Chapter 18
KIAN
The sun sets beyond the western cliffs, painting the sky in shades of blood and copper.
I watch it from my window at the cottage, counting down the minutes until darkness falls completely.
Catriona's been in the other room for the past few hours with Eliza and Isla, talking through what the transformation will feel like.
They're reassuring her that the experience varies—every shifter is different in terms of how long it takes and pain level—but any pain will be brief.
They're trying to help, but nothing they say will prepare her for what's coming.
Nothing prepares anyone for their first shift.
Restlessness claws beneath my skin, demanding the claiming she asked for. Holding back has taken every scrap of control I possess. But she deserves this to be her choice, made with full knowledge of what it means.
The door opens behind me.
Catriona steps inside, closing it softly. Her hair's down, loose around her shoulders, and she's changed into clean clothes that are simple and practical. Nothing that can't be easily removed.
"The others told me the transition can be painful, but shifting back and forth is not," she says.
"True enough." No point lying to her. "During your transition, your body breaks and rebuilds itself. Bones crack, muscles tear, everything that makes you human gets remade into something else."
"And you'll be there?"
"Every second." I turn to face her fully. "I can't stop the pain, but I can anchor you. You'll feel me the whole time."
She nods, processing that. "Eliza told me what to expect. How the claiming works. That it changes everything."
"It does." Though instinct tells me she'll handle it better than most. "When I claim you, my DNA overwrites yours. You'll become what I am."
"A tiger," she repeats, testing the word.
"A tigress." I cross to her, unable to keep the distance any longer. "She'll be fierce, powerful, and built to hunt and kill."
"Good." Her chin lifts. "That's what I need to be."
She looks up at me, her gaze steady and unflinching. "I need you to understand something before we start."
"What?"
"I'm not doing this just to survive the Russians." Her hand finds my chest, palm flat over my heartbeat. "I'm doing this because I want you—the transformation, all of it. I want to be yours, Kian, permanently and irrevocably. No escape clause."
My muscles lock, tension coiling through my shoulders and jaw.
"Once I claim you," I tell her, my voice rougher than I intend, "you'll be tied to me for the rest of your life. It's permanent. You'll feel me constantly—location, emotions, everything."
"Good."
"I'm not gentle, Cat. I'm not the man who brings you flowers and writes you poetry. When I take you, it'll be the way instinct demands—dominant, from behind, because that's how shifters claim their mates."
"I don't want gentle." She steps closer, near enough that heat radiates between us.
"I don't want soft or safe or civilized.
I want you to see me as strong enough to stand beside you when the Russians come.
Not someone you have to protect. Not something fragile that needs to be kept in the back while you fight. "
Hunger lunges against my control, demanding I act. I grab her and kiss her hard enough to bruise. She gasps into my mouth, arching into me, and whatever restraint I had left crumbles to dust.
I tear at her clothes. She helps, tugging her shirt over her head, kicking off her boots. The jeans take longer—I have to peel them down her legs, hands shaking—but then she's bare beneath my palms, flushed and gasping.
I strip faster, instinct clawing at me, demanding I hurry. I guide her to the bed, following her down. When I settle over her, skin to skin, the contact burns. She's soft where I'm hard, curved where I'm angular.
"Turn over," I tell her.
She obeys without hesitation, rolling onto her stomach.
I pull her hips up, positioning her exactly the way instinct demands, the same way tiger-shifters have always claimed their mates.
Her back arches, presenting herself to me, and the sight of her like this—vulnerable, trusting, willing—nearly breaks me.
I enter her slowly despite the snarls building in my throat. She's tight, her body resisting at first, and I have to force myself to go slow when every instinct screams to take. To claim. To make her mine in the most primal way possible.
"Kian." My name on her lips is half-plea, half-demand.
I push deeper, feeling her body adjust, accommodate. She's slick and hot, gripping me so tight I can barely think. My hands find her hips, fingers digging into soft flesh hard enough to leave marks—proof of this, proof of us.
She moans, pushing back against me, taking me deeper. "Don't hold back."
The words snap whatever control I have left.
I pull back and drive into her hard. She gasps, her fingers fisting in the sheets, and I do it again. And again. Setting a rhythm that's brutal and relentless, the way my tiger demands.
