Elijah had never experienced anything like it. Nothing could even come close to running as a panther through the woods with Valentina. He’d just committed a heinous act, albeit in self-defense, but still, he had murdered someone, and now he was happy, joyful even, as their pace ate up the ground under them. Trees and bushes all blurred past as streaks of green and brown as they practically flew over the ground.

A familiar scent caught his attention, and before he knew what he was doing, he veered off. Valentina must have heard him move off to the side, because a moment later, she was nipping at his heels. Her head pushed into his shoulder as they moved more slowly through the grove of trees he had led them into, and then she moved in front of him and climbed into a tree.

The night air ruffled his fur as he watched, and brought with it the scent of smaller woodland animals, and he knew without thinking what they were. A raccoon here, opossum there, a squirrel, a rabbit, a deer, they were all either turning in for the night or just starting to wake up. His cat knew that it could hunt them down, kill them, and eat them, and that there would be something completely satisfying about completing the task, but his human mind was focused on other things, such as the jaguar making herself comfy up in the tree in front of him.

He passed her and batted at the long tail that hung from the branch as he made his way to a sturdy-looking tree. On instinct, he knew how to climb, where to put his claws, when to push up, and which branch would be the most comfortable to relax on. Moments later, he mimicked Valentina’s position on her tree and found it oddly comfortable. He rested his chin on one side of the thick branch while his legs hung off either side as the branch ran the length of his torso.

A low sound resonated from the jaguar in the tree behind him. It was almost a purr, but almost a growl, too, as if she was content but didn’t want to be. The day’s events flashed through his mind, and all he could feel was frustration and disgust with himself. The urge to protect Valentina had been so strong, he was willing to let himself get killed. What kind of ridiculous idea was that? He barely even knew the woman and was considering risking his life for her?

He jumped down from the branch, his claws digging into the dirt as he landed. As he paced away from the tree that he had been in, he noticed the scent from earlier had grown even stronger. There was something so familiar about it, something that drew him to it like a magnet, but he couldn’t place it, at least not yet.

When Valentina headbutted him, he startled. He’d been so focused on the scent that he hadn’t heard her get down from the tree. She nipped at his shoulder and rear leg as he went to move away from her. It was when he felt a paw on his hips that he stopped and turned around. A big jaguar paw caught him across the shoulder, and he rolled to the ground. He was unsure what was going on, but his cat seemed to know, so he went along for the ride. When he was down, she pounced on top of him, gently swiping at him with her paws and nipping at him with her teeth. It took him a second, but then he realized what was going on.

She was playing with him.

He began to mimic the gestures, softly biting and batting at her, rolling so she was on the ground and then he was back under her. It wasn’t a test of strength or who was willing to back down first, nothing like that. It was just simple, joyful fun.

Valentina took off running a moment later, looking over her shoulder to make sure he was following, just like she had done before. He dutifully followed along up a hill. Once they crested the top, he could see what he thought was Woodhaven. When he saw the alpha’s slow, cocky walk, he knew his guess had been correct.

After walking around the lake that separated them from the estate’s house, and stopping to play a few more times, they were finally standing on the steps. Valentina shifted and looked at him expectantly. His mind was too fuzzed by the brazen nakedness of her, though. She stood by the door, bathed in both the warm glow from the house and the pale glint of the moonlight, and looked like some kind of angel. An angel covered in mud and splatters of blood, but an angel nonetheless.

He couldn’t shift back. Not with her naked like that. If he did, it would be a one-way ticket to boner town, population: him. So, he stubbornly stared back at her. After a while, she shrugged and opened the door. They both wandered through the mansion, her completely at ease with her nakedness, while he was trying to look at anything but her. It was an impossible task, though. His cat’s eyes were drawn to her human form just as much as they had been to her jaguar. She was sleek and powerful, with enough sass to fill a football stadium, and he was oddly attracted to her.

They paused by a phone in the kitchen.

“There is a cleaner down at the Kildeer location, along with another body. I also need the SUV there cleaned and replaced,” she said after a voice answered the phone.

