ROMANCE: SHIFTER: Shifter to the Max Collection (Dragon, Bear, Wolf and Panther Shifter Romances) (Paranormal Fantasy Romance Collection) (44 page)

For a moment, Kira thought she had done something wrong. The way that Donovan was looking at her made her nervous that she had. Were her bones set right? Was a part of her still hairy? Oh God, had she forgotten to shave her legs?

              Her professor advanced toward her, and her pulse kicked into overdrive. The way he moved… there was still so much of the wolf in him it nearly left her breathless. All that coiled power, that predatory stalk, that unleashed heat in his gaze…

              He kept walking as if he perceived no obstacle in his path, and Kira retreated out of necessity. She wanted to protest how overassertive he was being, but she couldn't find the words. She fell back another step, and then another, until a final stride from Sawyer Donovan carried her back up against the trunk of a tree and plunged them both in shadows. There was no light to illuminate their transgression as his mouth collided with hers.

              Her body reacted to him instantly without her mind's consent. She was confused, flustered, and maybe even a little angry that he was doing this to her now after his rejection of her feelings, but her body… her body cast itself toward the burning heat of his. She came unmoored from the tree, and Sawyer's hand gripped her flank possessively and shoved her back into it. His hard, naked body pinned her between her legs, and Kira scarcely felt the abrasive bark of the tree digging into her back then; her thoughts were completely wiped out, and she felt numb to everything save the intensity of his kiss and the thrill of their joining.

After the build-up of all that tension this past week, the release felt extraordinary. His hands burned imprints into her wherever he touched; his tongue pushed its way into her mouth and swept against hers until he had her panting and moaning against him with mounting need. He must have imagined this moment playing out between them at least as often as she had, and now there was nothing to keep them apart them—no desk, no classroom, no student-teacher restrictions, no
clothing…

"Kira," Sawyer panted her name as he drew back. She moved her head to pursue him, wanting his lips on hers again, but he kept her pinned firmly against the tree. "Kira. There's something I have to tell you."

"Please, Sawyer," she begged. She didn't even know what she was pleading with him for. She watched his eyes fall to her exposed neck, to the bite mark that had scarred but never completely healed. The expression that passed across his face then was enough to silence her. She had never seen a man in so much pain.

"I did this to you," he said tersely. "It was me, Kira. I'm the one that bit you."

The words were out of his mouth before he could stop himself.

              Granted, Donovan should have stopped himself
moments
before, the minute he saw Kira Bentley's glistening naked figure and the notion came into his head to do something about it. Now, hindsight couldn't help him: he had the young woman, his
student,
wedged beneath his own naked body, and his desire for her was in rigid evidence. She gazed back at him with eyes that he would have likened to a doe's had he not known her to be otherwise. Her own arousal was apparent in her expanded pupils; her ragged breathing; her plump lips reddened from the fervor of their kissing.

              But her breathless expression was rapidly changing. Confusion, as he watched her brow knit, then horrified understanding passed across her beautiful face, and as Donovan watched her, he felt as if his heart could break. His own pain in that moment was nothing compared to hers, he knew—after all they had been through together, and all the help he had offered…
he
was the shadow that chased her in her nightmares, the phantom whose slip in self-control had doomed her to at least half an animal's existence. He gripped her bare shoulders, eyes desperately searching hers. He should never have let his feelings for her escalate; now that they had, he
had
to tell her.

              "Kira, I'm the wolf that—"

              Even his heightened hearing and reflexes couldn't alert him to the threat of her hand whistling through the night air toward him. The flat of her palm struck him, and fingernails flintier than the average human's raked across the side of his face like talons. Donovan jerked his head away in the aftermath of the attack and doubled over. She hadn't raised blood, but
god damn,
it hurt.

              "No." Her voice quavered. "You… I… oh God, what am I doing?"

              He glanced up and watched the backs of her bare legs retreat as she moved away from him. His eyes climbed her figure upward, and… well, this was no time to enjoy the view. Kira was sprinting back behind the trees and out of sight to gather her clothes. He had minutes, maybe only seconds, to find the words to get her to stay.

              But maybe he had already said enough.

              "Kira." He lumbered after her. His predatory grace was gone, replaced by clumsy human strides. The girl glanced up as he joined her around the backside of the bushes and clutched her clothes tightly to her chest.

              "Don't come near me!" she exclaimed. "Turn around!"

              Donovan froze; then, like an animal more domestic than he actually was, he followed orders and turned away. He didn't want to attempt a conversation with her this way, but he could see he had no choice. He heard the rustle of clothing as she hastened to get dressed.

              "Kira, I'm sorry." His voice caught on the words. "I let things get too far. I knew I was responsible, and I wanted to help you. I knew you wouldn't let me near you if I told you the truth."

              "Was that near enough for you?" Kira spat back at him furiously. Donovan cringed at the implication of her words. "You led me on! God, why would you even…"

              He glanced helplessly over his shoulder, and saw that she was clothed. More than that, he saw that she was shaking—either with fury, or with some other powerful emotion he couldn't think to put a name to. He made to move to her side, but Kira turned away from him.

              "Don't come near me," she repeated. "Just… don't."

              Donovan complied with her request. He stayed in place, even though his every instinct screamed at him not to give her up so easily. She was pulling away from him, and the distance that grew between them with each passing second already felt larger than what he had been forced to surmount at the start of their doomed relationship.

              "I should have left you alone." The words were his, barely audible despite the perfect silence of the woods. Kira darted a glance at him, but Donovan stayed where he was.

