by Meg Ripley
9
“I hate to even bring it up, but did your coworkers get with the conclave and figure out who that wolf was?” Sabrina was seated in his helicopter once again, finished with a day of work.
Max had wondered if she’d even be willing to accept a ride from him again after the way they’d argued the other night. But Jack and Vance had taken over the job for twenty-four hours, insisting on giving him a break. It’d bothered him far more than he ever imagined it would, and when he should’ve been finding better ways to occupy himself, he was just trying to resist going to her apartment. In the end, he hoped the time apart would ease the tension between them.
Apparently, it had. “Sort of. They know he’s a lone wolf, and not the good kind. He was working as a mercenary doing any work he could get. This time, someone paid him to go after you.”
“But we don’t know who,” Sabrina concluded.
“No, but it would be another interesting piece of evidence in the trial if we could find out.” In the time he’d spent away from Sabrina, Max had been working hard to find more pieces of the puzzle. It turned out to be a much harder task than he anticipated.
“It seems like an interesting coincidence that it was a wolf, and not the one I saw in the stairwell that night at the hotel,” Sabrina mused. “I have to wonder if—wait. Where are we going?” She peered through the windshield as they headed to the outskirts of town. “This isn’t the way to my building.”
“It’s not,” he confirmed. His heart picked up the pace now that she was onto his plan. It was something that had popped in his head as a random idea, but he’d known it to be a good one. Convincing her to agree with him would be a different matter. “I have something in mind.”
“Such as?”
He lifted one shoulder. “You’ll see when we get there.” They buzzed out into the countryside, flying out over farms and fields and tree-lined rivers as the sun started making its way down toward the horizon. By the time he finally landed, setting the chopper down in what was essentially the middle of nowhere, it was nearly dark. “Come on.”
She stepped hesitantly out of the chopper, keeping one hand on the metal hull. “I don’t know what we’re doing here, but do you really think this is a good idea? I mean, we thought we were alone when that wolf attacked and look where that got us.”
“I know, but whoever is after you has probably figured out your schedule.” That’d been bothering him quite a bit. Was it someone within the medical community? “This is a completely unscheduled stop.”
“And am I allowed to know what we’re doing here yet?” She let go of the chopper and took one hesitant step toward him as though she still expected someone to come darting out of the tree line.
Max pulled in a deep breath. This would be a true test of just how much Sabrina doubted him and how much she wanted him to stay out of her life. “Sabrina, you’ve got a lot going on in your life right now. I don’t think there’s anything you need more than a good run.” His shoulders shuddered as he shifted, feeling the length and strength of his feline body. His sharp teeth poked through his gums, painful only at first. He pushed back when on all fours, stretching his spine all the way to the end of his tail.
“Max.” Sabrina cocked a hip. “This is ridiculous.”
Tigers or not, the two of them weren’t in the same clan. They didn’t have the telepathic bond that other shifters shared with their group members when in their animal forms. Any English words he might try to form with his current mouth would come out garbled. Instead, he stalked a small circle around her feet, letting his tail brush against her legs.
“I guess you really mean it, don’t you?” She reached down and ruffled the soft fur around his ears.
Max huffed and jerked his head away, but it was worth the laugh that escaped her lungs. He walked a short distance to give her room.
To his satisfaction, Sabrina closed her eyes. She stood motionless for a while, and he knew exactly what she was doing. She hadn’t let out her other form in a long time, and it wasn’t always easy to recall that command to one’s body. Max always started with his back and shoulders; it was the most instinctive to him. It was different for Sabrina. A patch of blackness spread across the skin on her forehead. It split as it reached toward her temples and hairline and wrapped around each of her eyes. Orange coloring bloomed behind it, touched by white near her eyebrows and the curve of her lips. The stripes continued to extend over her body. She melted and molded and changed, losing the form that she wore so much in favor of the one that Max had longed to see. She was more heavily marked than he, with many of her stripes doubled. The fur near her back was the deepest orange that faded slowly to the most brilliant white. Sabrina was the most beautiful tigress Max had ever seen. She stretched her paws experimentally, digging her claws into the earth.
That was when he knew she was ready. He took off, bounding across the field. Max heard a snort of exasperation, but on his heels, he heard the thuds of her paws. She was coming swiftly after him, closing the distance. He ran harder, moving across the field and toward the trees now. The shadows were deeper there, but he had the advantage of his animal vision.
They darted through the trees and around rocks, sometimes sticking to game trails and other times crashing through the brush. Max took the lead at first, making sure to go slowly enough that Sabrina could keep up with him. But she got the idea, and the next thing he knew, she was passing him. Her lithe body cruised past him easily, and he swore she gave him an amused look as she left him in the dust.
It was a race after that, with the two of them neck-and-neck without any determined finish line. She managed to dash ahead on the long stretch of flat land, but Max’s muscular haunches helped him leap faster over fallen logs and rocks.
