Bound to Change: A Limited Edition Spring Shifter Romance Collection

by Margo Bond Collins

  He kissed the back of her neck, and she stirred a little, murmuring and then rolling over partway to look up at him.

  “Mmm. Morning,” she purred, and leaned up to kiss him softly.

  His jeans were mashing him suddenly, and he started running his hands over her slowly as she stretched against him.

  “Good morning,” he replied softly, his breath catching. So beautiful, even with bed hair and creases from the pillowcase on her cheek. “How are you? Did you sleep well?”

  “Oh yes,” she purred, her hand sliding down his back — and pausing in confusion at the waistband of his jeans. “Were you up already?”

  His grin made her blink in surprise.

  “Yes. The research computers were giving me an alert, and I needed to check it out.”

  He leaned down to kiss her again, and she sighed against his cheek.

  “Mmm. That's nice. So um, what was it?”

  He couldn't keep back a huge, goofy grin.

  “The clutch. You're not going to believe it, but the Academy of Science has it — and they're putting it on display! Apparently, after this exhibition, all of the Pompeii artefacts are to be returned to Italy, to be displayed at Pompeii. This may be my only chance....”

  Her jaw dropped.

  “Oh wow — oh my God, so... so what now? Do we steal the eggs somehow?”

  “Yes. We'll need to check out the exhibit first, though. I need to case the area around the display and determine how to overcome their security. I can go in invisibly, but if I shatter the glass, off go the alarms and I'll have a hell of a time getting out with all four eggs.”

  “That's so amazing!” She hugged him tight, and he let out a little groan as her breasts pressed against his chest. She pulled back just enough to look up at him while feverish thoughts of sex started pouring through his head. “What will you need from me?”

  “Well, that depends on you. Think you're up to raising four baby dragons?”

  He winked, and she blinked several times in astonishment.

  “I... wow. Four kids at once? With the fire breathing and the flying and all?”

  “No fire breathing, that happens with puberty. At first all they'll be able to do is fly slowly and a little clumsily, vanish from, well, probably everyone but me, and change into children.” He drew his brows together. “I hope they won't be able to camouflage themselves from me as well. That could make raising them extra difficult.”

  “Wow. I....” she hesitated, and his heart paused. But then she just smiled. “Sounds like a hard job, but if we do it together, I think we'll be just fine.”

  “Yeah?” His breath hitched in his chest as he started nuzzling and kissing her in earnest. “Let's go this afternoon, then.”

  She let out a little, purring moan as he started kissing her breasts, holding his eagerness in check until he felt the nipples tighten under his tongue and fastened onto one, suckling softly. She squirmed, arching under him, her head rolling back against the pillow as delighted whimpers escaped her throat. He hissed in mild discomfort at the pressure of the denim against his groin — and then gasped with relief as she fumbled at his fly buttons, undoing them and then gently springing him free.

  He barely bothered to pull them down off his hips before he settled over her, her legs tangling with his as he thrust deep into her soft, warm body. A low groan of delight burst from his lips, and he held himself there, trembling, before he slowly started to move. It was so exquisite that for a moment he forgot himself; but then he caught her heartbeat slowing and remembered, sliding a hand between them to stimulate her. She gasped and jolted against him; he chuckled, and started to thrust again, his hand moving against her in time with his body.

  Learning to last was a struggle with her; he recovered quickly from each thunderous climax, but his stamina was still that of a newcomer to sex, and the pleasure always threatened to overwhelm his will when he was inside her. He stayed slow, giving her time to catch up to his arousal, gritting his teeth as he fought the urge to speed his movements and come. He held out, and held out, and held out—until she clutched at him, digging her nails into his shoulders as she whispered, “faster.”

  He couldn't keep silent as he rocked his hips into her faster and harder.

