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Foxx gave a put-upon sigh and turned the car around, heading back to the store.
She probably wouldn’t be there. And even if she was, she was probably married, or taken, or completely uninterested.
No, not uninterested. Of that he was sure. She’d felt that heat, too.
If she wasn’t there, he’d forget her. If she was there, and he didn’t feel the same punch of lust, he’d walk away. And if she was there, and he felt the way he had yesterday?
He’d have to take it one step at a time.
A half hour later, they pulled into the parking lot in a spray of dust and gravel, just like before. The old brick store looked even more decrepit than he remembered, if such a thing were possible. Clean enough—no trash or broken-down cars littered the place—but the building was definitely in need of a little TLC.
Foxx’s stomach rumbled as he threw the car into park. “I’m hungry. ”
“What else is new?”
Foxx pushed out of the car and headed for the store without a backward glance, not bothering to ask if Paenther wanted anything this time. It was clear he did, or he wouldn’t have demanded they come back here. Fortunately, Foxx didn’t seem to have a clue just what it was that his companion wanted.
Paenther climbed out of the car more slowly, feeling as off-balance as he had yesterday. After four hundred years, one would think a man would outgrow that peculiar awkwardness of first infatuation, yet here he was, palms damp, pulse racing.
The last thing he needed was the distraction of a woman. Her beauty had undoubtedly grown way out of proportion in his mind. That was the true reason he’d insisted on returning. Once he saw her again, saw that she was nothing out of the ordinary, he’d be able to forget about her and stay focused on the only things that mattered.
As he crossed the parking lot, the wind rattled in the trees, tugging at his hair and coat, the loamy scent of the woods mixing with the dust of the parking lot.
Hell, she probably isn’t even here.
But as he reached for the front door, a movement out of the corner of his eye caught his attention. He turned…and froze. She stood outside, at the corner of the building, in a shapeless pale green dress that somehow only accentuated her delicate beauty. Watching him.
Damn, but she was even more lovely than he’d remembered.
She smiled. His heart rate soared, and he was closing the distance between them before he’d given any conscious thought to whether or not he should. As he neared, she backed up, one small step at a time, turning the corner into shade. And privacy.
Paenther followed her into the sharply cooler air of the shade, then stopped two arm lengths away, trapped between the invitation in her bright blue eyes and the disbelief of the warrior inside him. What am I doing? Vhyper needs me.
Squirrels chattered in the sun-drenched trees behind the building. Vhyper was nowhere to be found. And he just wanted a kiss. For the first time in as far back as he could remember, lust had risen, curling up through the burning wreckage the Mage had made of his soul. He wanted. Needed. And the feel of it was intoxicating.
He took a step toward her, then stopped again. The last thing he wanted to do was frighten her. Like all Ferals, he was bigger than most human males. And there was something innately fragile about her.
To his surprised relief, she took the pursuit out of his hands and closed the distance between them, gliding into his arms with lightness and grace. He instinctively cradled her against him like the most delicate flower even as she wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed her mouth to his.
Fire erupted in his chest, rushing out and down, heating his limbs and body and blood in a way that pleasured instead of pained. All thought of gentleness flew from his head as she swept her tongue into his mouth with a strength and certainty that had him suddenly wondering if her delicacy had more to do with a lack of age.
He pulled back from the kiss, keeping her tight against his body as he stared down into that exquisite face.
“How old are you, beauty?”
“Old enough. ” That smile played at her mouth, her eyes twinkling with a depth that reassured him she was no child.
He covered her mouth, sweeping his tongue into hers as he pulled her tight against him. She tasted like the raindrops of old, sweet and pure, and smelled like violets. And he wanted her with a need unlike anything he’d ever experienced. With each stroke of his tongue against hers, his body hardened until he was throbbing with the desire to be inside her.
Her arm slipped from around his neck and moved down to slide over that distended part of his anatomy. The air hissed into his mouth as he pulled back, his gaze driving into hers.
