Chapter Seven
Ramon
“You sure you’re ready for this?” Ramon asked as he stood completely naked in front of his mate.
Her gaze roamed salaciously over his body, and he couldn’t help standing a little straighter and puffing out his chest. Inside, his bird preened under her attention.
“Sounds to me like you’re stalling,” Saffy said, a coy smile playing across her full lips. “I can go first if you’re afraid.”
His inner bird bristled at that and even the playful raise of his mate’s eyebrows, and the curve of her luscious mouth couldn’t convince it that she was only teasing.
Mate challenges us. Shift. Show her our regal plumage. Show her our majesty. Shift.
Ramon grinned. “All right, you asked for it.”
He got down on his knees then let the change rush over his body. When it came on, it came on fast. At first, it felt like an itch over his skin, like thousands of ants were crawling over it. Then the sensation morphed into something that wasn’t entirely uncomfortable, but strange nonetheless. Or had been, back when he was a kid learning to shift. He wasn’t a kid now. He was an adult, a member of a SWAT team. So why the heck was he so terrified?
Mate will like what she sees,his bird squawked.How could she not?
If his head hadn’t been otherwise engaged changing size and shape, he’d have shaken it at his animal’s irrepressible vanity. Sometimes, it was more like a peacock than a hawk.
His feathers began to grow out and he felt the need to have an all over body shake the way a dog did when it was wet. Lastly came the most magical part of his shift when he let his bird out fully, and his human form began to fade away. His bird was always elated to break free from its confinement so that it could get up into the air and soar. Ramon looked forward to that part too, but today wasn’t about letting his bird out to fly, it was about letting his bird meet Saffy, and her lion.
Of course, cats and birds were mortal enemies, but a shifter’s other half usually recognized their mate after the disorienting sensation of the shift had worn off. Ramon was hoping his bird would recognize Saffy’s lion as his mate, too. Usually, like most adult shifters, he had full control of his animal when he shifted. But around Saffy, it seemed like all bets were off. About everything.
He had brought her to a small reserve that he knew to be quiet at that time of the evening. People probably wouldn’t have freaked out if they saw a hawk somewhere near them, but a lion was a different matter entirely. Saffy’s pride had a large nature reserve where they all went to shift, but with the way she had left things with her family, it wouldn’t have been good for her to go there. And itdefinitelywouldn’t have been advisable for her to take a hawk shifter with her on pride territory, mate or not.
Almost at once, Ramon felt his bird vying for control, for the chance to sweep and glide through the air, wowing their mate with their aerial grace. A loud screech burst from their throat, and his wings flapped wildly. The bird had just bent its head to start cleaning his already immaculate feathers then stopped abruptly when he heard the sharp intake of breath.
“You’re beautiful,” Saffy said in a reverent whisper.
Ramon took advantage of his animal’s awed distraction to wrest back control and then preened, hoping she hadn’t noticed his embarrassing slip. It had been over a decade since his bird had taken over like that, and it had earned him a bad enough ribbing then.
Content his bird was back under control, and thrilled that Saffy seemed to find his bird form so pleasing, he hopped around in a circle—the closest he could come to a twirl—and was rewarded with her amused chuckle. He bobbed his head, and then stretched out his wings…because when it came down to it, size really did matter. And his wings were huge.
She grinned. “Wow, look how big and powerful you are.”
Mate likes us,the bird said to him, with an unmistakable note of smugness. He would have grinned, if beaks had been cut out for grinning, at the bird’s reaction. Of course she likes us, you idiot, he thought back at the bird. She’s our mate. And yet, he couldn’t help but share the animal’s jubilation. The lioness was awed by a hawk.
She stretched out a hand and ran her fingertips across his feathers in a gentle caress. He closed his eyes at the glorious sensation, thrumming in his throat with utter contentment. He was fairly certain he was in hawk heaven.
After a while, she got to her knees and asked, “Are you ready to meet my cat?”
Ramon’s inner bird flapped its wings in agitation, but he kept his physical form completely still. He was fully in control, and he would need to be. If Saffy had a lapse in control over her cat the way he had when he’d first shifted, then natural instincts could kick in. He loved his mate, and would never allow any harm to come to her. He just couldn’t be certain her inner cat felt the same way about his bird.
But he would keep them both safe. He nodded his head a few times to convey that he was ready, and she let out a nervous giggle that he thought might have been the most beautiful sound ever uttered in this meadow.
“All right then, let’s do this.”
He watched in rapt fascination as the air shimmered around his mate’s body and fur began to sprout from her arms. His bird didn’t like that bit as much, but he was rapt. Then her body began its change into her cat, her shapely figure becoming larger and yet still lithe, with effortless grace. He hopped back a couple of feet to give her more room and to put a safe distance between them in case the cat’s instincts triggered during the shift.
When his mate had completed her shift, all he could do was stare at her in awe. Saffy’s lion washuge—the biggest he’d ever seen up close. She stretched lazily, then licked her giant paws before lifting her head and locking him in place with what could only have been described as a death glare.
His bird urged him to take flight, to flee, but instead, he stayed perfectly still. It’s okay, he reassured the animal. She’s our mate. She won’t harm us. Still, he kept his eyes trained on her as she got up on those giant paws and inched closer to him. She stopped a few feet away and her nose twitched, then she fell on her side and her chest started to emit a weird rumbling noise that might have been the best sound he had ever heard in his life. Bar none. It was hypnotic and it made his legs hop closer as if they had a mind of their own. He was so close now, she could have reached out and grabbed him, but he was entranced by the rumbling noise and had to get closer to it. Much closer. He cocked his head to the side, the better to hear it.
Quicker than he would have imagined possible, Saffy leapt to her feet then headbutted him with her massive skull. He bounced back a few steps and blinked as she took off at a full out gallop across the meadow. He let out a strangled squawk in surprise and amusement, and then flapped his massive wings. It was like that, was it? Fine. It wason.
He took off after her, soaring over the meadow and chased her around and around until darkness started to fall. Eventually they both grew tired, and collapsed next to one another on the warm evening grass.
