Chapter Twenty
Several kisses later, when I tried to unbutton his shirt, Garrett stopped me, grabbing my hand. “We have work to do tonight so you don’t smash any more windows, although I may not complain too harshly if you hit Ethan on the head with a lamp.” His hair was a little mussed where I’d dug my fingers into it, and his eyes were now streaked with silver; a sign of him feeling “amorous” as he’d explained before. I was flushed and tingling all over and really didn’t want to stop, so against orders I stretched over to kiss him again.
However, Garrett had other ideas. He pushed me gently back in the seat and locked my seatbelt in place. “We’ll be taking our relationship slowly.” When he saw my pouting mouth he laughed and pulled the car away from the shoulder of the road.
“Garrett, you claimed me as your mate. Doesn’t that imply we’re actually…umm…doing more than just kissing?”
“We have time. For supernaturals, a mate is a true partner, not only a lover. Claiming you as mine for as long as we’re together will protect you from other, less honorable creatures. Today is a first step toward whatever is to come next between us. There’s no reason to rush. Some supernaturals have a three-part ritual for creating a permanent bond with their chosen mate.”
I sighed, knowing I wouldn’t be changing his mind tonight. I could still taste him in my mouth, and I knew if I pulled out a mirror my smile would be on the smug side. He’d claimed me and I’d claimed him. Would I ever get tired of hearing that? I snuck another glance at his lips. Okay, I could wait, although it was never my best thing.
While he drove, I asked more questions. “Do you have a family?”
“The shifter family I was born to has been dead for over a hundred years. I’m close to my cousin Aaron, the werewolf I spoke about earlier. As a vampire, it’s different. I’m bonded to my maker.” His expression turned sour.
“What does it mean to be bonded to your maker? What’s he like?”
He frowned. “Her name’s Eleanor Howard. She’s beautiful, clever in certain ways, and very powerful because of her age, which is over four hundred. She’s also a brutal bitch. She uses her beauty as a weapon. She repulses me. Most of her creatures obey her without question—the others suffer constantly. I’ve watched her murder hundreds of innocents over the years just for amusement’s sake.
“She kidnapped my father, mother, sister, and me because we were cheetah shifters and she wanted to know if we would survive the change. I did, barely. The rest of my family died. It was never my choice to become a vampire.” His voice had lowered in volume and pitch, but its intensity indicated a rage that burned so deeply I felt frightened for him.
He pulled onto a dirt road that led farther into the woods and parked. “Eleanor spends most of her time at her villa in Carmel. If she calls to me mind to mind, I’m supposed to show up, although these days, I’m usually able to block her out. It infuriates her.” He managed a half smile. “She’s also unaware that I can feed from a shifter without taking blood, which has come in handy the few times she’s locked me in a cell to starve me into submission. She uses shifters as servants, so they’re always around the villa. I’m kind to them and they don’t mind helping me out.
“She doesn’t know how strong I’ve become using the ley lines or that I can still change form. Apparently her little experiment has backfired on her. I’ve always been a pain in her ass.” He tried to smile again but his eyes had clouded over as he opened his door and stood.
I went to him, putting my arms around his waist and nestling against his shoulder. My body conformed so perfectly to his, designed to fit like puzzle pieces. “I’m sorry you lost your family. Thank you for telling me.” He was wrenched away from a happy life as a shifter and forced into becoming the kind of creature who’d killed his family. He was totally alone, surrounded by his enemies. I shuddered, imagining the horrors he must have endured.
He seemed surprised that I was supportive and not repelled by his past. Leaning down, he kissed me gently. “Very few people know what I’ve just told you and I need to keep it that way.”
“You can always trust me.”
“Yes, I know.” He tucked a stray hair behind my ear and smiled. “Come, we have work to do.” He kissed my forehead, taking my hand and leading me to a fallen log which we straddled facing each other.
We worked for an hour at strengthening my mental shield, visualizing it standing strong in the daylight and the moonlight. Garrett found he was able to pull extra line energy through me to enter that small part of my mind that was resistant to the block and help me fill in any chinks that might allow leaks.
Finally we were finished to his satisfaction. We walked back to the car where he took off his jacket and started to unbutton his shirt. His eyes gleamed with excitement. “Change to your cheetah because we’re going hunting.” When I didn’t move, he grinned and said. “I’ll turn around until you shift. I’m shifting too.
“Into your raven?”
“At first, but I thought that with your help I might try my cheetah again. It’s been such a long time since I was myself. When I shift to animal form I can actually hunt and eat. It’s incredible to enjoy food again.”
