Shadow’s Edge np-1

by J. T. Geissinger

  Leander hadn’t anticipated Jenna’s reaction to seeing her father’s grave. He couldn’t have. Everything he knew of her until this moment was of a woman so strong and defiant you couldn’t even tell her the time without garnering a swift contradiction.

  Yet at the sight of the flat stone carved with her father’s name, she crumpled to the ground like a discarded tissue and began to weep, great wracking sobs that shook her whole body as she knelt, her hair spread wet and thick over her shoulders and back like a dripping funeral shroud, her knees and fingers sunk deep into the sodden grass.

  “Why?” she said in an agonized, hoarse whisper to the headstone. Her voice was nearly swallowed by the boom of thunder in the sky. “Why did you leave me?”

  Leander knelt next to her and put a gentle hand on her shoulder, but she knocked it away, leaving a smear of mud on his wrist, dark splatters across his chest. She turned to him with wild eyes.

  “You could have helped him!” she hissed, her face deathly white. She rocked back to her heels, her teeth bared, hot tears and cold rain streaming down her cheeks, mingling together to drip from the curve of her jaw. “You could have stopped it!”

  He felt the animal in her, coiled just beneath the surface, a dark and deadly creature awakened by rage, ready to claw its way out.

  “No,” he said, careful and low.

  He didn’t move, he didn’t look away, though the icy rain and the freezing air bit at his naked skin until it was painful. His fingers and toes were numb with cold, but he kept them where they were, sunk into the long grass and mud. He kept his breathing even and his face neutral. He didn’t want to make any sudden moves that would push her over the edge.

  If she Shifted to panther now, he was sure she would attack him without hesitation.

  In their animal form, the Ikati were primal and dangerous, prone to sudden bursts of violence. Their human mind, every aspect of their human heart, was engulfed by this primal side. They retained the ability to reason, they retained their memory and core personality, but they became highly unpredictable, often lethally so.

  In her panther form, with the amount of anger in her eyes at this moment, Jenna was fully capable of killing him, and quite easily. She would be full of fresh power, her emotions would be raw and overwhelming, her instinct to lash out at the source of her pain would be overpowering.

  He held himself at the brink of the turn, blood rising, muscle and sinew humming with the effort of holding his human form while every nerve in his body screamed danger!

  “I was not the Alpha then, Jenna. I was hardly more than a child.”

  A crack of lightning lit up the sky overhead in a brilliant blaze of white. It was followed by more thunder, then the rain, impossibly, seemed to increase. They were both drenched, and he knew she had to be freezing, exposed as she was with only her mass of hair to shield her from the elements.

  But Jenna didn’t move from her crouch. She ignored the rain and the thunder and the lightning and only stared at his face with an expression that hurt him so much it felt like his heart had been pierced by the tip of a dagger.

  Hatred. She glared at him with unveiled, unmitigated hatred.

  “I don’t believe you.” It was nearly a growl, the snarl of an animal.

  Cold and stinging rain poured over them both, bounced high off the grass, dripped from the end of his nose. He felt a sudden, hot frisson crackle between them, smelled that familiar scent of smoke and gunpowder sting the back of his throat, and knew what was about to happen.

  “I would never lie to you, Jenna,” he said roughly, knowing he was putting his own life in danger if he didn’t Shift now, right now, before she did. “I swear to you, I would never do that.”

  Leander watched her, shaking and panting, begin to blink. Her eyes lost their focus, then found it again. They narrowed to sharp points of burning fell green, flat and dark with animal rage.

  Her pupils turned to black, vertical slits, her eyes blazed to unearthly, phosphorescent malachite. The shaking in her body became more violent, her limbs twitched as if invisible ants crawled over every inch of her skin, but she didn’t move. She vibrated hostility, coiled tight like a deadly cobra ready to strike.

  He felt it now. He knew it was coming.

  The freezing wind stole the breath from his lips.

  Just as another crack of lighting tore through the sky to illuminate the rain-swept graveyard in which they knelt, Jenna Shifted to panther.

  22

  Earth. Sky. Trees. Rain. Him.

