Keeper

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Pink Petal Books Pink Petal Books, an imprint of Jupiter Gardens Press, publishes romance novels where the relationship is primary. It doesn’t matter if you want to read super erotic or sweet inspirational books. Pink Petal Books believes that love is a beautiful thing, no matter what form it takes. For more information about Pink Petal Books visit http://www.pinkpetalbooks.com/. The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized editions and do not participate in or encourage the electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated. Permission is granted to make ONE backup copy for archival purposes. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, places, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

KEEPER ISBN# 978-0-9820050-4-0 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Copyright © SHAUNTA GRIMES, 2008 Cover Art ® 2008 by Celia Kyle Edited by Mary K. Wilson Electronic Publication Date: October 2008 This book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means existing without written permission from the publisher, Jupiter Gardens Press, Jupiter Gardens, LLC., PO Box 191, Grimes, IA 50111 For more information to learn to more about this, or any other author’s work, please visit http://www.pinkpetalbooks.com/

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Keeper Shaunta Grimes

PPB

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Chapter One Jude Felini carefully removed all the thorns from a single, perfect yellow rose before biting the long stem. He surveyed the tree-lined street, the rows of neat fourplex apartments, making sure he was alone before his body shimmered and contracted into that of a large orange tomcat. Clutching the rose between his teeth, he hopped from the ground onto an iron balcony railing, walked across it, jumped to a tree limb, and then up to a second story balcony. Potted plants and flowers turned the small space into a tiny rain forest. Jude loved being here and he often snuck up without the balcony’s avian owner knowing. The sexy little bird in question had once again jumped headlong into a boatload of trouble. From his position under her window, Jude watched Avery Dove wrap her arms around her slender waist and gaze at the sky. Her up-tilted heart-shaped face was unguarded, and breathtaking in its beauty. She opened the window and Jude leapt onto the sill. Avery stumbled backward several steps away from the window, upsetting framed pictures off the table behind her, and then let loose with a string of swear words all the more colorful for coming from such a delicate woman. Laughter rang in his head. He drew altogether too much enjoyment from yanking her chain. If he could get that personality quirk under control, maybe he’d be in Avery’s bed instead of standing outside her window. He took on his human form again as he jumped from the sill to the floor. As he transformed, the rose was tossed in the air. It spun in a slow arc before it landed in his hand. He presented it to her with a formal bow. She stood with her hands fisted on her hips, her cheeks flushed. Though she struggled to keep her gaze resolutely on his face, he caught the sweep she made of his nude body. “I swear to God, one of these days I’m going to put a collar around your neck and take you in to be neutered, Jude Felini.”

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Jude laughed out loud. “You don’t want me neutered, Sweetheart. Trust me.” “Maybe neutered you wouldn’t be such a pain in my ass.” She took the flower. “Where the hell are your clothes?” Jude raised an eyebrow and tilted his head toward the window with the tree outside, under which rested his jeans and t-shirt. “Being a pain in your ass sounds fun. Maybe we should give it a try.” “I hope you aren’t here just to gloat, because I’m really not in the mood.” Avery stuck her nose in the flower, but Jude saw the blush rising up from her elegant neck. No woman had ever done angry as beautifully as she did. “Go get dressed.” He leaned against her clean, white wall. Everything in her apartment was airy and light, perfectly suited for a bird. “Don’t you think it’ll cause a sensation if I walk down the front stairs nude?” “So go back down the balcony. You need clothes.” “Or you could take some of yours off.” He let his eyes slide down her body. Her hands were fisted on her hips and she was teetering on the edge of more angry than sexy. “And I’m not here to gloat. I’m here to lend support.” Avery looked down her nose at him over the rose. “Sure you are. Stay there.” She put the flower in water and then stalked off. Maybe needing some air, because it wasn’t like her to give into this particular argument so easily. She’d spent an entire evening pretending that he wasn’t naked before, just to keep from going down and collecting the clothing that he shed during his transformation. Once he was dressed, Jude sat on Avery’s couch and closed his mouth before sexyangry turned to really-angry. Avery sat next to him. He couldn’t take his eyes off of her. She was beautiful, fine boned and delicate in a way that made him want to take her in his arms to hold and protect her. But also fiery, she was a small package of dynamite with no fear, no hesitation when she went after something she wanted. That rebellious streak was how she got into trouble this time. 5

It wasn’t precisely against the rules for a shifter to have sex with a non-shifter. In fact, Jude knew of several mixed-species couples who lived happy lives together. But, the risks were enormous. A relatively small percentage of female non-shifters produced a hormone that induced addiction in non-shifting men. The phenomenon was fairly rare, although growing at an alarming rate, but when it happened the repercussions were extreme. The Coalition of Shape Shifters quarantined the female at the shifter colony on Warren Island to keep them from causing further addictions. Jude shook his head, as his memory of his mother slowly losing her mind in the Warren Island sanitarium transposed with Avery’s face. The facility shared the island with a prison that held the worst shifter offenders—murderers and rapists. Jude closed his eyes against the rush of adrenaline that came with his thoughts of just how far he would go to keep Avery from setting foot on the island. His cat clawed against the iron cage of Jude’s will in sympathy. All shifters had a dominate animal form. For most cat-shifters, that was some sort of domestic cat. Because his life had imploded with his mother’s incarceration just as his shifting abilities were solidifying, Jude’s dominate genus was the pantheras. The big cat. Jude had spent his life in the dual pursuit of learning everything he could about addiction, and to teaching himself to contain the predator that lived within him. He shook off his dark thoughts and turned back to the problem at hand. Avery had thrown the life-course of a non-shifter off balance. She’d been in bed with the man when he should have been bedding someone else. What had the silly girl been thinking? He suspected that she hadn’t. She had done what she always did—exactly as she pleased. Not caring that the Coalition could stop her if things went out of control. And ripping his guts out in the process. Except the Coalition had stopped her. A powerful geas had been placed on her shifting privileges. A magical mental block that kept her neuro pathways from making

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the connections necessary to give freedom to her bird. She was stuck in her human body until she found a way to put the man’s life course back on track. “I don’t know how you did it, Avery.” He looked at her, sitting with her legs crossed, a serious case of pissed-off little girl on her pretty face. Her chocolate brown hair lay perfectly smooth to her chin, drawing attention to the fullness of her pouting mouth; her dark eyes flashed at him. “Do what?” “A non-shifter? Don’t you have any sense of self-preservation at all?” She glared holes in him. “You really are a jerk, Jude.” He lifted his eyebrows and made a half-hearted attempt to keep his amusement off his face. He’d gotten to her. “I might be a jerk, Sweetheart, but I’m not the one who screwed up someone’s life course, am I?” “Leave me alone.” Jude smiled. “Can’t. The Coalition has decided that you need a Keeper.” He’d been assigned to help her reconnect the affected non-shifter with the woman Avery had unwittingly usurped from his bed. “A Keeper?” Fury snapped around her like electricity. “A Keeper? Not a chance. Get out of my apartment.” “I’m here for the duration, Sweetheart.” “Stop calling me Sweetheart.” Avery stood and started to pace in front of the window, her small hands opening and closing in frustration against her short denim skirt. Jude listened for a minute to the sound of her bare feet smacking against the wood floor as she stomped. She bent to pick up the pictures she’d knocked down earlier, her skirt riding to the tops of her thighs and giving him a heartbreaking view of her perfect ass. She ignored him like he’d disappeared off the face of the planet. 7

“Look. This is going to be easy, Avery. We’ll find the girl tomorrow and tell her that this guy wants her. She’ll go running to him. Kiss, kiss, happily every after.” She turned, smoothing her skirt over her thighs. “You really don’t know anything about women, do you?” Jude opened his mouth to argue that point, but closed it when he realized she was right. “It sounds like a good plan to me.” “If we do that, she’s going to get freaked out and never look at the guy again.” “So I suppose you have a plan?” “As a matter of fact, I don’t.” She came to stand in front of him, her arm wrapped around her narrow waist. “They were supposed to meet at the restaurant where she works. He was supposed to go to dinner there; she was supposed to be his waitress.” Jude closed his fists around the knowledge of what the man had actually been doing. “That’s a lot of ‘supposed to.’” She glared at him. “Well. That’s what was supposed to happen. Instead, he was rolling around in bed with you.” Jude’s pantheras screeched inside his head. She sent him a hard, irritated frown. “Yes, Einstein, I know. I was there. We just have to get him to the restaurant and her to be his waitress.” “I still say tell them about each other and they’ll do the work for us.” Avery closed her eyes. Jude adjusted his body, trying to ease the ache in his groin that always came with close proximity to her. He loved that she responded to him, that he could make her blush, or moan in frustration, or stomp her foot when words failed her. Once he got her in bed, she’d moan for a completely different reason. He bet she’d scream his name. She slipped her feet into a pair of sandals sitting near the front door. “Are you coming with me?”

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She made baiting her so easy. “It could be arranged.” “Jude!” He laughed. It angered her even more, but he couldn’t help it. Hell, he craved it. “I’m sorry. It depends on where we’re going.” “I’m going to leave a note for Frank at his office to meet me for dinner at the restaurant.” Jude went still, the humor draining out of him. “I don’t think so.” “Yes, I am.” “Two minutes ago you thought it was a terrible idea.” “No, I thought it was a terrible idea to straight up tell them about each other.” She waved her hands in dismissal of his worries. “This is different. Just getting them in the right place at the right time.” “I’ll take it.” She threw up her hands in frustration. “Come on, Jude. I can’t send a man in with a note for him.” Jude stood, putting his body between Avery and the door. “I’m going with you.” “He has to think I want a date with him. How’s it going to look if I bring my body guard with me?” Even after all these years, he could not stop himself from seeing his mother on the floor, beaten nearly to death by the non-shifter who’d become addicted to her. “I’ll stay out of sight, but you are not going near that man without me.” She gave her head a sharp shake. “I’m the one who asked you to come with me in the first place. You make me nuts.” She was right. Wondering if the man had become addicted was killing him. Avery sat down at her small desk and pulled out a box of pink stationary. She scratched out a couple of lines, then put her pen down and closed her eyes. 9

“What?” “How will she know him?” She tapped the pen against her lips and looked around the room. Her eyes landed on the yellow rose on her kitchen counter. “Perfect!” Jude hovered over her. “What are you saying to him?” “Just to meet me for dinner.” “And how is he going to react when you aren’t there?” Avery bit her bottom lip, hesitating before she answered. “Oh, hell no,” Jude interjected. “Will you use your head for once? You can’t have dinner with this guy.” “Will you please shut up and listen? Of course, I’m not going to meet him. You’re going to go in and convince the hostess to seat him in Eileen’s section. By the time he realizes I’m a no-show, they will have met and everything will be back on track.” “Kiss, kiss, happily ever after?” “Precisely.” She looked out the window again. Her wistful expression told Jude she was thinking about her bird. Like Jude could be any feline, Avery could be any bird. A tiny sparrow, a small white barn owl, a soft gray dove. But her dominate genus was a hawk. She loved to soar above the world. And she was a fighter. She would get through this. “I have a feeling it isn’t going to be as easy as you think.” He stood behind her and put a hand on her shoulder. “But some people need to do things the hard way, don’t they?” Avery shot him a look full of scorn as she stood and grabbed her purse on her way out the door.

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Chapter Two

Avery sat in the car for a moment after Jude pulled to the curb in front of Frank Alvarado’s office building. The spring sky was cobalt blue, and Avery knew in her bones that the thermals overhead were perfect for soaring. She smoothed her hand over her hair and tried to focus her attention on the task at hand. “I’ll be right out.” “I’m going up with you.” She sighed. “Don’t be silly. You can’t.” Jude cut the ignition and opened his car door. “Like hell.” “I’m a grown woman, Jude. I think I can manage to drop off a note without a babysitter. Just wait for me here.” “Like hell.” He came around and opened her door for her. “Let’s do this.” Avery sighed and stood up out of the car, glaring at Jude as she did. Why couldn’t his appearance match his personality? Then he’d be a shriveled, ugly little man with a wart on his nose. No, he had to have a face, all hard angles and chiseled features that stopped her heart every time she saw him. And he just had to be so male, so impossibly male that he made her feel exquisitely feminine. She hated him for that. Hated him because she knew he’d put his hand on the small of her back as they walked to the building, and that she wanted it there. Needed it there. Didn’t breathe properly until she felt it there. She hated him because she couldn’t be around him without wanting him, and she couldn’t make herself stay away from him. And because he’d been home for almost a year and had shown no sign of wanting her in return. Once they were inside the building, Jude looked at the huge board of names and office numbers until he found Frank’s information.

