He turned his face toward me as if he’d felt me looking, and I could finally see all that delicate line of face, maybe a little long through the jaw for perfection, but that one line was all that saved him from looking like a beautiful woman instead of a man. Elementary school must have been hell, because short and pretty men don’t usually fare well. He told me that his eyes had originally been brown, but I’d never seen those eyes, the ones he was born with. He’d come to me with leopard eyes trapped forever in those dark lashes, chartreuse eyes green and yellow depending on what color he wore near his face or how the light caught them. Most of the time he wore sunglasses to hide the eyes, but wearing them after dark sometimes attracted more attention than what they hid, and it amazed him how many people could look him in the eyes and only remark, “What beautiful eyes.” Or, “What a great shade of green,” and never make the connection.
Nathaniel would say, “People see what they want to see, or what their minds tell them they should see most of the time.”
Micah gave me the smile that was all for me. It was made up of love, lust, and just that connection we had had from almost the moment we’d met. He was my Nimir-Raj, my leopard king, and I was his Nimir-Ra, leopard queen. Though I didn’t shapeshift to anything, I still somehow held a piece of leopard inside me, and that piece had seemed to know him. Micah had never questioned it, and I had done something unprecedented: I’d let him move in with me. We were two years and still counting; two years and still happy with each other. It was a record for me.