The Shape of Desire

T
HE
S
HAPE OF
D
ESIRE

Ace Books by Sharon Shinn

MYSTIC AND RIDER

THE THIRTEENTH HOUSE

DARK MOON DEFENDER

READER AND RAELYNX

FORTUNE AND FATE

ARCHANGEL

JOVAH’S ANGEL

THE ALLELUIA FILES

ANGELICA

ANGEL-SEEKER

WRAPT IN CRYSTAL

THE SHAPE-CHANGER’S WIFE

HEART OF GOLD

SUMMERS AT CASTLE AUBURN

JENNA STARBORN

QUATRAIN

TROUBLED WATERS

THE SHAPE OF DESIRE

Viking / Firebird Books by Sharon Shinn

THE SAFE-KEEPER’S SECRET

THE TRUTH-TELLER’S TALE

THE DREAM-MAKER’S MAGIC

GENERAL WINSTON’S DAUGHTER

GATEWAY

T
HE
S
HAPE OF
D
ESIRE

SHARON SHINN

ACE BOOKS, NEW YORK

To Susan Austin
Because you’re right:
It’s long past time you had a book dedicated to you.

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Ninteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-one

I
t’s around two in the morning when I hear a rustle and bump in the kitchen, and I sit up in bed. I’ve left the light on over the stove for the past few days, since I’ve been half expecting Dante to show up. Still, you never know who might have come in through an unlocked door. I get up quietly, throw a robe over my T-shirt, and grab the cell phone in case I need to call 911. Then I creep down the hallway until I can peer into the lighted kitchen and determine whether what awaits me in the other room is a murderer or a lover.

It’s the lover. Dante is standing with his back to me, drinking orange juice straight out of the carton. His black hair is greasy, tangled, and halfway down his back; he is shirtless, and I can see the pattern of his ribs through the roughened layer of skin. I wonder what creature he has been this time, and for how long. Where he has been staying, what he has been eating, if he has been in danger.

For a long time, I don’t speak. I simply watch as he finishes off the juice and then opens the refrigerator door again. He’s clearly ravenous.
He rips open a package of cheese and consumes half the brick in two bites, still rummaging through Tupperware containers and wrapped serving bowls to find something to assuage his hunger. He actually grunts with pleasure when he finds the roast beef I defrosted and left on a plate on the bottom shelf. Setting the plate on the kitchen counter, he closes the refrigerator door and uses both hands to peel back the Saran Wrap, rolls a thick slice of beef, and eats it like a hot dog. He’s halfway through the second piece before he stiffens all over and swings around to stare into the darkness of the corridor where I am hiding.

Just for a moment, I get the chance to see his face in full-on feral intensity. My God, he is so beautiful. Beneath the grime and beard stubble, his skin is marble white; his deep-set eyes are a dense and impenetrable brown. His mouth is full and heavy, his cheekbones deliberately planed. Black hair sweeps back from his forehead in a theatrical fall. He could have been an actor, a model, a muse, some rich woman’s companion, if only his life had been a little different.

If only his life had been completely different.

“Maria?” he says in his low voice. It’s not hard to imagine that voice dropping a few notes, losing its consonants, and coming out as a wordless growl.

He must realize that I am the likeliest presence to be standing a few feet away in the dark; but he sets his plate down, frees his hands for combat, and continues to stare in my direction. Until moments like this, I think that I would like to see him in one of his alternate forms sometime; but I always realize, in those few seconds before he recognizes me, that I really wouldn’t. I am not afraid of him now, but I might be if I saw him in some other guise.

I step out of the shadows. “Yes, it’s me,” I say. “You look so thin.”

He glances down at his chest, bare except for a necklace made of a leather cord holding a single key. Indeed, he’s much leaner than I like. And I see a new wound cutting through the thin, dark mat of hair on
his chest. The cut has already healed, though not long ago. Sometime in the past month, Dante has been in pain and in peril.

He lifts his gaze again and smiles at me, an expression that always reminds me why, despite everything, I love this man so much. “It’s been a tough few weeks,” he admits.

I come closer. “I see you found the beef,” I say. “There’s frozen pizza if you need some carbs.”

“Maybe later,” he says. “Protein’s better for now.”

This close, I get a pretty strong whiff of what I mentally describe as
new Dante
, the creature he always is when he first arrives. There’s dirt and sweat and garbage and urine and some indefinable animal odor—the sort of scent that surrounds a zoo on a hot day. It doesn’t bother me as much as you might think. I want to get closer still, throw my arms around him, press my mouth against his, remind myself of his shape and his strength. He’s always the one who holds back at first. I’m never sure if it’s the wild instincts making him shy away from human contact—or his human instincts shunning his animalistic side, and trying to shield me from it at the same time.

He glances from my face to the plate of roast beef and back to my face. It’s clear he’s trying to determine if he’s eaten enough to get him through the next few hours. “I need a shower,” he says, obviously deciding more food can wait. I step in his path as he heads for the doorway.

“I need to kiss you,” I say, holding him in place with my hand against his chest.

“Maria—”

“Just…a kiss.”

He holds utterly still as I stretch up and touch my lips lightly to his, but beneath my hand I can feel his heartbeat kick up a notch. I press in a little harder, just enough so that his mouth responds to mine, and then I step away. I’m smiling; he’s not.

“There are towels and clean clothes in the bathroom,” I say. “Want me to make you a meal?”

He’s watching me with those unbelievable eyes. At times like this his expression is the most haunted, most unreadable. Is he sorry that he has disrupted my life so completely? Sorry he cannot exist beside me through ordinary days like an ordinary man? Sorry that he cannot stay away? Not sorry at all, merely roused to a passion he refuses to act upon until he has restored himself to some self-imposed level of civilization? Or is he simply still hungry and thinking of nothing more than food?

“Don’t cook,” he says, his voice even lower, throatier. “I’ll come rummage some more once I’m out.”

I nod and turn away to straighten up the little mess he’s made. I don’t hear him leave but I can tell when he’s gone. Even when he’s wearing shoes, which he isn’t at the moment, he moves almost without sound. The only reason I know he has left the room is that I miss him already.

I busy myself in the kitchen for about ten minutes, putting away the meat, rinsing off some apples, making sure the sliced bread is out on the counter so he’ll see it if he comes hunting for more food later on. But I can’t stand being in the kitchen when he’s somewhere else in the house. I lock the outside door, turn off the light, and feel my way down the dark corridor toward the bathroom. The door is open just enough to allow a little light and a lot of steam to escape.

I untie my robe, yank my T-shirt over my head, step out of my panties. I leave all of these lying in the hall as I push the door open and step into the hot, foggy bathroom. I can see his silhouette, dark and blurred, behind the translucent glass of the shower door.