“I shouldn’t,” I whispered, still a cat. Were-animals didn’t talk in their animal forms. Shapeshifters though…There was generalized confusion about weres and shifters because there were so few of the latter. A rare breed. People used the terms interchangeably. Even were-animals called themselves shifters. That was fine with me. I didn’t really want clarity on the difference.

My pink tongue darted out as I laid my body beside Lacey, nudging her hand with my head, seeing if she would stir to pet me. She kept sleeping and I sat staring for a while, waiting for nothing at all, my gaze running over her sleeping face. Her peach-colored lips parted slightly, her eyelashes brushed her cheeks, and her pale rainbow hair lay in a strip across her forehead.

From one shape to the next, I melted and reformed until I was Viktor, sprawled out on the bed next to her. I rolled on my back, closing my eyes and stretching out. I kicked my shoes off onto the floor and settled, wondering if I wanted to stay here when I was Lacey or move on.

I turned my head and stared at her. She was deep asleep, no rustling at all. There were things I still hadn’t figured out–like where she was hiding her hoard. She had someone who helped manage it but all the details were frustratingly elusive to me. Her luck might not keep me from her house but it kept me from robbing her blind. It wouldn’t be a deal breaker to not have access to her fortune but if I was going to be a leprechaun, I’d like to do it properly.

I rolled on my side and thought about the club, my cock growing hard in my pants. I pressed my face into the superficial road rash on her arm, inhaling the scent of blood into my system like a drug.

A deep groan came from me and I pressed my tongue to the wound, licking a line up it, tasting iron. I pulled back and touched her face, placing her cheek in my palm. Her skin was soft and had smile lines at the creases of her eyes. I wanted to lick them.

Instead, I rolled off the bed, collecting a wash rag, soap, and water. She didn’t have antibiotics—of course she didn’t. Leprechauns didn’t get infections or diseases. Which was why I had no good reason not to press my face against her wounds, rub my nose into them, and drag my tongue across red, swollen skin before I wiped them clean with a warm rag. Lacey tasted divine.

My cock stayed hard the entire time, flashes of the club playing through my mind. The soft feel of her around my fingers clenching down tight. The way her face creased and tightened before relaxing, her hips bucking against me.

The strangest thing had happened tonight. I’d grown confused about what I wanted more, to be her or to be with her. It had never been a question with my previous obsessions. I only fucked them if they really insisted. I preferred not being part, my own body a distraction from theirs.