The walk back to the car was interminable, and the drive home seemed to take forever. We were all exhausted. Camille conked out in the back, her head on Menolly’s shoulder. Vanzir sat apart from them, silent.

Morio was zonked out, too, next to Smoky and Rozurial. Zach was driving, and I sat in the front, next to him. As he navigated the chilly spring night, I watched his hands on the steering wheel. I was tired—exhausted, really—but I was also hyped up on adrenaline. Sleeping would be difficult. I leaned closer to him.

“Will you stay with me tonight?” I whispered.

He glanced at me, then back at the road. “Are you sure?”

I nodded.

“What about Chase?”

Taking a deep breath, I forced the air out of my lungs and said, “This is my choice. I choose to be with you tonight, if you’ll have me.” My voice trembled a little. Would he still want me, after all this time and frustration? I wouldn’t blame him if he didn’t want to get involved.

But Zach merely smiled. “Delilah, I always want you. Never worry about that.” And it was set.

We rode in silence until we arrived home, and then Smoky and Menolly set off for the portal with the spirit seal. Camille and Morio were too exhausted from their magical work to help, and I was just too beat in general.

The lights were on in the living room. Iris had waited up for us, even though we had told her not to. As we came in, she gave me an anxious look. I gave her a slow smile and a nod.

“We found the seal, and it’s on its way to . . . its new home right now.” I still didn’t like talking about Queen Asteria in front of Vanzir.

Roz seemed to sense my hesitation, because he clapped Vanzir on the shoulder. “Let’s go. We’ll hole up at the local dive I’ve taken a sublet on for the month. Girls, we’ll be out of your hair for the night. Call us tomorrow when you want to talk. I’ve got my cell phone with me.”

As we waved them out of the house, Camille shook her head. “Need sleep. I’m about to crash. Morio’s not much better. Smoky has a key. Lock the door when you go to bed.” Dragging themselves up the stairs, my sister and her fox demon disappeared for the night.

“Delilah, before you go up, there was a call for you while you were out.” Iris handed me half her sandwich. I must have been eyeing the food with a little too much gusto.

“I don’t want to hear it unless it’s an emergency.” I tapped Zach on the shoulder. “Go on up and wait for me.” He obligingly left the room.

Iris shook her head. “It wasn’t Chase,” she said, frowning. “It was Sharah, and she said it was important.”

“Did she say it was an emergency?”

“No,” she said slowly, then frowned. “But she sounded worried. You’re not going to call her back?”

“Tomorrow morning. If it’s an emergency, she’ll call again. Meanwhile, I’m going to go relax, enjoy myself, and sleep for a gazillion hours,” I said, running my hands through my hair. I needed a shower, and then I needed something a whole lot more sensual than a bunch of nasty water splashing over my body. “Zach’s staying,” I added.

Iris smiled slowly. “We live in troubled times, Delilah. Don’t deny yourself the luxury of companionship out of fear or misplaced guilt. You and Chase have a great deal to talk over again before you can make any final decisions, but until then, if I were you, I’d consider myself a free agent.”

Free agent. Not sure I liked that term, I merely gave her a peck on the cheek and headed upstairs to the man who was waiting for me with open arms.

CHAPTER 18

As I approached my room, music filtered out from beneath the door. “Magic Man,” by Heart. Zachary must be listening to the playlist on my MP3 player. I opened the door to find him sitting on the window seat in my bedroom, one knee pulled up to his chest. His other leg hung over the edge, and he tapped the floor with his foot, keeping time to the music.

The lights were off, and he was staring out the window, his regal profile framed in the glow from the hallway behind me. When he looked at me, his mouth beckoned, full and sensual, and the dusty summer wheat of his hair was tinged with gold, fringing his collar.

I caught my breath as the scent of his leather jacket flooded my nose. Even beneath the dusty coat, I could see every outline of muscle. The image of his puma self up on the mountainside burned in my mind. The memory of racing up the rocks by his side ran through my veins, and from somewhere, deep inside, Panther growled in recognition.

