Snow Leopard's Lady (Veteran Shifters 1)

But on the other hand, it felt like just one more step towards severing her connections to Daryl and her old, miserable life. She stood on the o

utside with Wilson, because the two of them belonged somewhere else. Here, they were just visiting.

The door jerked open and Daryl stood framed in the entryway.

Mavis had worried that she'd feel some kind of debilitating surge of emotion when she saw her ex-husband again for the first time in months. That she'd break down crying, or start yelling at him, or feel like she had to run away.

But—she didn't. Daryl was a man who'd hurt her badly, but she was leaving him behind. The only thing she felt was relief that she only had to be near him for a few minutes, and that Wilson was here by her side.

Daryl's eyes were fixed on Wilson. "Who's this?" he asked. "A hired mover?"

Not even a hello. Straight to a hostile interrogation.

"This is Wilson," Mavis said in crisp tones. "Will you let us in?"

There was a power in not explaining things. Mavis could've said, This is my new partner Wilson, but that would've invited Daryl to make some kind of nasty comment.

This way, though, Daryl was clearly left uncertain, and he stepped back to let them inside the house without saying anything.

That, of course, only lasted a few minutes. Mavis led the way to the bedroom, and Daryl followed them; when they reached the room, he said, "Getting your new boyfriend to come to your husband's home and take your things? That's a low-down move, Mavis."

Wilson tensed. Mavis put a hand on his arm, then indicated the closet where she kept her jewelry box. "Telling me to come here without any notice, and saying I had to come myself—that was a low-down move, Daryl," she said. "Did you want me to show up by myself so you could talk me in to staying? I'm never leaving Nina, and you should understand that by now."

"She's an unnatural creature!" Daryl spit out.

Mavis turned her back on him and followed Wilson into the closet. Wilson held the box while Mavis quickly checked over her jewelry. Nothing was missing, not that she’d expected anything to disappear. Daryl was a lot of bad things, but a thief wasn't one of them.

She took the jewelry, her favorite clothes, and then a few other sentimental pieces from the bedroom. She was finding that she didn't actually want too much of what was there, because it was all suffused with memories of the seven years she'd lived in this house as a shell of a woman, mourning her missing daughter.

"You're not even going to defend her?" Daryl asked as they left the bedroom. Mavis determined to make a quick sweep of the house, taking anything that was hers without question and could easily be stuck in a box, and wouldn't make her sad every time she looked at it.

It was surprisingly few items.

"And what about you?" Daryl turned his attack to Wilson, since Mavis had resolved not to rise to any of his taunts. "Do you know the truth? Her daughter is a monster. A shapeshifting beast."

"I do know the truth," Wilson said, in a calm tone that somehow still managed to sound incredibly menacing. "Nina is a lovely young woman who seems like she has a bright future ahead of her, despite the terrible treatment she experienced from her father."

Mavis went into the kitchen, her heart in her throat. Daryl had never cooked when they were together; Mavis was always in charge of the kitchen. If he’d somehow become a gourmet since they split, he might have found...

She looked for the stepstool. Wilson broke off his solid-steel stare at Daryl and asked her, “What do you need?”

She pointed to the cupboard above the refrigerator. “Could you look in there?”

Wilson reached easily up to the cupboard and opened it. Mavis snuck a glance at Daryl, who just looked perplexed. That gave her hope.

“An ice cream maker,” Wilson reported.

“Behind that,” Mavis said, her voice shaky.

Wilson reached behind the ice cream maker and pulled out a photo album. Mavis exhaled all at once and reached for it with trembling hands.

Daryl was staring at it with a betrayed look. “You said you threw that away.”

“I would never, ever throw away pictures of my daughter,” Mavis snapped, clutching the album to her chest and glaring at her ex.

After Nina had left, Daryl had wanted to destroy all of their pictures of her, any childhood memorabilia—any record she’d existed at all. Mavis had secreted away the album full of photos of Nina as a baby and a little girl, and lied to Daryl and said she’d thrown it away.

And now she had it back. She wanted to look through every picture as soon as she could.