Her grandfather sighed. “That was unfortunate, Siena. The circumstances . . .” He broke off. “You need to understand. A male has his leopard almost from birth, but a female, that is much more complicated. She does not come out until she wants to do so. She is capricious. Her male must wait for her. Sometimes that waiting is long. Your leopard is close, Siena, and she wants out. When that happens, the passion is hot and the hunger doesn’t let up. It burns through you and there is no denying it.”

That was the first thing he said that made her pause. She had never looked at a man and wanted him with every breath in her body. Her body had never burned relentlessly, insistently. Not like this. Not like now. Not the way it had for Elijah.

“Show me.”

“When we shift,” Paolo warned, “we do so without clothes.” Already, his hand was at the buttons of his shirt, clearly eager to show her.

She didn’t look at him. She couldn’t. If he thought having some leopard inside of him would make her forgive him, he was insane. Her grandfather was insane. She had no intentions of forgiving either of them. She was leaving the moment she could, but she realized by the way Paolo was acting, so proprietary, that he wouldn’t let her go so easily. Even if she convinced her grandfather—and she knew he loved her in spite of what and who he was.

She licked her lips and tasted blood. She closed her eyes, and when she opened them, a huge golden leopard crouched in front of her, its malevolent, greedy eyes staring straight at her. Wholly focused. She should have screamed. She should have fainted. She should have done anything but what she did. Later, she recognized that she was in shock, that one too many things had happened and her brain couldn’t assimilate them. She leaned toward the leopard, one arm still wrapped around her ribs. “You should have killed me, Paolo. I will never forgive you, leopard or no leopard.”

The animal snarled, showing large teeth. A blast of hot air hit her face, and she realized what she was doing. She sat back, her heart accelerating. Maybe if she were really lucky, the large cat would kill her right there.

“Paolo,” her grandfather said sharply. “Enough. You showed her. She knows we are telling the truth.”

The leopard stared at her for a long time before suddenly leaning toward her, the tongue coming out. He licked up the side of her face, tasting her blood. The tongue felt rough. Hot. Obscene. She shuddered. Her heart pounded so hard she had to press her fist over her chest in an effort to try to still it.