Catspell

by Colleen Shannon

  “I see the conflict in your eyes, my love. Indeed, how could you know that I am very different to my brother? I don’t want you slave to me, like Luke wants you, as my entry to eternity. I want you today, tonight, tomorrow, a woman to walk beside me as we rule the march of one lifetime together. I think you know this night was meant to be, down through the eons back to the birth of Osiris.”

  “You don’t wish to live forever?” she asked skeptically.

  “Not at the cost of my soul. The cat is a wonderful creature, agile, brave, independent, and affectionate when it pleases. But it has no moral center. Luke is an example of what you will become if you allow the temptation of your feline side to rule you. I want better for you. Your mother wanted better for you.”

  Arielle could no longer sustain the intensity of his stare. She looked away, nibbling at her lip, hearing the ring of truth in his words. When his gaze fastened on her mouth, she felt his hunger, a tangible thing, reaching out to her. But he only straightened, releasing her hand, as if he knew she had to make this choice willingly, with clear logic, not sexual temptation.

  “I will not tempt you further, though I suspect I could sweep you away with little effort. Think only of this before you decide…Luke wants the power you give him,” Seth said softly. “I want you. The woman, not the cat.”

  He didn’t smell of catnip, he didn’t tempt her with the taste of fear and blood, and he didn’t promise her forever.

  The conflicting feelings that had almost torn her apart faded. For once she squelched the lecture of her rational half, legacy of her father, listening instead to passion, like a true descendant of Cleopatra. She wanted him, had been incredibly drawn to him the first time she saw him, which was precisely why she’d fought so hard against this moment. But somehow she knew that both Isis and Osiris were smiling as she stepped down.

  Like the woman she was about to become, she let him kiss her hand and lead her into the cottage.

  In a very different place, two very different people were embroiled in a similar battle of wills. Ethan had struggled inside his London flat, remote at the end of a cul de sac, with his sleeping burden, muttering down to her, “My sweet, you are a hefty woman, in more ways than one.” With a nod, he indicated to his manservant that they should be left alone. He staggered down the stairs to his laboratory as his doubtful valet, with a last look at the still woman in Ethan’s arms, departed as ordered, leaving the two of them alone in his large flat.

  Ethan set Shelly, now fully human and clothed only in the carriage blanket, down in a wide wing chair. He locked the steel reinforced door and pocketed the key. Then he waved smelling salts under her nose. Her nostrils flared and her head turned slightly away, but she moved as if every motion were an effort.

  When her eyes flickered open, Shelly looked around groggily. She shifted her feet, the tiniest movement, before horror flared in her eyes. She was held immobile, awake but helpless, by the powdered wolf’s bane and silver leaves Ethan had tied in pouches around her neck, wrists, and ankles. She had only two weapons available: her eyes and her voice.

  Both were formidable. “You unregenerate scoundrel. Do you think incapacitating me like this will get you what you want?”

  “And what is that?” Ethan asked with the mildest interest.

  As she watched, he busied himself moving the beakers, burners, microscopes and other scientific equipment littering the long table in the middle of the room to an empty cabinet, which he locked. Her forebodings increased. It looked as if he were preparing for a war. “My…my person.”

  “For an extremely intelligent woman, my very dear Miss Shelly Holmes, you are amazingly obtuse. Do you think I intend to have my wicked way with you against your will?” He laughed. That rich male amusement, so tempting in tone and so appealing in the vivacity it gave to his face, angered her even more.

  “Why else would you immobilize me and lock me in your private quarters?” she spat back.

  “I saw opportunity, and I took it.” When she stared at him, totally confused, he locked away the last of his implements, leaving the laboratory all but bare. It held now only a long couch, the chair she sat in, and the long table and cabinets, all locked. As he worked, he explained helpfully, as if she were indeed obtuse, “We have been at cross purposes long enough. Luke is growing stronger, and only our united efforts will stop him. If you had not tired him before Seth arrived, I think Arielle could well be his slave by now. And since you, ah, had to defend yourself, what if he begins evincing lupine tendencies as well?”