  His harsh pants quickly evolved into desperate little shouts; he sped his hand's movements as well, and she clung more tightly, her soft cries rising in time with his own. The world outside, even his excitement over his clutch being found, drifted away for a little while, as they grew wilder and wilder and more desperate with the pleasure that they lavished on each other. He felt his loins tightening toward inevitable climax, and slowed, struggling to draw it out as his hand worked away at her. She tensed suddenly, sobbing with pleasure, and he felt her body tighten and then spasm around him. It pulled him over the edge with her; he shouted his delight, his body trembling as he sent his seed deep within her.

  She had to throw the cover back to cool off after that; they lay entwined, gasping for air, and he smiled as he laid his head back on the pillow beside hers. Living in the guise of a human was so much easier when there was someone around to love you. And soon enough, he wouldn't even be doing it alone.

  He was still delightfully relaxed when they made their way down to his van to drive over to the Academy of Science. They had both dressed up a little, he in a dark aubergine silk turtleneck to go with his jeans and usual jacket, and she in a slip dress of the same fabric and color as his shirt. He had bought her the dress, the string of gray pearls that went with it, and the silver combs holding her wispy strawberry blonde hair back from her face. Her shoes were black patent flats with decent soles, for all the walking around that going to the Academy's sprawling grounds required. The parking lot was blocks away by itself, a hike down smooth sidewalks and manicured lawns, toward the concrete steps leading to the airily modern glass and metal structure.

  He offered her his arm at the base of the stairs, and they went up together, she leaning on him a little. Her bruises had faded completely by now, but he had a feeling that between last night and this morning, he had tired her out a bit.

  He paid admission in cash, as wary as always of leaving any kind of paper trail. They walked through the atrium; he paused for a moment in the shadow of the tyrannosaur skeleton that stood guard over it all, looking up at it speculatively.

  “Looks nothing like you,” she said quietly at his elbow.

  He chuckled.

  “Oh no. Tiny brain case, tiny eye sockets, different shaped jaw. On one of mine that head would look ridiculous. Besides, where are his horns?”

  She giggled.

  “I always liked dinosaurs growing up, but then I found out the sheer number of dino breeds that scientists got wrong.”

  The Pompeii exhibit was on the third level, on the West end. They turned to walk that direction.

  “Yes, paleontology is very much an evolving science. The few remains of my own people have ended up mixed with dinosaur bones on more than one occasion. That is how I managed to come across them a few times.”

  They walked up the stairs as he did his best to get the place's layout into his memory. He had only gone a few times, once for the Tutankhamen exhibit in the eighties, once for a concert a year ago.

  He had never done the full tour, and now, as he planned an after-hours invasion of the place, he kept his eye out for every detail as they walked slowly up the stairs.

  Security cameras, blind turns, doors that locked. The stairway was open, giving a great view of the floor below and the theater floor just above it.

  As they walked up, he caught a strange scent on the third floor, and his nose wrinkled as his eyes narrowed. What was that? It was a strange, reptile-house smell, but they weren't close enough to the alligator pit or herpetology display for their scents to waft over. He looked around, nostrils flaring, and caught sight of a tall, robed figure standing at the top of the stairs. He got a vague impression of deep olive skin, pale brown eyes and a thin-lipped mouth set in
a cold line.

  The robe was deep brown with ripple patterns of green running vertically down its length, and he noticed the figure leaned on a heavily carved dark wood cane. He literally could not tell if the figure was male or female; the long, yellow-bleached dreadlocks tumbling from its scalp didn't clarify the situation at all. Their eyes met for a split second, and he felt a shiver go up his spine that he couldn't place. Then the figure turned, and vanished into the crowd at the top of the stairs.

  “What is it?” Laurel asked softly as he tensed and moved a little closer to her, instinctively protective.

  “I don't know. There was someone there who didn't smell human.”

  She pursed her lips nervously.

  “Have you ever encountered anyone besides humans before?”

  He frowned.

  “No. Not that I could verify, in any case.” He looked around carefully as they joined the third-floor crowd, but the scent was already fading. He checked around, eyeing the camera globes gleaming down at him from the ceiling, making a note of the door marked Security near the head of the stairs. “This could be tricky,” he murmured.

