"Afraid not. You'll have to hold on." He gave her his back.

After a minute's silence, he felt two tentative hands on his shoulders and almost laughed in relief. Her actions spoke far louder than her frosty tones - his poor kitten was scared and dealing with it the only way she knew how.

He'd been around her race a lot more than she knew, though, for the most part, they'd been low-level Psy the Council would never bother with. Still, they'd all had one thing in common - a complete and utter lack of reaction to most stimuli.

In contrast, he'd caught Sascha looking up at the night sky as if it held a thousand dreams. He'd watched her playing with cubs with what most would term affection. And he'd felt her touch him as if he disturbed her on the most intimate of levels.

"Harder, darling," he drawled, the cat in him giving in to the impulse to tease. "Press close."

"Perhaps it would be easier to speak in the car."

His instincts were going crazy. His personal Psy was definitely disconcerted by his body. Good. He smiled where she couldn't see it. "I have food up there and I, for one, am starving. I ran to you, remember?"

"Of course. I understand." That lush body pressed close, her hands sliding under his arms to wrap up and over his shoulders.

He bit back a purr. His body was responding as if it knew hers, as if those dreams had been utterly real. He touched the backs of her thighs with his fingertips. "Jump."

She moved like they were one, wrapping her legs around his waist as he lunged to begin the climb, his claws slicing out to grip the smooth surface.

"Hold on tight." He could feel his body rubbing against hers with every movement. Her chest pushed into his back, a sweet, sensual pressure that he had no trouble enduring. Even through the leather-synth of her jacket, he could feel the heavy weight of those beautiful breasts he'd seen in his dreams and fantasized about for days. What would it take to tempt her enough to make dreams a reality?

Her legs tensed as he climbed higher, the heated core of her body cradled against the small of his back. It made him remember what they'd done in that last erotic dream. Smiling, he took a deep breath as he gripped the final branch. Lord have mercy!

Desire filled his nostrils, unleashing the beast that lived within. The panther batted at the scent, rolled it in his mouth, hungered for more of it. He might not be able to read minds but he could read bodies and Sascha's was screaming for his.

Chapter 10

He was fully erect by the time he landed on the leaf-strewn porch of his home. It was just as well that he hadn't tucked in the T-shirt. Sascha was hardly likely to be comforted by the sight of him primed and ready. He wasn't exactly comfortable with it himself. Perhaps she was unlike any other Psy he'd ever met but she was still Psy.

Still the enemy.

He'd promised his people that he'd allow no more of their women to be stolen, had taken an oath to see this through to the end, no matter what he had to do. "That wasn't so difficult, was it, darling?" He retracted his claws as Sascha slid off.

Her body pulled away from his as if she'd been burned. In spite of what he'd just reminded himself, he had to fight the urge to preen. This woman wanted him. Whether she knew it or not. "Come inside." Without turning to look at her, he opened the door and walked in.

Sascha was having trouble breathing. She continued to feel Lucas against the sensitive inner faces of her thighs, her muscles quickening in remembered sensation. She bit back a whimper - her mental walls were crumbling. Insanity beckoned. Image after image of incarceration at the Center shot through her mind, nightmare memories from an event that should've never taken place.

"No." She shoved everything she had into rebuilding those walls. Her fear of rehabilitation was so great that it momentarily dampened the heat between her legs. Only momentarily.

The instant she walked into Lucas's home, it shot through to inferno levels. She could see his silhouette behind a Japanese screen that looked to be separating the large room into living and sleeping areas. He was taking off his T-shirt and she couldn't help but watch. Her fingernails bit into her palms.

"Sascha? Do you mind starting the hot water? I'm going to take a shower to wash off the sweat from the run. Promise I'll be quick."

She was almost certain that he was deliberately trying to torment her. "Where is the control?" Her statement was very precise, because she was having trouble thinking past single words, her eyes riveted to his shadowy form.

"Straight ahead and to the left." His hands went to the top button of his jeans and his body began to turn to present a profile. She almost ran from the room. The section he'd directed her to was a small kitchen, the controls for the water on the wall.

His setup was understandably old-fashioned. She guessed it was powered by hidden eco-friendly generators. No changeling would choose any other method this deep in the wilderness. Pushing the appropriate button, she called out, "It's done."

"Thanks, darling."

