Night Shift

CHAPTER 1

Bastien Smith knew he’d been suckered. By his own mother no less. The only thing that might make it bearable was if Sage had been suckered, too. “Tell me you didn’t know,” he said to his younger brother through gritted teeth, both of them propping up the wall nearest the door and an escape they couldn’t make.

Eyes narrowing, Sage folded his arms. “Are you accusing me of breaking the bro code?”

Bastien shoved a hand through his hair, the dark red strands no doubt a mess by now. “Sorry.” It was only right he apologize after suspecting Sage of something so heinous, even if it had resulted from sheer exhausted frustration. “Mom told me she needed help setting up.”

“Technically, she did.” Sage nodded toward the heavy dining table their mother had asked the two of them to shift into the large living area of the home where they’d both grown up. It fit, plenty of space around it for their mother’s guests to mingle, only because Bastien and Sage had first hauled the usual living room furniture into other rooms of the house.

It hadn’t taken long, both of them happy to help their mom prepare for the “book club luncheon” she’d been looking forward to all week. What she’d neglected to mention was that all her book club buddies were bringing along their nubile daughters, nieces, neighbors, and any other random young female they could corral into this excruciating exercise.

Normally, Bastien would’ve groaned, then sucked it up. He loved his mother, would never hurt her. But normally, he wasn’t strung out from two solid weeks of sleepless nights . . . because he didn’t want just any woman. He wanted her, the woman he knew in his gut was his mate, but who, against all known laws of changeling mating, he couldn’t find.

He’d first tasted the scent of his elusive lover on a street in Chinatown fourteen days, eight hours, and seventeen minutes ago, the scent igniting a possessiveness in him that was as feral as it was joyous. Yes, he’d thought, yes, and turned to follow the scent that spoke to him in a way nothing else ever had . . . only for it to dissipate into intangible mist even his changeling-acute senses couldn’t pierce.

Refusing to believe he’d lost her, he’d spent hours searching the area, day fading into darkest midnight, until he’d finally had to go home empty-handed, his soul craving the touch of hers. The leopard inside his skin had clawed him awake only hours later, certain she was just beyond his reach, hurt and in pain. Torn apart at the idea that he wasn’t there when his mate needed him, he’d immediately gone out again.

Dawn had come on a smudge of light that grew steadily brighter, bringing with it hundreds of people of every size and shape and hue, but not her.

The rest of the world might be in the grip of a tense silence as they waited to see if the days-old historic change in the lives of the Psy, the psychic race that shared the planet with changelings and humans, would spill out into new violence, but Bastien cared only about finding her.

He’d repeated the pattern from that first night every night since, prowling the empty and fog-shrouded city streets in his leopard form long after its other residents found their beds. He’d discarded thousands of trails, sensed myriad secrets, and three or four times, he’d caught the wild, sweet, utterly unique and just as intoxicating scent that was hers, but it never lasted. Not as a scent should last. It faded out with impossible abruptness in the middle of a narrow pathway between buildings, or halfway down a flight of stairs—places where she couldn’t have gone anywhere unless she had wings.

The idea that she might be an aerial changeling, perhaps part of the falcon wing with which Bastien’s pack had an alliance, would’ve been an answer that gave him a way to find her, but there was a feline undertone to her scent that told him he was stalking a fellow cat changeling.

One who was there one instant, gone the next.

Always when the changeling scent ended, he caught a softer one below it that also awakened his most primal instincts. Despite the fact he knew a changeling male couldn’t have that kind of a visceral reaction to two different women, he’d followed that scent, too—only it was too gentle, too easily lost among the bitter odors of coffee and spice outside a restaurant, or the overpowering aromas that poured from a beauty parlor, the city a kaleidoscope to his senses.

In truth, both scents were less intense than they should be. The only reason he could track the feline one longer was that it had a bitingly primal edge to it that made it stand out even amid the other changeling scents in the city.

It was starting to drive him to madness.

“I didn’t even get a bite of the brownies.” Sage’s mournful voice broke into his thoughts, his brother’s gaze on the table groaning with food on the other side of the wall of female flesh. “I was just about to grab one when they began arriving, and I tried to bolt out the back door.”

So had Bastien. Only to be stopped by their mother’s firm order to stay.

“Why is it”—Bastien folded his arms, mirroring his brother’s stance—“that though we’re the ones ostensibly doing the choosing, this feels like a two-man meat market?”

Sage bared his teeth at a tall human blonde who turned his way, her body angled in invitation. She hurriedly glanced in another direction, and Sage smirked . . . until he found himself on the receiving end of a patented maternal glare, Lia Smith’s petite body as stiff as a general’s.

Smirk wilting, he pushed off the wall, a big, tough leopard changeling with his metaphorical tail between his legs. “Crap, I have to go make nice now, or I might as well say good-bye to ever again tasting one of Mom’s brownies.” Shoulders hunched, he shot Bastien a pleading look. “Don’t abandon me, man.”

Bastien turned into a rock, feet glued to the floor and arms still folded. “Hell no. And don’t even think of bringing up the bro code,” he added when Sage went as if to open his mouth. “I’ve had to suffer through far more of these than you.”

As he watched his brother thrust his hands into the pockets of his jeans and slink off to join the lovely, perfumed mass of women who might as well have been a tank of ravenous sharks, Bastien fought the urge to simply shove open the door and leave. No matter how raw and trapped he felt right now, he knew his mother was only trying to help, because though he hadn’t said anything to her, Lia Smith knew her children.

She’d clearly sensed he was unhappy, even made the connection that it had to do with his single status. How could he explain the impossible to his mom? A changeling male never lost the scent of his mate once he’d caught it. He should’ve been able to stalk her through fire and hail, snow and rain, much less down city streets.

“Sweetheart.” His mother’s hand on his arm, the scent of her familiar and of home. “Come into the kitchen. I need you to grab some glasses from the top cabinet.”

He followed her without argument, avoiding even the glancing touch of other women. His leopard was in no mood to be touched by any unmated female but the one he couldn’t find; Bastien wasn’t certain he’d be able to control the urge to snarl if one of the women in the room dared attempt even minor skin privileges. Better to make certain the situation didn’t arise.

“I know which ones,” he said once he and his mom had reached the thankful emptiness of the kitchen. Opening the cabinet, he easily grabbed the spare set his mother would’ve had to use her step stool to access.

“Thank you, baby boy.”

Bastien didn’t protest her address. He’d long ago accepted the fact that no matter his age or maturity or position in the pack hierarchy, he’d always be her cub. Now, she cupped his face with gentle hands, her eyes searching his, the brown of her irises ringed by a rich yellow-green as her leopard rose to the surface of her mind. “I made a mistake today, didn’t I?”

Swamped by a wave of love for the woman who’d kissed countless scraped knees for him when he’d been a child, he closed his hands over her wrists. “Ignore me. I’m just in a bad mood.”

“No.” She straightened the collar of the white shirt he wore over black pants, having intended to go into the office to catch up on work after helping move the furniture. “Something’s wrong, and I’ve made it worse. I know I shouldn’t interfere”—a rueful cast to her expression—“but I love you all so much I can’t help myself.”

“I know.” Never had he questioned his parents’ love for him and his siblings, that love the foundation on which his life was built. It was why he hadn’t walked out when Lia ordered him and Sage to stay; hurting her would make neither the animal nor the human part of him feel good.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“No, not yet.” He drew her into a tight hug, his leopard rubbing against his skin, akin to how he’d rubbed against Lia’s side as a cub when they’d both been in their leopard forms. “I have to handle this myself.”

Squeezing him with fierce affection, Lia drew back and brushed his hair off his forehead, Bastien leaning down instinctively to make it easier for her. “Go on,” she whispered with a conspiratorial smile, “you can escape out the back.”

“Oh good,” Vera Robbins said from the kitchen doorway, having appeared just as Lia spoke. “You can give me a ride, young Bastien.”

Bastien barely refrained from groaning. The elder was a vigorous and energetic hundred and twenty-five, a woman noted for her warmth and wisdom. She also delighted in reveling in Bastien’s past as a “ladies’ man.” Bastien didn’t deny he’d indulged in skin privileges enthusiastically in his early twenties, but so did most leopard changelings at that age, their sexuality an integral aspect of their nature.

Vera would be shocked to hear he hadn’t taken a lover in eight months, and now the only lover he wanted was an illusion he couldn’t track. “Happy to,” he said, because while he wasn’t sure he could handle Vera’s teasing in his current frame of mind, refusing her was simply not on the cards. She was pack—more, she was a former soldier who’d put her life on the line to protect that pack more than once.

Vera had earned the right to demand whatever the hell she damn well pleased.

Kissing his mom good-bye on the cheek, he escorted Vera to the sleek black car that was his own and got her settled in before he went around to take the driver’s seat.

“What a nice car.” Vera stroked the soft black leather-synth of her seat. “Though not what I’d expect from a healthy young dominant in his prime.” A raised eyebrow. “I was looking forward to a ride on that jetcycle of yours.”

Grinning despite himself, he put the gleaming beauty of his car on hoverdrive and guided it silently out of the forested area around his parents’ home deep in DarkRiver’s Yosemite territory. “I’ll bring it by next week, take you for a spin.”

“Hmph.” She tapped her cane on the floor. “You could’ve at least made sure this car was red.”

“I have enough red in my life,” he said, referring to the dark shade of his hair.

That made the older changeling throw back her head and laugh, the sound big and open. “I suppose you’re too big to fit in those zippy sports cars.”

Bastien had sat in one once; he’d lasted exactly two seconds before the claustrophobia had him wanting to rip the damn thing to shreds with his claws.

“All shoulders and muscle,” Vera said before he could respond. “Strong thighs, too.”

“Are you hitting on me, Vera?”

“You can only dream, young Bastien.” Another burst of laughter, before she poked him in the arm. “Why aren’t you mated or with a long-term lover? We both know you have no trouble attracting women.”

The question grated against his insides. “Does no one respect my private life?”

“You’re in a pack. Of course not,” was the rapid response, one he couldn’t argue with. “Now answer me. I’m a hundred and twenty-five—I don’t have time to dillydally.”

“No one can pass Mercy’s tests,” he said, wanting Vera off the painful and currently maddening subject of mating.

“That sister of yours has a good head on her shoulders.”

Noticing Vera tug her shawl around her shoulders, he quietly turned up the heat.

“So,” the elder said a moment later, “she’s overprotective, is she?”

Bastien thought of the infamous “kitten defurring tools” with which Mercy had scared off the last woman he’d been seeing—after first convincing his date Bastien ate live kittens for breakfast. She’d even put a “kitten cage” in one of his cupboards, the better to horrify his date. Bastien had already known he and the woman in question weren’t the right fit, so the fact she’d believed Mercy’s ridiculous story had simply been the last nail in the coffin. “If it’s the right girl,” he said, “it won’t matter.”

Vera’s smile caused her face to seam with the lines of a life generously and fully lived. “Yes,” was all she said, before settling back into her seat.

A half hour later—having been forced to insult his panther of a car by keeping it to a crawling speed that didn’t make Vera threaten to whack him with her cane—Bastien parked in front of a single-floor dwelling not far from the home of the pack healer. Walking around to open Vera’s door, he didn’t make the mistake of offering her a helping hand. The elder would bloody him for the insult.

His nape prickled a second later, a wild, intoxicating scent with a softer undertone making his nostrils flare and his pulse slam against his skin: her scent, all of it, the soft and the sharply primal, not two women but one.

Too stunned—too happy—to wonder how or why his mate’s scent had split in two on the streets, Bastien’s leopard sat up, muscles quivering and head cocked in absolute attention. All this time, he’d been searching the city, but she was here.

Hand clenching on the edge of the car door, he turned to look back down the drive.

A slamming punch to the heart, a kick to the gut, a sense of absolute rightness.

It was as if he’d been seeing the world through a misty fog until this moment of piercing clarity. And what he saw was a small, curvy woman with masses of honey-colored hair and big hazel eyes set against skin of a darker honey.

A cat, he thought at once; he’d been right, she was a cat. Then the feline scent whispered away as inexplicably as it’d done on the streets, and all he could taste was the lush, sweet scent of a human female he wanted to lick up from head to toe. Cat or human, one thing was clear: She was his.

“Kirby, honey. What good timing.”

Kirby. Her name is Kirby.

Shutting the door and curling his fingers into his palms to conceal the claws that had sliced out as his leopard reacted to her, he waited for Kirby to reach them instead of pouncing like he wanted to do with every single cell in his body.

Patience, he counseled the more primitive half of his nature, and forced his claws to retract. The leopard growled within him but assented to the human’s will—because scaring her away was not on the agenda. No, he’d coax, charm, and pet her into his life, into his arms.

Bastien Michael Smith had found his mate, and he was keeping her.

VIVID green eyes watched her with an unwavering focus that raised the tiny hairs on Kirby’s arms and made her stomach go tight, a strange breathlessness in her chest. She didn’t recognize the tall, muscled male with skin tanned a beautiful gold, but he had to be part of the DarkRiver leopard pack—there was something feline about the way he stood, a stealthy predator at rest. She had the insane urge to go up to him, touch him, curl naked against him, skin to skin.

The uncharacteristic nature of the forceful, sensual compulsion snapped her back to her senses, and all at once, she was aware of Vera looking at her with a distinctly quizzical expression on her face. Not sure how long she’d been standing stock-still staring at the stranger, Kirby held up a small white box in her arms and said, “I baked yesterday.” Her pulse thudded hard and fast, her words huskier than they should’ve been. “I thought I’d drop off half the cake for you, since I know you like black forest.”

“I like black forest, too.” A deep male voice that brushed over her senses like the most luxuriant fur, the lips that had shaped the words curved in a teasing smile, until she could almost believe she’d imagined the feral intensity of him when he’d first looked at her.

Tapping her cane on the ground, Vera looked up into that green-eyed face that had twisted Kirby’s insides into a tangled snarl. “I suppose you want some?”

“Yes, please.” Hands behind his back, expression as innocent as a five-year-old’s.

Snorting, Vera jerked her head at Kirby. “This is Bastien. Don’t let him charm you—next thing you know, you’ll be naked.”

Kirby’s face filled with heat, the rush of blood so loud in her ears that she almost missed Bastien’s protests. Ignoring them both, Vera walked toward her door at a spry pace, a grace to her movements even at this age that made it clear she was changeling. Not able to look Bastien in the face when her own was no doubt the color of an overripe tomato, Kirby began to follow the other woman . . . and realized she’d acquired a six-foot-plus shadow.

“I feel I have to defend myself,” he murmured, the words a purr of sound against her ears.

Cat, very definitely a cat. A big, gorgeous, stalking cat. “Really?” she managed to say, goose bumps rising over her skin at his proximity, the scent of clean, fresh soap and warm-blooded male in her every breath. “You don’t like making women naked?” It was a response driven by some heretofore hidden part of her that told her to show him her claws, despite the fact she was human, didn’t have claws. No matter if it felt as if the sharply curved tips were shoving against her skin.

CHAPTER 2

A pause.

Kirby had the feeling she’d surprised the leopard at her side, but he recovered quickly. “Oh, I do.” His voice had dropped, acquired a rougher edge that threw her stomach into a dangerous free fall. “However, and despite Vera’s refusal to believe me, I’m very particular about who I make naked now that I’m no longer a hormone-driven teenager. Of course, when I was a teenager, a naked woman would’ve ended things rather abruptly, physically speaking.”

Skin burning again when it had just settled, Kirby nonetheless refused to back down. “I hope your ability to stand . . . firm”—Was she really saying this?—“against temptation has improved with time?” She’d never flirted in such a sinfully sexual way, hadn’t known she could.

A hand on her lower back, the touch searing her through her cardigan and the camisole she wore beneath, and his breath warm against her earlobe as he bent close to say, “You have no idea, little cat.”

Fighting the shiver that threatened, she walked into Vera’s house and to the kitchen, where she placed the cake on the counter and said, “I’ll make the coffee,” before either Bastien or Vera could make the offer themselves.

The routine task gave her something to do, though if she’d thought it’d help her ignore Bastien, that proved a futile effort. Sprawled in a chair opposite Vera at the kitchen table, he was saying something that had his packmate laughing.

“Why are you dressed up so spiffy?” Vera asked once her laughter had faded, lifting her fashionable but unnecessary cane to tap Bastien’s forearm. “Was it for the girl selection?”

Bastien dropped his head in his hands, the stunning dark red of his hair catching the sunlight pouring through the kitchen windows, all of which overlooked woods filled with verdant green firs. His white shirt was pulled taut over his shoulders in this position, his strength apparent. “I thought Mom needed a few minutes’ help moving furniture for a book club lunch,” he growled when he raised his head. “If I’d known it was about matchmaking, I’d have worn my rattiest jeans and a stained T-shirt.”

Ears straining to catch every snarly word, Kirby found the cups as the coffee began to perk.

“Your mother loves you.” Vera glared at Bastien. “You’re in fine form, prime of your life, you should find a girl before you get old and crinkly.”

“Gee, thanks, Vera.” A masculine mutter as he leaned back again, one arm braced lazily against the back of his chair, his big body loose limbed, very much a cat at rest. “I was hoping I had a few more years yet.”

Vera’s response was a grin bright and full of anticipation. “I’ll enjoy watching you fall, Bastien Smith. I bet she wraps you around her finger.”

A shrug, those deliciously broad shoulders catching Kirby’s attention again. “Of course she will.” Impossible as it was, it felt as if his voice was pitched to stroke over her senses. “What would be the point otherwise?”

Vera’s smile turned affectionate. “I’m glad to see you understand that.” Glancing up as Kirby brought across the tray holding the coffee, Vera’s expression softened. “And you, Kirby?” She tugged Kirby into a seat. “Have you found someone yet?”

“I’ve only been in the city two weeks,” she said, conscious of Bastien going preternaturally still for a single, taut moment, the green of his eyes no longer human, before he rose to get the cake.

“From the accent,” he said, “I’m guessing . . . Georgia?”

Kirby nodded, happy he’d changed the subject, but Vera wasn’t done.

“Two weeks, schmoo weeks. It’s never too early to start looking.” The older woman’s eyes glinted, flicking from Kirby to Bastien. “You two would make pretty cubs together.”

Kirby wanted to die. Dig a hole, jump inside, bury herself for good measure.

Bastien on the other hand—now standing between her and Vera—served up the cake without missing a beat, his body heat lapping against her like a tactile caress. “Undoubtedly,” he said, “but not if you terrify Kirby away with warnings about the likelihood of ending up naked while with me.”

