His heartbeat pulses under my palm, steady and strong. Tonight everything changes. Tonight I become something more than human, something capable of standing beside him when Zharkov finally comes.
CHAPTER 18
KIAN
The sun sets beyond the western cliffs, painting the sky in shades of blood and copper.
I watch it from my window at the cottage, counting down the minutes until darkness falls completely. Catriona's been in the other room for the past few hours with Eliza and Isla, talking through what the transformation will feel like. They're reassuring her that the experience varies—every shifter is different in terms of how long it takes and pain level—but any pain will be brief. They're trying to help, but nothing they say will prepare her for what's coming.
Nothing prepares anyone for their first shift.
Restlessness claws beneath my skin, demanding the claiming she asked for. Holding back has taken every scrap of control I possess. But she deserves this to be her choice, made with full knowledge of what it means.
The door opens behind me.
Catriona steps inside, closing it softly. Her hair's down, loose around her shoulders, and she's changed into clean clothes that are simple and practical. Nothing that can't be easily removed.
"The others told me the transition can be painful, but shifting back and forth is not," she says.
"True enough." No point lying to her. "During your transition, your body breaks and rebuilds itself. Bones crack, muscles tear, everything that makes you human gets remade into something else."
"And you'll be there?"
"Every second." I turn to face her fully. "I can't stop the pain, but I can anchor you. You'll feel me the whole time."
She nods, processing that. "Eliza told me what to expect. How the claiming works. That it changes everything."
"It does." Though instinct tells me she'll handle it better than most. "When I claim you, my DNA overwrites yours. You'll become what I am."
"A tiger," she repeats, testing the word.
"A tigress." I cross to her, unable to keep the distance any longer. "She'll be fierce, powerful, and built to hunt and kill."
"Good." Her chin lifts. "That's what I need to be."
She looks up at me, her gaze steady and unflinching. "I need you to understand something before we start."
"What?"
"I'm not doing this just to survive the Russians." Her hand finds my chest, palm flat over my heartbeat. "I'm doing this because I want you—the transformation, all of it. I want to be yours, Kian, permanently and irrevocably. No escape clause."
My muscles lock, tension coiling through my shoulders and jaw.
"Once I claim you," I tell her, my voice rougher than I intend, "you'll be tied to me for the rest of your life. It's permanent. You'll feel me constantly—location, emotions, everything."
"Good."
"I'm not gentle, Cat. I'm not the man who brings you flowers and writes you poetry. When I take you, it'll be the way instinct demands—dominant, from behind, because that's how shifters claim their mates."
"I don't want gentle." She steps closer, near enough that heat radiates between us. "I don't want soft or safe or civilized. I want you to see me as strong enough to stand beside you when the Russians come. Not someone you have to protect. Not something fragile that needs to be kept in the back while you fight."
Hunger lunges against my control, demanding I act. I grab her and kiss her hard enough to bruise. She gasps into my mouth, arching into me, and whatever restraint I had left crumbles to dust.
I tear at her clothes. She helps, tugging her shirt over her head, kicking off her boots. The jeans take longer—I have to peel them down her legs, hands shaking—but then she's bare beneath my palms, flushed and gasping.
I strip faster, instinct clawing at me, demanding I hurry. I guide her to the bed, following her down. When I settle over her, skin to skin, the contact burns. She's soft where I'm hard, curved where I'm angular.
"Turn over," I tell her.