He could hear the other person talking, but couldn’t understand the words they were saying. It was like whoever it was spoke a different language. He quickly lost interest and began to pace around the house. Everything changed in animal form. There were so many new smells—some even gave him an image as to whom the scent might be attached to—and then there were the textures. The feel of tile and plush, soft carpet under his paws was much different from the grass and dirt outside, or the tarmac of the parking lot, or even the scratchy gross carpet of the meeting room. Plus, the perspective shift made everything look larger or out of place from when he had seen it as a man. The scent from outside was in the mansion as well, but it was slightly different, and as he followed it, it only seemed to get stronger.

Once everything was taken care of, Valentina came and found him, and that was when he realized that the scent belonged to her. Without thinking, he rubbed his head against her thigh, practically along her hip, and her scent changed in that area. She smelled of him now, or at least of his panther, and that stirred something within him that he wasn’t comfortable thinking about, something primal and alpha.

“Come on, Elijah. Let’s go get you cleaned up,” she said with a chuckle.

He followed her, and suddenly there was nothing but her scent everywhere. When he looked around and saw the big sleigh-style bed, he realized they must be in her bedroom. At the top of the headboard was some beautiful scroll work done in metal, while everything underneath, though framed by the wood of the sleigh, was a tufted, pillowy texture. It was one of the most luxurious beds he’d ever seen, and yet all he could think about was how much better it would look with a naked and satiated Valentina in it.

When he heard a sound, he turned and saw her going into the bathroom and flicking on a light. She tugged on a thin, silky robe that was short enough to make the human side of him hum in appreciation, but long enough to cover what it needed to, loosely tying a knot in the thin belt that wrapped around her.

“Are you going to shift back or am I stuck with a panther all night?” she asked as she picked up a remote and pointed it at the fireplace. Flames licked up the sides of the logs that were there waiting to be used. He could hear the crackle and smell the burning-wood scent, so he knew they were real, none of this fake stuff, but it must have had a gas starter for her to be able to use a remote like that.

He huffed and reluctantly shifted back to human. It wasn’t that he was opposed to being human and wanted to stay a panther for the rest of his life. He just had been enjoying the freedom and how different the world was with an animal’s senses, not to mention he could look at a naked Valentina without all his blood rushing to his cock, as it was doing now. As he cupped himself with both hands, he tried to hide the fact that he was getting an erection, but if something didn’t change, he wouldn’t be able to hide it for much longer.

“Want to talk about what happened?” she asked as she perched on the edge of her bed.

“Not really,” he said, glancing over at her without thinking. Her robe was parted almost to the point that it no longer hid anything. He gulped, trying to think about anything other than the fact that she was mostly naked and on a bed. Baseball. Spreadsheets from work. What the plot of the latest superhero movie was. Why people still had belly buttons as adults. None of it helped. He was still acutely aware of her and exactly how far away from him she was, exactly how many steps it would take to get to her, and exactly where he wanted to kiss and touch. Everything about her called to him like a siren to a sailor.

“You should probably take a shower,” she said, her voice lower than it had been a moment ago.

The scent of her arousal hit him like a ton of bricks. He hadn’t ever picked up on things like that before, but now with his cat ever so helpfully providing translations of what different scents meant, he knew exactly how turned on she was. “I don’t think I’m the only one.” He practically growled the words at her.

“No, but it’s probably best if we go one at a time.”

That was the exact opposite of what he wanted. “Oh?” He turned toward her and let his hands drop to his sides.

“Elijah . . .” Her eyes traveled down his body, fixing on his cock.

“There’s something between us. A craving. I want to explore it, to explore you.” There was a tone in his voice he didn’t understand, but he knew it was similar to Valentina’s alpha voice.

She got up and walked toward him. “Fine. We explore tonight and get this out of our systems. Deal?”

He didn’t want to make that deal. What if he wanted more than one night? Some cravings took a while to be satisfied. Without saying anything, he took a step closer to her, invading her personal space until she backed up.

“Do we have a deal?” she asked again, her hoarse voice skating along his skin straight to his cock.