  Shelly looked away, sick at the thought. Given it was the time of the full moon, it was quite likely Luke was already beginning the change, adding her own skills to his arsenal of killing abilities. She shot back, “If your motives are to help protect Arielle, why am I naked beneath this blanket and alone with you at your mercy?”

  He made a rude sound, pulling a ladder backed chair in front of her. “You are never at anyone else’s mercy, save yourself. Sometimes I wonder if you self flagellate or wear hair shirts.” He sat down backward, legs spread eagled, crossing his arms on the top of the chair. She avoided looking at his lower person, but that merely forced her to meet his thoughtful gaze.

  He continued in that reasonable, non threatening tone that grated over her like sand paper, “You were not exactly overdressed in your prior persona. It was all I could find to clothe you in. I have not peeked, I assure you.” A wicked smile played about his lips, lightening his solemnity. “But neither am I blind. I did have to wrap you in the blanket. I was well aware you were overly endowed with brain capacity, but your other endowments are, shall we say, equally impressive. Why do you try so hard to hide them?”

  Shelly hoped he couldn’t see the reddening of her cheeks. “Because they are inconvenient symbols of my weakness.” She bit her lip, regretting her frankness.

  What might have been a wisp of sadness appeared in his darkening green gaze. “What was it in your past that made you detest your own femininity? Sad, that. Your uniqueness as a detective comes not from your male traits, but from your feminine intuition and your compassion.”

  He shoved the chair aside and knelt in front of her. This time, she could hardly avert her gaze from the prominent area at the apex of his rough breeches. No matter his protestations that he’d not take advantage of her, it was very clear this man wanted her. That damned tingling he always aroused, even when she was angry with him--like now--returned to plague her.

  She would have reared back, afraid of him, but more afraid of herself, exactly as he’d said, if she’d been able. But she couldn’t. Her world was filled with Ethan’s face, her nostrils invaded by his scents of sweat, and man, and yes, of arousal. Her acute hearing detected the quickening beat of his strong heart. He, too, was more affected by this battle of wills than he’d admit, but for the moment, he literally had the upper hand.

  She had to sit still as, very gently, as if he feared pushing her too far, he cupped his hands beneath her tousled hair and cradled her skull. “Yes, I want you, Miss Shelly Holmes. Your body. Your heart. Your soul. But I want to receive, not take. To cherish. Not dominate.”

  Shelly’s heart leaped like a wild thing in her breast. With a mighty effort, she managed to scoot her chair back a half inch. It wasn’t enough. Half the world away would still not be enough to make her forget this man and what he did to her. Still, she pretended, as much for herself as for him. “I give no one that degree of power over me.”

  “Yet.” He came closer, until his dark green eyes poured his indomitable spirit into hers, as if he would sap her will as he’d sapped her energy with his wiles. He gently rubbed her skull. “There is only one way to conquer you. It lies not through your womanhood, but through this…” So softly, so tenderly, he kissed her wide brow. “This is the pathway to your heart and body. This is what I covet. For when I’m in your brain, I will be well on my way to possessing your heart.”

  Damn his penetrating eyes and wisdom, how could he, alone of all the men sh
e’d ever met, understand her so well when she’d done all she could to keep him at bay? Mesmerized, she let him delve deep into her eyes, deeper than she’d ever allowed another soul. She was so rapt she barely felt his light touch at wrists, ankles and finally her neck. The overpowering scents of wolf bane and silver leaves that had kept her immobile were gone as he flung the pouches across the room.

  He leaned back as she stirred, but stayed there on his knees before her, well within striking range. As power flowed back into her body, he said softly, “Your ka is a lovely thing, dearest. But it is wounded and has been solitary far too long. Let me in. Let this powerful feeling neither of us can deny heal us both. Or do with me as you please. For if I have to survive one more night without knowing you, mentally, emotionally, and yes, physically, I’m not certain I wish to survive at all.”

  Shelly’s eyes teared up. Precisely because she hungered so much to reach back to his moving overture, she leaped to her feet and ran in the opposite direction, the blanket catching on a table leg and dropping to the floor.

