I would not hurt her, Slayer insisted.Her female would never accept me if I did such a thing. Meiling is part of her leopard. I would never harm her.
Gedeon continued to rub between Meiling’s shoulder blades and kiss the nape of her neck to soothe her. “Doyou feel her rising to meet him, Lotus? She’s right there. I’ll bet she’s a beautiful little thing just like you.”
“Don’t let him claim her.” There was a sob in Meiling’s voice. “Don’t, Gedeon. If you care at all about me, don’t let him claim her.”
“I know he’s very scary, but he would protect her with his life. He’ll protect you. He’s looked for her for years. Waited for the right mate. She’s his mate, Meiling. There’s no mistake.”
Slayer was pushing hard against him and Gedeon couldn’t take a chance that the female would retreat. “It’s going to be all right. Let him make his claim and then we’ll talk this out.”
“It will be too late. He won’t let her go.” Meiling started to struggle again.
Gedeon retreated to allow Slayer to take over his form. They were fast at the shift, a smooth transition so that Meiling went still at the feel of thick fur sliding along her bare skin. Her gasp was audible. Gedeon stayed close, especially since he heard her let out a little choked sob.
The leopard was massive, all muscle and loose skin, his pelt heavy. He weighed in at two hundred pounds of sheer brute strength but was as agile and fast as any smaller leopard. The male could fold himself in half in midair, turn on a dime. His speed was legendary. Gedeon had never seen the cat display his gentle side until that moment. The cat’s big sandpaper tongue came out and lapped at Meiling’s back. The leopard was exquisitely careful to keep from taking skin off her. He nuzzled her nape with his shaggy head before turning his attention to her shoulder.
Slayer sank his teeth into her with a holding bite, injecting his hormones into her bloodstream, waiting for Whisper to rise to accept him. He coaxed her. There was no demand, as Gedeon expected. The male leopard was patient, holding Meiling under him, but doing so as gently as possible under the circumstances.
The female rose slowly, studying Slayer as she did so, and then abruptly made up her mind. She touched the male, accepting his claim, and retreated. Triumph surged through Slayer. Through Gedeon. Whisper belonged to Slayer. He would never again be alone. Gedeon had Meiling. She was his.Allof her. There would be no more empty nights at the club with his leopard trying to tear him apart. He wasn’t fool enough to think it would be easy. Meiling had made up her mind she didn’t want him. She wasn’t going to believe him that he was there for himself, not just his leopard. But he could deal with that.
Slayer licked at the wounds in Meiling’s shoulder, making certain the coagulant in his saliva would stop the flow of blood that trickled down her shoulder. Gedeon shifted back to his own form and pressed kisses over the wounds.
“I’ve got a first-aid kit. Stay still until I can get it.”
She didn’t respond, but her eyes were open, and she was looking around the room. Gedeon located the gun he’d tossed aside before he eased his weight off her. He wasn’t taking any chances. She might be upset enough with him to shoot him in places he considered sacred. He swept the gun up off the floor as he went past it.
Meiling sat up slowly, brushing at the tears on her face and jerking down the thin crop top. She sat in the middle of her bed, feet pulled up under her, rocking back and forth, self-soothing. Gedeon sank onto the bed behind her and opened the medical kit. It was a very small one. He used an antibiotic cream and bandaged the two puncture wounds on her shoulder.
“How did you find me?”
He didn’t want to tell her. If somehow she managed to get away again, he wanted the same resource open to him. “I have to hand it to you, Lotus Blossom, it took hours of watching the same surveillance tapes over and over before I figured out how you did it. When I first realized you weregone, I started to panic. Can you imagine that? Me panicking? I’ve come to depend on having you with me. All of a sudden, to know you’re no longer there was a shock to my entire system. I fell back on the years of discipline. I knew I would never find you if I didn’t think logically. I just had to apply all the things I knew about you.”
He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her onto his lap. She had hunched into herself, making herself smaller than ever. For him, seeing Meiling that way was heartbreaking. She was strong. He knew they could work things out once he could get her to talk to him openly again. She was honest about her emotions, much more so than he was. He didn’t like that feeling of being vulnerable, or putting the only two people he loved, Meiling and Slayer—if he could call Slayer a person—at risk by his admission.
