AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“In the most basic terms—whether you lived or died. You need to understand that the floating feeling you had was your soul separating from your physical body. You were dying, Amelia. I’m not a doctor, and Mason had nothing up here in terms of antibiotics or whatever to help you. I couldn’t stand by and just watch you slip away.”
“Why not? You didn’t know me.”
“But I did. On a deep, primal level, I have always known you. My people call us fated mates. A belief that there is, for some, only one person that will complete their soul. One person with whom they shall be one.”
She started to laugh, but the sound died in her throat as she realized he was completely serious and that what he was saying resonated with something deep inside her. She looked into his clear, blue eyes and saw something reflected there as he nodded.
“Who are your people?” she asked.
“This is where it gets a bit dicey. My people are shifters—snow leopard-shifters to be precise.”
She shook her head. “Excuse me; what did you just say?”
“Nothing wrong with your hearing. My people are snow leopard-shifters. We can shift from our human form to our snow leopard form at will. When I go out to check the perimeter? I do so in my snow leopard form. I pulled you from the plane as a snow leopard. You opened your eyes at one point, saw me, and fainted, which at the time I thought was a good thing.”
He was nuts. He had to be. There was no such thing as some kind of being that was part beast and part man. Oh sure, she’d seen some of the romance novels that used that as a premise, but there were also romance novels that dealt with aliens, orcs, and vampires as heroes. It didn’t make them any more real than some kind of ‘shifter.’
“You don’t honestly expect me to believe that, do you?”
“No; at least not without a demonstration.”
“Let’s just say, for the sake of argument, that I buy into this delusion.” She took a large sip of the pinot. “Is it rude to tell you you’re delusional?” Another gulp. “Doesn’t matter. As I said, let’s say I buy the whole ‘I can change into a snow leopard’ thing, what the hell does that have to do with my dying and you biting me?”
“Let me bring you back to the fact that you were on the verge of death. My choices were limited: let you die or bite you and initiate the change.”
She leaned forward. “What change?”
“Shifters can initiate a change that will turn a human to a shifter. Shifter DNA is inherently stronger and basically overwrites the human DNA.”
“Wh… What are you telling me?”
“That I am your fated mate and you were dying. In order to preserve your life, I chose to bite you and initiate the change. You’ve made it through the transition. At one point I feared I had waited too long.”
“Are you trying to make me believe I’m now a snow leopard-shifter?”
As crazy as that sounded, it did make some sense, given the snow leopard who prowled the recesses of her mind. She downed the last of her wine, reached across the table to grab the bottle, and poured another glass.
“Search your feelings, Amelia. You know it’s true.”
Another gulp. He wasn’t wrong. When she thought about it, if he wasn’t crazy, it was the thing that made the most sense. But he had to be crazy, right? There was no such thing as a snow leopard-shifter. She took another drink and started to laugh. Amelia tended to be a happy drunk and she was well on her way to that inebriated state. She took another bite of the shepherd’s pie.
“This really is good, and I’m snowbound with a crazy man.”
“I’m not crazy and neither are you. And this isn’t a dream or a delusion or a hallucination,” he said firmly.
How the hell did he know what she’d been thinking?
“The same way I know that you can hear and feel it when I purr to you,” he said softly.
Amelia had been looking at her plate, afraid to meet his eyes. She took another sip of wine and then raised her eyes to his. She closed her eyes and sighed as the purring sound increased, and she could feel it wrapping around her like the finest cashmere shawl.
She stood up, which required far more effort than it should have, but then the wine had gone straight to her head. Carson stood on the other side of the table from her and moved to the living room. He shucked off his jeans and locked eyes with hers. Her eyes swept over his body and lingered on his fully engorged cock.
“I’m not looking to jump back in the sack with you.”
He chuckled as he made note of where her gaze had come to rest. “Liar.”
The words were no more out of his mouth than a vortex of thunder, lightning and shards of color all swirled around him. It was a centralized chaotic storm that engulfed him. She might have been more concerned if his face had shown any signs of distress, but it didn’t.
