by Zoe Chant
She had to be blushing like a sunrise as she jerked her gaze upward to meet his gray eyes. To her surprise, he was blushing a little too, but then he smiled. "I hope this doesn't shock you too much," he said.
And changed.
Tessa let out a tiny shriek and jumped backward.
It happened almost instantly, though not quite; there was a flowing moment of transition, and she got a brief impression of ink bleeding into his pale skin, of Ben bending forward, and then—
And then the man was gone, and a glossy black panther stood where he had been.
He was the biggest cat she'd ever seen. Certainly the biggest one she'd been next to. This was the jungle prototype of the little house pets in the cages, several hundred pounds of wiry muscle under a coat of gleaming black fur. He was all strength and wildness in a cage of muscle, and her own lack of fear surprised her. Beyond the initial shock, she felt nothing but wonder.
Yellow half-moon eyes gazed into hers, until she was distracted by the sound of a room full of cats going nuts.
As always with cats, there were as many different opinions as there were cats in the room. Some of them were hissing and snarling, puffing up their tails like raccoons. One big, dominant tom cat was clawing at the bars of his cage, trying to get to the panther. Others merely licked their paws and affected a nonchalant air: Oh, a panther? Must be Tuesday. Some rubbed on the bars in an attempt to get him to notice them, purring and making little mewling sounds.
The kittens had gone absolutely wild, fawning on him in raptures of delight. Tessa could hear their tiny purrs from where she was standing. Ben became aware of this and looked as confused as a panther could look, staring down at his miniature fan club in feline bafflement.
Tessa's cat-rescue-trained instincts made her hurry forward to remove the little cats from the big cat—you didn't just put strange cats together like this, especially when one of them was huge! ... Except, he wasn't a cat, not really, was he? Somewhere in there, he still must have Ben's human mind. And he didn't seem to mind the kittens at all. After his initial moment of surprise, he rubbed his big head against them, knocking some of them over. The kittens didn't seem to mind in the slightest; they were rubbing on him so vigorously that they kept knocking themselves over, then scrambling back to their tiny paws for another go at it.
It was the most adorable thing she'd ever seen. Tessa was laughing so hard she could barely speak. "Come on, you silly little things, stop bothering the nice man—er—panther." She picked up a kitten in each hand. They mewed in distress, struggling to escape and go back to their panther lovefest.
Suddenly there was a naked man on hands and knees on the floor, with kittens rubbing all over his wrists. The kittens tumbled all over themselves in shock, and Ben straightened up quickly, reaching for his pants. He cleared his throat. "So."
"So," Tessa echoed. The laughter had died in her throat and now she was just standing, looking at him, with a kitten in each hand.
"Now you know why I was willing to accept that there are dragons after you." He spoke quickly, looking down and concentrating on dressing—avoiding her gaze, she thought with a spark of regret. "There is real magic in the world, Tessa. It's not always friendly."
Tessa opened her mouth to reply, but just then Melody's voice floated down the corridor to them. "Oh hi! No, I just stopped by to visit my friend Tessa. She's back in the cage room—"
"One of the other volunteers is here!" Tessa looked around wildly, with her hands full of kittens. "Put your shirt on!"
"I am!" He looked up from toeing into his shoes and gently removed a kitten from his laces. "Will you let me explain the rest of it?"
"Not in front of my co-workers! They'll think I'm nuts."
"You are in grave danger, Tessa. I don't want to leave you."
"We'll—we'll tell them you're a volunteer, then," she said quickly. "You can fill out the paperwork and help me this morning, and then ... I guess when we get a chance, you can explain the rest to me, and we can figure out what to do next. Okay?"
He smiled, and it was all the more panty-melting now that she'd seen what he looked like with his clothes off. "Okay," he said.
Spending the morning with him wasn't going to be a hardship in the slightest.
Danger, Tessa, she warned herself. She didn't need to be giving her heart away to anyone, no matter how hot he was, no matter the impossible magic that he brought into her world.
