“Blue.” Remy’s voice penetrated the roaring in her ears and the sheer terror of her body becoming something else. “Look at me. See me. I can get you through this. You’re afraid and it’s my fault. Instead of havin’ sex with you every time I saw you, I should have been preparin’ you for this. Please, chere, just let me do this for you.”

Her body twisted, rolled, so that she came up on her hands and knees, only they weren’t her hands or her knees any longer. She turned her head slowly, anger burning through her belly and raging in her heart. She swiped at him.

Remy leapt back. It was only his leopard’s reflexes that saved him from a nasty rake across his face. His lady was really, really angry with him. There was something in her eyes that alarmed him. She was definitely distancing herself from him, and that was terribly dangerous, especially now.

One more roll and a silent scream and Blue was fully leopard. She came to her feet gingerly, regarding him warily, wild and feral and all female. Before he could move, she whirled around and sprinted toward the swamp. He changed on the run, using more speed than he ever had. He wasn’t going to lose her, not now, not when he was so close to making her his.

His leopard charged after Bijou, leaping over a fallen log and easily following her scent. The swamp closed around him, giving him the sense of freedom and wild he craved. This was his real world, one he understood and needed. That was part of the danger of being leopard, especially in shifting for the first time. There was no real way to explain to someone else the absolute freedom of being cat, and the temptation to stay in that form was always present.

Bijou was frightened and he’d clearly handled things wrong with her, so the lure of staying in the large cat’s form would be doubly so. He tried to stay rational, to use logic as he followed her trail, reasoning when his brain wanted to go feral on him. Usually, the first hour or so, when he ran free, he didn’t allow his human side to feel anything at all. He stayed fully animal, but he couldn’t afford to make any mistakes.