Those were the last words he got out before he dropped to his knees and cried out. One moment Liam knelt there and the next, he was a big, beautiful black panther. Eve had never seen anyone shift that quickly. His cat must have forced its way out and Liam didn’t know how to fight it. How to control it. He’d never been taught. The cat didn’t even look at her. It saw the open window and leapt into the air, out of the window, and disappeared into the night.
Eve didn’t hesitate. She stripped out of her clothes, crouched on the floor then began the shift into her own panther form. She couldn’t leave Liam out there on his own. If he hurt someone, if hegothurt… This was all her fault. She had to go after him. She had to find him. She had to make this right. The idea that he’d gone his entire life believing he had a mental illness and didn’t have a single person he could talk to, who could tell him what he was, made Eve’s heart ache for her mate.
She couldn’t imagine what Liam had been through. He’d been so alone. It was no wonder he’d sought refuge in a gang, people who had taken him in and made him feel that he was part of something. She should never have judged him without getting to know him. It was wrong of her and when she found him, she intended to make it up to him. If he’d let her. Perhaps this was the reason why fate had given Liam to her as a mate. So that she could help him. She could guide him and teach him and, in return, he could teach her. She’d been so prejudiced, and she hated that about herself. No more.
Eve’s shift took longer than Liam’s, but still only a handful of seconds, and then she was standing on the bedroom floor in her cat form. She shook out her fur, which also managed to shake away the last of the disorientation from the shift and she remembered what she had to do.
Find mate.
Her cat’s thought echoed through her mind, in complete agreement with her, and she lifted her feline head, eyed the window, and leapt for it. In her panther form, Eve was all fluid grace, and she cleared the window smoothly and landed deftly on the grass beneath. She put her nose to the ground and sniffed and picked up Liam’s incredible scent quickly. The smell of it excited her cat and she followed it along the sidewalk of the quiet street, sticking to the shadows and keeping her ears perked for the sound of danger.
She kept her nose to the ground and followed the trail, picking up speed until she was jogging along the sidewalk. One street turned into another, then another, until she came to the entrance of a park. When Liam’s scent began to grow stronger, she knew she was gaining on him, and it spurred her on to move faster still. She entered the park and looked around at the wide-open space. There was no sign of Liam, but she followed the scent to the trees on the left of the park. The large grass area held the scent of a myriad of dogs and Eve wrinkled her nose, trying to block them out so that she could focus on the one scent that mattered.
Movement disturbed the darkness up ahead and she froze, the hairs prickling along her spine as she tracked the movement and strained her eyes for sound, for some sign that this was her quarry. When the large, sleek black body appeared briefly through the trees, Eve broke out into a run, relieved to have finally caught up with her mate. But as she neared, the huge beast spun around, eyes wide, and hissed at her. Eve stopped abruptly, watching the magnificent cat as it tried to determine if she was friend or foe. It hissed again, then moved toward her a few steps and arched its back, making itself look bigger, attempting to intimidate what it clearly saw as a threat.
Eve lowered her gaze and waited. When she next looked up, she saw that the cat was scenting the air, a quizzical expression on its feline face.
Abruptly, a loud, rhythmic purr sounded in its chest, and it bounded forward, toward her.
Mate,Eve’s panther thought contentedly.
As soon as he reached her, Liam knocked his head into her side, purring louder. He rubbed his head, cheek, and body up against her before falling to the ground and exposing his stomach. Without any conscious thought, a mirroring loud purr sounded in Eve’s chest before she threw herself on the ground beside her mate, her own panther’s consciousness close to the surface, and they began to groom one another.
After spending some time getting to know one another, Eve rose and nudged Liam before taking off running across the park. She was dimly aware of the larger cat giving chase and ran faster, her huge paws eating up the ground quickly.
They raced and played and tussled for wonderful timeless moments through the darkness of the night, lost in the joy of finding each other, until eventually they collapsed under a tree and curled up together before falling into a deep, contented sleep.
Chapter Eight
Liam
When Liam opened his eyes, the first thing he became aware of was the fact that he was lying outside under a tree.
He closed his eyes again and let out a groan. Not again. He’d lost count of the times he’d woken up outside, naked. He cracked an eyelid and looked down at himself. Yep. No clothes.
This was getting out of hand. More out of hand than it already had been, that was. Because this time, there might have been people out here hunting him, waiting to take advantage when he passed out, alone, naked, and completely vulnerable.
At least it was still early morning—the sun had barely started to make an appearance over the horizon, and the world was coated in the soft, grayish hue that marked pre-dawn—and it was unlikely any of the Vipers would be awake this early. If he’d survived this long, he was probably out of danger.
The initial panic receded enough that he noticed there was something else different about this occasion: the patch of warmth pressed up against his back. What the hell? He glanced behind him and saw Eve lying against him, sleeping peacefully.
…And she was completely naked, too.
His heart stuttered painfully. What had they done? What hadhedone? And why couldn’t he remember any of it?
Damn it. He’d lost time again. Why did that keep happening?
He forced himself to draw in a slow breath and calm his mind enough to think back to the last thing he could remember. He’d been having a nightmare. Eve had come into his bedroom and suggested that Liam was a… He sat bolt upright, and it jostled Eve awake. She sat up too and looked around them as if assessing the danger but finding none.
“Liam?” she said, her voice rough from sleep.
“What happened?” he asked.
“You don’t remember? You don’t remember anything?”
“No.”
“I was right,” she said softly. “Youarea shifter. You changed into your cat form right in front of my eyes. We ran, played, hunted. Then we fell asleep.”