  Everything, all at once. Perfect awareness. Perfect perception.

  Power.

  There was nothing before in her life to compare to this sensation, to this rushing great flood of feral electricity that scorched through her veins. There was a flash of acute pain as bone and muscle and tendon transformed—fleeting but terrible—then a sweet, aching surrender that glittered through her blood, smoldered over her skin. She was heady with it. She was staggered with the glut of raw power and sensation that vibrated through every molecule of her body.

  Her new, streamlined, muscular body.

  She recalled a pale human emotion from only moments before—anger or fear, she couldn’t recall which—the residue of which still lingered in her nose like a cheap perfume. But she was so far beyond that now, pushed into a world so much better, so much finer, so filled with the utter, aching beauty of light and sound and taste.

  Every breath she took now was pure and cold, like inhaling snow, every minute ray of light now pierced clear through the black clouds overhead like a million shining filaments in a light bulb, every scent for miles around flowered into her nose and over her tongue with a taste better than the finest of wines.

  And she saw everything. Everything.

  She opened her mouth to laugh with the surprising rapture of this feeling, a fierce joy that came from nowhere to grab her around the throat and shred every earthly care to pieces. The sound that came from her throat brought the man in front of her to his feet.

  It was a rumbling, jungle-deep growl, rich and spine-chilling, vibrating with danger and potency and the warrant of a lineage fulfilled.

  It was the most beautiful sound she had ever heard.

  The man took another step back, held a hand out, fingers spread and hesitant. He said her name in a tone of whispered awe.

  She knew him, yes, she knew he wasn’t a danger to her. She knew he wasn’t afraid though his eyes were very wide and he was hardly breathing at all. She knew he was Alpha; she smelled the ripple of power and sovereignty he exuded like some delicious perfume that wrapped around her, filling every pore, settling into every atom.

  She knew his name, though it hardly mattered now. Only one word came to mind when she looked up at him, silhouetted large and male against the raw and streaming sky.

  Mate.

  She didn’t know how she knew, but she knew he belonged to her, and she to him, and together they belonged to the fecund earth and the wild forest and the heart-piercing song of nature that cried out to her from everywhere around them.

  The song was strongest behind her. Beckoning in sweet, rising thick notes that washed over her, unrelenting, undeniable, it called from the trees.

  She turned her head to look at the forest—to the place where the song came flowing strong and high with a delectable, irresistible siren’s call of HERE HERE HERE—then turned back to the man.

  She tried to speak, but the only sound that came from her throat now was a strange, rumbling chirrup, a low, chuffing invitation that made the man’s shoulders relax. He filled his lungs with air, the tension left his body, and he smiled at her, eyes shining, face exultant, astonished.

  With one swift motion that occurred without thought or conscious effort other than she desired it, Jenna pushed off the ground from four strange, wonderful points of pressure, pivoted in midair, and landed in a perfect, noiseless crouch, facing away from the man. A long flash of pure white whipped by her head as she moved. With her nose low to the
ground, she scanned the trees before her, smelling and tasting and hearing all the chatter of nature that swam around her, a buzzing that grew and swelled inside her head like a symphony, like an opus written just for her.

  The forest called with the sweetest song she had ever heard in her life.

  A song of sanctuary. A song of home.

  Jenna pushed off from the earth and began to run in great, loping strides to the trees, her feet a blur beneath her as the welcoming arms of the forest came up fast.

  She didn’t look back.

  He followed because he had to. His feet gave him no other choice.

  Leander ran after Jenna, pumping his arms and legs hard as she became a blur of white streaking over the open meadow toward the trees. The animal in him roared to life, clawing out of his skin. He Shifted to panther in midstride, the rain now bouncing from sleek black fur and compact muscle, never breaking his gait.

  His gaze never left her. Against the dark day and the darker forest ahead, she was impossible to miss.

  She was pure white, as white as the most perfect pearl, exotic and luminous and rare.

  He had heard of the legends of white panthers, members of their tribe in that lost, long-ago paradise where they lived like gods before it all came crumbling down to ruin. But to see her with his own eyes, to feel her—

  He was so astonished he couldn’t catch his breath.

