by Seere, Diana
Anyway, it was for the best.
Santino didn’t notice her at the curtain, and she didn’t announce her presence, just stood and watched, admired, worried—and yes, dreamed—in silence.
What a beautiful man. And more. If he didn’t take care of that injury, which he’d been obviously hiding from her and his family, she’d…
She’d kill him herself.
Chapter 3
The woods were his.
And only his.
Ink spilled over his shoulders, down his rib cage in long tendrils like fast-growing vines, merging together to form a thick, dark coat that soon turned short. His sight was so acute the eyeballs ached, pounding with the ever-rapid, increasing pace of his blood pouring through him. Scents tickled his nose, the fresh kills around him maddening, drawing him to the flesh in ways he found unfamiliar, too savage for his instincts.
Pivoting, he ran out of the woods to the vast prairies he called home, but they merged into filthy pavement and concrete coldness, bright light assaulting him.
Salt. He smelled salt and turned down an alley, through rotting garbage and piles of humans smelling of copper and desperation, dirty hats askew on heads with eyes that watched him, bodies prostrate. They did not matter, no more threatening than a baby squirrel.
The water gleamed when he reached it, a metal gate holding him from the banks. He paused, closed his eyes, and began to prowl, sniffing for an opening.
A sound, the click clack of heels on pavement, then the screech of rubber on stone, made him turn and flee the water, the new path older, marked by age and time. Cobblestones shifted under his padded paws, and with liquid fury he found the lights, the gleam, the place.
He looked up to the skyscraper, heart going cold, so cold with glee.
Windows mirrored back at him, the moon still hidden behind a cloud bank that split in two as if he conjured it himself, the moonlight enough to show his own reflection as he stared up, up, up to the top floor of the LupiNex building.
And in the mirrored windows he saw his true self.
He was a cat.
The reflection was not a wolf.
It was Tomas.
His own grunt jolted Asher awake, his hands pawing at his arms, the tubes like worms feeding from him, ravenous. Ripping needles from his forearm with the casual irritation of swatting a mosquito, he sat up in a burst of power and shock, standing quickly, long hair tickling his naked shoulders.
“Asher, no!” Dr. Santino called out to him from the open doorway as Asher assessed his surroundings. The bed was his own, symbols in his quarters coming to him in an array of pattern matching that his mind sought with rapid-fire thoughts.
Feet firmly planted, hands curled into defensive fists, he let the tubes dangle like the useless items they were and found his voice. “What in the hell are you doing to me?”
“Saving you from yourself,” said a very female voice, though one filled with contempt. “Get back in bed.”
He followed the sound to find Samantha sitting at the small desk across the room, her long red hair pulled to the nape of her neck in a modest ponytail, clasped by a thick tortoise shell accessory. Rimless glasses covered her eyes, the stems curling around her ears. Her face was lit by the blue glow of a small tablet computer, and she did not turn toward him.
“I’ll do no such thing. There is nothing wrong with me.”
“You fainted in my lap on the helicopter in Lincoln, Asher. And your vital signs are a crazy mix that makes no sense. You need medical attention.”
“I need to be left alone to regroup.”
She carefully removed the glasses, folding them on the desk, then stood, still holding the tablet, and finally faced him.
Her eyes widened, and a pink flush began at the V of her buttoned shirt, creeping up her face as those eyes, oh, those beautiful, sharp eyes, combed over his nude body. With achingly perfect consideration, she took him in as one would assess a laboratory specimen.
For less than one second.
The change was obvious and deeply erotic as Asher watched her watching him. When her gaze reached his midsection, he used all his force of will not to let blood do what biology determines it must do.
He could move mountains with his willpower.
So, apparently, could Dr. Samantha Baird—except with her gaze.
Unable to prevent the erection that he fought, he broke ranks first and turned to grab a bedsheet, flustered with a surprising level of instability that was so out of character that he wondered if he were truly going mad, and not in a general way. Perhaps he had contracted some version of a mental illness from Tomas?
Sheet around his hips, he ignored Samantha and asked a very stoic Dr. Santino, “Am I stable?”
“Yes.”
“Then go.”
Santino looked at Samantha. “You said you wanted to know more, but as I told you, I’m not at liberty.” His eyes darted to Asher, the nonverbal cue obvious.
Her lips flattened as she gave him a tight smile. “I understand. It’s not your fault.”
“Good to see that someone listens to my instructions,” Asher growled as he gave Santino a nod.
“It’s your fault,” she snapped at him as Santino left. “You’ve had an injury for months and told no one?”
“I told Santino.”
“Not good enough, Asher, and you know it! You have a scar in the shape of a cat! It looks like, like…Tomas has branded you?”
Her chest began to rise and fall quickly, her anger completely justified, but my God, he couldn’t think. How did she rob him so readily of his sense of reason? Her beauty, her perfection, overcrowded all rational thought. As his cock twitched under the sheet, he repositioned himself, sitting on his bed, giving her a cold, cruel stare that he hoped would shut down the calamity that brewed in his body and mind when it came to any interaction with her.
An infection. This must be an infection that had invaded his brain. It was the only logical explanation for his body’s revolt.
