In Heat (In Heat Shapeshifter Romance Series #1) (21 page)

“Don't be frightened,” he said with a pleading look.

She stopped breathing when thick black satiny fur began to appear on the backs of his hands. The look he was giving her made her heart ache. There was so much sorrow in it mixed with so much hope that she would understand. She wanted to.

The bones of his body began to shift and she saw his jaw tense, his brows meeting in a frown. Did it hurt? She was fascinated as she watched the fur sweep over him, his bones adjusting and a tail appearing as he bent down. The noises were horrible, terrifying. It sounded as though he was breaking himself for her. Before she knew it, there was a panther before her, standing in the middle of Erik's clothes.

And she wasn't scared at all.

The panther moved towards her.

She smiled when it looked at her, wanting to reassure him that his changing hadn't frightened her.

“Are you house trained?” she said in a tight voice, not sure what else to say to him when he was in this form.

The panther growled at her, a disdainful look in his golden eyes.

“I'm sorry,” she said as he turned away from her. He turned back around and brushed his long thick tail across her knees. She shrugged and smiled. “It's defence mechanism humour.”

He paced across the room, looking at her occasionally.

“You'd make a great guard dog...cat...I'm not sure what to call you.”

He reared onto his back legs and growled as he began to change back. It looked just as painful as when he'd changed into the animal. Suddenly, Erik was standing naked before her.

“Just call me Erik,” he said and picked up his underwear, slipping them on. She was thankful for his modesty. She would never be able to concentrate when he was nude around her.

“Did something bite you to make you like that?” She tried to think about all the movies she'd seen with werewolves in it. “Are you like a werewolf...a werepanther...do you change when it's a full moon?”

He laughed and went to the bathroom. She watched him get some things out of the cupboard and then come back to her.

“Let me,” she said as he unscrewed the lid of the antiseptic.

She was surprised that he did. He came over and knelt before her, holding the bottle and cotton wool out to her. Taking them, she doused the cotton ball with the antiseptic and then carefully applied it to the scratches on his chest. He sucked in a sharp breath through his teeth and winced.

“Sorry,” she muttered and lightened her strokes. The cuts weren't deep, but they had bled all down his chest. She focused on her work and let him speak. It was probably best this way. He could get it all off his chest while she got all this blood off it too. Tending to him made it all feel a little more normal.

“I don't change with the moon,” he said in quiet voice.

A glance at him revealed that he was watching her hands, a tender expression on his face. She could almost feel his relief that she wasn't running away. She couldn't even if she wanted to. Instinct was telling her to stay and her legs weren't cooperating.

“We're not werepanthers. We're shape-shifters. Lycans. I wasn't bitten either. Although you can change that way. With my family, it's hereditary. It's a gene passed down through the bloodline.” He took another sharp breath. She smiled an apology into his eyes and began cleaning up the dried blood. “My mother was a panther like me. Father was like Alistair, a puma. Myself and Alistair carry both of the genes—for panther and puma. What we change into is just the dominant gene. If a shape-shifter impregnates a human, there's a chance the child will carry the gene successfully but there's an equal chance that the gene will make it sick, in which case they'll need to be properly turned into a lycan by one of the same species.”

“Is that what the paragraph is about?” She saw him nod. It all made sense to her now. Alistair was promiscuous and in all probability, he would end up fathering a child at some point, and from the stories she'd been told, it was likely to be with a human. “If his blood doesn't match, if the dominant gene is panther, he wants you to change it.”

“I said it was complicated.” He smiled, a fleeting one that made the air in the room and her heart feel lighter.

She finished cleaning the cuts on his chest and looked at them. They didn't show any sign of starting to bleed again. Her fingers traced the edges of the wounds. She ached inside to see them and to know he'd got them defending her.

“Erik?” she whispered to his chest.

“Yes, Kim?” he breathed her name so softly that she melted inside.