If she needed a reminder of how uncertain life could be, all she had to do was touch her chest, where a simple crystal pendant on a silver chain—one of the only things she had left to remind her of her dead parents—rested against her skin beneath her T-shirt.
Life was uncertain and terrible. Things could happen in an instant ... like a car crash. She wasn't going to trust this Ben Keegan guy, no matter how convincing he was.
And she certainly wasn't going to fall in love with him.
Chapter Four
Ben spent the morning shadowing Tessa in the animal rescue. Melody, needing to get to her own bookstore job, had left as soon as the other volunteers started showing up—though not without a whispered argument with Ben in the entryway. "I could really use your help if it comes down to a fight with a dragon," he whispered. "Take a day off. Or two."
"I want to help, but I can't. You know that! That's why Dad went to you!"
"I don't know why draconic honor is more important than your best friend's life."
"It's not like that. It's honor, it's the clan, it's who we are. I thought you'd understand, Ben."
"Yeah, well," he said, his voice tight, "as the dragons in the family keep reminding me, I'm not one of you."
Melody looked up at him with sad gray eyes. "You'll always be one of us."
"Try telling that to Dad." It came out harsher than he intended, and he sighed. Despite the years of sibling rivalry that lay between them, despite the fact that her shifter animal could have easily taken his in a fight, she was still his sister; he hated feeling as if they were on opposite sides in this. "Look, can you help some other way? Do some research, maybe, and see if you can find a loophole that'll help get Tessa out of this? That seems like the kind of thing that's right up your alley."
"Oh, yes! I can do that. I'll get right on it." She smiled up at him. "You're a good man, Ben. I might not be able to protect Tessa, but I know she's safe with you."
Well, that made exactly one of them.
Despite the threat of a dragon assassin showing up, and despite his aching tiredness from having worked a full night before coming down to the shelter, there was no way spending a morning with Tessa could be anything other than pleasant. She gave him a volunteer form to fill out in the shelter's small office while she did paperwork. His mind kept wandering—which he could easily blame on the lack of sleep the night before, but really it was Tessa, just one desk away, and the luscious curves filling out her T-shirt.
He'd never reacted to a woman this way before. (Well, of course you haven't, his panther purred. She's our mate!) He couldn't get his mind off her, couldn't stop noticing her. All the little things about her: the way she stuck the tip of her tongue out of the corner of her mouth when she was concentrating, the crinkle in her nose when she laughed, the little "V" of close-cropped hair on the back of her neck when she bent her head over her work. He'd never had any particular feelings about short hair on women one way or another (he figured people could do whatever they wanted with their own heads) but her tousled brown hair was simply ... perfect.
She was perfect. Perfect in every way. He loved her soft curves, loved the way her elbows dimpled when she stretched out her arms, loved the hollow of her throat and the glint of a silver chain, just under the collar of her T-shirt, against her light brown, café-au-lait skin ...
"Are you watching me?" Tessa asked, raising her head.
"I was just ... wondering where to put my form."
"Here, I'll take it." She stretched and got up. Ben managed not to stare, but he couldn't help thin
king about those perfect round breasts in his hands, stroking her nipples and teasing gasps of pleasure from her throat—
Down, boy.
"What do you want me to do?" he asked quickly, looking for something else to fix his mind on, other than his growing arousal. "I'm not sure what volunteers do in a place like this."
"Oh, lots of things. Clean cages, sort through donations of cat toys and food, help match new cat-parents to find just the right cat for them ... but for you, I have the perfect assignment." She crooked her finger at him. "Come this way."
No arguments here. Anywhere she wanted to go, he'd go.
They went back to the cage room, where a high-pitched chorus of mewling cries greeted them. Tessa opened the kittens' cage and they spilled out into her arms.
"Here," she said, passing Ben an armful of squirming fluff. "Socializing the cats is actually one of the most important jobs our volunteers do." Her eyes sparkled at him. "So that's your job for today. Socializing kittens."
