“Your adoptive parents might—”
“I was raised in care.” Kirby didn’t like to think of the seventeen long, agonizingly lonely years she’d spent in the system, but if the truth to her present lay in her past, then she had to find the will. “I had terrible, screaming nightmares as a child.” A sympathetic social worker had given her that information after she grew old enough to wonder why she didn’t have a family when other infants and toddlers were quickly adopted.
“I kept being chosen for adoption, then returned.” Like a broken machine being sent back to the warehouse for a refund. “They finally stopped trying to place me when I was six and I spent three years in state institutions for troubled children before the nightmares faded”—as far as the world was concerned at least—“and I was cleared for the foster care system.”
Bastien’s claws threatened to release. He wanted to break something, shred those who had wounded his mate when she’d been a small, vulnerable cub unable to fight for herself.
“I remember, you know,” she said quietly, her eyes on the ground. “Being taken by people who said they wanted me, feeling happy and hopeful, and then being brought back because I wasn’t good enough.”
“Bastards.” So angry he was trembling, he closed his hand around the side of her neck and pressed his lips to her temple.
Kirby lifted her hand to his hair, petting him in gentle strokes. “It wasn’t so bad, being in care. I wasn’t abused or anything.”
Bastien’s leopard growled within at that unwitting indictment on her childhood. “You’re fucking amazing, you know that?” He pressed his forehead to hers, his rage cut with violent pride.
“No, I’m a coward.” Breaking away in a jerking movement, she paced to the end of the balcony and back. “I tell myself I’m still angry at my parents for leaving me, that that’s why I’ve never requested my records. The truth is, I’m afraid.”
Her eyes shone wet, her shoulders knotted. “Because if I read those records, then I can’t avoid the truth any longer, can’t pretend that maybe I’m not alone, that one day someone will come for me.” She dashed away her tears. “I’m twenty-four years old and I’m still hoping. How stupid is that?”
“You don’t get to do that.” Bastien pulled her stiff body into his arms, his fury at what had been done to her a vicious storm within. “You don’t get to hurt yourself, and you never ever get to call yourself stupid.”
She thumped fisted hands against his side. “Why? Who’re you to give me that order?”
Bastien didn’t even think about it—his mate was hurting and needed reassurance. “I’m yours,” he said bluntly, wrapping his hand around her ponytail and tugging back her head so he could look into those beautiful, pain-filled hazel eyes. “You are not alone. Do you understand?” There was nothing in his life more certain than what he felt for her, and it was no longer simply about the primal pull of the mating bond. It was about Kirby. Sweet, strong, sometimes snarly Kirby. “I will always be here for you.”
Her breathing erratic, Kirby didn’t respond to his declaration. Instead, she tugged her hair free and said, “I’ll e-mail the records request today.” She refused to meet his gaze, her own obstinately on the glittering water in the distance. “It’ll probably take a few days for the files to come in.”
Bastien gritted his teeth to hold back the leopard’s anger as she surreptitiously wiped away the tracks her tears had left on her face. It wasn’t Kirby’s fault she didn’t believe him—no doubt all those prospective adoptive parents had promised her forever, too. But he wasn’t his mother’s most stubborn boy for nothing.
Kirby would soon discover that when Bastien Michael Smith made a promise, he kept it.
FEELING bruised on the inside, Kirby didn’t argue against Bastien’s nudge back into the warmth of the apartment, but when he made her a cup of sweet tea and ordered she drink it, she put her hands on her hips. “Stop growling at me!” She might be shaky, horribly tempted to believe in his every promise, but she was not and never would be, a pushover.
“I am not growling at you,” he growled, thumping down the mug of tea on the counter.
Of course the hot liquid splashed all over his hand. Grabbing his wrist when he hissed and pulled back, she stuck it under the cold water tap. “Don’t move,” she snapped when he went to pull it away, shooting him a glare as he growled again, the sound vibrating against her skin. “You’re worse than my students.”
No warning, no nothing, he just leaned down and nipped the tip of her ear sharply with his teeth. “Bastien!” Jumping, she let go of his wrist long enough for him to wrap his arm around her, trapping her between his weight and the sink.
Her entire body sang at the proximity of his, hard and hot and deliciously overwhelming against her back, but her worry about him kept her focused. Taking his wrist again, she put it under the tap. “It’s a bit red.”
He nuzzled at her, licked out at her skin.
Kirby couldn’t control her shiver. “Cat.”
A smile against her skin. “I like the taste of you.” Another lick, his free hand braced against the sink to block any escape.
Kirby didn’t want to escape this muscled masculine trap. “So,” she said, trying to keep her brain in gear, “I have some changeling blood—”
“No, it’s more than that.” He kissed her nape, making her toes curl, and she thought that, perhaps, this gorgeous man was attempting to distract her from the pain of the childhood loss that had so badly scarred her.
Eyes burning, she turned and pressed her lips to his jaw.
Rubbing his cheek against hers, he continued to speak. “Changeling genes are dominant, at least when it comes to shifting. A full or half-changeling child always shifts—and your scent tells me you fall into that category. Even if you’re latent, you should know what you are.”
“So I’m some kind of freak,” Kirby muttered. “Great.”
Bastien’s snarl raised every hair on her body. “What did I tell you about hurting yourself?” With that furious comment in a voice that barely sounded human, he broke her hold, turned off the tap, and spun her to face him.
Kirby stood her ground, recognizing the predator in him, but dead certain he would never hurt her. That certainty held even when he placed his hands on her hips, his claws slicing out to lie against the fabric of her coat.
“You’re not a freak. You’re Kirby.” His tone dared her to disagree.
Skin uncomfortably aflame all at once, she dropped her hands to the belt of her coat and undid it, shrugging off the thick fabric to throw it aside. Bastien’s hands went right back to where they’d been, strong and dangerous over denim and cotton.
“Sexy, smart, beautiful Kirby.” It was a purr of sound.
And then he kissed her.
One hand unraveling her ponytail, the other sliding under her shirt to lie on the curve of her waist, his skin rougher than her own, and his mouth enslaving hers.
She felt his claws, but he didn’t so much as scratch her as he tasted her like she was his favorite dessert. With tiny bites and long, slow licks that demanded she join in. When she did, stroking her tongue against his, he purred, the vibration shivering through her entire body to make her wonder what it would be like if they were both naked.
“Bastien.” Her nipples tight little points, she gripped his shoulders, exquisitely aware of him shifting one big hand to her butt to help her attain the right angle to rub against the rigid temptation of his cock, her claws kneading his—
Shoving away with a tiny scream, she stared at her hands. “Oh God.” The claws retracted almost before she was sure she’d seen them. “I—”
Bastien put his hands on either side of Kirby’s body, once more trapping her against the counter and keeping her within touching distance. “Yes,” he said. “You just semi-shifted.” And, because he hated to see her so lost, so scared, he nipped her ear again. Hard enough to sting.