  She tugged furiously but found the door locked. Her wild eyes noted the high, narrow windows in this basement lair, and there was no other egress. She was trapped. She turned back to face him as he rose slowly, staying put. He eyed her warily, obviously aware he’d pushed her as far as he could.

  Just as he said, he was inside her head. He knew her.

  He knew her ailment, knew she could turn vicious at will, so he’d immobilized her just long enough to get her here, trapped with him, to force her to listen. His gaze caressed her exposed body as if he indeed shared her hunger for flesh, but in a very basic male way. “Kiss or kill? An interesting choice, even for you, my very dear detective. I await your decision.”

  Her nipples surged their response, and she was so overcome by the need to fly into his arms that she stoked fear and confusion into rage. She crossed her arms over her chest to hide her reaction to him.

  How dare he play his little mind games with a were woman? Did he really expect his blandishments to seduce her into his arms when she’d never trusted anyone? And he’d given her every reason to distrust him, his motivations in helping with Arielle suspect, his former relationship with Isis quite likely scandalous, even his scientific knowledge used as much as a weapon against her as a tool for their mutual benefit in this investigation. He’d had meetings behind her back, spied on her when she didn’t know it, and now he’d capped all that dastardly activity by kidnaping her.

  It was time he learned she would not be toyed with. Closing her eyes, Shelly began the transformation. So quickly she could master it now: the elongation of jaw into a snout, the lengthening of her ears into pricked forward triangles, the strengthening of rib cage and the bending of her appendages into paws, tipped by lethal claws. As quickly as that, the imposing, full figured woman became an enormous wolf. But an enormous, sentient wolf.

  When she looked at him with a feral gleam, her eyes glowing greenish gray in the dim room, he sighed. “It’s a good thing I removed all the breakables.”

  And he crossed his arms over his chest, staying put to watch the were creature stalk him. For the first time, a bit of fear blended with the fascination in his eyes.

  Luke Simball stepped out of the bath, flexing his muscles in front of a mirror. The last feeding had accelerated his regeneration. The huge wound on his shoulder with the hanging flap of flesh had almost totally healed, and the less serious scratches were gone.

  As he reached for a towel, he accidentally brushed against the curtain blocking the window. The moon winked through the gap. He paused to look up at it, curiously drawn to it in some odd fashion. He moved the curtain aside even more, somehow feeling empowered by the golden glow. He felt the change before he saw it, the hairy tufts appearing at his ears, the heightening of his sense of hearing, the acuteness of an even more sensitive sense of smell.

  Curious, he looked in the mirror, standing in the bright glow of moonlight, and the truth hit him like a slap. The being that stared back at him was not man, not lion, and not wolf. It was a combination of the three, erect like a man. The brown hairs of the wolf interspersed with the lion’s golden fur, and his full mane now had a canine ruff. When he bared his teeth, his fangs were even longer and more formidable. All his senses now were unbearably acute, for he had the skills now of scent and hearing of the canine and the sight of the feline. He blew out the gas lamps, and saw as if it were daylight. When he looked down at his paws, they had the power of the lion’s, and the strength and agility of the wolf’s. He flexed them, looking down.

  “Thank you, Miss Holmes,” Luke whispered, his eyes glowing greenish gray now instead of bright green.

  Then, whisking the curtain closed, Luke looked at the clock and calculated the time he’d have to wait for daylight. With an effort of will that was becoming easier all the time, he closed his eyes and visualized himself as a man. Soon the hairs faded, the teeth became blunted, and when he looked in the mirror a few minutes later, he saw the handsome face of Luke Simball the man.

  Mihos would have to wait one more night for his due.

  His alter ego had an early appointment to keep. With a certain lord who was known to detest Seth. After that, Mihos could visit Arielle in all his glory.

  Fully human again, Luke began to dress. For the first time since the humiliating rout in the clearing, confidence flowed back into him. One way or another, Seth would soon be an afterthought, fodder for Arielle’s new destiny as Mihos’s consort.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Inside the tidy cottage, Seth knelt and stirred to life the slumbering embers. Arielle’s heart pounded in her chest as she could not help recognizing the symbolism of his action. Indeed, when he turned to her, she felt as if she’d been sleeping all her life and only now knew the joy of awakening…But to what? And what would she become after tonight?