“What you think is good enough or not is of no consequence, Samantha. You were nearly kidnapped—and possibly worse—by a henchman of Tomas Nagy’s last night. Your judgment is not exactly credible.”
“Now I’m supposed to detect spies who happened to also be my high school prom date? Is that a shifter superpower I don’t know about? Because let me remind you I am not a shifter,” she huffed.
“Of course not.” And that was the problem, he told himself. She is human. You can’t.
You simply cannot.
Not again.
Not after what happened to Claire and the baby.
“I realize you barely tolerate me, Asher, but you have to get over that for the sake of this project. For the sake of the shifter world.”
Gutted by her words, he felt the room spin. “Excuse me?” he rasped.
That she would ever think he barely tolerated her was an abomination. The wall of icy stone he had just forced himself to erect fell apart while other erections only grew more powerful. She was dismantling him, piece by piece, stone by stone, animating dead emotion by dead emotion with those eyes, that lush body, that sharp tongue, and oh, how he wished to use his tongue on her…
Dammit. What was happening to him?
Touching her ear, she winced, then altered the movement at the last second, giving him an unsettled look, the blush in her cheeks deepening. Their eyes met, and all the tumult inside him queued up, sudden and sharp, like a lens adjusting itself in focus.
On increasingly firmer feet, he walked to her, his pulse picking up, his body rushing with heat, energy restoring.
Looking up at him, their bodies inches apart, her lovely chin tightened with resolve. “I need to know everything. Dr. Santino gave me a very sanitized, Asher-Stanton-approved version of what you’ve been going through since that bloodbath took place with Mason Webb and Tomas Nagy. You’re holding back crucial details.” Her eyes drifted to his midsection, fixed on a focal point just above a part of his body that responded to her proximi
ty with a feverish blood rush that he knew he could not tame for much longer.
Who was he kidding?
He couldn’t tame it, period.
“Now I want the truth,” she demanded, poking him with one finger, right in the breastbone.
An electric current shot through him, going straight to heart, groin, bone.
“I assure you, Dr. Baird, that every word Dr. Santino told you was the truth.” Closing the distance between them, he softened his voice, unable to stop himself.
Not unable.
Unwilling.
“Half-truths aren’t the truth, Mr. Stanton, and you damn well know that. Don’t insult my intelligence.”
“I would never do that to you, Samantha.” She jolted at his use of her name, her throat moving as she swallowed, his mouth begging for a taste of that hollow point, the half-moon circle of bone like an altar. “It would take all of eternity to have enough words and strength, given your level of brilliance. I have far better things to do with that kind of time and effort.”
“Like what?”
“Like this.”
Dropping the sheet, he reached for her as if centuries separated them and the only way to save themselves was through touch. Drawn to her by a force he did not recognize but that pulled him nevertheless, he grasped her shoulders, the heat of her body finding his as she pressed into him, her palms flat against his bare chest as he took her mouth, that luxurious, full-lipped jewel of warmth.
He could not have stopped himself if he had tried.
And he had no desire to try.
The space between them, both temporal and visceral, evaporated as she opened herself to him, matching his tongue as he found hers, their eager breach of each other’s defenses so powerful he lost all sense of himself in the kiss.
She moaned against him, fingers curling at the edges of his clavicle, one hand snaking up over his shoulder to the back of his neck, her chin lifting up to taste all of him as he, in turn, gave her the key to open parts of him that had never seen the light of day. The kiss was sunshine, Samantha his sun, and he was in endless orbit around her, their mouths exploring universes unknown.
“Samantha. Forgive me.” He broke contact, instantly cold, furious with himself and yet craving more.
So much more.
“For what?” Unfocused eyes met his, her fingertips touching her jawline, her heart beating so rapidly he could hear it.
And then—feel it.
Inside his own chest.
“For taking liberties.” Pulling himself up to full height, he barely held back the impulse to bow. Split inside into so many different pieces of himself, Asher felt like a wind chime, subject to natural forces over which he had no control, cacophony within a cruel, uncontrollable result.
And that was absolutely unacceptable.
“The only forgiveness you need is for taking so long to kiss me, you ass.” Those green eyes flashed with the same confusion and turmoil he felt inside him, but underneath it, he saw it as well. An eternal connection, a coming home, the quiet assumption that this strange new world they inhabited when they touched had always been there, out of reach, out of time, perhaps.
But there.
“You feel it too?” he asked, unable to help himself, hating the vulnerability in that question, yet he needed to know.
“I would have to be dead not to feel this, Asher.”
“Do. Not. Joke. About. Your. Death.” As the words exited his mouth, he grasped her wrist, needing his own warm flesh to touch hers, haunted by the memory of too many deaths that robbed him of joy.
“I’m sorry.” She touched her ear again, shaking her head slightly. “What is this?” As she asked the question, she started, then traced her fingers down to her heart.
His quickened.
Without explicit agreement, they both took three long, slow breaths, fully in unison, and if the expression on her face was any indication of what was happening in her body, he presumed their heartbeats were syncing.
Dear God.
No.
The legend could not be true. Not with a human. Not—
“I can— Asher, I can feel something.”