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Avery’s stomach did a somersault and she cut her eyes to the elevator. “Fourteen floors?” Jude nodded, his finger on the board over Frank’s name. “I’m afraid so.” She automatically looked for stairs, even though she knew better. Anything might sound better in the abstract than a miniscule moving coffin, but after two or three flights trapped in a narrow, enclosed stairway, her claustrophobia would completely incapacitate her. “Shit.” Jude brushed her hair behind her ear. His touch caused a jolt intense enough to bite through her emerging panic attack. “You can do this.” “Maybe it would be okay for you to drop off the note after all.” Jude leaned forward and pushed the call button. Avery bounced her fists off her thighs. She tried to breathe deep, in through her nose and out through her mouth. Or was it the other way around? The elevator opened and Avery’s legs went weak. No way could they carry her into that suffocating little box. “I can’t.” Jude put his arm around her, tucking her against his body under his shoulder, and led her into the elevator car. For a second, with his clean scent enveloping her and his strong arms holding her, she thought she might be fine after all. Then the doors started to close. “Wait!” It was too late. She was trapped, caged. She covered her face with her hands and felt tears on her cheeks. The elevator started to move, the grinding and slow stuttering start cranked Avery’s fear up another notch. Jude pulled her against him, her face against his chest. His broad shoulders and tall stature should have made things worse, he took up so much room, but instead he gave her a much needed anchor. “Breathe, Sweetheart.” She looked up at him, her fingers twisting handfuls of his shirt. “I can’t.” He smiled that slow, sexy smile that always curled her toes. “Yes, you can.” “Jude—“ 12

He bent his head and brushed his mouth over hers. Avery’s eyes opened wide, then fluttered closed when he put a hand to the back of her head and pulled her to him. The energy behind her fear transferred with surprising ease to sexual tension. They’d known each other since childhood and this was not their first kiss. But he’d never kissed her before with such possessiveness. Heat pooled between her legs and her breasts ached for his touch as he gathered her closer. She wrapped her arms around his neck and gasped when his hands cupped her ass to bring her thigh against the hard ridge of his cock. The elevator door opened and Jude let her go. An appalling little whimper escaped Avery when he separated them, and an even more appalling smile lit up his face. “I hate you.” There was no venom behind her words. Still, she lifted her chin and stalked out of that torture chamber. She reached into her purse and pulled out the note she’d written for Frank. Meet me at Cipriani’s at 8. Wear a red flower in your lapel. Avery. Simple, direct. He’d likely wonder about the flower, but he’d wear it. “Stay here.” She pointed to the left of Frank’s office door. Jude’s face took on a look of pure male amusement that annoyed her, but he stood on the spot she indicated. She opened the door. ~* * *~ Back in her apartment, the cross breeze from open windows teasing across her skin, Avery leaned back into her white overstuffed couch and buried her bare toes in the thick carpet that covered her pine flooring. Her abundance of plants was the dominant splash of color in her mostly neutral apartment. Except Jude. His bright hair shone like the sun among the cool colors. Everything had gone exactly according to plan. She’d left her note with Frank’s secretary. And Jude, proving that his good looks were good for something, had

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charmed the hostess at Cipriani’s into promising to put Frank in Eileen’s section tonight. The blonde bimbo would have eaten him with a spoon. “You should stop patting yourself on the back, Sweetheart.” She smiled, her mood far too good for him to spoil. “My name is Avery, Jackass.” “Fine. You’re going to be very embarrassed when this backfires in your face, Avery.” Her name sounded like candy when he said it that way. Avery pressed her hand against the slight tightening in her belly. “Who says it’s going to backfire. It’s foolproof.” “Foolproof. Like sneaking in a romp with a non-shifter was foolproof?” The heat of embarrassment rose up her face, and then anger reared up and stomped it out. She stood up, her fists clenching at her sides. “Don’t you dare talk to me like that! You don’t know anything!” She went to her bedroom, closed the door, and stood in the middle of the room with her swimming head in her hands. Jude had kissed her all the way back to the ground floor of Frank’s building. In retrospect, it was a miracle that no one had joined them in the elevator on either trip. Avery closed her eyes, her cheeks burning through a full-body high definition memory of Jude pushing her up against the wall of the elevator. She’d lifted her leg around his hips all on her own. He’d tugged her skirt nearly to her waist and pushed his hard-on against her panties until she had damn near come right there. And then he pulled away from her like nothing had happened when they reached their destination. She stood up and tugged her t-shirt over her head, tossing it on the eyelet comforter covering her bed, and then stepped out of her skirt. Her whole body was a giant raging hormone. That Jude was in the living room, instead of in her bedroom

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screwing her, made her want to pull her hair out. Wanting Jude to fuck her was even worse. She went to her closet and pulled out her most devastating dress. A white sundress that required her to go braless, the bodice skin tight and low cut. Once she had it on, the skirt fluttered several inches above her knees. She deliberately left on her damp panties. Let the jackass and his sensitive feline nose suffer the consequences of his actions. She opened her bedroom door again, expecting to find Jude sitting on her couch with a look on his face like he’d just eaten a canary. Instead, he stood at the window. Something about his face gave her pause. He clenched his fists and closed his eyes, for a moment shimmering so that the predator that lived just under his surface flickered through. Her bird demanded that she be terrified of his cat. And her heart obediently jumped when she saw him give in for a moment to the pantheras that she knew he had to fight constantly to keep in check. “Are you okay?” He turned, fully a man again. His eyes widened in appreciation and he spent a long moment taking her in. She waited for his gaze to make its way back to her face. “Let’s go.” “Where are we going?” “To the restaurant. I figure we’ll have lunch, meet Eileen, see what we’re up against. Maybe we’ll figure out a way to plant a seed.” ~* * *~ Cipriani’s wasn’t exactly upscale. But, it had good food and a local feel that Avery liked. The leather booths, each topped with an elaborate stained-glass hanging lamp, offered intimacy and ambiance without triggering Avery’s innate aversion to close spaces. 15

Avery stood near Jude and watched him flirt with the hostess. Again. Irritation bubbled up in her that she resolutely tried to ignore as she waited for him to get them seated in Eileen’s section. “Right this way, Jude.” The hostess was a bottle-blonde with big bouncy hair and bigger, bouncier boobs. Up close, she wasn’t nearly as young as Avery had first assumed. She looked like an aging cheerleader. Like she might break into Jude, Jude, be my man if given half the chance. Avery hated the way Jude’s name sounded coming out of the little hussy’s mouth. “You should try the spaghetti,.” The hostess put her hand on his arm. “It’s really yummy.” Avery snorted. Jude looked at her with amusement in his yellow-green eyes, ginger eyebrows lifting slowly. They needed this girl. She got it. But there was only so much anyone could take. If the little hussy touched him again, it was on. Where the hell did that come from? The girl walked away, turning once to glare at Avery before disappearing into the kitchen. Probably to conspire with the busboy about spitting in her food or something. “What’s wrong with you? You’re strung tighter than a drum.” Did he not notice that the hostess had done everything but offer him a lap dance to get his attention? Or maybe he did and didn’t mind. Avery’s stomach turned over. “I’m trying to fix this as soon as I can so I can get far, far away from you.” Jude put a hand over his heart. Even his hands were perfect—big, with long capable fingers and, even though he spent all his time in an academic setting, just the right amount of work-roughness to them. “You wound me, Sweetheart.” “You make me nuts, Jackass.” “We both know you’re madly in love with me.” 16

Her fingers dug into her thighs under the table in an effort to quell her instant and intense reaction to his words. “As if.” “Afternoon. I’m Eileen. I’ll be your waitress. Can I start you off with a drink? Maybe some wine?” Avery looked up at the woman, curious and glad for the distraction. She was pretty, but in a way that didn’t sink in until you’d looked at her for a minute. Her hair lay in a thick chestnut brown braid to the middle of her back, her eyes were startlingly blue. “I’d love some wine. Thank you.” At this point, she not only needed wine, she deserved it. Jude smiled and shook his head, his eyes on the waitress. “No, she wouldn’t.” Eileen looked between them and waited, pen poised over her pad. As long as she’d known him, he’d seemed to think he could boss her around. And someone actually gave him a position of power over her, making him her Keeper. As if he wasn’t already insufferable enough. “I want a glass of house wine, please.” He glanced at her, flashed that damned amused smile, and then nodded to Eileen. “I guess I’m the designated driver. I’ll have a ginger ale.” “Don’t do that, Jude,” Avery hissed at him after Eileen was gone. “You aren’t my--” “Keeper?” She blinked. For some reason, the word took on a different feel when he said it. An edge that sent darts of desire through her. She wet her suddenly dry lips with the tip of her tongue. “I was going to say father.” He nodded thoughtfully. “That’s true. But you definitely need someone to take you over his knee, and I’m happy to volunteer.”

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He’d tossed the same threat at her hundreds of times over the years. But combined with the lingering effects of his earlier kisses, she couldn’t stop a surge of heat from further dampening her panties. “You will be very sorry if you try.” His nostrils flared and Avery’s cheeks burned. “That might be a risk I’m willing to take.” Eileen came back with two drinks. “Have you decided?” “I’ll have the tuna melt,” Jude said absently, still fixing Avery with a yellow-green gaze. “I’ll have a green salad, please. With oil and vinegar.” Eileen nodded and turned, still writing down their order. “You eat like a bird.” A wide grin transformed Jude’s face, softening its hard lines. “Yeah? Well you smell like a litter box.” She sipped at her wine, looking at him over the rim of her glass. He leaned forward, his elbows on the table, and fixed her with a smoldering gaze. “You smell like sex.” She set her wine glass down carefully, grateful that she hadn’t choked on the sip that had slid sideways down her throat, and smoothed a hand over her hair. How could Jude have such an effect on her with just his words? Her nipples were hard, and if she didn’t smell like sex before, she was certain she did now. “Whose fault is that?” He sat up, his face altogether too smug. “Mine.” She crossed her legs under the table in an effort to contain her runaway hormones and changed the subject. “Any bright ideas about what we should say to her?” “I think you’ve interfered enough, and it might be time to let nature chart its own course. If your brilliant little plan doesn’t work, we’ll come up with something else to try tomorrow.”

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As if she didn’t know what he meant. The coalition expected her to host her Keeper in her apartment until she’d satisfactorily restored Frank’s life course. Not likely. “If you think I’m spending one night with you in my apartment, you are about to be very disappointed.” “It’s for your own good, you know.” “Right. All I need is a cat in my apartment who’ll probably spend all night plotting how to eat me.” As soon as the words were out, and his eyebrows shot up, Avery heard their double meaning and felt her face go a fierce red. “Why don’t you leave me alone!” “Because you’re too much fun, Sweetheart.” She took another sip of wine and turned her eyes to Eileen waiting on a nearby table. “I’m going to tell her that I know someone who’s into her.” Jude tilted his head, his eyes narrowing. “Now I know that this was exactly my idea earlier and you hated it.” “I changed my mind. I’m allowed.” She looked up at him. “And it was your idea.” “Yeah, but I don’t know anything about women.” Eileen was back, balancing their plates and the dressing for Avery’s salad. Avery smiled at her, trying to make eye contact. “You have really pretty hair.” Eileen looked up from her work and her hand went to smooth her hair behind her ear. “Oh. Thanks.” “No, you really do. I wish I could grow mine out like that. I just don’t have the patience.” Avery rushed on, her words tumbling out as though they were afraid she might change her mind and keep them in. “I have this friend who would be so into you.” Eileen’s eye’s widened for a minute and then it was like a steel door slammed down behind them. “Can I get your anything else?”

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Jude leaned forward, shaking his head. “No, we’re fine, thank you.” “I’m serious. He’d really like you.” Avery shot Jude a glare before rushing on. “He’ll be coming in here for dinner tonight. He’ll have a flower in his lapel. You won’t be able to miss him.” “Thanks a lot, but I’m going to pass. Let me know if I can get you anything else.” Avery watched open-mouthed as she walked away. “I didn’t even get to tell her what he looks like.” “Not everyone wants you meddling in their life, Sweetheart.” “I wasn’t meddling. They’re supposed to be together.” “Technically, they were supposed to have sex. We have no way of knowing what might have happened afterwards.” “Thanks for the insight. For your information, my plan is going to work.” Her voice caught, tears stung her eyes. “I’ll be flying by this time tomorrow.” Jude put his sandwich down. “This has been really hard on you, hasn’t it?” Avery felt her guard slipping. It could have been worse. Her Keeper could have been a smelly, ugly canine. Or a badger. Jude made her nuts, but he was her friend and she knew he cared about her. “I feel like I’m drowning, and my only choice is to believe that this will work.” Jude reached across the table and pushed her hair off her forehead. She couldn’t help the small move toward him, keeping his fingers against her skin a fraction of a second longer. “We’ll figure out something. You’ll be back in the friendly skies before you know it.” ~* * *~ Spying on Frank Alvarado and Eileen the waitress would be so much easier if Avery could turn into a little yellow finch and hop up on the window sill. Instead, she crouched in the bushes with Jude, in his feline form, purring next to her.

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It was eight. Frank had been more than punctual; he’d shown up fifteen minutes early. Confidence radiated from him as he walked through the door. With every passing minute since, his confidence had waned considerably. Even from her vantage point, she saw his rising tension and her breath caught. “Wow, he’s really fuming. He’s just sitting there drumming his fingers and swinging his foot.” Avery leaned in a little. “He wore the flower in his lapel. At least she’ll notice him.” Of course, Eileen probably wouldn’t like him much if he didn’t chill the hell out. As the waitress walked to Frank’s table, Avery saw clearly that she was uncomfortable. Frank didn’t look at the pretty waitress. Didn’t even notice that the woman drew breath two feet from him. Avery’s heart sank. She felt sick. Eileen said something to him and he waved an angry hand at her, sending her scurrying back to the kitchen. Avery reached down and scratched Jude behind the ears before she could stop herself. Her fingers sank into his thick fur and she felt her bird beat its wings inside her in a little flurry of instinctual alarm when he turned his eyes to her. “Come on, let’s get out of here.” They drove in silence until they reached Avery’s tree-lined street. She felt heavy and uncomfortable. Gravity weighed on her. She fought back tears. “I meant what I said, Avery. We’ll figure out some way to fix this.” She looked up at him. “You probably think I deserve to be stuck in my human body.” He turned toward her, his cat eyes reflecting the scant light inside the car. “I would never want that.” He parked in front of her building and they sat for a minute in the dark. Finally, he brushed her hair from her forehead. She closed her eyes against the heat generated by his touch. His fingers curled around the back of her head and pulled her gently to 21

him, his mouth took brief possession of hers. He let her go and opened his car door. “You will get through this, Avery.” After he left the car, Avery put her face in her hands, her palms against her mouth and held on to the feel of his kiss. She had to be the biggest idiot who ever lived. She opened her door and found Jude waiting for her. He put his hand on the small of her back as they walked to her apartment. Avery tossed her purse on a little table by the front door, next to a vase filled with a spray of daffodils. “I can’t believe how much this sucks.” Jude put a hand on her shoulder. “Relax, Sweetheart.” Avery turned on Jude and he backed up several steps, hands raised in surrender. “You can shift. You aren’t stuck in your human body all the time. It’s a prison, Jude. I can’t stand it.” Claustrophobia overtook her—panic at being trapped in her own body. She put her head in her hands and a sob tore from her. Jude closed the distance between them and pulled her against him. He smoothed one big hand over her hair, the other moved low over her back, teasing up a strong wave of desire that finally overrode her fear. She looked up at him, tilting her head straight back to see him because he didn’t loosen his hold on her. The reality of her situation hit home. “I really screwed up, didn’t I?” She didn’t need him to agree with her. She knew she’d screwed up. She was hardly the first to have a fling with a non-shifter. But thanks to Jude’s persistence in drilling the facts into her, she knew that without a base of strong emotions, a liaison between shifter and non-shifter rarely ended well. She had no feelings at all for Frank Alvarado. Avery had always had a bad habit of not knowing when to stop. Except this once, she had known when to stop. It just hadn’t worked. And now Jude stood here looking at her like his heart was breaking. Avery felt torn in too many directions. Up until yesterday, she had been sure Jude didn’t want her. Now, finally, he couldn’t keep his hands off her, and damn it, she didn’t want him to. 22