"It'll be difficult," Ben said, deadpan, as the kittens tried to climb his shirt and left stray orange and white hairs all over it, while his panther basked happily in the attention. "But I guess I'll manage."
***
Kittens or not, he tried to stay close to Tessa, causing her to glare over her shoulder at him when he carried the kittens into the office. "Do you have to follow me everywhere?" she asked.
"Do you really want to be caught off guard if—" He broke off; one of the other volunteers was in the office, typing on a computer. "If something happens?" he whispered.
"Do you want everyone I work with to think you're stalking me?" she whispered back, pulling a ledger off a shelf.
"I could go and guard the door instead—"
"No, no, that's worse." She tucked the ledger under her arm and absently grabbed one of the kittens just before it toppled off his elbow as it made a break for freedom. "Let's take this back to the break room. It's less cramped and there shouldn't be anyone there at this time of day."
There wasn't. She spread out the ledger on the table, and Ben took a peek over her shoulder. It was a book of cats. Cats in the shelter, he guessed. Each page had a photo and some notes underneath.
"Do you mind if I ask what you're doing?" he asked, catching a kitten before it could toddle off the table, and trying not to notice how good she smelled.
She flipped a page and scribbled a note on a piece of paper. "I'm looking for good matches between cats and forever homes."
"What does that mean?"
"It means, when someone comes in or calls us looking for a cat, we interview them about what they're looking for, and try to find a good fit for them."
Ben turned his head to take a look at the page she was looking at. It had a picture of a stately-looking Siamese, gazing regally at the camera. "Is there really that much to it?"
"We don't just shove a cat into the hands of every rando who walks in. We need to get a feel for what kind of owner they'd be and what sort of environment we're sending the cat into. Things like, do they have other pets? Do they have kids? Do they have the time to litter-train and socialize a kitten, or would they prefer an adult cat? Do they want a playful cat, or one who'll sit quietly on their lap? That sort of thing."
"You're right," he said. Distracted from the book, he'd found himself watching the subtle play of light through her dark-brown curls as she spoke. "There's a lot more to it than I knew."
"You're staring at me again."
"Sorry," he said, and bent down to detach two of the kittens from his shoelaces. They really seemed to like those.
"I don't mind," she said quietly.
Ben straightened up quickly, but she'd already risen from the table and went over to the coffee machine, where she rinsed two of the mismatched assortment of mugs in the sink and poured two cups of coffee. "Take anything in it?" she asked over her shoulder.
"Sugar, no cream."
"Hey, me too! Coffee twins." She brought two cups of coffee and a basket of sweetener packets to the table. "I'd have guessed the opposite for you, though. Aren't cats supposed to like cream?"
"Depends on what kind."
He winced as soon as the words were out of his mouth. He'd been going for suave. That was more like "bad pickup line at a bar." But she grinned, giving her a quick flash of her teeth. She didn't smile like that much, with her whole mouth and her eyes; it knocked the breath out of him when she did it.
"You're cute when you're flustered," she said, and shoved the basket of sweetener across the table at him. One of the kittens promptly fell into it. Another sniffed at the coffee cup and toddled away sneezing.
"I feel as if I'm being buttered up for something." He smiled. "Keep doing it. It's working."
She called us cute! His panther preened.
Her smile widened, and she did that little nose-wrinkle thing. "You promised to tell me more about the dragon situation. If anyone comes in, I'm just working on these files while we have a cup of cof—whoa, catch that one!"
With lightning-fast feline reflexes, Ben retrieved a kitten that had been about to wander off the end of the table, and restored it to the purring heap in his lap. Most of them had worn themselves out by now, leaving him with a furry lapful of drowsy, purring kittens.
"I'm going to be lucky if I don't end up with an apartment full of cats at the end of this, aren't I?"
"Occupational hazard," Tessa said, her lips twitching. "So. Tell me about dragons."