Kirby responded in pure self-defense, driven by that strangeness in her that said she couldn’t permit him to overwhelm her. Not now, not ever. She might not be a dominant, but it was critical he didn’t see her as weak. The tips of her fingers stung on that fierce thought, the pain sharp, biting. Putting down the coffee cup that was clearly hotter than she’d realized, she said, “That likelihood is getting less and less with every word you speak.”

Laughing, Vera slapped her thigh. Bastien retook his seat with a meek expression belied by the fact he’d shifted his chair so that his thigh pressed against Kirby’s own. It incited an escalation in her clawing awareness of him, her skin prickling in a way that felt as if it came from inside and out both. Almost as if she had a leopard under her skin, too, one that was rubbing up against it in an effort to get closer to this gorgeous cat who made her nerve endings go haywire.

Shaking off the curious sensation, she focused on his conversation with Vera. Intelligent, witty, a little bit wicked, Bastien was the kind of man who’d never have trouble attracting a woman. Kirby was far from immune. If she was brutally honest, she’d never reacted to anyone as strongly as she’d done to Bastien.

That violent wave of need, of want at the start, followed by an increasing desire to know more about him, know everything . . . it was profoundly unsettling. As was the tearing disappointment that had her nails digging into her palms and her eyes threatening to burn when he glanced at his watch and said, “I better get into the office. With the instability caused by the Psy political situation, I have to keep an extra-sharp eye on things.”

“All work and no play.” Vera shook her head as Kirby stared deliberately into her half-empty coffee cup in an effort to hide her disturbing reaction, her skin flushing alternately hot then cold. “Be careful you don’t become a dull boy.”

“I thought I was making women naked on a regular basis?” Rising with that quip, Bastien went around to kiss Vera on the cheek. “Can I give you a ride somewhere, Kirby?” he asked, his hand on the back of her chair.

Scared by how much she wanted to lean back, rub her cheek against his arm, tug him down to her mouth, she shook her head.

“Don’t be silly,” Vera said. “You haven’t got a car.”

Her fingers flexed, the tingling in her fingertips increasing in strength. “It’s no trouble to catch the—”

Bastien’s breath whispered hot and silken over her ear, his face a caress away from her own. “I promise I don’t bite.” It was a dare.

Kirby had stopped accepting stupid dares as a teenager, but a primal defiance rose up inside her at his words. It swamped the near-panic that had gripped her at the realization that he was about to leave, totally overwhelmed the sense of self-preservation that said she needed to put some distance between them so she could think.

“I deal with five-year-olds every day,” she said, his jaw brushing across her temple when she turned her head slightly. The contact made her want to shudder, ask for more. Swallowing down the wrenching need that was too powerful to make any kind of rational sense, she somehow managed to keep her tone even as she added, “You’re a pussycat by comparison.”

“Careful, Bastien.” Vera’s smile was wide. “Kirby’s got a brain.”

Pulling back Kirby’s chair so she could get up, though he remained close enough to touch, Bastien said, “I like women with brains.”

A snort. “Oh? I thought certain other attributes had priority.”

“’Bye, Vera.” Bastien began to walk backward out of the kitchen, waggling his fingers at the older woman—who, from her smile, was clearly charmed by the packmate she’d been teasing.

When Kirby picked up her purse and joined him, he turned to face the correct way, then placed his hand on her lower back again. The contact renewed the odd sensation of fur rubbing against the inside of her skin, made her toes curl even as her breasts ached.

Kirby knew she should pull away—and not only because of her increasingly out-of-control response to him. Thanks to a changeling friend in junior high, she understood the concept of skin privileges: the right to touch, in and out of the pack, different layers of contact acceptable for different situations. A male’s hand on a female’s lower back was an intimate act in human society, even more so in the changeling world.

If she did nothing about Bastien claiming the right, he’d take it as silent acquiescence to his pursuit. If she said no, he’d back off immediately, DarkRiver a pack that adhered to strict and disciplined codes of behavior. Kirby knew that because Vera had told her after pointing out that Kirby was a young, single woman living in changeling-heavy territory and thus had a good chance of coming into contact with interested males.

“If it’s a predator, leopard or wolf, be blunt,” the older woman had said. “Subtle doesn’t work when they get set on a woman. But no male in either DarkRiver or SnowDancer will go where he’s been specifically uninvited.”

So Kirby didn’t have the excuse of ignorance. But she didn’t pull away, didn’t tell Bastien to stop touching her. Because regardless of her worry at the ungovernable nature of her reactions, his big body beside her, the pressure of his hand, it felt good . . . better than anything had felt in a long, long time.

The sensation of warm rightness was potent enough to cut through the cold knot that had been part of her for as long as she could remember, a heavy lump centered in her chest that hurt deep in the night and made her cry inexplicable tears. These days, she cried in silence, woke to find her face wet. As a child, she’d screamed awake, her throat raw and terror in her blood.

“Hey.” Bastien’s hand circling gently on her back. “Everything okay?”

Nodding, she slid into the expensive black car that told her whatever Bastien did, he was very successful at it, and watched him walk around to get into the driver’s seat. Bracing his arm along the back of her seat, he waited until she met his gaze.

“If you don’t want to be here,” he said quietly, “or if you feel uncomfortable with me, tell me.” The leopard looked at her out of his eyes. “Do you want to leave?”

“No.” Her answer was driven by instinct, the moment pregnant with a meaning she couldn’t consciously grasp. “Memories,” she found herself saying to the beautiful male who’d been a stranger an hour ago. “I remembered something that made me sad.”

Bastien reached out to tuck her hair behind her ear, his fingertips brushing the curve of it to shimmer sensation through every inch of her. “Do you often remember?”

She shook her head as the prickling in her skin eased—to be replaced by a greedy desire for more. “No.” The dream-crying had faded to nonexistence in the later part of her childhood, only to return with a vengeance when she relocated to San Francisco. “I think it must be from the stress of moving to a new place.”

Bastien went as if to play with another strand of her hair, then glanced at Vera’s cottage. “She’ll accuse us of necking in her drive if we don’t get going.”

The dry words made her laugh, the sadness fading, and she knew he’d done it on purpose, this leopard she didn’t know . . . and yet did in her very bones.

Starting up the car, his grin devastating, he said, “Which way?”

Kirby gave him her address, then realized she’d never asked his original destination. “Will it be out of your way?” She should’ve offered to get out at the transit stop, but she couldn’t make herself say it.

One hand confident on the wheel as they pulled out, Bastien reached across to run the knuckles of his free hand over her cheek. “You could never be out of my way, Kirby.”

Every inch of her melted at that rough caress of sound. “Vera is right. You’re dangerous.”

“Who, me? I just deal with stocks and bonds all day.”

Fascinated by him, compelled to know everything, she angled herself in the seat so she could look at his profile, the hard line of his jaw cleanly shaven. “Really?” she asked.

He nodded. “I’m in charge of DarkRiver’s financial assets.”

Kirby thought of what she’d read in the papers about the pack and how it was effectively one of the biggest corporations in the city, a corporation in robust financial health, and knew she’d been right. Bastien was very good at his job. “Do you have other clients as well?”

“A few small ones. Why, do you want to invest?” A raised eyebrow. “We could definitely come to an agreement about my fees,” he added with a smile that invited her to play.

Kirby wanted to trace that smile, kiss it into her own mouth. “Kindergarten teachers don’t make enough to invest.”

An interested look before he returned his attention to the road. “Which kindergarten?”

“The one near DarkRiver’s city headquarters in Chinatown.” As a result, she had as many changeling students as human, and had spent the past month learning how to handle children who didn’t yet have full control over their shifting.

“The other day,” she told him, the memory a delight, “I couldn’t find a student until my assistant teacher pointed out that he was in cub form on a tree branch above the swing.” Kirby had eventually coaxed the boy, who’d apparently had a fight with a friend, to jump into her arms. “They didn’t cover that in my training.”

Bastien turned onto the main road back to San Francisco. “You should talk to Annie,” he said. “She teaches seven-year-olds I think, including a lot of changeling kids, could probably give you some pointers.”

“Would she mind?” Kirby loved her new position and wanted to do a good job; she wasn’t too proud to ask for help from more experienced teachers.

“No, she’s a sweetheart. I’ll get her number from the pack directory, tell her to give you a call.” His lips curved again. “Of course, that means you have to give me your number.”

“Or I could ask Vera for Annie’s contact details,” she teased, the compulsion to touch him so aggressive that she had to fold her arms to keep from reaching out. Still, a wild, unknown part of her lunged at him, as if it would shove out of her very skin.

“Oh, that’s just mean.” Scowl darkening his features, he reached across to tug at her hair. “Did you meet Vera at the kindergarten?”

“Two of her grandchildren attend and she comes in as a volunteer a couple of times a week.” The other woman had, for reasons of her own, taken Kirby under her wing at their first meeting, becoming her first friend in this city. “Do you always work on Sundays?”

“Only when necessary.” Settling into his seat as they hit the highway, he said, “Tell me more stories about the kids you teach.”

Smiling, Kirby did, then Bastien told her about his pack, about the forests he loved, asked her what it had been like to live in Georgia. The time passed in a heartbeat, until she blinked in surprise at realizing they were almost to her apartment.

“I—” She hissed out a breath.

“Kirby?” Bastien’s gaze snapped to her, returned to the road a second later. “I’ll pull over.”

“No, it’s nothing.” Wincing, she rubbed her abdomen, the stabbing sensation already subsiding, as it had the other three times she’d felt it since moving to San Francisco. “I’ve been eating too much pier fast food,” she admitted, scrunching up her nose.

It was all so new and different: the water, the seagulls, the rich clam chowder served in a sourdough bowl that she’d had twice already this week, including for lunch today. “I just have to get back on the straight and narrow and I’ll be fine.”

Bastien frowned. “We’ll go to a clinic, just in case.”

Shaking her head, she indicated a parking space in front of the three-story building in Chinatown where she’d found an affordable apartment courtesy of the fact it was the size of a shoebox. She didn’t mind. What mattered was that it was within walking distance of the kindergarten and in the heart of the city, meaning she never experienced the icy kiss of absolute aloneness. “I don’t feel sick really.” It was a sharp, vicious pain when it struck, but then it faded, which was why she kept talking herself into more pier food.

Having parked the car, Bastien touched the back of his hand to her forehead. “No fever at least.” He took a card from the wallet he’d thrown into a holder when he entered the car. “This is my number. Call me if you feel worse. I’ll drop by on my way home to check in on you.”

Used to taking care of herself, she said, “You don’t have to.” The comment went directly against the huge part of her that wanted to crawl into his lap and ask him not to leave, her skin aching for his.

“Kirby, I’m a dominant predatory changeling male,” he said, as if that explained everything, his tone suddenly unbending. “I also have a mother who’d box my ears if I left you alone in this situation, not to mention what Vera would do to me.” A deep smile that creased his cheeks. “Have pity.”

Kirby didn’t have to argue with herself to answer. No, the battle was to maintain some kind of control over a body and a mind that were rocketing out of her control. “All right,” she said, stomach fluttering in a way that had nothing to do with pain. “Do you work from the DarkRiver building?”

Stepping out, he opened the passenger door for her and waited until she was on her feet before leaning back against the car to say, “No. My team and I have a dedicated space in the Financial District.”

Only a few minutes away, the madness in her whispered.

“I’ll be there till about seven.” Rising to his full height, Bastien curved his hand around the side of her neck for a moment. “I’ll come by right after.” He brushed his thumb over her pulse. “Yes?”

Throat dry, she nodded. “Yes.”

His gaze dropped to her lips and for a second she thought he’d kiss her, but then he drew back his hand, the green of his eyes leopard-wild. “Rest.” A rough command. “I’ll see you in a few hours.”

Heart a staccato drumbeat against her ribs, she watched him prowl around to get into the driver’s seat. Cat, definitely a cat.

CHAPTER 3

Bastien loved numbers, loved the high-stakes energy of the financial world—but thanks to his family and his pack, he also had a solid, stable head on his shoulders. It was what made him so good at what he did.

Most of DarkRiver’s investments were medium to high yield, low-risk, which meant that if carefully managed, as Bastien managed them, the pack was immune to market fluctuations. However, and with his alpha’s knowledge and authorization, he also had a small percentage in extremely high-yield, extremely high-risk investments that kept their portfolio from stagnating.

Over the years since he’d taken charge of that portfolio, he’d increased DarkRiver’s financial assets exponentially, and he had no intention of stopping that trajectory. So yeah, he liked his job, liked that what he did helped maintain and support his pack, but today, the hours couldn’t pass fast enough. His leopard snarled inside his mind, wanting to go to Kirby, and it took all of his human willpower not to give in, not to find her, bite down on her neck, mark her.

Shoving a hand through his hair, he grabbed a bottle of cold water in a futile attempt to cool things down. He could be as possessive as any predatory changeling, but he’d never felt such a feral need to brand a woman. Not that his response to her was exactly a surprise.

Kirby, after all, was his mate.

It didn’t always happen this hard, this fast. Mercy and her mate, Riley, had known one another for years before the mating dance slapped them both sideways. But for some, it happened in that first, stunning instant of contact.

The knowing was visceral, as if he’d sensed the other half of himself, her presence intoxicating to his senses.

The soft and the wild, the two scents that were both hers.

He frowned. The feline whisper to Kirby’s scent hadn’t made another appearance the entire time he’d spent with her and that was impossible for a changeling, so she was definitely human. His human. Leopard and man, both parts of him smiled, figuring he’d have plenty of time to work out the complex mystery of her scent.

Had she been changeling, he’d have—No, he’d have done exactly the same things he planned to do to win his sexy little human mate. He’d court her, seduce her, pleasure her . . . and by the time she realized what was happening, she’d already be his. The last thing he could afford to do was come on so strong that he scared her.

With that thought in mind, he rolled up his sleeves and focused on figures that today seemed as dry and as boring as dust, in spite of the financial turmoil caused by the recent political shift among the Psy. That’s what a lot of people didn’t understand—the psychic race might’ve been standoffish to a large degree until recently, but all three races—human, changeling and Psy—were connected on a global level; civil war in one sphere affected them all.

Sometimes, it was subtle, as with the market fluctuations, other times overt.

Bastien’s mouth set in a grim line as he considered the toxic bomb discovered ten days prior in the city’s central skytrain station.

“But that,” he muttered, “isn’t what you need to be thinking about right now. Get to work so you can spend as much time as possible with Kirby in the coming week.”

He did exactly that, was ready for a break when his phone rang a couple of hours later, Grey’s number on the display. “What do you want, shrimp?”

“Do you want to come over tonight?” his younger brother asked. “Sage and I are getting pizza and watching the basketball game.”

“Thanks, but not tonight.”

“Better offer?”

“Way better.” His entire body grew taut at the thought of Kirby; if she no longer felt ill, he had every intention of talking his way into staying. God, he wanted to pet her, hold her, nuzzle his face into the curve of her neck and draw in that intriguing scent that made no sense.

If, however, she was still sick, he’d coax her into going to a clinic. And if Kirby proved stubborn about it, he’d pick her up and take her. She could be mad at him later—after the doctors checked her out. Bastien did not mess around when it came to looking after the people who mattered to him.

“Not one of the women from the luncheon?” Grey’s voice broke into his thoughts, his brother’s surprise open. “I thought Sage said you snuck out early—he’s cranky about that, by the way.”

“She’s no one you two know.” He wasn’t ready to share Kirby with his family or his pack yet. Not only did he want her all to himself until he was drunk on her, he didn’t want to risk her being overwhelmed by the Smith clan or his affectionately nosy packmates. “I’ll see you later this week. And tell Sage he can be cranky when he’s been ambushed by a setup as many times as I have.”

“When should I start worrying?”

“Not for a few years yet.” Hanging up after a bit more back and forth with his brother, he knuckled down to work again.

There were three more calls, two from packmates who needed advice about personal financial matters, the third from his father. Michael Smith had obviously been talking to his mate, and was checking up on his son. Happy to answer his father honestly, Bastien told him he was fine. Hell, he was ecstatic.

That visceral excitement had intensified to fever pitch by the time he left the office.

Kirby sounded sweetly delighted when she answered the intercom and cleared him into her building, her accent redolent of mint juleps and magnolia trees. Deciding he was going to kiss her on that lush mouth of hers as soon as possible, licking and tasting and indulging, he took the steps to her apartment three at a time, making it there just as she opened the door.

A slight gasp, followed by a shy smile that made him want to bite, her pretty honey-colored hair in a ponytail that bared the delicate skin of her nape. “That was fast.”

Leopard stretching under his skin at her proximity, he allowed himself to tug on a curling tendril of hair that had come loose from the tie. “I bring gifts to bribe my way inside.” He held up the bag from a family-run restaurant one block over. “Chicken noodle soup. Good for whatever ails you. And if you’re feeling better . . .” He showed her the frozen yogurt he had fantasies of feeding her spoonful by spoonful, and yeah, maybe he wanted to lick it from her skin for his own dessert, but he was a cat. Kirby couldn’t be too surprised if he gave in to temptation.

“So?” he teased gently when she didn’t step back, her caressing gaze on his shoulders, his chest. It was all he could do not to cup her jaw, claim a hot, deep kiss, tell her she could touch him anytime she wanted.

Cheeks coloring, she invited him into the tiny space that would’ve normally made his leopard stir-crazy. “I feel fine,” she said. “I had a couple of twinges right after you left, but then nothing.”

From the scent and look of her, her skin glowing, she didn’t appear ill. Yet once again, he caught a hint of that other scent, wild and inexplicable, that confused his leopard. “Have you been spending a lot of time around another cat lately?” he asked, though the scent was too integrated into her body to be anything other than her own.

Yet the way she moved, everything else about her, was human.

Kirby tilted her head to the side, lines forming between the rich, unusual hazel of her eyes, flecks of green intermingled with near yellow. “No, why?”

“I thought I caught a scent.” Except there was nothing in the air now except Kirby’s warm softness overlaid by a peach accent that probably came from her body lotion.

Of course, thinking about Kirby rubbing lotion over her naked flesh probably wasn’t the best of ideas right now. “Might be one of your neighbors,” he said to put her at ease, while his mind worried over the puzzle of it.

“Maybe.” She bit down on her lower lip, and he wanted to growl that that was his job.

Yeah, he was having trouble controlling both the animal and the man.

“I haven’t met all my neighbors yet.” Smile holding a quiet shyness again, she smoothed a nonexistent wrinkle on the front of her fitted sea green T-shirt. “I’m not very brave with strangers.” A soft confession.