“A kiss will do that. Or,” he said slowly, “I should certainly hope so.”
“No, no, I mean—something inside you. I can feel you.” Calculation reflected out of those beguiling eyes.
“You are touching me, Samantha. Of course you can.” He squeezed her wrist, enjoying the simple pressure of a woman’s soft skin. Of this woman’s skin.
“Something is wrong. Inside you. In your blood.”
He went numb and dropped her hand.
“Nothing is wrong. I’ve recovered. I am fine.”
“You can’t kiss me like that and not tell me the truth!”
“I absolutely can.”
“But you won’t.”
“I won’t? Are you going to stop me? How?”
“This is as good a start as any,” she said in a low, erotic voice that lit up his brain a split second before going straight to his cock, her hands roaming up his back, mouth claiming him in a reversal he could not abide, the hunger deep within rising up so fast, a tsunami of need and desire overwhelming him. He pushed her back against his bed and stretched over her, the curve of her breast in his hand as their tongues played games.
It was like touching Aphrodite herself.
Samantha was heated flesh, her hips grinding into his, her legs parting as she pushed her fingers up into his long hair, their bodies moving in rhythm against each other. Seconds away from ripping her clothes off and plunging into her, he stopped, mind a spinning top, but worse—
His vision was sharpening. Fingers curled and nails began to grow. The scent of her pussy was unbearable, his need so craven, so dark he was going to take her in one swift move. His ears rang with the signs of a shift, and by God, if he didn’t stop this instant, didn’t remove himself from her heat and her juices and the unwavering yes of her body in motion, he would do the unspeakable.
And yet she begged for the unspeakable, too.
Panting, he climbed off her, leaving a disheveled and extraordinarily delicious Samantha on her back, staring up at him with a dazed look of disappointment.
Righting herself quickly, she turned a furious red. “I, uh…”
Control. Drawing on every tool he had within himself—and his control strategies were considerable—he reined it all in, seconds passing before he said, “No matter how good that is, and it is, indeed, quite good, it’s not enough to make me weaken my resolve. I will continue to protect you.”
“Have you ever considered the fact that your resolve is your weakest point, Asher?”
“No.”
“You are the most stubborn being I have ever met.” Smoothing her clothing, Sam looked at him. Apparently she had considerable control strategies as well.
He smiled. “Have you never looked in a mirror, Samantha? I take second place after that.”
“I am definitely less stubborn than you.”
“It is not a game. There is no prize for first place.”
“You’re really not going to tell me, are you?” Anguish merged with fury, her voice pulling him in, a siren’s call that he wanted to answer with every part of his being.
But could not.
Would not.
A lie on top of a lie was unacceptable. Peeling back one layer, he made a snap decision. “No. I am not.”
Combing over him, up and down again, this time with a sorrowful look, she gave him an earnest, angry look. “Then this never happened.”
With that, Samantha stormed out of his bedroom, leaving him breathless, utterly shattered—
And absolutely certain he had done the right thing.
* * *
Sam returned to her guest cabin next to the main house’s outdoor pool in a state of wordless fury.
It was one thing to lust after a god. An untouchable god. Inhuman, superhuman, other. A man with a biology deeply foreign to her own, but also a
man with countless wealth, vast power, and bottomless grief. He could be all of those things, and she could keep sane—as long as he kept to his side of the chasm that divided them.
But to tease her like that…
To pretend there could ever be a connection between them…
And then mock the bond they did share…
Unforgivable. How dare he? She’d been so careful to protect herself. So careful to expect nothing. So damn fucking careful.
She wanted to rip him apart, and not just to get a good look at his internal organs and tissues to see what was going on with the illness he’d contracted. He had no right to hide anything from her that involved shifter biology. No right at all. After everything she’d done for him, she deserved better. But even more importantly, the shifter world deserved better. His family, so precious to him, deserved better.
Because nobody could unravel the mysteries and dangers of the shifter biotechnology better than she could. He would trust Dr. Santino—a fine man and physician, perhaps, but no scientist—instead of her?
How dare he?
She continued in this spiraling, ruminating mood for hours, unable to calm herself or quiet her mind. A few texts exchanged with her worried parents didn’t help either. After sending her regrets to Sophia and Zach, who’d invited her to eat with them at their cabin, she ordered room service, a Stanton ranch perk she had come to enjoy immensely.
While she waited for her food, she resumed her efforts to catch up on the latest journal articles that she’d been too busy to read because she’d been trying to rescue Asher, the impossible creature, and the rest of his kind from the contaminated science experiments of Tomas Nagy.
And the only reason she’d ever employed Tomas years ago was because Gavin had insisted, and the reason Gavin had done that was because Tomas had been Asher’s lifelong friend. So it was really Asher’s fault, not that he’d admit any, that a violent madman obsessed with killing her, exploiting Molly, dominating humanity, and—
A knock on the door broke her from her internal ranting. She went over and found an older male servant standing there with her dinner: a hamburger on a silver platter with an endive salad, sweet potato fries, iced mint tea, and a collection of tiny bowls containing all the condiments a person might desire, including wasabi.
