“But they need to know what I know. It’s the only way to keep you safe.” Selene’s eyelids drooped and she yawned, raising her arms above her head. “Honestly, I can barely think right now. I’m so tired.”
Brushing a lock of hair away from Selene’s forehead, Eve whispered, “Have you been guarding my apartment every night?”
“Yes.”
It occurred to Eve that perhaps the sensation of Selene being close by hadn’t been due to her depressed imagination. “You’ve been keeping watch pretty much all the time, haven’t you? I’ve felt you almost every day. I thought it was because I missed you, but that wasn’t it, was it? You were here.”
Selene gave her a sleepy nod. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to spy. I just…needed to know that you were okay.”
Eve shook her head. Selene’s vigilance didn’t feel like an invasion of privacy, but rather a declaration of love. “Why don’t you take a nap?” she murmured. “I’ll think of what to tell Jac. Whatever I come up with, I promise to protect you.”
Eyes drifting closed, Selene mumbled, “I trust you.”
Eve leaned close, brushing her lips over Selene’s cheek. “I trust you, too.”
Selene dropped off to sleep with the barest hint of a smile on her lips. Overcome by the sight, and by the sudden realization that her relationship with Selene wasn’t over—not by a long shot—Eve rolled onto her back and put her hand over her heart. It was finally beating again.
Chapter Thirty
Half an hour after Selene fell asleep in her bed, Eve returned to her living room, closing the bedroom door behind her. As much as she wasn’t looking forward to calling Jac, the sooner she could pass along Kevin Pike’s name and address to the police, the better. Although she still didn’t have a solid strategy for introducing the tip—and explaining Selene’s part in delivering it—putting off talking to Jac wasn’t an option. Every moment she waited gave Kevin Pike the opportunity to hurt another woman.
Eve picked up her phone and dialed Jac’s number. Jac answered after the first ring, breathless. “Yes, Eve?”
“Would you mind coming back for a few minutes? I need to talk to you about something.”
“Of course.” Eve could hear her already walking. “I’m on my way.”
When a knock sounded on the door seconds later, Eve rolled her eyes. Apparently Jac had decided to stay close after what happened earlier. Eve opened the door. “That was fast.”
Jac smirked. “At your service.” She stepped inside, not so subtly looking around. “Where’s Selene?”
“Sleeping.”
Jac didn’t bother to conceal her distaste at Eve’s answer. “So does that mean you two worked things out?”
“We didn’t have sex, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Technically it wasn’t, but I’m glad to hear that, I guess.” Folding her arms over her chest, Jac said, “What did you want to talk about?”
Eve gestured at the couch. “Let’s sit down.”
“Uh-oh. Something heavy.”
“You could say that.” When Jac settled at one end of the couch, Eve withdrew the slip of paper Selene had given her from her pocket. She met Jac’s gaze and exhaled. “I have the name and address of the man who I believe is the Golden Gate Park killer.”
Jac blinked slowly. Her face betrayed no emotion. “How did you manage that?”
“I can’t get into the details with you.” Eve crossed the room and sat beside Jac, handing her the paper with Selene’s handwriting on it. There was no real point in trying to hide where the information had come from. “Right now I need you to trust me. I know we don’t have anything on this guy. Unless he has an outstanding warrant, we can’t arrest him. But at least now that we know who he is, we can set up surveillance, watch for him to slip up.”
Jac took the paper, scanning the name and address. “You’re going to have to tell me how Selene got this information, Eve. First she reports the body of our initial victim, and now she waltzes back into your life with the name and home address of a man who’s threatened to kill you. Who’s killed at least three other women.” Folding the paper in half, Jac slipped it into a pocket inside her jacket. “I can’t fathom how Selene would know anything about the guy if she weren’t involved somehow.”
“I know this is hard to understand, and I get why you’re suspicious. I can’t explain how this information came to me without betraying Selene’s trust, so I’m not even going to try. I’m just asking you to remember who I am and what my values are. Ask yourself whether I’d protect someone who was responsible in any way for the deaths of three women. Not to mention my own stalking.” Eve briefly touched Jac’s knee. “You know how badly Selene hurt me. Please believe that it would take a genuine, honest explanation about her role in all of this—one that convinced me that she’s totally innocent of any wrongdoing—to sway me back to her side.”