Blue eyes swam with passion and a need nearly as great as his own.
He pressed his lips to her temple as he slid his palm down her thigh, then up again, lifting the skirt of her dress until he found the hem. He reached beneath, his fingers skimming her warm thighs, his hand sliding between them, rising to the bare, damp core of her.
The woman wore no undergarments.
A smile pulled as his mouth as he kissed her hard and slid a single shaking finger deep inside her tight, wet sheath.
He needed to be inside her.
A movement in his peripheral vision had him pulling back, his head jerking to the corner of the building. Foxx stood there staring at him, one hand loaded with hot dogs, the other with a massive drink, his eyebrows shooting into his hairline.
“Dude. ”
Paenther growled low in his throat, tempted to yank off the cub’s ears.
With a small sound of dismay, the woman pulled out of his arms and fled.
Paenther curled his damp finger into his fist and let her go. His brilliant plan to get her out of his mind had failed. Spectacularly.
Chapter Nineteen
Delaney sat up slowly in the strange bed, logging her surroundings. Unfamiliar bedroom, daytime.
Tighe stood at the window, his back to her, in a pair of black leather pants and nothing else except the gold armband tight around his upper arm.
With a rush, she remembered what had happened. Or what her mind was trying to tell her had happened. Her pulse began to pound as she saw in her head again, the man turning into a tiger. Then morphing into a were-tiger or…God. He’d sunk his claws deep into her shoulders until she was soaked with blood.
She struggled to calm her racing pulse. It hadn’t happened. It was just a nightmare…or an hallucination thanks to the drugs he’d pumped her full of.
Just to reassure herself, she shrugged and rolled her shoulders. No pain, just as she’d known there wouldn’t be. But when she glanced down at herself, at the unfamiliar gray tee shirt dotted with bloodstains all over the shoulders, her eyes went wide. Cold washed over her scalp.
“Oh, crap. ” Her mind began to buzz with disbelief, even as goose bumps rose on her skin.
“You’re safe, Delaney,” Tighe said without turning around, his voice cool and sharp. “Calm down. ”
“Right. Like I didn’t just step into the Twilight Zone. ” Her gaze slid around the large, well-appointed, and decidedly masculine room with its jungle green walls and heavy wood furniture. One wall held an assortment of framed photos of airplanes. The others, a vast assortment of knives and swords interspersed with paintings of tigers.
Tigers. She struggled to contain the fear trembling deep inside her, afraid what might happen if she didn’t. How many times had he said, Don’t fear me? And look what had happened when she had.
Dear God. “Where are we?”
“Feral House. ” Tighe turned around slowly, his hands clasped behind his back, his mouth tight. Sunglasses, as usual, covering his eyes.
A small bubble of hysteria tried to rise up her throat, but she swallowed it down, hard. Either she’d gone insane, or her world had. And if it was the latter?
Even as she shuddered, she squared her sh
oulders. One way or another, she had to deal with it.
She watched him warily. “Are you…did I really see you…?”
“Turn into a tiger?” He bit out the words as if daring her to accept them. “Yeah. You did. ”
She sat up straighter, pressing back against the headboard. “How do you do that? Change…like that?”
“I think about shifting, and I shift. ”
Shift. From a man to a tiger. Her head rushed with cold. Ants crawled across her skin. “Have you…always been this way?”
Tighe scowled. “I’m not a science experiment. I’m a shape-shifter. I have been for more than six hundred years. ”
Her eyes widened. “Six hundred?”
No way. No way. No way.
“My people are not human, Delaney. We’re immortals. We’ve roamed this earth since the dawn of time, but we stay under the human radar for survival purposes. ”
Shape-shifters. Immortals. The words banged around inside her head, finding no purchase. They weren’t real. Men did not turn into tigers. They didn’t live forever. They didn’t.
No wonder he hadn’t died when he’d been shot.
