too soft, so that his body sank into it in a way that almost felt like a cocoon. He could imagine falling asleep very easily once more, but he forced himself to sit up.

The walls were painted a very pale yellow, and the sheets were soft and white. It smelled a little like lavender, leather, and the way the air smelled high up when he was flying across the sky and everything beneath him was so tiny. He didn’t know how else to describe it other than it smelled good and safe. He felt it in his gut, but he wasn’t sure why.

He still wasn’t sure where he was. Nothing looked familiar. He could tell that two cat shifters lived there, but that didn’t tell him anything. Did he know them? Had they rescued him from something so terrible his brain was protecting him from remembering anything?

He knew his name. He knew he was a golden eagle shifter. He knew he was twenty-five and that he hated brussels sprouts.

But everything else? Like where he lived or his parents’ names… it was just blank. That scared him more than anything else.

He rose from the bed and looked down at himself, his eyebrows scrunching together in confusion. He was wearing a T-shirt that was so big on him it went down to his knees. Whoever it belonged to was a giant compared to him. That wasn’t exactly abnormal, though, since his five-foot-two frame was shorter than most avian shifters too.

Wait. How did he know that?

There was an unmade cot on the floor a few feet away from the bed, and that lavender-leather-air scent was on the pillow and blankets too. Whoever’s bed he’d stolen, they must have slept on the cot. Staying close but giving him space. Warmth spread through his chest as he lifted the collar of the shirt he was wearing and inhaled deeply. As he’d suspected, it was steeped in the alluring scent as well.

On the wall opposite the bed, there were dozens of framed photos. He stepped closer on light feet, his eyes widening. Not photos, pictures—some painted and some crayon, but all terrible in that cute way only kids could do. As he neared the wall, he noticed that most of them had different names written on the bottom right-hand corner in neat, black ink.

There had to be at least a dozen different names. How many cubs did this family have? And why was it so quiet if there were supposedly a dozen kids running around somewhere?

On the floor, right at the base of the massive windows on the back of the room, was a fluffy-looking pallet. He stared at the indent right in the middle and smiled. He didn’t know if he’d ever met a cat shifter before, but he somehow knew that the owner of this sunshiny bedroom liked to curl up in their shifted form right there in the afternoon light. It reminded him of the way he enjoyed going for a flight just to stretch his wings when he was restless.

Instead of a regular banister separating the loft space from where it looked down at the floor below, there were ten feet of bookcases creating a half wall.Allof the shelves were full.

There didn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to the organization though. Some of the books were even facing the wrong way, their dull, tanned-with-age pages the only thing showing instead of the title on the spine. His fingers twitched, but he resisted the urge to go over and rearrange them alphabetically… or maybe by color… definitely at least by genre.

Shaking his head, he tiptoed over to one of the two doors the loft had. Finding a bathroom, he quickly did his business and washed up a bit, then went to check the other door. The walk-in closet looked only half-full, but he checked the built-in drawers too. Nothing. He definitely didn’t live in the happy, yellow room. There wasn’t a single piece of clothing small enough to fit him. Everything was giant-sized, like his current T-shirt.

He stepped back out in the bedroom and paused at the top of the stairs. He could hear someone moving downstairs and wondered if he should just go down and see if they knew what had happened to him. His nose wasn’t strong enough to detect if it was the lavender-leather cat or the other one who he guessed was elderly, his scent mostly just a lingering odor of menthol from a pain cream he must use.

Before he could decide what to do, a kind male voice called up to him, “Whenever you’re ready, you can come on down and I’ll feed you.”

Ore’s stomach growled just at the idea. Goddess, he was starving. When was the last time he’d eaten anything? He glanced again at his bare legs and shrugged, hurrying down the dark wood steps. If they wanted him dressed in something else, they’d have to provide it.

The stairs ran down the side of the house, the wall to his left decorated with family photos that he didn’t allow himself to linger on. Reaching the bottom, he grabbed the large, round cap on the last post on the handrail and used it to skip the last step and spin toward the rear of the house. He blushed as an elderlyman with a cane grinned at his antics. His once wide shoulders were stooped, and there was a large bald spot at the crown of his head.

Ore could tell immediately that he was kind—and definitely not the man from the loft. There was a short hallway behind the kitchen that he’d guess led to another bedroom and bathroom.

The rest of the first floor was one open space full of large windows and comfortable-looking furniture facing a huge TV mounted on the wall above a fireplace. The kitchen was updated but lived-in, some dirty dishes in one side of the sink and two overly ripe bananas on the counter next to where the older man worked at putting together some sandwiches.

There were already place mats set at the rectangular table that separated the kitchen from the living room. He shuffled forward a few steps, unsure what to do in the strange situation he found himself in. Should he offer to help finish the food? Jump right into questions about what had happened to him? Beg the man for details on the other feline inhabitant of the house?