"That's a broad topic."
"Okay, let's narrow it down. Tell me what it is about dragons that makes them carve marks in my door and send assassins after me."
He just wanted to go around to her side of the table, put his arms around her, and hold her close. Stopping himself, staying on his side of the table, was almost physically painful. He tried to focus on the situation, not on her nearness and warmth.
"They're old, secretive, and highly honorable. Dragons are easily offended, but they also have a lot of rules about fair fights, and fighting weaker opponents is a violation of their sense of fair play. There's no reason why a dragon would go after a human like this—uh, you are human, right?"
Tessa raised her eyebrows. "As far as I know. And I've known me all my life, so I'm pretty sure, yes."
"Do you have any idea, any at all, why they might be after you?"
"Of course I don't!" she burst out, provoking complaining mewls from the kittens. "I didn't even think dragons were real until a couple hours ago, and I'm still not convinced. How could I offend someone I've never even met?"
"That's what I'm hoping you'll tell me." He kept his voice calm, his interviewing-the-witness voice, even though all he wanted to do was throw himself with fangs and claws at anyone who threatened her. "Can you think of any recent incidents, any enemies that you have—"
She was shaking her head. "I don't have any enemies. I mean, not except the ordinary kind. You could go talk to some of my fourth-grade bullies if you want."
Oh, we'd love to talk to them, his panther growled.
He forced himself not to react. "What about any strange encounters? Has anything odd happened lately?"
"You mean other than this?" she asked dryly. "Nope, no old fortune tellers or dark mysterious strangers ... except for you."
We aren't a stranger, we're her mate!
You, Ben told his panther, are not helping.
Aloud, he said, "What about your family? Besides the honor thing, dragons are very focused on family, and they tend to assume the actions of one represent the actions of all. Perhaps someone in your family—"
She was already shaking her head. "Let me stop you before you go any further down that dead-end street. I'm an orphan. I don't even have any close relatives."
"Oh," he said. "I'm—"
"Don't say 'sorry.' That's the worst. It was a long time ago and it's not like it was your fault anyway." She hooked a finger into the silver chain around her neck and tugged on it. "The only thing I have left of my parents is this necklac
e."
There was a pendant on the silver chain, a single clear crystal, about an inch long. She cupped it in her palm and held it out. Ben reached out and cupped his hand under hers, lifting it to see better. Her skin felt very warm, and he was acutely aware that the pendant had just been tucked into her cleavage.
"Could this be magic in some way?" he asked, tilting her hand so it caught the light.
Her fingers jerked in his. "What?"
"It could be why the dragons are after you."
"It's just a rock," she protested. "These are a dime a dozen in any New Age store. Maybe my mom was a hippie or something. I don't even know if it's a family heirloom, because they're not around to ask. It's certainly not magic."
"Are you sure?"
Chapter Five
Was she sure?
Tessa tilted her palm, Ben's hand moving under hers, and watched the pendant sparkle at the end of its chain. She'd first seen it two weeks ago, when the package from the lawyer arrived in the mail, containing a box of her parents' effects.
I'm sorry it took me so long to locate you, Ms. Davelos. My instructions were to deliver this to you when you turned 21, but after your parents' deaths you went into the foster care system, and proved difficult to track down ...
But there hadn't been anything expensive in the box, no family diamonds or secret treasure maps. It was stuff that her parents had thought important enough to put in a safe deposit box with the law firm, but it was just family papers: their marriage license and birth certificates, some family photos, and this necklace. If the necklace was valuable, she couldn't tell. Perhaps it was merely of sentimental value and her mother had wanted to give it to her when she was older.
It had meaning to her because it was all she had left of the parents she'd never had a chance to know. That was all.
But before this morning, she'd have said it was impossible for a guy to turn into a panther. It was impossible for dragons to exist. It was impossible for a blazing hot guy with gorgeous gray eyes to walk into the shelter and turn her world upside down ...