by Faye Avalon
Not taking her eyes from the panther, Erin groped behind her for the door handle. She fumbled to get a grip and slowly eased the door open. Sharply, she told Willa to go inside and then edged in behind her.
Inside, Erin let out a shuddering breath and slammed the door shut. Safe behind the glass, she turned the key in the lock and stared out at the beast, which had yet to move. Her fears for Nathan took hold, and she began to shake, the concerns for his safety growing exponentially as the reality of what she’d seen sank into her consciousness.
Those rumors were true. A beast really did roam Bodmin Moor. Had it escaped from a zoo? A private owner? Surely the authorities ought to be doing something to safeguard people and livestock?
And, oh please God, where was Nathan? She needed to find him. Now. With no one else around, there was nothing for it. She would have to drive out onto the moor.
She glanced down at Willa, at her sodden and muddied coat. Erin hurried upstairs to Nathan’s linen closet and grabbed some towels, then came back to the kitchen and rubbed Willa as best she could. She grabbed the biscuit tin and beckoned Willa into the sitting room, where she used the towels to set up a makeshift bed by the fire.
After settling Willa, she went into the hall and grabbed her keys from the table. She was almost at the front door when she considered that she would be better taking Nathan’s SUV. She had no idea how her small car would handle the moor’s uneven terrain, and she could easily get a flat or break down completely.
She exchanged keys, and was about to yank the front door open when she stopped dead. Would the panther have circled around to the front? Would it be lying in wait, so that the moment she stepped foot outside the front door and onto Nathan’s driveway, it would be there waiting to pounce?
Erin turned and dropped back against the door. For pity’s sake. She’d stepped into a nightmare far worse than anything she’d had before. But she couldn’t think of that now, all that mattered was getting to Nathan’s car and going out to search for him. While she didn’t know much about predators, she knew they had excellent sensory skills. Chances were that the panther already knew where Nathan was holed up, and was biding its time.
Maybe the beast had already…
Everything inside her went cold, but she drove those thoughts from her mind. Nathan was okay. He had to be.
She clutched his keys in her hand, closed her eyes and offered up a silent prayer, then turned and, with extreme caution, opened the front door.
Shock, followed by an almost overwhelming surge of relief, hit her like a sledgehammer.
Nathan stood there. Naked. Wet. And looking far too calm for a man who had spent hours out in the snow and had likely been evading a predator.
Even as her mind whirled, instinct had her reaching out and pulling him inside. Then she slammed the door closed and locked it.
Turning, she threw herself into his arms. “Oh my God. Did you see it? Are you okay? I thought… Oh God, I thought…”
She simply clung, the fact he was naked and soaked through to the bone forgotten amid the joyous realization that he was here. Safe. His arms came around her, and they held each other. But then, flickering through the relief, came the thought that he hadn’t said anything, hadn’t uttered a word. And he still seemed too calm.
And yes, he was naked and dripping wet.
She pulled out of his arms, the questions hovering on the surface of her bewildered and traumatized brain. Before Erin could speak, Willa came flying out of the kitchen, jumping and circling Nathan in much the same way she had done with the panther.
Nathan didn’t take his eyes from Erin, and he watched her too carefully. Warning bells rang at the edges of her consciousness, and Erin was at a loss to know why.
Except…
The dog plonked her butt down beside Nathan, and man and dog looked at Erin as if they were party to some sort of understanding that excluded her.
In the same manner she had done when face-to-face with the panther, Erin took a step back. Fresh fear trickled along her spine, and she tried to rationalize the reasons for it. But she couldn’t seem to formulate the words, couldn’t even manage a coherent thought.
There was only a feeling…
She took several steadying breaths, not breaking eye contact with Nathan.
“What… Why are you naked? I… I found your clothes outside, by the wood pile. What’s going on?”
His jaw hardened beneath thick black stubble, and his dark brows dipped low over his emerald eyes. A thought came and went. So fleeting Erin tried to grab for it again.
Something about…about his eyes…
She took another step back, her brain refuting the sketchy and unformed thoughts edging their way around a scenario that was too bizarre to contemplate.
“Erin…”
“No.” She shook her head and made to take another step away, but her back hit the wall. Carefully, not breaking eye contact with Nathan, she slowly sidestepped into the kitchen.
When he disappeared through to the living room, Erin grabbed for her bag on the counter.
Nathan was back in seconds, zipping his jeans. “Erin, you have to listen to me. There are things I need to tell you.”
This time when she swallowed, there was plenty of moisture available. In fact, her mouth was so full of saliva, she couldn’t seem to stop her throat contracting. “I don’t know what’s going on. But…stay away from me.”
She jerked out of Nathan’s way when he tried to reach for her. “I said stay away.”
He made a sound as if she’d slapped him, and she looked up into his green eyes.
No. Not green. Not entirely. They were…gold. Golden eyes… The same eyes…
Oh God.
Her legs gave way, and she all but stumbled out into the hallway. She was about to yell for Willa, when Nathan caught her arm. “You can’t leave, Erin. Not until—”
“Get away from me.” Again, she shook off his hold and staggered toward the door, barely managing to snatch up her keys on the way.