His hands tightened around her and Avery barely repressed a squeak. He’d bared his teeth, his incisors lengthened. “What?” He shook himself, pulled his cat back in. “What?” “You look all crazy. What are you thinking?” “You don’t want to know.” She heaved an exasperated sigh and pushed against his chest with the flats of her hands until he gave her some breathing room. “I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t want to know.” He dropped his hands from her body, and even though she’d pushed him away, Avery had to fight to keep her disappointment inside her head “It’s making me crazy to think of you with that man.” Avery’s heart fluttered and she felt a single beat of her bird’s wings within her. “It is?” “Yes, it is. Of course, it is.” “What do you mean, of course?” She’d wanted him for so long. Now that he was finally starting to fulfill her fantasies, it was a bit dizzying and maddening at the same time. Like Jude himself. He fisted his hands and then opened them, looked down at them with an expression so miserable, tears of empathy well up in her eyes. “I mean, you should have waited.” She managed to draw in a weak breath. “Waited?” “For me, Avery. You should have waited for me.” She had waited, without even the comfort that might have come from him asking her to. When most of her friends were pairing off after college, mating, making babies, and he’d gone to graduate school and then to work on his doctorate. She had 23

understood. She was so proud of him, of his amazing mind, of his work. “I did wait. For nine years.” But he’d been home for a year, and what she’d waited for never happened. That’s how she’d ended up in a bar, letting an attractive non-shifter buy her drinks she knew she couldn’t handle. Guilt flirted across his strong features and she hated herself for putting it there. “Why did you sleep with him? You could have talked to me.” She moved away from him and went to sit on the couch, pulling her feet up and resting her chin on her knees. “He kept telling me how beautiful I was and buying me these delicious little drinks.” Her voice trailed into silence. Jude went very still, the energy in the room changed and she felt his anger like a living, breathing thing. “He got you drunk?” “Well, I got drunk, that’s for sure. I don’t know if it’s fair to say it was his fault. He didn’t hold the glass to my lips.” Avery put her fingers to her lips, remembering the sweet liquid that had packed such a strong punch. “But whatever was in those puppies, they wasted me. I can barely remember leaving the bar. And I was sick for two days after.” A low rumbling growl filled the room and made the fine hair on the backs of Avery’s arms stand up. “Did he let you drive?” “No.” She shook her head, rubbing her hands over her arms. “He said he would take me home. At the time, it seemed easier to go than to argue. I swear I thought I had it under control. I thought I knew when to stop.” Jude shimmered. His pantheras broke through—a deadly wild cat with razorsharp claws, long lethal teeth, and treacherous yellow eyes. She buried her face in her knees, her bird and her heart both pounding inside of her. “Stop that, Jude. You know it freaks me out.”

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“Someone needs to teach Frank Alvarado a lesson in manners.” Jude’s voice had taken on a dangerous edge she’d never heard before. Avery was both terrified and strangely aroused by the protective, possessive energy flowing from him toward her. He’d moved to stand just in front of her. She put a tentative hand on his leg. His muscles bunched under her fingers and tension radiated off him. “He didn’t hurt me, Jude. I just got in over my head and didn’t know how to get out.” He calmed some when she touched him and Avery tried to catch her breath. It was in her makeup for her bird to fear his cat. But this was something else, a different kind of heart-pounding. On some level, she’d always known it would be him. That she really had been waiting for him all these years. Right up until she’d blown it. He sat next to her, close but not touching. “What possessed you to let him get you drunk in the first place?” Avery dropped her face back to her knees. She had disgusted him with her behavior and she couldn’t blame him. “You wouldn’t understand.” “Try me.” “Why should I?” She needed him to touch her. To let her know he didn’t hate her. And yet, she couldn’t stop the biting edge in her voice. “You’re just going to sit there and judge me.” “I’m not judging you. I’m trying to get you. You make no sense to me at all.” She hated him in that moment, for making her talk about things she would have happily kept to herself the rest of her life. “He wanted me, okay. And it got to me. I didn’t mean to—I didn’t even realize what I’d done until it was too late. And now I have to figure out some way to make it better, even if it means going to him myself and telling him about Eileen.” The cat flared up again and brought her heart back to pounding. “I don’t think so.”

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Avery shrank back against the arm of the couch when Jude bared his teeth. He followed, moving so that he hovered over her. He growled and then shook himself, backed off, taking a deep breath. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.” She put a hand over her heart, willing it to calm. “You didn’t scare me. And you can just wipe that look off your face. Don’t think I don’t know what you look like when you’re about to start bossing me around.” He kissed her. Unexpected, hard, demanding—his mouth devoured hers as he put his arm around her waist, lifting her into his lap until she straddled him before she came to her senses. Even as her human body reacted wet and hot, her nipples tightening, her hips tilting of their own accord against the hard edge of his arousal, her bird went insane inside her. If not for the geas, she would have shifted whether she had wanted to or not. Jude put both hands in her hair, held her face inches from his. “I need you.” She put her hands on his chest; felt his heart beat, his muscles shift. It took several deep breaths to calm her bird enough for her to think, much less speak. He ran his hands under her dress along her thighs. Finally, she found enough voice to whisper. “Don’t do this if you don’t mean it.” Jude raked her skirt nearly to her waist. He cupped her ass in both hands and pulled her hard against him so his cock pressed against her panties. She slanted her hips against his hard length and moaned through a shudder of pure pleasure. “Jude, we have to--” He bent his head and shut her up with a kiss that drove the question of whether he meant it right out of her head. He moved his hands to her back and slowly unzipped her dress, then pushed the straps down her shoulders, baring her breasts. She couldn’t breathe or think or move as Jude covered one of her breasts with his hand. His rough palm rasped across her taut nipple and sent a current directly to her core, short-circuiting her mind, electrifying her body, and scaring the shit out of her.

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She scrambled off his lap backward, fighting hard when he tried to hold on to her. Tears wet her cheeks as she pulled her dress back up, covering herself. Too much. Her bird insisted, too much. Fly. Run. Hide. She slammed her bedroom door behind her and leaned against it, desperately trying to remember how to breathe. She hadn’t panicked when Frank touched her. Why did she this time with Jude? She didn’t even want Frank. Maybe that was it. If Jude broke her heart… if he thought she was some sort of slut he could use like Frank had… she wouldn’t ever recover. “Avery? Can I come in?” Avery covered her mouth with both hands. No. No. No. Her bird screamed, out of control, and beat painfully against the geas. “Avery?” She heard the alarm in his voice. “Let me in or I’m taking the door down.” She moved away. He came in, looking like sex on two legs. His cock was hard inside his jeans. He did nothing to hide the bulge straining against denim as his broad shoulders blocked the doorway. How had it never occurred to her that her bird wouldn’t let her have him? A bird and a cat? Impossible. She stopped trying to fight the tears and let them fall. “I’m sorry, Jude.” “I’ve never hurt you, have I?” She shook her head. “Do you really think I would start now? I’ve taken care of you practically your whole life.” She took a hiccupping breath as her bird stopped fighting. “I know.” “If you don’t want me, let me know. But don’t run away from me like I’m going to hurt you.” He sat on the edge of her bed.

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She stood holding her dress against her chest. He was glorious. So strong and so incredibly sexy. What woman wouldn’t want him? He exuded the power of the pantheras that lived within him. His mind was as magnificent as his body. He could claim any woman he chose. Is this what he felt when he thought about her with Frank? A possessiveness that threatened all sanity, all reasonable thought. Jude ran his hands through his hair and looked up at her. Her body tightened. The human part of her demanded that she put herself in his arms immediately. That she do whatever necessary to get him inside her as soon as possible. “Come here to me, Avery.” She did move closer, her bird cautiously allowing it, and he pulled her into his arms. “We’re going to work this out. In the meantime, I won’t have you making yourself sick.” She lifted her chin in an attempt to recover at least a tiny bit of dignity. “You don’t have to solve my problems for me.” “Actually, it’s my job.” He tightened his hold around her waist. He felt so good. She reached inside of herself, mentally stroked her bird, keeping it calm. “How lucky for you to have been stuck with it, too. Did they draw straws?” “I volunteered.” She looked up at him in surprise. “I don’t believe you.” He shrugged. “I begged for the job.” “Why would you do that?” He lowered his forehead to hers, his hand pet her back and sent sparklers of pleasure all through her. “I couldn’t stand to think of another man taking care of you.” His words wrapped around her heart, took her breath. He kissed her forehead and even that innocent gesture caused a curious clenching in her center. Now that her moment of panic had been spent and her bird had calmed, Avery was able to step 28

more fully into Jude’s embrace. She feathered her fingers over his shoulders, down his hard, muscular arms. Without her hands holding it up, her dress fell to her waist, exposing her sensitive breasts. She found the strange dichotomy of both working entirely on instinct, neither of them possessing the experience for skill, and also having to hold back one of her most basic impulses—her bird’s desire to fly away from his cat--oddly erotic. Instead of weak and pathetic, which had become her new normal during the past week, she felt strong and sexy and very feminine. She ran her hand from his arm to his chest, down his stomach, and finally, her fingertips grazed the hard ridge of his denim-covered cock. He wanted her. The stark evidence couldn’t be denied. He moaned when her fingertips slid over his balls. She bit her lip, smiled as she watched his face. When had she become so bold? When she tried to move her hand away, he grunted and covered hers with his, deliberately drawing hers up and down, stroking him through his jeans. A tug from him at her dress and a wiggle of her hips sent the garment to puddle at her feet. He bit gently at her earlobe, melting her insides. “What exactly are we doing here?” He growled softly against her neck. “Mating.” “Mating?” She felt her hawk beat against her insides, begging to be released. Jude stopped the slow, sensual assault of her neck, and she didn’t like the pathetic little whimper that almost escaped her lips when he did. “My heart can’t take you roaming a city full of men anymore without having you bound to me.” Avery’s heart did an odd little flip. “Jude—“ “You need someone to take care of you.” “I do not.” 29

“You do. I’ve never met anyone who gets herself into as much trouble as you do.” His fingers traced her side, along the swell of her breast. She closed her eyes. When did she become the sane one? Jude never did anything without thinking it through. He wasn’t like her, always realizing after the fact that she should have used her head. “What are you saying to me?” “I’m saying that I love you. That I’ve loved you since I knocked Chester Dale’s head against a wall for telling everyone that you let him kiss you under the bleachers.” “I did let him kiss me under the bleachers.” “Yes, I know, the stupid mule. I know you. You can’t resist anything that feels good.” His fingers cupped her breast, the pad of his thumb circling her over-sensitive nipple. She couldn’t hold back a moan as the nub stiffened to a diamond-hard peak. “That’s why you need me.” She closed her eyes as he rolled her nipple between his finger and thumb, not bothering to correct him. Chester had been a horse. “I think you could use a little more ego.” He laughed. The sound a low, slow thunder along the length of her body. She was in so much trouble. “You need to feel good without self-destructing. I just need you.” She looked up at him. “You need me?” He bent his head and nipped at her swollen nipple and she yelped as the tiny spark of pain sent a current through her that curled her toes and irritated her bird again. “I need you. I want you. I love you.” “But—” He kissed her again. His hand tangled in her hair almost to the point of pulling. She moved forward experimentally, testing the limits of her control over her bird, and a thrill of desire shot through her like a drug, his cock pushed relentlessly against her thigh, steel against her skin. “Are you sure about this?” 30

“Are you?” Jude held her slightly away. “I’m a coward, Avery, and you’re paying for it.” She lifted her eyebrows. “Nothing scares you.” “You scare me, Avery. You make it impossible for me to think straight. If I’d claimed you when I should have, then you would have been in my bed where you belonged, instead of his. I left you alone, when I should have been protecting you.” “Believe it or not, I can take care of myself.” She moved her hips, unable to stop herself from sliding her body against his. Her mind frantically searched for something to say that would lessen his anguish. “I think you’re the one who needs a Keeper.” “Me?” He held her immobile against his much larger frame. She nodded. “You’re too uptight. You need someone to make sure you have some fun sometimes.” The vibrations of his laughter made her skin feel alive and very sensitive. “You might be right, Sweetheart.” “We should get something straight right now.” Avery wrapped her arms around his neck, her fingers burrowing into his thick, soft hair. “I’m always right.” “I’ll try to keep that in mind.” He shifted his shoulders and loosened his grip on her, which gave her room to move but also meant he was leaving her. She held tighter to him and he placed a kiss on her forehead, and then her nose, and finally his lips whispered against hers. “I’m asking you to accept my claim on you, Avery. You need to make a decision. It might be easier for you if you didn’t have my hard-on bumping up against you.” She shook her head. “Don’t go.” He ran his hands down the curve of her back. “If this happens, there’s no going back. You’ll never get rid of me.” She looked up into his beautiful golden eyes. “If this happens, you’ll never get rid of me. Are you sure you aren’t the one who needs a minute to think about it?” 31

“Do you know how beautiful you are? How badly I want you every time I see you?” She felt the heat of a flush on her cheeks and buried her face against his neck, one palm over his heart. He put a hand under her chin and lifted her gaze to his. “Don’t hide from me.” He kissed her, gentle this time, and Avery recognized the care he took, respectful of her bird. She felt the power of his cat in the strength of his erection, in the shifting of his muscles under her hand on his chest. She bunched his shirt in her hand, tugged up, needing to feel his skin against her. He lifted his arms and she pulled the shirt over his head. A pool of liquid heat built inside her, a small turmoil that churned and tightened around her womb when he cupped her breasts in his hands. She couldn’t repress a moan when he tugged at each nipple in turn, plucking at them until she threw her head back and moaned. “Jude…” He put his fingers over her mouth, the tip of one slipped between her lips and she caressed it with her tongue as he bent and teased one swollen, aching nipple with his teeth. His hand over her lips captured her moan and he pushed his finger deeper into her mouth as he drew his hand from her breast down until his fingers skimmed over her lace panties. Lace pushed between the sensitive, swollen folds of her sex, and a shiver of pleasure that went through her. He pulled his finger from her mouth, his eyes trapping hers. “How’s your bird doing?’ “What bird?” She moved her hips, riding his hand experimentally. He smiled and she couldn’t help but smile back. “She’s okay, Jude. I think it likes it.” “Do you? What about this?” He took her wrist and held her hand firmly against his thigh. The fingers that caressed her slid back up her belly, and then down again, this time inside her panties so that his hand cupped her bare pussy. “Does it like when I touch you like this, Avery?”