Bastien’s need for her segued into a violent tenderness, and right then, all he wanted to do was hold her. Just hold her. “I think you’re braver than you know,” he murmured, folding his arms to leash the instinct. “It’s not every woman who packs up and moves across the country on her own.” She’d come to him, whether she knew it or not, and it wasn’t a gift he’d ever forget. “I’m damn glad you did, little cat.”

Skin flushing a delicate pink, she turned to put the dessert in the freezer, the black fabric of her yoga pants stretching across her curves. “We should eat before the soup gets cold.”

BASTIEN took the seat right next to Kirby when it was time to eat, his arm along the back of her chair and his eyes on her profile. Flustered, she said, “You’re staring.” Like he wanted to take a big greedy bite out of her, his eyes an impossibly vivid and primal green shade that told her it wasn’t only the human part of him that watched her.

“Hmm.” A rumbling sound that made her want to press her hand to his chest, feel the vibration of it. “Eat.” He picked up her spoon, dipped it into the soup, brought it to her lips. “I want you healthy for all the debauched things I plan to talk you into later tonight.”

The rough warmth of his other hand curving around her nape stole the words on her tongue. All her life, she’d ached for contact with another living being, hungered to touch and be touched. The lack of tactile contact in her life hurt. As a child in the foster care system, she’d had few choices; it should’ve been different for the adult she’d become, but despite her need, Kirby couldn’t imagine being with someone without bonds of affection, of care. However, building those bonds was incredibly difficult for her after a lifetime of not belonging to anyone.

Then had come Bastien.

“Hey.” The spoon clinking back into the bowl, knuckles running over her cheek. “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”

That voice, a low, deep purr that stroked over her skin. “You didn’t,” she answered, her own voice husky. “I’m just not used to . . .” Being so wanted. No one in her life had ever pursued her as Bastien was doing, ever cared enough to get her soup when she was sick, much less touch her with any kind of tenderness.

“To a bad-mannered cat?” he said, the thumb of the hand he had around her nape stroking over her pulse point. “I bring you soup then don’t let you eat it.” The heat of him a dark kiss, he picked up the spoon again. “Let me make up for it.”

Stomach fluttering at the coaxing words, she parted her lips to say what, she didn’t know, and he slipped the spoon inside. And somehow—Kirby wasn’t sure quite how—she ended up in his lap, one of his hands splayed on her lower back, his shoulders heavy with muscle under her arm and his thighs rock hard below her.

When she belatedly realized where she was and made to get off, he playfully threatened to sulk . . . then fed her more soup. All the while verbally petting her with affectionate, sexy words that made her feel intoxicatingly sensual, a beautiful woman.

“You haven’t eaten,” she said afterward, warm and full and aroused on the innermost level.

He nipped at her lower lip in a startling contact that nonetheless wasn’t unwelcome, his thighs shifting under her body as one of his hands squeezed the curve of her hip. “I plan to nibble on you.”

Her skin prickling with that strange, near-painful awareness, and her heart a throbbing drum, Kirby brushed her fingers over his jaw. She knew then that she was about to invite this gorgeous, charming leopard into her bed after a single day’s acquaintance. Her need for him was deeper than simple sexual desire, however. Some long-dormant part of her, anguished and in pain, whispered that Bastien alone could assuage the terrible emptiness inside her.

It felt as if she’d been waiting for him her entire life.

Such a dangerous thought. And still, she wasn’t going to step back, wasn’t going to be rational about this. “Will—” Agony tearing through her abdomen, she doubled over with a shocked cry, her vision blurring.

“Right.” Face grim, Bastien rose with her in his arms and headed for the door. “You’re going to see a doctor, no damn argument.”

In too much pain to respond, her insides shredded open by clawing blades that cut and tore, she curled into the protective strength of his body. It was a quick ride to the nearest twenty-four-hour clinic, but the pain faded rapidly in those fleeting minutes, to the point that though she felt bruised from the inside out by the time they arrived, she was otherwise fine.

Mystified, the Medical Psy on duty did a number of scans using his ability to see through the skin; he even requested a second opinion from a human colleague. Neither had any answers. “Do you want to remain overnight?” the M-Psy asked. “In case the pain reoccurs.”

Kirby was shaking her head before the medic finished speaking.

“I hate hospitals,” she said to Bastien when he frowned. “I’ll feel better at home.” Regardless of the fact she’d never needed intrusive medical attention of the kind that could explain her dislike, it was a gut-wrenching one, close to a phobia if she was honest. The smell of a certain disinfectant seemingly used in all medical facilities made her want to retch. Even now, her bruised muscles cramped, stomach twisting. “I won’t be able to rest here.”

Bastien squeezed her hand and only then did she realize she had a death grip on him. “All right.” He didn’t speak again until the doctor had prescribed some painkillers and they were in the car on their way back to her apartment.

“You call me if it happens again.” An order.

Shifting in the passenger seat to face him, she curled her tingling fingertips into her palms. “You’re being pushy and bossy.”

“I get that way when I’m worried about someone I care for.” It was near to a growl, his hands white-knuckled on the steering wheel. “You will tell me?”

Shaken by the blunt statement of care, she said, “Yes,” her irritability spiraling without warning into a joy so piercing that it terrified. God, she was falling too hard, too fast, her emotional equilibrium nonexistent around the changeling in the driver’s seat.

A serrated pain in her chest, three knives drawn through the inside of her skin.

CHAPTER 4

Bastien glanced at her at once, though she hadn’t made a sound. “You’re hurting.” His fingers brushed over her cheek before he turned his attention back to the road, his tension apparent in the roughness of his voice. “We’ll be home soon.”

Kirby’s throat thickened. He was so wonderful. How was she supposed to protect her already battered heart? “I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” she said, scared in a way that sent her pulse stammering.

This time when Bastien reached out, it was to gently squeeze her nape. “We’ll figure it out.”

He kept the warm strength of his hand on the sensitive, vulnerable skin until he had to remove it to maneuver the car into a parking spot half a block down from her apartment building. “Wait there.”

Scowling—just because she understood his protectiveness, even adored it, didn’t mean she was about to allow him to boss her around—she pushed the passenger-side door open right as he reached her. She looked up . . . to find herself the focus of leopard-green eyes that glowed in the darkness. “I can walk,” she said, even as her breath caught at the sheer, wild beauty of him.

He refused to budge from in front of her. “You’re barefoot.”

“Bastien”—she wished she could growl, too—“you are not carrying me again.” She was an independent adult female and it was critical Bastien see her that way, not as a weakling he had to cosset. “Move,” she said, and when he simply folded his arms, she gave in to the strange, overwhelming urge to bare her teeth at him, the sound that emerged from her throat perilously close to a snarl.

“Now you’re trying to get me into bed.” His grin transformed her near-feral annoyance into a sense of happiness so strong it didn’t seem possible it could exist . . . happiness because he was hers.

Eyes still night-glow, Bastien unfolded his arms. “I’ll give you a piggyback ride. Come on.” Turning to get into position, he shot her an “I dare you” look over his shoulder that made her want to nip at his mouth, draw in the scent at the crook of his neck.

He was playing with her, she thought all at once, delighted.

Unable to resist, she stood on the edge of the car door frame and wrapped her arms around his neck. He hoisted her up with effortless ease, muscled arms locked under her butt. Burying her nose surreptitiously in his neck, she cooperated when he turned and asked her to push the door shut with her foot, the car locking automatically.

Then he strode down the street while she grew drunk on the exhilarating soap and skin and maleness of his scent, and battled the urge to use her teeth, to bite down hard. So he’d be marked. So everyone would know he was hers. Then she’d tear off his clothing with her bare hands, kiss and touch and lick, embedding her scent into his skin, ensuring that even after one mark faded, the other would remain.

Skin flushing at the untamed possessiveness of her thoughts, she nonetheless held on tight, her bones melting at the feel of his strong, hard body moving against her own. When an older couple strolling by smiled at them, she smiled in return, feeling truly young for the first time in her life.

The world might be in a state of turmoil as a result of the recent Psy civil war, but Kirby’s much smaller world was filled with a joy she’d never known.

“How’s the service?” Bastien asked a few seconds later.

“Passable.”

“Careful.” It was a growled warning, a squeak escaping her throat as he pretended to drop her. “You don’t want to make the driver mad.”

Oh, I adore you.

Her need for him an ache deep within, Kirby surrendered and nuzzled his neck. While she was free with reassuring hugs when it came to the children she taught, it was hard for her to show affection in her personal life. No one had ever welcomed it from her. Bastien did. Angling his neck in a silent request for more, he made a sound that vibrated against her upper body.

An ear-to-ear smile broke out over her face. “You purr!”

“Maybe.”

Delighted with everything about him—including the protective bossiness that had made her snarl—she held on as he ran up the steps to the door of her building. She’d expected him to take the elevator once they were inside, but he jogged up the three levels to her place without breaking a sweat or losing his breath. It was a stunning display of strength, throwing the deceptiveness of his usual lazy prowl into stark focus.

Kirby couldn’t help but imagine how he’d move against her . . . in her, in a far more intimate setting, all power and strength and healthy golden skin rubbing over her own.

Butterflies in her stomach, her lower body molten.

“Hey, now.” A rumbling wave of sound against the taut tips of her nipples. “Don’t be thinking those things tonight. You’re going to rest.”

Cheeks burning, she pressed her palm to the scanner beside the apartment door. “How did you . . . ?”

“I’m changeling, little cat,” he reminded her. “I can scent you”—a deep inhale—“and you’re delicious.”

Certain she’d die of mortification, she wiggled off his body the instant they were inside. “That’s so unfair,” she said, not meeting his gaze.

Wrapping one arm around her waist, he hauled her flush against him, the thick heat of his arousal pushing aggressively against her belly through their clothing. “How’s that?” Pure wickedness in his smile. “Fair enough?”

Kirby went to respond, found her mouth claimed in a kiss sumptuous and lazy, Bastien’s tongue stroking slow and hot over her own. As if he had all the time in the world to kiss her, as if he was savoring the taste of her.

Making a complaining sound in the back of her throat when he broke contact, she rose on tiptoe, hands fisted in the dark red silk of his hair. He groaned, his mouth opening over her own and his palms skimming down her sides, their second kiss as opulent as the first, both their chests heaving by the time he raised his head again.

But this time, he pressed his index finger against her kiss-damp mouth when she sought to initiate another. “No tempting me.” A stern expression, but his body pounded for her, his skin hot. “I am not taking advantage of a sick woman.”

Kissing his throat since she couldn’t reach his mouth without his cooperation, she licked up the taste of him. “I’m fine.”

Another masculine groan, his hand clenching in her hair before he tugged her away, those night-glow eyes slamming passionately into her own. “When we go wild between the sheets,” he said roughly, “I want you healthy and strong enough that I can bite”—a little nip of her lower lip that made her quiver—“pet”—his free hand stroking down her side—“and take you all night, then come back for seconds.”

Narrowing her eyes, she gripped at his shirt, her heartbeat nowhere near steady after that sensual recitation. “You’re terrible.”

Smile feline in its satisfaction, and so, so bad for her self-control, he nudged her toward her bedroom. “Brush your teeth and get into your pajamas.”

Her lips quirked, the heat tangling with a raw wave of affection. “I’ll go as soon as I lock the door behind you, I promise.”

“No need.” Folding his arms, he leaned back against that door. “I’m sleeping on your couch.”

Kirby blinked. “Bastien—”

The hard glint back in his eyes, he shook his head. “Only way I’ll leave is if you call someone else to stay over. You shouldn’t be alone after what happened.”

She’d wanted him to stay, but not because he thought he had to babysit her. Thrusting a hand through her hair, messing up her ponytail, she said, “I’ve been alone before when I’ve been sick.” Every single time since she hit legal adulthood. Even before that, any “company” she’d had had been perfunctory at best. “I—”

“Have you ever before been in that much pain?” Bastien’s growl raised every tiny hair on her body. “You doubled over. I could feel you shivering in my arms from the shock.”

Not capable of lying to him, she admitted the truth. “No. Never anything that violent.” It had hurt, as if something was trying to claw its way out from inside her.

“So I stay.”

“I guess if you do something dastardly,” she muttered, wondering who he was to her, this occasionally infuriating leopard male she already trusted down to the bone, “Vera will hound you forever.”

Sliding his hands into his pockets, muscles no longer bunched up, he shuddered. “You have an evil streak.”

Her mouth cracked open in a huge yawn halfway through her laugh, and all at once, she was exhausted. As if she’d been running a race of which she had no knowledge.

When Bastien took her shoulders and turned her toward the bedroom, she went, crawling straight into bed without bothering to change. She was aware of Bastien turning off her bedside lamp, tugging the blankets over her . . . then nothing.

CONCERNED by Kirby’s rapid descent into deep sleep, Bastien watched over her for several minutes, leaving only after he was certain her breathing was smooth and her scent clean of any signs of sickness. Once in the postage-stamp-size living area—which his leopard tolerated only because it meant Kirby was always in close proximity—he directed a jaundiced glance at her tiny two-seater couch.

Hell, no.

It took less than a minute to strip and shift into his leopard form. Padding around the room, he settled into his new skin before curling up on the carpet. Hopefully Kirby wouldn’t freak if she woke in the night and saw him before he could shift back. The leopard huffed in response to the thought—Kirby might be a little shy now and then, but she had grit.

Her snarl earlier had been beautiful.

Yawning on that proud, pleased thought, he lay his head on his front paws and catnapped, rising regularly to pad into the bedroom to check up on the small woman who lay curled up under three thick blankets. It made the human inside the cat smile, think of how he’d enfold her in his arms at night once she was his, so she’d snuggle into him for warmth.

It was sometime in the morning that his ears picked up rustling noises from the bedroom. He entered to find Kirby twisting and turning, her skin shiny with perspiration and the blankets shoved to the bottom of the bed, the sheets themselves pulled off the mattress to tangle around her arms and legs.

Shifting in a joyous agony of pleasure and pain, his body dissolving into shattered light before re-forming into his human form, he crouched down beside the bed and checked her temperature.

Hot.

Too hot for a human.

About to attempt to wake her so he could determine if she simply had a fever, or if it might be something more serious, he barely escaped being hit by her hand as she flung it out in her sleep. Closing his own hand instinctively around her slender wrist, careful to moderate his strength so he didn’t hurt her, he frowned at the rapid pace of her pulse. It thudded against her skin in a violent drumbeat.

“Kir—” Her name froze on his lips as he truly saw what it was he held in his grasp.

A small, feminine hand, the skin flushed with heat . . . and the tips clawed. Neat little claws, adorable in contrast to his, but very definitely not human. His leopard prowled to the surface of his mind, sniffing at her. She still smelled luscious and intoxicating and human, except for that maddening, wild undertone that tugged at his senses until he could almost identify it . . . right before it slithered out of his grasp.

One thing he’d caught though—she was unquestionably a cat of some kind.

“Kirby,” he said softly, too softly for human ears, his tone near sub-vocal.

Thick lashes fluttered, then rose . . . as the claws sheathed themselves back into her skin, with no sign they’d ever been there. “Bastien?” A sleepy murmur, her skin starting to cool, her heartbeat steadying. “Hurts.”

Protective instincts already violently aroused, his words came out harsh, near to a true growl. “Where, baby?”

“Hurts so much.” Her eyes closed, her breath hitching. “Touch . . .”

She was asleep again, but not at rest, her crying quiet, heartbreaking. Unable to bear it, he got into bed with her and wrapped her in his arms, his need to alleviate her pain such that he forgot he was naked. Kirby didn’t startle awake. Turning immediately into his chest, she tucked up her arms between them, rubbed her cheek against his skin, her own streaked with silent tears.

Touch, she’d said, so that was what he did, petting and stroking her into a calmer state, the sigh she released a benediction. His mate, he realized on a wave of rage that had his own claws slicing out to brush her skin, was touch-starved. A lack of physical affection was painful for humans, but it was agonizing for pack-minded changelings.

“Never again,” he promised in a fierce whisper, and, claws retracted, slid one hand just under her T-shirt so it lay against her skin, curving his other over her nape.

It made her release a soft moan before she seemed to slip into a peaceful, deep sleep, the strange, inexplicable undertone in her scent once more dull and hidden. It took time for his anger to abate, but when it did, he had to face the cold, hard facts: Either Kirby was lying about being human rather than changeling or she didn’t know.

The latter should’ve been impossible. Dorian, one of the DarkRiver sentinels, had been latent until approximately a year and a half ago, but though he hadn’t been able to shift into his leopard form, the other man had always known of that leopard. He’d smelled like a cat, had the hearing of a cat, the instincts of one. Not only that, but his movements in human form had immediately marked him out as a feline changeling.

Kirby, on the other hand, smelled wholly—if oddly delicately—human the majority of the time, and while she was as sensual and as affectionate as any DarkRiver changeling underneath her shyness, there was nothing inherently feline about her physical presence. If she knew, she was the best actress he’d ever seen, but even the most gifted actress couldn’t mask her scent to that extent, not from a fellow changeling.

Notwithstanding any of that, one thing was clear: Bastien had to inform his alpha.

The idea of exposing Kirby made his leopard snarl, his arms locking around her trusting form, but Bastien knew he had no choice. If he didn’t tell Lucas and another member of DarkRiver detected Kirby’s secret, she’d face harsh punishment for breaching the iron-clad rule that stated no adult predatory changeling could cross over into another’s territory without permission, except in cases of imminent risk.

Bastien’s scent on her should keep her safe. Lucas wouldn’t mete out the penalty without first contacting him, but Kirby would be terrified in the meantime. And, given that they weren’t yet lovers, he couldn’t be certain his scent would hold on her skin.

No way in hell would he risk it. Lucas had to know.

Bastien would deal with any consequences.

“You’re mine, little cat,” he murmured, brushing his lips over her temple, “and I’m not letting go.” Not now. Not ever.

CHAPTER 5

Bastien got up before Kirby, and was fully dressed when she rose happy and energetic. It soothed man and leopard both to see her that way, and he made sure to sneak in a playful kiss, his body wrapped around hers, before he drove her the short distance to the kindergarten.

Never would his mate hunger for touch again.

Cheeks still flushed¸ she surprised him by leaning across from the passenger seat to claim his mouth in an affectionate good-bye once they reached her workplace. “Will I see you tonight?” She fiddled with the belt of the dark green dress coat she wore over a kindergarten-appropriate outfit of jeans and a white shirt with elbow-length sleeves.

