Shifter's Claim (The Shadow Shifters) (22 page)

To say she’d failed dismally was an understatement.

All she had was an instant replay of a murder and a persistent ache at her center that she feared only one man would ever be able to soothe again. And if she stayed in this place a moment longer the situation would probably only worsen. She should have left earlier, she shouldn’t have been swayed by his smooth deep voice, his seductive eyes, or that goddamned pool.

Shaking her head she got out of the bed and fumbled until she found her purse and cell phone. Using the flashlight app she’d downloaded, she searched around until she found every piece of her clothing, stuffing them into her bag. Remembering how to open the door, she let herself out of the bedroom and moved into the living room. She was a few steps from the front door when she heard a sound coming from the balcony. The blinds were still drawn but the door they’d come through earlier this evening after their dinner and … well, after all that, was still revealed. Meaning the blinds to hide it hadn’t retracted so she had a glimpse of outside.

There was another sound, like furniture being moved and she stilled. Priya looked at the door to the balcony once more then turned to head toward the door that would take her out of here instead. And that’s when she heard the next weird sound. It wasn’t a growl, she instantly told herself, more like a muted gruff, or a really, really, deep-throated groan.

Go, Priya. Just turn around and go home,
she told herself but “herself” obviously wasn’t listening as she moved to the balcony door instead.

Okay then, just take a peek then you can go. There’s nothing for you here, nobody that can help Malik but you, just like always.

Her words to herself really were falling on deaf ears when she looked down to her hand as it pushed at the glass on the door, searching for a way to open it. After pushing it all around the base with no success, she sighed.

See, it’s fate telling you to get out while the getting’s good.

But just as she took another step there was another sound. This, she knew without a second thought. It was a deep and painful sound and it was coming from the balcony. Fear was a funny thing. In the normal world, to normal people, it usually caused an instant fight-or-flight reaction. When it came to animals versus people the consensus rang true with flight. But not with Priya. Not tonight.

She banged on the glass so hard with her fists she thought she might actually break through it. Instead a slow beeping started on the wall and right beside her one of those control pads were revealed. Cursing, she pressed the green button so hard her finger burned. As soon as the glass door slid to the side she stepped outside. The sound was gone and she cursed.

Again, there was a part of her brain that said she should have chosen the flight response about three minutes ago, but alas, she ignored it. Following her instincts she walked around the balcony to where she remembered the stairs leading to the pool. Running up the few steps, she continued to survey the area, not really knowing why but looking for those ominous glowing eyes. What she found was so much more.

It came out of nowhere, teeth bared, a roar echoing in the night. A huge cat, cheetah or leopard or something. Even without a positive identification or introduction Priya could do nothing but scream. And when it charged at her she screamed again, backing up until she fell right into the pool. Priya fought her way to the surface, swimming to the opposite side of the pool as fast as she could. Then she climbed out because in the pool she was definitely a sitting duck—no pun intended.

Dripping wet, she looked around for the animal but didn’t see it. Good! she sighed to herself then headed back the way she’d come. She was getting the hell out of this place. Big cats, big men being shot to death, sexy men giving her more orgasms than she’d ever had in one night, it was all too damned much for one woman to take.

The minute she cleared those three steps and turned that corner, Priya’s thoughts immediately took another turn. The cat was sitting in front of the door and when it looked at her this time a spark of recognition soared through her body, resting immediately between her legs.

“No,” she whispered, her head shaking from side to side. “Bas?”

Chapter 19

Perryville

The cat took a step forward.

Priya swallowed hard, clenching and unclenching her fingers at her sides. Her mind whispered for her to take a step forward, but the message failed to be transmitted to her feet. She backed up instead. She was dripping wet, her heartbeat echoing in her ears as her conscience screamed,
Run! Run! Run!

The cat came closer, its back hunching with every move. Its mouth was closed, a deep growling sound accompanying its movements. She tried to look at the eyes; they were golden, not glowing as she’d witnessed before, just gold and staring at her as it drew closer.