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She nodded weakly, tried to find her breath when he pushed one thick finger into her slick opening. “Jude.” He lifted an eyebrow. “Does it feel good?” She opened her legs a little wider, trying for balance, and leaned her forehead against his shoulder. “Yes,” she whispered against his skin. “Good.” He pushed his finger deeper, holding her close to him with his hand on her wrist. She touched his face with her free hand, trailing her fingers over his high cheekbones, along the tilted angle of his eyes, her fingertips dancing over his mouth. Her hips moved with his hand, riding his finger until she felt like she might break into a thousand glittering pieces. Avery whimpered in disappointment and protest when he removed his hand. He stood, releasing her wrist and moving her to the side. For a brief, panicky moment, she thought he’d changed his mind. But he reached for the button on his jeans and she took a step back to watch him finish undressing. Her exploration of him over his clothes hadn’t prepared her for her first sight of his naked, fully erect cock. She bit her bottom lip. The storm brewing inside her, centered between her legs, reached fantastic heights. “You are mine, Avery Dove. I claim you as my mate, mine to protect, mine to love. Mine.” His words, the almost pleading tone in his voice, almost brought Avery to her knees. The idea of falling to her knees at his feet actually brought a tiny whimper out of her. “I need you to listen to me? Can you do that?” She nodded weakly. Her damp panties felt unbearably tight, confining. “I can do that.” He searched her face, his eyes flashing yellow. “I’m not going to be okay with you going home drunk with another man ever again.” She laughed and reached a finger out, distracted by the pearly drop of liquid at the tip of Jude’s cock. “You don’t have to worry about that.” 33

“Avery.” She looked up again, almost afraid to see the emotion in his face. Almost afraid it wouldn’t be there. It was, strong enough to make her knees buckle. “I accept your claim, Jude. I’ve always been yours.” He kissed the tip of her nose in a gesture so sweet it nearly broke Avery’s heart. “I can’t think straight around you. I’ve never been able to. You make me want too much.” She smiled, pulled her finger through the drop of liquid that fascinated her and then slowly sucked it off, surprised again by her boldness as she tasted his salt. “What’s too much?” He heaved a shuddering breath. “You are too much.” She pulled her panties down her hips, her eyes still on his face. “Maybe stop thinking then?” He pulled her to him, hard, aggressive, lifting her off her feet so that she had no choice but to wrap her arms around his neck and hold on. He turned , lowered her to the bed, and followed her down. She needed him. Immediately. Sooner. Something had to happen or she would spontaneously combust. He touched her swollen, achy pussy and she turned her face against the mattress, let out a soft moan, opened her legs wider, needing something. Needing Jude. “You’re so wet, Avery.” His palm rubbed against her clit as he slid a finger deep into her and the storm inside spread from her womb all through her body. She pumped her hips up and her mind shut down, giving in to pure sensation. He pushed a second finger into her and his thumb brushed across her clit with a feather-light touch that brought a cry of frustrated need from Avery. No matter how hard she tried to push against him, to force him to give her what she needed right now, he didn’t increase the pressure.

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Finally, when she was absolutely certain she had already lost her mind, when she couldn’t breathe properly and a firestorm of epic proportions had gathered in her, she reached for him. Her back arched and her fingers gripped hard on his arms. She tried to scream, to cry for him, beg him to help her, but nothing came out. “Come for me.” His husky voice floated over her, into her. She was already coming, her bird placated as her human body soared. She pressed her forehead against his shoulder, her back arched. Finally, she found her voice and managed to moan his name. Jude stroked her as she came down, murmured his love against her ear. When her soul came back into her body, she started to turn, to roll onto her stomach, knowing that Jude’s cat would want her that way. The depths of her desire to please him shook her. Her bird was still riding her post-orgasmic high or she might not have been able to put herself in such a vulnerable position. Jude caught her shoulder and turned her onto her back again. “I need to see your face.” She looked up at him, smiling. She loved his face. Loved how he took hers in his hands and even as a hot rush of need over took her, he made sure she felt cared for. He opened her legs wide with his thighs, pinning her to the bed, and moved his hands from her face to explore other body parts. He teased her breasts with his fingers and mouth until she couldn’t take it any more, sat up and grabbed his arms. “Please Jude.” “Aren’t you a greedy little thing?” He moved his hands down her body, fingers spread wide like they were hungry for her skin, until she felt them where she needed them most—curling over her pussy, caressing her and drawing a rush of liquid heat demanded satisfaction. He slid a finger into her, then a second, and a wordless, begging cry escaped her.

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Finally, he pulled his fingers from her and she felt the heavy, thick head of his cock against her. He pulled her against him, his hands on her ass, and she held on tight with her legs as he entered her. Strong arms easily lifted her, set a strong, steady pace as he thrust his hips up against her. She forgot to be afraid, or worried, or anything but thoroughly used, fucked hard enough, well enough, to rid herself of the awkward first experience that she never should have had. The heavy length of his thick cock dragged across her already sensitive clit, making her moan. Nothing mattered but Jude, and the physical connection between them. He buried one hand in her hair, twisting it around his fist and holding her firmly where he wanted her while he took her. Another orgasm crested over her, crashing, almost painful in its intensity. He shimmered, as she felt him swell inside of her, heard him groan as he spilled himself deep inside her. The big cat must have fought hard. She felt claws, saw a flash of lethal teeth, and then it was gone as fast as it had come. He rolled her over still deep inside her and pulled her tight against him. She buried her face in his chest, felt his heart beating fast. “Are you okay?” She whispered. “More than okay.” “Good. Because you sounded like you were dying.” “For a minute there, I felt like I was.” He kissed the top of her head and she nestled against him.

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Chapter Three

Jude stretched out on Avery’s couch the next morning, his body aching in a most pleasant way. He knew he had a goofy grin plastered on his face, but couldn’t do anything about it. He was happy. “I have a plan for today.” Avery looked up at him from where she sat on the floor in front of the couch eating a bagel. “What’s that?” He was hard, his cock throbbed with a dull ache that he encouraged by watching her pop the last bite in her mouth and then suck cream cheese off her fingers. “I’m going to talk to Alvarado.” She looked up at him, surprised. “Do you think he’ll listen to you about Eileen?” “I’m not going to talk to him about her.” “Then what?” Jude sat up and patted the seat next to him. “I’m going to talk to him about you.” Avery narrowed her eyes as she moved up to the couch. “And what exactly are you going to say to him about me?” “We have to know if he’s addicted. Other than that, trust me, you don’t want to know.” She shot him a warning look. “If it involves me, I need to know.” “No you don’t, sweetheart. Let it be.” “What does that mean?” “I’m going to do whatever needs to be done to ensure you’re safe.” He refused to see his mother’s beaten face superimposed over Avery’s beautiful, unmarred features. That wouldn’t happen, not on his watch. 37

“Jude the Great speaks and the minions listen, even if he doesn’t make any sense.” She snorted with disbelief. He flashed a smile at her. “Jude the Great? I think I like that. Jude the Great.” She pushed one hand against his shoulder. “Seriously, what are you going to tell him?” “That I’m your lover and he should move on.” He reached down and ruffled her hair. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell him you call me Jude the Great. That might kill his ego completely, poor guy.” She brushed his hand away, her eyes flashing at him. “As if.” He grinned. He’d been half-afraid that making love to her would kill that flash, make it so she never got sexy-angry at him. Good to know he was wrong. “Right. Thanks for clearing that up.” She shook her head and stood up. “You make me nuts.” She stood and walked to the window, looking out to her flowerpot jungle. He went to her, drawn like a magnet, wrapped his arms around her and pulled her back against his chest. His chin rested on top of her head. “What is it, Sweetheart?” She turned in his arms, wrapped her arms around his waist. Her hands lifted his shirt so that she touched his skin on his lower back and sent a wave of heat radiating through him. “I never wanted him, Jude. Not like I want you.” “I know that.” “Do you?” He nodded and then kissed her again. He would never get enough of her taste on his lips, the feel of her small, lush body in his hands. “I know that if I had claimed you when I should have, he never would have touched you.” “You’ve claimed me now.” And the goofy grin was back. “Yes, I know.”

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She lowered her head to his chest again. “We’re going to have to work on our communication, Sweetheart.” He put his hand on her chin and directed her eyes back to his. “I know something’s wrong, but I have no idea what it is.” “I can’t stop thinking about Frank. About what you said. That I might have addicted him.” “Well, when I see Frank, we’ll find out.” Not knowing what else to say, he kissed her. His cat demanded aggression, hungered for retribution, revenge, to mark her as his. He wanted to give her so much more. She pulled away slightly, only enough to look up at him. “I can feel you fighting your cat. I hate that you have to hold back.” She stood on her toes and kissed his mouth. He caught her up around the waist and held her to him, deepened the kiss until his blood boiled with need. When he finally let her go, she laughed. “I’m trying to think if asking you to make love to me will help or make things worse.” He lifted an eyebrow. “Help. Definitely.” “Oh yeah? And if I remind you the whole time that you are Jude the Great maybe you’ll be less likely to send your lion into Frank’s office to eat him alive and do away with the problem altogether?” He nodded, somberly. “It couldn’t hurt.” ~* * *~ “Who may I tell him is here?” The middle-aged Latina secretary gave Jude the impression that she believed she guarded the gates of heaven. At least. “Jude Felini.” “And your business with Mr. Alvarado?” “It’s personal.” 39

Her mouth flattened and she gave him the evil eye, but then she picked up her telephone handset and pushed a button. “Mr. Alvarado? There is a gentleman here named Jude Felini who would like to see you on a personal matter.” The woman flashed a self-satisfied look at him. “Yes, sir, I’ll let him know.” Jude leaned forward and plucked the receiver from the secretary’s hand, ignoring her outraged oath. “It’s about Avery. You want to see me, Mr. Alvarado.” He handed the telephone back to the secretary, who listened for a minute then replaced the receiver. Jude had definitely been put on her naughty list. She gave him a stone cold glare as she ushered him into Alvarado’s office. Alvarado was an attorney and his richly appointed office reflected his position. Warm colors, dark wood, a huge oak desk, neat bookshelves filled with a small law library. The man stood behind his desk. “You know Avery?” Jude took in the man’s overeager tone. “I do, very well.” “I’ve been worried about her.” Alvarado’s tongue darted out over his lips. “She was supposed to meet me last night. She didn’t show.” Jude smiled, slowly. “She was busy.” “Busy?” “Very busy.” Jude tried to get a feel for the man. Searched for anything about the man that might have forewarned Avery about his nature. He saw nothing. Frank Alvarado was the most dangerous kind of predator, one that hid in plain sight. “Well, I’m glad to know she’s okay.” Alvarado squirmed under Jude’s scrutiny. “I’ll be sure to let her know you came by.” Jude laughed, but it came out more like a growl. Alvarado moved, put his big desk more completely between them. “You will not be seeing her again.” No reason why he couldn’t mix intimidation and fact-finding, especially with this cretin.

40

“I hardly think that you can tell me who I will and will not see.” “Avery is mine. You will never speak to her, or see her, and you most definitely will not ever touch her again.” A small muscle twitched in Alvarado’s jaw. “She wasn’t yours last week when she fucked me like a whore.” Jude gritted his teeth, forcibly held back his outraged pantheras. His nostrils flared, and his heart sank when he picked up Alvarado’s scent. “She was a virgin. Did you know that? Tight as a—“ Jude let his predator loose, just enough so that the big cat glowed through his eyes and cut the bastard off before he could continue on about Avery’s virginity. It took extreme self-control not to rip Alvarado’s throat out. Alvarado backed up and nearly tripped over his desk chair. “You don’t scare me, Felini.” “Well then, for a lawyer, you aren’t a very smart man.” “If Avery wants me to leave her alone, I need to hear it from her.” Jude flashed sharp teeth and stood closer. “You are going to have to take my word for it. You will not see her again.” “You can’t tell me—“ Jude put on the most menacing look he had in his repertoire. “Avery is under my protection. It is in the best interest of your health to leave her alone.” Alvarado’s eyebrows lifted toward his hairline, hatred fired at Jude from his dark eyes. “You’re the one keeping her from me, aren’t you? It’s your fault she hasn’t called me. I’m going to find her, Felini, and I’ll be fucking her again by this time next week.” Jude flew across the large oak desk with preternatural grace and landed on his feet just in front of Alvarado without knocking a paper to the ground. The worm tried to back away, but only got a couple of feet before his back was against a wall and Jude’s 41

hand was around his throat. The man’s eyes were dilated and unfocused. From this proximity, Jude could not miss the scent of insanity, of off-center need that sucker punched him in the gut. Avery had addicted Frank Alvarado. Not knowing what else to do, Jude pushed Alvarado one more time against the wall and looked down at him. “Stay away from her.” Jude released him, turned, and left the office, not wanting to find himself in even worse trouble than Avery. His heart beat hard against his chest. He tensed as he walked past the secretary, head down to hide his struggle to contain the cat. He saw the world through the pantheras eyes, a haze of crimson rage that demanded destruction. Blood for the innocence Frank Alvarado had taken from its mate. For the innocence the predator insisted should have belonged to him. The last thought startled Jude enough to break the struggle with the cat. He clenched his fists, pushed hard, forced it back. Avery’s virginity was the least of his worries. Frank Alvarado had the addiction bad. Jude suddenly needed to touch his mate and know that she was safe. ~* * *~ Jude opened the door to Avery’s apartment and found her standing at the window, looking out. She stood with her arms wrapped around her middle, her face turned up into the breeze. Avery turned when she sensed him. “You look like hell. He didn’t hit you did he?” “No. He didn’t hit me.” She studied him, dropped her arms to her sides. “Did you hit him?” Jude tightened his hands around the doorframe, around the memory of Alvarado’s neck in them. “There was no hitting.” “Well, then what happened?”