“Are you back at her side?” Jac asked quietly. It was obvious she knew the answer already and that it disturbed her deeply. “Be honest with me.”
Eve wouldn’t have considered anything but honesty. “Yes. We talked and I realized we’d had a serious misunderstanding. I think we’re planning to work things out.”
“You think?”
“She was exhausted. She fell asleep before we came to any real conclusion.”
Collapsing against the back of the couch, Jac exhaled harshly. “I’m not sure I know what to do with this. I mean, even if I take you at your word, believe the tip is legit, I don’t exactly know what to tell my captain when I’m requesting that resources be allocated to watching some random guy who may or may not be connected to this case.”
“He is connected.” Frustrated but not surprised by Jac’s resistance, Eve racked her brain for the best way to act on Selene’s tip. “You’ll make it sound good, Jac. I know you will.” Chancing a playful wink, Eve said, “You are the best at what you do, after all.”
Jac seemed unmoved. “Flattery won’t work this time.”
“What will?”
With a low grumble, Jac stood up and walked to Eve’s door. Surprised by the abrupt departure, Eve sprang to her feet and followed. Jac put her hand on the doorknob, then faced Eve. “I’ll put surveillance on this guy. I can’t promise for how long. Obviously if we can catch him in the act of grabbing some woman or harassing you, we’re golden. But if not…” Jac shook her head. “Let’s just hope he slips up before my captain decides we need to pursue more reliable leads.”
“This one is reliable.” Eve shrugged helplessly. “I wish I could tell you how I know that. You just have to trust me—this is the guy.”
“I do trust you.” Her gaze flicking over Eve’s shoulder in the direction of her bedroom, Jac curled her lip in disgust. “I just don’t trust her.”
“I know,” Eve murmured. “But I do. I hope that counts for something.”
Jac stared at her in silence, as though she was trying to decide what to say. Then she opened the door with a shake of her head. “Of course it counts. Just…promise me you’ll keep me in the loop as much as you can. Your safety—and the safety of the women in this city—are more important than keeping Selene’s confidence.”
“If I thought she had additional information material to this case, I’d tell you.” At Jac’s fleeting expression of skepticism, Eve stiffened. “I swear.”
“Okay.” Jac patted her pocket. “I’ll get to work on this right away.”
“Thank you.” Relieved that Jac had accepted her lack of explanation so easily, Eve sensed that both she and Selene would need to be cautious around her. Jac was clearly suspicious, and the fact that she held a personal grudge against Selene for having captured Eve’s heart didn’t exactly help matters. “Let me know what you find out, as far as whether he has any warrants.”
“Of course.” Tipping her head, Jac slipped out of her apartment then shut the door behind her.
Eve sighed in relief. That hadn’t gone nearly as badly as she’d thought. Now that the
immediate problem of telling Jac about Kevin Pike was over, Eve dazedly drifted back to all she’d learned over the past hour or so.
It was unbelievable, to say the least. Except she did believe it. She’d seen it with her own eyes. What Selene could do made no sense—hell, it violated the laws of physics and biology—yet it was true. Once again Eve silently thanked her parents for the gift of being able to accept even those things she couldn’t explain. Eve wandered back to her bedroom, eager to be close to Selene as she processed the inexplicable truth about her new girlfriend.
She was a shape-shifter—an honest-to-God shape-shifter, with a touch of werewolf thrown in. Opening the bedroom door, Eve stared at Selene’s prone form reclining on her bed. She was also gorgeous and still the woman Eve had fallen in love with, albeit far more complicated than Eve had realized. And she hadn’t been unfaithful. She hadn’t betrayed Eve in any way.
Eve crept to the bed and stood over Selene, watching her sleep. Was Selene even human? Did the answer to that question change anything between them?
