Claws pushed against the skin of his humanity.

Gritting his teeth, he tried to move away. Slender feminine limbs wrapped around his hips, holding him tight. "Let go." He was so close to the edge that he was starting to see the world through the panther's eyes.

"I can't take any more."

"Sure you can." It took every ounce of willpower he had to chain the beast more than willing to take Sascha - she wasn't ready yet. Using the leverage he had, he began to rock against her vulnerably parted flesh.

"Lucas!" It was a scream. Her hands fell to the sheets, clutching wildly as she tried to ride the pleasure.

"Shh," he gentled, stopping to give her a little tenderness. "I like hearing you scream my name." He kissed her brow, her eyelids, the tip of her nose, her cheeks, and finally her lips. Soft, slow, undemanding. Until her breathing was easier and those night-sky eyes were no longer blind with desire. Then he started moving again.

Her eyes fluttered shut and reopened as if by force of will, her exotic skin shimmering with a layer of perspiration. Rich and heady, the musky scent of her was a carnal invitation. She lasted a couple of minutes this time before he had to stop and bring her back down until she could handle it again.

Each time she lasted longer and his control grew more fragile. He wanted this female with a hunger he'd never before felt. He wanted to ravage her, adore her, mark her. But even the panther knew she had to come to him willingly. There could be no doubt between them, no boundaries and no hesitation, because when the panther shattered its bonds and animal hunger took over, she had to trust him absolutely. Otherwise they'd both break.

Somewhere during the teasing, he got off her bra and feasted his eyes on the beauty of her breasts. She was too dazed by pleasure to protest the kisses he dropped on the upper slopes or the caresses he bestowed with one of his hands. He kept everything easy, getting her used to her own sensuality.

It threatened to drive him to madness.

He could be like this in bed but it was usually after he'd sated himself in his partner's body and drunk deep of her screams of pleasure. The panther wasn't selfish - it merely liked to quench the edge of its thirst before it started to play. But today Lucas was with a woman who needed the play before anything else.

"Don't you stop this time!" she snapped, when he started to slow the rocking motion. Her hands rose to lock around his neck as she tried to pull him down.

"I'm too heavy." He leaned down far enough that his chest rubbed against her breasts, far enough that they could tangle their tongues in a heated mating of mouths. "And," he said as the kiss broke, "you still have on these." He ran the fingers of one hand along the bottom edge of her panties, stroking at the tender skin he found.

Her tongue flicked out to wet her lips. "I don't know if I can handle skin to skin."

It was his nature to push. "Then we finish it this way." But it wasn't his nature to force. He could show her pleasure without feeling the silky softness of the tight, wet heat between her legs. Pressing hard against her, he started grinding in slow circles.

She screamed out scant moments after he'd begun, her neck muscles standing out in sharp relief. He felt the pleasure ripple through her and it was enough to have him fighting his own release. Barely capable of rational thought, he slipped one hand under her nape to hold her in place for his kiss... and froze.

Her eyes were no longer night-sky. Sparks of color fountained where the white stars usually resided, spectacular fireworks on the most miniature of scales. Neither man nor panther had ever seen anything more beautiful.

Lucas woke up feeling supremely sated. He wondered what his efficient Psy would say if he told her she'd brought him to orgasm twice now. He grinned. She'd probably ask him the technical details and note them down on that slim computer she carried everywhere. Why did he find that image cute as hell?

Whistling as he exited the shower, he headed into the bedroom and glanced up at the wall calendar. Suddenly there was no more music in his soul.

How could he have forgotten?

Never before in two decades had he failed to remember - never before had anything or anyone distracted him badly enough to wipe this day from his mind.

After pulling on a pair of jeans and a white T-shirt, he drove to the office, glad to find that Sascha hadn't yet arrived. He couldn't deal with his puzzling reaction to her today. On this day he needed every one of his faculties to patch up a scar that refused to stop bleeding.

"I'll be back after nightfall," he told Clay. "If Sascha turns up, take care of her."

Clay nodded and didn't ask any other questions, well aware why he was taking off during such a critical time. Some loyalties had prior rights over Lucas.

Leaving the sentinel in charge, Lucas got in his car to make the same trip he made once every year. His first stop was a florist.

"Hello, Lucas." A small, bespectacled brunette smiled at him from the other side of the shop as he entered.