When darkness had fallen to its full thickness and a deep blue-black expanded overhead, Max turned to trot up a lonely hillside. They were far from anywhere, without so much as a streetlight or a farmhouse in sight. The stars had come out in full force, scattered brilliantly overhead. He sauntered up the hill as he admired the view and caught his breath, soaking in the moment of having one of his own next to him.
But he had to let this body go. As good as it’d felt, there were things he needed to say, and he couldn’t do it this way. By the time they reached the top, they’d both returned to the day-to-day form that was accepted in the human world. Max sat and patted the grass next to him. “How was it?”
She brushed her hair out of her face with her hand. The careful ponytails, buns, and braids that Sabrina had mastered in medical school had been undone with the shift. “I have to admit, that was amazing. I thought you were crazy at first, but I really did need that.”
“It’s nice to have the rest of the world melt away for a while, isn’t it?” Max stretched his legs out in front of him. “That’s just one of the many difficult things about living in the city. There just aren’t enough chances to be ourselves and let go.”
Sabrina nodded. “I admit, I was about to get back in the helicopter and just stubbornly wait you out. But I don’t remember the last time I got to do something like this. And I hadn’t even thought about it since this whole murder case started. It’s been absolutely miserable.”
Max could hear the thickness in her voice. “Are you all right?”
She sniffled. “I’m just so tired of constantly being followed. It’s a huge weight on me whether it’s someone assigned to watch over me or some killer springing out of the darkness. I just want to go back to a normal life.”
“Has your life really been that normal?”
“Fair enough. Normal for me. Thank you.” She gave him a sheepish smile.
He could feel his face soften as he looked at her. It was the same feeling he’d had in all the other good times in their relationship when he realized just how crazy he was about her. Max knew he should stop, but he didn’t think he could. “I owe you an apology.”
“Max, you don’t have to—”
“No, I do. Please
, just hear me out. First, I want to apologize for acting like an ass when I got hired for this job. I was surprised, and I didn’t know how to feel. I took that out on you, and I shouldn’t have done that.” Saving Sabrina in the park, knowing their lives were truly in danger and that the threats weren’t just some fictional concerns hanging over their heads made a big difference.
“In that case, I should apologize, too. It put both of us in a weird position. I already didn’t like having the guards assigned by the conclave following me around, and I definitely wasn’t prepared to ride with you to and from work. Not to mention having you spend the night at my house.” She laughed softly, letting her shoulder bump slightly against his.
It was the tiniest bit of touch, but he already felt so much closer to her than he had before now that they’d gone for that run together. Being in animal form together could be very bonding for shifters, and that had proven to be true as far as he was concerned. “I also want to apologize for the way I left you. I know you probably don’t want to talk about the past, and maybe it would be better if we left all that behind us, but it’s been weighing on me. I feel like you should know the truth.”
Sabrina squinted up at the stars, and when she spoke, her voice was hushed. “And what is that?”
This was much harder than just saying he was sorry for acting like an ass. This was a much bigger deal. “I had a hard time dealing with how important your career was to you. I didn’t like having to share you with the hospital and your patients all the time. Even more, I didn’t feel comfortable hanging out with the crowd you did. Everyone was so intelligent and professional. I wasn’t their caliber, and I knew I wasn’t yours, either.”
She turned to look at him now. “Is that why you never came out with me to all those dinners and events? I thought you were just being stubborn. Or that you didn’t want to be with me.”
He felt that statement in the center of his heart. “I never meant to hurt you. And I did want to hang out with you. But I always felt like everyone else was judging me. I know it’s silly and childish. I didn’t know how to handle it, and all I ended up doing was pushing you away.”
“Oh, Max.” Sabrina touched the back of his hand, her gentle fingertips sending sparks of energy up his arm. “I didn’t realize. I wish you would’ve just told me.”
“Maybe. But I’m not sure it would’ve made any difference. You would always have those events to go to, and I’d keep having to say no. It was a cycle I wasn’t willing to continue, especially not with having to handle a crowd full of strangers who were all looking at me and wondering why the amazing Dr. Barrett had brought some bum in on her arm. It was just too much.”
She was silent for a long time as she leaned back and stared up at the stars. Her voice was low and quiet like a river when she finally spoke. “You know, I wanted to go to medical school to save lives. I wanted to make a difference for people. When I started talking about it, my high school counselor warned me that I’d never have any time to have people in my own life. At the time, I was more than happy about that. I wasn’t very popular in high school, anyway, so it seemed like a fitting career. Then, when I got through all my schooling and things started to take off, I was overwhelmed by how big of a social aspect my career involved. My counselor was right in that I don’t have a lot of time for my personal life, but there are still all these dinners and fundraisers and events I have to go to just to make sure I keep all the right connections. It’s exhausting for me, and I didn’t realize I was asking too much of you.”
A heavy pressure lifted off of Max’s chest, and the difference was so great that it made him laugh.
“What’s so funny?”
“Us.” Max turned his hand and closed his fingers around Sabrina’s. She felt so comfortable, so good. It was hard to understand how the two of them could’ve been at such odds. “We’re old enough that we should have our lives all figured out. We should have our ducks in a row. And yet we’re still too obstinate to be honest with each other.”