He wanted to tell her he was her mate, would always be there for her, but her life was already complicated—Kirby needed him to be her rock right now, not use her vulnerability to shove her into the passionate intensity of the mating bond. “Unless you plan to seduce another helpless male,” he said with a teasing smile.

Making a face at him, she got out, then leaned down to smile through the open window. “I can’t wait to see you again.”

Her courage in saying what was in her heart further enslaved him. Forcing himself to leave once she entered the cheerful little building that would soon fill with children’s voices, he went to his apartment only long enough to shower and change. Ten minutes later, he was dressed in jeans paired with a dark gray T-shirt, and on the phone with his assistant, issuing instructions about what needed to be done in his absence.

Then—staying on the phone using the car’s wireless capabilities—he drove not to DarkRiver’s Chinatown HQ but to the green sprawl of the pack’s Yosemite territory. According to Lucas’s admin assistant, the DarkRiver alpha was working from home today. Bastien’s own assistant continued to touch base with him throughout the drive, but even as he fielded the queries, part of his mind was on the conversation he’d had with Kirby over breakfast.

“Do you have any changeling ancestry?”

Kirby’s laughter had been as sunny as the morning light pouring through the narrow window at one end of her kitchen. “No, plain old human as far as I know.” An open smile that kicked him right in the heart. “Do you mind?”

“I’d think you were perfect even if you were an ice-cold Psy.”

Bastien would stake his life on the fact that there’d been no deceit in her then, or at any time prior. As far as Kirby was concerned, she was human. Except, that was simply not possible. A changeling’s animal was as integral to his or her life as the human half of their nature—Bastien couldn’t be human as he couldn’t be leopard.

He was changeling, accustomed to the feel of his leopard stretching lazily beneath his skin when he wore this form, and to thinking with a man’s mind if necessary while in cat form. The idea that Kirby could’ve separated the two somehow, stifling her animal side . . . it not only made no sense, it should’ve been physiologically impossible according to all known laws of science and nature.

Yet her scent argued otherwise. He’d finally realized why he’d had such trouble tracking her—it was because Kirby’s scent wasn’t integrated as it should be. The feline part was too primal for a changeling, not balanced by the human aspect, while the human part was too gentle without the feline edge to it. Kirby didn’t have the natural depth to her scent a human would have, because she wasn’t human, her scent meant to be a combination of the two sides of her nature.

“Bas.” His assistant’s voice interrupted his turbulent thoughts. “I just got the report on those shares.”

“Go.” Wrenching his attention to the topic at hand, he listened, then gave further instructions, after which he switched to speak to another colleague, before handling a minor issue for an elder in the pack.

The work was welcome; it kept his mind from going around in circles.

He was back in contact with his assistant by the time he parked the vehicle in Yosemite, directing the younger male to make several small financial maneuvers designed to benefit the pack. That done, he gave a “do not disturb” order and stuffed his phone into the front left pocket of his jeans before stretching out into a run, the alpha pair’s aerie in a part of the forest inaccessible to vehicles.

Though he ran in human form, he gave up control of his body to the leopard. It loved the freedom of the forest, loved feeling the wind ripple through its coat, the carpet of forest debris soft and quiet beneath the pads of its paws. That leopard, however, was also very strategy minded and enjoyed what Bastien did for the pack—to the cat, the financial stuff appeared akin to a game, a hunt.

Seeing a young soldier on patrol on the extended perimeter around Lucas’s aerie, he halted, the human half of his nature rising to the surface once more. “Luc in?”

The tall auburn-haired male nodded, grin bright. “He’s on babysitting detail.”

“Thanks.”

Ten minutes later, he found Lucas sitting at a small table set below the sprawling canopy of a forest giant, the dwelling cradled in its branches concealed by dense foliage. The cabin the alpha had built when his mate’s pregnancy became too advanced for her to climb the rope ladder to the aerie was gone, no trace of it on the forest floor.

Lucas had a tablet computer on his lap, a sleek phone set to one side of the table, and what looked like a set of marked-up contracts on the other. Right then, however, his attention was on the baby girl who lay happily on her back on the blue-and-green picnic blanket beside the table, kicking her legs in the air.

As Bastien watched, Luc set aside the tablet to go down to the blanket. Tickling Naya gently on the bottoms of tiny feet covered by the sunny yellow fabric of her footsie pants, he pushed up her fluffy white sweater to blow a raspberry against her stomach, his hair the same rich black as his cub’s.

Naya’s giggles floated on the air, her delight infectious.

“She doesn’t bite, Bas.” An amused glance.

“I was taking a photo for Mom.” Sliding away his phone, he sprawled on the blanket on his back, and—with a glance at Lucas—picked Naya up to place her on his chest. She batted at him with baby fists, her smile sweet and innocent. Catching those soft hands, he pretended to bite and growl, which made her convulse in laughter in the way only babies could.

“And the patented Smith charm strikes again.” The dry comment had barely left Lucas’s mouth when his phone beeped.

Grabbing it from the table without leaving his seated position on the picnic blanket, he spent a couple of minutes discussing a timetable change relating to a construction project for which Bastien was handling the finances. When he hung up, it was to give Bastien his full attention. “What is it?” The question of an alpha to a member of his pack, not one man to another.

His leopard immediately aware of the difference, Bastien rose to a sitting position, too, and placed Naya carefully on her back on the blanket, where she grabbed her daddy’s hand to gum at his fingers. “There might be a situation.” It was difficult to speak past his protectiveness where Kirby was concerned, but he forced himself to lay it all out.

Panther-green eyes watched him without interrupting until he was done. “You’re convinced she doesn’t know?”

“She’s not a liar, Luc.” Of that, both parts of his nature were in snarling agreement. “Whatever this is, it’s not a case of her attempting to sneak into our territory.”

“All right.” Lucas leaned down to lightly tap his daughter on the tip of her nose in what was clearly a game between them, Naya’s tiny hands trying to catch his finger; each miss made her laugh that open, bright laugh, and try again. “Stay on top of it and keep me posted.”

Bastien blinked. “Just like that?” Given the volatile political climate, the entire pack on alert for signs of aggression from any corner, he’d expected more of an inquisition.

Lucas’s lips curved. “I can scent blood—you’ve cut your palms with your claws, you’ve been fighting so hard not to go for my throat because I questioned you about your Kirby.”

Bastien stared at his palms, having not realized what he’d done.

“And,” Lucas continued, allowing his daughter to catch his finger to her gleeful cry, “since you’re one of the most stable, centered members of the pack, your loyalty beyond question, it’s pretty damn obvious she isn’t just a friend or a casual lover.”

“She’s mine,” Bastien answered simply.

Lucas picked Naya up to cradle her against his chest, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. “No alpha worth his salt gets between another leopard and his woman.” Steady eye contact, alpha to packmate, dominant to dominant. “You’re no green boy, Bas. I trust your judgment.”

That, Bastien thought, was why Lucas was alpha. It wasn’t only about brute strength, but about the intelligence to know his people, and the heart to have faith in them. “I know you have to inform the senior people in the pack about her being in the territory”—ensuring Kirby’s safety—“but do you mind if I tell Mercy?” His sister and her mate were currently out of state, touching base with the falcons.

“Why don’t you talk to her when she and Riley return from Arizona?” Lucas glanced down as his cub yawned, the smile on the DarkRiver alpha’s face gentler than Bastien had ever before seen. “I’d think about talking to Dorian, too, soon as possible.”

The blond sentinel, Bastien had already figured out, was the only one who’d been through anything that might be analogous to Kirby’s situation. “I was planning to call him from the car.” Reaching out, he touched Naya’s fisted hand where it lay against Lucas’s heart and the baby curled her delicate fingers around his. “How do you bear it, Luc?” he murmured, his own heart raw with emotion for this small new packmate. “She’s so vulnerable, so fragile.”

Lucas’s panther looked out at Bastien through a human face. “Would you die to protect her?”

“That’s not even a question.” Bastien would bleed for any of his packmates, but the smallest, most vulnerable had a special place in all their hearts.

“That’s how I bear it,” Lucas said. “By reminding myself that every man, woman, and juvenile in this pack would fight to their last breath to protect her from harm.” A soothing rumble in his chest as Naya made a tiny sound, the leopard speaking to its cub. “We’re family, Bas, and family stands together. Whatever’s going on with your Kirby, we’ll figure it out.”

The words centered him, calmed his leopard. No matter what, Kirby was no longer alone. She had him—and she had the strength of DarkRiver behind her.

BASTIEN had just hit the edge of the city, having spent a good forty minutes talking to Dorian about what it had been like to shift after a lifetime of being latent, when he received another call. “Kirby?” he said, having programmed her number into his phone.

“Bastien.” A shuddering breath. “I—c-can you come get me? I’ve taken the rest of the day off, arranged a substitute.”

“I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

He pulled up to find Kirby waiting a few meters up from the kindergarten. “I’m sorry,” she said as soon as he got out of the driver’s seat. “I didn’t know who else to call.” Her eyes huge, she swallowed. “You must’ve been doing something important.”

“Shh.” Enfolding her trembling body in his arms, he ran his hand firmly up and down her back, making sure to touch the bare skin of her nape with each stroke. “I’m glad you called me.”

He could’ve held her forever, but he was conscious that though quiet, this was a public spot. More important, it was near Kirby’s place of work. “Come on, little cat. We’ll go somewhere private to talk.”

Once he had her in the car, he turned up the heater full blast and drove them a short distance to a city park dotted with comparatively small evergreens, around which meandered a walking path. Today, it was empty, the grass a deep jewel green under sunlight. Bastien got out as soon as they arrived, viscerally aware of Kirby’s continued distress, and sensing she’d do better out in the open.

Kirby didn’t argue when he drew her into the park, wrapping one of his arms around her shoulders so he could cuddle her close. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

Stopping, she turned into him beside the straight trunk of a young pine. “Something strange is happening to me.” The words were utterly inadequate to express the raging chaos within her, but they were all Kirby had.

“Go on.”

Bastien’s steady gaze, his deep voice, his touch—oh, how she loved the way he touched her so readily—it gave her an anchor as she described her strange madness. “I was in the back room getting a drink of water for one of the children,” she began, still unable to make sense of it, “and all at once, I could hear every single child in the main room. Not just a blur of voices, but specific voices, each word crystal clear.”

Rubbing her hands over her face, she tucked back the strands of hair that had escaped her ponytail. “I dismissed it as a weird acoustic effect when it faded after a few seconds,” she said, her heart beginning to race again as it had then. “Then I walked out with the water . . . and into an avalanche of scent. I couldn’t breathe, felt as if I’d suffocate under the weight of it.”

Eyes intent, Bastien ran his free hand up and down her arm, his other one still strong and warm around her shoulders, but didn’t interrupt.

“I dropped the water”—thank God it had been a plas cup meant for little hands—“and it went all over the carpet. The scents disappeared almost at the same time, but I knew I couldn’t stay, risk the children when I couldn’t predict what might happen next.”

Hugging her arms around herself, she asked the question that had been tormenting her since. “Is it all in my head?” She couldn’t forget the fact the doctors at the clinic had found absolutely nothing wrong with her. “I could be having some type of a psychotic breakdown.”

Bastien gripped her chin. “You are not going crazy.”

Kirby stilled, caught by the unadulterated certainty of his tone, as if he knew something she didn’t. “Bastien?”

“Not here.” He scanned the park, and she knew he’d noted the three elderly people who’d arrived in the past few minutes. “We’ll go to my apartment. It’s not the best place for this discussion, but our forested territory isn’t close enough.”

Kirby held her tongue until they were back in the car, her cheeks burning with an emotion that had her gritting her teeth. “If you knew something, why didn’t you say so?” The words came out curt, her anger at him for lying to her—even by omission—smashing up against bewildered hurt.

Hands clenching on the steering wheel, Bastien began to drive. “Because whatever this is,” he said, his voice gravel, “it’s nothing simple.”

Kirby wanted to snarl at him for that nonanswer.

CHAPTER 6

“We’ll be at the apartment in minutes,” Bastien said into the tense silence.

Not in the mood to make conversation, Kirby nonetheless found herself captive to her endless curiosity about Bastien. “I didn’t think a leopard changeling would like an apartment.” He’d done his best to hide it, but he’d been edgy in hers.

“I don’t. That’s why I bought such a ridiculously expensive place.”

Kirby understood why the apartment had been so expensive the instant she stepped into it. Aside from a small private enclosure at the back, there were no internal walls in the space that had to cover half a floor. The entire front wall was crystal clear reinforced glass, the floors a gleaming honey-colored wood.

Above, and to her right was a loft-style space that had to house a bed, while the left part of the central area held an arrangement of sofas and large floor cushions that looked decadently comfortable, an open kitchen on the other side.

The entire place was drenched in light.

“Beautiful,” she whispered.

The lines of stress easing from his expression—and why did that make her heart ache, make her want to kiss him, even as she continued to fight the more primitive urge to bite him—he clasped her hand. Sighing silently at the contact that felt deeply right, she allowed him to tug her toward the wall of glass, and to the door cleverly concealed within it.

There was a generous balcony beyond, with a view of the Bay, the water sparkling like shattered sapphires under the sunshine. Gripping the railing, the metal digging into her palms, she stared at him. “You’re rich. Really, really rich.”

Leaning back against the railing, arms propped on either side, he shrugged. “I’m good at making money, been investing my own income since I was a juvenile. Does it make a difference to you?” Green eyes glinting at her from beneath half-lowered lashes.

Kirby fought the urge to bare her teeth at him. What was wrong with her lately? The thought had barely formed when she moved faster than she’d believed she could. Tugging down his head with a hand fisted in his hair, she nipped sharply at his jaw. “Don’t make me even more mad than I am already.”

His grin creased his cheeks, his arms locking around her waist. “Bite me again.” At her narrow-eyed look, he nuzzled the side of her face before saying, “Truth is, I’d rather be at my aerie.” The leopard paced behind his eyes, its presence so strong that Kirby could almost see it.

Almost touch the gold and black of its fur.

“The days I can work from there,” Bastien continued, “I let my brothers, other packmates who want a night in the city, use this place, so we get our worth out of it.”

It betrayed so much of how he saw the world that he so naturally said “our” for a place that, to many other men, would’ve been a status symbol. For Bastien, she realized, it was his pack, his family, who were important, who mattered. She hurt with wanting the same—never had she fit in, always the constant outsider. And now . . .

“Please tell me what you know,” she said quietly, fear a metallic taste in the back of her mouth, a shivering rasp over her skin.

His expression stripped of any hint of humor, Bastien picked up one of her hands, a hand Kirby hadn’t realized she’d clenched by her side. “Open for me, little cat.”

As the blood rushed back into the strained-white flesh, he ran a single finger across the tips. “Do your fingertips ever tingle?”

Heart slamming hard against her ribs and mouth dry, she nodded. “Just recently.” She stared at her own fingers. “It’s not painful, but it prickles.”

Bastien continued to hold her hand, stroking his thumb absently over her skin. “In the weekend, the pain you felt”—wild green eyes capturing her own—“if I said it felt like something was trying to claw its way out, would I be right?”

Unable to accept what he was asking her to believe, she shook her head, broke the searing intimacy of the eye contact. “It can’t be. I’m human.”

Bastien cupped her jaw, turned her face back to him, the brush of his skin over her own almost succeeding in calming the skittering panic within. “Tell me about your parents.”

“I—” Her blood went cold. “My parents died when I was a toddler,” she whispered, the brutality of her history something she preferred to forget . . . a history that led to one inescapable conclusion, but for the impossibility of it. “The care services would hardly mistake a changeling child for human.”

“Not necessarily. Changelings don’t shift till around one year of age.”

“That’s how old I was when it happened.” She forced herself to recall the small number of facts that had seeped into her memory over the years, in spite of her refusal to access her own records. “My birth date is unknown but, according to one of my social workers, I was examined by a pediatrician and judged to be approximately twelve months old. If I hadn’t yet shifted, I should’ve soon after I was found.”

“Yes.” Bastien frowned. “How did you lose your parents?”

“In a fire.” She didn’t know much more than the basic details of that fire, her anger at her unknown parents for abandoning her a raw wound that had never healed. “I was found on the street dressed in one-piece pajamas covered in soot, the bottoms of my feet burned and bloody.

“It was clear I’d come from a nearby house that had gone up in flames, but while the police did discover the remains of an adult male and female who must’ve been my parents”—she swallowed—“for some reason, those remains were never identified.”

“Ah, hell.” Bastien’s exclamation was rough. “You experienced a severely traumatic event around the same time that you were meant to complete your first shift,” he said, tucking her close. “It must’ve fundamentally altered your development.”

It sounded right . . . yet wrong. “No,” she whispered, a cold chill in her blood. “What if I did shift for the first time that day? So happy, so excited. Then . . . then a bad thing happened.”

Bastien stepped back, took her face in his hands again. “Do you remember?”

“No.” All she had were lingering echoes of emotion. “But I know that’s what happened.” Could almost see it. “Wouldn’t a baby think the two events were connected—the shift and the fire?” Pain twisted her heart. “The human half blamed the animal, and the animal blamed itself.”

“And,” Bastien said harshly, “you had no one who understood what was going on inside you. No packmate to comfort you, reassure you it wasn’t your fault.” He kissed her cheeks, her jaw, her lips.

Finding strength in the affection, she told him the rest. “The only reason anyone knew my first name was that it was stitched into my pajamas.” Her last name, Rosario, had apparently been the name of the street where she’d been found. “That’s the only other piece of information I have.”

“Your adoptive parents might—”

“I was raised in care.” Kirby didn’t like to think of the seventeen long, agonizingly lonely years she’d spent in the system, but if the truth to her present lay in her past, then she had to find the will. “I had terrible, screaming nightmares as a child.” A sympathetic social worker had given her that information after she grew old enough to wonder why she didn’t have a family when other infants and toddlers were quickly adopted.

“I kept being chosen for adoption, then returned.” Like a broken machine being sent back to the warehouse for a refund. “They finally stopped trying to place me when I was six and I spent three years in state institutions for troubled children before the nightmares faded”—as far as the world was concerned at least—“and I was cleared for the foster care system.”

Bastien’s claws threatened to release. He wanted to break something, shred those who had wounded his mate when she’d been a small, vulnerable cub unable to fight for herself.

“I remember, you know,” she said quietly, her eyes on the ground. “Being taken by people who said they wanted me, feeling happy and hopeful, and then being brought back because I wasn’t good enough.”

