3. Ore

Lavender…

There was something…

Safe… He was… safe now…

Lavender… The lavender was safe…

He had to remember… He needed to tell someone…

Goddess, he hurt…

Ore struggled to focus, his body burning from the inside out. There were voices around him, some close, some farther away, but he couldn't understand what they were saying. Fear began to build inside him, his limbs too heavy to move, and then it shot up to terror when a hand grabbed his shoulder.

He screamed inside his head, wanting to fly as fast and as far as he could to get away. He was in danger. He needed to get help. He needed?—

Lavender.

He tried to turn his head toward the scent, but he couldn't move. Not at all. But it permeated through his nose and into his brain, seeping all the way through his body and calming him. It was so strange. He had never been ruled by scent before. Birds weren't. Their sense of scent wasn't as strong as canine and feline shifters. It was their eyes that were most advanced. But just having the smell of lavender surrounding him wherever he was eased his panic and fear back down to a manageable level.

A low, husky voice said, "You're all right. I've got you."

When that hand on his shoulder squeezed, it felt so big, like with just that one hand, Ore could be scooped up and held high up into the sky. It made him feel safe, just like that lavender scent. He wanted it closer. He wanted it coating all of him. He knew that he could trust whoever belonged to that scent. His eagle knew it, and he always trusted his eagle.

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 his limbs, 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 like his. 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. All of 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 elderly man 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?

The other man's bushy mustache—the same shade of gray as his thick brows and hair—twitched in amusement, though he was obviously trying not to show it. His light blue eyes were positively twinkling though. "Go ahead and take a seat, son."

Ore grabbed the back of one of the chairs. "Are you sure I can't help?"

"No, no, I've got it," the man insisted. He went over and opened the refrigerator door, disappearing from view for a second. "Do you want water, juice, or milk? We don't have soda, but I could have my grandson get some if you want."

"Water's fine," Ore said, sinking into the wooden chair. His fingers fussed with the edge of the T-shirt he was wearing. It was black with faded lettering he couldn't really see anymore, but it was soft. And even though it was thin, it made him feel protected.

The man's face popped back out from behind the fridge door and studied him. "Hmph. I'm going to give you orange juice. You could use the vitamins and electrolytes."

Ore raised his brows. "Um, okay."

The man disappeared for a second again before reemerging with a bottle of orange juice.

He studied the man as he moved around, filling two glasses from the bottle, returning it to the fridge, then bringing them over to the table one at a time. Ore was pretty sure he was a black panther—though he wasn't sure how he knew that or the fact that they were pretty rare.

Picking up his glass, he took a sip of the cold juice and then couldn't stop himself from chugging down the rest. Goddess, he was parched. The sweetness was also hitting him fast, waking him up a bit more.

"Mhmm," the older man said knowingly, setting a plate with a roast beef sandwich and some potato chips in front of him. He took Ore's empty glass right out of his hand and went back over to the fridge, pulling the juice out once more.

Ore barely paid attention, his mouth watering at the scent of meat and cheese hitting him in the face. He wanted to wait for the other man to sit to dig in, but he couldn't stop himself from snatching it up and taking a huge bite.

Good Goddess.

He'd eaten half of it before his second glass of juice was set in front of him. Embarrassed at his lack of manners, he put his sandwich down and wiped at his mouth with the plain white paper napkin next to his plate. "Sorry."

"Don't be," the cat said firmly. He placed the second plate full of food right next to Ore's first one. "You need the fuel after the last few days."

"I'll make another for myself."

"No, I'm fine," he said quickly, horrified at the idea of taking food from this elderly man.

"Nonsense," he huffed, using his cane to tap on the floor twice in emphasis. He'd left the sandwich makings out on the counter, so Ore wondered if he'd anticipated needing to make more for him.

"I'm sorry," he said softly, even as he took another bite. "I don't know why I'm so hungry."

"You've been unconscious for three days," the man said gently, his kind face sobering.

"Three days?" Ore repeated, nearly dropping the last of his sandwich in his shock. "That's not… What? Three days?"

He couldn't wrap his head around it. What had happened to him?

The cat hummed, quickly put together another sandwich, and then brought it over to the table. He lowered himself slowly into the chair opposite Ore with a soft sigh. "You gave us quite the scare."

Ore started eating his second sandwich, but more slowly, his appetite having nearly disappeared as his mind spun. "I can't remember anything," he admitted softly, watching the other man through his lashes.

Those bushy brows rose a millimeter before the man cleared his face and smiled gently once more. "That's not altogether surprising. You were injured when you got here."

"Where is here?" he asked, ignoring for a second the fact that he'd been so hurt it had taken him three days to heal. He had to have been near death for his healing not to have worked faster than that.

"Silver Oak. Kansas," the man added when Ore just looked at him in confusion. "You flew into our territory a few days ago, and it set off our coven's wardings."

"You have a coven?" Ore asked, surprised. He knew it wasn't completely uncommon for packs to have a coven of witches living within their territory. He wasn't sure how he knew that, but it was there in his mind, even though he couldn't remember what his parents looked like or if he had siblings.

"We do. It's not large, and neither is our pack." He shrugged, taking a large bite of his sandwich and chewing slowly. "We're all cats. A lot of us have been here for generations, keeping to ourselves and minding our own business."

He said it without much inflection, but Ore could read between the lines. As a bird, he wouldn't be welcome to stay. They were an isolationist pack, not interested in growing or diversifying their numbers. For some reason, that made him sad.

He frowned down at the crumbs on his plate. For all he knew, he had a family waiting for him. What did it matter if he couldn't stay in Kansas?

"How badly was I injured?" he finally asked, looking up and meeting the man's serious eyes.

"Badly," he said, taking another bite. "We weren't sure if you were going to make it for the first day or so."

"But I was able to fly here?" He didn't really understand. Had he been shot by a hunter? Poisoned with wolfsbane? What could have prevented him from healing for so long?

The older man eyed him speculatively. "You were, though I suspect it nearly killed you. I'll leave it to our alpha and the head of the coven to explain what we were able to figure out."

He frowned. Why couldn't— Wait, what was this guy's name? "I'm Ore by, the way," he said awkwardly, leaning over the table and extending his hand.

"Terry," the cat said, smiling a little more easily as he shook it, "but everyone calls me Pops. I used to be the healer for this pack."

"Is that why I'm here?" He wasn't sure how much Pops was allowed to tell him, but he was still kind of confused as to what had happened while he was unconscious.

Pops nodded, finishing off his own sandwich. "We don't have a new healer yet, so I'm only technically retired."

Ore returned his grin, wondering if it was hard for a pack so small and isolated to find someone to fill such a vital role. Sure, shifters healed pretty much on their own—except when dosed with certain things like wolfsbane or they encountered certain kinds of powerful magic—but they also had witches in their pack, and they were human, without the same healing ability.

The pack healer was an extremely important role, and based on how old Pops looked, one that they needed to fill sooner rather than later.

"When do you think?—"

He stopped, his spine straightening as his eagle trilled happily in his chest.

Craning his head around, he watched the front door open, a massive man in blue jeans and a tight gray V-neck filling the entire width of the doorway. There were black tattoos trailing down his arms and up to the side of his neck. One of the ones on his right arm was glowing faintly, but Ore could barely focus on that.

All of his attention was caught on the glowing blue eyes staring right at him as he was hit with a fresh, overwhelming wave of lavender, leather, and fresh air.

"Oh."