He folded his shirt in half and placed it carefully on the back seat. My gaze skimmed over his broad back. “How can I help you?” He turned and I drank in the sight of his beautiful chest and abs, my gaze grazing over every plane and dip. I tried hard to swallow, but my mouth was a desert.
“I can add some of your line energy to mine, boosting the shift. It shouldn’t affect you.” He bent over and the boots came off. I enjoyed that angle too.
Who was this shameless female gawking at her guy’s butt? Oh yeah, that would be me. I smiled, glad I was standing where he couldn’t see me
Garrett continued, “We’ll meet up at the clearing about a mile north of here. See if you can track a bird, little cheetah.”
When he started to unfasten his pants, I walked quickly to the other side of the car, stripping and transitioning in record time. My cheetah stretched luxuriously at first, but my ears shot up the moment I heard flapping wings above me. He’d headed north. I ran after him, scenting Garrett and raven both.
He made it to the clearing before me, but not by much. Hunger gnawed at my stomach. My cheetah self was getting annoyed by the unreasonable delay. The scent of a plump raccoon was making me restless as I paced beneath the oak tree, growling softly and digging in the dirt. His raven had landed on a thick branch ten feet above, fanning his wings and ruffling his black feathers. I tapped into the lines in an effort to hurry things along, causing a familiar warm static to buzz through my chest. My stomach lurched violently as I felt energy being pulled through me and sent up to him, so I snarled and growled another warning.
I wondered idly how raven would taste.
Deciding I’d had enough, I called up my diamond wall and put myself behind it, only to realize that by doing so, I might have denied him the chance to change.
When I heard the growl, I looked up. Strikingly beautiful, a large male cheetah snarled playfully from the branch above. He jumped gracefully from the limb and landed next to me without a sound, his tail flicking with excitement. His large wet tongue licked my face, causing me to purr and rub against him. A strange sort of chirping sound popped out of my throat and he chirped back, butting his head into mine and cuffing my face with his huge paw. I bit him gently on the ruff and he took off toward the unlucky raccoon.
We hunted that night together under the gleam of the full moon, chasing each other, hiding then pouncing, sharing our kills. Several unlucky, but very tasty creatures filled our bellies while others were run down for fun and allowed to go on their way. I’d shifted and hunted a dozen times, first on the island and then while training with the team, but this night the experience was something more. Hunting with Garrett as cheetahs, sharing our unique magical gift, bonded us in a bone-deep, visceral way.
We sat in a clearing by a narrow stream, splashing each
other and batting at fish as they swam by. He tugged at my wall, so I opened a small hole and let him into my mind. I felt magic flow between us in a loop, making my heart race and ache with a sweet longing. Our cheetah minds were only able to send short phrases or pictures to each other, but it was the most intimate experience of my life.
“Hurt you to speak?” he asked.
“No, nice.”
He teased me by biting my ear, sending me happy memories of his childhood with his cheetah mother, father, and sister. He playfully bumped his head against my shoulder, making my cheetah attempt another smile.
I was so happy. Gone was the worried young man with the troubled past and the difficult self-appointed job of training a bunch of young rogue shapeshifters. Here, in the forest with me, he was free to be playful and carefree.
“Mine,” he sent and my cheetah purred, content in a way I’d never believed was possible.
Garrett sat up suddenly, all senses on alert. We both sniffed the air and twisted our ears toward the faint sound of howling in the distance. He motioned for us to run back toward the car, so we raced over the terrain, only to realize that there were several wolves and that they’d surrounded us, closing their circle. He bumped me toward the nearest tree and indicated that I should climb. When I didn’t, he bit me firmly on the leg, reminding me of who gave the orders and who should be following them. “Climb now!” he sent. I started clambering up, not too happy about it even in cheetah form. He followed and we hid, still as death, under the hanging branches of the black oak.
I smelled them long before they reached us. The smell was woodsy, but also rotten like carrion left in the sun. There were three wolves, huge and filthy, undernourished and ill-treated. One carried a pack in his mouth. Two of them were cut up and bloody, but all three were sniffing around the bottom of the tree, hunting us. They suddenly stared up and howled in triumph. They tried to climb, but wolf bodies aren’t made for climbing trees. They soon decided on another tactic as one of them changed back to human, a relatively quick but very painful shift, judging from the man’s loud moans. The others growled and snarled, circling the tree.
