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dilating. “Don’t be
afraid, my beast would never hurt you.” His neck arched. An unnatural growl
tore from his throat as his spine popped and grated. He looked up, and she knew
then he was fighting with everything he had and then some against the change.
“Please. Stay.”
    Alexia nodded, her pulse skittering. She could scarcely
believe it, the proof she and her father had wanted all along was right before
her eyes. She bit into her bottom lip. Sweat dewed her cold skin, but despite
being in the vicinity of a dangerous animal, she wasn’t going anywhere. “Yes.
I’ll stay.”
    His hand dropped away, his shoulder and most of his torso
wet with blood. How much more could he spare?
    Somehow he found the strength to drag his sweatpants and
jeans off. She couldn’t help but wonder if it was an instinctual reflex of
habit that he undressed with every shift so that his clothes stayed intact for
when he needed them again.
    Her eyes dropped and she was caught off guard by the unmistakable
bulge of his arousal. Her breath snagged in her throat as heat poured through
her body and centered at her pussy. Lord give her strength, he was magnificent!
The perfect male in all his glory, despite the bullet wound and blood loss.
    Did shifting and sex go hand-in-hand?
    She looked away, despising her sudden and unwelcome lewd
thoughts when suffering was stamped onto every crevice of his face. His lips
whitened, then braced against a drawn-out groan as his bones crunched and
snapped like twigs, his skin stretching and pulling. When Blake’s chest heaved,
his head falling back and his jaw locking tight, she bit into her bottom lip,
feeling so damn helpless and more than a little afraid.
    No wonder he’d withstood being hit by the bullet, his pain
threshold had to be sky-high to endure this torture.
    A minute or two later, Blake’s transformation was complete.
At some time in the latter stages he’d passed out. And now in his big cat form,
he lay unconscious still.
    She stared at him with something between awe and alarm. He
was much larger than any panther or cougar she’d seen in any zoo or wildlife
documentary, but he paid a high price for the privilege of being a shape-shifter.
His pain had been shocking, awful to watch. She could only imagine the depth of
his suffering.
    She sucked in a shuddering breath. He’d asked her to stay
and she wouldn’t go back on her word. But she wasn’t about to pretend it was
because she was selfless. Seeing Blake shift was a breakthrough of the highest
caliber, one her father would have given everything to have witnessed for
himself.
    She closed her eyes for a moment . I’m sorry, Daddy, that
you aren’t alive to see this, I only hope you’re here with me now in spiri t.
    Blake’s bleeding had at last all but stopped, caking his
shiny midnight coat at the top of one shoulder like rust. She reached out a
hand, touching his dense fur. Despite herself, she was beyond intrigued. They
shared a connection. And that was even before they’d kissed in order to evade
their would-be murderers.
    One thing was certain, when all this crazy stuff was behind
her she’d be finding herself a man for a night or two to give her body the
release it so obviously craved.
    Yeah, but will you be thinking of this man when lying
with another?
    Her fingers trailed up along his neck, sinking into his soft
and glossy coat. She shivered, but she was no longer afraid. Not one bit. It
was the chill of the inland night air crawling through her clothes that raised
goose bumps on her arms.
    Being cold was a stark reminder that she was only human.
    She lay down, snuggling beside the too-warm big cat as the
cold press of dewy night air closed around them. She caught her bottom lip
between her teeth. Seemed self-preservation had wholly overcome her fears of
the big cat. She closed her eyes that were gritty and burning from the long
ride and lack of sleep. She was too damn tired to dissect every thought. She’d
been operating on