"Yes," she gasps. "Like that. God, Kian—"
I lean over her, one hand sliding up her spine to grip the back of her neck, holding her in place. The other stays on her hip, controlling the angle, the depth, making sure she feels every inch of me. Making sure she knows who's claiming her.
Who she belongs to.
The sounds she makes drive me wild—gasps and moans and my name torn from her throat. Her body tightens around me with every thrust, her muscles trembling. I can feel her climbing higher, getting closer to the edge.
"Touch yourself," I growl against her shoulder.
She obeys, one hand leaving the sheets to slide between her legs. The movement changes the angle slightly, and she cries out, her body clenching around me.
I thrust harder, faster, chasing the moment when I can finally claim her completely. Sweat slicks both our bodies. The scent of sex fills the room—salt and musk and something uniquely her. My vision narrows to the curve of her neck, the vulnerable spot where my bite will mark her forever.
Mine. She's going to be mine.
"Kian, I'm—" Her words dissolve into a moan. "I'm going to—"
"Not yet." I slow my pace, pulling almost all the way out before driving back in. Torturing us both. "Not until I bite you. We come together. That's how the claiming works."
She whimpers, her body shaking with the effort of holding back. "Please—"
"Soon." I bend over her, my teeth grazing the nape of her neck. Not breaking skin yet. Just a promise. "When I bite you, let go. Give me everything."
I pick up the pace again, harder now, deeper. Her body responds, tightening, climbing. I can feel my own release building at the base of my spine, pressure mounting with every thrust.
The demand roars through me—primal, unstoppable.
My teeth find the claiming spot, pressing against soft skin. Catriona gasps, her entire body tensing in anticipation.
"Now," I growl against her neck. "Come for me now."
I bite down.
My fangs sink into her flesh, piercing skin and muscle, and the world explodes.
Silvery mist erupts around us, cold and electric. Thunder cracks overhead—inside the building, impossible but real—and Catriona screams as the transformation begins, her body responding to the claiming.
A connection locks into place between us, primal and permanent. Her fear, her exhilaration, her pleasure crashes through me like a wave, tangling with my own until I can't tell where I end and she begins.
The orgasm hits us both at the same moment.
Her body convulses around me, pulling me deeper, and I empty myself into her with a roar that's more animal than man. The mist swirls faster, thunder rolling through the room, and I can taste copper and magic on my tongue.
When I finally release her neck, blood wells from the bite marks, deep and permanent. The claiming is complete.
Catriona collapses forward onto the bed, gasping. I catch her before she can fall too hard, rolling us both to the side so I can hold her while the transformation takes hold.
"I can smell everything," she whispers. Her voice is raw and awed. "The rain outside. The salt from the ocean. Your heartbeat—I can hear your heartbeat, Kian."
"You'll feel me now. Always." I press my lips to her shoulder. "Location, emotions. Everything."
"And you'll feel me?"
"Always."
She shivers, and I pull her closer, wrapping myself around her. Warmth pulses between us, steady and reassuring, and the restlessness finally settles into satisfaction.
But then Catriona gasps again, her body going rigid in my arms.
"What—" She twists, looking down at her hands. "What's happening?"
"Your first shift." I hold her steady, keeping my voice calm even as urgency pounds through me. "With tiger-shifters, the transformation is more violent and rapid. We've always been vulnerable when transitioning, so evolution made it fast. Don't fight it. Let it come."
The mist surges around her again, and her body begins to change.
Bones crack and reform, muscles shifting beneath her skin—the one-time restructuring as human DNA gets rewritten into shifter.
After this, shifting will be painless, just another part of who she is.
But right now, her body is being remade at a fundamental level.
I hold her through it, anchoring her, letting her feel my presence.
When the mist clears, a tigress sits in the middle of my bed—sleek and powerful, her coat marked with black stripes over tawny gold. She's smaller than me in animal form but no less deadly. Her eyes are still sharp, still intelligent, and when she looks at me, I see Catriona staring back.
I watch her explore the room on silent paws, testing her new body, her new senses. Muscle and sinew move beneath her striped coat as she prowls past the mirror, stopping to stare at her reflection. She's built to hunt, to kill—a true predator.
Then she shifts back.