CHAPTER TWO
Shadow
A chuckle of delight rumbles through my chest, growing as Kayla’s expression flickers through a complex mix of shock and confusion before landing on wide-eyed horror.
“Our wedding? You expect me to marry him?” she sputters, jabbing a finger toward me. “I barely know him!”
“And whose fault is that?” The teasing words slip from my lips.
I’ve been pursuing my witchy beauty for a year, subtly stalking her around town every chance I get.
Humans have strange ideas about such things, but it’s normal cat sith behavior used to better know one’s prey and the first move in the game of courtship.
Kayla’s nostrils flare, her brown eyes snapping with fire, making her lightly tan face come alive.
An impatient hand shoves a lock of purple hair from her eyes, and if she were a cat, she’d growl at me.
She’s tall and solidly built, exactly as I like.
All six feet of her vibrates with energy, her heady curves making my hands itch to stroke and pet.
She’s gloriously beautiful and smells absolutely divine.
My heartbeat speeds. Goddess, I love her like this! My Kayla, so fierce and big and strong. She’s a force of nature, her will offering me a challenge I can never refuse.
“Yes.” The photos slide across the wall. “Marry.”
“No!”
“I’m happy to get married,” I say, a wide grin pulling at my cheeks. My tongue teases a fang, and I smirk harder when I see my witchy beauty’s eyes flick toward the movement, a flush of pink darkening her cheeks. She’s attracted to me—how could she not be? I’m magnificent.
Weddings are new to me, though. My people were stuck in our panther forms for three centuries, unable to shift, but now that magic flows freely again, I’m finally able to learn to live as a man.
If a wedding will bind her to me, I’ll gladly marry her.
Never one to give up an advantage, I’ll use anything to win my witch.
She will be mine.
“You…” The fire in her eyes dims, replaced by a hesitant look I don’t like nearly as much. Kayla gives an audible swallow. “You’d marry me?”
“How can you doubt it?” I purr.
The fire in her eyes sparks back to life, her lips pursing. “Because you act like everything’s a game, and marriage is as serious as it gets.”
I take a step back and let my gaze ramble over her, taking in the way her plump breasts strain the fabric of her soft shirt.
I got Luke to make me a translation crystal that lets me read human languages, specifically so I can read those shirts of hers.
Kayla’s jeans cling to her lush hips and thighs, tempting my touch.
And her colorful sneakers depict a fantasy battle with wizards wielding powered staffs facing huge ogres.
Does she know I’ve fought real ogres? Does she wear those shoes to secretly honor me?
As soon as I think it, I dismiss the idea. No. My Kayla isn’t one for subterfuge, even the flirtatious kind.
Perhaps especially the flirtatious kind.
Goddess knows, none of my charm has worked so far.
My eyes slide slowly back up her body to meet her flustered gaze, and I grin. “I can be serious. I think you’re seriously beautiful.”
“Oh, come on!” She tugs at her T-shirt and lets out a huff of frustration. “I’m the cool girl who’s like one of the guys, but no one thinks I’m beautiful.”
“Then they’re fools.” I step forward and wrap a lock of her purple hair around my finger, delighting in its silky texture.
Kayla’s mouth drops open for several seconds, then closes with a snap.
She pivots on the ball of her foot and marches away from me.
I follow her through a formal dining room as she skirts past the long mahogany table and chairs to tug at the latch of each locked window.
At the end of the hallway, she rattles the knob of the back door, but it refuses to turn.
She leads me into a large, welcoming kitchen full of light, and its windows also defy every attempt to open them.
It’s the same for her computer-filled office and the living room with its long, comfortable couch facing the largest television I’ve ever seen.
Muttering, she continues on, making a full circle of the ground floor before stomping her way upstairs.
“Are you really going to try every window?” I ask.
“Sure am.” She steps into the bathtub to grip the latch of the small window over it—one too small for either of us to exit, even if it did open, which it doesn’t. “There’s got to be something. Even if it’s really hard to find, there will be a way out.”
“How do you know?”
“That’s how video games work.”
“You’re the one who keeps insisting this isn’t a game.”
She glances at me over her shoulder, one eyebrow lifted. “Yeah, but you sure act like everything that’s happening here is one big game, and I gotta try something.”
“It is. All of life’s a game.” It’s not just about winning. It’s also about play and having fun. Though winning is about the most fun one can have. “You should try to have more fun.”
She shakes her head and continues on.
The next several bedrooms are full of antique furniture that matches the look of the house, but they all have a disused feeling, and a faint air of sadness comes from Victoria.
“I see why you need roommates,” I say. “The house is lonely. It wants to be full.”
“It used to be a bed-and-breakfast as well as a wedding chapel. Whenever I stayed here as a child, my grandparents always had guests,” Kayla says, rattling another window.
“But that’s not why I need roommates. A house this big takes a lot of upkeep.