Looking into his eyes, she took hold of his hands, threading their fingers together and pressing her palms against his. She needed to feel him, wanted his arms around her so she would know that the feelings he'd always shown for her were still there inside of him. She had to know that if she was going stay with him, that everything between them was going to be all right. She needed to know she'd be safe, and that he'd always protect her in this new world she'd be entering.

“Kiss me?” she pleaded.

He got up onto his knees and, still holding her hands tightly, pressed a gentle kiss to her lips. He was shaking. She didn't mind. She was shaking too. She closed her eyes when his kiss grew bolder, his lips parting, and hers parted too, allowing her tongue to meet his. It was tender, reaffirming feelings that she'd known were still there between them, regardless of what he was and what was happening. When he kissed her like this, she didn't care about anything but being with him. Whatever happened in life, she could cope with it if she had him at her side.

When he broke the kiss, she kept hold of his hands and stared into his eyes.

“Erik?” she said. “What's a mating?”

He smiled, as though he'd been waiting for her to find the courage to ask.

“It's the affirmation of a bond between us, deeper than the connection that we have now. When you're in heat is the only time I can change you without hurting you.”

“I need to be like you for this mating to happen?” She was glad he didn't laugh at her question. This was all so strange but she was beginning to grasp it.

“Yes,” he said with a nod of his head and stood up. “The things you've been seeing...the visions and the times you've witnessed things through my eyes...it's all because of the mating. It wants to be completed, but while I thought you were ready for all of this two days ago, now I'm not so sure.”

“I'm not ready?” She frowned briefly and thought about it. Was she ready to give up her normal life and become like him? “What happens if you don't change me?”

“Then life goes back to normal. The dreams will gradually become more intermittent until the day they stop.”

“You mean this is our only chance?”

He smiled at her. “No, not at all. The cycle is eternal. If we don't mate this time, in two or three years there'll be another chance. You'll know because the dreams will begin again.”

“Oh.” She looked at her knees. “What's to stop you changing me...or changing on me when we're together...doing...you know.”

She again expected him to laugh, but his look was deadly serious.

“I'd never force you, Kim. Never. I'm yours to command.” He gave her an odd look and then walked over to a set of drawers. She leaned to one side, trying to see what he was taking out of the top drawer. Her eyes widened when he turned back to face her and held up a pair of handcuffs. “You had the dream, the same as I did.”

He walked towards her, holding the cuffs out for her to take.

“I need you to trust me,” he said and placed the cuffs into her hands.

They were cold and hard, not at all sexy looking like they had been in the dream. They made a chill run through her. She looked up into his eyes.

“I won't hurt you. I would never change on you, and I would never change you against your will. I trust you, and this is the only way for you to see that. I'll surrender to you...”

She looked at the cuffs again. She wanted to. The intensity of that dream had stayed with her and she wanted to experience it firsthand. He had to know that she trusted him and believed everything he said. She had to show him.

But she was scared.

E
rik watched her staring at the cuffs and wondered if he'd done enough to prove to her that he was worthy of her trust and the feelings he knew she held for him. This wasn't exactly how he'd planned on her finding out about his primal side, but so far it had gone relatively smoothly. She hadn't freaked out anywhere near as much as he'd been expecting. There was a quiet acceptance about her. She'd said that she'd known what he was somehow. He'd never hidden it from her in their visions. Maybe he should've changed fully there and she would've known for sure what he was.

She toyed with the chain between the cuffs, clearly trying to decide what she was going to do. He wanted her to feel that connection to him again. He wouldn't have even dared offer the handcuffs to her and ask her for this time together if she hadn't cleaned his wounds for him. He'd seen the affection in her eyes, the worry and the fear for him. All of the love.

It was hard for her to come to terms with what he was saying, but she was coping admirably.

She looked up at him, her dark eyes full of questions that she would never ask. There was a battle being waged inside of her and she needed reassurance as much as he did. He was offering it in the only way he knew how—by surrendering completely to her. If she chained him up, he'd be powerless. She could do anything she wanted to. Hit him. Leave him. Love him. She would be the one making the decisions, just like she needed to be.

