His first thought was that the gene therapy had gone terribly wrong. His second was that he had to let Ashaya know he didn't blame her. It wasn't her fault. Just f**king fate. But he couldn't get the words out, his vocal cords all wrong. He couldn't even reach for her. His hands wouldn't cooperate.
"Give in!" he heard Ashaya scream. "Stop fighting it! Dorian, please!"
Give in? What was she talking about? He had to fight, fighting was how he'd survived.
"Baby, please. Please. Please."
Ashaya never used endearments, a part of him thought. She was still learning. He liked to tease her by saying - A pulse of need, of love, came down the mating bond. It had the wet saltiness of a plea.
He couldn't deny her. He could never deny her.
He gave in.
Agony and ecstasy, pure joy and shuddering pain. It was endless and the firefly flicker of a bird's heart. Then it was over. He blinked but his vision remained all wrong, his eyes too low to the ground. He opened his mouth to ask Ashaya why she was crying... but what came out wasn't human.
Ashaya began laughing at the look on Dorian's face. "You are so beautiful." A leopard with puzzled green eyes and the cutest expression she had ever seen. "Oh, I could just..." She reached out to stroke her hand down the fur of his back.
He made a rumbling sound that vibrated under her fingertips.
"Mom!" Keenan skidded to a stop beside her, Noor gasping beside him.
Dorian looked up and immediately lost his balance. Ashaya slung an arm around him, keeping him upright. "Slow, slow. You have to get used to it."
Keenan bent his body, braced his hands on his knees, and looked sideways at the man he usually followed around like a solid little shadow. "Dorian? Is that you? You're a leopard! Noor, look, Dorian's a cat!"
Ashaya felt shock ripple through the mating bond as Keenan's innocent exclamation finally cut through the confusion blinding Dorian. "You're magnificent," she whispered, cognizant of his keen hearing. "Amazingly beautiful."
"Dorian's a cat! Dorian's a cat!" Keenan, her previously silent son, began running around them in circles, a giggling Noor attached to his hand.
Laughing at their antics, Ashaya pressed a kiss to Dorian's brow. "Try to walk."
He wobbled dangerously.
Shit! Dorian thought. He was like a cub, all lack of coordination and paws out of order. Okay, he thought, he was still a man inside. He could work this out.
Strokes on his back, through fur. The sensation was so different, so luscious. And then the whisper in his ear. "The leopard knows. You don't have to cage him anymore."
It was as if he'd just needed to hear it. The leopard took over, the man retreated. Then the two combined for the first time in his life. He felt Ashaya move away even as his body straightened. Turning his head, he leaned forward and closed his jaws very gently over her wrist.
It was a kiss.
Her face lit up in understanding. "I love you, too. Now go, run. Play."
He released her, stopping to snap his teeth at the kids simply to hear them laugh and scamper off. Then he ran. The forest took on a thousand new colors clothed in scent, and when he chased prey, it was for the sheer joy of it. Hours passed. Night came and stars lit up the sky.
But the best part was going home... because she was waiting for him in front of a small fire. He walked out of the forest on four feet, thought about wanting to hold her in the arms of a man, and that quickly, he was kneeling na**d on the forest floor. "Hey. Kids asleep?"
She nodded and ran to him. "Oh, Dorian!"
Her joy blazed along the bond until it pulsed golden inside his heart. "God, I love you," he whispered. The words came from the heart of him, a heart that held the wild fury of a changeling - there was no man and there was no leopard. Only Dorian.