Yeah, it was coming closer.

Priya backed up again and remembered the last time she’d continued on this course it had ended with her falling into the pool. So this time she turned and ran, realizing too late that she had nowhere to go because she was on the balcony. But then how did this cat appear out of nowhere? If it could get onto the balcony, could she get off? She ran back up the steps and headed in the direction from which she’d seen the cat emerge.

The cat must have figured the same thing as it leaped past her, rounding in front of her once more. She came to an immediate stop, so immediate that it threw off her balance and she fell backward, landing on her butt with a loud smack against the concrete.

Priya cursed, crab-walking backward this time in an effort to get away. But there was no getting away, she thought dismally. The cat approached. More like stalked right in front of her. Not bothering with the swift kill, just taking its time, taunting her, watching her. That thought brought her gaze back to its eyes and she stopped moving entirely.

There was something there, something very familiar that she couldn’t outrun even if her feet were fast enough or there were some divine intervention strong enough to get her the hell out of here.

“It can’t be,” she whispered, knowing that the words were in direct contradiction to the reason she was here in the first place.

She closed her eyes, thought about counting to ten and hoping to wake up from this horrific dream. Instead, when she reopened them the cat was standing right beside her, its huge head only inches away from her face. Priya opened her mouth to scream for help. But instead, “Bas?” was the name that tumbled free.

A sound that could be construed as a hoarse sort of bark—if it were a dog, she thought with a mental kick to the clearly erroneous comparison—came from the animal. It was a cat, not a dog—a big-assed cat that was now towering over her. Her heartbeat was still fast and loud, signaling that at least some part of her realized she should be scared as hell right at this moment.

Other parts of her, the very female and totally traitorous parts, pushed her to reach out, to touch
him
—not
it.

“No,” she whispered, shaking her head and moving back again. She stopped suddenly, had no choice really when the top of her head met the wall. She yelped and lifted a hand to her head.

The cat was there in an instant, moving so quietly she would have never known it moved at all had she not seen it. She hurried to sit up straight, to have both her hands free just in case.

But as she lowered her hand from her head the cat dipped its large crown so that her fingers brushed over its fur, its soft-as-silk fur. Priya gasped but she didn’t pull away, she let shaking fingers linger over the path downward to its nose. It sniffed her and she didn’t recoil. Instead, her nipples hardened.

“You’re Sebastian,” she stated.

There was no question in her voice, none in her mind as she continued to look down into those eyes. Lifting her other hand, she cupped the head of the big cat as if she were its trainer or something other than an enormously foolish person. But she wasn’t foolish and she—miraculously—wasn’t afraid.

The cat moved in closer, lowering its front legs, resting its head on her thighs like a baby. It had been breathing heavily; she could see its flanks moving up and down in a rapid fashion that almost matched the beat of her heart. But now, as it rested on her lap, the heart rate slowed, both their heart rates slowed. She rubbed along its back, letting more of its fur ruffle through her fingers as the revelation truly hit her. There were cat people in this world and she’d had sex with one of them.

*   *   *

Bas’s shift back was slow so as not to startle Priya. Well, not to startle her any more than he already had. The fact that he was now a naked human laying his head in her lap didn’t really make things much better.

She gasped and jumped a little so that his head lolled and almost connected with the concrete. Then her hands went to his shoulders, stilling him instantly. Tentative fingers ran along his shoulder blades slowly, down farther. Warmth spread immediately, swirling at every inch of his skin that she touched. Inside his cat purred as her fingers moved over the tribal tat that occupied his entire back. It was a very large, artistic display of the tribe he’d dedicated his life to, the cat he wouldn’t be here without. And Priya was touching it, she was looking at it and wondering. There were questions in her mind and her eyes, but there was no fear.

Sure her heart beat rapidly, her breathing hitching as she looked at him completely naked, after seeing what he could become. But there was no fear, the scent she held was drastically different and his body instantly responded.