              "I have to go," she mumbled. She shouldered her duffle bag and turned to make her way swiftly across the field, back toward the light of civilization and the tamer trees of campus. Once he was certain she was out of earshot, Donovan turned and drove his fist into a nearby tree. There was an explosion of wood chips and a shower of bark, but he pulled back before he did irreversible damage to the landscape; still, his knuckles were bloody, and he left a dent where no human fist should have been able to.

              He didn't expect to see her in class tomorrow.

#

After Professor Donovan's moonlit confession, she didn't go to class. She couldn't bring herself to go anywhere
near
the English building all week and risk seeing him. Maybe that made her a coward.

              Or maybe it just made her royally pissed.

              There was too much to think about, and it made Kira's head spin every time she attempted to mentally scratch the surface of their fucked up situation. Thankfully, with the introduction of her new carnivorous diet, the headaches that had always plagued her before had subsided—in their place, she now had Sawyer Donovan to contend.

             
He
had bitten her.
Him.
She probably should have realized it sooner. What were the odds of there being another werewolf running rampant around campus? To think that after all his lessons, all his talk of controlling the change, that
he
was the one…

              His interest in her made all too much sense now that she knew the truth. He was only trying to help her because he had caused her problem to begin with. There was no deeper connection between them outside of the one he had forced on her by transferring his affliction. She was completely deluded in her feelings for him: not only was Sawyer Donovan and asshole and a liar and a
hypocrite,
he was a complete life-ruiner.

              So why couldn't she stop thinking about that moment in the woods.

              "Ugh." Kira overturned herself and wrapped her quilted comforter more tightly around her until she risked cutting off circulation completely. She was alone in her dorm room for the evening, thankfully—she had unexpectedly grown claws earlier while she was working on statistics homework, and she had consigned herself to bed to weather through the unexpected change. It was the first time since her full moon out with Professor Donovan that she had lost control like this, and she had a feeling thoughts about said professor were to blame for her lapse in concentration.

              That, or it was the early September rain pouring down outside her window. If Donovan had done one thing for her, he had changed her way of thinking, at least when it came to matters of biology. An unexpected cold turn in the weather likely meant that the wolf inside her was trying to force its way out now to ensure she stayed warm. It was strange, but she was starting to think of her lycanthropy as less of a curse, and as more of an…
unexpected
development. She had managed to survive puberty back in high school, and she was feeling more and more confident that she would find a way to survive this.

              Her confidence plummeted the moment she heard a key turn in the lock. Kira shot out of bed, yanking the comforter with her as she dove for the cover of her closet just in time. The dormitory door swung open, and her roommate, Shannon—who was supposed to be
home
for the weekend—came trudging in with two fast food bags clutched in her fists and her keychain hanging between her teeth.

              "Surprise! I decided not to go home this weekend after all. I knew you'd be in bed already," Shannon mock-chastised as she yanked the door closed behind her. "Here, I brought you a veggie burger. I'm going to unpack if you want to cue up Netflix—"

              "Can't!" Kira shouted from behind her closet door. She was manically pulling clothes off their hangers and jamming them into her duffle bag; she barely even noticed what she was packing. She pulled her winter gloves on the second she located them; her elongated, claw-like fingers were uncomfortably cramped inside, but it was better than the alternative, which was Shannon actually
seeing
her hands. "Going out! Thanks for the burger!" Kira pulled one arm of her jacket on as she lugged herself and her bag toward the door. Shannon stepped aside quickly to avoid being barreled into.

              "I guess I won't wait up then," Shannon said, though she was clearly more mystified than irritated by Kira's sudden departure. "Just, uh… be safe?"

              "Yeah, got it." Kira wasn't really listening. She was already out the door and hurrying down the stairs… straight into the pouring down rain. She knew where she was headed, but she didn't want to acknowledge it. Not yet.

              An hour later, and she was standing outside Sawyer Donovan's apartment soaked to the bone. She raised her fist to knock, before retracting it quickly to pull the glove off. She turned her hand over, scrutinizing it in the light of his stoop, but there was nothing to indicate anything had ever been wrong with it.

              She still hadn't knocked. She could still turn back now. This wasn't her only option, even if that's how it had felt to her all along.

              The door opened, and Kira looked up.

              Professor Donovan was standing barefoot in the doorway with a bottle of wine clutched in his hand. From the easy, almost unconscious way he held it, she assumed the bottle was mostly empty. The apartment smelled like no one but him. Had he been drinking alone?

              Kira blinked in surprise. Her eyelashes felt clumped together and heavy with rainwater. She hadn't knocked, but he must have heard her standing outside the door deliberating all the same. A gust of warm air hit her from inside the room, and it was only then she realized how cold she was.

              "Did you walk all the way here?" Donovan's voice was hushed. He seemed as surprised to see her as she was surprised to be standing there. Rather than give him an answer straight away, Kira brushed past him to enter the apartment. She was shivering violently, but her discomfort was secondary to the emotion possessing her now. She rounded on him as he pulled the door closed behind her.

              "Did you bite me on purpose?" Her whole body quaked, but her voice was steady. She watched steel gray eyes flicker over her as he took her in. Kira could only imagine what she must look like standing there in his living room dripping water on the rug—she must look half-drowned, or bedraggled, or worse, crazy. She kept her own gaze fixed on his, and asked him again. "Did you bite me on purpose? Did you choose to curse me? Or was it just something that happened?"