I shrugged, pleased. “I was feeding you.”

His teeth showed, white and even when he laughed. “And for that I thank you. But this is a feast, Jane. There’s enough food here for days.”

I lifted my eyes from the food to Bruiser’s face and said, “So we don’t have to leave anytime soon.” He stilled. His pupils widened slowly as he stared at the food in his hands. Even more slowly he lifted his gaze from the packages on the island to take me in. His mouth opened slightly and his scent changed, heated and . . . heated. It was hard to breathe. Impossible to stand there, waiting. Uncertain what he would do.

He met my eyes, an electric spark at the connection that shivered through me from the arches of my feet to the short hairs on the back of my neck. He gazed at me—hair, stakes, mouth—as if the sight of me was the air he breathed. The sun that lit his world. The moon in the dark of a perilous night. As if he’d been denied breath and sunlight and moon-glow for too long.

Something turned over in me, something liquid and heavy, like some unfinished thing in a womb, waiting to be born. It settled low in my belly and heat spread through me, thick and viscous and sweet, like warm honey. Mine . . . Beast murmured. Mine . . .

Ours, I thought.

Ours, Beast purred back. Ours . . . ours . . . ours.

Carefully, but without looking at what he was doing, Bruiser set the packages on the bar. They landed with a papery sliding and the sharper snap of plastic. His lips parted and I thought he might speak, but instead he came around the island, stepping as if in a martial movement, carefully balanced, ready for a strike. When I didn’t back away, he lifted a hand and slid it around my neck. His palm was warm, feverish in a human. But we weren’t human. With the other, he reached up and removed the stakes, one at a time, setting them on the counter. My hair slid and tumbled, a languid glide. His hand followed, smoothing my hair. Like soothing a beast.

I licked my lips. Went stiff all over. Bruiser’s hands went motionless.

I whispered, “When I was five years old, I was on the Trail of Tears. My grandmother forced me to change into a bobcat. Wesa. Then she shoved me away, into the snow. Alone. I was starving. Freezing. A long time later, I don’t know how long, I found a buried carcass of a deer in the ice, a rare find then, after the white man had paid our young men to kill off so many. I was eating. Not paying attention.”

Bruiser’s hand slid down my hair again, once, as if he stroked the pelt of a cat. His eyes held mine, giving me time.

“It was the kill of a mountain lion. She came back and caught me. Attacked. Was trying to kill me. I didn’t know what I was doing. I was terrified, fighting for my life, but that was no excuse. I dropped into the gray place of the change and I stole her body. It was black magic. Her soul is inside with me still. She’s a killer. Predator. So am I. If we—”

Bruiser’s mouth landed on mine. He crushed me to him. If I had been human, I would have broken. I hadn’t even seen him move.

His mouth slashed across mine, our teeth clacking. Bruiser’s tongue scoured my lips. They felt burned, almost painful. I opened my mouth and sucked him inside. Pain ripped at my fingertips as Beast’s nails pierced my flesh, and dug gently into Bruiser’s sides. He didn’t pull away. He laughed, into my mouth, the sound desperate and joyous. His leg separated mine, a tango step, had there been music, had we been dancing. Holding me against his body, he bent over me as we kissed, our feet moving in synchrony. He whirled us slowly, my hair slinging out.

I slid my hands up his back, beneath his shirt, claws scraping. Beast’s claws, extruded from my fingertips, scraping hard enough to hurt, not deep enough to break skin.

No gray place of the change, just us, just Beast and me, in one body, at one place and time.

Bruiser slipped one hand under my shirt, his palm fevered on the skin of my belly. His scent was heated metal, citrus, and need. His hand found my bare breast and he hissed as he inhaled. Gently, he cupped me, gathering up the firm flesh. His warm fingers tightened on my nipple. His mouth disappeared and so did my T-shirt as we danced through the room. Cool air brushed across me. His lips landed on my breast and he sucked the nipple into his hot mouth so hard I gasped. Grabbed his head, pulling him even closer.

He growled. Bit my breast. A nip. “Harder,” I growled back.

Instead there was a mass against the backs of my knees and the world tilted. I was falling. I wrapped one arm around him. Landed on the bed, his weight trapping me.

Trapping me.

His kissed my throat. Teeth grazing.

Trapping me! Like the night when Leo—

I tensed, my body suddenly cold. I shoved, fought. “No! Nononono!”

Bruiser pulled away, horror and understanding in his eyes. His voice fierce, he said, “This is not then. This is not him. This is you and me.” He gripped my head in both hands so hard it hurt and he held me with his body and his eyes, the golden lights of my Beast dancing, reflected in his depths. Beast pressed a paw on the panic I hadn’t even known was there. Isolating it, pulling it away from me. Her claws held me safe.

I felt the fear float away as if it fell over high falls and downdowndown, to disappear into the froth of nothingness. “Yessss,” I hissed, my voice too low, too deep.

Mine . . . mine . . . mine . . .

Ours . . . ours . . . ours . . .

“Yessss.”

“Mine,” Bruiser said, unknowingly echoing Beast.

The parallel shocked me. I searched his face to see him staring at me. Into me. I saw the golden reflection of both parts of me in his eyes. “Yesss,” I said again.

My jeans disappeared, the zipper drawing blood along my shin. The scent mixed with Bruiser’s, where I’d accidently pierced his skin in my terror, both blood-scents full of need. The cool air went colder along my body. I ripped at him with my claws, and his clothes were gone. His body naked and hot. A fire of need and want. I lifted my legs and wrapped them around him. “Now,” I demanded. He shoved into me. No gentleness, no tenderness. Ramming in so hard he hit the back of me. My body arched. With a scream I claimed him.

There was no more talking.

•   •   •

It was dusk when he managed the next coherent words. “Holy hell,” he muttered. His voice was ragged and rough, his breathing not yet smooth. We lay on our backs, side by side, staring at the rough-hewn ceiling beams. Our fingers were intertwined, our hands between us. My legs rested over one of his. My hair was tied in a knot and pulled to the side out of the way. He had tied it there, his hands stroking, after we had nearly scalped me when we rolled over and fell off the bed.