A familiar jolt of pain shot through my jaw. My heart jumped, and I stiffened. I ground my teeth together against the pain, but my lips curved into a smile. It was happening. The partial Shift. I was going to have my moment after al , so long as he didn’t notice until it was finished.

“Relax,” Eric whispered into my neck. “You’re tensing up.”

You have no idea, I thought, privately tickled to have final y found the key to the partial Shift. Flaming anger and intense concentration. Good to know.

Eric pushed his briefs down with one hand. His fingers slid up my bare thigh. I clenched my fists again, drawing more blood from my palms. It took everything I had to keep from shoving him away and ruining my best shot yet at taking him out.

The pain was worse than it had been the first time; this Shift was more complete. The throbbing in my face grew to a screaming, blinding agony. I had to unclench my jaws, had to open my mouth. But I was grateful for the pain. It demanded attention. It kept my mind off Eric’s hands and mouth.

I felt several tiny cracks, as the bones of my face Shifted, and—from my perspective at least—gunfire couldn’t have been any louder. Another crack ripped its way through my jaw, and Abby stiffened where she sat. She started to turn toward us, then seemed to think better of looking and buried her face in her arms.

Oh, shit. What if Eric heard that? He was much closer to the source than Abby was.

And he must have heard it, because he started to glance up. I did the only thing I could think of to distract him. I shoved my chest forward. He purred and his mouth traveled down to engulf my nipple. I cringed, but he mistook my shudder for one of pleasure.

Boy, are you delusional, I thought, taking short, shal ow breaths as the pain in my face reached its apex. Why are guys always so wil ing to believe in the power of their own sexual magnetism, even when al evidence points to there being none?

I think some men are born with big egos, to make up for the lack of certain necessary equipment. Like a brain.

The aching subsided, and I ran my tongue over my teeth. I gasped, feeling full-length canines and an entire mouthful of pointed teeth, both top and bottom.

Eric moaned around my nipple, mistaking my gasp just as he had my cringe. I resisted the urge to smack him. I didn’t need to hit him anymore. I knew just what to do with him.

Eric tucked one hand beneath my left knee. He lifted my leg, curling it around his waist as he pressed himself against me.

Now, I thought. My moment had final y come.

I growled in warning. Eric froze, my nipple stil in his mouth. My leg slid back to the ground. He rose slowly. Our eyes met. I have no idea what mine looked like, but his would have comfortably seated several little green men apiece.

I took a mil isecond to enjoy his shock and fear. Then I lunged for his throat.

Twenty-Five

Blood never tasted sweeter to me than Eric’s did at that moment, pouring into my mouth from his neck on its way down from his brain. Or maybe that was the taste of carnal justice. Whatever it was, it was wonderful.

Eric tried to scream but could only manage a bubbly gurgle. He floundered for several seconds, his arms waving wildly, bumping against my sides and hips ineffectively. Though I’d broken the skin, actually puncturing his jugular vein, I hadn’t ripped his throat out. That would have been an almost instant death, and he didn’t deserve my mercy. Instead, I crushed his windpipe with my jaws, slowly suffocating him as he bled.

During my first partial Shift two very long days earlier, my mouth wouldn’t have opened that wide. Luckily, this transformation was much more complete. I couldn’t see myself, but my best guess was that I had a hairless muzzle and cat’s nose, protruding from an otherwise human face. It couldn’t have been a pretty picture, combined with my already battered cheek. Fortunately, being pretty mattered even less to me then than it ever had. I was interested in efficiency, and my new monstrosity of a face was very efficient.

Eric spasmed one final time, and by then I was supporting his weight with my arms around his rib cage. When I was sure he was dead, I opened my mouth. His head flopped backward, bobbing for a moment under its own inertia. His limp weight was grotesque and faintly nauseating.

Heaving him up, I tossed him onto the mattress at my feet. I stared at him, listening to the sound of my own breathing. Shock hadn’t set in yet, but I was thinking clearly enough to know that it might at any second. I’d never kil ed anyone before. Deer, yes. Rabbits, yes. And once, a cow that somehow wandered onto my father’s property and into the trees. But I’d never taken the life of anything with the ability to reason, however poorly that ability was used, and I was not naive enough to think I would suffer no consequences from it.

Short, gasping breaths caught my attention. I squinted at Eric’s chest, waiting to see it rise. It didn’t. I looked up gradual y in the direction of the sounds. Abby stared at me through eyes wide with fright. When my eyes met hers, she gave a startled yip and jumped back from the bars, turning her head slowly from side to side, in denial of what she saw.

“Abby.” But I couldn’t enunciate with my cat’s jaws, so it came out as a short string of vowels, inarticulate nonsense that had little in common with her name. Ah, yes, now I remember the downside. Cat’s jaws isolated me from the more verbal y gifted of Earth’s inhabitants.

Running my hands hesitantly over my face, I began to share her horror. I was grateful for my new ability, since it had saved me from what would surely have been the most humiliating, demeaning experience of my life. Even so, I had no desire to ever see my in-between face for myself.