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He came fully into the apartment and didn’t stop until he had pulled her into his arms, her body tight against his. He held her close, one hand on the small of her back and one on the nape of her neck, and kissed her. His cock was painfully hard, and he pushed it against her in an unconscious attempt to ease the ache. She struggled, tried to move away from him and he heard himself growl before he let her go. Avery stumbled back a step and touched her kiss-swollen lips. “What was that?” Jude was dizzy; the pantheras so close to the surface that only the fear he knew he’d see in Avery’s eyes kept it at bay. He watched her smooth her hands over her thighs, the motion hypnotic. Every cell in his body demanded that he take what was his. Now. “Jude.” He dragged his eyes to her face. “What?” “Are you going to tell me how it went?” Jude reached for her, touched her face. He couldn’t imagine losing her now. “Frank’s an addict, Sweetheart.” She stepped back. Panic clouded her huge brown eyes. “No. He can’t be.” He dropped his hand as she moved out of his reach. “I’m sorry.” “No. No, Jude. Maybe you’re wrong.” Avery was visibly shaken. For the first time, Jude saw the gravity of the situation settle on her like a mantle. “Maybe he’s just upset.” “I’m not wrong.” He wanted to be. Urgently. When the Coalition learned of Frank Alvarado’s addiction to Avery, she would be quarantined. Jude’s whole body violently protested the idea of Avery setting foot on Warren Island. He had to prevent that from happening. Damn it, he specialized in addiction. He had to think. 43

Intellectually, he knew the reasons behind the quarantine of the women who carried the addiction hormone. Living among non-shifters undetected was essential to shifter survival. Addiction threatened that delicate balance. The non-shifter recovered once he’d spent enough time away from the object of his affection, but the risk that the woman would addict other men was too great to allow her freedom. Emotionally, he knew he would tear apart anyone who tried to take Avery from him, regardless of the reason. And he couldn’t go to Warren Island. Men were forbidden. Tears caught in her eyelashes before falling down her flushed cheeks. “I think I’m going to be sick.” Jude pulled Avery against him, needing to touch her like he needed to breathe. “Breathe, Sweetheart.” He followed his own advice. His mother’s face flooded his mind. She hadn’t survived the sanitarium. Like so many of the women the coalition put into quarantine, she took her own life rather than face perpetual isolation. Such a fate for Avery was unthinkable. “I can’t go there, Jude. I’ll die. I know I will.” She sobbed against his chest, her small body wracked with the power of her grief. He curled himself around her. “You will not.” She looked up at him, her eyes red and swollen. He bent and kissed away her tears. “I won’t let you.” She cried until she exhausted herself. Her hands between them, flat against his chest, he willed her to feel his heart, to slow her own to its steady beat. To believe that he would not allow her to be sent away from him. When her weeping had been reduced to hiccups, he sat her on the couch and knelt in front of her. “I can fix this.” “No one can fix this, Jude. You know that. We can’t lie to the Coalition, they’ll find out.”

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“I’ve studied addiction for nearly a decade. I can fix this.” For the first time since she’d learned of Frank’s addiction, Jude saw hope in Avery’s face and felt the same emotion like a fist tightening around his heart. He ran his thumb over the last of her tears. “How can you fix it?” She looked at him, trust shining from her face. He stood and paced the living room just in front of her, one hand massaging the back of his neck in an attempt to relieve the pressure building there. “Have you ever heard of the Triad Sacrament?” She shook her head. “I don’t think so.” He continued to pace, aware that he talked mostly to himself, in an effort to organize the idea that had been brewing since he left Frank’s office. “Up until three or four generations ago, shifters participated in a claiming process called the Triad Sacrament.” “But we’re already mated. I accepted your claim.” “Our bond is symbolic. The only thing holding us to it is our commitment to each other.” “It didn’t feel symbolic.” He caught the flash of distress in her eyes and managed a smile. “To me either. Commitment is powerful magic, Sweetheart. But we both know it is breakable.” “I don’t understand.” “The triad bond is biological. When two people complete the ritual, their pheromones actually change, tune into each other. When the triad bond was common, addiction was non-existent. The theory is that the biological changes killed the hormone. Or turned it to the woman’s mate, who could safely be addicted.” Avery smiled. “I think I like that idea.” Jude snorted, surprised out of his clinical mindset. “I think I do as well.” 45

Jude sat near Avery on the couch. Their mating had intensified the desire that he’d always felt for her. Even the small amount of magic involved in his taking her the night before had produced a strong increase in his need. “What do you know about sex magic?” Jude asked. She shrugged, turned so that her back was against the arm of the couch. “Not much. It isn’t used very often any more, except in mating. Sex magic is why shifters usually mate for life.” “The Triad Sacrament is strong magic, Avery. The strongest our people have. No one uses it any more because the result is binding. Unbreakable. When the triad was the common claiming ritual, mating for life wasn’t ‘usually.’ It was always. Every time. That level of bonding eventually fell out of favor. It died out as a tradition.” She nodded slowly. “Performing the ritual will bind me to you?” “Will bind us to each other. Your pheromones will change to match mine.” Jude needed her to understand. To fully grasp what he proposed. “Even if your mind starts to hate me, your body will not release you. And even if yours did, mine wouldn’t. Not ever.” “You’re scared.” Avery tilted her head, took him in with an unguarded look. “I’ve known you for too long, Jude. And, I wasn’t kidding when I told you once you’d claimed me you’d never get rid of me.” He bent at the waist and kissed her mouth. “Once the change has happened, we can’t take it back. You’ll never be with another man again.” She snorted. “Don’t get all sappy on me now. I don’t think I can take so much romance.” “I love you, Avery. I don’t know how to be more romantic.” She released her death grip on her knees and moved toward him, fitted her small form against him. “So tell me about the ritual.”

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She looked up at him with such trust. Jude had to detach, removing emotion from his explanation of the ritual, or his body would go up in flames. “The Triad Sacrament has three parts. Each requires the female to take the essence of the male into her body.” Her tongue darted out over her full bottom lip and Jude could not hold back a soft moan. “Is that the science geek way of saying we have to have sex three times? There has to be more to it than that.” “The female is required to take her mate into her body orally.” He drew his thumb over her warm, damp bottom lip and her eyes opened wider. “Vaginally. And anally.” She jerked away from him. “Anally?” Jude clenched his fists, holding tight to his cat, fighting hard to keep a neutral expression on his face. “Once the ritual begins, each element must be completed one at a time, each within a consecutive hour, and each prolonged as much as possible to ensure a strong, successful binding. The entire ritual must take place outdoors to allow for free flow of the elements.” She wrapped her arms around her body and her eyes looked a little glazed. “Anally? Well, I knew you were a pain in the ass—” She snorted at her own feeble joke. “Yes, Avery. Anally. Would you rather that I lied to you? I won’t let you go to Warren Island. I don’t want to hurt you. Under normal circumstances, I would never make you do something you didn’t want to do.” Screw that. He wanted to claim her every possible way. She sniffed in a quick breath. “Yeah, right. Except have anal sex. Outside.” “Accept whatever it takes to make sure that you are safe.” He knew she wanted to run. That her bird beat against her, desperate to pull her away from what it perceived as danger. Nothing could make her bird feel safe while they were talking about it being permanently bound to a cat. 47

“I’m scared.” “I know.” He opened his arms and she came into them, burrowed against him. He petted her, murmuring against her hair, willing away her tremors. “I won’t lose you, Avery. I can’t.” She wrapped her arms around his neck, met his gaze with a renewed strength behind her eyes. “I can think of worse things than making love with you three times.” “If it helps, it won’t be all fun for me either. The ritual requires a certain amount of intensity. And, while my mind hasn’t had a reprieve from wanting you since I was sixteen years old, my body does have its limits.” She laughed, the sound a little weak, but far better than tears. “You’re Jude the Great, remember? If I can do this, you can.”

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Chapter Four

Once the decision to perform the Triad Sacrament had been made, the speed in which things moved shocked Avery. Jude insisted on completing the ritual that night, before the Coalition caught on to Frank’s addiction. The flurry of activity might have been the only thing that held her together. Whenever she thought about Frank, or the Coalition, or Warren Island, fear nearly incapacitated her. Jude never failed to sense her distress. He would either pull her into his arms and whip her into a flurry of arousal that her fear couldn’t compete against or give her something to do to occupy her mind. They collected herbs, visiting several stores until they had a fragrant collection that would aid them during the ritual. Soothing herbs that Jude blended with oil into salve. Herbs that would call in the elements to strengthen the sexual magic. Now they were in her kitchen, assembling their treasures into a large box. Because Avery knew very little about herbs or their uses, she made sandwiches and packed them into a cooler with bottled water and energy drinks while Jude worked. He laughed at her preparations and told her they wouldn’t have the time or desire to eat, but she had to do something. Once she’d assured that they would at least not starve to death during the ritual, she sat at the breakfast bar and inspected the contents of Jude’s box. She lifted a small bundle of dried yellow herbs tightly tied with twine. “What’s this one?” Jude looked up from his work. “A smudge stick. To help with potency.” “Potency.” She turned it over, brought it to her nose and inhaled it’s sweet, earthy scent. “You mean you rub this on your—“ “No.” He took it from her. “Burning it will help me recover after each task.”

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Avery covered a slightly hysterical giggle with her hand. Jude was in full scientist mode and something about his intensity helped Avery keep her cool. Mostly. She was still prone to giggling, and her body felt like it had forgotten everything but sex. It didn’t help that she couldn’t miss that he was hard. When he occasionally took her in his arms, as if he needed a physical connection to keep moving, she felt him like iron against her. But he worked with a clinical detachment that kept her panic at bay. He put the lid on the box and lifted it. “Let’s go.” Her heart fluttered, her bird did more than that. It flapped wildly inside her, ready for a fight. Only the geas made it possible to keep it at bay. The hawk was a strong creature, but it only saw the pantheras. It’s natural enemy. Not how gentle Jude was with her, how well he’d cared for her for so many years, or how much she loved him. She followed Jude to her car, climbed into the passenger seat, content to let him drive. They traveled in silence for several miles. No awkwardness flowed from him, and she felt none, for which she was grateful. He kept a physical connection to her, usually with his hand on her thigh, for which she was eternally grateful. She was sure she needed contact more than he did. Avery couldn’t stop her fierce arousal. Even though she couldn’t admit it out loud, and barely even just to herself, the idea of the Triad Sacrament excited her. Jude drove on. The city gave away to a rural landscape. The stand of trees on either side of the road thickened into a forest of birch. “Where are we going?” Jude tightened his hold on her thigh, but didn’t answer. He turned the car down a dirt road that Avery would have missed on her own. The birch surrounding them rose tall and majestic, like sentries keeping out the rest of the world. Despite the complex mix of emotions churning inside, she didn’t push him for an answer, because it didn’t really matter. The prospect of the Triad Sacrament and the primal energy behind it already swelled to surround them even though they’d done nothing more than discuss and prepare. Even her bird beat against its cage, not in fear now, but in aching need. 50

Jude finally pulled over near an even less defined road that led deep into the forest. Not a road, really. A trail too narrow for a car. “We’ll have to walk from here.” She nodded and clutched the little cooler to her chest as though the sandwiches within could offer some protection from the raw emotion swirling inside of her. Jude pulled the box out of the backseat and waited for her to come around to him before starting down the trail. Somehow, even with his arms full, Jude managed to keep her from tripping over tree roots or getting smacked in the face by low branches. He protected her absently, without seeming to think about it. He always had. Always. From childhood, there had always been Jude. She’d taken Jude for granted her whole life. Every choice she had ever made was shaped by the knowledge that she could do as she liked, and if she got into trouble, Jude would be there. How had she lived that way for so long without wondering why? “I can feel your wheels turning, Sweetheart.” He shouldered her over several inches before she stepped into a gopher hole. She kept her eyes on the ground, unable to meet his gaze. “Don’t you wonder if you only want me because I’m addictive?” “I’m not addicted to you, honey. I’m a shifter. We can’t get addicted.” He stopped. “Here we are.” She looked up. Her heart and soul soared, the feeling nearly as euphoric as flying. “How in the world did you find this place?” The forest had given way to a clearing so beautifully green it almost hurt to look at it. Flowers exploded out of the tall grass. So many flowers. She hadn’t recognized that the push of the trees surrounding them had fed her claustrophobia until she felt moved to the middle of the small, perfect meadow and could breathe again. “I love it. Jude, it’s amazing.” He set the box down on a large, flat rock. “I knew you would. My mother used to bring us here.” 51

Avery looked up at him. She hadn’t known his mother, except through Jude’s stories of her. She was a cat, like Jude. Her husband had died young, leaving her alone with Jude and his younger brother. Her husband’s death had devastated her, and she’d eventually turned to a non-shifter for comfort. The man became increasingly jealous of Rose Felini’s time, even resenting her love for her children. Avery put her hand on Jude’s arm, felt his warmth stealing into her. “I’m not like your mother, Jude. I have hope. I have you.” “So did she.” Anxious to ease him, Avery put herself in his arms. “Not the way I do.” He kissed her, first with the aggression and domination of his cat furious at the thought of being separated from its mate. And then with more care that she recognized as Jude need to soothe her fear. “No. Not the way you do. Your confidence in me is humbling, Avery.” “Yeah?” She brought one fist up against his chest. “Well, here’s where you earn it, Jude the Great.” He laughed and heat sparked down the length of her body. “No kidding.” He released her and went back to his box, opened the lid, and pulled out a thick, purple quilt. She wanted to help, but realized she’d be better off staying out of his way. He walked around their site, murmuring to himself as if afraid he might miss something, before using his feet to flatten an area of meadow and laying the blanket in the midst of the space. He went back to the box and removed a heavy disk he’d purchased from a dimly lit, smoke-filled store that Avery had not been able to bring herself to enter. She stayed back, out of his way, but couldn’t help asking about the disk. “What is that, Jude?” He tipped it toward her and she saw an elaborate scrolling star imprinted on it. “A pentacle. To call the Earth.”

