LITMIR.BIZ

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stared at him wide-eyed and stunned. “Why? I thought he was in charge. Your leader or something.”

      “He was. But your mother wasn’t like us, and we couldn’t know if you would go through the change or not. If you’d be more like her than him. Sometimes half-breed offspring do, sometimes they don’t. But either way, humans must never know about us. As each year passes, as populations grow, our secret has become harder to keep. If human offspring were allowed to grow up in The Colony, it would be impossible.

      “That’s why it’s imperative that we never mate outside The Colony. Your dad broke that rule. He saw your mom in a bordering town and fell instantly in love. He was lost from that moment forward. I promised him the day he left that if you changed, if you started your transformation, I would find you and I would bring you home safely.”

      She leaned back in the booth. “You realize how crazy all this sounds, right?”

      “Yes.”

      “So according to you, I’m changing into some kind of demon hybrid and soon I will no longer be human?”

      He nodded. “That’s about it in a nutshell.”

      She slid out of the booth and stood. “Great meeting you, Jason.”

      “I understand how this all sounds.”

      “Do you?” She leaned in close to him. “And what about you, Jason? Are you some kind of demon? Are you not human, too?”

      He placed a room key on the table and slid it toward her. “We’re both tired. Get some rest. We’ll talk more in the morning. You’re in room fifteen. I’ll be right next door if you need me.”

      “Don’t worry,” she said, snatching up the key. “I won’t.”

      * * *

      Shay put on her jammies and climbed into bed as Buddy settled himself onto the floor next to her. “Everything is going to be all right,” she whispered to her dog. But was it? She had no clue what she was going to do. How could she believe a word Jason had said? It was crazy, and yet, somehow everything he’d said fit. He knew what she’d been going through with the colors and the sounds, and he’d said she wasn’t the only one. The burden lifted off her by his words was substantial. She didn’t have a tumor, benign or otherwise. She wasn’t going crazy. She was just going through some kind of change.

      But into a demon? How could he expect her to believe that? She switched off the light and touched the necklace around her neck. If any of this was true, why hadn’t her father told her? Why hadn’t her mother? Both had died when she was so young. First her father from a freak accident in which he’d fallen off the cliffs into the Pacific, and then her mother, killed by a drunk driver. Maybe they meant to tell her, but never got the chance. Maybe there was nothing to tell because it was all crazy.

      She had no idea how much time had passed when she woke to darkness. She was dripping with sweat and wrapped in a wet sheet. Pain sliced across her middle. She groaned, bending over, cradling her stomach as images of the forest flashed through her mind. She could smell the damp earth, thick and musky in her nose, could feel the power in her legs stretching out beneath her, carrying her fast through the night as she chased after the acrid scent of fear from a scurrying rabbit.

      She screamed as another sharp pain sliced through her insides. The images came quicker, the outlines of the ferns and the Douglas firs were easy to distinguish by the light of the moon. Even though it was dark, details were so much easier to see as her vision sharpened into focus.

      Her breathing, rough and ragged, scraped across the inside of her throat. She moaned, curling up into a ball, bunching the damp sheets in her sweaty palms. The door connecting her room with the one next door burst open. On the outskirts of her peripheral vision she saw Jason hurry toward her. The bed sagged as he sat next to her.

      “Here, eat this,” he said, thrusting a large piece of jerky into her hand. “It’s venison.”

      “I can’t.” She pushed it away as pain seared her insides. “I feel like I’m being ripped in two.”

      “I know, I went through it, too. We all did. I just thought we’d have more time before you would. You need the protein. Eat it,” he demanded.

      “No!” Her mouth was dry and filled with grit, there was no way she’d be able to swallow it. And even if she did, she wouldn’t be able to keep it down.

      “Sorry.” He pushed the meat into her mouth. The woodsy flavor exploded across her tongue. She barely had it chewed before she was swallowing and greedily reaching for more.

      He placed another piece between her lips. “No more salads for you. Not for a while.”

      “I love salads,” she said weakly then cried out again as another surge swept through her. Her body temperature spiked, and she hung weakly on to Jason’s arm, riding the wave of torment.

      “Your body is changing. You need to give it extra fuel. Only protein from now on.”

      “Okay,” she whispered, knowing she’d promise anything if he could only make the pain stop.

      He gave her another piece of jerky. She chewed it more slowly this time, the gamey flavor satisfying her in a way she’d never imagined. She wanted more. And she wanted it now. She chewed and chewed, trying to concentrate on the fulfilling taste even as the pain swept over her, stealing her thoughts. Tears coursed down her cheeks, but she didn’t care. This pain was sharper than when she’d broken her arm and deeper than anything she’d ever felt.

      She cried out again as another wave swept through her, doubling her over until she just wanted to die, to close her eyes and drop off the deep end of oblivion. She felt herself being moved, being gathered up and pulled into Jason’s embrace. He was lying behind her, holding her nestled against him as he murmured in her ear and continued to put small pieces of the meat into her mouth.

      She tried to concentrate on the feel of him behind her. With the strength of his arms wrapped around her, his infinite heat seemed to melt her limbs into mush. His smell, woodsy and earthy, of pine and forest, reached inside her and she breathed deep, breathed it so far into her that she wasn’t sure where she stopped and he began.

      She touched the crystals on his wrist, fingering the smooth stones and rough twine. Dragging her fingers down to his strong warrior hands, trying to focus on the feel of them, their strength and their gentleness.

      “I can help you if you’ll let me,” he whispered.

      “Yes,” she cried, as another wave of intense heat stole over her, bringing with it the racking nausea.

      He stood and slipped out of his jeans and pulled off his T-shirt. She wanted to protest, to demand to know what he was doing, but instead she curled up and closed her eyes as she willed the pain to stop. And then he was pulling off her pajama pants, pulling her shirt up over her head.

      “No,” she protested, trying to cover her exposed breasts.

      He slipped into the bed next to her and pulled her up against his hot skin. At first she tried to pull away from him. To put some distance between them, but then his hands began to move, soothing and caressing her skin. Moving up her body, and with each sure stroke, the pain and the tension began to ease. Warmth seeped into her clenched and strained muscles, appeasing the tension, until she began to relax and a new tension lit her nerve endings.

      She felt each gentle touch so deeply it was almost as if she could feel the ridges of his fingerprints being imprinted on her skin. Nerve endings fired and tingled, leaving longing in their wake. His bare feet cupped hers, the backs of her legs pressed tight against the front of his, her backside nestled deeply in his center, his warmth melding with her as his hand moved up and around her hips.

      His lips moved across the sensitive lobes and the outer shell of her ear as he murmured to her that everything would be all right. The pain wouldn’t last. And he was right, it was finally ebbing. But a new kind of pain was starting, an exquisite burn of longing and need, and she pushed herself even closer

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