“This is the most vulnerable moment in a shifter’s life,” I said, keeping Morris in my focus and Robyn’s demonstration on the edge of my vision. “We’re defenseless while we shift, and the fact that she’s willing to do this in front of you should mean a great deal to you.”
And to me. Instinctually speaking, she had no reason to trust either of us not to kill her while she lay helpless on the floor. Did that make her rash, or simply eager to help a stray she obviously identified with?
Or was she trusting me to protect her? Putting her life in my hands…
A proud, pleasant warmth settled into my chest with that thought.
“I don’t… I can’t…” Morris stammered, his wide-eyed gaze glued to Robyn as her facial features slowly attained a recognizably human structure. Cheekbones. Brow bones. A delicately pointed chin.
And all at once, after several minutes of a grotesque and obviously painful transformation, Robyn lay on the cold concrete floor, naked and breathing heavily as her body fought to recover from the self-induced trauma.
“Holy shit.” Morris swiped his left hand over his sweaty hair and sank onto the side of his bed. “How the…? Holyfuck.”
“Articulate, isn’t he?” Robyn smiled as she sat up slowly, and long dark hair fell over the graceful curve of her shoulder. But it covered very little else.
I began unbuttoning my shirt, intending to offer it to her.
Robyn frowned. “What are you doing?”
My fingers paused three holes down. “Being a gentleman.”
She stood, both hands propped on her hips. Her curvy, bare hips… “You mean being a prude? If I’d wanted clothes, I would have brought some with me.”
My hands fell to my sides, and for the first time since I was thirteen years old, I had no idea what to do with them.
Look at her eyes.
Only her eyes…
Robyn laughed, as if she could hear what I was thinking. Or read it on my face. “It’s my understanding that nudity is par for the course for shifters, and that it doesn’t mean anything sexual unless it’s accompanied or preceded by some sort of overture. At least, that’s what the natural-born cats tell me. Is that different for strays? Are your men shy?”
“No. But they’re…men.” I hesitated, unsure how to proceed without sticking my foot in my mouth. “I assumed a woman who didn’t grow up in this lifestyle would be…hesitant.”
“Maybe you should stop expecting different things from me just because I use a stall rather than a urinal.”
“That’s not—” I bit off the explanation because I didn’t owe her one. But the truth was that I was making an educated guess, not a sexist assumption. Abby put her clothes on as soon as she was done shifting, which had led me to believe that Robyn would as well. That tabbies were more modest than toms.
“She turned from acatinto awoman, and the part you can’t understand is nudity?” Morris said, and we both turned to him in surprise. I’d almost forgotten he was even there. “I’m less worried about her clothes than about her fur. What the hell just happened?”
Robyn’s soft smile was part amusement, part…nostalgia? “I know, it looks weird. And it feels even weirder. Actually, it hurts like hell. And I wish I could say you get used to it, but you don’t. I haven’t, anyway.” She crossed her arms beneath her breasts—look at her eyes, Titus!—and padded into Morris’s cell on two bare human feet. “But maybe it’ll be different for you.”
“You’re saying that’s going to happen to me?” Morris said, and I realized that nowthey’dforgotten aboutme.
“Yeah.” Robyn shrugged, and more hair fell over her shoulder. “You got scratched, right? I saw the wound last night. The cat that scratched you was a shapeshifter, and now so are you.” Another shrug. “But you’re way luckier than I was. Titus has a sweet setup here. I was totally incoherent by this phase, but you seem mostly okay.”
“We’ve kept him hydrated,” I said. “That makes all the difference.”
Morris laughed, but rather than joy, the sound held an edge of mania. From the fever.
“What’s funny?” Robyn asked.
“The IV.” Morris dragged one hand through his hair. “This whole thing is absurd. I got attacked by a fucking panther. I went to the ER for the infection, then got in a car with a stranger and woke up in a jail cell in a basement, surrounded by even more strangers who smell…weird. Yet weirdly familiar. Then there’s you.” His eyes narrowed as he studied her, and my hands clenched into fists because he didnotlook just at her face. “You were a panther, then Isawyou turn into a woman, and now you’re naked. Yet somehow, the thing that feels most preposterous of all is this damn IV.” He raised his hand, and the tube coming from his arm rocked the bag hanging from a hook on the wall. “It’s so normal and logical that it shouldn’t have any place in this nightmare.”
“Again, this is not a dream,” I said.
Robyn laughed, as if I hadn’t even spoken. “For me, it was coffee.” She stepped into the cell and dropped into the bedside chair, then crossed her legs at the knees. “I got infected in this horrible cabin. There were cat heads mounted on the wall—I didn’t know they were dead shifters at the time—and there was blood everywhere. My friend Abby and I had to stay in the cabin, because I was too sick to hike out of the woods. I was in and out of consciousness with a raging fever, vomiting every hour or so, but through it all, I kept smelling coffee. The good kind. French Vanilla or chocolate biscotti, or something sweet like that. I thought I was hallucinating, but it turns out the asshole hunters who kidnapped me and dragged me to their shifter slaughterhouse had some fancy coffeemaker, and Abby drank cup after cup so she could stay awake and take care of me.”
“What happened to the assholes?” Morris asked, and I stared at Robyn in astonishment. He should either have been backing into a corner of the room, sweating terror from every pore, or convinced that he was either dreaming or hallucinating the whole thing. Yet Robyn had him talking coherently. Asking questions, in spite of a fever that should have knocked him on his ass.