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He placed the disk to the north of the blanket and reached back into the box, pulling out a slender branch, about three feet long. They’d driven the city looking for the apple tree he’d found that branch under. He set it on the east side of the blanket with all the care and precision of a master surveyor. “A wand, to call the Air.” “Do you believe in these things, Jude? It seems so odd.” She wrapped her arms around her waist. Despite her words, she felt power gathering in the air around them. Jude didn’t answer her question. He pulled one of her kitchen knives out of the box and placed it opposite the pentacle. “To call Fire.” He pulled a crystal bowl that Avery often used to hold fruit on her kitchen counter from the box and set it opposite the apple branch. “To call Water.” “Jude?” Avery turned slowly, her heart pounding in her chest, her bird violently objecting to the unfamiliar energy surrounding her. She couldn’t put her finger on it, couldn’t see or smell a difference, but she felt it. The air snapped around her like a living thing. “I’m here, Sweetheart.” He came to her and wrapped his arms around her. “I feel it. Amazing. I’ve read about the magic, I’ve studied it for so long. I don’t think I fully believed until now.” Along with the energy arcing between them, Avery felt heat building inside her. If she’d been worried about her ability to respond to Jude, at least that one fear was more than abated. His nostrils flared and she knew he scented her. Instead of anger or embarrassment that he’d caught her in her nearly desperate need, she felt a sudden very strong urge to get rid of her confining clothing and open herself to him. Her breasts ached, demanded that Jude touch them, her nipples were tight peaks waiting impatiently for his mouth. Jude moved back to the box, his hand moving restlessly over the ridge of his cock through his jeans “Now, Jude?” The pleading edge in her voice shocked her. She couldn’t stop her hand from rubbing against her inner thigh. 53

“Almost.” “Jude.” He looked up at her, hunger in the set of his mouth, the glint of cat in his eyes. “Almost. Come help me.” She went to him and he led her to the east side of the blanket, where the apple tree branch lay. He gave her a handful of tiny, hard star anise buds. “Draw the power of Air to us, Avery. Ask for it.” She wanted to refuse. The power gathering around them terrified her. But she sprinkled the anise around the branch. “I call the power of Air.” He moved her to the knife and filled her palm with laurel. “I call the power of Fire.” He knelt and filled the crystal bowl to nearly overflowing with bottled water and then gave her a handful of catnip, which she sprinkled around the bowl. “I call the power of Water.” Finally, he took her to the pentagram and gave her a handful of alfalfa. The rich, sweet scent enveloped her as she crushed the fragrant plant and let it fall to the ground. “I call the power of Earth.” The fine hairs on her arms stood on end, the power around them arced against her like static electricity. The energy seemed to center in her belly and spread through her, reaching fingers down her thighs, over her breasts. “Now, Jude? Please.” “Almost, Sweetheart.” He pulled several candles out of the box and placed them around the blanket before lighting them. Their tiny flames flickered in the deepening dusk. Finally, he took out a large hourglass. He upended it and set it on the ground, then he turned to her. “Now.” She launched herself at him, beyond caring about propriety or dignity, and wrapped herself around him. He kissed her, crushing her mouth, his hands tangling in her hair, pulling. She wanted the pain, needed it to anchor her.

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Jude lifted her, his hands on her ass. She wrapped her legs around his waist and held on as he moved them into the ring of magic he’d woven around the blanket. He set her down, his hand on her back until her feet were securely on the ground. “Take off your clothes, Avery. I need to see you.” She would have liked to go for slow seduction, but it was useless. She didn’t have the finesse in her at the moment. She kicked off her shoes, and stepped out of her jeans first and was rewarded with a brush of light, cool air on her bare legs. She pulled her light sweater over her head. The soft cotton drew across her erect nipples and brought a small moan from her lips. A louder moan came from Jude. She looked up at him, wearing only white lace panties. His throat worked as he looked at her. “You’re so beautiful, Avery. It almost hurts to look at you.” He gathered her clothes, still looking at her with hunger in his cat eyes and tossed them away from the blanket. He pulled off his own shoes, his shirt. Finally yanked down his jeans and boxer shorts together, freeing his cock, magnificent and hard as steel. Magic flowed over them, around them, a canopy that protected them from the rest of the world. No one else existed. Jude pulled her to him, kissed her as he took one of her hands and moved it over his erection. A low growl rumbled out of him as her fingers closed around his shaft. She stroked him from balls to tip, growling back when her womb tightened. She had to take him into her mouth first. Back in her apartment, the prospect had frightened her a little, although not nearly as much as the thought of the anal sex that would cap the night. Now she wanted him in her mouth so badly she couldn’t wait any longer. She looked up into Jude’s face, at hunger only she could satisfy. But first, she wanted to stoke it, bring it to a roar. Avery started to go to her knees, her hands sliding down Jude’s hard, tense chest. He caught her wrists and hauled her back up his body. “Not yet. Not yet, Avery. I’ll come too fast.” 55

She whimpered, pleading at him with her eyes. “My whole body aches, Jude. I have to do something.” “Take off your panties.” She did as he said, taking an unexpected and out-ofcharacter pleasure in obeying him. “Lay down, Sweetheart. Open your legs for me.” She couldn’t break his hard, yellow gaze as she lay on her back on the soft quilt, as she opened her knees and exposed herself to Jude in a position so vulnerable she almost couldn’t do it. “Wider.” Jude sank to his knees in front of her. She moaned softly and a rush of heat spread from her belly through her whole body. Jude put his hands on her inner thighs as she opened them. Her hips thrust up of their own accord as he brushed his fingers over the most intimate, sensitive part of her body. Jude slid a finger between the slick folds of flesh. He pushed one finger deep as he leaned forward and grazed his teeth over an erect nipple. Avery planted her feet against the ground and pressed against Jude’s finger, fucking it without shame. Without even the presence of mind to worry about such trivial emotions. “You’re killing me, Avery. You’re so fucking wet. So damn tight.” “Jude.” She thrust her hips up hard, taking the whole of his finger, her small inner muscles gripping it as he withdrew. He pressed her thighs, opening her as wide as possible and holding her immobile with his weight. Somehow having him remove the possibility of retreat centered her, cooled the inferno in her blood to something more manageable. He bent to her. The movement pushed her knees nearly to her shoulders and opened her fully to him. The tip of his tongue touched her clit. The tight bundle of nerves tightened and liquid heat pooled in the pit of Avery’s belly. She cried out when he sucked the nub into his mouth, gently applying pressure until she felt she would burst into flames.

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A thousand warring emotions exploded in her. Fear, pain, sorrow, mixed with an intensity of pleasure and love that until now she hadn’t even known existed. She clearly saw Jude fighting for her. For the first time fully understood that he’d worked so hard for so many years to learn how to protect her from this very specific threat. On some level, he had recognized that he’d need to save her. Living with his mother’s addiction had prepared him for this fight. She reached for him, buried her hands in his hair, her fingers curling around the fine strands seeking any level of connection. Her love for him, her pride in him, swelled inside her as his mouth brought her to the edge of climax. “Jude.” “I need this. I need to make you feel what I feel every time you touch me.” He pressed two fingers deep inside of her and his mouth returned to its work, teasing the small center of what felt like every nerve she possessed. “Come, Sweetheart, come for me.” She arched, her hips bucking up against his mouth, his hands. Her hawk beat wildly against her, whipping the storm within her into a full-fledged fury. Her eyes opened to the sky. The vibrant pink and orange of the setting sun was a perfect compliment to the pure ecstasy pouring through her, out of her, into her from all directions. Jude released his hold on her legs and they fell limp to the blanket. She looked up at him and tried to focus, tried to regain herself when everything in her demanded that she float away on the waves still crashing against her. He tugged at her arms, pulling her to her knees as he stood. “Now. Now, Avery, I need you.” She stared for a moment at his cock, directly in front of her face. The head was hugely swollen, the whole of it throbbed, and another thick bead of liquid had formed on the tip. She looked up into his face. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Sweetheart. Please, open your mouth. Please.” He begged. Begged for her mouth, begged for her. Avery put her hands on his hips. A slow smile spread over her face. He needed her. The surge of power that 57

knowledge gave her rivaled the pleasure that had just tilted her world. “You’ll have to be patient.” “Avery.” “Patience.” She kept her eyes on his face as she cleaned the drop of liquid, drawing it into her mouth as he moaned. Working purely on instinct, she flicked her tongue around the rim of the head, and when he moaned louder, she did it again, and again. Her next move would have been to lick the length of him like candy, but he buried his hands hard in her hair and put her mouth where he needed it. He looked down at her with torment in his cat eyes. She leaned back on her heels, fingers digging into his hips for balance, and opened her mouth. He guided his cock deep again. The thick head pushed against the back of her throat, and she closed her lips around the shaft, forming a tight seal. She felt Jude’s struggle to cage the cat that demanded free reign over its mate, and the intensity of the magic-enhanced sexual need that beat against them both. She sucked hard, dragging her tongue against the backside of his cock, wanting to give him some relief. He towed her head back with his hands in her hair. “Slow down. We have to give the magic time to work.” She did her best, although it wasn’t easy with him setting a pace that continually sped into a frenzy and then slowed as if he remembered the necessity to build slowly to his orgasm. She felt drunk on the pleasure she gave him, on the heady, earthy taste of him, on his masculine scent. In knowing that no other woman alive could make him feel what she did. She brought one hand up and gently caressed his tight balls, eliciting a delicious moan that floated over her. The rumbling, animalistic noises coming from him spoke of how close his cat was, and how outraged it was at being held in check. She wanted Jude to lose control, to show him that he didn’t have to hold back. She slid her mouth over his shaft. When he tried to pull her back, she gently squeezed the tender part of him she held in her hand and he stopped. She lowered her 58

head and took more of him. He whispered her name to the night air as she pushed her mouth down his shaft until her nose was pressed against his groin. He held her there, his hands on the back of her head, and then, when she stroked her fingers over his balls, snarled. She knew the instant that the cat got its way. Jude stayed in his human form, but his energy shifted. The hands on her head became less desperate hanging on and more domination. He pulled back until only the throbbing head of his cock was in her mouth, and then pushed forward again, taking her throat. Again. And again. And finally, the snarl turned to a full-throated lion’s roar that rang through the meadow, through the forest surrounding them, and sent birds to flight. Avery held tight to her own bird as it protested violently to the appearance of the unfettered cat. He pushed deep one more time. His body trembled under her hands on his hips, and Avery’s eyes opened wide as her throat was flooded with his seed. With his cock buried deep in her mouth, she had no choice but to swallow the thick, salty essence of her lover into her. He finally released her and collapsed to his knees in front of her, buried his head in her lap as she sat back on her heels. It took a minute for Avery to understand what Jude said as he shook against her. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” She pushed him away from her enough so that she saw his face. “I wanted the cat. I needed it. Couldn’t you feel me drawing it out?” “I hurt you.” He sat up, his hands smoothing gently over the hair he’d pulled a few minutes before. She sank to the blanket, her fingers fluttering over her throat and her heart beating hard against her chest. “Not much. I wanted that, too.” He gathered her tight against him. The magic he’d weaved earlier, combined with the enchantment they’d just set loose together, hovered over them like a blanket made of shooting stars. Jude reached over her head and found one of the bottles of 59

herb-infused oil. He spilled a few drops on his fingers and massaged them into her scalp. The slightly floral scent enveloped her and eased the faint, lingering pain. “I don’t need that, Jude. I want to feel your hands on me.” She meant even after they were done, long after they’d finished making love, but didn’t have the words to tell him that. He put his hands on her, wrapped her up in his arms like a precious gift. ~* * *~ Avery must have fallen asleep, because the next thing she knew Jude was kissing her gently on her temple. When she opened her eyes, she saw that the hour glass had been upended again. She had a delicious ache inside her that started in her belly and radiated all through her body. She turned, met Jude’s kiss and returned it. He pulled back and smiled down at her. “How are you holding up?” “I feel like I’ll never stop needing you.” He laughed softly. “That’s the magic, Sweetheart.” She wrapped her arms around his neck. “I don’t think so.” “No?” “No way.” He turned her fully to her back and knelt next to her. She expected another kiss. Instead, he reached over her head and drew his hands over the apple tree branch. “Air, grant us reason and the understanding to make use of our gifts.” Avery watched, fascinated. She felt power tightening into a cone around them. Jude held his hands next over the knife. “Fire, grant us eternal passion and the courage to live it.” The power increased, and now it seemed to arc into her, drawing a clenching fist around her womb and a moan from her lips.

