“What do you mean?”
“This isn’t a traditional leap, so I was just curious as to what kind of group you have going on here and if I’ll be safe?” I honestly wasn’t sure if it was a statement or a question. Safety hadn’t been something I felt I was lacking since waking.
“You’re plenty safe here. No one will hurt you,” Gray informed me. There was no lie in his words, and I would know, as it was one of my talents. “As for what we are, I belong to a motorcycle club. The Dark Leopards MC started out just leopards, then progressed to encompass the big cats. Our chapter, here in West Michigan, was the first to start accepting other breeds as well.”
“Why?”
His broad shoulders bounced up and down once as he grunted out his simple answer. “Why not?”
A light chuckle left my mouth before I could form my rebuttal. “It’s not necessarily the norm,” I admitted.
“No, it’s not, but then not many of us are of the normal variety.” His brow kicked up a notch as he eyed me. “Yourself included,” he added with a little grit.
“I wasn’t judging, just curious.” My nose wrinkled as the memory of the leopard, panther, and vulture responsible for kidnapping and attempting to skin me came to mind. “The group who did this to me,” I told Gray as I pointed down toward my still covered injuries, “They were an unusual group too.” I hesitated only a moment before asking what was really on my mind. “Are you sure that I’ll be safe here?”
“They weren’t our people, I can say that with one hundred percent certainty.” Gray leaned in and I caught the spicy, musky scent that belonged to his leopard. It forced a reaction from my body as a chill rocked through my system and dispersed gooseflesh across my arms while pebbling my nipples. I would hope that he didn’t notice, but that thought was quickly diminished as his eyes dropped lower and took in the sight.
The pull of our impending mating held me captivated as Gray’s eyes met mine. The need reflected back at me, something fierce and wanting. There was no ‘if,’ it would happen, but instead a deep-seeded need to know ‘when’. Gray shook off the feeling at about the same time I did, forcing a laugh to bubble up from my lips.
“I was around a group like yours once,” I admitted, trying to set aside the tingling nerves and raw need I felt for the man before me. The fact of the matter was, my body was still healing and it needed more time before I jumped into something as physical as sealing the bond with my partner.
Gray scoffed at my statement. “I doubt that.”
“No, it’s true. Granted, they didn’t ride motorcycles,” I thought for a moment and then changed my mind on that. “Actually, some of them did, but they weren’t a club like yours. They were circus performers.”
Instead of a dismissive answer this time, he laughed at my admission. “Please, don’t tell me you ran away with the circus.”
I rolled my eyes at the ridiculous notion. “Of course not. I ran away with my grandparents, we just happened to run into a band of circus performers who happened to be shifters of all types. Here, in this place,” I indicated the building we were in, which I supposed was some sort of motorcycle clubhouse. “You all are formed of alpha-types. I’m still not sure how that works out for you guys, but whatever floats your boats, I guess.” He laughed, but didn’t otherwise interrupt me. “There, they were more or less beta creatures who had been shunned by their various groups, or for whatever reason decided to go off on their own. They found each other over time, banded together, and formed a troupe of performers.”
“Please, tell me that they didn’t allow their animals to perform,” Gray managed to get out on a sigh.
I offered him a knowing look before nodding my head. “They did. Some played human roles, others played the roles of the tamed animals. Everything was scripted, down to the crazed animal getting out of control routine. Of course, that one was only done when interest in the troupe was waning and they needed a scandal to keep them going.”
“And what part did you play in this game?”
“Obviously, I couldn’t shift into my animal. That would have been a dead giveaway to the other shifters about what I was. Not to mention, it wouldn’t have appeared very realistic to human eyes.” I ran my fingers gently across the blanket that was draped over my lower half. “Mostly, I worked behind the scenes as a seamstress fixing costumes or cleaning up after everyone. On rare occasions, I worked concessions. Though, my grandparents tried to limit my exposure to crowds in case there was ever a shifter, or other being, that would be able to tell what I was.”
“Did you enjoy working for the circus troupe?”
It was my turn to shrug my shoulders. “It didn’t last long,” I mentioned.
“Why not? Seems a perfect place to hide.”
“You would think. Hiding amongst shifters becomes a very real problem when you are the only one who never becomes an animal. When people started asking too many questions, we were forced to move on.”
“That must have been awful, constantly being on the run whenever someone might have suspected something.”
“It was. All I ever craved was the normality of family surrounding me that I had when I was a young girl growing up. I miss my sisters, my parents, and all of us being in one place together.”
“How long had you been in Michigan before this happened to you?” Gray asked as he tipped his head toward my ravaged legs.
“Long enough to settle into a teaching job and breathe easily for a bit. I thought I was done being hunted for what I am. It was nice to just coast from day to day as a normal person. The only downside was not having any family with me at all anymore.”
We sat in silence for a while after that, just taking one another in, lost in our thoughts. It wasn’t long before I started to wonder what he was thinking though. My nerves got the better of me as I began to think that the man before me had regrets. What would I do if he suddenly decided this was all too much for him? Clearly, I’d be dooming our future children and grandchildren to the same possible life if he stuck with me. Who the hell voluntarily signed up for that?
