And he was hers.
The light inside her flared bright enough that just for a moment, she couldn’t feel the numb hollow deep inside her chest. She focused on the mate bond, pouring all her new ferocity and everything else she felt into it. The joy she’d felt when she first saw him, the wonderful confusion, the way she didn’t even care that they’d fallen into each other’s arms in the middle of a bloody housefire and, yes, how ridiculous that was. How much more she wanted and how afraid she was of losing all those half-formed dreams.
Fleance groaned and pressed his forehead against hers. Their breath mingled as light spilled from the golden cord that connected them, overflowing with her emotions.
“You’re mine,” she said, her voice shaking. “And I’m yours. Now, right now, I’m only yours. I’m not going to sleep through what might be the only time we have together.”
“But Parker—”
“If I do change, then he’s going to catch up with us no matter what, right? And if I don’t, we’ll have to face him anyway, to stop him from hurting anyone else.”
Fleance nodded reluctantly.
“I don’t want to waste time running. Or resting. If this is the only chance we have…” She kissed him and the languid longing that had unfurled in her at his first touch quickened. Urgency crackled through her veins and when Fleance hesitated, she almost groaned aloud. Maybe it would have in different circumstances, too, but here, now, she didn’t have time to think about that. She didn’t want to waste another second.
She kissed him again as his fingers tightened around her waist. He kissed her back, but again, there was something missing. He was holding back.
*Isn’t it meant to help the mate bond form, anyway? Make it stronger?* She was sure she’d heard that somewhere. Or heard gossip about it, at least. It was probably as real as anything else people said about how shifters worked. Like how—
She’d reached out to her sheep to reminisce out of habit. Her mind buffeted against the nothingness and she cringed back.
Fleance hesitated. *I want you, too.* His telepathic voice was layered over with concern, and wariness, and oh, God, yes, the same desperate need she felt. *But I don’t know if this is a good idea.*
*I’ve never had a good idea in my life. I’ve never let it stop me before,* Sheena joked. Her telepathic voice felt raw. She wanted him so much it hurt.
She put her hands on his chest. The thin fabric smelled like washing detergent, and beneath it he smelled clean and masculine and good. She didn’t care what he said about failing to do the right thing—he’d lost so much of his life to his evil uncle’s cruelty, and if she couldn’t convince him that beating himself up over not recovering as soon as he was free didn’t make him a bad guy, she could at least show him it didn’t change how she thought about him.
The slightest hint of smoke teased at her nostrils as she pulled him closer, but the reminder of what they’d been through just made her need him more. From the expression in his eyes, he felt the same.
He put his hands on top of hers. *I don’t know how much time we have,* he admitted. His shame about not knowing enough about how the turning process worked to reassure her was clear. *I don’t want to waste it, either. But I don’t want to lose you because of my own selfish desires. What I want here shouldn’t matter. You deserve better than—*
“Hey.” She lowered her head until her lips were so close to his she could almost taste him. *What do I have to do to make it more obvious that I want this, too?*
He kissed her like a drowning man taking his first breath of air.
She had her hands on his chest. It was the perfect position to push him down onto the sofa, but she lost herself in the headrush of the kiss long enough for him to steal the lead. He picked her up, one hand around her torso and the other holding her firmly by the arse and took her to the bed.
He lay her down and kissed her until she was the one who needed to come up for air. He tugged at the hem of her shirt and she mumbled a protest.
“It’s not fair,” she gasped, and felt his question brush against her mind. “You kept your clothes on when you shifted before. I haven’t even had a chance to perv.”
Fleance barked with surprise. He buried his face in her shoulder and kissed the nape of her neck but left her shirt alone.
Sheena ran her fingers along his collar. She undid the buttons one by one, resisting the urge to kiss his chest. She wanted to see him. All of him. If this was the only time they had together, she wanted as much of him to remember as possible.
He was lean under his shirt, muscles tight and hard under her fingertips. His heartbeat thudded against her touch. Old scars crisscrossed his ribs. Sheena paused, her fingers brushing the edges of them. Shifters could scar, but it took a lot more to leave a lasting mark than it did for humans. For Fleance to have this many scars…
“Don’t,” he said softly. She looked up at him and he said, “I could feel you wondering. I don’t want you to worry about them.”
“That doesn’t make it any better,” she grumbled. He might not want her to worry about Parker, but she could put the dots together and figure out what he wasn’t saying. Even a wooly-headed—
Cold washed over her. Was she still a wooly-headed sheep shifter? Those bursts of anger, the strange emptiness inside her—what if her sheep was gone already, forever, and she just hadn’t