It had been a long time since we’d been alone together without a chaperone. I slowly moved toward him, skirting the bed, keenly aware of the covers falling to the floor, of stepping over my pajamas and the other dirty clothes that lay scattered around the edge. He swung his head toward me, silently waiting as I approached.

As I closed the distance between us, I thought about Chase. I could still stop before I screwed things up even further. I could call him and beg him to talk to me. I could tell him that I missed him. Hell, I could even go find Erika and kick her butt and scare the hell out of her.

But I didn’t want to do any of those things.

I was tired of thinking, tired of dealing with hurt feelings and jealousy, and I hated the jealousy that had grown in me. It bordered on insecurity, and that was one trait I didn’t want that I’d inherited from our mother. I didn’t like the feeling it left in my heart. If Chase wanted Erika, he was welcome to her. Right now, I didn’t want to deal with any of this crap; all I wanted to do was . . .

“Delilah,” Zach’s voice curved around me, husky and low. He was suddenly standing and with one stride, planted himself in front of me. He slowly reached out to caress my throat. I shivered as he ran his finger down my neck, over my shirt, between my breasts.

“Don’t say a word. Don’t ask about anything,” I said. “Just kiss me.”

Zach leaned down and slowly pressed his lips against mine. They were full, plump, and I started to shake as his arms slid around me, pulling me tight against him. I kept my eyes open, staring into his own unblinking gaze as we kissed, as breath passed between us.

“Oh Great Lady Bast, remind me of what I am,” I whispered.

He stopped, pulled back, staring in my eyes. “What do you want? Just tell me, and I’ll do it.”

I could feel Panther stirring from within. I grabbed his wrist. “Come with me.”

He followed me as I dragged him to my playroom, past the kitty condo, past the upstairs litter box, and shoved the window open. I crawled out on the roof and jumped the short distance to land in the fork of an oak outside the window. As my hands grasped the trunk and my feet met the branch, I began to transform into Panther. She came quickly, painlessly, and within seconds I’d descended through the branches and dropped to the ground. I waited at the bottom of the tree as Zach followed suit, shifting into Puma as he leapt out of the tree to land at my side.

The night was thick and dark, the moon on her way to black, but we didn’t need her light. I raced toward the woods leading to Birchwater Pond, reveling in the feel of my muscles, in the feel of the ground beneath my paws, in the air that set my fur to quivering. Every sense stood at alert; every feeling was intensified.

The rustle of small animals racing through the brush caught my attention as we padded into the forest. The scents of spring loam and water and fungi and Zach’s desire careened on the wind, an intoxicating whirlwind, pulling me deeper into my feline self.

I raised my head and let out a deep roar, the vibrations in my throat sending me into a frenzy of hunger. I wanted him, wanted him to hold me down, to drive himself deep inside. As if reading my thoughts, he circled me, emitting guttural grunts as we sized each other up. Weres, we were—neither fully human nor fully feline—but an odd mixture of both.

In puma form, Zach was as amazing as he was in human. Sleek and muscled, golden—tawny with brilliant eyes that flashed between topaz and light brown—he slid up behind me. Receptive, I lowered myself to the ground and presented, but he stepped back and in a flurry of sparkling light and blurred edges, transformed back into his two-legged form. Surprised, I followed suit just as quickly.

“What’s wrong?” I asked. “You don’t sense Demonkin, do you?”

“I’d hurt you if I took you that way,” he said, his voice broken. “I know you’ve fucked other housecats, but it’s far more painful in big-cat form. My cock is barbed, as are all male werepumas’ organs, and I don’t want to take you that way . . . not this time. Not now. Not till the moon is full and we forget everything but the feel of her riding our souls. But let me love you here, as a man, in the forest where we belong.” He held out his arms, his gaze burning a hole in my heart.

And then we were frantic, struggling out of our clothes, but still his luminous eyes stayed fixed on me as he kicked aside his jeans and tossed his shirt behind him. I yanked off my top, my jeans, my panties, as a low rumble rolled out of Zach’s throat. His nostrils flared, and he laughed, low and hard.

“I can smell you. Come here, pussycat.”