With sudden clarity she realized everything she’d believed about him was wrong. Everything he’d told her was a lie. She felt a pinch in that part of her heart that had softened toward him. A spreading ache.
Am I really believing any of this?
God, I need to get out of here.
Delaney dug her fingers in her hair, raking it back from her face as her heart raced and her mind spun.
“Do you eat people?”
His mouth tightened. “No. We don’t kill unless someone needs to be killed. ”
“Your brother does. ”
“He’s not my brother. He’s a clone, an unnatural creation that’s not even flesh and blood. He was made several weeks ago from half my soul, which is what’s causing my anger-management issues. My soul’s disintegrating. If I don’t destroy him soon, I’m going to die. ”
She gripped her head in both hands, closing her eyes against the barrage of information her mind refused to process. Six hundred years?
How did he expect her to believe that? Yet how else could she possibly explain what she’d seen?
With perfect clarity, she understood why he was so determined to catch the scumbag. The clone. After more than six hundred years, his life was in serious jeopardy.
If she believed him.
Did she have a choice?
A thought occurred to her, a wicked irony. The serial killer she’d been pursuing, the one the press had semihumorously dubbed the D. C. Vampire, actually wasn’t human.
What if the FBI found out about it? That nonhumans actually existed? It would flip them on their ears.
And if the populace at large learned about them? Utter chaos.
Taking a deep, shuddering breath, she lowered her arms, opened her eyes, and met Tighe’s gaze. She’d never been one to bury her head in the sand. Clearly, she’d stumbled into something way outside her realm of experience. Her only real option was to figure out what was going on as best she could.
Then deal with it.
Another shudder tore through her. Easier said than done.
Delaney swallowed. “I kind of understand the physical shifting into a tiger. But how…how did you do it in my head? Is that going to happen again?”
“The tiger in your head wasn’t precisely me. ”
She grimaced. “Someone else did that?”
“No. ” He dug a hand through his short, sun-bleached hair, mirroring her move of a few moments ago. “I share my body with an animal spirit. A tiger animal spirit. His being in me enables me to shift into the tiger, but he isn’t the tiger. I am. I’m the tiger, I’m the man, and when I lose my temper, I’m even that thing that attacked you. Though, if my soul had been intact, I never would have lost control like that. I never would have hurt you. ”
His fingers ran across the scars on his chest. Scars that looked like an animal’s claw marks, she realized. “I was twenty-four when the tiger chose me. Marked me. Before that I wasn’t human, but neither was I a shape-shifter. He joined his spirit with mine. ”
“He controls you?”
“No, though on occasion he’ll make his will known. Particularly when it comes to females. ” Tighe frowned. “He’s taken a liking to you. When I entered your mind, he tried to follow. ”
“What was he going to do in there?”
“Nothing. He couldn’t have done anything. If you want to know the truth, I think he was really just trying to say hello. ”
She laughed, though there was no humor in it. “Hello? He scared the shit out of me. ”
“Believe me, I’m aware of that. ”
“How am I not hooked up to a transfusion in the ICU? I know I lost a ton of blood. ” She glanced down at one shoulder, then met his gaze. “I can’t even feel the wounds. ”
Delaney hooked her finger into the neck of the large tee shirt and pulled it open so she could get a peek. They were still there, all right, red and swollen dashes, dried blood caked around the edges. But the skin seemed to have already knit closed. Almost as if someone had cauterized the wounds.
“You’d seen too much to take you to a human hospital, so one of our healers helped you. There was only so much she could do with human flesh. You’re not fully healed, but you’re a lot further along than you would be on your own. Your own body will have to do the rest. ”
Delaney shook her head. She was trying to take it all in. Really trying, but…“This is unbelievable. ”
“Get used to it,” he said coolly. “The mating ceremony will take place as soon as you’re ready. ”
Mating ceremony. Her stomach clenched, his words coming back to her, hard and hurtful. No way. I’m not making her my mate.
“No. ” It was too much. She couldn’t deal with this, too.