Jane Godman - Awakening The Shifter

Khan pulled a chair over to the side of the bed and sat in it. Resting his feet on the mattress, he leaned back with his arms folded across his chest. Sarange turned on her side, drinking in the beauty of his profile. “You can’t stay there all night.”

“How else will I make sure you are safe?”

It was on the tip of her tongue to suggest he could join her, but she stopped short of saying the words. This wasn’t a fling, or even the start of a brief relationship. This was beyond anything she had ever known. There was magic between them, but there were barriers as well. She still had no idea what this attraction was about. She suspected Khan knew and was fighting forces that went way beyond her comprehension.

She spent the night content to drift in and out of sleep, enjoying the deep contentment his presence brought. Strange snippets of dreams gripped her as slumber pulled her deeper into its embrace. Four men who all looked alike. Blue Fire. Great Tiger. Golden Eagle. The words meant nothing and everything. Each time she stirred and opened her eyes, Khan was there, watching over her.

Her life had just changed forever, and she didn’t know whether fear or excitement was her strongest emotion. She only knew she had never felt either with such intensity.

* * *

Sleeping was one of Khan’s favorite activities. Fortunately, he could do it pretty much anywhere. When he was on stage, he expended huge amounts of energy, and afterward his inner tiger took over to restore his energy. While on tour, he had been known to spend half the day sleeping. It wasn’t considered unusual among his bandmates. Diablo and Dev were also werecats. No one flinched when Finglas bowed down before the full moon, Torque took to the skies or Ged disappeared into the forest for hours. There was mutual respect among the group for the diverse traits of the individual members.

So sleeping in a chair at Sarange’s bedside shouldn’t be a problem for him. Physically, it wasn’t. He could curl his long limbs into a comfortable position and, catlike, be asleep in seconds. Even though they hadn’t spoken about her attackers and their motivation, the possibility that they might return was at the back of Khan’s mind. He wasn’t afraid of that. They wouldn’t sneak up on him while he slumbered. Khan didn’t know who these people were, but he could go from sleeping to waking in an instant. The slightest sound, movement, scent, even a shift in the air would alert him to danger. His every sense would power up and be ready to take on the enemy. His fingers curled into the shape of claws as he looked forward to the prospect of confronting them.

No, it wasn’t the physical practicalities of sleeping in a chair that bothered him. It was the problem of being so close to Sarange and not touching her. He had crossed a line tonight. Resistance had become acceptance. He had been fighting his attraction to her so hard that he had ignored another part of his role as a mate...protection. Alongside the admission that he had a duty to care for her, some of the barriers he had worked so hard to erect had come tumbling down. He couldn’t remain antagonistic toward her when he needed to be at her side 24/7. He didn’t know what the future had in store, but the present held a new rapport. Khan could snarl about the quirk of fate that had brought them here, but he was honest enough to admit he liked it. A little too much.

Although why watching Sarange sleep should bring him so much pleasure, he had no idea. She lay curled on her side in the huge bed, with one hand under her uninjured cheek. Her braid hung like a glossy rope over her shoulder, and the bedclothes had slipped down to reveal her pink pajama top. Her features were relaxed, her long lashes shadowing her cheeks, her lips slightly parted. And, alongside the fire in his blood, something softer bloomed within him.

He’d had enough torture. There was only so much nobility one person could stand. Slipping off his shoes, he leaned over Sarange and pulled the comforter up to her shoulders before lying down next to her. He was fully dressed. She was beneath the bedclothes. Resisting temptation would be a new experience, but he was prepared to try it.

Holding his breath in an attempt not to disturb Sarange, he settled his weight, turning on his side and mirroring her position. This was the problem with being a solitary being living among social creatures. Khan was used to doing what made him feel good without considering others. He stopped short of breaking the law and tried not to hurt anyone—either physically or emotionally—in the process. Even so, he had a lot in common with the ultimate hedonists who had colonized this human world. Like a domestic cat, Khan sought his pleasures, took them and only considered others as a means of getting what he wanted.

Right now his perfect pleasure was lying next to him...but he wasn’t going to take her. His life had changed the moment he saw Sarange. The fabric of who he was comprised a unique pattern, woven by his experiences. It was ever-changing with old colors and textures fading and disappearing and new ones emerging. Even Khan had no idea how long he had been alive, or where his life had begun. Held in captivity in China, he had been in his tiger form when he was captured. The darkness, despair, hunger and weakness of his imprisonment had lasted many lifetimes. His captors had used silver to weaken him, but they couldn’t kill him. He was unique, and that frustrated them. Now and then, he suspected his captors might have been werewolves, but he had no idea why they wanted him. A weretiger against a group of werewolves? It should have been no contest. That had been his last coherent memory of his capture until he was rescued by Ged.

Kept in a cage barely larger than a large dog kennel, deprived of natural light and half-starved, Khan had been close to death when Ged, acting on a story passed on by one of his informants, found him.

Ged was an enigma, even to his closest friends. A werebear of giant proportions, in his human form he poured his considerable talents into the day job. How he balanced managing one of the most successful rock bands in the world with his other persona was a mystery. Ged helped shifters who were injured, damaged or at risk of harm. Khan knew very little about his rescue work, only that Ged was the founder of an international team. Like the Red Cross for shifters.

Ged had always hoped that, once Khan was restored to full health and the trauma of his captivity had receded, his memory would return. It never had. There were snippets now and then. Of stalking deer along thicketed watercourses. Of vast, arid deserts. Of peering into shoreline bracken. Of crawling through a latticework of tangled low shrubs, emerging into willow and poplar forests. Nothing of himself, of who he was. Who is Khan? He had no idea.

Yet lying here, breathing in time with Sarange’s rhythm, inhaling her sweet scent, he felt something stir inside him. Barely enough to call a memory, different to the bonds that bound him to her physically and emotionally. Certainty. That was what it felt like. A confidence that this woman was part of who he was. That pattern in the fabric of his life? The vibrant threads Khan didn’t recognize had been woven by a different hand. Hers.

He didn’t know how that could be so when Sarange believed herself to be human. She had no memory of herself as a shifter, let alone a shifter whose life had intersected his own. They both appeared to have a remembrance short circuit. Now that they had met, was it possible they would trigger each other’s memories?

On that optimistic note, Khan draped an arm over her waist and rubbed his cheek against the silken mass of her hair. Sarange murmured in her sleep and he smiled as he closed his eyes. This was the only pleasure he needed.