He slid the pad of his thumb over the bruises on her inner wrist lightly. She shivered. She definitely wasn’t immune to him. She was every bit as aware of him as he was her, but she didn’t like it. He had to find a way to change that. Right now, she was too sleepy, too exhausted to protest anything he did so he took full advantage.

He brought her wrists to his mouth and brushed a kiss over each. Her cobalt blue eyes went wider. Darker. Shades of violet. Again he felt her tug and he allowed her fingers to slip from his. She pressed both wrists to her thighs, but he didn’t rub his kisses away. He reached out and tucked strands of hair behind her ear.

“You need to climb in bed, sweetheart. You’re so exhausted you’re nearly falling over.” He kept his voice gentle.

Tenderness crept in and that shocked him. He didn’t know he knew how to be tender. She stripped him bare, looking so young, the terrible bruise standing out so starkly on her pale skin.

“Something’s wrong with me.” She whispered the confession to him, her eyes avoiding his. He scented her. The age-old call. The need rising in her. Her breasts lifted, her nipples peaked beneath the thin tank. Her legs moved restlessly and color swept through her body.

The moment she admitted it, tension filled the room. He almost groaned aloud. His cat roared at him, desperate to get at his mate. His body flooded with hunger, the need so strong it shook him. He’d blown it with her once already; he wasn’t about to do it again by stripping the clothes from her body and pounding into her.

He took a breath and forced calm into his leopard. “It’s not wrong, Kitten, it’s the Han Vol Dan. It’s as natural as breathing. She’s close to emerging and she’s giving you a little taste of what it will be like.”

“I don’t want it.”

He winced. Not wanting your leopard was denying who and what you were. Leopard was pure freedom. Once she experienced that, no one, not even her mate, could take that from her.

“You don’t want it because you don’t understand it. Your experience with shifters hasn’t been good, but you’re wrong. We’re not all killers. We can kill when we have to, but we can choose not to. We don’t hunt for fun. Those that do are considered rogues, living outside our laws. Our kind goes after them and removes them from society. Like the police would do.” Only rather more permanently, but he didn’t add that.

He took her hand gently and tugged, leading her to the bed. With one hand he pulled back the covers. “Get in, Cat. She’ll subside in a minute and that need will go away. Just breathe.”