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“Sure,” he said reassuringly as he ran to grab one of Mason’s sweaters that he knew had a high silk content and should be extra soft. He returned with the sweater, handing it to her. She slipped it over her head, letting it fall to mid-thigh before she unwrapped the blanket and handed it back to him.
“You did this to me,” she said in that strangely detached voice.
“Yes.” No use equivocating about that, but she needed to understand why. “You were dying, Amelia. I could feel your life slowly slipping away. I wasn’t willing to allow that. We are fated mates.”
“So, basically, you saved me for yourself.”
He couldn’t tell if she was asking or deliberately misconstruing why he’d done what he’d done.
“No. I turned you because I didn’t want your light gone from this world. In the normal course of events, we could have come together, and I would have gained your informed consent.”
“Are you so sure of that?”
“I am. We are meant to be. I know you’re angry right now, and I don’t blame you. From your perspective, I stole your humanity. But I didn’t.”
“I don’t see anyone else.”
“True, I’m the one that initiated the Gift. That’s what we call it, because that’s what it is. You still retain all of your humanity, except the changes to your DNA…”
“Is that why you became a geneticist?”
“In part. DNA, because of my hybrid status, has always fascinated me. I suppose there was a part of me that worried that someday if humans found out about us, they might try to corrupt our abilities and use them to their own ends.”
“So, you thought you’d beat them to the punch.”
“No. I thought I could protect my kind from those within the human race who might try to pervert our differences. I was always playing defense. There is no need for shifters to try and obstruct human development and evolution, but it doesn’t mean that there aren’t shifters who don’t want to try. Shifters are no better or worse than humans in their covetous envy of what others have that they do not.”
“Other than being a beast, what possible advantages could there be in being part animal?”
“We tend to live longer, healthier lives.”
“You’re immortal?”
“Not in the least, we just age more slowly and our immune systems seem more robust. For instance, cancer is virtually unknown in shifters. And if a human who has cancer is turned, generally the transition eradicates the cancer genes.”
“Then why not offer some kind of gene therapy to humans?”
“Fear. If they know there’s something in our blood or about us that can cure cancer, they will kill us—either to get to the source or, in the case of pharmaceutical companies, remove something that could cost them billions in lost profits. There are, however, shifters who are working to try and isolate the gene or whatever it is that causes cancer. There was a time, thousands of years ago, that shifters and humans lived alongside each other out in the open, but that time is past, and so we live, hidden in plain sight.”
Carson closed the distance between them, touching her shoulder. She pulled away, and then turned, throwing a right punch solidly into his face.
CHAPTER12
AMELIA
Amelia’s fist connected solidly with his face. She’d learned to throw a punch and used the heavy bag at her gym in Bellingham on a regular basis, but that had always been with boxing gloves. She hadn’t realized how much it would hurt her to punch him in the face with a bare fist. The only god-saving grace was that it seemed he felt it as well, as he stumbled back a few paces.
Her mind was a maelstrom of colliding emotions and fragmented thoughts—all crashing into each other, vying for supremacy and retreating to some dim, dark corner, only to rush forward again. She was beyond confused. She was a snow leopard? How the hell was that even possible? He was from some kind of ancient race that could shift between their human and snow leopard form? Were there others like him? Were there other kinds of beasts they could change into? Could one just choose the beast they wanted? And why the hell had he bitten her? He was a freaking scientist—a medical professional—couldn’t he figure out some less violent way to save her life?
She paused for a moment, raised her face, and locked eyes with him. Had there really been no other way?
“Tell me something. You keep calling me your fated mate. Does that mean you think we’re going to breed? Because having babies is not in my plan. If that’s why you changed me, I’m afraid you are about to be sorely disappointed. I’ve been told by an expert that my chances of conceiving and carrying a pregnancy to term are pretty much slim to none.”
“We are fated mates because that is what destiny has decreed.” To his credit, her announcement that she might not carry a child didn’t seem to faze him. “The change to a snow leopard-shifter might have corrected whatever is wrong. But I turned you without your consent because I had no other choice. If fate has also decreed that we cannot have children together, then so be it. I have no driving need to be a father. There is no dynastic reason for me to sire offspring. We can let that be for the time being and discuss it if and when one of us would like to. Right now, I need you to believe three things: I had no choice if you were to live, you are a snow leopard, and we’ll figure out the rest, together.”
That sounded reasonable and plausible, and Amelia believed him.
She sank to the floor—drawing her knees close to her body and wrapping her arms around them as if she could hug them closer. When she had seen the snow leopard in her mind’s eye charging at her, it had scared the shit out of her. She didn’t know what to believe. Or rather, she knew she believed him, but she didn’t fully trust that belief.