She heard him moving and a few seconds later, the sound of falling water, so the shower had to be located off the sleeping area. Relieved to have a few minutes to calm herself down, she placed her hands to her cheeks and took a deep breath. The scent of man and forest infiltrated her mind like the most forbidden of drugs. She remembered the sharp glint of his claws as he'd climbed, and felt not fear, but a kind of awestruck wonder.

"Oh, God. Stop, Sascha, stop." She stared at the physical things around her in an effort to fight the repeating loop of pleasure and fear, sensation and cold terror. Even the threat of rehabilitation wasn't standing up against such intense proximity to Lucas.

The kitchen was small and compact, having a simple cooking/heating unit and very few other appliances. She noted a coffeemaker on the counter and moved to switch it on. Coffee wasn't something the Psy drank and though she'd tried it, it had never appealed to her. Since Lucas obviously liked it enough to have a high-tech machine, she started some before walking back to the living area.

It was wide and open, with several windows looking out into the forest. Given the fact that his lair had to be well protected, she guessed they were treated so as not to glimmer in the sun. Vines crawled along their surfaces, almost bringing the forest inside.

From the moistness in the air and the glimpse she'd had of a few water-loving plants she recognized, she guessed they were near a river, possibly close to one of the rare wetlands. Like most of his species, it appeared that the alpha of DarkRiver was adaptable to the extreme.

Looking away from the windows, she allowed herself to examine his living room. The light from the two motion-sensor lamps on the floor was soft, but then again, she thought, remembering those night-glow eyes, Lucas could see in the dark. The only other illumination came from a tiny red power light on the communication console set into the wall nearest the door. A closer look told her that it also functioned as a receiver for entertainment programs, though she had a feeling Lucas liked his entertainment far more physical... far more personal.

Flushing fever-hot, she moved away from the panel to look at the rest of the room. On the opposite side from the windows was a huge cushion, half of it propped against the wall, the other half on the floor, turning it into a de facto sofa. Lengthwise, it was more than enough for a leopard to stretch out on. Three smaller "sofas" were placed around the other walls.

A lot for one man but not for the alpha of DarkRiver. It was likely his packmates visited often. Only packmates? She shook her head. She wasn't that naive. A man as sexual as Lucas would have more than his share of lovers. Lovers who were at home with their sexuality, open and wild enough to take him on. He had no need to seduce a Psy who'd never kissed a man in anything other than her dreams.

The shower shut off. Funnily enough, she was calmer. Throwing the cold water of reality over her fantasies had proven a far more effective counter to her hunger than any Psy trick. When she heard him moving into the sleeping area, she walked back to the kitchen. Another teasing shadow-play might undo everything.

The coffee wasn't done. "What would you like to eat?" she asked without shouting, cognizant of his superb hearing. "I can start it."

"Thanks. Why don't you heat up some of the pizza Rina left last night? It's in the cooler."

Her jaw set. Rina? Had she met that leopard? What did it matter if she had? So what if the other female had been in Lucas's home? Finding the cleverly camouflaged cooler, she grabbed several slices of pizza and put them in a special container before placing it on the heating unit.

The thought of Lucas with another woman coated her with another icy layer of control. So much so that by the time the freshly washed scent of him invaded the air of the kitchen, she was back in the prison of her mind, back behind the walls she'd learned to put up before she could walk. "I'll wait for you in the living room," she told him, when she turned to find him facing her.

He let her pass with no trouble. "Thanks."

Lucas watched Sascha walk away, his eyes narrowed. Something had changed. Her body was stiff and if she hadn't been Psy, he'd have said she was angry. But her race were known to adopt stiff postures in their efforts to turn themselves into robots. The heating unit flicked off and he reached out to transfer the pizza onto a big plate.

Rina had brought too much. Even with two other soldiers there wolfing it down, they'd ended up with almost a whole pizza left over. The three had come over to talk to him about security for one of the safe houses but Rina had stayed behind to discuss Dorian. She was still young and seeing the sentinel almost lose it had shaken her.

Lucas picked up the plate and only then noticed that the coffee was ready. Sascha. She kept surprising him. Carrying the plate into the living room, he put it on a low table that sat in one corner of the room, before dragging the table to the cushion that Sascha had curled up against.

The cushions had been designed by Tara, a packmate. Meant to accommodate leopard bodies as well as human, there really was no way to sit stiffly in them.

Pleased by the liquid softness of her limbs, he smiled. "Grab a piece. I'll get the coffee."