Transmigrated to Raise Panther Cubs novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Hand in the Air
A cook wakes in a lynx beastman's body with a stick raised over a flinching panther cub, breaks it, feeds the cub first, and calls the huge black panther at the cave mouth in out of the snow.
The cub went flat against the cave wall with his ears folded down and his eyes squeezed shut.
Thad's own hand was in the air above him, closed around a stick.
He did not remember picking it up.
The last thing he remembered was the heavy door of a walk-in freezer swinging shut behind him and the light going out.
Now there was red firelight, a ceiling of black rock, and a very small black panther waiting to be hit.
"I didn't take it," the cub whispered.
His voice shook so hard the words came out in pieces.
"The bone was already on the floor. I only looked at it."
Thad stared at the little body.
Every rib showed through the black fur.
The left ear had a notch bitten out of the edge, old and healed crooked.
The cub was used to the stick.
Something turned over hard in Thad's chest.
His hand opened by itself, and the stick clattered on the stone.
The cub flinched at the sound and curled smaller.
"Hey," Thad said.
His voice came out rough, in a language he had never learned and understood perfectly.
"Hey. I'm not going to hit you."
The cub did not open his eyes.
A growl rolled in from the cave mouth, low and long, and the whole cave seemed to hum with it.
Thad turned his head, and two ears he had never owned swiveled toward the sound without being asked.
A black panther stood in the snow outside the cave.
It was as tall as a pony at the shoulder, with a heavy chest and eyes the color of honey.
Snow lay across its back.
It did not step inside.
It stood exactly on the line where the floor turned from rock to drifted white, and every muscle in it was drawn tight.
Thad understood two things at once.
The panther wanted to come in and could not.
The name Wystan surfaced out of the body's memory, along with a standing stone and a Hold law that had bound them together.
Under his tunic, on the left side of his collarbone, a patch of skin went warm as a coal.
He pulled the collar aside and looked down.
A black paw print was inked there, and it glowed faintly when the gold eyes met his.
Something low in his stomach tipped over.
He told himself it was hunger.
"Right," Thad said to nobody.
He picked the stick up off the floor.
The cub made a thin squeak.
Thad set the stick across his knee and snapped it in half.
The crack rang through the cave.
He dropped both halves into the fire.
Then he looked around for food.
There was a clay bowl by the fire pit with three spoonfuls of grey porridge in the bottom, gone cold and skinned over.
Next to it lay a single gnawed bone.
That was the whole kitchen.
He took the bowl in both hands and carried it over to the wall.
The cub peeked through one eye.
"That's the Cave-keeper's," he said, very quietly. "Cubs eat after."
"Who says?"
"You do."
Thad crouched down until his face was level with the notched ear.
"Well, I'm changing it."
The cub did not move.
"It's a trick," he said.
"It's not a trick."
"It's a trick, and then you take it back, and then you say I was greedy."
A knot pulled tight behind Thad's ribs.
He had slid plates across the pass to hungry kids before and said nothing about it.
"Okay," he said. "Then I'll eat first, so you can see it's not poison."
He lifted the bowl and took one mouthful of the cold grey stuff.
It tasted like wet cardboard and ashes.
He swallowed it anyway, held the bowl out, and kept his face friendly.
"See? It's just awful. Your turn."
The cub looked at the bowl.
Then he put one paw on the rim, slid the bowl closer, and ate everything in it in five frantic gulps.
When it was empty he licked the clay clean, and then licked it again.
The bone Thad pushed after it vanished just as fast.
In the cave mouth the panther had gone very still.
Thad glanced over.
The gold eyes were fixed on the empty bowl, and then on him.
They were not the eyes of an animal that wanted to hurt anybody.
They were the eyes of someone watching a thing he had given up hoping to see.
Thad's throat tightened.
He wiped his hands on his knees and stood up.
"You've been out there a while," he said. "It's snowing."
The panther's ears twitched.
"You can come in. The fire's right here."
For a long moment nothing moved.
The panther lifted one great paw, held it over the line of the doorway, and put it back down on the snow.
His tail lashed once, hard.
Then something small and warm climbed into his lap.
The cub had crawled across the floor without a sound.
He was heavier than he looked, all bones and hot breath, and he pressed his face into Thad's collar.
"You smell different," Tuck whispered.
Thad went rigid.
"Different bad?"
"Different good."
The cub tucked his notched ear under Thad's chin.
At the cave mouth the huge panther stared straight at them.
In a voice rough from two winters of silence, he said, "He's right."
Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend