Madison Layle - Falke’s Captive

She frowned and looked at the clock.

“Beth,” Kelan said, drawing her attention back to him.

She folded her arms defiantly.

He frowned, closed his eyes a brief second, and then looked straight at her. “Remember, I love you.”

Damn tears burned her eyes.

Then a bright light flashed in the room, nearly blinding her. When she blinked away the white spots in her eyes, right where Kelan had been stood a two-hundred pound cougar wearing the Falke collar.

She blinked again, slowly, sure she was seeing things. “Holy shit…”

Kelan watched Beth blink, then blink again. Her mouth opened, and she murmured, “Holy shit.”

He’d never given thought to the time he’d reveal himself to his mate—to any woman—to someone who could destroy his family. Just last week it was something so far into the future he hadn’t bothered to contemplate it.

But here it was.

Here she was.

Dear God, he prayed this wasn’t a huge mistake. Taking the wrap for B&E and vandalism would have been simpler than this.

He swallowed the lump in his throat, tried to calm his thudding heart and projected his thoughts into her mind. We are Falke.

Beth gasped, flinched, and her eyes widened. She leaned back slightly and gripped the armrests of the chair.

I was the cougar you tranquilized in the woods and brought to your lab. The one you tagged. I was the one you tracked to the store. But it was my brother Gunnar you tried to shoot when you shot me the second time.

“And this,” Reidar said, stepping beside him, “is the reason why we cannot have our existence known. This is why we protect Falke, because Falke is all of us.”

She closed her eyes tight and pushed her fists against her temples, shaking her head.

I spent hours trapped in a cage. Imprisoned, Beth.

She blinked and stared at him again, still shaking her head. “I—I didn’t…Kelan?”

Yes. I know you didn’t know, didn’t mean to hurt me, and physically, I’m fine, but can you imagine what I went through in that cage? Given raw meat I can’t stand, tagged and studied whether I wanted to be or not, and kept locked up behind bars, wondering what would happen to me next? He tilted his head and held her gaze with steady regard. I know you said you liked cages, but trust me-they aren’t all they’re cracked up to be when you’re put inside one against your will.

“Oh, God,” she whispered, her hand rising to cover her mouth.

“We don’t want to be lab rats,” Reidar added. “We just want to live in peace like everyone else.”

Beth glanced back and forth between them. “The cat’s talking in my head.” She looked at Kelan.

“You’re in my head. How can you do that?”

“It’s something we can all do,” Reidar explained. “It’s part of who we are. When in catamount form, we can project our thoughts into the minds of humans so they can hear us.”

“You can do that? What he did?” she asked Reidar. “You’re one of…” She stared at Falke. “All of you?”

Yes. All of us , Kelan said.

“The whole town?”

“No.”

“Just your family then…” She looked at Reidar. “Even Heidi? But she’s a vet. Don’t animals act weird around you or something?”

“She can talk telepathically to us, her family members, but she can’t shift.”

“That’s doesn’t seem fair,” Beth said with a frown.

Who said life was fair? Or easy? Or even fathomable?

Reidar added, “Our best guess is that shape shifting is somehow tied to the Y chromosome, because only males have the ability. Something you would have eventually found out with more testing. Something we can’t have discovered, much less revealed.”

Beth stared at them, at Kelan in particular, and the emotions flitting over her face were varied and sometimes unreadable. Excitement, a little fear, a lot of confusion.

She wants to tell the world about us , Reidar said to him alone.

Beth , Kelan said, directing his thoughts to her, knowing his brother would hear as well. We know you are a scientist, and the discovery of a new species—something that should only exist in fiction-could bring you fame and fortune, but you said your life’s work was to save endangered species from going extinct.

“It is,” she agreed, her tone almost eager. “It could. My God…are you alone? I mean are there others like you?”

Ignoring her curiosity for the moment, Kelan urged her to think for a minute what would happen to us, to our family, to this town even, if you exposed us. He took the steps to close the space between them, sat at her feet and looked up at her. He couldn’t remember begging for anything in his life, but he begged now. Please understand. There are very few of us in the world. We wouldn’t survive the publicity, the experimentation, or the public’s paranoia. You put me in a cage once, and I realize it was because you didn’t know, but now you do.

“I know we’ve damaged your trust in us,” Reidar said, “but can’t you see we had no choice?”

She turned her head to look at Reidar.

“We may not have shown it before, but we’re trusting you,” he continued, “because we believe you meant it when you said you didn’t want to harm Falke or any animal for the sake of science, that your intentions are pure. If you really want to help those who need it—”

“Reidar—”

“Now’s your chance to prove it.”

Don’t take away the freedom we have, Kelan said. He took a deep breath and decided to lay it all out for her. He had to believe she had compassion. He knew she did have it; she just needed to look past the scientific discovery to view the big picture. Dakota is pregnant with Axel and Gunnar’s babies. If you expose us, not only will we become lab experiments, so will Dakota, a normal human woman who fell in love with our kind. Would you harm her or her unborn children?

Beth reached out a hand and touched his head. “You can stop trying to convince me…Kelan. I understand. I know what would happen to you. I’m not so eager for fame or fortune that I would threaten that which I’ve sworn to protect.”

Kelan relaxed with the release of a deep breath.

She licked her lips and ran her fingers down his nose, rubbed his cheek. When she touched the earring in his ear, she smiled. “To cover up the tag hole? You didn’t have an earring the first time I saw you like this.”

He chuckled, which sounded somewhere between a cough and a sneeze in his present form. Yes.

It looks a little strange on a cougar, though, doesn’t it?

She reached forward with her other hand and cupped his face, rubbing her thumbs over his cheeks, burying her fingers in his fur. “You’re so beautiful.”

“You’re the beautiful one,” Reidar said, kneeling down next to Kelan and touching Beth’s face.

“We meant what he said before. We do love you, Beth. With all our hearts. And we’re so sorry we hurt you, but our family means every—” She touched his lips with her fingers. “I get it. I do.” Then her curiosity showed again as she asked, “Can you shift into anything else?”

No, although I think soaring as an eagle would be so cool.

She grinned. “Yeah, it would. Does it hurt? When you shift?”

“It kind of tingles, like an electric current.”

She dug her fingertips into his fur, and Kelan purred, making her giggle. “That’s so…wild.” Then her eyes warmed, and he almost missed the slight shake of her head, the whispered words, “My wild man.”

He rubbed her palm with his nose. That’s domesticated wild man, thank you very much.