Night Shift (Kate Daniels #6.5)(13)

Bastien’s scent on her should keep her safe. Lucas wouldn’t mete out the penalty without first contacting him, but Kirby would be terrified in the meantime. And, given that they weren’t yet lovers, he couldn’t be certain his scent would hold on her skin.

No way in hell would he risk it. Lucas had to know.

Bastien would deal with any consequences.

“You’re mine, little cat,” he murmured, brushing his lips over her temple, “and I’m not letting go.” Not now. Not ever.





CHAPTER 5





Bastien got up before Kirby, and was fully dressed when she rose happy and energetic. It soothed man and leopard both to see her that way, and he made sure to sneak in a playful kiss, his body wrapped around hers, before he drove her the short distance to the kindergarten.

Never would his mate hunger for touch again.

Cheeks still flushed? she surprised him by leaning across from the passenger seat to claim his mouth in an affectionate good-bye once they reached her workplace. “Will I see you tonight?” She fiddled with the belt of the dark green dress coat she wore over a kindergarten-appropriate outfit of jeans and a white shirt with elbow-length sleeves.

He wanted to tell her he was her mate, would always be there for her, but her life was already complicated—Kirby needed him to be her rock right now, not use her vulnerability to shove her into the passionate intensity of the mating bond. “Unless you plan to seduce another helpless male,” he said with a teasing smile.

Making a face at him, she got out, then leaned down to smile through the open window. “I can’t wait to see you again.”

Her courage in saying what was in her heart further enslaved him. Forcing himself to leave once she entered the cheerful little building that would soon fill with children’s voices, he went to his apartment only long enough to shower and change. Ten minutes later, he was dressed in jeans paired with a dark gray T-shirt, and on the phone with his assistant, issuing instructions about what needed to be done in his absence.

Then—staying on the phone using the car’s wireless capabilities—he drove not to DarkRiver’s Chinatown HQ but to the green sprawl of the pack’s Yosemite territory. According to Lucas’s admin assistant, the DarkRiver alpha was working from home today. Bastien’s own assistant continued to touch base with him throughout the drive, but even as he fielded the queries, part of his mind was on the conversation he’d had with Kirby over breakfast.

“Do you have any changeling ancestry?”

Kirby’s laughter had been as sunny as the morning light pouring through the narrow window at one end of her kitchen. “No, plain old human as far as I know.” An open smile that kicked him right in the heart. “Do you mind?”

“I’d think you were perfect even if you were an ice-cold Psy.”

Bastien would stake his life on the fact that there’d been no deceit in her then, or at any time prior. As far as Kirby was concerned, she was human. Except, that was simply not possible. A changeling’s animal was as integral to his or her life as the human half of their nature—Bastien couldn’t be human as he couldn’t be leopard.

He was changeling, accustomed to the feel of his leopard stretching lazily beneath his skin when he wore this form, and to thinking with a man’s mind if necessary while in cat form. The idea that Kirby could’ve separated the two somehow, stifling her animal side . . . it not only made no sense, it should’ve been physiologically impossible according to all known laws of science and nature.

Yet her scent argued otherwise. He’d finally realized why he’d had such trouble tracking her—it was because Kirby’s scent wasn’t integrated as it should be. The feline part was too primal for a changeling, not balanced by the human aspect, while the human part was too gentle without the feline edge to it. Kirby didn’t have the natural depth to her scent a human would have, because she wasn’t human, her scent meant to be a combination of the two sides of her nature.

“Bas.” His assistant’s voice interrupted his turbulent thoughts. “I just got the report on those shares.”

“Go.” Wrenching his attention to the topic at hand, he listened, then gave further instructions, after which he switched to speak to another colleague, before handling a minor issue for an elder in the pack.

The work was welcome; it kept his mind from going around in circles.

He was back in contact with his assistant by the time he parked the vehicle in Yosemite, directing the younger male to make several small financial maneuvers designed to benefit the pack. That done, he gave a “do not disturb” order and stuffed his phone into the front left pocket of his jeans before stretching out into a run, the alpha pair’s aerie in a part of the forest inaccessible to vehicles.

Though he ran in human form, he gave up control of his body to the leopard. It loved the freedom of the forest, loved feeling the wind ripple through its coat, the carpet of forest debris soft and quiet beneath the pads of its paws. That leopard, however, was also very strategy minded and enjoyed what Bastien did for the pack—to the cat, the financial stuff appeared akin to a game, a hunt.

Seeing a young soldier on patrol on the extended perimeter around Lucas’s aerie, he halted, the human half of his nature rising to the surface once more. “Luc in?”

The tall auburn-haired male nodded, grin bright. “He’s on babysitting detail.”