by Zoe Chant
She wouldn’t have thought anything could distract her from holy shit I’ve been kidnapped, not to mention holy shit panther, but Shane himself had done the trick. It wasn’t just how gorgeous he was, especially in the nude, with his long legs and lean muscle and fine bone structure. It was the heat that had risen up from his body. It was his scent of clean masculine sweat, so unexpectedly human in that sterile room. It was the grace of his body in motion, the irresistible strength of his hands, the velvety softness of his hair, and the unexpected beauty of those blue eyes in that hard face.
But more than that, she was drawn to him. They hadn’t had much time together, but Catalina was used to living her life in brief, intense encounters. She often had only a few minutes to save a life, and then a few more in the ambulance before she turned her patients over to the ER, never to see them again. But she’d had patients she’d known for fifteen minutes and would remember for the rest of her life, and she was sure that many of them would never forgot those crucial minutes they’d spent with her.
In the little time she’d had with Shane, he’d tried to protect her any way that he could, whether it was trying to scare her away or calmly explaining what was going on or shielding her with his own body. He’d respected her abilities, which was more than she could say for a lot of the men she’d worked with. His cool reserve was smoking hot, and the glimpses of vulnerability she’d seen tugged at her heart.
But, of course, he wasn’t into her. She hadn’t missed how quickly he’d gotten dressed after he’d caught her admiring his body, how he’d jerked away from her impulsive touch on his shoulder, and how he’d dropped even the joke of flirting with her once he’d spotted that for her, it wasn’t only joking.
Hot bodyguard who’d risk his life for me, but wouldn’t ever kiss me, she thought. Maybe it’s for the best. Right now I need protecting more than I need kissing.
The same reckless part of her that wanted to be an ultimate predator said, I’d rather have the kissing.
I’d rather have both, Catalina admitted. Then she firmly told herself, Be happy you have one.
It was going to be awkward being stuck with Shane in that little room, though. At least they had the bathroom to change in. She’d just do her best to keep her thoughts off her face and not embarrass him. And also, not stare at him. Not flirt with him, even playfully. And definitely not touch him again. He obviously hadn’t liked that at all.
Except when he was a panther, she recalled, suppressing a grin. I always did have a way with cats.
“Here we are.” Dr. Elihu escorted her into a room full of medical testing equipment, some of which she recognized and some of which she didn’t. “Have a seat.”
Catalina warily sat on the examination table. The guards stayed while Dr. Elihu summoned a nurse to take her blood pressure and temperature, and then to draw her blood.
“People will notice I’m gone,” she said. “They’re going to look for me.”
Dr. Elihu replied, “Women go missing all the time. Especially when they do reckless things like walk alone at night. No one will be surprised that your disregard of basic safety finally caught up to you.”
Catalina couldn’t decide which made her more furious, that he was lecturing her on safety after he’d kidnapped her, or that he was probably right that her family would believe that she’d been murdered. No amount of super-powers would be worth that.
Shane will break me out, she reassured herself. That’s what PJs do— they rescue people.
That thought got her through an entire day of medical exams. She got a CT scan, an MRI, a bone scan, full-body X-Rays, and an EKG. They tested her vision, her hearing, her pulmonary function, her reflexes, and even her ability to smell, taste, and touch.
At first she was intrigued by the tests and machines she’d read about but never personally encountered before, like the PET scan, and the ones she’d never even heard of, like tensiomyography. Then she got bored. Then she started wondering again about Shane. How was he holding up, alone in that little room with nothing to do? Or were they running tests on him in some different part of the building?
Finally, she couldn’t take it any more. She stepped off the treadmill they’d used for a stress test of her heart and demanded, “What are you doing with Shane?”
Dr. Elihu gave her a long look before he replied, as if he’d learned something about her because she’d asked that question. “Nothing bad. And that will continue... So long as you cooperate.”
There went that goddamn stomach flutter again. Catalina had come back from months in a disaster zone, and one day later, she’d been scared more often than she’d been in the last year.
“Let me get this straight,” she said. “Are you saying that you won’t hurt him so long as I toe the line?”
“That is exactly what I said,” the doctor replied condescendingly. Then, as if he was making a private joke, he added, “We can skip the test of auditory comprehension; that’s obviously perfect.”
If there was one thing Catalina hated, it was men patronizing her. If it wasn’t for them threatening Shane, she’d have been tempted to haul off and punch him. And the thought of them deliberately hurting Shane made her even angrier. He’d made a career out of risking his life to save others, and his reward had been to be kidnapped and used. And now he was being held hostage to ensure her cooperation.
Hot blood rushed into her face, making her skin feel tight and swollen. She clenched her fists, holding herself back by sheer force of will.
“Now!” Dr. Elihu exclaimed. “Nurse! Quickly!”
The next thing Catalina knew, she was being hustled into some scanner she didn’t even recognize. She lay in its narrow tube, silently furious. Her rage only increased when she realized that the doctor had deliberately baited her so he could scan her brain while she was angry.
Go ahead and make me a predator, she thought. Let’s see you condescend to a panther that can bite your head off.
As the scan continued, she cooled off enough to think, But Shane can bite their heads off, too. Sure, they can hold him at gunpoint. But how do they make him work for them? Do they have guards go with him when they send him out to kill people?
The scanner slid her out, ending that train of thought. Catalina sat up. “Now what?”
“Now for a very important meeting,” said Dr. Elihu. “We’re going to introduce you to someone who went through 2.0, just like you will. But we’re hoping you won’t have the same problems he does.”
“What problems?”
“His animal took him over,” replied the doctor. “Oh, he’s still intelligent. He can follow orders. But otherwise, he’s a wild beast in human form. When he comes in, don’t make any sudden movements. And whatever you do, don’t speak. The guards will stand ready, but he can move very quickly. They might not be able to tranquilize him before he rips out your throat with his teeth.”
Catalina snorted in disbelief. “You’re just trying to scare me.”
“I don’t advise that you attempt to test that hypothesis.”
“And why am I meeting this guy?”
“So he can get your scent and track you down if you attempt to desert,” Dr. Elihu replied coolly. “Now, remember what I said. Don’t move, and don’t talk.”
Catalina was still trying to decide if it was all an elaborate mind game when the doctor picked up a remote control and hit a button. A door slid open, and a man walked in.
The moment she saw him, she knew that the doctor hadn’t lied. The man moved with a predatory grace, like Shane’s panther trapped in a human body. He didn’t walk, he stalked, his gaze fixed on her.
Catalina froze instinctively, knowing in her gut that he was a predator and she was prey. She’d never felt anything like that in her life, not even when Shane had used his fear power on her. That fear had been a weapon Shane deliberately deployed; this fear was the natural effect of what this man was.
Her palms prickled with sweat as he approached her. Then she forced herself to
be calm and observe. The man was tall and muscular, with black hair and eyes so dark that she couldn’t see the difference between his iris and his pupils. His skin was startlingly pale in contrast.
She held her breath as he reached out to her, but all he did was touch her hand.
“Got it,” he said.
Catalina almost jumped out of her skin when he spoke. From what Dr. Elihu had said, she hadn’t thought the man could speak. His words hadn’t come out in a growl or snarl or any animal-like noise, but had simply been a man’s matter-of-fact report.
He turned around and walked out. Catalina didn’t move until the door slid shut behind him. Then the air whooshed out of her lungs, leaving all her muscles feeling like jelly.
“He can find you anywhere now,” said Dr. Elihu. “Don’t try to run away, unless you want him to come after you.”
“I won’t,” Catalina assured him.
But her mind was racing ahead, imagining being that predator. It was at once horrifying and weirdly tempting. She didn’t want to terrify people— she liked people. But she’d always wondered what it would be like to be a cat, like the trio of adorable, fluffy predators that shared her apartment. She loved watching them leap to the tops of her bookcases. That dark-eyed man could jump like a cat, she bet.
What would it be like...?
***
It was evening when Dr. Elihu dispatched guards to escort Catalina back to her room. She knew that by checking her watch; she hadn’t seen a single window to the outside. The entire walk there, her mind spun with thoughts of escape, of ultimate predators, of shapeshifters, and of Shane. Had they really locked him alone in the room all day?
When the guards opened the door, Shane was sitting on the floor, stretching. His long legs were spread wide, nearly in a split, and he was bent over at the waist with his chest touching the floor. Other than professional athletes, she’d never seen a man his size with that much flexibility.
Unhurriedly, he raised his head. His gaze locked on the guards. They all flinched, and several stumbled back. The others pushed Catalina inside, then quickly slammed the door.
She laughed. “Good one.”
“I couldn’t resist,” Shane said.
His legs were still spread out, giving her a perfect view of his package. She’d already seen it— the real thing, not just the outline— but there was something differently hot about seeing the fabric of his blue jeans stretched tight against his cock. It made her want to sit on his lap with her own jeans on, and rub against him until they had to rip each other’s clothes off or come in their pants.
Catalina shook her head fiercely, trying to knock out the fantasies. No sense adding unbearable sexual frustration to her situation. “Feeling better?”
“Uh-huh.” He pulled his legs in and sat cross-legged on the floor, which was almost as good a view as she’d gotten with his legs stretched out. She tried not to look at anything below his waist. “Maybe it was just as well I had a day with nothing to do but rest and stretch.”
“Were you stuck here the whole time?”
He nodded. “They’re punishing me for running away. Torture by boredom. What did they do to you? Just tests, right?”
“Right...”
He caught her hesitation. “Tell me exactly what happened and where you went. Every detail that you can remember, down to the layout of the building.”
“So you can plan our escape?”
“Yeah. I’ve done it before.”
She had no doubt that he could. He looked like he could do anything. What would he be like in bed? He could probably take a woman to places she’d never even imagined...
Stop that, she told herself.
Trying not to look at him too much, she began recounting her day, starting with her conversation with Dr. Elihu. She skipped the part about Shane’s probable career as an assassin, since that had to be a painful topic, but asked him, “What did Dr. Elihu mean when he said you could tell me the price of desertion? Did he just mean they’d kill me if I tried to escape?”
Shane brushed a strand of black hair from his forehead. Catalina was doing her best not to be hypnotized by his body, but it was challenging when every single part of him was so completely worth looking at. His hands were long-fingered and deft, with the tiny scars over the knuckles you got by practicing martial arts or fighting for real. Or both.
“No,” Shane replied, jerking her attention back to the conversation. “He meant that once you undergo the ultimate predator process, if you survive, you need regular medical care to keep your body from rejecting it.”
“Like an organ transplant?” Catalina said. “You have to take immune-suppressing medication?”
“More like dialysis,” Shane replied. “There’s a machine that takes out your blood and does something to it, and then transfuses it back. Dr. Elihu wouldn’t tell me how it works. He said I couldn’t understand it, but he was just being a dick. He wanted to make sure I wouldn’t be able to have it done anywhere else, so I’d have to keep coming back here.”
Catalina frowned. “But you escaped. Did you figure out how to have it done? Or are you due for a treatment?”
“Neither.” Shane didn’t say anything more for a long time, letting an uncomfortable silence stretch out. Finally, he said, “I don’t need it any more. But that doesn’t apply to you. If you go through the process, you’ll be stuck here.”
There was obviously a lot he wasn’t telling her, but it seemed hard enough for him to have said what he had. Catalina decided not to press him farther, and returned to her account of her day in the lab. He listened intently, his gaze distant, as if he was memorizing everything. Then his eyes snapped into sharp focus when she described her meeting with the man who could supposedly track her down if she escaped.
