He loved her. He’d said it. No one had told her that in a hundred years. Not since her mother had been alive. She was the last and only person who’d loved her. Vampires didn’t love. At least not the vampires she’d been exposed to. She doubted her father was capable of love even when he’d been human. A thousand of years of life had bled all tender emotion from his cold heart.

Isabella couldn’t keep her eyes off of Ashton, even after Domingo and her father stormed into the room.

“She’s been tainted by the shifter. She can’t be turned now. Not while he lives,” Santiago said with contempt. “This is a problem.”

“Why don’t we just kill him now, solve the problem.”

Her father sniffed the air. “Even now, the animal’s whelp buries itself in her womb. She is ruined. Isabella, you have always been a disappointment.”

“I know, Father. You made me, and you hate me for it. It makes me wonder how you feel about yourself.”

“Hold your tongue, you insolent girl,” he commanded as he turned out the door, his long robe swishing around his tall, slender frame.

“Should I do it now?” Domingo asked, still looking at them.

“We must prepare,” her father said. “Killing a vampire, even a halfling, takes preparation. Come!”

The door slammed closed, and Isabella was left alone with Ashton, the man who loved her. The words her father had spoken were slowly sinking into her mind. The shifter’s whelp? What did that mean? Was she pregnant?

“Isabella, we have to get out of here,” Ashton said again.

“Did you hear what he said, Ashton?” she asked breathlessly.

“I heard him. I heard him say he’s going to kill us both.”

“I’m pregnant,” she said. Her mind reeled. She’d had all kinds of sex with all kinds of men but had never been pregnant in all her hundred years. Getting a halfling pregnant wasn’t that easy. It wasn’t like with a human woman who was fertile every single month. She was barely ever fertile, maybe once a decade, for just a few days. Ashton’s seed had taken hold inside her womb, and she was now with child.

“I know, Isabella. But now we need to get the hell out of here, or we’re all dead.”

She pulled against the chains on the bed but it was useless. She didn’t have the strength to free herself that way. “Any ideas?” she asked Ashton, the sound of rattling chains filling the room.

“Look around. See if there is anything we can use to pry the handcuffs loose,” he suggested. He was against the wall, too far from anything else in the room to reach. Isabella stood from the bed and walked the foot or so that the chains allowed, trying to reach an empty bookshelf. She strained against the chains, but she couldn’t make it to the shelf.

Moonlight shined down through the slight window above them and touched the skin on Isabella’s outstretched hand. A spark ignited inside her as if the moonlight had started a fire.

It raged within, burning her entire body from the inside out. She felt herself contorting, growing, changing. At the edge of her awareness, she heard Ashton gasp with shock and call her name. Her clothing ripped as her limbs elongated.

Seconds later, she stood in the middle of the room, chains broken, a giant yellow cougar. She panted in the dim light, trying to make sense of what had just happened. Her senses sang with supernatural strength beyond anything she’d ever known. She went to Ashton and clawed at his chains, setting him free with two quick swipes.

Ashton threw his arms around her neck and kissed her furry muzzle with his full lips. “You’re beautiful, Isabella. I had no idea this would happen.”

Isabella could sense his feelings and words deep inside her mind. She could send him messages, even though she couldn’t physically speak. “Let’s go,” she said.

She bashed the window above them and shifted into her small human form. “Quickly,” she said, pointing at the window. Ashton helped her through and she turned to pull him up behind her. Outside, the full moon shone down on them both. She was about to shift back to her lion from when Ashton gave a low groan and collapsed on the ground.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” he told her, his voice agonized.

“You’re changing!” Isabella said with surprised certainty. “We have to get out of here now, Ashton.”

“Go Isabella, go now.”

“I won’t leave you here to die Ashton. Get on my back,” she demanded. Isabella shifted and knelt so that Ashton could climb aboard her back. Strength and power coursed through her and she could feel herself a thousand times more formidable than she had been before.

Ashton clung weakly to her back as she charged through the woods. She didn’t even stop for the wall. In one quick jump, she was up and over. Ashton fell to the ground and screamed. He’d turned pale and cold, the color of his eyes going dim.

She knelt before him and clawed at her own wrist, drawing thick lion’s blood for him to drink. She pressed her wrist to his lips, and he choked on the hot liquid as it dripped into his mouth.

“Drink,” she told him through the psychic link. She’d never made a vampire before. She didn’t even know it was possible, let alone as a newly formed hybrid vampire shifter. The implications blew her mind.

Ashton moaned from the ground, and he stopped drinking. She removed her paw and licked his cheek, trying to comfort him. She laid beside him and purred in an effort to keep him warm as he changed or died.

There was nothing else she could do. No doctors, no supernatural ambulance to call. The paranormals of Mystic Harbor stayed separate, even though it was to their detriment. Trying to mix with the human population hadn’t done anyone any good. What was the point of living in a supernatural community if there were no resources?

Ashton began to convulse beside her. She put her foreleg over him but he turned to the side and threw up. Shifting onto all fours, he heaved into the grass. Isabella watched powerlessly as he cleared his stomach. The moments seemed like centuries. She knew that Domingo and her father were right behind them.

At any moment the two of them would descend and kill them both. “Are you all right?” she pleaded through their link. Ashton growled and wiped his mouth with the back of his arm. Slowly he stood, seeming to grow an extra couple of inches. The light of his blue eyes flashed yellow as he came to his full height.

His muscles bulged and his fangs protruded from his upper lip. “This feels better,” he growled. Isabella’s lion roared with laughter.

“We should go,” she pleaded.

“No more running,” he growled.