“The weather’s closed in,” he said firmly from behind her. “You won’t make it from my place back onto the main road.”
“I’ll take my chances.”
Erin refused to think. She refused to allow the ridiculous and monstrous thoughts that nudged at the periphery of her mind to take hold. She wanted to laugh at the lunacy of them. Was she losing her mind? Having some kind of breakdown? Had she slipped into some parallel universe where…
No. She shook her head. She just wouldn’t think.
At the entrance door, Nathan moved in front of her. “Erin. I need to explain.”
Her head was pounding, and, clutching her keys, she pressed her fingers to her temples. “If you knew what I’m trying not to think right now, you’d likely have me certified.”
His eyes narrowed, but he didn’t refute her words. “Please, just listen to me.”
Erin squeezed her eyes shut, willing her heart to stop racing, her mind to think clearly. “I don’t know that I want to hear.”
When Nathan touched her elbow, she opened her eyes but refused to look at him. She didn’t want her preposterous thoughts confirmed. Instead, she stared at his damp chest, at the smattering of dark hair slick against his skin, the sculpted muscle, the breadth of his shoulders and powerful arms. He was a flesh and blood man, so outrageously masculine, potently male, that she started to question her sanity. How could she even begin to think, to believe that he was—
“You’re cold,” he said when she shivered. “Come in and get warm. I’ll make you some tea.”
Tea? Was he kidding? Didn’t he realize that she was having the most bizarre and insane thoughts about him, and he was trying to act normal? He acted as if the situation they were involved in was par for the bloody course. An everyday happening.
She shook her head, fearing that at least
one of them was experiencing a breakdown of some sort and deep in the throes of eschewing reality.
Erin realized she wanted answers. She wanted to hear what he had to say. If only to preserve her own sanity. She couldn’t leave without knowing…for sure. But that didn’t mean she’d let him draw her farther inside. She was staying here, right by the front door until she’d gotten those answers. “Okay,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest. “Tell me what you wanted me to know.”
“I’ll tell you everything, Erin. I swear it. Just come inside and get warm. Please.”
It was the please that did it. The pleading and sincerity in the tone of that one word. And, along with her growing need to know, her latent trust in Nathan was trying to reassert itself in her brain.
She hesitated, then, still clutching her keys, let him lead her to the living room, where he encouraged her to sit. Watching her closely, Nathan picked up the sweater she’d placed on a nearby chair, slipped it on and then settled opposite.
The heat from the fire did nothing to warm her chilled body, and Erin hugged her arms around her chest again. She still found it hard to meet his gaze. As long as she didn’t, it would be easier to persuade herself that she’d been seeing things. Easier to disregard the nonsensical notions bombarding her senses.
“Remember the other night?” Nathan said, shuffling the chair closer to her. “Before I left for Paris? I told you to remember how we were together. That what we had was real and the only thing that mattered.”
She dropped the keys in her lap and clasped her hands together, keeping her gaze on the white of her knuckles.
“I have an ability, Erin. It’s something I was born with. It makes me…different.”
Erin shook her head. She didn’t want to listen. Maybe she didn’t want to know after all. This whole thing was making her head swim.
“Whatever you decide to make of what I am, know that I’d never hurt you. Never.”
His tone was so heartfelt that she looked up and experienced a moment of sheer relief when she saw that his eyes were still that intense and vivid green. “I know that.”
It was true. She didn’t know much else right then, she was so bloody confused, but she knew that. He would never hurt her.
“I have the ability to change form,” Nathan said, in the same manner in which he might have conveyed his age or occupation. “At will.”
When the room tilted a little, Erin snatched in a breath. She rubbed her hand over her collarbone. “You mean when your eyes changed color? That time when we made love, is that what you mean about changing form?”
He let out a long sigh and smiled a little. “That’s part of it.” He reached out his hand but quickly withdrew it. “What you saw tonight? Outside? That’s the whole of it.”
This time the entire room swam. Colors, shapes and objects simply spun around her in a maelstrom of confusion. For a moment, the world tilted from its axis, and Erin felt hopelessly adrift in strange and bizarre territory. Her mind tried to shut down, and nausea pushed from her stomach to her throat as she held tight to her whirling head.
“This is… I can’t… It’s…”
In an instant, her head was between her knees, and Nathan’s hand lay lightly on her shoulder, rubbing in a soothing motion. “Breathe, sweetheart. Please, just breathe.”
It took several tries, but eventually Erin managed to do just that. She was aware of Nathan walking out of the room, and without him there, she was able to slow her breathing down a little. She sat up slowly, her head clearing, and the room settling around her again. The only downside of that was she could now think more coherently, and what Nathan had told her loomed large and unbelievable.
He said he was able to change form. That his eyes changing color was only part of that. That the whole of it was what she’d seen outside?
What did that mean? That he could change…into a…panther?