6
“Does it bother you that I chose you?” Chantal asked quietly after Knox and the men left.
“Why the hell would it bother me?”
She shrugged her shoulders. “This is an alpha-led world, even in your little band of biker misfits. You may have many species here, but you still maintain a hierarchy. Usually, men such as yourselves do not like to have their choices removed.”
“You said my choice wasn’t removed, only that you had made yours,” I reminded her.
“Yes, but some have a hard time resisting the pull once they feel it. It is rare for one to turn down the hidden when they reveal themselves and choose. The uncertainty of possibly never finding your own true mate makes the temptation worth it for most.”
“I’ve thought about that,” I told her truthfully. “Am I doing this simply because I’m tired of looking, but then I feel the pull too, and it’s the same feeling I would get either way, correct?” She nodded her agreement. “How do you resist what’s right in front of you for something that you may never find?”
“Fate usually makes sure one finds the other,” she insisted.
“Usually, but not always. This way, another soul out there who lost that chance gains another while I still get a bond as strong as any other.”
“Stronger, usually.”
“You need me, and you’re here. That weighs a lot in this too.”
“You don’t know me though,” she insisted.
“That’s not how things work in our world, and you know it.”
She chuckled then. “That’s all too true.”
“Why was your family lost to you? You spoke of being separated and running with your grandparents, but I didn’t want to interrupt to ask.”
“When we come of age, it isn’t safe to stick close together. If we did, it would be easy to find us, manipulate us into choosing…” she explained without really going into it. “
I have two sisters out there.”
“You mentioned three to the prospect as well, three daughters.”
Chantal nodded. “I did, because we come in threes. We’re triplets. We do not live anywhere near each other or have contact any longer, because it would be too easy to see us for what we are that way.”
“But you grew up together?”
“For a while, until a few men passing through town caught sight of us. We were sent to be scattered to the winds then by our parents. I went with my grandmother for a while. She kept me with her and my grandfather until they died.”
“Let me guess, it wasn’t natural causes?”
She shook her head. “It was one of those men who noticed us. I guess at least one of them followed.”
“My little moonbeam, that is important to know. It could be the same man who is behind this.” She shook her head.
“It’s not. I didn’t recognize his scent, and I know that now. I lost my family ten years back when I was just 16. Lost my grandparents when I was 19. I haven’t seen or heard from anyone in all that time. I’ve been hiding in plain sight away from everyone ever since. I put myself through college, behaved like a human, and I only let my shadow cat out in a light-tight room, no windows, no way for anyone to see.”
“That has to suck, babe.”
“It does, but it means survival. We’re not safe until we’re claimed.”
“Okay, but if you get to choose, why not offer yourself up before now instead of being worried all the time?”
“I never saw anyone worth giving myself to,” she told me. “I was in a bad place with being on the run so long and losing my family. Honestly, I planned on never allowing myself to be claimed by another shifter.”
“Then there was me, and you were desperate?” I almost laughed at the thought that the woman had to feel completely desperate and helpless to want me to claim her. She bit into her plump bottom lip and nodded as she glanced up guiltily through her thick lashes. “What if I had been with them? With your attackers?”
She shrugged her shoulders then. “I hoped you weren’t. You didn’t smell familiar, and even if you had been. Chances are that you wouldn’t have allowed it to continue if you thought I was your mate.”
“You could have been stuck with an evil bastard for a mate,” I admonished.
“Lucky for me that I chose you then, hmm?” There was a fire in her eyes this time when she glanced up at me. I knew the heat in my own gaze matched hers. “Are we doing this?” she asked in a breathy voice as I gently pushed her back to the bed.
“Your injuries?” I asked, unable to hide the husky quality of my own voice at that point.
“We can be careful.”
“Would you show me first, before you change? Are you able to do that? It will help with the healing if you’re able to shift, right? That works the same for shadow cats as any other.”
A knock at the door kept her from answering any of my questions. “Gray, we have a doc here,” Knox announced before turning the handle and opening the door.
I could sense the greed coming off the man who stepped through the door behind Knox. It was a palpable thing, so thick in the surrounding air, I wondered if I could reach out and touch his desire.
“No!” I growled while shielding Chantal with my body.
“Gray, doc’s just going to take a look at the injuries.”
“I can feel it, Knox.” The explanation, though lacking, came out of me along with a threatening show of elongating teeth.
“Jesus, Gray. Feel what?”
“His greed. He wants her. Wants to…” I was cut off when Knox turned and jacked the man up into the wall.
“Explain yourself!” he demanded.
“It’s not what he’s thinking,” the doctor sputtered out. “I’ve just never seen one of her kind in the flesh before. I’ve seen videos, but never…” his voice trailed off as he continued to try to glance around Knox’s arm that had him pinned to the wall. “Never been able to examine one before.”
“Never will, either,” I ground out through gnashed teeth.
“Sorry,” the man called out and shook himself free of the spell he seemed to be under. “Sorry. That was highly unprofessional of me. It’s like one of those once in a lifetime opportunities, to meet with one who hasn’t yet changed to her mate’s animal.”
