“ I think we should talk about the ritual.”
Greta let out a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding. She’d expected condemnation, perhaps a scarlet letter magically emblazoned across her body.
Fortunately, Dayne wasn’t the Puritan she seemed to be. He’d handled the heat fiasco with a surprising amount of grace and now he just wanted to get back to the business at hand. She straightened in her chair.
She hadn’t asked for details about the ritual. Dayne could be planning to destroy the world and she’d probably let him use her blood if it would save her hide. Maybe she was a coward, but she wanted to live. She preferred not to know the gory details in case it presented her with a moral dilemma.
“What about it?” She ran a finger through the remaining honey mustard sauce on the plate and licked it from her finger. His eyes darkened with lust and she put her hands in her lap.
What was wrong with her? She’d just taken a pill. Could she not do anything without making it look like an invitation? She bit her lip, as her eyes roved over his body. Dayne was fully clothed, wearing jeans and a T-shirt featuring an obscure grunge band from the nineties.
No matter what he was wearing, she couldn’t stop seeing the sharply defined muscles she knew were hidden underneath. The memory of their earlier coupling ran wild through her mind, becoming clearer each time she replayed it. And she’d replayed it about fifteen times now. She felt her cheeks flush, and looked away. “Why do you think they want you? Why does it have to be you and not someone else?”
“Oh, that ritual. It’s because I was born a kitten. But I didn’t know it until the other day when I overheard plans for the sacrifice. I mean, how would I know? Not like I’d remember.”
“Explain.”
“Therians are born in human form and die in animal form. Legends got that backward, or at least about the dying part. We don’t go back to human form when we die. We go into animal form trying to survive. It’s the way we heal.
“It’s rare to be able to shift before age five or six. Even then, it’s more normal to start shifting around eight. For centuries, my people have believed our powers come from the gods. So when the gods bless someone as a proper sacrifice, meaning they allow them to be born in their fur, they must be sacrificed on the first full moon of their twenty-eighth year when their power is strongest. But I always thought it was a myth.”
“I see.”
Greta tried to keep the hurt off her face that he wasn’t outraged on her behalf, or sweeping her up into his arms. The heat was screwing with her emotions. “Is that all you needed to know?”
“For now.”
Greta got up and rinsed her plate in the sink. “I’m going to bed then.”
The sex hadn’t meant anything. It was the stupid heat. She couldn’t expect him to be in love with her, and it wasn’t like she was in love with him either. She needed to get a grip.
It was after midnight and Dayne was propped against the headboard of his bed making notations for the ritual. It made sense now why the drawings and photographs had been in human form. They sought a full reversal of the natural order. It was poetic in its way, if not morbid in its poetry. If she’d been born in cat form, her blood was more potent than most.
The kind of power released from blood like that on such a ritually significant date . . . He could see why therians believed it caused the gods to bless them. That much overflow with the right ritual, her essence was bound to be absorbed. Whether they were aware of it or not, they weren’t so much keeping in the good graces of the gods, as they were stealing her power. If he’d wanted to live up to his reputation, he should be bottling her blood and selling it on the black market.
From a practical standpoint, it meant he’d need less blood than he would from a normal therian on just any full moon. Without that crucial knowledge, he could have had a magical boo-boo of pyrotechnic proportions.
His personal grimoire was propped open on his lap. He was penciling in the amount of blood he’d need, when he heard an unearthly howl. Moments later, a bundle of black fur shot across his floor and into the bed. She’d burrowed halfway under the covers before he could get to her.
“Greta, calm down.”
Her fur stood on end, and she was digging her claws into his 800 thread count sheets, digging clear into the mattress. She looked past him, seeing something that wasn’t there. Then a pitiful crying meow tore through her throat. His chest tightened, and a rush of compassion overwhelmed him for the frightened animal.
“Greta, look at me. You had a nightmare. There’s nothing here.” The part of her that could understand human speech had obviously receded, drawn back into the cat-shaped shell. Dayne
gently stroked down her back, speaking soothing nonsense.
