My chest suddenly felt tight. “Before I met you, I was just angry. At the council. At the enforcers. At myself.” I ran one hand down the side of his face, toward his chin, enjoying the rough brush of stubble against my palm. “Meeting you changed the way I feel about shifters. The way I feel about myself. I thought my life—at least as I knew it—was over. I was so obsessed with everything I lost when I was infected that I didn’t take the time to truly realize what I’d gained. You’re a big part of what I’ve gained, Titus. Your vision. What you’re trying to do is more important than anything I’ve ever done in my life. If I can help put you in the position to do that, I will. Even if that means getting out of your way.” Going back to Atlanta. I shrugged. “I got out once. I can do it again. Worst case scenario, I’ll be back when my sentence is up.”

Titus pulled me closer and buried his face in my hair. “I’m not done arguing about this.”

“Okay, but fair warning, I’m not sure I’ve ever lost an argument.”

“There’s a first time for everything.” His breath brushed my ear, and pleasant chills slid along my spine.

“Right now, I’m more interested in our second time.” I slid my hands beneath his shirt, then dragged them up over the hard planes and angles of his chest. “This may be the last chance we get for a while…”

Titus pulled his shirt over his head and dropped it on the glass-littered floor. Then he stood with me still straddling him, and I wrapped my legs around his waist as my arms slid around his neck.

I kissed him all the way into the bedroom.

“The herpetarium.” Titus stood on top of a commercial trash bin, staring over the Jackson Zoo’s eight-foot exterior fence, squinting against the glare of the security light. “Who on earth would want to get drunk with a bunch of snakes and lizards?”

“You’re showing your age, Mr. Alexander. But you’re right. This would be much more awesome in the cat house.”

“There’s no cat house. They’re in outdoor cages.” He turned away from the fence and looked at me. “And even if there were a cat house, the lions and tigers would all lose their minds the moment they smelled us.”

“Why? They’re caged next to each other, and they don’t kill themselves trying to get through the fence.”

“I don’t know. Maybe it has something to do with us smelling like humans and cats. Or maybe it’s that we’re walking around free when they aren’t.” Titus jumped down from the bin and landed right in front of me. “All I know is that I went to the zoo once, not long after I was infected, just to watch them. To see how much I had in common with nature’s true predators.”

“And what did you find?”

“That the cougars and leopards backed away from me, but the tigers were ready to rumble.” He shrugged. “Maybe that’s because they’re so much bigger than we are. They know they have nothing to fear.”

I watched him, fascinated by the thought of Titus staring through a chain-link fence, trying to figure out where he fit into the natural order. “What kind of cat are we, when we have fur?”

“No kind.” He frowned. “No, we’re our kind. A species of our own. We are like no other cat in the world.” He pulled me close for a kiss. “And you are like no other woman in the world. Which makes you doubly unique and fascinating.”

Grinning, I went up on my toes to give him another kiss.

“This is where you say something nice about me,” he said.

I slid my arms around his neck and whispered into his ear. “You have a very limber tongue.”

Titus laughed. “And you have a one-track mind.”

“No, there are two tracks up here.” I tapped my temple. “But one is totally dedicated to thinking and speaking from the gutter.”

“And what is that other, more productive track thinking right now?”

“That it’s my turn to go in feline form.”

“No.” Titus’s dark brows dipped low. “If security thinks you escaped from one of the cat pens, they’ll shoot to kill.”

“The same goes for you. But that won’t happen, because the sorority hosting tonight’s Blind Tiger party already got rid of security. Remember?”

He scowled. “I remember thinking that was a terrible idea, at a zoo.”

“Agreed. But the worst the partiers are going to do if they see me is run screaming and call 911. Besides, you need to be able to talk to your brother, when we find him. Which you can’t do in cat form. He won’t recognize me. We don’t even know if he’ll understand that I’m another shifter.”

“Fair point.” But Titus didn’t look happy about it. “Fine. But one of these days I will win an argument with you.”

I grinned. “Don’t count on it.”

“Go ahead and shift. I’ll stand watch.” Because a shifter was never more vulnerable than when she was caught between forms, unable to defend herself.

I stripped behind the trash bin, tossing him each article of clothing as I removed it, knowing he could see me perfectly well in the dark, even with his human eyes. Titus stuffed my clothes into his backpack as I knelt on the grimy concrete, shivering.

As I shifted, breathing deeply through an agonizing dance of stretching muscles and dislocating joints, I let my mind drift to distract myself from the pain. Usually, that meant reliving a happy childhood event or a particularly satisfying college tryst. But something about the cold concrete and the unpleasant mix of scents wafting from the nearby trash bin called up less pleasant memories.

Hiding behind a pile of bulging black trash bags, staring through the grimy glass of a cabin deep in the woods, watching camo-clad, rifle-carrying men come and go. Waiting for my chance…

My knees cracked as they shifted, and the traumatized muscles connected to them stretched so tight they felt ready to pop like elastic. If I could have unclenched my jaw, I might have screamed.

Teeth sinking through flesh into bone as I broke that redneck bastard’s neck with one bite…

My rib cage expanded, each thin bone creaking as it moved into place until my chest felt like it would tear itself apart. My lungs burned—each breath felt like swallowing glass.

Racing through the forest, trying to outrun the stench of my enemies. The taste of their blood in my mouth. Knowing that I’ve lost control once more. That I may never truly be in control again…