“Bastards.” So angry he was trembling, he closed his hand around the side of her neck and pressed his lips to her temple.

Kirby lifted her hand to his hair, petting him in gentle strokes. “It wasn’t so bad, being in care. I wasn’t abused or anything.”

Bastien’s leopard growled within at that unwitting indictment on her childhood. “You’re fucking amazing, you know that?” He pressed his forehead to hers, his rage cut with violent pride.

“No, I’m a coward.” Breaking away in a jerking movement, she paced to the end of the balcony and back. “I tell myself I’m still angry at my parents for leaving me, that that’s why I’ve never requested my records. The truth is, I’m afraid.”

Her eyes shone wet, her shoulders knotted. “Because if I read those records, then I can’t avoid the truth any longer, can’t pretend that maybe I’m not alone, that one day someone will come for me.” She dashed away her tears. “I’m twenty-four years old and I’m still hoping. How stupid is that?”

“You don’t get to do that.” Bastien pulled her stiff body into his arms, his fury at what had been done to her a vicious storm within. “You don’t get to hurt yourself, and you never ever get to call yourself stupid.”

She thumped fisted hands against his side. “Why? Who’re you to give me that order?”

Bastien didn’t even think about it—his mate was hurting and needed reassurance. “I’m yours,” he said bluntly, wrapping his hand around her ponytail and tugging back her head so he could look into those beautiful, pain-filled hazel eyes. “You are not alone. Do you understand?” There was nothing in his life more certain than what he felt for her, and it was no longer simply about the primal pull of the mating bond. It was about Kirby. Sweet, strong, sometimes snarly Kirby. “I will always be here for you.”

Her breathing erratic, Kirby didn’t respond to his declaration. Instead, she tugged her hair free and said, “I’ll e-mail the records request today.” She refused to meet his gaze, her own obstinately on the glittering water in the distance. “It’ll probably take a few days for the files to come in.”

Bastien gritted his teeth to hold back the leopard’s anger as she surreptitiously wiped away the tracks her tears had left on her face. It wasn’t Kirby’s fault she didn’t believe him—no doubt all those prospective adoptive parents had promised her forever, too. But he wasn’t his mother’s most stubborn boy for nothing.

Kirby would soon discover that when Bastien Michael Smith made a promise, he kept it.

FEELING bruised on the inside, Kirby didn’t argue against Bastien’s nudge back into the warmth of the apartment, but when he made her a cup of sweet tea and ordered she drink it, she put her hands on her hips. “Stop growling at me!” She might be shaky, horribly tempted to believe in his every promise, but she was not and never would be, a pushover.

“I am not growling at you,” he growled, thumping down the mug of tea on the counter.

Of course the hot liquid splashed all over his hand. Grabbing his wrist when he hissed and pulled back, she stuck it under the cold water tap. “Don’t move,” she snapped when he went to pull it away, shooting him a glare as he growled again, the sound vibrating against her skin. “You’re worse than my students.”

No warning, no nothing, he just leaned down and nipped the tip of her ear sharply with his teeth. “Bastien!” Jumping, she let go of his wrist long enough for him to wrap his arm around her, trapping her between his weight and the sink.

Her entire body sang at the proximity of his, hard and hot and deliciously overwhelming against her back, but her worry about him kept her focused. Taking his wrist again, she put it under the tap. “It’s a bit red.”

He nuzzled at her, licked out at her skin.

Kirby couldn’t control her shiver. “Cat.”

A smile against her skin. “I like the taste of you.” Another lick, his free hand braced against the sink to block any escape.

Kirby didn’t want to escape this muscled masculine trap. “So,” she said, trying to keep her brain in gear, “I have some changeling blood—”

“No, it’s more than that.” He kissed her nape, making her toes curl, and she thought that, perhaps, this gorgeous man was attempting to distract her from the pain of the childhood loss that had so badly scarred her.

Eyes burning, she turned and pressed her lips to his jaw.

Rubbing his cheek against hers, he continued to speak. “Changeling genes are dominant, at least when it comes to shifting. A full or half-changeling child always shifts—and your scent tells me you fall into that category. Even if you’re latent, you should know what you are.”

“So I’m some kind of freak,” Kirby muttered. “Great.”

Bastien’s snarl raised every hair on her body. “What did I tell you about hurting yourself?” With that furious comment in a voice that barely sounded human, he broke her hold, turned off the tap, and spun her to face him.

Kirby stood her ground, recognizing the predator in him, but dead certain he would never hurt her. That certainty held even when he placed his hands on her hips, his claws slicing out to lie against the fabric of her coat.

“You’re not a freak. You’re Kirby.” His tone dared her to disagree.

Skin uncomfortably aflame all at once, she dropped her hands to the belt of her coat and undid it, shrugging off the thick fabric to throw it aside. Bastien’s hands went right back to where they’d been, strong and dangerous over denim and cotton.

“Sexy, smart, beautiful Kirby.” It was a purr of sound.

And then he kissed her.

One hand unraveling her ponytail, the other sliding under her shirt to lie on the curve of her waist, his skin rougher than her own, and his mouth enslaving hers.

She felt his claws, but he didn’t so much as scratch her as he tasted her like she was his favorite dessert. With tiny bites and long, slow licks that demanded she join in. When she did, stroking her tongue against his, he purred, the vibration shivering through her entire body to make her wonder what it would be like if they were both naked.

“Bastien.” Her nipples tight little points, she gripped his shoulders, exquisitely aware of him shifting one big hand to her butt to help her attain the right angle to rub against the rigid temptation of his cock, her claws kneading his—

Shoving away with a tiny scream, she stared at her hands. “Oh God.” The claws retracted almost before she was sure she’d seen them. “I—”

Bastien put his hands on either side of Kirby’s body, once more trapping her against the counter and keeping her within touching distance. “Yes,” he said. “You just semi-shifted.” And, because he hated to see her so lost, so scared, he nipped her ear again. Hard enough to sting.

“Argh!” Gripping his hair, she tugged his face down to her own. “Stop that or I will really bite you.”

There she was, his tough Kirby who’d built a life for herself through sheer grit and determination. “Promise?” His cat batted playfully at her, wanting out of Bastien’s human skin so she could play with him in reality. Soon, he promised the leopard.

“You’re—” Releasing him after a hard, infuriated kiss that made his chest rumble in another purr, she said, “I think I better take leave from work until this is all sorted out.”

Bastien nodded.

“I’m so new I’ll lose my job if I don’t go back within a week.” Her temper faded into a sadness that had him wrapping his arms around her. “I really liked this job.”

Protective as he was, Bastien wanted to fix everything for her, but he knew Kirby wouldn’t thank him for it. “My sister tells me that’s the top kindergarten in the city.” Mercy’s mate had apparently already begun to scope things out, even though it would be six months yet before their babies were even born. “They wouldn’t have hired you if you weren’t the best—you’ll find another position when you’re ready.”

A small nod against his chest. “My rent’s paid up for the next two weeks at least.”

That statement, Bastien couldn’t let pass, because as Kirby needed to have pride in her work, he needed to care for her. Shifting so he could look at her face, he said, “You don’t ever have to worry about a place to live.” He’d hidden his intentions at the start so as not to rush her, but after hearing of what she’d gone through as a child, he wanted her to know she was wanted, adored. “Right now, we need to go to the aerie.” The natural surroundings would put her animal more at ease.

Small white teeth sank down into her lower lip. “I hardly know you,” she whispered, but made no move to pull away, instead petting his chest with small, absent strokes, as if to soften the impact of her words.

“Some people”—he closed his hand over hers—“we know in a heartbeat.” Leopard and man both looked into the unusual hazel of her eyes and saw their future. “Others, we’ll never know, even if we speak to them for a thousand years.”

Blinking rapidly, Kirby buried herself against his chest. “I’m so scared, Bastien.” Her voice trembled.

“I’m with you every step of the way, little cat.” He held her close, the side of his face pressed against the softness of her hair. “We’ll do this together.”

CHAPTER 7

Chest tight, Kirby made the records request on their way to her apartment to pick up what she’d need for a few days at the aerie. When Bastien reached across to run his knuckles over her cheek, she leaned into the touch, so painfully happy that he was in her life.

Some people, we know in a heartbeat.

He was right, and despite her fear at the violent depth of their fledgling connection, at how much it would hurt if he changed his mind and rejected her, she wasn’t going to back away. Bastien was too important, too wonderful, and she wanted him to be hers, only hers, the possessive thoughts at once shy and wild.

When he suggested they stop at the fresh goods market on their way out of the city, she gladly fell in with the idea. “I think doing something mundane will be good right about now.”

Forty-five minutes and a quick snack at the attached café later, the wicked cat next to her was coaxing her into surrendering to the lure of a slice of organic carrot cake with cream-cheese icing, when she heard, “Bas!”

Startled, she looked up from the tempting display to see a man with rich brown hair and hazel eyes darker than her own prowling toward them. Despite the difference in coloring, the Smith familial stamp was unmistakable.

“Sage.” Bastien scowled. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“Mom messaged, asked if I could grab a few things for her, drop them off on the way home.” Sage’s words may have been for Bastien, but his eyes never moved off Kirby. “I’m the good-looking brother,” he said with a smile so charming, it was adorable. “Sage.”

Kirby liked him at once, comfortable in a way she rarely was with strangers . . . but of course, he was Bastien’s brother, and she trusted Bastien down to the bone. “Kirby.”

“Cake, huh?” Sage rubbed his jaw, blew out a breath. “I’d go for the double chocolate with vanilla frosting myself.”

Throwing an arm around her shoulders, Bastien said, “Stop flirting, you’re terrible at it,” to his brother, but she could tell it was only pretend, the two men obviously friends as well as family.

FIFTEEN minutes after they’d run into Sage, Bastien closed the fresh groceries in the trunk of the car and pointed a finger at his brother. “Don’t tell Mercy, Herb.”

Sage rocked back on his heels, a glint in his eye. “Worried she’ll scare away your girl, Frenchie?”

“I don’t think Kirby’s the scaring-away type, are you, little cat?” Proud of the woman who was his own, he cupped her cheek, ran his thumb over her lower lip.

Coloring, she nonetheless pressed a kiss to his palm. “If I was,” she pointed out, “all your growling would’ve done it already.”

Bastien saw Sage’s eyes go leopard at that instant and knew his brother had realized exactly what was at stake. Not that he wouldn’t tell Mercy and Grey anyway—but he wouldn’t mention it beyond that tight circle. Not yet, not until Bastien was ready. He and his siblings might rag on one another, but they’d never mess with something so important.

Leaning close to Kirby, Sage whispered, “Ask him about the infamous kitten defurring episode.”

“Remind me to strangle you later.” Bastien opened the passenger door for Kirby, saw his brother’s smirk turn into a grin when Kirby waved at him after getting into the car, her eyes sparkling.

“Frenchie, huh?” she said, once they were on their way again, the laughter in her tone welcome.

“I really need to strangle him. Surely, my folks wouldn’t notice one less son.”

Shoulders shaking, Kirby turned in her seat to face him. “You’re close.”

“Yep, all four of us are pretty tight-knit.” Every one of his memories of childhood included one or the other of his siblings. “Not that we didn’t fight like feral wolves sometimes,” he told her. “In one notorious incident, Grey, who was only a tiny cub at the time, got mad at Sage and clamped his teeth on the tip of Sage’s tail.”

Kirby’s smile lit up her whole face. “What happened?”

Wanting to kiss her breathless, he said, “Stubborn bastard refused to let go, despite Mercy and me trying our hardest.” The memory made his leopard huff with laughter. “When Sage tried to shake him off, he just dug his claws into the earth and growled in the back of his throat. We finally had to admit defeat and call in the Power of Mom.”

Kirby’s laughter filled the car. “Tell me more.”

He went to do just that when his phone rang. “Sorry. Probably work.”

To his relief, Kirby didn’t seem to mind the fact that he had to be in contact with the office for most of the trip, her eyes on the scenery. Still, he didn’t like her so quiet, her fingers twined to strained whiteness around one another.

“What music do you like?” he asked between calls.

“Cheery, chirpy pop.”

Wincing, he pulled up a station that delivered exactly that. “You owe me.”

“Come on”—she turned in her seat to face him once more—“it’s not that bad.”

“I’m sorry? I can’t hear you past the sugar blocking my eardrums.”

She mock punched him and his leopard purred. He wanted to luxuriate in her touch, wanted to demand the most intimate, most private skin privileges, but while he delighted in skin-to-skin contact with her, he wouldn’t push her to consummate their relationship. If he woke to see regret in Kirby’s eyes, it would fucking break him. No, when they took that step, he needed his mate with him all the way, confident and passionate and demanding in her own right.

“It’s not a long walk from here,” he said some time later, parking in a nominated area within the pack’s forested territory. “We have to be careful of the natural vegetation.”

Having been twisting her neck to look every which way as they drove in, Kirby stepped out to spin around happily on the spongy carpet created of fallen leaves and pine needles. “I want to explore everything!”

Her unhidden delight eased any concern he might’ve had about her being comfortable in the rich green wilderness that sang to his changeling soul. Slinging the duffel with her stuff over his shoulder, he clasped her hand in his, eager to have her in his home. “I’ll run back for the groceries.” He couldn’t wait to show her all his favorite spots in the forest, his leopard as excited as a cub.

When a lynx with thick golden-brown fur wandered over just as they were about to reach the aerie, Kirby froze on a wondering gasp. “Is that . . .”

“Not a changeling.” Crouching down, he ran his hand over the creature’s back, its tufted ears standing straight up. “But, he’s a friend of mine.”

Kirby came down beside him, one of her hands braced on his thigh in the sweetest torture. “Will he allow me to pet him?” Wistful need.

“Here.” Taking hold of her hand after she settled on her knees, he held it out to the lynx’s nose. “Don’t feel bad if he decides against you,” Bastien said, wanting her to enjoy her first brush with the area’s natural wildlife. “The damn beast took six months to deign me acceptable.”

Except the lynx took one sniff at Kirby and jumped up to place his front paws on her thighs. “Bastien, oh, he’s beautiful.” Face suffused with joy, Kirby began to stroke the cat.

Bastien considered the intriguing tableau. Regardless of species, none of the wild creatures were this friendly to anyone outside the pack. Of course, Kirby had such neat little claws . . . yeah, they could’ve been of a lynx.

Settling with his back against a tree, legs out in front of him, he watched her pet the utterly lazy, spoilt creature now sprawled in her lap. That lynx was going to follow her around every time she was in the area, he thought with an affectionate grin for his wild counterpart. Bastien would likely find it on the branches outside their aerie, waiting for her.

Well done, cat, he thought a little ruefully, his own leopard yet deprived of her touch.

KIRBY and Bastien finally reached their destination a half hour from that meeting, the lynx having left them ten minutes earlier with an affectionate brush of his body against Kirby’s legs. Now, Kirby watched Bastien climb up to the aerie hidden in the arms of a massive tree, one so big, she couldn’t take it all in.

This world intoxicated her with its magnificence, the way Bastien moved in it, his muscles fluid, a primal song. He’d climbed the tree using his claws, yet had left only faint marks on the trunk that would soon close over, not a single gouge to be seen. Just one more sign that he wasn’t an intruder here, but an accepted part of this incredible ecosystem, one who respected the land that nurtured him.

“Rope ladder coming down!” he called out after disappearing behind the leaves with her duffel.

“Thank—” She screamed as Bastien jumped from his high perch . . . to land with the pouncing grace of the cat he was, his powerful body ending up in a crouch.

“Sorry if I scared you.” A sheepish look. “I forget it looks dangerous.”

“No.” Kirby waved the hand she’d thrown out in a futile attempt to stop him. “I’m used to changelings jumping out of trees,” she said through her still-thumping heart. “Most of them are five years old, and the trees are only a hundred times shorter than this one, but same principle.” In truth, he’d been magnificent, a fact she could appreciate now that she wasn’t swamped in terror.

His smile creased his cheeks, his green eyes backlit with an untamed glow. “A smartass. I like it.” Tugging at her so she fell against his chest, he ran his hands boldly down to her butt, squeezed. “I like this ass even better. Makes me want to bite.”

Kirby’s entire body went molten, but she wasn’t about to let him get away with teasing her so outrageously without repercussions. Hauling him close with one hand on his nape, the other in his hair, she claimed a hot, tangled kiss from this man who made her forget she wasn’t experienced, her actions driven by naked instinct. A second later, she was backed up against the nearest tree trunk, his hands petting and molding her flesh as their mouths engaged in erotic battle.

Moaning, she returned kiss for kiss, touch for touch, delectably conscious of the hard push of his arousal against her abdomen. He was so big, so strong, his touch a drug to her senses. Gasping a breath between kisses, she returned to their private war, hooking her legs around his waist when he hitched her up.

A snarl, his mouth tearing away from her own, though there was no danger that she could see, no reason to stop. The lightning heat of his glare had her narrowing her eyes, her fingertips prickling. “What?”

“What? What?” He closed one clawed hand very carefully around her throat. “I’m trying to be a good guy by not seducing you when you’ve had one hell of a shock, and what do you do but kiss me all sexy and aroused and wet.” Growled-out words. “How the hell am I supposed to keep from devouring you?”

Kirby wanted to pounce on him for that blunt declaration. “I don’t feel vulnerable or taken advantage of,” she assured him, petting his beautiful chest through his T-shirt.

His snarl rumbled against her breasts.

“In fact,” she murmured, looking at him through half-lowered lashes, “why don’t I take advantage of you?” The idea of having his naked body as her personal playground made her breath catch—surely she’d figure things out as she went along, especially since she had a partner who made no bones about wanting her.

“I’ll be gentle.” She didn’t know where this sexual confidence was coming from, but it felt so, so good to play with Bastien. “Promise.” Kissing his throat, she ran her hands over his shoulders.

Mine. It was a feral thought, should’ve scared her. It didn’t. No, it made her want to purr as Bastien had begun to do.

Having already learned it was his weak spot, she continued to kiss his throat, the taste of him her own personal aphrodisiac.

This is how he should react to me, said the awakening wildness within her, possessive and sensual and with no time for the rules of civilized behavior. This is how it should be between us.

“Grr.” Pulling her mouth from his throat, Bastien snapped his teeth at her, making her jump . . . before her nipples went achingly tight, her body honey slick in welcome.

Bastien’s nostrils flared. “No.”

“No?” Muscles clenching around an emptiness she knew only he could fill, Kirby poked him in the chest. “Don’t you try to tell me you know best.”