Gradually, the tiny talons receded back into her paws and her fur laid flat. His fingers smoothed over her until a rumbling purr started and this time he watched as she transformed back to her human form.
Their eyes met as he continued his ministrations over her silken skin. She rolled over onto her back, stretching her arms over her head as his fingers played over her breasts. He watched her reaction, half expecting her to pull away or recover her earlier modesty.
She let out a soft sigh; her eyes glazed over. He replaced his hand with his mouth, licking and teasing over the nipple of one breast as his hand moved farther south to pet her sex.
“Dayne,” she panted.
He released her breast to give her his full attention. “Yes?”
“I don’t know if we should.”
A finger dipped inside her, and she bucked off the bed. A purr emanated out from her chest as she whimpered and pushed against his hand, urging his finger deeper. He withdrew it.
“Well, if you don’t think we should.”
He smiled down at her and watched the angry spark flare in her eyes, then die away as she caught his grin and realized he didn’t intend to kick her out of his bed.
He chuckled and moved down her body to swipe his tongue over the flesh where his hand had been. She moaned and dug her hands into the sheets. He wondered between her cat side and her human side if there would be any sheets left by the time he was finished with her.
Greta was in Dayne’s bed, wrapped in his arms for the second time that night. She wished she could stop the contented purring. The pills had stalled the immediate need of the heat, but the adrenaline from her fear had caused her to weaken when his hands were on her.
His fingers stroked through her hair and trailed down her back as she arched into his touch. Like most cats, she was never able to get enough.
“Do you want to tell me about the nightmare?”
Greta stiffened. She’d forgotten the dream. She hadn’t been human enough to retain the memories. Already in her cat form and in such a primal panic, all sense of humanity had left her. She wasn’t usually so disconnected from her human thoughts, even in her fur. If she’d remembered the details of what had gotten her so scared in the first place, she wouldn’t have run into Dayne’s room. She shuddered as the dream came rushing back in its full Technicolor ugliness.
“I just dreamed about the sacrifice. They took me and were draining my blood out. I was dying. That’s all.” She couldn’t tell him she’d dreamed he’d stood there and let it happen, that he’d been in on it from the beginning.
She’d run to him thinking he would protect her, but the tribe had sent her to him to ensure she’d be at the ritual. In the dream, Dayne was the one who made the cuts down her skin and smiled as the blood ran out.
She hadn’t smelled any evil on him, not once she’d gotten past the persona he was trying to live up to. But then sorcerers could mask their scent with magic. Jaden had taught her that. She pulled out of his arms and reached for the shirt she’d dropped on the floor before their first coupling.
“I think I’m going back to my room,” she said, unable to make eye contact. She couldn’t let him see her fear.
“Are you sure? Maybe you should sleep here, in case you dream again.”
Greta was already edging toward the door when she looked up at him.
Dayne’s eyes narrowed. “You’re right; perhaps you should sleep in your own room. You’re only here a few more days.”
It wasn’t as if she’d said she wanted a relationship. She hadn’t even implied it. The first time she’d been in heat, and the second he’d initiated. He had some ego. Or was his comment because he knew she’d be dead? Greta crossed back to her room and crawled in under the covers with Mink. This time she slept with her door locked.
Dayne sighed. It wasn’t necessary to overreact like that. Her wanting to sleep across the hall didn’t mean she was using him.
The truth spell he’d cast wasn’t for short-term use. He could have done that without her blood. He’d instead wanted something longer lasting, an insurance policy to protect his interests in the event that he got too soft-hearted toward her and started doing all his thinking with little Dayne.
Her aura had turned dark when he’d asked her about the dream. She was holding something back. He could make her tell him, but then he was back to being classed as a monster. He didn’t like the way it made him feel when he was the source of her fear.
He liked even less that he cared so much what this particular therian thought, period. It would be best if she slept in her own room. If he didn’t get attached, neither Greta nor Jaden could lure him into another trap.