  She nodded, looking around worriedly.

  “What did the person look like?”

  “Tall, robed, Egyptian I think, but with blond dreadlocks. Very androgynous, light brown eyes. Not much of a facial expression. Brown and green robes, and a cane.”

  “Oh, I saw him! I think it was a him. And this person didn't smell human, or like one of you?”

  “Or like you. No, this is something new. It reminded me of alligators. Or perhaps a big snake.”

  “Weird.”

  The made their way down the corridor, one side of which was open to the floor below, allowing them to peer down over the railing at the crowds below. If need be, he could jump from there and glide all the way down to the bottom floor.

  Good to remember.

  “The exhibit should be just ahead.”

  Soon enough they walked into it, under a sign which said ‘POMPEII UNEARTHED’ in huge, grandiose Roman lettering. It was technically incorrect, and the corner of his eye twitched as they followed the flow of the crowd through the exhibit. More cameras. Another door marked SECURITY to go with the one by the door. He saw a guard standing next to the coin case, and assessed him quietly: typical rent-a-cop, tired-looking, gray-haired, a touch chubby, shifting his weight surreptitiously from foot to foot as he kept to his post.

  He had an expanding nightstick on his Sam Browne belt, a can of Mace on the same hip and a heavy pistol holstered on the other. Jason knew that in a place like this the firearms were mostly for show; the guard didn't dare pull the trigger without putting irreplaceable antiquities at risk. Not that that would stop some people once you put a gun in their hands. This one seemed the calm type, but there was no predicting the nature of his coworkers on night shift.

  Jason led Laurel past him, his eyes scanning around, and noticed her keeping watch as well. She saw the case with the clutch in it first, tugging lightly at his arm.

  “Hey, hey look over there!”

  Everything seemed to slow down; the breath he drew took forever to get into his lungs, and the milling crowd around him seemed to come to a standstill. All he saw at first was one single egg, its ancient, rocky curve like a moon face turned up toward the spotlight. But as he pushed nearer, breaking trail through the crowd for both of them, he glimpsed all four of them, arranged artfully in their bowl in a solo cube of security glass atop a simple stand. Bigger than they had seemed in the photographs, but smaller than in that vague impression he still carried from stumbling away from the shattered remnants of his own eggshell. This was it: finally, after half a century, he was looking at the clutch of dragon eggs he had been born from.

  He walked as close to the case as he could without touching it, staring down at their pitted shells, his heart beating fast in his throat. Beside him, Laurel slipped her arms around his waist; he focused on the sensation of her snuggled up next to him, using it to get his emotional bearings. Part of him wanted to roar in triumph and relief; part of him wanted to smash the glass and make off with all four right away. He sniffed, but could catch no scent from the eggs through the glass.

  Laurel peered in at them.

  “Do you think they're all right after everything?”

  “They should be. Subject them to the right kinds of energies and they should wake up just fine.”

  She blinked at him, remembering his description of his own hatching.

  “X-rays?”

  He nodded, and then winked at her.

  “Or dragon fire.”

  —Wait.

  His nostrils flared and his head jerked up: the reptile-house stink was back, a little like his own but far more animalistic and primitive. Not to mention, foul. He looked around quickly — and saw a familiar robe pattern through a gap in the crowd.

  “What is it—”

  Laurel started, but he was already hurrying away, pushing through the crowd to give chase to the yellow-dreadlocked stranger. He felt a pinch of guilt as he left her alone with his clutch, but he couldn't lose sight of the figure again. He made his way to the stairs, and saw that golden head bobbing away from him, tallest in the crowd. His eyes narrowed.

  You. Who are you? What are you?

  A low rumble escaped him, almost subsonic, like the sound of floorboards vibrating from far-off machinery.