He leaned in with his hands braced on the trunk on either side of her head, stubborn male will and feline temper. “When you’re bruised and hurt inside, I damn well will.”

She bared her own teeth at him. “Who made that rule?”

“I did.” A nip of her kiss-swollen lower lip.

She growled low in her throat, wanting to claw him. Not to hurt. Never to hurt. Just so he’d know she wasn’t helpless, was a worthy playmate.

Bastien hissed out a breath, his lips curving. “Hello, little cat.”

In front of him, Kirby snatched back the hands she’d had on his chest, staring once more at the curved tips of her claws. The most stunning change though, was one she couldn’t see; her eyes had turned a pale, pale gold with a vivid black pupil.

Tapping a claw, Bastien grinned. “Cute.”

A dangerous pause. “Cute?” Placing one hand back on his chest, she dug those pretty claws in enough that he felt it. “Want to take that back?”

“Hell, no.” Not when it got her claws on him. Not able to resist in spite of his attempt at good behavior, he kissed her again, rocking his painfully aroused body into the inviting softness of hers.

Melting, she rubbed up against him, her claws going up to prick at his shoulders as she kneaded. His cock threatened to explode and embarrass him at that unambiguous sign of welcome. Cupping her jaw, he indulged himself in another deep, raw kiss before putting at least a meter between him and his mate—who’d drawn his blood just enough for it to be foreplay.

Face flushing, she reached down to undo her coat and throw it aside. “I’m all hot,” she said, her breasts pushing against the shirt she had on underneath.

Bastien thought for a second that she intended to win their sensual battle by baring herself to the skin—and yeah, who was he kidding, he’d never last if Kirby pressed her naked curves against him—but then she tugged at her collar, said, “I’m really hot.” Kicking off her shoes, she tore off her socks. “Bastien, why is it so hot?” It was a plea, her eyes flicking from gold to hazel and back again. “I can’t breathe.”

And he realized they’d run out of time.

CHAPTER 8

Thinking back rapidly to what Dorian had told him, he said, “Kirby, look at me,” putting every ounce of his dominance in his voice. No matter the nature of the creature that lived within Kirby, it wasn’t as dominant as Bastien’s leopard. That knowledge was instinctive, a survival mechanism built into every changeling, predatory or not.

Whimpering, Kirby met his gaze, unable to refuse the order. It was why he’d never given her any such order in their time together thus far, and never would in their ordinary life. He didn’t ever want his mate to obey him simply because her animal saw him as the more dominant, would tear himself to shreds before he stole her free will.

Today, however, she was frightened, panicking, the fear a shivering darkness in her eyes; both parts of her nature needed him to take charge. And though he was unprepared for such a violent and sudden shift, having expected to have time to ease her into it with the pack healer’s help, no way in hell was he going to allow anything to go wrong.

“Give in,” he ordered, Dorian’s advice about the need for Kirby to trust the trapped creature within resonating in his mind. “Give in¸ Kirby.”

Crying out, Kirby went to her knees, pressing a fisted hand to her abdomen. Her eyes were huge and wet when she looked up. “Bastien, it’s clawing at me!”

She was, he realized, too confused to understand him, her focus shot. Going down in front of her, he put his hands on either side of her head, anchoring her in the instant. “No, it just wants out.” He kept his tone firm, steady. “It isn’t trying to hurt you.”

When her breathing went shallow, perspiration breaking out over her skin in a fine shimmer, he locked his eyes with hers. “Stop fighting, Kirby,” he said, once more using his dominance to force her to concentrate. “Accept your animal. That’s all it wants.”

Her face disappeared under his touch and he felt the plush kiss of fur before she was back, terror in every jagged breath, her eyes cycling between human and cat too hard, too fast. “No, no, something bad . . . something bad is happening!”

Partial shifts could be held on purpose, but it took considerable skill. This was dangerous, parts of her going in and out—because her arm had just done the same thing. “Kirby,” he growled, too afraid for her to temper his voice. “Listen to me. Nothing bad is happening.” It had been a child’s cry that had come out of her mouth, of the cub she’d been when her world went up in flames. “This is a good thing, a beautiful thing.”

Another scream, a trickle of blood from her nose.

No, no, no. Shifting should never be this horrible pain. “You can’t fight it, baby. If you do, you’ll rip yourself apart.” He controlled the urge to yell, conscious that might scare the animal within her, make her devolve further. “Trust in the shift. Let it happen.”

She shook her head, skin clammy and claws digging into his wrists in feral desperation. “I won’t be able to come back.” Piercing terror, her legs shifting in and out to leave her fighting for balance.

“You will.” He steadied her. “You will.”

This time when she cried out, her skin bubbled with pinpricks of blood, as if her body was being turned inside out. Frantic, the human part of him turned to the leopard, found an answer in the animal’s linear thinking. “I’ll shift first,” he said, shaking her wrists enough to capture her attention. “Your cat will follow mine.” It was a gamble, one that relied on the level of her trust in him. “I’m more dominant.”

“Cat?” Dazed golden irises met his.

“Yes.” The fact she’d no doubt assume he meant she was a leopard, too, would work in his favor. “Your cat will do what I say.” At least until his Kirby found her confidence again.

Her clawed hands dropped to dig into the fallen leaves, her body shaking hard enough that her teeth clattered. “I’m so afraid.”

“Don’t be.” Cupping her face, he kissed her, hoping the tactile reassurance would allow her to hear him. “It’s not an intruder, baby. It’s just another part of you.”

ANOTHER part of me.

A part she’d forgotten and kept trapped for a lifetime.

Of course it hurt. It—they—hurt so much.

“I’ll be able to come back?” she sobbed, drowning in shame at having done this horrifying thing . . . and then her mind shifted and she felt so ashamed at having left her human half alone all this time . . . before the human part of her was looking out at Bastien once again.

“Yes.” Absolute confidence in Bastien’s voice, no room for argument. “Now, just think of your cat and become your other self.” He dissolved into a million particles of shattering light, his clothes disintegrating off him, and then there was a big, heavily muscled leopard in front of her, its forehead gently bumping her own.

Heart thundering at the proximity of a creature so dangerous and extraordinary, she felt a need, such terrible need to be the same, to run, to look at the world through eyes far more keen than the human ones that were all she could use now. It hurt to be shut away, to be tied up, to be only half. Why was she doing this to them? It was time to run, to play, to be together . . . to be with him.

Frighteningly aware her thoughts weren’t exactly human, Kirby attempted to wrench back control. Searing pain in her rib cage, claws raking her bloody.

Bastien snarled in a violent fury of sound.

And the pain stopped.

Your cat will follow mine.

Scared still, she held the primal green gaze of the leopard who had made her a promise, and trusted.

It was agony but it wasn’t pain. It was a stunning, dazzling ecstasy and it tore her up then put her back together. Afterward, she wobbled, her body’s center of gravity dramatically altered. Her view, too, had changed, become low—she was staring at the black spotted golden chest of the leopard in front of her.

Small, thought the cat that was her, tipping up its head to look at the larger predator. When he butted his face against her own, she felt happy . . . then shy, ducking her head . . . to see that her fur was a thick silvery gray with hidden bits of black. Lifting up a paw that seemed too big for a small cat, she looked at it quizzically, but then the leopard nuzzled at her and she dropped the paw, too happy to be with him to worry about why her fur was the wrong color.

He recognizes me!

It was a joyous thought. Even though she’d been hiding for so long, scared and guilty and afraid, he knew her. She’d fought the ugly fear to wake up because she’d found him, needed him to see her, accept her, claim her.

The other half of her had been brave all this time; now she had to be brave.

The leopard nipped at her ears. She jumped with a startled yowl. When the leopard huffed in laughter, she decided to pounce, show him she could play, too. Except her body went the wrong way and she ended up tumbled to the side. Prowling over, the leopard nudged her back up on all four paws, then put one of his own paws very carefully in front of the other. Again and again.

She didn’t understand why he was moving so slowly when he was strong and graceful. She wanted to see him run, wanted to run with him, the wind rippling through their fur.

Head tilted to the side, she continued to watch his strange behavior, and because she didn’t want him to move too far away, put her paws forward like he’d done. And she didn’t fall, was walking! Oh! Oh! Now she understood, now she knew he was teaching her.

Adoring him even more, she brushed her tail over his . . . but fell short. About to angle her head to look back, see what was wrong with her tail, she felt his twine around her own. Shy again, she looked down, her attention caught once more by her strange silver-colored paws. Lifting one up, she stared at it carefully, retracting and releasing her claws, spreading her toes. Big paw. Small cat. Still a cat.

Satisfied, she put it down and leaned her body against his, the warm beat of his heart a steady pulse against her fur.

When he walked again, she walked with him, his tail twining and untwining around her own, her body brushing his. He took her to a place that wasn’t too far, but had many scents. It confused her. Until he showed her how to pick one and track it, then nipped at her ear again when she tried to do too many things at once.

This time, she swiped at his leg with her claws to remind him she wasn’t weak.

Growling at the swipe, he bared his teeth.

She bared her own back at him.

And the leopard bent down to look into her eyes. Staring back, she reached up with a clawed paw and patted his face. He nipped at her nose, not in rebuke this time, but in affection. Happy, so happy, she butted her head against his and then they played, wild and free and without fear.

BASTIEN shifted into human form, and carefully lifted up the gorgeous Canadian lynx who was Kirby into his arms. She’d fallen asleep after two hours of play and exploration, her small body vibrant with energy. Now, she didn’t stir as he judged the distance to the aerie and took a running start, managing to climb up to the balcony outside it even though he only had the use of his feet and one hand.

Retracting his claws, he carried Kirby inside the open-plan space and placed her on his bed. His scent would comfort her in her sleep, because while the human half of Kirby hadn’t yet figured out what he was to her, the lynx knew. That lynx had fur of an astonishingly lush silvery gray marked with tiny patches of black on the legs. The black appeared again in the adorable tufts on her pointed ears and the end of her short tail.

“God, you are so beautiful, human or cat.”

Indulging himself with several luxuriant strokes through her fur, he finally forced himself to get up and pull on some jeans. Then, certain Kirby would sleep for a while yet, he jumped down and ran to the car to grab the groceries. His mate would be starving when she woke, the shift burning energy like wildfire, not to mention the way they’d explored together.

Keeping an eye on her as he prepared the meal, he wasn’t the least surprised when she shifted spontaneously in her sleep, a lusciously curved nude woman now on his bed, her skin flawless honey.

He groaned. “I should be up for sainthood.” Finding a blanket, he covered her sleeping body . . . and smiled at her drowsy murmur of his name before she snuggled down again.

A few minutes later, he called Lucas to update him on Kirby’s shift and species, then requested his alpha reach out through DarkRiver’s network of allies and friends to see if anyone knew of a lynx pack that had lost a Canadian lynx child approximately twenty-three years ago. He couldn’t assume Kirby had come from Canada, however, as there were American packs that included Canadian lynx. A number had even emigrated to join packs in Europe’s colder climes.

While wild lynx tended to be solitary, or stick to very small groups, changeling lynx had been influenced by the human half of their nature—akin to other feline changelings—to create larger, tightly bonded packs. Someone had to be missing a child, though the fact that Kirby had never been claimed argued against that.

Bastien hoped he was wrong. His mate had been alone so long—he wanted her to have a family, a pack. He was ready to offer his own in a heartbeat, but he also knew she’d have questions about her past, her existence as a lynx that he and his packmates wouldn’t be able to answer.

“Bastien?”

Having been stirring the protein-rich stew he’d made for her, he turned to find Kirby sitting up in bed, blanket wrapped around her body. Warm and soft with sleep, she was so perfect his heart ached. “There you are, little cat.” Turning off the cooker, he went to the bed and, taking a seat, cuddled her into his lap.

A yawn, her nose warm as she nuzzled at his throat. “I really am. A little cat.”

“You’re a Canadian lynx,” he said, his leopard rolling around in the sweet and wild taste of her, her two different scents now gorgeously combined into a single strong and unique thread. “Cute tufted ears and all.”

She froze, a dark shadow passing over her face. “A lynx?”

“Hey.” Fisting his hand in her hair, he rubbed his nose over her own. “What’s the matter?”

“C-can we still be together?” Kirby forced herself to ask, the idea of losing Bastien making her cat—a lynx!—hiss and snarl. “If I’m a lynx?” Not that it mattered; she would fight for him until her claws were bloody and her body broken. He was hers.

“Did I ever tell you about Mercy’s mate?” Bastien said with a slow smile that made her abdomen clench.

“Yes. His name is Riley.”

“He’s a wolf.”

Kirby’s cat sat up inside her, shook its head. Kirby felt like doing the same. “A wolf?”

“Yeah, that’s what my brothers and I said.” A scowl. “Planned to beat him up for it, too, but he adores Mercy so we tolerate him.”

Kirby saw right through the bluster. “You really like him,” she said, joy bubbling through her.

“Maybe.” A playful bite of her jaw, his teeth grazing her skin.

“Grr—”

Laughing from deep in his chest when she slapped a hand over her mouth, he drew away that hand to drop a tender kiss to the center of her palm. “You need to eat, my ferocious lynx,” he said, but seemed powerless to stop himself from dipping his head and running his lips up the sensitive line of her throat.

She arched into the caress.

“You’re all pretty skin and curves and luscious heat.” A wet kiss to the point just above her pulse; it made her shudder and curl her hand around his nape.

“I want to push off this blanket”—another kiss—“and spend all night exploring every delicious inch of you.”

CHAPTER 9

An hour later, dressed in one of Bastien’s shirts and a pair of panties from her overnight bag, Kirby finished eating and decided she could cheerfully murder the man beside her. Despite his aroused body and erotic kisses, he’d made it clear he had no intention of going any further, regardless of her repeated assurances that he would in no way be taking advantage of her.

“I feel gloriously, vividly alive,” she said as he fed her a thin slice of ripe pear, the dark, masculine scent of him making her breasts swell, her cat rubbing up against her skin in an effort to get closer to him. “It’s as if I’ve only been half-awake this entire time.”

She let him slide a second slice of succulent fruit between her lips, a drop of juice dripping down her chin. Bastien leaned over from where he was sprawled in the chair next to her own, still wearing just those well-loved jeans that hung distractingly low on his hips, and licked it off. Her breasts strained further, the place between her thighs damp. When his eyes went to half-mast, night-glow green glinting at her as his chest rose in a deep inhale, she had to fight to withhold a whimper.

“I’m going to do bad, bad things to you in a minute,” she threatened when she could speak, toes curling at his unrepentant smile.

“Open that pretty mouth.” He painted her lips with another juicy slice, then, pupils dilated, watched her act on his request oh-so-slow.

Kirby swallowed the first bite he offered, came back for the last of the slice, licking her tongue over his skin to get every bit of the juice. Neither woman nor cat was impressed when he withdrew his hand.

“Go a little higher,” he purred . . . and only then did she realize she’d cut through denim with her claws, was digging into the skin of his thigh.

Skin pulsing as her blood rushed to it, she retracted them. “I’m so sorry.” Control was obviously a learned skill. “Did I hurt you?”

“Want to kiss it better?”

Kirby’s eyes dipped to the erection straining the zipper of his jeans and, heart kicking, she decided to take the dare. But she hadn’t even lowered her head an inch before he halted her with a kiss that tasted of ripe, juicy pear and Bastien.

Moaning, she melted into it, her entire body humming in anticipation. She’d been waiting for him so, so long and now she ached. “Bastien!” An infuriated cry, his lips no longer on her own.

“What’s the rush?” He fed her another bite. “I want to play.”

Swallowing the fruit, she decided his idea of play might make her certifiable. She’d about decided to pounce on him and damn the consequences, when the solar-powered comm built into the wall chimed an incoming call.

Bastien turned lazily to glance at the code . . . and was on his feet with feline quickness. “Emergency code,” he said, answering the call.

Out of view of the camera where she sat at the table, Kirby was still able to see the scared girl on the viewscreen—a girl, who, it turned out, had crashed her car and needed a ride home.

“I broke the rules,” she admitted, voice trembling, “and went to a new club on my own. There’s no one else around.”

Kirby glimpsed the dark street behind the teenager, felt her stomach knot.

Bastien, however, didn’t lose his calm. First, he made certain the girl wasn’t injured, then got the exact details of her location. “I’ll have someone there ASAP.” He was already pulling out his phone as he spoke. “Will the car need to be towed?”

“Yes.”

In the next few minutes, Kirby heard Bastien arrange a rescue with a man named Teijan, as well as a tow, all the while reassuring his anxious young packmate. He kept her on the comm line until she was safely picked up by a handsome, dark-eyed man in a crisp black-on-black suit.

“Thanks,” Bastien said to the other male. “Sorry to interrupt your date.”

“No problem—it was going downhill anyway.” A lithe shrug. “I’ll get your misbehaving cub home.”

Call ended, Bastien finally sat back down.

Feeding him a slice of pear, Kirby said, “Is she a relative?” She was curious to know everything about him but wary of pushing too hard, even though her newly awakened cat rolled its eyes and said she was being silly. It was hard for her to trust instincts that had been dormant for a lifetime.

Bastien coaxed her into straddling his lap before saying, “Not blood, but she’s pack, and pack’s family.” A simple statement that encapsulated so much. “I’m one of the emergency contacts for her year group.” He pretended to bite her fingers when she fed him a second slice. “I also happen to be the one least likely to tear her a new one during the assist—I wait till after.”

She went to pick up another piece of fruit from the plate to find he’d already snagged the last slice. “So,” she said, the feel of his thighs beneath her a slow seduction, “you have the right to discipline younger packmates? I thought that was up to the alpha.”

“We all take responsibility for the cubs.” He touched her lower lip with the slice in his hand, coating it with juice before licking the stickiness off in a very feline way, all flicks and licks. “This time, the offense is bad enough that she’ll be brought up before the maternal females.” He shuddered. “I’ve been there, and it’s not a comfortable place to be.”

Kirby had so many questions, about these “maternals,” about life in a pack, and when Bastien didn’t seem annoyed or tired by them, she kept asking, kept learning.

“Will I have to be part of your pack now?” She’d fallen in love with DarkRiver through his words—to be part of such a close-knit “family” . . . she couldn’t imagine it.

Bastien went motionless, his focus acute and eyes human—yet she could feel the cat brushing up against her. “Normally, no,” he said. “You’re lynx, and from outside the territory.”

Disappointment crushed the hopeful joy in her heart. “Oh.”

