Free Turning Tides by Mia Marshall

Only two days on the island, and already cabin fever was setting in. This illicit freedom was temporary, so I was going to enjoy every second of it.
    At last, the city rose before me. Though I still looked no older than your average grad student, I’d been born not long after the Second World War, and over the decades I’d watched Seattle grow, one building after another joining the skyline. The sun glinted on metal and glass, gold and silver against a pale blue sky. The city had a beauty all its own, but it wasn’t a beauty that pulled at my soul. The sooner I could escape the concrete and crowds, the better.
    The docks in the downtown were reserved for the ferries, tour companies, and a few enormous cruise ships. I eased the houseboat toward West Seattle, a neighborhood that straddled the line between suburban and urban. My family kept several slips reserved for just this sort of trip.
    I called a cab, and while I waited, I tried reaching Vivian yet again. When she failed to answer, I texted. You’ve had enough alone time. Sera needs your help. I wouldn’t win any points for subtlety, but we’d passed tactful about three phone calls ago. Right now, the one thing we needed was information, and few people on the planet were better at convincing a computer to give up its secrets. Sometimes I thought the NSA might fear Vivian, rather than the other way around.
    She didn’t reply, and the taxi arrived before I could send a second, more pointed message.
    Six hours after leaving the island, I pulled up to the designated meeting spot in front of the Pike Place Market.
    I wouldn’t have expected Simon to choose this location. The Olympic Forest would have made more sense, or maybe the Cascade Mountains. Simon and Mac weren’t city people any more than I was, and I assumed they felt as ill at ease among the skyscrapers and neon.
    Of course, I forgot what the place was famous for.
    I found Simon on the ground floor, eyes riveted to the fish being chucked between vendors, a noisy show for the benefit of the tourists who still thronged the market.
    “I always wanted to see this,” he said in greeting. He didn’t need to look at me. He knew my scent and my walk well enough to sense the moment I appeared at his side. “It is not as appealing as I expected it to be. I thought they threw fish to the tourists, not to each other. What is the point in just tossing fish back and forth? It is a waste of perfectly good salmon.” His eyes never left the fish sailing through the air, and I wondered if I should get him out of there before he tried to pluck one out of mid-air.
    “It’s good to see you, too.”
    He turned to me. “Did I forget pleasantries again?”
    “A bit. It’s okay. I know you love me.”
    His mouth lifted, just a tiny close-mouthed smile, but on Simon that said as much as most people’s grins. I studied him for a moment, trying to figure out what was different. There were a few freckles on his pale skin, suggesting he’d spent some time in the sun. His black hair was a bit shorter, perhaps cut for summer, but there was something else.
    “Your eyes.” I stared. His eyes were a remarkable shade of green, but I was used to that. I wasn’t used to seeing a perfectly round pupil.
    He tilted his head, a silent acknowledgement. “Carmen taught me how to control them. I did not want to, but she suggested it was nice to have the option to appear more human.”
    I couldn’t argue with that logic, but I still missed the slightly slit pupil, that hint of his feline nature he never hid before. Simon was living with a family of big cats in Tahoe, learning more about what it meant to be a cat shifter. Granted, when he shifted, he became a ten-pound black housecat, rather than a hundred and fifty pound mountain lion, but apparently the basic principles were the same.
    While I wanted Simon to better understand his shifter nature, that didn’t mean I wanted the mountain lions to change him. I pretty much loved Simon