We were in trouble. I tried to indicate to Garrett that he should shift back to bird form and get away, but instead he rubbed his head against mine, looking me directly in the eye. “Underfed and weak. Stay here.” I was shocked into silence when he smoothly jumped down to face them. I sent out a warning chirp, but I’d forgotten, during our moonlit romp, what Garrett was.
I could feel him pull in the magic, buzzing through my body in huge waves even though it wasn’t directed toward me. His shift was almost instantaneous, as if a magician’s veil had been pulled away, revealing the surprise beneath. It seemed to cost him nothing in energy, unlike the werewolf who still panted from the pain of his transition.
Garrett stood silently behind the exhausted man, his eyes a swirling silver blue. Wicked fangs extended from his gums, curling his lip into a noiseless snarl. His fingers became claws as his muscles tensed to attack.
The man had pulled a gun from his pack and was moving to point it at me.
“Why don’t you come down so we can play?” He squinted and looked in the higher branches. “Where’s your friend?”
The next instant he was flying through the air, screaming, his gun on the ground and his broken arms flapping uselessly against his body. Garrett turned to the next were, the largest in wolf form, and in a blur which I could barely track, twisted his lupine neck, breaking it with a crack that made me cringe. Then the dead wolf was thrown across the clearing to land on top of his wounded comrade. The last wolf had jumped on Garrett and bitten the back of his neck, trying to slip around to the front and rip out his throat, but Garrett twisted easily and used his fist to crush the werewolf’s skull. He dumped the body on the other two and crushed the skull of the man still screaming at the bottom of the pile.
When it was over, he crouched on the ground, resting. He was bleeding steadily from his neck wound so I jumped off the branch and ran to him, worried. He stood slowly and turned to me, his eyes still solid silver, his fangs fully extended, his hands clenched into bloody fists. A killing rage contorted his features, chilling my heart. I backed up slowly until the tree trunk stopped my progress and remained in cheetah form, waiting to see what he would do.
He took two steps in my direction, suddenly swaying and stumbling. Dismissing my anxiety, I ran to him so he could lean on my back to steady his legs. He must have used an extraordinary amount of energy tonight changing from vampire to bird to cheetah to vampire again and then fighting the three wolves. Plus his skin had felt cool earlier, so I knew he hadn’t fed before he’d brought me to the woods tonight.
I nuzzled him gently toward the tree and was happy to see him sit, leaning his back against it and closing his eyes. I ran to the pack that the first wolf had carried and brought it to Garrett, hoping that it contained something that could help him. There was a water bottle, which he used to wash off his hands and face, and an extra pair of sweatpants. I was grateful to see that he no longer looked so fierce and I rubbed up against him to let him know that I was worried about him.
He stood slowly and said, “We’ll have to walk back. I can pull in some power from the lines but I need to feed. Hunting in shifter form is great for my cheetah but when I transition back, my vampire is still hungry.” I chirred at him with concern. “I’ll be fine; I just need to get home so I can call one of my donors.” His wound had stopped bleeding but he’d lost quite a lot of blood, weakening him. “You’ll be safer if you stay in cheetah form until we get out of the woods. There could be more weres roaming around since tonight’s the full moon. You’ll be able to outrun them.”
I jumped on him and pushed him to the ground, which only worked because I’d startled him. I lay across his legs and bared my neck, trying to make it obvious that I wanted him to feed from me. I was feeling strong and healthy, but I couldn’t protect us from weres. If he fed from me and I became weak, he could carry me to the car using his incredible vamp speed. If we did run into any other weres he could take care of them. It all made perfect sense to me.
“Jackie, I won’t feed from you, I promised.” I hissed at him and bit his hand just enough to hurt.
My green gaze pleaded with his. “Feed now.”
He sighed and nodded, “It makes sense. You’re right. I can protect us.” I licked his face. “I won’t hurt you. I’m not taking blood. You’ll just fall asleep. I’ll keep you safe, I promise. Thank you, lovely cheetah.” He buried his face in my back and hugged me, then sat up and rested both of his hands on my neck. My body vibrated with the first stirrings of ley line magic.
The sensation of energy being sucked out of me by Garrett was not unpleasant. I floated as my diamond walls crumbled and washed away in the magical sea. Then came an uncomfortable feeling as my skin stretched and bones twisted, shifting back to human form. I was too tired and feeling too euphoric to care. As I was drifting away into sleep, I thought I heard him chuckle. My mind had opened to him fully, all barriers dissolved.
Rebirth - Book 1 Rogues Shifter Series Page 20