Amazingly enough, Eve decided it didn’t. What mattered were Selene’s actions, her heart. When it came down to it, the question of her DNA—though fascinating to puzzle over—had no bearing on what Eve felt. She was in love.
Yearning to be closer, Eve stripped off her pants and crawled into bed beside Selene. Tentatively, so as not to wake her, Eve laid her head on Selene’s chest and curled up against her side. The heat from Selene’s body both soothed and inflamed Eve. Selene had always seemed to run hot—now Eve speculated that perhaps a faster metabolism was responsible for the intense warmth that radiated from her lean body. Surely transforming one’s entire shape required an extra reserve of energy.
Amused, Eve closed her eyes and forced her analytical mind to power off. Right now she just wanted to enjoy the simple pleasure of being close with Selene again. The science of who she was could wait for another day.
Selene shifted in her sleep, wrapping an arm around Eve’s middle and tugging her closer. Content for the first time in weeks, Eve basked in the sense of safety Selene created simply by being there. Eve had no doubt that Selene would do everything possible to protect her if the situation demanded. And if she could become a tiger, Eve doubted Kevin Pike would have an easy time getting past Selene to cause her harm.
Life had just gotten a lot more complicated, but a lot better, too.
Chapter Thirty-one
When Selene woke from her deep, dreamless rest, the first thing she saw was the new moon—just beginning to wax—looming outside a curtained window. On instinct she calculated the time until the next full moon—just under two weeks. Always her first thought upon waking, keeping track of her cycle was an unconscious instinct. Being caught unprepared was an irrational worry, but that didn’t ease Selene’s fear or her distrust of her own body.
Disoriented until she noticed Eve nestled in her arms, Selene remembered what had brought her to Eve’s apartment and what had happened between them, and her breathing quickened. Despite Eve’s initial knee-jerk reaction, Selene’s coming out had gone better than she could have imagined. Eve hadn’t rejected her, even knowing the whole truth. Apparently she’d even allowed Selene to fall asleep in her bed, though Selene couldn’t remember how she’d gotten there.
“You were exhausted.” Eve answered Selene’s unspoken question, voice scratchy with sleep. “After we talked, you practically passed out.”
Selene had no recollection past shifting into a tiger then giving Eve a long, rambling recap of the past month and a half. That she had woken up with Eve by her side seemed like a good sign. “How long was I out?”
Eve rolled over to check her alarm clock. “About eight hours.”
“What?” Selene sat abruptly, shocked and embarrassed that she’d borrowed Eve’s bed for almost the entire day. They’d spoken for maybe a half hour before Selene had fallen asleep. After basically being broken up for the past two weeks, that was hardly enough reconciliation to justify treating Eve’s place like a hotel. “I’m so sorry. I haven’t been sleeping much and I just—”
“Because you’ve been too busy watching over me.” Tugging gently on Selene’s wrist, Eve encouraged her to lie back down. “I know. Providing a bed is the least I can do to thank you.”
Selene blushed. Protecting Eve wasn’t an entirely selfless act. Now that they’d found each other, Eve’s safety was the only thing that mattered. Instinctively Selene knew that losing Eve would mean losing a part of herself—the part that made her human. Not only was Eve her most real connection to the human world, but she’d singlehandedly erased Selene’s loneliness and convinced her that she could have the same things normal people did. Love. Happiness. A future.
Caressing Eve’s face with the back of her hand, Selene murmured, “Until Kevin Pike is in custody, I want to stay with you around the clock. If you don’t feel comfortable taking me to work with you, I can keep watch in a different form. I just don’t want to leave your side.”
“Can you fall asleep when you’re shifted without reverting back to human form?”
“No.” Selene struggled to put her thoughts into words. Explaining something she barely understood was difficult at best. “My body seems to have a tendency or an impulse to retain its natural form. If I lose consciousness when I’m shifted, I usually wake up myself. Naked. Which is embarrassing.” She paused, then laughed shyly. “You know, now that I’m talking about this, I realize that I don’t know as much about what I can do as I should. I’ve never really tested myself. I’ve mostly just tried to avoid the whole thing.”
