Hard Mated

Silent, sure, but his presence was weighty. This was a Shifter, for crying out loud, big, tough, able to break tiny young women like Jillian in half with one hand. Yet he stood there looking down at Jillian in the bed as though someone had sledgehammered him between the eyes and he hadn’t remembered to fall down yet.

“I don’t have a lot of time,” Jillian said, her voice a faint whisper. A far cry from the girl who’d balanced on top of a rail fence at the rodeo a year ago, screaming for her favorite bull rider. She’d slept with him too. Men usually took one look at Jillian and became her devoted slaves.

“I have a gift for you,” Jillian said.

She held out her hand, and Spike reached down and took it. He didn’t hold her hand awkwardly—he closed it between his two big ones, as though trying to comfort her.

“What?” he asked, his voice a quiet rumble. Even a Shifter could feel the dampening presence of the hospital room.

“Myka will show you. Myka and my mom. I don’t know what else to do, all right?”

Jillian pressed down on his hand, the movement so weak that Myka saw it only because a tendon moved on Jillian’s wrist.

Spike nodded. What was in his eyes, Myka couldn’t see, because his gaze was fixed on Jillian.

“Myka, go get my mom, okay? I asked her to wait down the hall.”

Myka didn’t want to leave Jillian alone with the Shifter. Jillian let her stare go steely, which she was good at, even while dying. “Myka? Okay?”

Spike turned his head and looked at Myka, and for the first time, Myka got the whole connection of his Shifter gaze. Spike’s eyes were dark brown, his pupils black, windows into nothing.

No, not nothing. An intense something. Myka saw wildness inside him, the beast that had charged a bear four times his size and sunk his teeth into the big animal’s neck. Spike’s throat was singed where his Collar had shocked him, but the shocks hadn’t slowed him down a millisecond. This was an animal who looked for his prey’s weakness and went for it.

Myka did not want to leave him alone in here with Jillian.

But Jillian had hours to live, not days, the cancer taking away the last of what she had been.

Myka made herself turn around and leave, walking rapidly down the corridor to the little room where Jillian’s mom Sharon waited, surrounded by vending machines, a television that blared a news channel, and other tense people who’d come to see their families.

Sharon got rapidly to her feet and followed Myka out. “Damn, I need a cigarette. Jillian kicked me out when you called from the parking lot, but I couldn’t go outside with . . .” She wriggled her arm, jostling what she was pulling.

“I don’t like this,” Myka said.

“I know. But it’s what Jillian wants, and I think she’s right.”

Myka had to shut up, because they’d entered Jillian’s room again. Spike swung around, inhaling sharply.

His eyes changed to Shifter—brown tinged with gold, the pupils slits—as his gaze riveted on the small boy Sharon gripped by the hand.

At four years old, Jordan had lost his baby chubbiness and was turning into a sturdy, strong-boned lad. He had dark hair brushed with red and dark brown eyes framed with black lashes. Until Myka had seen Spike looking at her with the same eyes, she’d doubted Jillian’s claim.

Jillian drew a breath to speak, but Sharon shook her head, seeing it was too much for her. She walked Jordan forward.

“This is your son,” Sharon said, her voice heavy from too many years of smoking. “So says Jillian.”

“He is, Mom,” Jillian’s whisper came.

Jordan stared up at Spike, who filled the room not only with his presence, but with the bulk of him. Though smaller than the bear-man he’d fought, Spike was still big—six and a half feet tall, arms as big as a wrestler’s and covered in tatts that disappeared inside his T-shirt, shaved head on a muscular neck encased by an inch-thick Collar. Jordan’s soft mouth hung open, his small teeth white in the moisture behind his lip.

Spike stared back at Jordan just as hard, the shock mutual.

“Jordan,” Jillian said from the bed. “Do your trick for Mommy.”

Jordan, caught in the spell of Spike’s gaze, remained frozen for another moment. Then he looked away and stripped off his shirt. Almost proudly, he shoved down his pants and underwear and stood without clothes, as unashamed as the Shifters had done at the hay barn.

The little boy lifted his arms over his head, closed his eyes, then gave a little squeak as his body changed shape.

His legs bent and became haunches, his little feet morphed into awkwardly big paws. Jordan’s hands became paws before his arms did, the smooth spotted pelt sliding down to join the one that rose up his chest. His face elongated into a cat’s nose, ears popped up on his head, and his eyes became rounder, fuller, eyelashes and whiskers growing swiftly. The fur that covered him was dark yellow with the broken black bands of a jaguar.

In only a few seconds, Jordan dropped to all fours and let out a tiny wildcat yowl.

The suspicion on Spike’s face turned to amazement then a hungry longing. Before Myka could stop him, he bent down and scooped up the cub between his big hands.

He lifted Jordan to his eye level, staring at the cub, who wriggled and squirmed but not in alarm.

They studied each other, Shifter and cub, the big man’s eyes wide, the cub’s unworried. Jordan opened his mouth and emitted another little growl.

“I named him Jordan,” Jillian said. “He’s yours. Take care of him for me, all right?”