I need the rent money. Which is why it’s so shitty that you ran off all the applicants. ” She shoots me a glare.
“I didn’t know.” A twinge of guilt pinches my chest. I thought only of clearing the way so she’d be forced to take me in. I didn’t stop to consider why she needed roommates. I shove the unwanted feeling away and give her my best smile. “None of that matters, because I’ll make it right.”
“You can magic me up a couple of roommates?”
“I don’t have that kind of magic, but I have the next best thing.” I pull a gold coin out of my pocket and set it spinning around my fingers, the rich yellow catching the light. “I have gold.”
The feel of the room brightens around us, and a repeated wooden tapping sound comes from downstairs.
“What’s that?” I tip my head, trying to zero in on the source.
“The kitchen cabinets opening and closing. It’s Victoria’s way of clapping.”
I pat the wall and lean close to whisper. “Don’t worry. As soon as she allows it, I’ll take care of both of you.”
The door partially closes, the wood offering my back a soft pat.
Kayla narrows her eyes at me. “What did you say to her?”
“Nothing.” I grin.
She pushes past me with a huff and continues down the hall, and the door gives me an eager shove to propel me after the witch.
We finish in the main bedroom, her bedroom, as I can tell by how heavily her scent lingers in the air. A desk topped with a laptop sits against one wall, and bookcases fill another, stuffed with colorful volumes.
Everything about her house fascinates me.
The older furniture and decorations blend with the high-technology of areas that are so clearly hers.
There’s a feel to the place, one I haven’t experienced since leaving my pack’s home den in Faerie, a feeling of family and history and belonging.
My apartment in Ferndale Falls has been a fine place to learn what it means to walk the world on only two legs, but it hasn’t been a home.
This house, this woman, on the other hand…
As the witch continues to tug at the windows, I pull out a book that catches my eye. A shirtless man pouts from the cover, a shadowy large cat standing behind him. “The Panther’s Princess,” I read the title aloud. “I wonder what this one is about.”
Kayla makes a strangled sound and leaps toward me. Yanking the book from my grasp, she says, “Oh, that’s one my grandmother left! I haven’t cleared those out.”
It’s a lie. I can smell her all over the book. But instead of calling her on it, I grin and turn toward her bed.
It’s wide and covered with a deep purple comforter with a small mountain of various-sized pillows piled against the headboard.
Her scent perfumes the air, and I breathe deeply, taking in the sweet fragrance of her skin combined with the lavender she loves so well.
A muskier smell threads through the mix, the scent of her arousal, and my cock twitches as a growl forms deep in my chest. I long to dive forward and bury myself in her bed, rub all over it and combine her scent with mine.
Claim this space.
Claim her.
“Dammit.” Kayla’s voice cuts through my haze. She stands in front of the final window, hands on her hips. “She really has locked us in.”
A feeling of smugness fills the air.
I pick up the desk chair, testing its heft, and take a couple of practice swings through the empty air over the bed. “What if we break a window?”
Kayla spins to face me, brow pinched in thought.
A shudder goes through the house, and all of the interior doors slam closed as anger vibrates through the air.
The witch’s expression crumbles into resignation, and she shakes her head. “I can’t do that to Victoria. No matter how much I don’t like what she’s doing, this is my house. I need to find a way to live in harmony with her.”
I set the chair down.
The atmosphere eases, and the bedroom door clicks open.
“Come on. The three of us need to talk.” Kayla hurries from the room to run downstairs to the foyer. “Victoria, what’s it going to take for you to let us go?”
The pictures slide rapidly. “You must marry.”
“Here? Now?” Kayla asks, her finger dancing back and forth between us. “With only the two of us?”
“Yes.”
Kayla’s expression goes thoughtful for a moment, then clears. “Okay.”
A fierce joy pierces my chest. My witch will marry me!
“Face each other and hold hands.”
“Better do as she says.” Kayla’s lips twist into a wry little smile, but her grip on my fingers is strong.
My own tighten around hers, thrilling at the contact. After a life spent in fur, my fae skin is amazingly sensitive.
“Repeat after me. Shadow first.” The photos glide and dip, forming the next phrase a few words at a time, which I repeat.
“I, Shadow, take thee, Kayla, to be my wife.”
Then it’s Kayla’s turn. “I, Kayla, take thee, Shadow, to be my husband.”
“I now pronounce you husband and wife.” The pictures slide, moving quickly with a feeling of excitement as the tingle of the house’s magic bursts outward. “You may kiss the bride.”
“Better do as she says.” I grin, repeating Kayla’s words.
Then I move in a blur, pulling her to me as I lean over and cover her mouth with mine.
Kissing is another new delight for me, and I’m too much a cat to resist giving her lips a little lick.
Her taste explodes across my tongue, sweet and heady and so right I’ll never get enough.