  The figure stopped dead. Slowly, it turned, and he saw that blank, pointed face turn back to him. It tossed its head elegantly, the dreadlocks settling onto one shoulder, and lifted its eyes to look up at him. But its eyes, he realized with a start, no longer looked even remotely human. Butter-yellow instead, with slit pupils that widened as it stared up at him. Not human, not dragon... something else, something twisted and strange, and coldly hostile. He couldn't really tell why it seemed familiar — until a forked, purplish tongue slipped from between its lips and flickered in the air before its face.

  He stared back at it in speechless horror. The corners of its mouth turned up mirthlessly and entirely too widely as he gazed down at it. Then it turned and slunk back down the stairs.

  Jason suddenly felt so cold that he couldn't even feel the fire deep inside him. He gasped for air — and then remembered. Laurel. What if it had deliberately led him away from her and the eggs? What if it wasn't alone? Turning on his heel, he hurried back, the crowd parting in front of his huge, desperate-eyed form as he went.

  When he rounded the curve of the exhibit wall and saw her standing very nervously by the display case with the eggs, he breathed a huge sigh of relief and started toward her at a less crazy pace. But then he noticed how she stood frozen in place, and how her normally rosy cheeks had drained of all color.

  Her blue eyes were huge, and fixed unblinking on the floor below her. He looked down—and saw a large green-and-back serpent coiled at her feet. No one else seemed to notice its presence, but it had backed her against the wall directly behind the case, and tightened its body moment by moment, readying itself to strike.

  He lunged the remaining feet between them, shoving a startled blond man in a good suit out of the way and bringing his boot heel down on the snake's head. He heard a crunch, and the body convulsed. Behind him, he heard a few gasps, as the people around finally noticed the snake that had nearly killed his mate.

  Laurel dropped to her knees, all the air whooshing out of her lungs in relief. He leaned on the wall over her, catching his breath. That had been far too close a call. “Are you all right?”

  She nodded and looked up at him.

  “Now that you're here.”

  He pulled her into his arms and led her away from the partly crushed snake. A tall, young, Black security guard hurried forward, gun half drawn, looking in horror at the snake.

  “What the Hell is that?” he gasped, brown eyes wide.

  “Boomslang,” Jason muttered as he held her trembling body against his chest. “Very poisonous. Better ask the herpetology staff if they'r
e missing any snakes.”

  “Jesus, we'll have to clear the museum if there are venomous snakes on the loose.” He immediately started talking into the microphone on his shirtfront. “Okay guys, we have a code red, looks like some of the herpetology display got loose and that includes at least one of the poisonous ones. We need to meet with herp staff and everyone in security, and the museum will need to be closed down while we conduct a search.” He glanced at them briefly, seeing how pale and shaky Laurel was, and shook his head. “Get her out of here. There's an EMT on the security staff on the first floor if she needs assistance. It didn't bite her, did it?”

  Laurel shook her head mutely. Jason cradled her closer.

  “No, but it was a near thing. I'll get her home. Thank you.”

  He dearly hoped he wouldn't end up knocking the man out later when he came back for his clutch. With that... thing... lurking around, he did not trust that the eggs were safe in that display anymore. His face set into lines of cold determination as he carried Laurel's semi-limp form back out to his van.

  I go in tonight. I rescue them tonight. Once they're safe, I'll worry about that damn snake and whatever it has planned.

  Chapter 9: Fighting Monsters

  “What happened back there?” Laurel asked breathlessly as he buckled her into her seat. She was still recovering from yet another fright — and this one, bizarre and completely unexpected. After Jason had run off chasing the robed figure, she had waited and worried by the display case with the eggs in it, occasionally looking them over to distract herself. But then, she had chanced to look down... and had seen that emerald and black, sinuous shape emerge from a small hole at the base of the display case, and start crawling toward her. It had backed her against the wall and gotten ready to strike, and if Jason hadn't jumped in and killed it, it probably would have killed her. She knew boomslangs were among the deadliest of snakes — and the fastest. She thanked God that Jason had been faster.