She stood and glanced at the bed. He obeyed her silent command. She probably didn't know she was giving one, but he could sense it. She'd made a decision, now he had to wait to see what it was.

Crawling onto the bed, he sat in the middle of it and then lay back. He stretched his arms up above him, curling his fingers around the posts of the headboard and waiting for her.

He closed his eyes for a moment and willed his nerves to settle. She'd be able to sense them if she tried, just like she'd been able to sense his heart and his power outside. Now she knew how deep the connection ran, she would be instinctively feeling it.

The bed beside him depressed and he felt the cold steel against his wrist. He opened his eyes and watched her face closely, studying it for a sign of her intentions. She leaned over him and looped the cuffs through the poles before fastening the other around his wrist. She squeezed them both, tightening them. He swallowed.

A tiny spark of fear ignited inside of him and he closed his eyes.

He silently prayed that she wouldn't leave.

“Open your eyes,” she whispered close to his ear.

He did, looking straight into hers and showing her all the fear inside of him. She looked taken aback by it and ran her fingers lightly down his cheek as though trying to comfort him. He held her gaze, resisting the temptation to close his eyes at the softness of her touch.

“Don't leave.” The words escaped him, so quiet he was sure she wouldn't hear.

“I'm not.”

Two words served to remove all the fear from him, erasing it and leaving him wondering just what she intended to do with him.

“I remember a dream I had last week, after I'd met you. In it, you told me that it was just a dream and that the best was yet to come. You were right. The dreams don't even come close to the reality.”

He groaned when she lightly ran her fingers over his bare chest. She was staring at it, at the cuts that darted across it, and the more she looked, the more her eyes filled with tender emotions that made his breath hitch in his throat. After today, he'd thought she'd never speak to him again, and now she was being so open with him.

And he was going to be open with her.

It was the only way.

She had to know his feelings for her and he was desperate to hear hers. He needed the reassurance that she was fine with his primal side and that she trusted him. He'd keep the promise he'd made—he'd never hurt her and he'd never let her get hurt. He'd die to defend her.

Kim smiled down into Erik's eyes. In all the time they'd spent together, she'd never seen him like this. He was powerless, and it wasn't just the handcuffs making him that way. It was her and his feelings for her. He was surrendering control and opening his heart to her, holding it out for her to treasure or smash to pieces.

How could she smash it?

Breaking his heart would only break hers too.

She didn't care how crazy having feelings for a man who could transform into a panther sounded in her head, in her heart it made perfect sense. She didn't care what he was, it was who he was that she'd fallen for, and it was the way she felt when she was with him that had made her stay to listen to what he'd had to say.

Now he'd rendered himself powerless for her, to prove without a doubt that he trusted her and that she could trust him. It was a strange thing to do. She was moved by it, but not as much as something else moved her.

He'd turned himself inside out, offered up his heart, and shown her how weak and scared he was deep inside. That touched her more than anything could. That had made her believe that what he was feeling was true and nothing to do with this bizarre mating they'd found themselves in the middle of.

She'd never seen a man do so much to prove to a girl that he loved her. She knew that's what he was doing. He was showing her without saying the actual words that he felt for her the same way that she felt for him. He was baring everything to her, and it was down to her to take the leap and offer her heart in return for his. She didn't want to hurt him and she didn't want to see him hurting any more. It cut her deep and made her want to hold him forever when she saw the pain in his eyes, and all the fear.

He was lying so patiently, waiting for her to make a move. She wanted to feel the connection like she had in the dream. She wanted to know if the reality of that would be better than the fantasy.

Running her fingers down his chest, she traced the shape of his muscles, exploring him. He really was beautiful, in both of his forms. Exquisite muscles bunched deliciously beneath her touch, making desire stir inside of her. She kept hold of the tenderness she was feeling towards him, mixing it with the desire that would soon threaten to overtake her. She wanted the connection. She needed the intensity.