“No!” I growled while shielding Chantal with my body.
“Gray, doc’s just going to take a look at the injuries.”
“I can feel it, Knox.” The explanation, though lacking, came out of me along with a threatening show of elongating teeth.
“Jesus, Gray. Feel what?”
“His greed. He wants her. Wants to…” I was cut off when Knox turned and jacked the man up into the wall.
“Explain yourself!” he demanded.
“It’s not what he’s thinking,” the doctor sputtered out. “I’ve just never seen one of her kind in the flesh before. I’ve seen videos, but never…” his voice trailed off as he continued to try to glance around Knox’s arm that had him pinned to the wall. “Never been able to examine one before.”
“Never will, either,” I ground out through gnashed teeth.
“Sorry,” the man called out and shook himself free of the spell he seemed to be under. “Sorry. That was highly unprofessional of me. It’s like one of those once in a lifetime opportunities, to meet with one who hasn’t yet changed to her mate’s animal.”
“Behave yourself,” Knox told him as he released his hold and allowed the man’s feet to meet the floor once more.
“Her legs, can you remove the bandages so I can see them?” The doc had obviously grown wise enough to know he would not be allowed to touch my woman. Before I could even move to do it, Chantal reached past me and began unwinding the bandages that had been wrapped around her ravaged lower legs. When she got the last of them off, it was clear the amount of damage she was facing. Her pelt had been skinned from about mid-calf all the way to her ankles. In her human form, that meant that the dermal layer was missing and muscle was showing underneath a very fine layer of skin that had started forming in the healing process.
The doctor nodded his head as he carefully looked over the wounds. “The skin is re-growing, that’s a good sign. Healing is a bit slow, but to be expected as the animal inside was harmed too.”
“Will her pelt heal along with the skin?”
“Time will tell, but in this instance, I’m not too sure. Most likely not, though. When a full pelt is skinned from one of our kind, it won’t grow back and the animal becomes trapped within its human. Usually it causes the person to go insane, if they don’t die from shock first. It is one of the most cruel things that can be done. With the shadow cats, I simply don’t have enough information to know how her animal will respond to an injury of this type. She hasn’t taken a form yet, so maybe when she does it will allow for healing. It’s too soon to tell. I do suggest she get to turn a couple times in her shadow form before you claim her fully, just to be sure that the healing process is well underway prior to her change.”
“That’s all?” I asked impatiently. The doctor managed to snap himself out of his stupor and stop staring at my woman. Knox tugged on his arm then, to pull him out of the room, but the doctor huffed and stood his ground.
“I’d like to watch the transformation.”
“That is not fucking happening.”
“But I…”
“Come on asshole,” Knox called out as he all but dragged the doctor out of the room. Once they left, I turned back to Chantal.
“Are you sure about this?”
“Of course,” she declared without hesitation just before she flung the sheet back that had been covering most of her upper body. Her shirt came off next and then she was before me naked, still lying on the bed, unafraid to trust her ravaged legs to hold her. One minute she was a beautiful petite woman lying before me. The next she was moonbeams and shadows. I had named her aptly when I called her that. The fur that remained intact on her glimmered a shimmery, liquid silver that caught the light and seemed to move it into the shadows all at once. It damn near hurt to look upon her, especially when I heard the whine of her cat. She was in pain, of that there was little doubt. Still, she trusted me enough to nudge her nose into my thigh to get my attention.
I reached out to touch the side of her face with the backs of my fingers. It was a gentle gesture that was met with patience on her part. She shoved her face into my fingers, forcing me to pet her a bit more aggressively. Her fur was the softest pelt I had ever felt in my life, almost as if it were constructed of pure magic, and hell, maybe it had been, for all I knew of the shadow cats and their legends. I spent a bit of time bonding with the animal inside my woman before she shifted back to her human form. Her legs remained sans fur, but when she shifted, the skin was fully formed above the muscle once more. That, at least, was a blessing.
“I don’t think it will ever come back,” she whispered as she stared down at her legs. I knew what she was seeing as she watched the legs that looked so normal and healed in her human form.
“It won’t matter,” I told her. “You will be cherished by me whether they’re whole or not. At least we know you can still call your beautiful cat forth.” I turned my attention so that I was staring directly into her eyes then. “When you and I have been properly mated, and your shadow takes on the form of the leopard, what will happen to you? You’re used to being in one state with your animal. Will you be okay with the change?”
“From what I’ve been told, it will be like something I’ve been