“I looked at those security tapes a hundred times. I knew if you made an exchange with someone else at the Café Du Monde, you had to have done it when you went to the restroom, yet you came out, stood in line, ordered your normal drink and went to the river as you always did.”
Meiling shocked him by leaning against his chest. She didn’t do that very often, not even when she’d come to his room when they first were together. It was a rare occasion, and only when he sensed she really needed comfort. She never asked him to hold her, but she did lean into him like she was doing now. He tightened his arms around her. Slayer moved closer to the surface, trying to give her comfort as well.
Gedeon knew better than to call attention to the fact that she was allowing him to hold her. He continued with what he’d discovered. “I watched the woman who was supposed to be you walking. Most often people change appearances, but they don’t change the way they walk. She looked exactly the same as you when you walk. Unhurried. Fluid. Practiced.”
He kissed the top of her head. “You’re so brilliant. I found myself just staring at the surveillance tape and thinking about that word.Practiced.Was that woman wearing your clothes? Was she wearing your jewelry and carrying your drink? Was it really you or someone pretending to be you? It took a lot of studying those tapes before I realized a switch had been made. You even had her practice the way you walked.”
There was genuine admiration in his voice. He didn’t want to go any further. Let her believe he had found her by uncovering the woman Meiling had trained to be her. He knew everything there was to know about her, but she hadn’t been able to help him find Meiling. He hadn’t even bothered to question her.
He rocked Meiling gently, trying to comfort her when no matter what he did, the tears kept flowing. Tears were out of his scope of expertise. He didn’t offer comfort. He fell silent, shifting her small body in his arms so that he cradled her fully against his chest. She buried her face against his heavy muscles. Right over his heart. He buried his fingers in her hair and began a slow scalp massage.
“You have to tell me where this is coming from, Meiling. I know you’re upset with me, and you have every reason to be, but we’ve always worked. It’s always been the two of us. My hope all along has been that your leopard would rise and accept Slayer. I thought, I hoped, that you would want the same thing.”
Gedeon tried to be careful of his word choices. He didn’t want to sound hurt or in any way put pressure on her. Trying to cope with her female’s first rising was tough enough without Gedeon adding to the confusion and strain Meiling was experiencing. Still, he had to find a way to shut down the intense emotion so they could at least begin communication.
She gave a little shake of her head and his heart dropped. What did that mean? She didn’t want her leopard to bewith Slayer? That had never been a desire for her? An option? They were so close in every other way—at least until he blew it by having a woman in his room.
He remained silent, turning that small shake of her head over and over in his mind. Looking back over their relationship for signs he might have missed to indicate they weren’t as close as he thought. There was a time when they had been. He hadn’t gone to the club for weeks when he’d first returned blinded. It had taken weeks to heal his vision. It was at that time he had learned what happiness was. True caring. He hadn’t realized he still had the capacity to love someone until he was with Meiling. His last thought before he went to sleep was Meiling. His first thought in the morning was for her. Slayer was at peace. She had turned their lives around.
During that time, Meiling seemed as happy as he had been. There was a genuine brightness to her. Her laughter was very real. She initiated the contact with him long before he did with her, just small touches on his arm or shoulder. He had begun doing the same. In the evenings, when he coaxed her to stay with him in his bed, she would lie outside the covers, and he would lie with his head in her lap. Her fingers drifted through his hair, massaging his scalp, feeling like caresses and caring when he’d never had that from anyone.
Okay. That had changed subtly—or not so subtly—when he began to frequent the club again. He’d held out as long as he could. After spending time with Meiling, he didn’t want to be around other women. He’d never much liked it in the first place, but the relentless sexual drive had made it impossible to stop. He used the gym to work out as much of the fierce energy as possible, but eventually that hadn’t worked.
Meiling knew. He didn’t try to hide it from her. He was honest. That was a huge part of their relationship. He knew it hurt her. She withdrew a part of herself from him andthat hurt him. He knew that was fair—the price he had to pay to keep from going insane. To keep those around him safe. To stay alive. He still had Meiling, even though he’d lost a part of their relationship.