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Jude moved to the crystal bowl filled with water. “Water, grant us full emotions and the intuition not to use them as weapons against each other.” Her back arched, she turned her face against the blanket, unable to contain the powerful surge of emotion that surged from Jude into her and back again. Finally, Jude turned to the pentacle. “Earth, grant us strength and the patience to use it wisely.” Avery reached for him, wordlessly begging him to help her find balance. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her to him. She buried her face against his neck as a need strong enough to be painful tore through her and she cried out with it, wrapping her legs around his waist and jutting her sex against his already raging-hard cock. They’d been worried about Jude’s ability to perform so often in such a short amount of time, but it had not occurred to Avery that the real problem might be her body’s insistence on being taken immediately when the ritual required a slow build up before she accepted his essence into her. “I’m burning up, Jude.” She rubbed herself against him, like an animal in heat. Her whole body shook with the intensity of her need. “Breathe. Breathe with me.” Jude moved back just enough to replace his cock with his hand. He caressed her wet, heated core with a soothing and patient touch. His fingers moved gently over her, not entering her or demanding anything, just calming, slow strokes. She opened her eyes and saw the cat just behind his, held back by her mate’s incredible will. His strength awed her, humbled her, and helped her to wrestle back some control. With her legs clenched around his waist like a manacle, he had no choice but to follow her down as he laid her on the blanket. His hand brushed over her face before his mouth lowered to her breast. He laved his tongue over each of her breasts in turn, until her mind reeled with the intensity of the pleasure he built inside her. When she couldn’t take it anymore, when she was sure she would go up in flames, she put her hands to his face and tried to bring him up her body. He caught both of 61

her wrists in one big hand and pinned them to the blanket over her head. She struggled, but only half-heartedly. Her back arched involuntarily, thrusting her breasts forward in offering to him. He nipped at each nipple, the small, sharp pain pulled at her, made her feel tight and hot. Like her skin was suddenly two sizes too small for her body. “Are you wet for me, Avery?” He looked down at her. “I need you wet for me.” “I’m wet, Jude. I’m so wet. Please.” He brought his free hand to her face, caressed with a touch so gentle it nearly broke her heart. “Tell me what you need.” “You. I need you, Jude.” He shook his head. “You have me.” “Please. I can’t—I’m dying, Jude. I need you.” “What do you need, Avery. I want to hear it.” “I need you to fuck me.” She looked up at him and felt a bite of anger snap around her. How dare he make her beg? How dare he not already be inside her? “Damn it, Jude. Fuck me. Please.” His smiled widened and he bent to kiss her. His tongue swept inside her mouth before he lifted his head again. She caught a glimmer of something aggressive that brought the cat back to his eyes as he used his legs to open hers wide and pressed the thick head of his cock against her wet, aching entrance. She expected a hard, deep thrust. Instead, Jude pushed in slowly, relentlessly. He moved his mouth over her ear. “You are mine, Avery Dove. No one will ever take you from me.” The whispered words curled around her and sent a fresh rush of wet heat between her legs as he reached his full depth inside her. She whimpered, pushed her hips up, and gasped as the movement pushed the head of his cock even deeper.

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Every one of her senses was on high alert. The fresh, sweet scents of the meadow filled her with every panting breath. She could almost taste those flowers. The night air brushed what parts of her overheated skin Jude’s body didn’t cover. Above her, the full moon had risen, looked down on them like a guardian ensuring that the magic they needed took hold. Jude stayed deep inside her, not moving, but being completely filled by him, feeling her body stretch to accommodate his invasion, was enough for the moment. He’d made her beg to be fucked, but when he moved inside her, he made love to her. Slow, deliberate, deep strokes while he held her face. Love shined, brighter than the moon, from his face. She ran her fingers over his jaw, his throat, needing him to feel the same love from her. She wrapped her legs around his waist, opening herself as much as possible to him. He showered kisses on her cheeks, her forehead, her neck, murmuring in between that she was his. His. “Mine. Mine.” “Yours.” She answered with her mouth, with the beat of her heart, with her body gripping him inside of her. She felt the magic pouring into her, felt herself changing. When she looked into his eyes, she saw only the man. Both his cat and her bird gave way to their human counterparts as if sensing that they needed each other. The heavy bulk of his body over hers should have kicked her claustrophobia into high gear, but instead was an incredibly erotic pleasure that she never wanted to give up. He covered her and protected her even as he continued his slow, steady assault inside of her. Each deep thrust stoked the storm inside of her until she was sure it would erupt and overtake both of them. Her bird finally made itself felt, beating against the geas, demanding more, demanding satisfaction. His cat answered and growled against her neck, nipping at her collarbone with sharp teeth and bringing out a gut-deep cry from her.

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His thrusts picked up speed. The friction as his shaft dragging across her clit combined with the magic snapping around them and pouring into her, shattered her. She rode higher and higher, soaring, and then felt herself break apart as wave after wave of purest bliss crashed against her. Her inner muscles tightened without mercy around his cock as she came. And even when the crashing gave way and left her raw and oversensitive inside and out, his pace didn’t break. She reached for him as a second even harder orgasm caught her without even enough breath in her body to cry out. Her body shook and she clung to him trying to keep some part of herself from shattering. Still he filled and stretched her, pushing hard and fast until nothing existed but her spent, exhausted body and his, hard and demanding. He took everything, left nothing for her, nowhere for her to hide. Finally, just when she was sure she had nothing left to give, she felt him swell inside her and he reared back, a ruthless snarl roared over her, and he came into her. She didn’t realize she was weeping tears of raw emotion until she felt him draw his thumb over her cheeks, wiping them away. He kept his body over hers, inside hers, and she was boneless beneath him. After a while, he took his weight from her and rolled to his side, pulling her against him. She buried her face against his chest, inhaling his heady scent. Had he always smelled so good? She couldn’t remember, and didn’t care. Tonight his scent filled her with peace as she curled her thoroughly used body against him. She looked up at him, and found him watching her. “What?” “You amaze me.” She laughed and felt him tighten his hold on her as if to capture the noise. “This isn’t me, Jude. I’m afraid that if you expect me to always behave like this you’re going to be disappointed.” “You couldn’t disappoint me if you tried.”

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“I’ll certainly try not to.” She flattened her palm against his chest, felt his steady heartbeat. “I’m sore in places I didn’t know I had.” ~* * *~ Jude put his hand over Avery’s on his chest, enjoying the soft pressure of her fingers against his skin. He reached over her head with his free hand and picked up the tightly bundled herbal smudge. Sweet, soothing fragrance filtered over them as he tipped the end in a candle flame and said a silent prayer that it would do its job. He felt weak, like not even an act of God could make him hard again, no matter how willing and eager he was in spirit. It would take more than an act of God to force him not to complete the ritual they’d started. Avery was not going to Warren Island—not under any circumstances. After another minute, he sat. His body protested rather loudly, the dull ache in his groin a plea for rest rather than for more sex. Avery lay sprawled on her back. Moonlight bathed her beautiful face with a delicate, fragile glow. Her eyelids were heavy as she looked up at him. He smiled at her and they fluttered closed, a sweet answering smile flirted over her lips as sleep overtook her. He hadn’t thought to bring something to clean her with, a misstep that made him feel like a total ass. He reached for his t-shirt and dipped a corner of it in the bowl of water, whispering what he hoped were placating words to the powerful element that fed into the magic surrounding them. He pressed Avery’s thighs opened and felt his heart clench when she moaned his name in her restless sleep. He drew the cool, damp cloth over her inner thighs, cleaning away the traces of his semen. He hadn’t told her all he knew of the Triad Sacrament. Mostly because he didn’t see a need to frighten her, or her bird, more than necessary when he would not have let her change her mind about participating.

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Her pheromones were already shifting to adjust to his, because he was the first male she scented during the process. Another reason for an outdoor and very remote location. He spread his hand over her belly, filled with his seed. Beyond tying them irrevocably together, the shifting hormones also gave her a brief, intense burst of fertility. “Jude?” She opened her eyes, searching for him. He cupped her face in one hand. “I’m here, Sweetheart.” “Will you come hold me?” He could no more refuse the soft pleading edge in her voice than he could refuse his next breath. He put his shirt aside and lay down with her, sighed happily as she adjusted herself to him. “How do you feel?” “Strange. And tired.” “It’s almost over.” He drew his hand down the length of her arm, hoping his touch might sooth her. “I don’t want it to be over.” She burrowed closer to him. “Not ever.” “Oh, yes you do. We have a lift time together to make love without being battered by magic.” One of her small hands trailed down his chest, over his stomach, pulling a hard breath out of him as she gently cupped his soft cock. “What about you? How are you?” At the moment, he felt as though he’d had a lifetime’s worth of lovemaking in one shot and would never need to, or want to, do it again. Even the light, erotic strokes of Avery’s fingers didn’t sir his cock. He brushed her hair back from his face with one hand, looking down into her face. “I’m Jude the Great, remember?” His human body had been spent, but the pantheras roared in his head demanding satisfaction. He would do anything to ensure that the magic they wrought would take hold. Including allowing the power of his cat to aide him during the final phase of the Triad Sacrament. 66

She smiled. “I remember.” He closed his eyes, tormented by the dueling emotions of shame that he had to take her soon in a way that scared her, and a dark need to have her in every possible way and damn the consequences. She stroked him lightly. Her fingertips danced over his shaft and somehow managed to send sparks of desire down it. “My whole body aches, I feel completely physically satisfied, but I need you anyway. Does that make sense?” He covered his mouth with hers, held her face and indulged himself in her sweet taste before pulling away and looking down at her. “It makes perfect sense. The magic is working.” “Will it be enough? Will the coalition believe that I can’t addict anyone else?” He felt a shudder run down her spine and held her tighter against him. “It makes me sick to even think about getting close enough to another man.” Jude’s cat crouched inside him, clawed at the image of another man touching Avery. She didn’t understand that what the Coalition ruled had less than no bearing on the matter. The pantheras would not lose its mate the way it lost its mother. The last few grains of sand fell from the hour glass and Jude sat up to turn it on end one last time. “It will be enough. Come here to me.” She rose to her knees and Jude caught her wince as she moved to him. He hated that she hurt, but could not fully repress the prideful roar from his cat at the knowledge that she would feel him inside her long after this ritual was complete. She wrapped her arms around his neck, clung to him as she swayed with exhaustion. He knew the fatigue came from the constant barrage of unfamiliar and too-intense emotions and her changing more than from the physical act of making love with him. He had an irresistible need to soothe her. “Lay down for me.” She looked up at him. Confusion flitted past her eyes, and then a flicker of fear as she turned to lie on stomach. Jude gritted his teeth against the 67

cat who responded aggressively to her show of submission. “No. Avery, on your back, lay on your back for me.” She turned, looked up at him. “I’m scared.” “I know.” He drew his hand across her cheek. “I can feel it coming off you in waves.” “Is it going to hurt?” He shook his head. “Not if I can help it.” She turned her face against his hand, closed her eyes tight. “Don’t hide from me, Avery. I won’t hurt you.” “That’s not really what I’m scared of.” He lifted his eyebrows. “Then what?” “I’m scared by how badly I want you, Jude. I want things I never thought about, barely knew existed.” Jude pressed his hand hard against his heart as it pounded against his chest in a physical fight against the cat that insisted on its way. A low growl came from his depths and Avery’s eyes widened in alarm, but her body melted in surrender, her thighs opening, her back arching so her breasts were presented to him in all their full, luscious glory. As unbearably beautiful as she looked, as much as Jude’s mind and his cat responded to her, his cock didn’t join the party. He was half-hard, but nowhere near where he would need to be to take her the way he had to in order to complete the ritual. He closed his eyes against another hard demanding attack from his pantheras at the mere thought of taking Avery that way. She moaned under him, her brown eyes taking in his struggle. He bent and covered her mouth with his, pulling her against him with a hand under her head. As he kissed her, his mind reached out, called the elements again. The power whipped around them, forming a tight barrier between them and the world. He could actually feel the electric heat licking at Avery.

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He sat back from her, looked at her spread before him like the most exquisite banquet imaginable. She ran her hands slowly along her narrow rib cage and up the swell of her breasts. She caught her bottom lip between her teeth and her eyes fluttered closed as she pinched her own nipples between her fingers. Jude actually couldn’t breathe. His lungs burned in his chest as Avery pulled harder on her erect nipples and her heady, musky scent increased. “Avery.” She released one nipple, still tugging on the other, and slid her free hand down her stomach, and as her hips lifted higher, cupped her pussy. “I’m so wet, Jude. How can I still need you this much?” He fisted his hands against his thighs. His cock rose, thickening and responding to the incredible vision before him. “Open your legs wider, Avery.” She did, letting her knees fall wide open as her small fingers slipped between petal soft, glistening wet folds of flesh. He growled low in his throat, the sound dangerous even to his own ears, as she found her swollen clit. She rubbed it with, quick, practiced strokes. Had she done this before? Had she touched her body while she thought of him? A wild, animalistic cry tore from her small body as her fingers quickened their pace and her body bucked against the blanket. Powerless to do anything but watch his mate bring herself to a shattering orgasm, Jude winced as his erection tightened in direct accordance to her level of pleasure. “Jude.” She curled on herself, wrapping her arms around her stomach and rolling to her side. “Jude, make it stop. It’s too much, I can’t take it.” The magic shot white hot sparks against her. He watched in horror and fascination as it built a visible web around her. When her body started to shake, her head thrown back, and a scream escaped her that was more agony than ecstasy, Jude reached for her. He pulled her against him, the cat in a frenzy, desperate to defend its mate.