My stomach flipped. He was naked and fully aroused. I ran my fingers along his ripped abs, across his wide-set shoulders, tracing a line down to the V above his penis, where he stood firmly, marvelously at attention.

“Now. Here. In the dirt,” I said, barely above a whisper.

“As you command.” He grabbed me around the waist, and we fell to the ground, into the soft moss, which tickled my skin and teased my senses with its scent. With one hand, he reached down to stroke me, his fingers knowing exactly where to move, where to touch. He lowered his lips to my breast and sucked, rough and with a laugh in the back of his throat.

I let out a short moan as a series of explosions began to fire, each one slightly larger than the last. I tried to catch my breath, but there was no pause, no respite, and I found myself shrieking as he moved his mouth down between my legs, replacing fingers with tongue. I held his head as he licked, the feel of his thick, curly hair between my thighs making me laugh with the sheer joy of the force driving us forward.

Covered in leaf mold and debris, I finally sat up, pushing him onto his back. “Your turn,” I whispered, lowering my lips to his penis. Carefully—cautious to avoid the fang issue—I licked the length of him, circling the head of his cock with my tongue, teasing him harder by the minute.

“I want you,” he said, suddenly grabbing me by the waist and pulling me up to stare in my eyes. “I want inside you.”

I broke away, fell to my hands and knees, and he knelt behind me, grasping my waist as he drove deep inside, sliding in, spreading me wide. I raised my head and growled as he began to thrust, slowly at first, then faster, changing position, swiveling his hips, a white-hot match that reached right into my center to ignite my flame.

He leaned forward to lick the back of my neck, lightly biting as I pressed against him, digging my fingers into the dirt. If we couldn’t fuck as big cats, we could fuck like big cats.

He was riding me hard now, and I lowered myself to the ground as he lay prone atop my back, grinding so hard that I couldn’t tell where he left off and I began. My breasts pressed into the damp leaves as I moved beneath him, the moist soil clinging to my flesh, rubbing against my nipples as if Mama Earth herself was suckling them.

We were both filthy and wet, and bruised from the day, and I loved it all—loved the moss beneath my belly, the feel of the mud plastering my legs. All the while, Zach’s cock explored me from the inside out, his finger stroking my clit as I struggled for that last push that would break open the dam.

And then I was there, on the edge, arms held out in supplication. A loud pounding filled my ears, the thundering rush of a waterfall from a distant land, and I jumped—soaring as I toppled over the edge and came.

I screamed as Zach roared out my name. Puma and Panther rose up, superimposed against us, rising from deep inside of our hearts like ghosts from the past, shadows of ourselves mating even as we mated. And then, as I exhaled, limp and sweating, the big cats climaxed, and their roars filled my ears like jungle drums in the night.

Zach gently rested his head on my back. He was drenched—sweating and damp and musky. “Are you okay?” he asked after a moment, rolling off of me.

I sat up. Every muscle ached. Every inch of me felt bruised through. But it was a good sore, the kind of sore that left me bone tired and ready for a long hot bath and a warm bed. The kind of sore that wrung every drop of tension out of my body.

“Yeah, I’m good,” I said, yawning. The chill of the evening was descending, and now I felt cold and wet. I scrambled into my jeans and yanked my top over my head. So I was muddy. The clothes were dirty anyway and needed washing.

“I need to get inside,” I added. “Come. Spend the night?”

He gazed down at me. “You really want me to?”

I thought about it. The only other man who’d ever slept in my bed was Chase. “Yeah, I do.”

“Color me there,” he said, sliding into his jeans and zipping up. He carried his shirt as we headed back to the house. As we jogged silently along the trail, I wondered how the hell I’d deal with this. I’d never had sex like that before. It was the first time I’d felt like both sides of myself—Were and woman—had been invited into the bed. I felt whole—wholly accepted and wholly desired. And I didn’t ever want it to stop.

CHAPTER 19

Morning broke, and I opened my eyes to find Zach snuggled up against my back, his arm draped around my waist. He was snoring lightly, and the stubble on his chin rubbed against my shoulder as he murmured something in his sleep. The sun had broken through, and a lazy beam fell across the bed, bathing us in unexpected light and warmth.