“That’s a good point.” She settled her head against his shoulder. “So tell me another truth.”
“Does there have to be more?” Max let his cheek rest against her soft hair. He could feel his tiger chuffing happily.
Sabrina nodded. “I think there is.”
She was right. There was so much he hadn’t told her or anyone else. Not even the therapist he’d seen when he came back from war as part of the VA’s method of tackling PTSD. It was a nice idea, but it wasn’t as simple or as easy as all the psych docs thought. “Have you ever read the book Slaughterhouse Five?”
“Sure. Kurt Vonnegut. The one where the guy gets unstuck in time and lives his life out of order.” Sabrina allowed his shoulder to support a little more of her weight.
“That’s how I feel. Not the getting abducted by aliens part, fortunately. But sometimes I’m not really here. I’m back in a chopper over the desert, dropping men off for their missions that I know are going to lead to their deaths. I’m pulling guard duty at some random outpost. I’m trying to save some child whose been hit by his own people’s fire, and then I’m suddenly back at the supermarket or surfing the internet. It’s like I’m living two completely different lives at the same time.”
Her breath left her lungs in a long hiss. “I’m sorry, Max.”
He smiled. “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For not immediately turning around and telling me about all the different options there are to help me with this. For just accepting that it’s the way I am, at least in this moment. It’d actually gotten a lot better until about the past week or so.” Most of the visions of his past had been limited to his dreams. It was disturbing, but he could deal with it. As soon as Sabrina came back into his life, everything changed.
“So you’re telling me I make you crazy?” she giggled.
“Yes,” Max confirmed. “And that’s exactly why I try so hard to make you crazy.”
“What?” Sabrina sat up to look at him.
“Ever since I met you, you’ve had this hard shell on the outside. You can go through surgeries without getting upset or anxious. You have the same calm attitude whether you’re waiting in line at the grocery store or waiting on a promotion at work. You’re tough to rattle, and I like a challenge.” Here, alone, in the darkness, he could tell her anything. All the truth was going to come out and blend in with the night, and it was an idea he truly relished. They might never be together again, but at least they would both know the truth.
“And you’re an asshole!” But Sabrina was laughing, starlight and tears shimmering in her eyes. She flicked her finger underneath them. “I guess I am a bit stoic. I had to be from a pretty young age. Children are terrible little things, picking out the weakest of the bunch and attacking them relentlessly. I realized pretty quickly that if I let them see how much they were bothering me, they’d just do it more. So I taught myself not to cry until I was alone in my room at night where no one could see me.”
Max had seen a few photographs of Sabrina as a girl, and he could easily imagine the smaller version of her lifting her chin and stalking off to the other side of the playground. “That’s kind of sad.”
“Not really. I used it to my advantage when it came to my career. The professors in medical school talk a lot about not getting attached to your patients or letting your emotions rule your head. I already had that part nailed down. It really did help. Until I saw what you did to that wolf in the park.”
He started a bit at this, surprised by her admission. “You said you were fine.”
“I always say that. But you were right. Seeing that was completely different than someone dying on the table or slowly slipping away from a disease. It was uncomfortable at the least, and I’d already seen Isaac Rutledge right after he’d been killed. I like to think I’m pretty tough, but I guess there are still some things I can’t quite handle.”
“Seems normal to me.” Her hand was still in his, and he squeezed it slightly.
“One more truth?”
“Sure.”
“I love you, Sabrina. I’m not asking you to say it back, and I’m not trying to rope you into any sort of relationship. I just need you to know, and I need to know it, too.” He didn’t think he’d like to admit it, but it was as though the more they talked to each other, the better he felt. Max could feel his tiger leaning against hers, their souls blending and melding.
Sabrina reached up and touched his cheek, her fingers drifting down to run along the angle of his jaw. Her eyes were soft and bright as she studied his face, focusing intently on his lips. “Max, I—”
“Don’t. Don’t say it. Even if you think you mean it. I don’t want it to just be a reaction. I want it to be real.” And he did want it, more than anything he’d ever wanted in the world. But it had to be freely given and not just taken.
Sabrina nodded solemnly and let her hand fall. But a moment later, her lips were on his. She wasn’t telling him, she was showing him. She kissed him fully and passionately, bringing her hands up into his hair and digging her fingernails into his scalp as her tongue danced with his. They could’ve talked all night long and have never been able to say what they felt as precisely as they could by doing this.
Max pulled her onto his lap, feeling her legs slide down on either side of his hips as their kiss deepened. He let his hands rove over her, feeling her curves. She was soft and comforting in all the right places, unyielding and demanding in the others. Her body was just like her personality, and Max knew this was so much more than a physical relationship.
He moved his lips from her mouth and trailed them down her neck to her collarbone. His fingers worked of their own accord against the buttons of her shirt, longing to remove the modest garments and see the woman he knew was hiding underneath. Her breasts strained the material, and she let out a low moan when he finally freed her from the confines of it. Max wasted no time in reaching for the clasp of her bra, longing to feel the heaviness of her breasts against him.