“Behave yourself,” Knox told him as he released his hold and allowed the man’s feet to meet the floor once more.
“Her legs, can you remove the bandages so I can see them?” The doc had obviously grown wise enough to know he would not be allowed to touch my woman. Before I could even move to do it, Chantal reached past me and began unwinding the bandages that had been wrapped around her ravaged lower legs. When she got the last of them off, it was clear the amount of damage she was facing. Her pelt had been skinned from about mid-calf all the way to her ankles. In her human form, that meant that the dermal layer was missing and muscle was showing underneath a very fine layer of skin that had started forming in the healing process.
The doctor nodded his head as he carefully looked over the wounds. “The skin is re-growing, that’s a good sign. Healing is a bit slow, but to be expected as the animal inside was harmed too.”
“Will her pelt heal along with the skin?”
“Time will tell, but in this instance, I’m not too sure. Most likely not, though. When a full pelt is skinned from one of our kind, it won’t grow back and the animal becomes trapped within its human. Usually it causes the person to go insane, if they don’t die from shock first. It is one of the most cruel things that can be done. With the shadow cats, I simply don’t have enough information to know how her animal will respond to an injury of this type. She hasn’t taken a form yet, so maybe when she does it will allow for healing. It’s too soon to tell. I do suggest she get to turn a couple times in her shadow form before you claim her fully, just to be sure that the healing process is well underway prior to her change.”
“That’s all?” I asked impatiently. The doctor managed to snap himself out of his stupor and stop staring at my woman. Knox tugged on his arm then, to pull him out of the room, but the doctor huffed and stood his ground.
“I’d like to watch the transformation.”
“That is not fucking happening.”
“But I…”
“Come on asshole,” Knox called out as he all but dragged the doctor out of the room. Once they left, I turned back to Chantal.
“Are you sure about this?”
“Of course,” she declared without hesitation just before she flung the sheet back that had been covering most of her upper legs and midsection. Her shirt came off next and then she was before me naked, still lying on the bed, unafraid to trust her ravaged legs to hold her. One minute she was a beautiful petite woman lying before me. The next she was moonbeams and shadows. I had named her aptly when I called her that. The fur that remained intact on her glimmered a shimmery, liquid silver that caught the light and seemed to move it into the shadows all at once. It damn near hurt to look upon her, especially when I heard the whine of her cat. She was in pain, of that there was little doubt. Still, she trusted me enough to nudge her nose into my thigh to get my attention.
I reached out to touch the side of her face with the backs of my fingers. It was a gentle gesture that was met with patience on her part. She shoved her face into my fingers, forcing me to pet her a bit more aggressively. Her fur was the softest pelt I had ever felt in my life, almost as if it were constructed of pure magic, and hell, maybe it had been, for all I knew of the shadow cats and their legends. I spent a bit of time bonding with the animal inside my woman before she shifted back to her human form. Her legs remained sans fur, but when she shifted, the skin was fully formed above the muscle once more. That, at least, was a blessing.
“I don’t think it will ever come back,” she whispered as she stared down at her legs. I knew what she was seeing as she watched the legs that looked so normal and healed in her human form
.
“It won’t matter,” I told her. “You will be cherished by me whether they’re whole or not. At least we know you can still call your beautiful cat forth.” I turned my attention so that I was staring directly into her eyes then. “When you and I have been properly mated, and your shadow takes on the form of the leopard, what will happen to you? You’re used to being in one state with your animal. Will you be okay with the change?”
“From what I’ve been told, it will be like something I’ve been missing finally clicking into place.”
I leaned in and swept my lips across her as gently as possible, ready to assure her that I would make her choice worth it. That was unnecessary though. Instead, she grabbed hold of my head and refused to let go as she initiated the deepening of our kiss.
7
Tingles exploded up and down my spine as Gray took me in. Only his eyes grazed across my skin, but I swore I could feel the touch as if each passing glance left an ember burning brightly in its wake. Just as I started to adjust to the feeling of his eyes blazing heated trails across my body his body joined in. First, a fingertip ghosted over my arm, drifting from my wrist all the way to the curve where my shoulder and neck met. Then he clasped that hand around my throat gently, holding there, as if to take possession or collar me with that one, simple gesture.
I tipped my head back, allowing him both access and showing trust in him all at once. My eyes remained downcast, a submissive gesture to show him that I would gladly accept the claim he was making. It was a moot point that I had already offered myself to him, this was the dance that instinct drove us to. I didn’t just want him because he saved me and had no choice, and I wanted him to know that. Shitty circumstances might have been what brought us together in the first place, but I wanted him anyway.
“You are so beautiful,” he murmured before leaning in and scenting me by rubbing his cheek against my own. His hand still held firmly to my throat as he moved me closer in order to dip his nose into that sensitive area behind my ear. Hot breath across the overly sensitized skin sent goosebumps to prickle my skin as evidence of the desire I couldn’t contain. I wanted the man before me like I had never wanted another creature on this Earth. I wasn’t sure if it was the call of the binding, because I had chosen him as my mate, or if I simply would have felt this way if I had met him while wandering down the street one day.
Ridden by Darkness Page 3