She turned her head to look up at Eli. “The strange thing was, I didn’t care if he did. I wanted it all to be over. But he didn’t kill me. He hurt me so bad.” She turned her face into the pillow. “So bad,” she whispered.

His hand moved under her tank, over her bare skin, his fingers finding each rake scar as he pushed the tank all the way up and out of his way. He shifted the hair off her back to expose the scars even more. She felt the skim of his mouth against each mark and tears burned again. She wanted to roll over, push him away, but she couldn’t move.

Her body was no longer her own. The touch of his hands and his mouth proved she had no real defense against him.

“What he did was wrong, sweetheart.” He stretched out beside her, his hands continuing to massage her back and shoulders. “All male leopards are affected when a woman goes into the Han Vol Dan, but you don’t take what doesn’t belong to you. He knows the rules. He knew better.”

She kept her eyes closed. His hands felt wonderful and that terrible burning need was subsiding just as he’d said it would. She felt him shift position again, moving almost over the top of her back, and now his mouth trailed kisses over the rake marks again. She should have stopped him, but she didn’t. She couldn’t. She felt tension coiling tight inside of her. She felt the leopard inside of her leaping toward him.

There was the slide of fur against her bare skin. She felt hot breath against the nape of her neck. Still she couldn’t move, not even when the leopard sank his teeth into her shoulder in the holding bite of his kind. Her leopard surged forward toward the male and she felt the larger male’s response.

Her body went up in flames as her female neared the surface in answer to the male’s call. She cried out, writhing beneath him, but he moved one strong thigh over her, pinning her down, holding her until her female accepted his male. More hot tears soaked the pillow. She went from never crying to a flood she couldn’t stop.

The fur was gone, replaced by Eli’s mouth moving over the bite with small kisses and a soothing tongue. He didn’t bother to try to hide the urgent hunger in his body from her.

“What did you do?” she whispered.

“What I had to do. It’s over. There’s no need to hurt you, Catarina. Your female will accept my male. She’s going to emerge whether you like it or not and you’ll need a man, a male shifter to take care of you.”