"Hi, Callie. Is it ready?"

"Of course. Stay here. I put it out back."

He watched Callie go to fetch his standing yearly order and wondered at the difference between them. The florist was near his age but she was so innocent that he felt a thousand years older. He knew it wasn't because she was human and he was changeling. No, it had been blood and death that had aged him.

A minute later, she emerged, a huge wildflower bouquet in her arms. "Special order for someone special."

He'd never shared who the flowers were for, the wounds too deep to subject to casual scrutiny. "Thanks."

"I charged it to your account."

"See you next year."

"Take care, Lucas."

The second he got in his car he felt cold, chilled, alone. It was always this way on this one shadowed day, as if his childhood desolation resonated through time to torment him.

It took him over three hours to head out of the city and deep into the forests. Leaving the car on a hidden track, he traversed the remaining distance on foot. Nothing marked the spot where his mother and father had been buried, but he found their graves as if they'd been flashing welcoming beacons. He'd chosen a hidden grove surrounded by trees for their last resting place.

"Hey, Mom." He laid the flowers on the thick grass. He never tidied here, never stopped the forest's advance. His parents had both been leopards at home in the wild. "I bought you the flowers that always got Dad out of trouble." In this place he was a child again, watching the two people who mattered more to him than any others, laugh and live. He should've never had to watch them die. A fist clenched around his heart as memories cascaded through his mind.

His mother's scream.

His own helpless, tortured shouts.

His father's cry of black despair as his mate's life was stolen right in front of him.

Something in Carlo had broken at that instant, but he'd stubbornly held on to life until his son was safe. Only then had he taken the step that would reunite him with his slaughtered mate. A black panther like her son, Shayla had been the reason for Carlo's heartbeat.

"I miss you, Dad." He put his palm on the earth on the other side of the flowers. His mother had been found and buried first but when the time had come to bury Carlo, Lucas had insisted on a reburial. They'd been put to rest in each other's arms. In his heart, he hoped that that meant they'd found each other again.

"I need you to guide me." He should've never become alpha at barely twenty-three years of age but it had been inevitable. When the previous alpha, Lachlan, had died unexpectedly two years after stepping down, Lucas had lost even that source of support. "I need to know if what I'm doing is right. What if this leads to more death? The Psy aren't going to stand back and let us tell the world they've been running interference for the worst kind of killer."

The tree branches whispered in the wind as he spoke and he liked to think it a sign that his parents were listening. They were the only ones. None of his sentinels ever followed him here. No one asked him where he was going. No one asked him where he'd been.

He stayed for hours, speaking to two extraordinary people who'd been deprived of their love and their lives in the most brutal fashion but hadn't broken. Carlo and Shayla had fought to the end like the courageous changelings they'd been. They'd fought not for themselves but for the life of their son. For him.

"I won't let you down." He wiped away tears that came from the heart of the boy who'd almost died with his parents. Only his hunger for vengeance had kept him going when no one thought he'd survive.

That bloody day and the ones that followed had shaped him, scarred him, and strengthened him. No one hurt the people Lucas cared about. No one took those who were his. He'd proven that he'd kill anybody who tried. Anybody.

Sascha had been feeling odd since the moment she'd woken. Worried that the changelings would pick up on the strange sadness weighing her down, she'd canceled her meetings with DarkRiver and occupied herself at Duncan headquarters, trying to keep under the radar so that Enrique wouldn't track her down.

It was a relief to come home and shut out the probing eyes of the other Psy. The heavy darkness in her had increased through the day until it was a sharp pain in her heart. Not sure if it was an effect of her rapidly deteriorating mental state or something physical, she considered going to Medical.

A second later, she ruled that out. She didn't know what the M-Psy saw when they looked inside a body. What if her mental patterns were so aberrant that they showed up and the medics demanded further tests? Sleep seemed the best option. If she wasn't feeling better by tomorrow, she'd try to find some way of getting treatment without exposing herself to deep scans.

Another wave of thudding pain rocked through her body. She winced and rubbed her temples. Her eyes went to the communication panel. Maybe Lucas would know a medical person who would be discreet. Almost immediately, she shook her head. What was she thinking? Lucas clearly considered the Psy to be heartless automatons - why would he help her?