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CHAPTER9
SEVEN YEARS
My tired legs stretched beneath silken sheets, and my limp body relaxed on the soft mattress. The wooden ceiling fan rotated above my head, swirling a cool breeze around my bedroom. It was a quaint little room with a shelf full of movies and photo albums sitting below a painting. Two black lamps were on either side of my bed, and the dresser had a few photographs of my family.
I touched my cheek and blinked a few times. My fever must have broken.
“How you feeling?”
Oh shit. It wasn’t just that Austin was in my bedroom, it was the feeling of complete nakedness beneath the covers.
I scrambled beneath the sheets and sat up, my hair a tangled mess.
“Eat this,” he said, carrying in a large plate of food.
As he sat on the edge of the mattress, my stomach did a flip. Austin had several bandages patched to his left arm and a gnarly cut on his chin.
“Where are my clothes? What happened to you?”
He wasn’t listening. He held a sausage between his fingers and tapped it against my mouth. “You need your strength.”
“Tell me what happened,” I ground through my teeth. “You’re scratched up, I’m naked, and I have no memory of last night.”
That’s when I noticed the condition of the room. The curtain rod was hanging down at an angle and the drapes were shredded. There were long scratches on the bedroom door and tiny feathers covered the bed from a torn pillow.
“What happened to my room?” My tone wasn’t hostile, but accusatory.
“Before you get riled up, Lexi, it’s not what you’re thinking. You know me better than that. I didn’t dress you because it would have meant handling you naked. Better that you just slept it off. We have all day to talk about this, but right now you’re going to eat.”
Thanks to my voracious appetite, I bit into the most delicious piece of meat I’d ever put in my mouth, as if I’d been on a deserted island for years and it was my first taste of home. It was gone in five seconds.
He chuckled and cocked an eyebrow. “You’re ravenous this morning. Any unusual cravings?”
What an odd question. Although now that he mentioned it, Iwashaving a severe, unexplainable craving.
“So? Tell me what you’re hungry for, Ladybug.”
“Why are you still here?” I said with a mouthful of food. I started to eat a pineapple ring, but couldn’t remember buying any in the past year, so I tossed it to the side.
“Do you have any memory of what happened? Most don’t.”
I frowned and pulled the sheet tighter. “What’s that supposed to mean—most don’t?”
He set the plate on the bed and wiped his hands along his jeans. “Do you remember our conversation last night?”
I thought about it through the hazy fog and shook my head. “A little bit, but… was Beckett here?”
His jaw tightened enough that it sharpened the angled line of his jaw. Austin always had strong features and maybe that’s why I was attracted to him. There was nothing soft or feminine about his face… except when he smiled. Then his pale eyes sparkled so brightly that it became difficult to remember what the hell he was even laughing about.
“We’re going to talk about that later. You’re a Shifter, Lexi. Do you remember our conversation?”
“Oh, hell,” I grumbled, falling onto my back and throwing my right arm over my face. “I was really hoping that was part of the dream. Why did you come back here, Austin? To show me how crazy you’ve become? I don’t have room for crazy in my life right now.”
The sound of him chewing filled the quiet room. When he spoke, he was calm, as if we weren’t about to begin an argument. “You’re a wolf.Thatcame as a surprise. Most of us know what our animal is before our first change because of what our parents are, unless they’re mixed, and then it’s a fifty-fifty thing. It usually shows in how we socialize with family. If both parents are leopards, the kids will be too. Not many Shifters mate outside their animal; it creates a shitload of friction in the house, from what I’ve heard.”
“Then why don’t I remember anything?”
“Few do,” he said. “The majority of Shifters either remember nothing at all, or just the first few minutes after the shift. A few outliers can remember more, if not all. Our animal prefers to be in control and there would be too much internal conflict, so they block us out. Let her out every so often or she’ll get restless and try to take over. You’re going to have to learn to be in tune with her needs, because you’re two halves that make a whole.”