  The forest was gloomy and damp and thick with fog. Low tendrils of it swam just above the ground, higher up it swallowed the tops of the trees in a dense layer the pale light of day barely penetrated. This was the most ancient part of the woods, one never before breached by humans, hidden like a pristine jewel in the heart of the New Forest. The trees grew to heights of over three hundred feet, the forest floor was buried beneath a foot-deep layer of perfumed leaves and moss and pine needles, the silence was unbroken save for the calls of birds and the sound of water dripping from low boughs to pool in clear puddles or sink into the earth.

  Far ahead of him, Jenna moved through the forest like a ghost, pale and beautiful against the dark woods, navigating the dense undergrowth as if she knew its every secret. She left not a single leaf disturbed in her wake. Only the fog moved around her feet, parting in silence as she passed swiftly by, swirling into eddies of pale, clinging mist.

  He craned his neck forward and stretched his legs as far as they would go, his paws sinking into the loam underfoot, the ache of muscle and sinew making him bare his teeth as he pushed himself to his limit to follow her. She was swift and lithe, undulating with expert and beautiful precision over the remains of fallen trees, around thick trunks and glistening dark foliage, moving like an ivory zephyr through the ancient trees.

  He’d never seen anything move so fast. He’d never seen anything so beautiful.

  He stayed carefully behind her, listening to the patter of rainfall over dirt and stone as they moved through the forest, watching his beautiful phantom move like the wind, the scent of upturned earth and potent female in his nostrils, his body alight and attuned to her every move.

  She needed to see. She needed to get high and look out over her forest.

  There. That tree ahead. Huge, towering, trunk like a skyscraper, boughs up high lost in mist.

  She leapt from the forest floor and landed easily on the tree trunk twenty feet up, claws sinking deep into fragrant bark. She held still for a fraction of a second, testing her balance, feeling the wind slip through her fur. She raised her head and looked toward the sky, toward the rain-soaked canopy of boughs and branches filtering wan light from overheard.

  She pushed off, climbing straight up.

  When she could climb no farther, she jumped out to a high branch as wide as a king-size bed and landed on all four paws, dropping into a perfect, silent crouch. She padded out toward the end of the branch as it curved up through an opening in the dense mass of leaves, the bark cool and rough beneath her feet.

  An unobstructed view of the forest was spread before her like a banquet. She feasted her newly strong eyes on the rainbow beauty of sunlight glistening off wet treetops, rolling hills sapphire-dark with rain and mist and groves of fir trees, black woods and emerald moors and meadows thick with wildflowers bowing under the weight of rainfall.

  She sat back on her haunches, lifted her nose to the west wind, and closed her eyes.

  Owls nestled snugly into hollowed trees. Deer, close by, nosed through piles of dry leaves to capture fallen berries. Squirrels scabbered over bark, a woodpecker’s staccato tattoo against a trunk, moss and stone and centuries of undergrowth. The scant vibrations of all the creatures for miles around. Rainfall, lighter now, pattered down through the canopy, slacking. The scent of fresh water slipped past banks of vetiver grass, over sandy, granite-strewn bottoms: the river Avon.

  She was awash in the forest, immersed in it, drunk with it. She never wanted to leave.

  Then a new scent, darker and warmer than the others, a faint touch of spice under the animal smell of hot blood and wet fur. A new heartbeat pulsing in time with her own.

  She turned her head and opened her eyes to find him crouched there, at the base of the branch. His long tail snaked back and forth behind him. Canny almond-shaped eyes fixed sharp and questioning on her face.

  And this was startling: the beauty of this creature was even more tangible and pleasing to her than anything else, even the entirety of her vast and pristine forest. The huge, wedge-shaped head with the long, tapering nose and even longer silver whiskers that caught the shadowed light, the fur shining so charcoal black it carried a tinge of royal purple, the body so powerful and muscled.

  This animal was magnificent. Blessed with an undeniable, hard grace.