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She collapsed against him and the magic retreated as soon as he touched her. She breathed against his skin, her heart pounded against him. He ran his hands over her face, through her hair, forced her to look at him. “What the hell was that? Are you okay?” “You don’t know?” She climbed into his lap, curled against his chest. “Why don’t you know?” “I’m going on research here, Sweetheart. No one has done this for generations.” He held her closer, his erection lost. “I didn’t think it would be so strong.” “I feel better now. I think…I think I just need to be touching you.” She glanced at the hourglass, at the sand swiftly falling through it. “I hope you know what you’re getting yourself into. I can already feel myself changing. I will never be okay without you again.” Jude realized with a start that he’d been wrong. His pheromones weren’t changing, not the way hers were, but the tie hers wove between them went both ways. He knew with crystal clarity that he would kill anyone who tried to take her from him and he would never be comfortable again away from her. “I need that. I need you, Avery.” She moved away from him, just a moment, and then stopped as if testing her body’s reaction to the separation. When she didn’t break into an instant shattering climax, she smiled up at him and lifted her chin. “Piece of cake.” She unfolded her legs and stretched out on her stomach. “Touch me, Jude. Please.” He pulled one hand down the unbearably seductive curve of her spine, from her shoulders to the swell of her hips. She moaned softly and those hips lifted a couple of inches. He did it again, just to hear that moan and feel it resurrecting his cock. He bent over her and kissed the same trail, moving his lips, his tongue, over her satin skin. She murmured in appreciation, her hands fisting in the blanket as her hips jutted up again. 70

He reached for a bottle of herbal oil and uncorked it, poured a thin stream from her shoulders to her hips. The scent immediately enveloped him, mingled with headier scent of his mate’s readiness for him. As he smoothed the oil over her skin, he felt her relax, her muscles let go of their tension, even as her musky aroma increased. He stroked his oiled hands lower, caressing the perfect globes of her ass. She had a beautiful ass. Heart-shaped and firm, but soft under his touch. She moaned softly and lifted it toward him, whimpering in a gesture of acquiescence that made the pantheras roar out its desire. He slid his fingers along the split down the center of her bottom until they reached her pussy. The wet, needy pull against his fingers sent fire racing through his blood. Finally, when he could stand it no longer, he moved his fingers to circle the tiny, puckered entrance that would be his tonight. He reached for a different container, a more modern one, and poured lubricant over his fingers and her skin, massaging the tight ring of muscles before easing his finger past them to his first knuckle. She tensed, the muscles grinding against his fingers. “Relax. Relax, Sweetheart. Let me in.” She whimpered, lifted her bottom higher. A gift, he thought. She looked like a gift, presented so perfectly, so heartbreaking in her beauty. Had he not already had two hard, draining orgasms, his cock would be hard right now. As it was, while his mind was overwrought with willingness, his body would not cooperate. He was hard, his balls tight, but not hard enough. “I’m sorry, Avery. I’m sorry.” He bent and whispered the words against her hair as his finger continued to move in and out of her. The cat sensed what had to be done and threw itself against its cage so hard that Jude grunted with the weight of it. He let the cat loose, just a little, and prayed he had the strength to keep hold of its leash. The cat used his human body, but the power, the raw raging power of the pantheras surged through him. Hot blood filled his cock and brought it painfully hard. He felt magic whip around them, not with the frantic power it had aimed earlier at Avery, but in a swirl of passion that took his breath. 71

He moved behind Avery, his thighs pressing impatiently at hers, opening them, one arm went around her waist and lifted so that her ass came up in round perfection. Avery’s face turned against the blanket, her hands fisted in the quilted fabric. She whimpered, the sound both brought a roar from the cat and caused him to pull the animal back into himself as much as he could. “No!” She turned her head, lifted her ass higher. “I need him, Jude. I think it has to be him.” “Avery.” “Please, Jude.” His nostrils flared as her scent called to the cat. “I need him now. Can’t you feel the magic calling to him?” He did feel it. He hadn’t lost control of the pantheras since childhood, and he held on now more out of habit and instinct than anything else. If the power he felt inside him overwhelmed him, how could Avery bear the brunt of it. “He won’t hurt me, Jude. I’m his mate.” She moved her hips with a slow, beckoning rhythm that Jude felt in his blood. “He needs me. He’ll protect me.” Jude threw back his head and cried out; the cat came through in his roar. The power rushing through his blood was extraordinary. He could almost taste it, spicy and angry. He lifted Avery’s hips again and this time when she responded with submission, he let himself revel in it. He kept one hand around her waist and used the other to guide the head of his cock against her anus. Her skin was slippery with herbal oil; he rubbed the head of his cock through the lubricating liquid. She whimpered beneath him, her head and shoulders against the blanket and ass high, legs opened. He pressed the oiled head of his cock against the ringed muscles. When he started to open her, she cried out and tried to lift her head. “It’s okay,” he whispered. He prayed that he was right. That he’d done enough to keep from hurting her.

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The cat’s instincts took over and he bent over her, put its teeth around her shoulder without biting down. She stilled and Jude inhaled, scented nothing but pure erotic need, and bore down. Once the head of his cock had slipped past the ring of muscles, he stopped. She drew a ragged breath beneath him. After a minute, she moaned and lifted her hips. He pushed deeper, the tight grip of her muscles around his cock was almost more than even the pantheras could handle. Especially combined with the sight and sound of her completely surrendered. It took several minutes for him to work his entire cock into her, his groin pressed against her ass cheeks, his heavy balls tight against her the curls between her legs. He hissed against her shoulder as he pulled back several inches and then drove forward into the excruciatingly tight fist of her body. He held his mate close to him as he buried himself deep again. She turned her head to whisper against his ear. “Let him take his mate.” He lifted his head and growled as the cat took what was freely offered. Jude, the man, knew he was hurting her. Had to be. He pounded into her hard enough to almost lift her off the blanket. But she pushed back to meet every thrust. The cat would not be contained, and it scared Jude to know that he would not be able to pull it back now if he wanted to. He didn’t want to. She was so fucking tight. Impossibly tight. He would not have lasted two minutes without the strength of the cat. Even the cat wasn’t going to hold out much longer. Jude wrapped his arms around Avery, pulling her to him, fucked into her again and again, deep and so fucking tight. Energy crackled around them, sending up pure white power flying into the night sky. When neither he nor the cat could hold back any longer, he fought for enough control so that he could hold Avery as his hips pistoned against her one more time, and then stayed deep as his balls tightened and his cock swelled, and from some reserve he was sure he’d never find again, he came, filling her. 73

The cat was sated. Otherwise, Jude would not have been able to so easily slip the iron bars of his will back around it as he pulled slowly out of Avery and then turned to gather her against him. She shook against him, her body covered in sweat and oil. He turned her to face him and smoothed his hands over her back until finally with a shudder, she relaxed against him. The magic still glowed around them, and actually seemed to be gathering power. Jude wrapped himself around Avery as darts of energy flew around them. “Oh God, Jude.” He kissed the top of her head, curled his arm tighter around her waist. “I’m here, Sweetheart.” “Let me up, Jude. I have to stand up.” He didn’t move. “You can’t.” She pushed gently at his arm. “I have to.” Reluctantly, he rolled away from her and then stood himself to help her up. The magic had coalesced over them in a swirling mass of electricity. She stood beside him and lifted her face to the sky. The magic swirled faster. Jude reached instinctively for Avery as she lifted both arms over her head, stretching toward the magic as it formed a funnel aimed toward her. “Avery!” “Can you feel it, Jude?” She closed her eyes; her voice had a faraway quality to it as she reached higher. “I don’t like this.” The funnel flew toward Avery and the magic poured into her. As quickly as it started, before Jude could react, it stopped. The magic was gone. No. Not gone. It shined from Avery like a beacon. A beacon that called only to him. She collapsed into his arms and he lifted her, holding her tight against him.

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Chapter Five

Avery tried to breathe, but the air in the Coalition chambers felt too thick to pull into her lungs. Heavy, dark furnishings filled the windowless room and even if she weren’t scared witless, Avery wouldn’t be comfortable here. “Avery Dove?” Avery forced herself to release Jude’s hand and stand, walk around the bench they sat behind, and move to the podium in the center of the room. “Yes, Ma’am.” A female canine-shifter with a kinky white hair and a powder blue skirt suit headed the four-member panel. She was a kind-looking woman, but Avery knew that she would send her to the sanitarium on Warren Island without reservation. “Avery Dove, are you aware of the charges against you?” “Yes, Ma’am.” Why had she worked so hard to convince Jude to let her do this herself? She felt sick. Absolutely ill. No way could she convince these four very stern people that she wasn’t a menace to their society. The woman had real pity in her eyes. She looked like she should be baking cookies instead of sitting in judgment over women who had no control over their hormones. “We have come to the conclusion that following sexual intercourse with you, Frank Alvarado, a non-shifter, became addicted.” The four-member panel looked down at her from their elevated bench and Avery’s knees suddenly felt incredibly weak. “I’m aware that I addicted Frank Alvarado, but—“ “Unfortunately, Ms. Dove, there are no ‘buts’ when it comes to addiction.” The speaker this time was a squirrel-shifter--a small, toothy man who spoke with a highpitched, wheezy voice that made Avery want to cover her ears with her hands. “This panel has no choice but to send you to the sanitarium on Warren Island.” “You don’t understand—“ 75

“Explanations are not necessary.” The canine gave the squirrel a hard look before continuing. “In order to protect the whole of our species, women who carry the addiction hormone must be quarantined. I know this is hard to accept, but you will acclimate.” Avery couldn’t think around the buzzing in her ears. She staggered back a step and exhaled when she felt Jude’s strong arms wrapped around her. “Mr. Felini.” The canine had censure in her voice. “Your duties as Ms. Dove’s Keeper have been fulfilled. You do not have any further obligation—“ Avery felt a low, dangerous growl coming from Jude. “I can assure that my duty and obligation to Avery Dove have hardly begun.” “Mr. Felini!” He moved to put his body between her and the panel. “I have claimed Avery Dove as my mate.” Avery felt her womb clench as Jude’s words brought a vivid memory of their Triad Sacrament. After two days, she still felt Jude inside of her. The panel erupted in a dull roar of debate. The canine tried to keep things in order but failed. Finally, she beat her gavel on the bench. “That is quite enough. This is a difficult enough procedure without pandemonium. Unfortunately, Mr. Felini, being mated doesn’t negate the necessity of quarantine.” Avery held tight to Jude. She really wasn’t feeling well. And she absolutely could not go to Warren Island. It would have been bad enough before, but now physically she would not be able to do it. She couldn’t be away from her mate for more than a few minutes without feeling uncomfortable. And ‘uncomfortable’ was the understatement of the century. He had assured her that as her pheromones settled, so would the intensity of her need for him. If they took her from him today, she was certain she wouldn’t survive.

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“You will not send my mate away from me.” Jude didn’t raise his voice, but the tone held enough danger that all four members of the panel stopped talking and turned to look at him. “We have been mated in the manner of the Triad Sacrament.” The canine had to bang her gavel for a full minute before she restored order this time. “Mr. Felini! The Triad Sacrament has not been used in two hundred years. But even if it were in everyday use, it would not remove the threat of further addiction.” “With all due respect, you’re wrong.” Jude brought Avery back to the table with him, largely because she had a death grip on his arm. He picked up a large file and brought it back to the podium. “I’ve provided you with evidence, both historical and clinical, that proves that the pheromone change a female undergoes during the Triad Sacrament erases the addiction hormone.” A clerk took the file and carried it to the panel behind their high bench. A beeshifter with a stiff, military appearance took the file. He opened the cover and looked at the first page, then closed it again. “We recognize your expertise in this arena, Mr. Felini. However, you will have to give us time to review—“ “I will not.” Jude hissed the three words through clenched teeth. From her vantage point of about two inches away, Avery could feel his struggle with the pantheras. “Avery is not a threat to anyone.” “Mr. Felini.” The canine tried to wrest back control of the situation. “Surely you understand that the rules have to be the same for everyone. We can’t allow a woman who bears the addition hormone to be outside of quarantine.” “She does not bear the hormone any more. And frankly, your method of controlling addiction is not only barbaric, it’s woefully inadequate. I lost my mother to the same sanitarium you’re expecting my mate to acclimate to. And to what end? Addiction is not controlled, it’s growing.” The canine shook her head. “Really, Mr. Felini. This isn’t the time or place for this discussion.” 77

“This is the only time and place for this discussion, because I do not intend to allow Avery Dove anywhere near Warren Island.” Jude’s hand on her hip, holding her behind him, tightened. “Madame Chairwoman?” Everyone turned to the fourth member of the panel, a female cat-shifter with long white-blonde hair and piercing blue eyes. Her soft voice commanded attention in much the same way that Jude’s did. The canine threw up her hands in frustration. “The chair recognizes Belinda Moon.” “Thank you.” The young woman’s formal address seemed to have derailed the rising emotion in the room. “This panel has already recognized Mr. Felini’s authority on the subject of addiction. And while it is certainly conceivable to believe that a man would lie to keep his mate with him, I can see no reason to believe that what Mr. Felini says about the Triad Sacrament isn’t true. And I can see no reason not to leave his mate in his care for now.” “This isn’t a question of truth,” the squirrel said. “It’s a question of procedure. Women who bear the addiction hormone are quarantined. It’s the way we do things.” “That’s true. But Mr. Felini is hardly the first to voice anger over the way we do things.” The cat-shifter turned her huge blue eyes to Jude, and Avery tightened her hold on him as she fought back a sudden and intense burst of jealousy that dissolved as quickly as it came. “And it is very true that addiction is a growing problem, the sanitarium is stretched to its limits as more women are quarantined all the time.” “It’s just not done.” “But maybe it should be.” Belinda Moon leaned against the bench in order to see the squirrel. “I move that this panel release Avery Dove into the custody of her mate, and that she be monitored closely while the provided evidence is studied. If the Triad Sacrament’s bond is as tight as history suggests that it is, it would be cruel to separate them.” 78

Jude crushed Avery’s hand inside his. If they could use legal channels to keep Avery out of the sanitarium, Jude could continue his work. They had some hope of helping the women already quarantined there and of stopping further isolations. The canine banged her gavel again when she could not control the out-of-order discussion otherwise. “There is a motion on the table. We need to vote. Wayne?” The bee-shifter took a long look at Avery and Jude before he said, “Aye.” “Belinda?” “Aye.” No hesitation. She smiled encouragingly at Avery. “Raul?” The squirrel shook his head. “Nay. She needs to be quarantined.” The canine looked down at Jude. For a long moment, she seemed to contemplate the pair of them. “Aye. But I expect full cooperation, Jude Felini. Do not believe that our vote today means that we won’t take action, including quarantine, in the future if we deem it necessary.” “I understand.” Jude pulled Avery against him and she buried her face against his chest. Tears fell down her cheeks and dampened his shirt. “I hope that you’ll allow me to work with you on that evidence. It’s our hope that we have proven that the Triad Sacrament is not only a better solution than quarantine, but that will actually reverse the prevalence of addiction.” Avery pressed her forehead against Jude’s shoulder as she listened to him shift from mate-protector, to science-geek. The dim, airless room could not kill her soaring spirits. Even Raul the squirrel-shifter, who glared at her when she finally looked up from her position against Jude’s chest, couldn’t do that. She was free. She was in love, and she’d get to stay with her mate. Nothing else mattered. Not even the fact that, technically, Jude was still her Keeper.

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About the Author I live in the magical mountains of Northeastern Nevada with my husband and our three children. When I’m not writing, I can often be found digging around in my garden or conversing with the elm trees. As the mother of a son who has autism, I spend a lot of time as an advocate. I am a voracious reader and have had a life-long love affair with words. I’ve been fascinated with the romance genre since inheriting a box of old bodice rippers from my mother. Website – http://www.shauntagrimes.com/

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