Page 9 of Predator

Lucas lowers himself back to the couch, taking the small amount of cushion that I’m not covering already.

“Fallon… sucre. Are you with me?” He runs his fingers over the top of my paw. “Give me some sign that you’re okay.”

Lowering my muzzle, I lick the top of his hand. It’s salty, and it’s Lucas, and I chuff deep in my chest.

Taking that as the sign I meant it as, Lucas grabs the scruff of fur around my face. He nuzzles the edge of my jaw, sighing softly before he releases me. “I’m sorry that I had to do that. It’s the only thing I could think to do.”

I cock my head, questioningly.

“The injection,” he clarifies. “The quicksilver.”

What the fuck is quicksilver?

He must sense that I’m clueless because he explains a little further.

“It’s not as harmful to wolf shifters as actual silver. It just?—”

I’m barely listening.

Holy shit. He shot me up full of mercury? Lucas and the others were born way before my time, but did they still think mercury wasn’t a poison back then? Because I know that mercury is a poison.

I yelp.

He makes a soothing sound. “It’s not what you think. For a shifter”—and, yeah, there’s no denying I’m a shifter—“it’s nothing more than a sedative that calms the wolf and puts the human in charge. It does have the effect of putting you to sleep for a few hours. I used that to move you to the cabin in case you wanted privacy, but now that you’re here… it’s the new moon. I thought… between the Luna having some control and weakening your wolf during your first shift, it should bring you back.”

Lucas huffs. “It should’ve. The quicksilver… you should’ve changed back while you were asleep. I don’t know why you haven’t. I know you’re still in there, sucre. Please. For whatever reason you’re clinging to your fur, if you care for me at all… please. Come back to me.”

He’s pleaded with me before. He’s asked me to shift back, begged me to shift back, even promised me the world if I would just return to him.

I couldn’t do it. I still don’t know why. Suddenly, it seems so fucking simple. Like there’s a light switch tucked somewhere beneath my rib cage, the it flicked ‘on’ so that I’m stuck in my fur, all I have to do is instinctively flip it to ‘off’ and?—

Why did I think it would hurt? It doesn’t. More like scratching an itch, there’s a moment of tiny discomfort, but instead of digging my nails into my skin, I stretch my back and, an instant later, I’m on all fours.

But I don’t mean four paws.

Two hands. Two knees.

My fingers are bumping against Lucas’s muscular thigh. I draw them back, scooting away from him if only because a part of me realizes that my ass is hanging out, stuck up in the air.

The other part could care less because I have a naked ass to show off—and a mate who is trembling relief as he reaches out, stroking a lock of my hair.

Not fur.

Hair.

“I… I’m back.” A giddy laugh rips out of me. “I’m me again.”

CHAPTER 4

NEW MOON

For the moment, I couldn’t care less which me I am.

I have ten fingers, ten toes, two legs, and no more fur. So I’m naked. That was bound to happen. Wolves don’t wear clothes, but he’s my mate, and he’s already murmuring my name—Fallon, he’s calling me Fallon—as he shifts to one knee, towering over me, taking my cheek in his hand.

My laugh dies the instant I see the look of hunger replacing the one of hope on his face. His lips part, his amber-colored eyes flash, and his mouth is dipping lower, lower…

Lucas kisses me. Slanting his open mouth over mine, his slips his tongue into my mouth, groaning as though he’s hungered these last two weeks—because, if it’s the new moon, it’s been at least two weeks—and the only taste that would satisfy him was mine.

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