Giving up the warmth she’d been offering his cat and the exploration she took of the man, Bas rolled away, coming to a sitting position beside her. He lifted his knees so his obvious nudity wasn’t bursting onto the scene the way his cat had.

“Now you know,” he commented with a resigned sigh.

Beside him she grappled for words, opening and closing her mouth so loudly he heard her teeth clicking. He couldn’t help but chuckle.

“Ever since I first met you you’ve been asking one question after another, assuming one thing or something else. The only time you weren’t on your interrogation spree was…” He hesitated as his body warmed with the thought. “And now, you’re silent.”

Priya cleared her throat. “I’m not silent,” she insisted. “Just trying to gather my thoughts before I speak.”

“Is that new for you?” he asked. “That’s why it’s taking you so long.”

She elbowed him. “You’re not funny.”

No, it wasn’t funny. Bas had just broken the biggest law of the
Ètica.
He’d just betrayed his entire tribe. But instead of him feeling like a colossal ass, or going into soldier mode and coming up with a plan to neutralize this situation, he was getting a hard-on from the simple brush of her skin against his.

“I’m not trying to be. Look, this is a new situation for both of us. Why don’t we just get on with the preliminaries,” he said, shifting a little so he could face her, but not give away his very obvious and slightly painful arousal.

“And what would the preliminaries be in this particular situation?” she asked incredulously, pushing wet strands of hair from her forehead.

“Questions and answers,” was Bas’s quick reply. The solution, or rather a temporary one, had just come to him, his new plan of sorts.

She arched an eyebrow, the left side of her mouth tilting upward in a half smile. “Now you’re speaking my language. I’ll go first,” she said, already geared up for her first question.

He put a finger to her lips to stop her and wanted to lean over and lick every droplet of water off her instead of this ridiculous talking idea he’d come up with. Quickly pulling his hand away, he began, “You ask a question. I answer. Then I ask a question and you answer. Deal?”

Priya drew her lips into a tight line, then sighed. “Deal.”

Bas nodded. “Go.”

“What are you?”

Damn, he knew that was coming.

“I am a
Topètenia.
” Saying the words filled him with a mixture of pride and regret. In all his life he’d never once thought of the moment when he would have to explain what and who he was. “We are a tribe of jaguar shifters originating from the Gungi Rainforest in the Amazon. And we live among humans.” He finished with a look in her direction to survey the damage of his admission.

She looked right back at him, as if she’d already known what his explanation was going to be, but still needed a second to process it. Instead of speaking, which he clearly expected her to do, Priya reached out and touched a hand to his chin. She traced a line along his jaw to the left, up to his cheekbone, over his nose, up to his eyebrows.

“I knew there was something about your eyes,” she whispered. “The moment I first saw you sitting in that ballroom, I knew you were different. Even from Roman and the others, you were different.”

Now was probably the best time to tell her about Rome and the others, about the democracy they were building here, that they weren’t a danger to humans. Yet, he remained silent. Bas kept his lips tightly drawn as he enjoyed the warmth of her touch, the soft tone of her voice. She wasn’t judging him, wasn’t even condemning him or what he’d told her he was. A very small part of Bas had always wondered if that would be the human reaction to their race, if fear of the unknown would ultimately produce ignorance and intolerance. The woman sitting across from him gave no indication of that being true. But Bas was no fool, in the end—and once he moved past the erection she inspired and the lust that boiled in the center of his gut like a coveted recipe for love—she was a human. And sadly, humans had proven time and time again that whatever they feared, they destroyed.

“Who are you?” he asked on impulse, reaching his hand out to mimic her actions.

Her bone structure was infinitely softer, a sleek jawline, high cheekbones, pert nose, and delectable lips. He wanted to kiss her right now, to climb on top of her and slip his thick length inside of her. His body strained with that thought, but Bas refrained.