Leopard's Prey

her lashes, her eyes meeting his in the mirror. His heart nearly stopped and then began pounding. Women didn’t have that kind of effect on him. His mouth didn’t go dry. His jaw didn’t ache and his canines didn’t grow sharp. He was always—
always
—in control. And yet . . . He heard thunder roaring in his ears, and breathed deep, calling on centuries of discipline.
    Emotions dulled and disappeared in time. What little he felt, he felt as the other, not in this form. Sometimes he forgot what it was like to be in his present form. Yet now, looking into her eyes, he found he couldn’t look away. She mesmerized him. Captivated him. He didn’t trust her. He didn’t trust his unfamiliar, very strange reaction to her.
    A gust of wind hit the tavern hard, blew down the chimney and sent sparks rising in the fireplace. A log fell from the iron grate and rolled toward the opening, coming to an abrupt halt, but flames leapt and danced, while cracks inside the log glowed brightly. Fen swung his head toward the window. The thick mist spun out of the forest, threads of gray wrapping themselves around the tavern, enclosing the entire building in a giant spiderweb of glistening mist.
    The woman stopped dancing, drawing his attention back to her. She stared at the fire, as if every bit as mesmerized by it as he was with her. She moved closer and he found himself frowning, watching her closely in the mirror. Her eyes reflected the leaping flames, almost as if they were multifaceted, reminiscent of the cut of a diamond. She stepped closer, too close. The fireplace was open. Mountains of ashes glowed, flames leapt hungrily. Fen slipped off the bar stool.
    She slowly extended her hand toward the flame. The path would take her palm right into the center of the fire. He moved, using blurring speed, coming up behind her, reaching around and catching her wrist, pulling her hand away from the flames before they could blister her soft skin.
    For a moment she stiffened as if she might fight him. He felt a brush, the lightest of touches along his mind, which shocked him. Who was she? What was she? He held his barriers effortlessly and kept his touch gentle, taking care not to convey a threat of any kind. She relaxed and he inhaled the scent of her, his head near her shoulder, so that the thick fall of silky hair brushed his skin and her feminine scent enveloped him. He drew her deep into his lungs. She smelled like sin. Like sex. Like paradise and everything he didn’t—and would never—have.
    “It’s hot. Fire will burn you,” he said softly, making certain no one else in the tavern would hear.
    She was intelligent, he could see that, but something had happened to her, and clearly there were things she’d never experienced and had no knowledge of. Amnesia? Trauma? There was no other explanation. Everyone knew about fire, and her lack of knowledge just made her all the more vulnerable.
    She turned her head slowly to look up at him over her shoulder, frowning slightly, a puzzled expression on her face. Up so close, she appeared ethereal, mysterious, her skin silky smooth, touchable. He’d never been so drawn to another being in his life.
    “Your skin will burn,” he explained patiently. “It would be extremely painful to you.”
    She continued to look at him, confused. He tried repeating the warning in several languages. She just looked at him and they were drawing far too much attention. Every time she moved she had the eye of everyone in the tavern, and he didn’t want anyone to think she was easy prey by her lack of knowledge of the most basic necessity such as fire. In the end, there was nothing else to do. He pressed her arm down to her side, stepped around her and extended his hand, palm down, into the flames.
    She watched, her eyes widening as his skin blistered and the scent of burning flesh rose. She caught his arm and jerked his hand from the fireplace.
    “Do you understand?” he asked, showing her the damage.
    She turned his hand over, her palm covering his burned one, not quite touching, yet he still felt her energy vibrating through his skin. Soothing coolness slid over the blisters. She lifted his palm toward her mouth. His breath caught in his lungs, the air trapped there. He couldn’t move or even speak as she bent her head toward his palm. Her tongue touched the blisters, lightly, barely there, a slow brush that actually made his hand tremble and his knees just a little weak. Worse, his body reacted