  She leapt to all fours in one smooth motion and began to walk toward him, moving ever so slowly, carefully. Curiosity called, something warm and willful sang through her blood.

  A sound in her throat now. A huffed chirrup, a questioning tone.

  He made a low, rolling sound of acknowledgment that rumbled through his chest. She crept closer and stopped just a foot away.

  He eased forward, elegant and deadly, perfectly silent on four huge, silken paws, and brought his face to hers. With the barest of pressure, he rubbed his cheek against her face. His whiskers passed over hers with an electric current that was close to a shock.

  Startled, she drew in a breath and froze.

  He froze as well, his gaze slanted down to hers. Another heartbeat, another moment that she didn’t move, then he slowly lowered his head to hers again, stroking his cheek against her face. She closed her eyes and accepted the pressure, let him rake his face against hers a little harder, until he stepped closer and they were shoulder to shoulder and he was making a low growl of purring pleasure deep in his chest.

  And oh, this feeling, this aching, this burning bright happiness—she’d never known anything like it.

  She opened her eyes, took a sharp, cold breath into her lungs, and Shifted back to woman.

  “Don’t,” she gasped, tottering with her hands held out, trying to find her balance again with human feet that seemed outrageously weak and frail.

  He Shifted as well, a flash of black dissolving into vapor, which coalesced into the naked, muscled form she was beginning to know so well. He reached out and caught both her wrists as she flailed, teetering dangerously close to the sloping edge of the massive branch. A cool breeze ripe with moisture and the bouquet of the forest caught her hair, blowing from behind to lift it in heavy tendrils that reached out and flickered over his chest, caressing.

  His voice was a spare, low growl as he fixed his fingers hard around her wrists. “Don’t what?”

  She looked at him. Time slowed to a standstill.

  She looked at his beautiful face and his hooded eyes, staring aslant at her through a fringe of coal-black lashes. She looked at his shining jet hair stirring around his shoulders, one long strand caught at the corner of his full lips. She looked at his resplendent, nude body, dusky skin patterned w
ith shadow and light, and nearly stopped breathing.

  She took him in, all of him, fully. She suddenly felt this was the first time, the very first time, she actually saw him. Her heart jumped. The skin on her arms rose in gooseflesh.

  “Stop,” she whispered, her voice a thin echo of itself. “Don’t stop.”

  And she stepped into his arms that easily.

  He kissed her as if he had already pushed deep inside her, his hands wrapped hard around her waist and neck, his mouth open and hot, an urgent sound in his throat as their bodies came together. She slid her arms up around his shoulders, reveling in the feel of unyielding muscle under smooth skin, like silk poured over steel.

  His body was a solid warm pressure against her chest and hips as they kissed, and the cool wind slipped past them, rustling through the trees and sending patterns of indigo fluttering across the amber glow spread beneath her closed lids. A smattering of raindrops fell from the leaves overhead as the wind passed over them, speckling her shoulders and hair with chilled, fragrant drops.

  “I’m sorry.” His voice was low and husky, breaking with unchecked emotion, an urgent murmur between kisses. “I didn’t mean to upset you—I wasn’t trying to make you Shift—I just thought you should see—”

  “No,” she interrupted, her mind foggy with sudden, overwhelming want, a pounding, relentless ache that cut deeper with every breath she took. The animal in her was still so strong, so powerful, cresting just beneath her skin, straddling the threshold between control and complete, sweet abandon...

  “Don’t apologize. It’s not your fault. I’m the one who should be apologizing. I’m just—I’m out of my mind. And you’re...you just keep giving me the answers I asked for, the answers I wanted...”

  Her voice dropped to a whisper as he slid his hand up her waist, her hair bunching and slipping under his heated palm. He angled her head to his with his thumbs under her jaw.

  “...all along you’ve given me what I’ve wanted...”

  She felt so strange, like a dreamer wandering through a beautiful fairy tale, never wanting to wake. A coil of new pleasure unwound in her core as he lowered his head to her neck, inhaled deeply against her throat. He pulled her head back with his fingers twisted in her hair and stared at her.