Seeing the way Kirby’s shoulders slumped, the light going out of her eyes, Bastien’s blood roared with a renewed wave of rage, his fury directed at the people who’d taught her to expect abandonment. He fought the anger with brutal force of will, because that wasn’t what his mate needed right now. “If, however”—he held her gaze, made sure she was listening—“you want to join, you can become pack. You just have to ask Lucas and take the oath.”

It wasn’t that simple, of course, but he’d make sure that for Kirby, it would be. The fact was, she’d be welcomed automatically into the pack as soon as they mated—but damn if he’d use her hunger to belong to rush her into the bond. He needed her to choose him, the leopard far too adoring of her to accept anything else.

“I’ll sponsor you,” he said, strangling his own need and focusing only on hers, the protective, possessive heart of him unable to see her hurting in any way. “First you have to promise you’re not a spy out to do dastardly deeds.”

Her smile branded his heart. “You’re wonderful.”

Leopard arching under the verbal petting, he said, “We’ll also have to discuss the fact you may one day find your lynx pack and want to be with them.” Shifting packs was nothing a changeling did easily, but Kirby’s situation called for flexibility.

“I can’t imagine it.” A wondering murmur, her claws kneading at his shoulders.

She had no fucking idea what it did to him to see her so comfortable with herself in his company. Deciding he’d better get up before he acted on his most primitive instincts where she was concerned, he took them both to their feet. Then, as they cleared the table, he luxuriated in the feel of her padding around in his space. Small and sexy and smelling of him, she was perfect.

When he tugged playfully at her ear after she came to hug him, she shivered, then blushed. Grinning, he nibbled at the tip of one ear. “So, my lynx likes her ears touched.” The discovery delighted both parts of his nature.

“It’s weird.” But she purred against him when he repeated the caress.

God, he was going to have so much fun with her in bed—fun his body wanted now. Gritting his teeth, he reminded himself she’d been through a hell of a lot in the past thirty-six hours, and snuggled her close. “Want to watch a movie and make out?”

“No.” A glare out of eyes gone translucent gold. “Not when you’re all talk, no action.”

“You are so in trouble.” Adoring her for making no effort to mask her desire, he stalked her backward to the large floor cushions in front of the comm screen. “Big trouble.”

“I’m quaking in my boots.” With that sassy comment, and though a blush shaded her cheeks, she slid one small hand over his erection.

Bastien lost it.

Her breasts were crushed against his chest the next instant, as he took her mouth in a kiss so sexual it burned, her nipples hard points he wanted to touch, to taste. Raising one hand, he went to close it over a plump mound when his leopard raked its claws through his gut in a harsh reminder of what was at stake.

Breaking the kiss so suddenly it left them both off balance, he cupped her face, spoke before she could. “I don’t ever want you to regret being with me,” he said, hiding nothing of what he felt for her. “I never want you to question the first night we spend together, wonder if your choice was driven by shock or fear.” Agony seared him at the mere thought of it. “That would fucking break my heart, Kirby.”

Kirby had been falling for Bastien since the second they met, but at that instant she tumbled head over heels. He was hers and he was wonderful. Retracting the claws that had sliced out when he so abruptly broke contact, she petted his chest. “I would never regret being with you.”

Only Bastien would do for her, no one else. She didn’t need experience to know that what they had was special, a gift. “But”—she pressed two fingers over his lips when he parted them as if to speak, fierce emotion threatening to choke her—“I can see how a protective, stubborn leopard might think tonight might not be the best time to get naked and have a really, really good time.”

He growled deep in his chest.

Scrunching up her nose at him, she said, “I promise to protect your virtue.” That was when she realized he’d given her the sexual reins, this strong, dominant male, who, instinct told her, liked to take the lead. How could she do anything but adore him? “I’ll settle for first base.”

Green eyes gone night-glow met her own. “I’m constantly being suckered by the women in my life,” he muttered, and when she raised her eyebrows, added, “To think I took you for shy.”

Grinning, she nuzzled a kiss to his throat. “Instead of a movie, maybe we could talk about your family?” she suggested, still diffident about asking for emotional intimacy.

It took him less than fifteen minutes to have her in hysterics with tales of his “feral” childhood. When he started in on Mercy’s inspired ideas to run off women she didn’t think were good enough for her brothers—including the “infamous” kitten defurring incident—Kirby gulped. “I guess I better prepare myself.”

Bastien scowled where he lay on a large floor cushion, muscular arms crossed behind his head. “I was planning to tell her soon, but—”

“Don’t worry about leaving me alone for a few hours,” she interrupted before she could stop herself, shifting to her knees on her own cushion. Bastien’s family was a core part of his life and she needed to know they’d accept her. If they didn’t . . . “I—I want you to tell her.”

Scowl even heavier at her blurted-out statement, Bastien hauled her down to sprawl on his chest. “I was going to say Sage is going to blab anyway, so it can wait.”

Kirby nodded but clearly didn’t do a good job of hiding her nerves because, eyes narrowed, he continued to speak. “If I had my way, I’d have introduced you to the whole damn lot of them the instant after we met.” The unadulterated pride in his tone made her eyes burn. “I just didn’t want to scare you with the lunatic asylum straightaway.”

Kirby’s laugh was shaky, a little wet. “Really?”

Bastien stroked her hair off her face. “Really.” Damn the people who’d taught his mate she wasn’t good enough, the scars so deep even her lynx’s knowledge of their bond couldn’t keep them from breaking open. Only constant love and affection would achieve that goal. Bastien had every intention of showering Kirby in both. It would be his pleasure and his privilege.

“The second my mother knows about you,” he warned, “she’s going to start knitting booties for her grandchildren—and she’ll call you up, ask which patterns you prefer. Mercy’s barely three months along and she’s already in possession of enough booties for a football team. One with teeny tiny players.”

Kirby’s shoulders trembled as she struggled to keep a straight face. “No?”

“Oh, yes. Be afraid, be very afraid.”

A firm shake of her head. “I already like your family.”

“They’ll love you—after they make you run the gauntlet. Because you know, you could be a devious wench out to break my heart.” He thought about Mercy, decided another warning was in order. “My sister is really overprotective. Show no fear.”

Kirby bared her teeth. “Bring on the kitten defurring tools.”

“That’s my lynx.”

CHAPTER 10

After a night of exquisite torture holding Kirby’s warm, curvy body against his own without it going any further, Bastien spent the day coaching her on how to shift at will, as well as how to handle senses that had become far more acute now that her lynx was out of hibernation.

With the mating bond not yet set in stone, he was brutally possessive of her, but suggested they call in Dorian for a couple of hours. “Dorian learned to move in cat form as an adult,” he told Kirby, “so he’ll be able to explain things better.” The other male was also already mated, thus less apt to set off Bastien’s aggressive instincts, instincts he couldn’t fully control this far into the mating dance.

Kirby agreed to the instruction, but she was wary with Dorian.

However, and in spite of his violent dominance, the white-blond sentinel proved a patient teacher who had Kirby smiling at him by the time the session ended. “Thank you,” she said. “I’m so glad Bastien asked you to come over.”

Dorian didn’t respond to the heartfelt words with an affectionate touch, as Bastien knew he normally would have; the sentinel had no doubt picked up on Bastien’s precarious equilibrium. “You’re doing me a favor,” the other male said instead. “Finally I get to teach someone.”

He thrust a hand through his hair. “You have no idea the razzing I took from the others when I fell on my ass my first few hunts.” A scowl directed at Bastien. “Bas here sent me a nice sensitive card with a leopard in diapers on the front.”

Kirby’s mouth dropped open. “Bastien, you didn’t.”

Cuddling her close, he rubbed his jaw along her temple. “Sheesh, Kirby, it’s not like I could hug him and say motivational bullshit.”

Dorian’s snarl was belied by the amusement in his vivid blue eyes. They both knew the razzing had been affectionate, the entire pack overjoyed at his ability to shift.

“I’ll see you both later,” the sentinel said now. “I promised my mate and son an after-school drive to get ice cream.”

It wasn’t long after Dorian’s departure that Kirby’s phone rang, the records request she’d filed answered not by social services, but by a detective who’d been on the job at the time of the fire. “I never forgot you,” Detective Shona Bay said, the intensity of her dark gaze apparent even through the small screen. “You were so tiny, so shocked. I carried you to the hospital myself, your poor little feet were in such bad shape.”

Then, as Bastien held Kirby, the detective told her why the victims had never been identified. “Your family was just passing through. Came in on the train, rented the vacation house with cash for a week. No paper trail outside the home, and everything in it went up in smoke when an electrical fault caused a fatal overload early that morning.”

“The owner?” Bastien couldn’t believe he—or she—hadn’t remembered the names of the people to whom they’d rented a home.

The detective rubbed her hands over her face. “I went looking the first day, had a bad feeling it may have been a cash rental, given his habit of them.” Lips twisting, she said, “Turned out he’d had a fall while doing maintenance on another one of his properties two days earlier, took a serious bump to the head. Ended up recovering totally, except for some short-term memory loss.”

Bastien didn’t need the detective to spell it out to realize the time span of that memory loss had included the landlord’s meeting with a small lynx family. Luck had not been on the side of his little cat that long-ago day in Georgia, he thought, holding her tighter as her hand flexed and fisted convulsively against his back, her arm wrapped around him.

“Far as we could figure,” the detective continued, eyes on Kirby, “you must’ve squeezed outside through a pet door your parents probably didn’t expect you to fit through.” Shaking her head, she said, “Your palms were burned, too, soot and tears on your face.”

“Were you able to recover anything?” Bastien smoothed his hand down Kirby’s spine, able to feel the fine tremors shaking her frame. “The smallest piece could help Kirby trace her family.”

“I found a photo that looked like it was taken in a maternity suite of two adults with a baby,” the detective said. “Posted it everywhere I could think of, used it to search through missing persons files for years, but I made a mistake.” Her shoulders slumped. “I searched only through the missing tagged human, figured it had to be right since you were human.”

Kirby, his strong Kirby with her courageous heart, shook her head. “You had no way of knowing.” Taking a deep breath, she said, “The photo . . . do you still have it? Even a copy in a database?”

Shona Bay blew out a breath. “We had a major server meltdown ten years back that affected a lot of systems, so I can’t promise. I’m sorry.” The other woman tapped a finger on her desk. “I’m going to hunt for the physical file and the original photograph, but given the time that’s passed, there’s a good chance it’s already been destroyed.”

Kirby nodded, holding it together until the detective signed off. Then she screamed, thumping her fists against Bastien’s chest. “It’s not fair! I just want to know who I am! I just want to know!”

Aware she couldn’t hear him right now, Bastien simply kept her safe while she worked out her rage and sorrow, then held her skin to skin all night, his own fury a wild thing inside him. He wanted to fix this for her, make it better, but there was nothing he could do but be with her as she built a new life for herself out of the ashes of the old.

IN the three days that followed, Bastien grew even prouder of Kirby’s strength. She came back fighting, determined not to let the dead end of the records search stop her from living her life. “I made it this far alone,” she said, then touched her fingers shyly to his jaw. “Now I have you. No excuses for not going forward.”

Owned utterly, he took her to meet Lucas so she’d know she had the DarkRiver alpha’s sanction to join the pack. She handled the meeting with a sweet self-assurance that had Lucas giving her an approving look and a gentle kiss that was more than simple acceptance; it was the welcome of a predatory changeling alpha pleased with this new member of his pack.

Smug and happy because she was his, Bastien showed Kirby more about being changeling, watched over her during another session with Dorian, taught her about pack life, and introduced her to a lynx family that lived in the territory. The Bakers were a mature couple, with a grown son and a younger daughter, but Enid and Kirby clicked at once.

As a result, she felt comfortable enough to go off on exploratory trips in the forest with the older woman, Bastien and Kirby both aware Enid had much to teach her about her unique lynx senses. Bastien remained violently proud of his mate for her courage, but he had to fight his protectiveness each time she disappeared into the trees. He refused, however, to stifle her confidence or damage her new friendship by insisting on accompanying the women.

Instead, he spent the time working via a comm link to the office . . . and worrying, conscious of how new Kirby was to her animal form, her reaction times slow. The forest was their home, but it had its dangers, and she didn’t yet know them all.

Now, late afternoon on the third day, she tugged him down with her hands gripping his hair and nipped at his lower lip. “Go to dinner with your brothers.” It was a passionate order, her brow dark. “Otherwise you’ll pace a hole in the floor, and I won’t be able to concentrate for thinking about you.”

Seeing the truth of the latter in the pale gold of eyes gone lynx and hating that he was causing her anxiety, he forced himself to do as she asked. Somehow, he even managed to fool Sage and Grey into thinking he was on an even keel as the three of them unanimously decided to invite themselves to dinner at Mercy and Riley’s, the couple having returned from Arizona the previous night.

“We’ll take upside-down pineapple cake as a bribe,” Grey said with mischievous feline cunning. “Mercy can’t resist it.”

Bastien wasn’t the least surprised to discover his sister already knew he was seeing someone—though Sage had apparently kept quiet till then. The normality of his siblings’ ensuing ribbing helped the time pass, soothed the ragged edges inside him. He especially got a kick out of telling Mercy to do her worst; his lynx, he thought with snarling confidence, could handle it.

Back at the aerie just after nine thirty, he didn’t panic when he found it empty, despite the fact the plan had been for the two women to return by nine. Following Kirby’s scent—as vivid to him as if it was his own—he found her a short distance away, having a grand old time playing a game with three non-changeling lynx.

Bounding up to him the instant he appeared, she looked at him in wild welcome. And since Bastien had no resistance where Kirby was concerned, he stripped and shifted . . . to find himself pounced on, his mate in a playful mood that translated into her human form when they shifted back twenty minutes later.

Purring in his arms in bed, her skin flushed, Kirby kissed him with luscious slowness. “Why are we torturing ourselves again?”

“I have no fucking idea.” His chest heaved up and down, his leopard’s fur brushing against the inside of his skin.

Kirby ran her fingers over his kiss-wet lips. “I want you.”

At that instant, he couldn’t think of any rational reason not to take her, brand her. So when the comm panel chimed, he ignored it—until he realized it was his alpha’s code. Groaning, he left the erotic warmth of Kirby’s arms to answer the call, audio only.

What Lucas had to say changed the tenor of the entire night. “We’ve had word from a lynx pack in Calgary that’s been searching for a small family unit that disappeared twenty-three years ago.”

Kirby began to tremble, hope a tremulous whisper inside her.

Striding over to cradle her in his lap, Bastien asked the question she couldn’t form. “What did they say?”

“One of their members decided on a largely solitary existence when he turned eighteen,” Lucas replied. “He stayed in erratic touch with the pack—sometimes nothing more than a scribbled postcard after a year.”

His lynx nature, Kirby understood, must’ve been very strong.

“A year and a half after they’d last heard from him,” Lucas continued, “he contacted them to say he’d fallen for and mated with a human woman, had a baby girl, and intended to head home with his mate and cub in a month. No one ever arrived, and neither did the photos he’d promised of his new family.”

Blood cold, Kirby found her voice. “Why was I . . .” She couldn’t say it, couldn’t ask why the pack hadn’t come for her.

“They couldn’t find you.”

“What?” Bastien growled. “They lost a child?”

“The last message just said the family was on the road, roaming their way home.” Lucas’s voice held taut frustration. “It meant the pack had no idea where to look when Kirby and her parents didn’t arrive. They dispatched trackers, sent out requests to countless local and international agencies, asking for news on a family composed of an adult male lynx, a human female, and a female lynx cub.”

“But I never shifted.” Kirby ran a shaking hand through her hair, her thoughts in splinters. “W-what happens now?”

“You look very much like the elder who contacted me,” Lucas told her, “so there’s not much doubt in my mind about the familial relationship. Still, I’d suggest a DNA test to confirm it, and quickly. Your grandma doesn’t strike me as a patient lady. She’s ready to claim her cub and your grandpa is willing to fight us all for you.”

Kirby’s lower lip quivered as Lucas signed off, her throat thick. “I have a grandma and a grandpa.”

Bastien wrapped her in the solid safety of his arms. “Yeah, and they sound just as tough as their grandchild.”

Kirby began to cry in earnest. She had a family, and they hadn’t thrown her away. They wanted her, had searched for her all these years. It altered the foundations of her existence.

THE DNA test was done by Dorian’s scientist mate, and a mere twenty-four hours following Lucas’s call, Kirby walked into the living room of DarkRiver’s healer. To come face-to-face with an older woman who had eyes of pale lynx-gold set in a face that echoed Kirby’s as strongly as Bastien’s echoed his brothers. She took one look at Kirby and enclosed her in an embrace so fierce, Kirby could barely breathe.

But it was all right, Kirby holding on just as hard. Then she was being hugged by a man of medium height with snow-white hair who had tears in his eyes and called her “my cub’s cub,” a hundred, a thousand words spoken over one another as they tried to catch up on a lifetime.

“My son,” her grandmother said an hour later, the three of them walking alone in the woods behind the healer’s home, “he was a strong, wild one, and he loved you.” Her hands touched Kirby’s cheeks. “Don’t ever doubt that.”

Throat scraped raw from the emotional storm that had passed, Kirby nodded, asked, “My mother’s name, can you tell me?”

“No, kitten, I’m so sorry,” her grandmother said, squeezing her hand. “The silly boy, he was so possessive—called her his mate in the message he sent.” Old sorrow in her gaze, before the pale gold filled with determination. “But now that we have your name, we should be able to use it in concert with our son’s to trace your mother.”

It might take time, Kirby realized on a crashing wave of hope, but it was very, very doable. Kirby’s birth must’ve been registered somewhere. Those records would exist. Even if not, there had to be travel records, or a rental agreement, a co-signed loan . . . Taking a shaky breath she hugged both her grandparents in turn. “Thank you for searching for me.”

“We will always be there for you.” Her grandfather held her close with one arm around her shoulders, while his mate stroked Kirby’s hair back with gentle hands and said, “We have something for you.”

It was a gift beyond price.

“A recording of my father’s last message home,” she said to Bastien that night. “Will you watch with me?” She couldn’t imagine sharing this painful, beautiful instant with anyone but her green-eyed leopard, strong and protective and her rock.

“I’d be honored.” Slotting in the data-crystal, he wrapped his arms around her from behind and they watched the comm screen fill with the image of a handsome blond man with unusual green and yellow-flecked hazel eyes that lit up when he spoke of his mate and child.

