Chapter 7
Alan stumbled into the lounge area of his presidential suite.
The place was huge and tastefully decorated, everything made out of designer glass: coffee table, decorative vase, even the entertainment system was expensive glass.
He’d flipped on the overhead light when he’d shoved open the door, but now the crystal beads beneath the fresh flowers cut into his retinas, and he slammed the light back off.
Why did women only go for assholes?
He headed for his computer, needing a way to focus his thoughts.
But on the way, his knees gave out, and he tumbled sideways onto the huge couch.
The fabric was lush beneath his fingers, and the overstuffed cushions supported his fall.
Beneath his skin, his bones stretched, and his joints crackled.
His fever had built to an unhealthy degree, he realized.
Every inch of his body seemed to steam, but his thoughts were never more lucid.
Odd how the hotter his temperature ran, the clearer his thoughts became. Or one thought: Tonya gets off on monsters.
If only he’d known as a teen, he would have happily treated her like dirt.
Except before his change, he’d have lost that fight in a heartbeat.
Even now he wasn’t sure who would win between them.
Monster or she-grizzly. It didn’t matter.
He wasn’t going to live long enough to find out.
If the stress of his altered DNA didn’t get him, he would likely die at the hands of the bitch who’d done this to him, though he planned to take her out at the same time.
He rolled over on the couch, feeling the brush of silky soft fabric against his skin.
He could appreciate the texture as never before, but it didn’t come close to the sweetness of Tonya’s skin.
God, just remembering the sweet slide of his dick across her honey made him rock hard again.
And his all-too-lucid brain replayed the way she’d arched beneath his touch.
Her skin had flushed rosy, and her lips had gone dark red.
Such glorious breasts with dark nipples.
Hard, tight berries that he’d pinched. And when he’d twisted them, she’d whimpered sweet, hungry sounds.
A shudder racked his frame, and he knew he was running out of time. At the hospital, they’d given him something to control the fever, but he’d been out of there for a week now. Ibuprofen didn’t make a dent. And he’d known the hot tub and the booze were a bad choice from the beginning.
Why couldn’t he just die already?
Not before she pays.
It took a moment for him to realize which “she” he was thinking of.
For a moment, it was all shes. Every single woman on the planet.
The ones who loved monsters and the ones who were monsters.
But in time, his thoughts crystallized. His goal was Elisabeth.
He had to kill her before he died. He had to destroy her before she did this to someone else.
So he rolled to his side and stared at his laptop. Maybe Johnny had news for him. Maybe one of the other cougar-shifters had emailed. Maybe waiting in his inbox right now was the bitch’s location. But when he extended his hand toward his laptop, another shudder wracked his body.
Oh, hell.
He hated this part. It was the time when his mind slipped away from a body gone insane. As his temperature climbed, his brain stepped away. He thought about life. He sorted through his options. He even wandered through memory. And all the while, his body seized and released. Seized and released.
The first few times, he’d fought with all his will to control himself. To make his limbs obey by sheer mental command. It never worked. So now he settled for option two. He let himself pretend he was a powerful shifter bastard who got back at everyone who’d ever slighted him.
He thought of his uncle who’d tormented him and killed his mother. Alan ripped him apart inch by inch.
He brought up Carl who loved him, but casually disregarded how difficult it was to live as a normal in a shifter community. Alan beat him until the idiot remembered to pay fucking attention when someone went missing for a week.
And the she-bitch who’d done this to him? Well, his imagination knew no bounds for how he’d hurt her.
Eventually, his dark thoughts frightened even him. The bloodlust sickened what remained of his humanity.
That’s when he thought of Tonya. Of how her hair turned golden in the sunlight and how her lips went cherry red.
Of her taste when they’d kissed on his birthday.
And of every damned moment they’d ever been together.
That’s when he really let go and let his body do whatever it wanted to.
Seize up. Stop breathing. Bite off his own tongue.
Whatever. He would find out what had happened when it was over.
Even if it meant that he died during it.
That was his plan.
He was just accepting the inevitability of it all when his door burst open.
He jerked, the motion setting his vision to bouncing.
Tonya stood there with a Taser in her hand.