“Was that true?” she asked. “Or was Dr. Elihu playing mind games?”
“Both, probably,” Shane replied. “Any shifter can track by scent. But there’s ways around that.”
“What about getting taken over by your animal? True? Or mind games?”
Shane’s expression was as bleak as it had been when he’d mentioned black ops. “That could definitely happen.”
How do you know? Catalina wondered. Because Dr. Elihu told you? Or because it nearly happened to you?
In a distinct Let’s change the subject voice, he said, “Want to have dinner? They brought in some MREs.”
He pointed to the corner. It now contained two packages of military rations, plus two stacks of new clothes. She went over and inspected the clothes. They’d both gotten a week’s worth of jeans, T-shirts, pajamas, and underwear, and Catalina had additionally gotten several bras.
She hastily dropped a T-shirt over the bras and panties, and scooped up an MRE as a distraction. “Are these things really as gross as everyone says?”
“You tell me. I’m used to them.”
He opened the packages and assembled the chemical heater. While he took them into the bathroom to run water into them to start the heater, Catalina read the instructions. When he came out, she was laughing.
“What’s so funny?” He sat down and leaned the packages against the sole of his shoe, making her laugh harder.
She pointed to a diagram of how to heat an MRE, with each part from “heater” to “folded end” neatly labeled. The MRE in the drawing leaned against a rock labeled “rock or something.”
Catalina tapped his foot. “‘Or something.’”
Shane smiled. “I used to have a T-shirt with that diagram, only it had a lobster instead of a rock.”
“A lobster’s definitely something.”
“Wish I had one now,” Shane said. “When I was a kid, I used to trap them and bring them home for my grandma to cook. We’d sit at the kitchen table and eat them with melted butter.”
“That sounds fun.” She grinned, trying to picture a tiny Shane. It was hard to imagine that utterly adult and masculine man as a little boy. “Were you on vacation, or did your grandma live with you?”
“She lived with me.” Shane paused and adjusted the MREs, and Catalina thought that was all he had to say. But to her surprise, he went on, “My father was never in the picture, and my mother died when I was four. My grandmother raised me in a little house on the coast of Maine.”
“Is she still there?”
He shook his head. “She died eight years ago. She did get to see me become a PJ, though. She was proud. She’d been in the Air Force herself, as an aircraft technician.”
“Did you have other family?” Catalina asked. “Or was it just you and her?”
“Just me and her. My grandfather died before my mom did, and the family had been small to begin with. What about you?”
“I lived with my grandma too,” Catalina replied. “Also my grandpa, my parents, an aunt, two brothers, and a sister, all in a room about this size.”
Shane glanced around the small room. “Sounds like some barracks I’ve lived in. Did you ever get an upgrade?”
“Yeah, in middle school we moved into a two-bedroom. By the time I was in high school, we were in a real house. We came over from Mexico— I mean, my parents and grandparents and aunt did, the kids were born here— and the adults worked 24-7 to support us. They wanted us to have a better life than they did.”
“They must be proud of you.”
“Well— sort of.” Catalina sighed. “I’m the baby. I have one brother who’s a cardiologist and another who’s an immigration lawyer. My sister’s a judge. I was supposed to be a doctor or a lawyer or an engineer. But I’ve never liked sitting still and studying. Becoming a paramedic was hard enough. I can’t imagine doing four years of college and then years more of grad school. My family’s glad I earn an honest living and it’s not as backbreaking as what they had to do, but they really wanted me to get a fancy degree and have my own office.”
“And sit down all day, pushing papers and wearing a business suit?”
“You got it.”
“That’s no life for people like us,” Shane said. “Your patients are lucky you didn’t do what your family wanted.”
Catalina had never looked at it that way before. She was still thinking about that, and also about the “like us,” when he unwrapped the MREs and set them before her.