A low whine built in his throat. He hadn’t meant to frighten the creature.
“Pip!” she called. “Pip, it’s okay! Come back!”
But the glider was gone, and he couldn’t blame it. In this form, he was even more massive, covered in that dark silver fur that absorbed the moonlight. His claws were the length of human fingers, curved and razor-sharp. His fangs could pierce bone.
He was, by any objective measure, a nightmare made flesh.
And she was sliding off the bed and walking towards him.
“Oh,” she breathed. “Oh.”
He held perfectly still, every muscle locked, as she approached. Part of him wanted to retreat—to put space between them, to protect her from the monster he’d become. But the beast wouldn’t allow it. The beast wanted her closer.
Mate. Our mate. She comes to us.
She stopped an arm’s length away, her head tilted back to look up at him. In this form, he towered over her even more than usual. She was so small. So fragile. One swipe of his claws could?—
Her hand reached out and touched his chest.
The contact jolted through him like lightning. Her palm was warm against his fur, her fingers gentle as they spread across the hard muscle beneath. No hesitation. No fear. Just that same boundless curiosity that seemed to drive everything she did.
“You’re beautiful,” she said.
A sound escaped him—half growl, half whimper—that he would have been embarrassed by in human form. But the beast had no room for embarrassment. Only the overwhelming sensation of being touched by this impossible female who saw something beautiful where others saw only monster.
“So soft,” she murmured. Her other hand joined the first, both palms pressing against his chest as she explored the texture of his fur. “I thought it would be coarser. But it’s like... like the silk cushion in the library.”
He didn’t know what to do. In all his years of existing, no one had ever touched him like this while he was transformed. His packmates had sparred with him, fought beside him, but that was different. That was combat. This was something else entirely.
This was acceptance.
Her hands traveled up his chest to his shoulders, tracing the heavy muscle there, then down his arms to where his claws hung at his sides. She lifted one of his hands—massive in hers, the claws longer than her fingers—and examined it with scientific interest.
“Can you retract these?”
He focused for a moment, and the claws slid back into sheaths that hadn’t existed a second before. A small transformation within the larger one.
“Fascinating.” She pressed her thumb against the pad of his palm, and his claws extended again involuntarily, a reflex he couldn’t control. She laughed. “Ticklish?”
Another sound escaped him. Definitely embarrassing. But she was laughing, and the beast was preening under her attention, and he found he didn’t care.
“Can you understand me like this?” she asked. “I mean, properly understand? Or is it just instinct?”
He nodded. Speech was difficult in this form—his mouth wasn’t shaped for human words—but comprehension was unaffected. If anything, his senses were sharper, his understanding more acute.
“Good. Because I have so many questions.” She released his hand and stepped back, circling him slowly. He turned his head to track her movement, a low rumble building in his chest. “How much larger are you? Half again your normal size? More? And the fur—is it always this color, or does it change with the seasons like some Earth animals?”
She was treating him like one of her specimens. Like a fascinating new discovery to be studied and catalogued. And somehow, instead of feeling objectified, he felt... seen.
Her circuit brought her back to his front. She looked up at him with shining eyes, completely unafraid.
“Thank you,” she said. “For showing me. For trusting me.”
He lowered his head, pressing his muzzle against the top of her hair. Her sweet floral scent filled his nose and the beast purred with satisfaction.
Mate,it insisted again.Ours. Protect. Keep.
This time, he didn’t silence it.
