Falke’s Captive

“Now’s your chance to prove it.”

Don’t take away the freedom we have, Kelan said. He took a deep breath and decided to lay it all out for her. He had to believe she had compassion. He knew she did have it; she just needed to look past the scientific discovery to view the big picture. Dakota is pregnant with Axel and Gunnar’s babies. If you expose us, not only will we become lab experiments, so will Dakota, a normal human woman who fell in love with our kind. Would you harm her or her unborn children?

Beth reached out a hand and touched his head. “You can stop trying to convince me…Kelan. I understand. I know what would happen to you. I’m not so eager for fame or fortune that I would threaten that which I’ve sworn to protect.”

Kelan relaxed with the release of a deep breath.

She licked her lips and ran her fingers down his nose, rubbed his cheek. When she touched the earring in his ear, she smiled. “To cover up the tag hole? You didn’t have an earring the first time I saw you like this.”

He chuckled, which sounded somewhere between a cough and a sneeze in his present form. Yes.

It looks a little strange on a cougar, though, doesn’t it?

She reached forward with her other hand and cupped his face, rubbing her thumbs over his cheeks, burying her fingers in his fur. “You’re so beautiful.”

“You’re the beautiful one,” Reidar said, kneeling down next to Kelan and touching Beth’s face.

“We meant what he said before. We do love you, Beth. With all our hearts. And we’re so sorry we hurt you, but our family means every—” She touched his lips with her fingers. “I get it. I do.” Then her curiosity showed again as she asked, “Can you shift into anything else?”

No, although I think soaring as an eagle would be so cool.

She grinned. “Yeah, it would. Does it hurt? When you shift?”

“It kind of tingles, like an electric current.”

She dug her fingertips into his fur, and Kelan purred, making her giggle. “That’s so…wild.” Then her eyes warmed, and he almost missed the slight shake of her head, the whispered words, “My wild man.”

He rubbed her palm with his nose. That’s domesticated wild man, thank you very much.

“Of course,” she agreed, laughing. “How could I forget that? Tell me. What else can you do?”

She peppered them with more questions, and they responded with patience, even promising to introduce her to their fathers.

“Fathers…I wish I could’ve met your mother. She sounds like she must’ve been an incredible woman.”

“She was.”

“I saw her paintings at the vet clinic. They’re spectacular.”

“Our fathers were her favorite models.”

She sucked in a deep breath and blew it out quickly. Then she laughed. “This is definitely more than I signed on for this summer. What a dissertation this would make.”

“Beth—”

“A dissertation that’ll never get written, never see the light of day.” Then she shook her head and sobered. “I guess it’s a good thing I didn’t make it to the post office yesterday.”

“What do you mean?”

She twisted in the chair and reached behind her to open the mini fridge’s door. Then she handed a small cooler-type container to Reidar. “This is the last of the original blood sample. Professor Whitmore wanted me to send it to the university yesterday, but I didn’t make it there in time.”

Kelan sighed in relief. His blood wasn’t in some scientist’s hands.

“Thank God,” Reidar said as he opened the box and pulled out the single vial inside. “Thank you.” He stood and kissed Beth hard before disappearing into the bathroom.

Beth turned back to Kelan.

Please tell us you didn’t email the test results to anyone. Reidar checked for that, but it was difficult to know for sure that we got everything.

“No, I didn’t. I’d printed out one copy of my initial results, but Heidi kept those. I’m guessing you don’t reveal yourselves to many people.”

Never.

“How many of you are there in the world?”

We don’t know. We suspect there must be others outside our family, but who’s to say how many there are? It’s not something we advertise. Females of our kind are rare, so pure offspring from a mated pair are rarer still. And being that it takes two of us to produce children with a human woman, multiplying the species doesn’t come easy.

Kelan heard the water in the bathroom running and said to Reidar, Make sure you get it all. Don’t leave even a trace.

Don’t worry, brother, Reidar said, glancing at him in the reflection of the mirror. I’ve got it covered.

“What do you mean by it takes two?” Beth asked. “Is that why you all travel in pairs?”

Yes. Another bit of oddness in our genetic makeup. Axel and Gunnar mated with Dakota, and now babies are on the way.

Beth nibbled on her bottom lip and shoved her glasses up her nose. “Last night…” She licked her lips. “Last night you said, ‘Ours.’ Does that mean you think…that I’m…that we…Did we…”

Goose bumps skittered across his body, the familiar tingles erupting at the base of his spine. The shift rippled like an electric current from his core to his extremities. His vision spotted then blurred into a kaleidoscope of colorful starbursts, and then he was flesh again, kneeling at Beth’s feet.

She gasped, and he leaned up to kiss her, thrilled when she didn’t pull away. Her warm hands closed over his shoulders, and she sighed into his mouth as she surrendered.

“Beth,” he murmured, pulling back just a breath. “We haven’t mated, yet. We’d never do that without first revealing ourselves, but from the moment I woke up in that damn cage in your lab, I knew you were special.” He nuzzled her cheek, her neck, breathing in her glorious scent. “I can’t even explain it, because I don’t understand it. It’s why I risked talking to you back then, even in puma form.”

“You spoke to her?” Reidar asked, his surprise evident, but Kelan didn’t respond.

Her cheeks turned rosy. “Oh, right!” She chuckled. “You had me thinking I was turning into Dr.

Dolittle. I thought I was losing my mind.”

He grinned. “That’s a small price to pay for stealing my heart. I wasn’t looking for my mate-our mate. And I damn sure never expected her to shoot me in the ass when I did find her.”

She shoved his shoulder. “You’re never gonna let me live that down, are you?”

“Nope.” He kissed the tip of her nose and removed her glasses, setting them aside. “You’re the one, Beth. Ours. If you can accept us.”

She dropped her head back and moaned as he kissed her neck, her shoulder, nipped at her tender flesh. “This is so…Kelan, I can’t think when you do that.”

“Don’t think. Feel. Can you love creatures like us?”

“Yes,” she said on a soft sigh as she wove her fingers in his hair.

He sat back on his heels, took her hands in his and waited for her to look at him. Her cheeks were flushed, and even in his human form he could scent her arousal.

Reidar was there again, at his side, on his knees. Beth looked back and forth between them, and then a slow smile spread over her plump lips. “Holy shit.”

Reidar chuckled. Kelan smiled. She took one of Reidar’s hands in hers, and in the other she held onto Kelan’s. “I do love you both. Which should feel weirder than it does. And I’m a little scared about all the implications.”

“We’re not going to rush you,” Reidar promised. “We understand this is a lot to take in.”

She nodded. “Yeah, that’s an understatement. And I still have a job to do this summer. I can’t spend the