Her curiosity almost made her open the second trapdoor but she stopped herself. Turning up the light from soft to super-bright, she headed to the kitchen alcove and began to search for the ingredients. She found milk and sugar but no chocolate.

"Idiot," she muttered under her breath. Clay had never liked sweets. For his eleventh birthday, Isla had given him a box of knockoff Godiva chocolates. He'd given the whole lot to Talin. She'd made herself sick gorging on them. And loved every minute of it.

She stared at the milk, thinking about simply having a warm glass of it. But she wanted hot chocolate! Tears pricked her eyes. Stupid. Stupid. But the emotional reaction kept gaining speed. She was in a house she didn't know, with a Clay who was almost all stranger, someone had crushed her cherished photographs and splashed blood on her walls, and her kids were dying. All she'd wanted was a moment's respite.

Something moved below, snapping her out of her bout of self-pity.

She rubbed at her eyes and waited, back against the counter, as Clay climbed up. His hair was tousled and he didn't look in a particularly good temper. He'd pulled on his jeans before heading up, but the top buttons were undone, the denim perched perilously low on his hips. That was another confusing thing - this sudden sexual attraction to Clay.

Intellectually, she could understand it. He was a prime example of beautiful male. Women probably begged to be allowed to crawl all over him. Add in that brooding sexuality and it was no wonder her body reacted. But...this was Clay. Her friend. Well, when he wasn't furious with her. She fisted her hands, dreadfully aware that if he yelled at her right now, she might just burst into tears. "Sorry if I woke you."

He thrust a hand through his hair and yawned, the act full of a lazy feline grace that held her spellbound. "You walk like a cat. I was already awake."

"Oh." She bit her lower lip when it threatened to tremble. "You don't have any chocolate."

"Christ, you never grew out of that sweet tooth?"

She shook her head, still feeling a little fragile.

He closed the distance between them with three long strides. "Move."

Eyes wide, she shifted to the side as he leaned up and opened a high cupboard she hadn't been able to reach. Her eye fell on his right biceps, on the tattoo there - three slashing lines, they reminded her of the markings on Lucas Hunter's face. "When did you get inked?"

A grunt was his only response. Curious, she peered at his back to check out the tattoo she'd glimpsed earlier. There it was, on the back of his left shoulder, an exquisitely detailed leopard curled up in sleep. Animal and human in one, she thought, understanding his need to acknowledge the leopard as he had never been allowed to do as a child. "I like the cat," she said, watching him close the first cupboard and open the one beside it. "Who did it?"

"A guy I knew from juvie - turned into a hotshot artist," he muttered. "Where the hell did I put it?"

Hopes rising, she stood on tiptoe beside him, trying to peek inside. "Chocolate?"

He reached deep into the space. "Chocolate." Pulling out his hand, he put a bar of luscious dark chocolate in her palm.

She could've kissed him, growly face and all. "Do you like chocolate now?"

"Hell, no. I can't stand the stuff." He closed the cupboard and leaned his hip against the counter. "Sascha, however, has a love affair with it. She gave it to me." He sounded puzzled.

"Maybe because she likes you?" Talin suggested, setting the milk to warm on the small heating unit she guessed was powered by an eco-generator. Everything in Clay's house seemed to have been designed with the forest's delicate ecology in mind. "She wanted to make you happy and probably figured that everyone likes chocolate."

"I guess." He yawned again but didn't move from where he stood only two feet from her, all dark masculine beauty. "You do this a lot?"

"Most every night," she admitted. "I don't sleep much."

"I'll need to get more chocolate, then."

"No." She looked up from peeling open the bar. "I can't stay here."

His eyes gleamed. "Why not? Afraid I'll bite you?"

"You already did," she reminded him with a scowl.

"You survived." He sounded very much like a cat at that moment.

"You know why I can't stay. We keep setting each other off. It's not exactly a peaceful environment."

"When did you get so hung up on peace?" He nodded at the milk. "Put in the chocolate."

"What? Oh." She broke off several chunks and dropped them in. "This kind makes good hot chocolate. Some of the others end up tasting weird."

Reaching into a drawer in front of him, he gave her a wooden spoon. She began to stir, inhaling the rich scent into her lungs with a sigh. "Heaven."

When Clay didn't say anything, she looked at him. He was watching her with a stare that was frankly assessing...and very sensual. Her heart kicked and she broke the searing eye contact, tucking her hair back when it twisted out from behind her ear. "Don't."