“No more,” Eve murmured. “And as much as I appreciate your protection, if you’re going to watch over me during the day, you need to start sleeping at night. If we’re locked in my apartment and you’re in bed with me, I don’t see any reason for you to keep running yourself down like this.”
Selene’s breath caught at the unspoken implication. “Does this mean we’re back together?” Cringing at the quaver in her voice, Selene tensed as she awaited Eve’s answer. Since the night of the last full moon, every day she’d dreamed of having Eve back. Until yesterday, she hadn’t thought it possible. In a strange way, Selene was almost glad for Kevin Pike. She wasn’t sure she would have had the courage to confide in Eve if he hadn’t posed such an incredible threat to the person Selene held most dear.
Because of Kevin Pike, she might have a second chance.
“I hope so.” Eve closed the distance between them to kiss Selene lightly. “I understand why you didn’t feel you could tell me the truth, Selene. As long as you’re willing to be honest from here on out—knowing that I’ll always keep an open mind—I’d like to try this thing between us again.” She deepened the kiss, then pulled back, running her tongue along Selene’s lower lip. “Because it was really, really good before. And I have a feeling it’ll only be better now.”
Eve’s total lack of uncertainty grabbed Selene’s heart and squeezed. She’d expected to see some hint of hesitation or even unease about the prospect of rekindling a romance with someone who wasn’t quite human, but Eve didn’t look at her any differently than before. Or perhaps she did, but with interest verging on awe, not suspicion or disgust. Selene blinked back tears of relief and silent, unspoken joy.
Eve’s hand fluttered to her chest. “Is it my imagination or can I feel that?”
“My happiness?”
Swallowing, Eve whispered, “Yes.”
“I think so.”
The play of emotions across Eve’s face entranced Selene, who tried to untangle the complex rush of feelings that flowed from her lover in a jumble. No doubt the concept of an empathetic bond challenged everything Eve thought she knew, but she seemed excited about it all the same. “I’ve wondered since we first met, but before it seemed ridiculous to even speculate that I could somehow experience your emotions. Now I realize that anything’s possible with you.”
“It’s more than possible.” Selene traced the shape of Eve’s eyebrow
s, savoring the freedom to touch her again. The loss of this intimacy had been soul-rending. Not until now had Selene appreciated just how empty Eve’s absence had left her. “I feel what you feel. I don’t see why it wouldn’t work the other way.”
“Did you have that with Carla when you were young? That shared empathy?”
“No,” Selene said quietly. “I never knew this could happen until you.”
“I wonder what it means.” Eve searched Selene’s eyes.
“I think it means we fit.”
“Definitely.” Eve gave her a playful pinch on the hip, delivering a burst of warm joy to Selene’s core. “That’s why the sex is so incredible, isn’t it? Being able to feel what the other feels.”
“Perhaps. Or maybe I’m just that good.” Even the mere suggestion of sex set Selene’s pulse racing. Unable to keep her hands away, she tickled Eve’s side, delighting in the giggle she elicited. “Maybe you are.”
“Well, that’s true.” Scooting closer, Eve stilled Selene’s fingers by tugging her hand up to cover her breast. Selene sobered at the sensation of cradling Eve’s tender flesh in her palm. She watched in wonderment as Eve’s eyes darkened, signaling a shift in the mood between them. Eve brought her mouth to Selene’s ear and whispered, “But I’m a little out of practice. Maybe you can help me with that.”
Selene sucked in a surprised breath when Eve’s hand crept between her thighs and skimmed over the inseam of the pants she still wore. The gnawing ache that had been growing deep in her belly over the past two weeks exploded, forcing her hips up to meet Eve’s touch. “That would be nice.”
Eve kissed her earlobe, then took it gently between her teeth. “I’ve missed you.”
“I’ve missed you, too.” The words triggered a flash of memory of their last time together. Selene stiffened as familiar guilt came to the front. She had been out of her mind with the moon and their sex had been rough. The sight of Eve limping away from her house had haunted her daily, and the idea that she’d crossed a line was almost too much to bear. “I’m sorry about that last time, that I hurt you.”
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