Dana Bell - The Wallflower

Suddenly, she had to know. “Max?”

“Hmm?”

She ignored the hand he held out to help her down. “Why me?” He looked confused. “I mean, you just came home three months ago and can still have any woman in Halle. Why are you trying to seduce me ?”

“The real question in my mind is why I didn’t try it sooner.”

Emma stared into his eyes, reading regrets past and a determination that almost alarmed her. When he cocked his brow questioningly, she took his hand and let him help her out of the Durango. She took a deep breath to steady herself. “Okay, what’s the big deal?”

Max’s lips twitched.

Emma crossed her arms and tapped her foot. Her chin lifted as she waited for an answer.

Max reached out and gently stroked the bite mark on her neck. “Do you remember how you felt when I bit you there?”

Remember? My legs still feel like rubber. She nodded, doing her best not to let any of that show in her face while secretly locking her knees. She must not have succeeded because Max’s smile heated. “That was me marking you as mine.”

Emma rolled her eyes. “Didn’t we have this discussion, Captain Caveman? A hickey does not make me yours.”

“But in this case, it does.” When Emma shook her head, he nodded. “There’s a special enzyme that’s only released when I bite someone. I released it into you, Emma. You’re my mate.”

“Doesn’t it take three bites to turn me, Dracula?” She didn’t even bother trying to keep the disbelief out of either her face or her voice.

“If I was a vampire, yes, it would.” Max grinned, his eyes glinting oddly in the moonlight.

“Oh. So I’m going to start baying at the moon, then.” She nodded sagely.

“No, baby, you’re going to purr,” he purred, licking his mark with a rough, raspy tongue.

Emma shivered. “You know, this has to be the oddest way a man’s tried to get in my pants in ages.”

He snarled warningly, the sound oddly cat-like and strangely familiar. “Didn’t we say we wouldn’t discuss you and other men?”

“Max, you’re not making any sense. Now, let me call Simon and we can discuss getting your Thorazine prescription renewed…”

Max strangled a laugh, lifting his head from her neck. “Look at my eyes, Emma.”

She looked. Then she blinked. She opened her mouth to say something, anything, but nothing came out.

His eyes had turned to pure molten gold, shining in the moonlight with an eerie luminescence that one only saw in the eyes of…cats.

“Contact lenses?” she asked weakly.

He shook his head and blinked, his eyes that quickly turning back to sunshine blue.

“You’re a, what? Werecat?”

“Puma, actually.”

“Puma,” she repeated weakly, dropping back to lean against the Durango’s door. “And you bit me, so now I’m going to roar at the full moon?”

He sighed. “Actually, Puma’s can’t roar, we’re missing the necessary parts. Specialized larynx and hyoid apparatus, to be precise. And we can change at will, we aren’t ruled by the moon.”

“Oh.” Emma’s head was reeling. “Can you show me?”

Max frowned. “Show you?”

“Yeah.” Emma straightened up, half terrified and half excited at the prospect of seeing him change. She waved her hand at him commandingly. “Change. Become a cat.”

“Now?”

“Yeah, now! What, you need to wait for the full moon? I thought you said you could change at will?”

“Emma—”

“I mean, why tell me this at all if you weren’t willing to, I dunno, prove it or something?”

“Emma—”

He was starting to sound all snarly again. “So c’mon, Lion-O, hop to it.” She clapped, loud and sharp.

“Chop-chop!”

“Emma!”

“What?”

“Have you ever seen a cougar in Levi’s?”

“No.”

“Neither have I.” He looked like he couldn’t decide if he wanted to laugh or yowl.

“You mean you’d have to…” Emma eyed his jeans speculatively.

“ Yes .”

“Oh.”

“And if my ass is naked, baby, you’d better believe yours will be too.”

Emma put her hands on her hips and glared at him. “Isn’t this why you brought me all the way out here, to show me your Incredible Cougar Act?”

“Puma.”

“Whatever.”

“No.”

“Then why?”

“I figured if you screamed no one would hear you.”

Emma blinked. “Gee, Max, you’re all heart.” He had the grace to blush. “So, because you bit me, and released your enzyme thingy in me, I’m going to change into a puma?”

Max nodded.

“Does it hurt?”

Max shook his head. His eyes had glued themselves to her neck, the hunger in them getting stronger by the second.

“When?”

“When what?” he asked absently, his hand drifting down to her arm before moving to stroke the bite mark.

“When will I change, Max?”

“I changed within the first forty-eight hours after I got bit.”

Emma gasped in sympathetic horror. “Is that why you left and never came back, Max? Because you got bit?”

“No, I was bit because I was next in line to be Alpha.”

Emma shook her head. “Okay, now I’m totally confused. Maybe I’ve got food poisoning from my seafood alfredo and I’m actually in the hospital having hallucinations and heaving into a bucket,” she muttered.

Max laughed as he focused once again on her face. “Want me to prove you’re wide awake?” One hand snaked out, gently cupping her breast. His thumb raked across her nipple, shooting sparks straight down to her clit.

“Oh boy,” Emma whispered. “Okay, I’m awake.” She pulled reluctantly away from his caressing hand, determined to focus on the whole Emma-as-a-cat thing. With growing confusion, she rubbed at her forehead. “Can you please explain before my brain explodes?”

“Jonathon Friedelinde was Alpha before me. His daughter didn’t show Alpha tendencies, so a competition was held to determine who was strong enough to be the next Alpha. Simon and I overheard Marie and some of her friends whispering about the competition and we both entered, not knowing what the hell we were getting into, or what the prize was. Jonathon forgot to make the contest Puma only, which I pointed out to him with great, annoying frequency until he relented and let us in.” Max shrugged.

“I came in first, Simon came in second. What really bothered some people was the fact that Simon and I were both still human when we won, against some who’d been Pumas since childhood.”

“So you knew about the Pumas even before you entered the contest?”

“I was friends with Marie for years, saw her change once.”

Emma stared at him in growing horror, thinking of all the ways a Puma could rip into a man. “You could have been killed!”

Max seemed completely unconcerned. “If it had been a duel to the death, yeah, we both would have died. Instead it was a test of endurance, intelligence and cunning, and probably the most fun either of us has ever had. And sometimes I think the only reason we won was because no one was allowed to shift.”

“What was the test, paintball? Capture the flag?”

Max grinned. “Something like that, but a lot more complicated.” Max reached out and wrapped his hand around the nape of her neck, seemingly unable to go for any length of time without touching her somehow. The gesture was surprisingly comforting. “Jonathon bit us both that night, to our surprise. I was twenty, Simon nineteen.”

She reached up and gently stroked his cheek. “And confused as all hell, I’ll bet.”

He leaned into her caress, his eyes closing in pleasure. “We got used to it, and as soon as Jonathon stepped down I came home and named Simon my Beta.”