Page 20 of If I Were Wind

“Roy.” Connor stepped back. I hoped he was fast enough to reach his car and leave in case Roy lost his control. “You know I must ask. We’re risking our necks here. Norma told me that you and Kristin merged.”

Roy didn’t say a word, his nostrils flaring.

“Does she know?” Connor asked. “Did she see it?”

I held my breath. Could I discover Roy’s secret by merging with him?

“No,” Roy gritted out. “I’ve been very careful.”

Yes, I could vouch for that.

Connor eased the knot of his scarf. “I don’t doubt that—”

“Good.”

“But if you and Kristin”—Connor paused—“have been intimate, as Norma told me, you’ll have to be more than simply careful. I like Kristin, but I don’t want to die because you want to shag—”

The ripping noise of Roy’s suit being shredded to pieces was the only warning of his transformation. He turned into his eight-foot-tall dark panther and pounced. Connor didn’t have a chance to run. He was shoved to the ground with Roy on top of him, fangs fully unsheathed and claws glinting in the moonlight. A few rags clung to the panther’s back where the fur was standing on end. The gasp I meant to release remained trapped in my throat. Roy wouldn’t kill his friend in cold blood, would he? But he’d killed his brother.

With his strong muzzle one inch from Connor’s pale face, he roared. The scraping sound of critters scurrying away from him followed. Surely, the entire town had heard that roar.

Connor didn’t move, his eyes wide open, showing too much white. “That’s what I meant,” he stammered. With a few hundred pounds of panther on his chest, it was a miracle he could breathe at all.

As fast as he’d pounced, Roy jumped back from him, returning to human form again. Moonlight cast ragged shadows over his sculpted muscles and heaving chest. I’d seen him naked before, but dash it, my heart stopped every time. With sweat glistening on his skin and the wild light in his gaze, he looked like a savage creature, all raw instinct and murderous rage. I shouldn’t be so aroused from the sight of him so unhinged, but I had to press my legs together to ease that darn throb, praying he didn’t detect my scent.

They stared at each other, and Connor was wise enough to keep his mouth shut. He didn’t even try to stand up. After a long moment of charged silence, Roy spun on his heels fast enough to lift a cloud of dust. The thud of his car door being slammed hard ripped the night. Connor crawled back from the Cadet as it screeched over the gravel, spraying gravel in the air. An echo of Roy’s anger reverberated through me and singed my nostrils. My beast called out to him, sharing his pain and howling her longing for him. I kept to the shadows, wondering if Roy could sense my beast’s angst for him.

Left alone, Connor staggered to his feet, shaking. He dragged a hand through his hair. “Dammit!” He slammed a fist against a pillar and strode away with angry steps, disappearing on the other side of the cemetery.

I pressed my back against a tree trunk and took a few deep breaths to give my emotions time to settle.

What the heck was all that about?

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