Lynx Northern Shifters 3

time. Be careful , he warned himself.
    Trey continued casually, “I’d like to see what lies farther up the ridge. I thought I’d go for a couple of days, as wolf, and then return.” Here was the zinger. “If that’s okay with you.”
He’d been too long on the job to look like he was holding his breath or felt any kind of suspense in waiting for Jonah’s reaction. The lynx was clearly torn by his need for company and his desire to be alone.
He turned back to the fire and poked, shoulders relaxing a fraction. “Sure. Fine with me.”
The words were terse, but Trey sensed relief there.
Okay, good. And maybe after two days’ absence, Jonah would find his presence less burdensome. If nothing else, the cat needed to wrap his head around the idea that he had a visiting werewolf. After three years of no company, it had to be something of a jolt.
~ * ~
    Before Jonah woke the next morning, Trey was gone, having shifted some time during the night. Jonah rose alone, lit the fire, ate breakfast and got dressed to go out. No conversation was required, which was easier, but loneliness and its claws were quick to grab on to him.
    Was Trey the kind of guy to keep his word and return? It struck Jonah that way, but he didn’t have a lot of experience in judging character. For now, though, he had chores to do.
The deer would have eaten bare the trees he’d cut down for them, so he could go chop up that cedar for firewood. While not the best firewood in the world—it burned too fast—he quite liked the smell.
It took him the better part of a day to work on the trees and haul the wood back home. The following day he chose to spend inside, given that Trey might be returning at which point Jonah would be made restless by another’s presence in his small home. He also toyed with the idea of trying to find Trey, who didn’t seem like the kind of guy to give warnings to, but the snow was treacherous here after a heavy fall.
Jonah had come across his brother frozen to death, and he didn’t want to ever find someone else like that again.
He gave himself a shake and settled down to read and study. As usual, Craig’s semi-jeering yet brotherly Studying for what? echoed in his head, and this time Jonah smiled at the memory. Craig had been a bright kid, but too active to apply himself to any kind of homework. It had made homeschooling a difficult proposition for his mother who didn’t have it in her to be firm with her sons, especially an angry adolescent who resented their reclusive existence. An existence forced on him by his lynx brother.
Jonah sighed and tried to push the old memories away. He wished he could cherry-pick them, and only bring out the good ones. But pain and loss and guilt always came with them.
He reached for his notes that he’d started before Enigma arrived in to his life and tried to figure out where he’d left off in the solution. It wasn’t like Jonah was solving anything important. He wasn’t well enough educated for that. But the learning and the puzzling soothed him when, sometimes, nothing else could. And so he continued and pretended that one day in the far future, he would study at a university, get a degree. God knows his mother had always raved about his IQ way back when, for all the good it ever did him, or her.
Right before dusk, Jonah heard a howl, rather like the one he’d heard the day of the snowstorm before Enigma/Trey had trotted up to say hello.
He felt awkward again as he waited, but that feeling didn’t last long once Trey-the-wolf appeared in the flesh, intent on getting inside, getting warm and getting something to eat. Jonah obliged him.
Then his guest lay down by the fire and fell into a deep sleep.
Not so difficult having a wolf visiting, really, thought Jonah as he returned to solving equations, feeling a strange kind of happiness at this silent companion who slept while he worked on his math. Later though, as the fire died down and Jonah drifted off, he wondered who would greet him in the morning, the wolf or the man.
    Oddly enough Trey remained wolf the next day, lying near the fire and basically doing nothing. Jonah was tempted to ask him why, but didn’t. Talking to a sentient wolf felt awkward.
Maybe Trey-the-human didn’t like sleeping on the rug on the floor, a rather hard and cold bed. In a fit of grief, Jonah had burned Craig’s cot three years ago, but it wouldn’t be difficult to make another one. It was certainly the hospitable thing to do. And Jonah had