“I can’t wait for you to meet my beautiful mate.” His pride poured out of the screen. “She’s small and human, but fierce as any lynx. And our cub? A gorgeous, wild thing.” Love filled his expression. “You’d laugh to see me, Mom. I’m gaga over my girls, can’t bear to be parted from them. We’ve explored the world together, but our baby will be shifting soon, and we want her to be able to play as a lynx with her cousins, grow up surrounded by pack like I did.”

Pushing a hand through his hair, he pressed two fingers to his mouth, then onto the screen. “We’re roaming the long way home, but we’ll be there soon. Then you can tell me what a fool I was for thinking I’d never want to bond with anyone.” Laughing, his self-deprecating smile contagious. “I love you both. See you in a month.”

Kirby cried again in Bastien’s arms, for all that had been lost, for the fact she’d never meet her mother and father, and for the joy of having found her grandparents, of knowing she had never been unwanted.

She was Kirby.

She was changeling.

She was a lynx.

She adored a certain possessive red-haired leopard.

She had family. She had friends. Her life was full to overflowing.

CHAPTER 11

The next two days were both strange and wonderful for Kirby. First came an envelope from Detective Shona Bay. In it was a note scrawled in blue ink:

Turns out I never returned your file to Records after the last time I checked it out. Bad behavior on my part, but it means it wasn’t destroyed as per protocol. I’m glad I can give you this at least. I only wish I could’ve done more.

—Shona

Below the note was the original photograph found in the fire-ravaged home, of the man Kirby had already seen on the message, a tiny baby swaddled in a white blanket, and a woman with shiny light brown hair and an enormous smile, her eyes turned lovingly toward the child in her arms.

Joy blazed from the image, and it was enough to heal the last of the ragged wounds in Kirby’s soul. “I have her face now,” she whispered to Bastien, the two of them sitting on the edge of the aerie balcony, her wild lynx friend curled up by her side. “I can see with my own eyes that she loved me, that they both loved me. One day, I’ll discover her name, but until then”—tears smeared her vision, turned her voice husky—“I’ll just call her Mom.”

Enfolding her in his arms, Bastien said, “I dared call Mom by her name once when I was a cub. It did not end well for young Bastien.”

Kirby laughed, the sound wet. “I think my mom would’ve been the same. My dad, too.” It felt good to say that, to acknowledge the two loving people who’d brought her into this life.

Her grandparents cried when she gave them a copy of the photograph, then asked her to stay with them in the guest aerie they’d been assigned on DarkRiver land. She hated being separated from Bastien—in this, she was her father’s daughter, she thought, her throat thick—but hungry to get to know more about her family, she acquiesced.

However, when her grandmother asked her to come to Canada, join their pack, she didn’t hesitate to shake her head. “I want to visit, meet my aunts, my cousins, spend more time with you, but my place is here.” With Bastien, his name branded on her heart so deep, she knew nothing would ever erase it.

Mate. The lynx swiped a claw inside her mind, a little exasperated at the human half’s thickheadedness. Mate!

Oh!

Champagne in her bloodstream, her joy effervescent, Kirby had to force herself to stay in place rather than running to pounce on Bastien. Enid had been explaining the more intimate facts of changeling life to her during their time together, things a parent would normally teach his or her growing cub. Kirby had been reticent with her questions at first, but Enid was so matter-of-fact about it, having already brought up a son, her daughter apt to be as curious when she grew older, that there was no awkwardness.

One of the things Enid had spoken to her about was the wonder of the soul-deep connection that was the mating bond. So Kirby understood the precious gift of it.

More, she felt the beauty of it deep within.

Once, she would’ve worried that Bastien hadn’t initiated the bond because he wasn’t sure he wanted her for life. To think that now would be an insult to her leopard, strong and loyal and so insanely protective that she knew they were going to butt heads about it on a regular basis. She couldn’t wait.

“What?” Her grandmother scowled at her. “Your far-too-charming leopard refuses to relocate to our territory?”

Kirby knew full well her “far-too-charming leopard” would do anything to make her happy. She felt the same about him. And Bastien’s bonds to his family, his pack, had grown over a lifetime, would hurt to rip out, while hers were just budding. Care for his heart was the most important, but not the only reason for her decision.

Closing her hand over her grandmother’s, she said, “This land has become my home.” An absolute truth. “I’ve made friends”—she stroked her fingers through the fur of the wild lynx who’d followed her to the guest aerie—“started to put down roots, been treated as a packmate.”

It was her grandfather who placed his hand on her shoulder, squeezed. “I always knew my boy would sire a strong cub. Strong as another lynx I know.”

Making a face, her grandmother patted Kirby’s hand. “I’m proud of you for building a life for yourself, but I’m greedy to have you in mine, too.” A kiss pressed to her forehead, the older woman’s eyes narrowed as she said, “I expect you to visit several times a year. Bring your leopard so we can make sure he’s treating you right.”

In her grandmother’s voice, Kirby heard the resonance of old pain, of the agony of waiting for a young family that had never arrived. “I will,” she promised. “I’ll comm call every few days, too, if you don’t mind.” Never would she take this gift for granted.

“Mind?” A blinding smile. “I’ll look forward to each and every call.”

The rest of her grandparents’ visit passed by in a happy snapshot of talk and laughter, and yes, more than one teary moment. Returning to Bastien’s aerie the afternoon the two left for Calgary, she decided to make dinner while waiting for him to get back from the city. Her skin was tight with anticipation, woman and lynx both in possessive agreement.

It was about damn time Bastien Michael Smith understood that his mate was no longer vulnerable or shocked or in any way unsteady. She’d made her decision and it was a decision that would never, ever change. He was hers and she was keeping him.

So engrossed was she in her plans that she almost missed the sound of feet hitting the balcony, as if someone had climbed overlimb from another tree. A second later, a stunning woman wearing jeans and a simple white T-shirt stood in the open doorway, her red hair pulled back into a high ponytail and her legs long.

Even if Kirby hadn’t seen the photos scattered around the apartment and aerie, she’d have guessed the familial connection in a heartbeat. It wasn’t just the hair, she thought, but something about the shape of their eyes, a way they had of holding themselves. “You must be Mercy.” Hands a little clammy, she nonetheless smiled, recalling Bastien’s words: Show no fear. “I’m Kirby. Come in.”

“Thanks.” Sauntering inside, her walk lazily feline, Mercy took in the meal in progress on the kitchen counter, her body so lithely muscled that her pregnancy—her multiple pregnancy, according to Bastien—wasn’t obvious at first glance. “What’s for dinner?”

Kirby bit the inside of her cheek and decided what the hell. “Fresh kitten cutlets. Want one?”

A hitch in Mercy’s step, before she turned and saluted Kirby with two fingers, no hint of a smile on her face. “Touché.”

Conscious she wasn’t out of the woods, Kirby walked around to finish prepping the cutlets—a prosaic chicken—before washing her hands and putting on a pot of coffee. Mercy said nothing throughout, simply leaned up against a nearby wall, arms folded and eyes watchful. Her dominance was potent, the other woman a senior member of DarkRiver.

“So,” Kirby said, unwilling to be intimidated, “pistols at dawn?”

Mercy’s eyes gleamed. “Bastien tells me you’re a kindergarten teacher.”

“Yes.” To her joy, she had a job to return to next week, the board having been sympathetic to her unique circumstances. “Maybe I’ll teach your pupcubs one day.” Bastien had laughingly explained that since no one knew if Mercy’s babies would shift into wolf pups or leopard cubs, everyone had taken to calling them pupcubs.

“Maybe.”

Yes, Mercy was a tough nut to crack, but Kirby wasn’t about to give up, her lynx digging in its claws. “Cream? Sugar?”

“Both. Two sugars.” A pause. “The pupcubs like sugar.”

Kirby considered whether that tiny tidbit indicated a thaw in Mercy’s mood, decided not to be too optimistic. “Here you go. Bastien’s blend—much nicer than the instant stuff I used to drink until he spoiled me.”

“Bastien does have good taste.” Mercy unfolded her arms to accept the cup. “You like his city apartment?”

“Sure, it’s stunning, but I love this aerie more.” The sound of the tree leaves whispering in the wind, the wild lynx who often dropped by, the scents in the air, and most of all, Bastien’s happiness here, it all mingled into a song of homecoming. “I do still have to use the rope ladder to get down,” she admitted. “I don’t quite trust myself to jump even in cat form.”

“You’ll get better.” Mercy took a sip of the coffee. “Dorian said he spoke to you.”

“Yes, he’s been incredibly helpful. So has everyone else I’ve met from the pack.”

“We’re not always this welcoming with strangers—it’s a good thing you knew Bastien beforehand.”

Kirby decided to stop fencing. This was too important. “I adore him, Mercy,” she said, holding the other woman’s gaze even though her lynx knew she risked angering a far more dangerous predator. “I’d adore him if he didn’t have a penny to his name or a pack to call his own, or if he lived in a tent.” Her chest ached with the fury of her emotions, her breath catching. “He’s smart and gorgeous and wonderful and overprotective and stubborn enough to drive me mad and I can’t live without him!”

“If you think Bas is stubborn,” Mercy drawled, “you haven’t seen Grey in action.” A slow smile so reminiscent of Bastien’s that Kirby missed him unbearably. “You had me at the kitten cutlets.”

Bursting out laughing, Kirby set aside her own coffee before she spilled it. “God, your stone face is legendary.”

Mercy patted her cheek, her leopard’s laughter in her eyes. “Welcome to the family, little sister.”

BASTIEN didn’t begrudge Kirby the time she was spending with her grandparents, but it had been fucking hard to not have her close. He hadn’t even bothered to attempt to deny himself the pleasure of watching over her from a distance the two nights she stayed at the guest aerie.

Yeah, he knew rationally that her grandparents weren’t going to hurt her, but caught in the coils of the mating urge, he wasn’t exactly thinking with clean logic. If Kirby decided to head to Canada to meet more of her father’s pack, he’d damn well be going along. Forget about being civilized and understanding—he needed to be with his mate.

It had seemed like the right choice not to push her into intimacy at the start, but now he wished he’d used the passionate heat between them to tie Kirby to him on the physical level at least. What if she began to pull back now that she’d seen all the choices open to her? What if she decided she might prefer to explore her sensuality with a fellow lynx?

The agonizing jealousy inspired by the thought of anyone else touching Kirby, and fed by his raw need to claim her, tore through him as he arrived at the aerie—to find her waiting in lynx form, ready for a run.

Barely controlling his desire to lunge at her, he stripped and shifted. Kirby rubbed up against him, her fur thick and soft, the way she pretended to bite him affectionate. As if she could feel his feral tension, wanted to soothe him . . . as a mate might do. His leopard settling at the petting, though he remained on a brutal edge, he took her on a run to the lower Sierra.

There was no snow yet, but there would be soon enough. Built for that environment, her paws natural snowshoes, his lynx might just outpace him on it. He looked forward to the challenge, to playing with Kirby on her natural turf. Now, however, he was content simply to be with her under the starlit night, the moon a silver spotlight that caressed her fur like a lover.

Arriving home at the midnight hour, the world hushed around them, Bastien shifted back into his human form, while Kirby stayed lynx. She was having trouble getting used to the nudity most changelings grew up accepting as natural. “I could jump up to the aerie, throw down some clothes.”

She nodded, tufted ears bobbing.

“Or,” he drawled, his gut tight with a need only Kirby could fulfill, “I could stand right here and watch a pretty, sexy woman come out of the shift, then run my hands all over her bitable body.”

He expected a yowl of defiance, but the world fractured into light and then a lusciously sensual woman—his mate—was rising from a crouch, honey-colored hair tumbling over her back as she smiled and crooked a finger . . . and the mating bond smashed into him, the connection vibrant and primal and tasting of Kirby.

Stunned, they stared at one another.

Bastien pounced the next instant, his hands on her hips, his lips on hers. Wrapping her arms around him, she opened her mouth and he took full advantage, giving his hands free rein to explore her curves. “You are mine,” he growled into her mouth. “Always mine. I love you until I can’t breathe.” The mating bond might’ve drawn them together, but it was now entangled with heartbonds as strong.

“You’re mine, too.” Hand fisting in his hair on that ferocious claim, she moaned and held on tight, her body straining as she rose on tiptoe. When she made a frustrated sound, he hitched her onto his hips and turned to the tree trunk, then paused.

“Bastien?” Kisses along his jaw, her skin silky soft against his.

“Bark will hurt your back,” he muttered, nibbling on the tip of her ear because he knew it drove her nuts.

Shivering, she purred, sought his lips for a kiss. He opened his mouth on her own, licked and tasted, but it wasn’t enough. He wanted her body under his, wanted to be inside her, her pleasure feeding his. “Up,” he said, his breath jagged. “Climb.”

She tightened her thighs around him. “No.” Nipples rubbing over the hard wall of his chest, she kissed him again, licking just the way he liked. “Here.”

He almost gave in, pounded her on the forest floor, was stopped only by the sneaking suspicion that had taken root when he’d realized how touch starved she’d been. “Have you done this before?” he asked, too aroused to be anything but blunt.

“No.” She didn’t stop tormenting him, her slickness erotic temptation against his abdomen. “I am so ready, Bastien.” Her body moving sinuously against his own. “I want to be with you. Only you.” Kiss after kiss. “I love you. I love you. I love you.”

God, she made him her slave.

Determined to give her a good memory despite his ragged control, he walked to the rope ladder and started hauling them up. She held on but did nothing else to help him, nibbling and kissing at his jaw until he thought he’d go mad. “Behave,” he snarled, nipping at her ear but careful not to hurt.

Another shiver, a wicked smile. “No.” Another kiss, this one on the mouth.

Swinging up onto the balcony, he somehow found the door, stumbled inside and to the bed. Where he finally, finally, had her curves under the rigid planes of his own body. Pinning her hands above her head with one hand around her wrists, he settled his lower body snug against her damp heat.

It made him groan.

Kirby arched up, sliding her folds over his erect cock.

“Bad lynx.” Chest heaving, he snapped his teeth at her.

She snapped back, then arched her neck in invitation. Leaning down, he suckled at the flutter of her pulse. Laving his tongue over the red mark with unhidden possessiveness, he closed one hand over her breast, teased her nipple. “You are so pretty everywhere.”

A shy-sweet smile, sparkling pleasure-hazed eyes, her tongue flirting with his until he gripped her jaw to hold her in place for an open-mouthed kiss, wet and hot and a prelude to sex. Legs still locked around him, she opened for him, demanded more, the damp musk of her so intoxicating his claws sliced out to tear the sheets.

“Shit.” Retracting them, he pressed his forehead to hers. “Sorry, baby. I’m having trouble holding it togeth—”

Pelvis arching against him, she sucked at his throat as he’d done at hers—possessive and determined—and that was it. All he wanted, needed, was Kirby. She was liquid heat and hot honey on his fingers when he touched her between her thighs.

“Bastien!”

If he’d had any hope of taking this slow, he lost it on the ripples of her pleasure. Pushing one sweetly curved thigh wider, he waited only until her body had stopped clenching in orgasm before beginning to slide in. She moaned, her claws digging just enough into his shoulders that it felt amazing.

“Tell me if it hurts,” he grit out, because not for anything would he hurt his Kirby.

Kisses on his throat, a purr in the back of hers. “It feels sooooo good.”

Shuddering, he withdrew after that first shallow penetration and slid back in, reining in his instinct to thrust; she was so tautly stretched around him, so small. But she was also lusciously aroused, her unhidden desire threatening to erase the last, faint glimmers of his control.

It was excruciating.

It was beautiful.

Then at last, he was buried to the hilt and they were kissing.

Hand tightening on her thigh, the taste of her in his every sense, he withdrew, pushed back in slowly.

Once. Twice. “Fuck!”

Spine locking, he came in a violent rush, his face buried in the curve of his mate’s neck. His utter lack of control would’ve been embarrassing . . . except that he felt her gasp as she came again, her body clamping down possessively on his cock.

Male pride restored, Bastien collapsed on her. Her fingers petted his hair, her arms and legs imprisoned his very happy body, her words a husky whisper. “Can we do that again? I really, really, really liked it.”

Bastien grinned. “Hell, yeah.”

EPILOGUE

Kirby glared at Bastien as he led her out in front of a lovely home set deep in the forest the next day. “Is this your parents’ house?”

“Yep.”

She dug her heels in. “I’m about to meet your mom and dad and you couldn’t have warned me?” Her old jeans and faded T-shirt would hardly make the best first impression, not to mention the leaves she no doubt had in her hair from playfully wrestling with her mate not long ago. “We’re leaving right now so I can change.”

Bastien tugged her forward instead, insouciant. “Don’t worry, little cat. They’re going to see what I see.”

Kirby wasn’t so certain, but the door was already opening to reveal a small woman with hair of rich dark gold. “Bastien? Why are you lurking out—” A dazzling smile broke out on her face. “Well,” she said, walking over to take Kirby into her arms, “there you are.”

The maternal warmth of the touch, the words, erased any nerves Kirby might have had. And when Lia Smith said, “I’m so happy to welcome another daughter to this family,” she knew she was going to adore Bastien’s mother just as much as she loved Lia’s son.

“Hey, Frenchie!” Sage poked his head out the door, the sun hitting the brown of his hair to reveal hidden strands of red. “Did you bring any baguettes?”

“Why don’t you go season something, Herb?”

Kirby’s shoulders shook as Lia Smith glared at each man in turn. “I gave you both beautiful names. Use them.”

“Yes, Mom.”

Kirby didn’t stop smiling the entire time she was in the Smith house, was the same when she spoke to her grandparents on the comm later that night. “Our future babies are going to be utterly spoiled,” she said to her mate afterward, delighted at the idea.

“In case you missed it,” Bastien muttered, “they’re also going to be demons.”

Kirby laughed, pleased with the idea of her own little red-headed demons. “If Mercy and Riley are having pupcubs,” she mused, “what will we have?”

“Lynxpards?”

“Doesn’t have the same ring to it.”

“Hmm.” A long pause before Bastien began to laugh so hard he almost fell off the bed. “We’ll have little birbys, that’s what we’ll have.”

She slapped his chest. “Don’t you dare say that in front of your brothers or we’ll never hear the end of it.”

Of course he let it slip and of course the future birbys became part of the family lexicon. Sitting around the table being teased about it for the umpteenth time two months later, her visiting grandparents laughing as hard as the Smiths, Kirby knew she’d want it no other way. “I think we should visit Vera tomorrow and take her a great big cake.”

Bastien smiled. “Yeah. I think we should. She gave us the best gift, didn’t she?”

“Yes.”