  He came to her, his movements as always silent and sinuous, but gentleness transformed his usual arrogance as he rubbed a fingertip beneath her eye. “Why the tears, my love?”

  Wet lashes lowered over her azurean eyes before she realized she was crying. Still, even knowing that before she left this cottage she would be fully his woman, her reticence kept her silent. When he tried to lift her chin up, she buried her face in his chest. Her emotions had been volatile of late, but nothing had brought home to her what she was about to do like the simple act of him stirring a fire to life. In the coals, as he would in her. And she knew that once it was lit, it would never go out. Was she ready to give so much of herself to any man, even one the gods had decreed would be her consort?

  He must have sensed her ambivalence, for he brooked no opposition this time as he forced her chin up so he could see her face. Stubbornly, she kept her eyes downcast, but a gentle fingertip traced the mulish set to her mouth. The friction of his simple touch warmed her even more than the now roaring blaze licking at her feet. She was still clad in Ethan’s coat, but it was slipping from her shoulders, and she wanted nothing more than to fling it on the flames like the encumbrance it was.

  But that rebellious urge kept her still.

  The amusement in his voice was like a golden thread, binding them together. “Ah, I see. How obtuse of me. Now that I’ve shed my blood to defeat my rival in your affections, you want me to win you in a dance of desire and dominance, my little cat.”

  She was so shocked as he expressed her feelings better than she’d understood them herself, that she looked up and let herself be captured in the glowing amber of his eyes. As their gazes held and tugged, each striving for dominance, his pupils narrowed to diamonds. She sensed hers were doing likewise.

  And she knew, finally, with utter certainty, that these were the same eyes that had tormented her in her dreams. This was the being of bright boldness…and the dark man-beast who had marked her and taught her to revel in the power of passion. Unlike Luke, he didn’t offer her immortality, or subjugation of the human heart to the amorality of the feline.

  But he did offe
r the danger she finally understood she needed to be true to her own indomitable will: a reciprocal dominant male spirit that, like her, thrived on challenge. He would be satisfied with nothing less than a total melding of both their human and their feline worlds. When he took her body, there would be no going back. She’d be his consort, in this world and the next. But she would sacrifice neither her humanity nor her ka in the process.

  Also unlike Luke, however, he offered her a relationship based on mutual respect–and mutual enjoyment. Her nostrils flared as the scent of him made her so hot she felt as if she had a fever. The urge to cast off the last of her inhibitions with the coat almost overcame her. She wanted to pounce on him and roll over and over on the floor, kissing, biting, scratching…

  Seth’s smile grew knowing, revealing sharpening incisors, and the heat centered in her cheeks as she realized he’d read her mind. Sounding like a great, contented cat, Seth purred, “I am yours to do with as you please, mistress.” And he unwrapped his loin cloth and let it fall.

  He was burnished gold in the firelight, his musculature long and lean, but so pure of form that indeed, he could only be the lion god come to claim his due. Finally, reality far more arousing than any of her erotic dreams, she could see him clearly. The heir of Mihos had a chest bare of hair, in the Egyptian style, but broad shoulders tapered into the indented waist, tapered again into male hips and long, muscular legs, all this beautiful form a befitting frame for its most basic function.

  Unable to stop herself, she looked at the center of his body. She had expected to be wary of the size and length formed to fill the void even now aching to receive him. But virginal fear had been cast aside with the old frailties of her limp and shyness.

  This was the essence of his manhood, the part girls giggled about, obsessed over, and both feared and longed to see. He was, she suspected, though she had no personal experience with such things, fully erect for her. And he was beautiful, so hungry for their bonding that the burning consuming her, hair to fingertips, grew to a conflagration. Even more arousing, despite his obvious need, he stayed still and let her look at him, one foot slightly forward, hands on his hips, as if he was ready to meet and match her first step toward him.