The room went spinning again, and suddenly a glass of water was pushed into her hand. She trembled so badly that Nathan held the glass for her, touching it to her lips while she sipped.
Her face burned, her body trembled. But something akin to anger pushed its way through the incredulity, through the fear and confusion.
“You…you really want me to believe that you can…can change into some wild beast?”
Face grim, he nodded.
Erin shook her head. “For God’s sake. It’s impossible. Insane.”
“I know it sounds that way, but it’s the truth of it.”
She searched his face, looking for even a flicker of laughter or a wry grin that would bring about an end to this nonsense. But his expression didn’t change. Did he really believe he was capable of doing that? His earnest expression said he did.
“When does it happen?” she asked, deciding to play along in the hopes of catching him out. If he was hell-bent on going through with this charade, she would challenge him at every turn. “How do you make it happen?”
“It happens whenever I want it to happen. I can will it, control it.”
“And you’ve always been this way?”
“My birth mother was a shapeshifter. I don’t know about my father. Rumor was that he was human. A bad sort who got my mother hooked on drugs. She was young, impressionable.”
Grabbing the water from him, Erin took a long swig. “Did your father know? About your mother being a…shapeshifter?”
Erin blinked. Sipped more water. She couldn’t believe they were having this conversation, and all indications were that Nathan truly believed what he was telling her.
“If he was human, chances are he didn’t know about our pack,” Nathan said, leaning forward and dropping his forearms on his knees. “The protection of our existence is vital to our survival. If the general public knew of us, knew we lived among them, we’d likely be persecuted and driven out. Or worse. That’s why the need for secrecy and circumspection is drilled into every one of us from the time we’re able to understand what we are and what makes us different.”
“There are more of you? Here in Bodmin?”
He pursed his lips. “I’m not at liberty to answer that question. At least, not yet.”
The fear that had abated a little rushed back with full force. Nathan made it all sound so…real. She squeezed her eyes shut. “I can’t believe I’m hearing this.”
“There’s nothing to fear from us,” he said firmly. “You know me, Erin. You know who I am. You know I’d never hurt you.”
“Do you hurt other people?” she demanded. “When you’re…changed. Do you hurt people?”
“No.” His face paled, as if she’d punched him. “We have a unique ability to change form into a predatory animal, but we don’t need the skills of the beast to survive. We don’t hunt, maim or kill. There’s no reason for it. But we do use our heightened sensory perception when required. Tonight, they helped me find Willa.”
Erin drew in a long breath, glancing down at her dog, who snoozed contentedly at Nathan’s feet. “I’m grateful for that. For you finding Willa. I just don’t understand why you need to become…different. Why do you need to do that?”
“I know this is hard for you to accept—”
“It’s almost impossible to accept.” But slowly she was coming to believe him, which was insane. “This is so incredible, Nathan, and if I hadn’t seen you… If I hadn’t…”
“It’s okay.”
“No. It’s not. You let me be with you, you let me believe that you were…something you’re not.”
The word “normal” hung unspoken in the air. Nathan clasped his hands together and dropped his head. “I know you must think I’m some sort of mutant who—”
“I don’t think that.” She shook her head. “I just don’t understand how this can be possible. How is it possible that you can…that people can change form?”
“The truth of how we ca
me to exist is shrouded in folklore. The theories range from a ritualistic mating between man and beast, to a shamanic curse. But nobody knows for sure. We’ve existed for centuries, and there are thousands of us scattered around the globe.”
“You didn’t think I had a right to know any of this? I fell for you, Nathan. Really hard. You must have known that, and yet you didn’t think I had a right to know?”
“I was trying to find a way, trying to make sure that when I told you you’d—”
“What about that night your eyes changed color? Why didn’t you tell me then?”
“It’s not that easy. We’re not at liberty to confess the truth of who we are to people who aren’t fellow shifters.”
Unable to sit still any longer, she stood on shaky legs and walked to the mantel. “Oh, I get it. We’re good enough to screw but not good enough to be told the truth.”
“It’s not like that. Yeah, okay, we can sleep with non-shifters, but usually that’s all it is. A mutually enjoyable thing that doesn’t go anywhere. Because it can’t go anywhere.” He stood and went to stand beside her. “With you, it was different.”
She railed on him. “Different? Because I don’t ask awkward questions, it’s okay to keep on screwing me?”
He scrubbed his hand through his hair, clenched his teeth. “I want to mate with you, Erin. Fuck it to hell, I want to mate with you.”
The blood drained from Erin’s head. “What?”
“That’s why my eyes turned gold that night. Shit. I almost went out of my fucking head trying to stop it from happening again. Each time I was with you, each time we had sex, I had to will it back.”
“Why did they do that? Turn gold?”
“It happens to a shifter when he’s in panther form.” His throat contracted as he swallowed. “It also happens when he joins with his mate. His true mate.”
Blood swam back to her brain, and Erin drilled her fingers into her temples. “I can’t think straight. I don’t understand half of what you’re saying.”
“You’re my true mate, Erin.” He drew her hands down and stepped closer. “I love you.”