She’d dressed in her rumpled uniform, and her wet hair was slicked back so that it formed a dark skullcap.
She looked badass in the best possible way, and his mouth pulled into grin.
What a woman! Bikini clad one second as she came all over his hand.
Then angry cop chick the next. Except as usual, her timing sucked.
“Get out!” he rasped. He still had some pride. The last thing he wanted was for her to witness what was about to happen.
“Fuck that, Alan. You’re coming home with me.”
“No.” That’s all he managed to say. A clear, loud denial of everything she wanted. He wasn’t going home. He wasn’t ever going to be that good guy sap again. And he sure as hell wasn’t going to curl up and let her take him like he was a sack of potatoes, either.
He watched her eyes narrow, and then he saw her step hitch as she took in the way he was sprawled on the couch. He tried to sit up, but the tingling had started. Itching first, then tingling, then full-out seizure.
Hell. Only one way to stop a seizure, and even that wasn’t hundred percent. One horrible thing he’d allowed only once. He had to go full monster. It was that or let Tonya cart him away into another damned cage.
He never even made the decision consciously.
It just happened between one tingling breath and the next.
The man on the couch became the monster.
His bones lengthened, his muscles thickened.
And that mouth that had been so struggling with words?
It twisted open to accommodate sharp teeth and a long tongue.
Fur erupted in sparks of pain, and he roared as it jerked him and he tumbled off the couch.
He landed easily onto all fours. His nose twitched with the stench, but his claws found purchase in the thick rug.
“Don’t make me shoot you, Alan!” Tonya bellowed. Part of him admired her stance. She’d gone pale when she’d first seen him, but now she braced herself. The Taser was up and aimed steadily at his chest. Even if her eyes were pulled wide and sweat beaded on her brow, her gun hand was rock solid.
But she didn’t pull the trigger.
Her mistake because as awkward and ugly as his body was, the monster was still damned fast.
He leapt upward, claws extended for her face. Mentally, he tried to pull back. He did not want to rip her apart, but his mind had no control. The man watched from a distance, furious, appalled, and completely impotent.
Tonya ducked, sidestepping his attack. Thank God for her shifter reflexes or he might have ripped open her throat.
He landed in a crouch, his toes gripping the carpet.
No claws there. He still had human feet, more or less.
Except his right leg wasn’t prepared for the weight of his body.
Nothing was balanced in this form, nothing worked smoothly or easily.
He stumbled, banging his shoulder painfully into the door. She hadn’t closed it, and his weight had slammed it fully open.
Run! Escape!
He willed himself to leave and was pleased when the monster turned toward the open hallway. He had no idea if it could navigate the stairs. An elevator was out of the question.
“Don’t do it, Alan.” Her voice was hard, but the tone was compelling. Frightened and pissed off. The latter was of no import, but the first caught his monster’s attention. Females should not be fearful, and most especially not this female.
The monster turned back to her.
No!
He stalked forward. His knee had stabilized and the tingling had stopped.
No seizure. He wasn’t sure whether to be pleased or terrified by that.
Especially since he could feel the monster’s clear intention.
It smelled female and the hot cinnamon spice that was Tonya.
She’d called him back, and therefore, he would take her.
Sexual possession. No matter how much the man screamed to run, the animal side wanted to make more baby monsters.
“Stay back,” Tonya said, her voice deeper and more authoritative.
Not going to happen. Even disconnected as he was from any control of his body, Alan could feel the monster’s heavy erection. His nostrils flared, sucking in the hot spice of her. And his lips pulled back into a grin while his muscles coiled to strike.
“Last chance,” she warned.
Run away! Alan screamed.
The monster pounced.
Tonya reacted midleap. She pulled the trigger.
Fifty thousand volts slammed through his body.
Pain whitewashed his consciousness. Every muscle seized tight.
He couldn’t even draw breath to scream. Worse, after the first lightning bolt of electricity, his mind slammed white hot into his form.
Instead of watching from a distance, suddenly he centered fully and absolutely in a body still writhing on the remains of the glass coffee table.
He felt every sharp stab of the glass pieces. And he knew fury as never before.