A hint of steel entered his languid pose, as if with her rejection, she'd pushed one of his damn male buttons. "Why not?"

The arrogance in his question put her back up. "Because!"

"You're a clearly sexual female. I'm a male. You want me. I want you. What's the problem?"

Her hand trembled as she turned off the heating unit. "Who says I want you?" She pointed the dripping spoon at him.

He winced as a drop of hot chocolate hit his chest but didn't move. "I can smell arousal, Talin. You get hot every time you see me half-naked."

The erotic need that flared through her body was mortifying. Perhaps that explained the stupidity of her next words. "Maybe I get that way for every half-naked man."

He stilled, becoming so very motionless that she felt like some tiny forest creature in front of a beast of prey. "So you'll have no problem spreading your legs for me, will you?"

Chapter 14

Putting the spoon very carefully on the counter, Talin picked up a mug from the stand. "Go away."

Clay had expected anger. This calm distance left him flatfooted. She sounded so focused, so controlled, she might as well have been Psy. "Talin, look at me."

She picked the pot up off the stove and poured her drink into the mug. He waited until she'd put the hot object safely into the sink before grabbing her wrist. Her skin was damp, cold. "Talin?"

"What?" She looked at him, face serene in a way he'd never before seen. Tally had too much energy, too much emotion, to ever be that quiet.

His beast sniffed at her, found something terribly wrong. "Talin, who am I?"

"Clay," she said, but didn't tug at his hand, didn't display any of the reactions he'd already come to expect from her. Her calm was eerie, unnatural. "Can I go now?"

He frowned at the childlike question. Her tone had shifted, as had her rhythm. She sounded like a six-year-old version of herself. "Tally, sweetheart, are you in there?"

"'Course I am, silly." She smiled and it was that sweet, innocent Tally smile. The one she had stopped smiling a very long time ago. "I want my hot chocolate."

"Go sit on those cushions. I'll bring it to you."

She followed his gaze to the other end of the room. "Is this your clubhouse?"

"Yeah." Cold fear squeezed his heart. "Go on, baby."

Smiling with absolute trust, she went to a cushion and sat, one of her legs tucked under her. He picked up her drink and took it to her. She accepted it with a smile. "Yum. Did ya learn to make hot choccie, Clay?"

His rational mind noted that her enunciation and syntax were also regressing, but all he could see was the look in her eyes. He'd seen that look before, those eyes. This was Tally as she had been over twenty years ago. Raw terror made the leopard pace in bewildered circles inside his mind.

"You made it, Tally," he said, gathering every ounce of tenderness he possessed in an effort to be gentle for her. "Don't you remember?"

She frowned at him. "No, silly! Not allowed - " Her eyes glazed over. She took a sip of hot chocolate, then...nothing. She didn't move. If he hadn't been able to see her breathing, he wouldn't have known she was alive.

"Tally?" He touched her cheek. No response. Desperate, the leopard starting to panic, he cupped her face. "Tally, wake up!" The last word was a growl.

She blinked. Then again, as if it took great effort. Her hands started to shake. Grabbing the mug before she dropped it, he put it to the side. "Tally, damn it, you come back to me right this second."

Lines appeared on her brow. "Don't...give...me orders." She shook her head, reminding him of a kitten shaking off wet. "Clay?"

"I'm here." He wanted to hold her but was terrified of her reaction. "I'm right here."

Her eyes were scared when she looked at him. "How did I get here? I was at the counter." Panic edged her words, jagged shards that bit into his skin.

"Something happened." He shifted position, sitting down in front of her with his legs bent at the knees, effectively bracketing her curled-up body.

"An episode?" She reached up as if to push back her hair, stopped, curled her hand into a fist, and pressed it to her stomach. "What did I do?"

"Do you remember what we were talking about?"

A pause, then a red flush high on her cheeks. "We didn't - " Her tone was reedy.

"No!" he said immediately. "No, baby. It's only been two or three minutes at most. Look, your chocolate is still hot." He pushed the mug into her hands, needing to do something to get that anguished look off her face.

She closed her fingers around it, sighing in relief. "Sometimes I do things when I'm - " Her face scarred over with the most cruel pain. "Sometimes I wake up in strange rooms. Then I have to go to the clinics and make sure my vaccinations are all up-to-date, and the doctors look at me like I'm a whore." The last word was a broken whisper.