Page 54 of Wicked Ways

Her breath came fast and hard. Pounded in his ears as he crept closer to her, his head down. He wanted her to touch him. To look at him not with fear, but with⁠—

Hell, more.

Her mouth trembled. The gun lowered and its muzzle hovered over the ground.

He needed to hold her. To pull her close and feel the warmth of her body against his. For that, he had to be a man.

The change wasn’t pretty. It wasn’t easy. It was, in fact, nearly as brutal as the act he’d just committed. But she’d already seen him at his worst. And she wasn’t running, not yet.

Cain let the all-consuming fire of the change sweep through him. The crack of bones filled the air as his body shifted from beast to man. The fur dissolved. Dark, tanned skin reappeared. Claws returned to fingernails. The jaguar’s lethal teeth receded, became those of a man.

His fingers pressed against the earth. His knees dug into the ground. And the whole time, he kept his stare on her.

When the transformation was finished, he rose slowly. Cain closed the last distance between them. He was naked and when he lifted his hand toward her, he saw the blood that still stained his fingers.

It had always been there. From the first kill.

Miranda hesitated. She carefully put the gun onto the ground. “Cain?”

He didn’t know what to say, but he knew this was the most important moment in his life. If she left him now, there would be no coming back.

Sirens sounded in the distance. Humans always did have piss-poor timing.

His fingers curled into fists. He wanted her so much, but she deserved better than an animal.

“He was going to…transform me.” Her gaze darted over his shoulder to the vampire, then jerked away. Her voice was quiet, hoarse, when she said, “Make me…like him.”

Cain’s jaw clenched. “You could never be like him.”

Tears clouded her eyes. “If you’d been…just a bit later. If you hadn’t come…I would have been…a vampire.”

Or she would have been dead. He’d met only a few female vamps in his time. Men transformed much easier, while the women usually had quick, brutal deaths.

“If he’d changed me…” She blinked her eyes, and a tear slid down her cheek. “Would you have k-killed me, too?”

“No!” He reached for her. He had to touch her, simple as that. He caught her hands in his. Held tight. “Miranda, don’t you understand? I would never hurt you—no matter what you are or—or what you become.” If she’d been made into a vampire, she’d have experienced the bloodlust, the desperate thirst, but she wouldn’t have become a sadistic killer like Roberts. That poisonous instinct just wasn’t in her.

“But if I’d…been a vampire⁠—”

“I would have wanted you just the same. Loved you just the same.” Oh, damn, he’d said it, but there was no taking the words back now.

Miranda’s eyes widened, and he saw himself reflected with the moonlight in her stare. “Cain?”

“You’re mine, Miranda. Mine. And I don’t care what you are—human, vampire, it doesn’t matter. You’re mine,” he repeated, growling the words.

Her lips lifted into a smile. “You mean that, don’t you?”

With every bit of his heart. But he knew she didn’t feel the same. Things between them were too new. He’d probably scared ten years off her life with his shifts and⁠—

Miranda kissed him. A soft, open-mouthed kiss. Her arms curled around him. Held him tight.

As tight as he was holding her.

Her lips lifted a bare inch from his. “And you’re mine, Cain Lawson. The jaguar, the man—both of you are mine.” Another kiss, one that had his cock rising and his blood heating.

The sirens were dangerously close now, and Cain could hear the murmur of voices floating toward them. Cain pulled back. “Miranda?”

“I love you, Cain.”