A Lion shifting could trigger a weaker, more submissive Lioness into a shift.
But Ryan and Trip were dominant to their core, and El, though she had a spine of steel, was more submissive than dominant, Marc thought.
“A mating thing.”Adam sighed.“Please don’t remember this conversation later on.”
Ryan gritted out, “For fuck’s sake, Adam, Trip could be dying here.Tell us what’s going on.”
“I had an affair with a Panther female back in college.She used to shift when she was horny, and it would trigger my change.”
“Did you mount her like that?”Marc asked, and despite the seriousness of the situation, curled his lip in revulsion at the thought.
He’d have taken El in a blink of the eye if she’d been a Lioness.But cross-species mating was never advisable.
Even though they were both cats, it just wasn’t...right.
Adam scowled.“No.I didn’t.That’s why it was a problem.She’d get horny and we’d shift, then we’d have to figure out how to get back to human form to fuck.”
Ryan gasped, “Don’t make me laugh, Adam.Please.Don’t.It hurts to breathe never mind laugh.”
Adam swore.“You bastard, you’re never going to let me live this down, are you?”
“If it saves Trip, I might,” he bit off, a gasp of pain escaping his lips a second later.“And my ass, too.Fuck, this hurts.”
Adam swallowed, then admitted, “If she shifts now, then reverts back to this form, it should work.”
“She reverted back last night.That didn’t cause us to leap on her,” Marc pointed out.
“No.It’s not the shift back to human that does it.It’s changing to cat form.They mate like that because then she’ll get pregnant with Panthers, not babies, and will give birth in cat form.They say it creates a stronger Shifter.”
Ryan caught Marc’s eye, and he had to flinch at the sight of his Triad brother.His face was one whole mass of raw, gaping wounds.
Swallowing back the horror that filled him, the terror and the worry, he murmured, “It took us ages last night to get her back to human form.She’s feral now.There’s no getting her out of it.”
Ryan clenched his jaw, admitting he was right.“I can’t do this alone,” he admitted softly.“I’m strong, but the blast...”
He didn’t have to say another word.Marc could see that only Ryan’s strength as a Lion and a man had kept him alive.
The fact he was walking around, even if it was more of a stagger and a hobble, was a testament to the man’s power.
He’d seen Ryan exit his limo to check out the vehicle at the front of the cavalcade.He’d seen the blast go off in the third one, had watched as Ryan was torn through the air, a fireball blast shooting him down.
He’d have chased after him, should have gone to help, but he’d been frozen.
The sight of the explosion, the idea he might have lost his two Triad brothers had frozen him in place.
Turned him to goddamn stone.
He sucked in a shaky breath, then grabbed a hold of the Panther’s great head.
Her fur was silky and it nearly soaked up the daylight around her it was so black.Her eyes were green, and the pupils were the feline version of pin pricks.
She was terrified.
Not for herself, not for the fact she was stuck in this form, but for her males.
The thought bolstered him.
He was the only one who could do this.He had to make sure he didn’t waste a moment longer.Those moments could have Trip’s life slipping further away into the next plane.
