“Not exactly a match that would have happened before we took the Collar. But they care about each other. Deep down inside.”
Must be very deep down inside. “I’ll take your word for it.”
Liam laughed his warm, throaty laugh. “I’m skeptical too, love, but it works for them. Come here.” He sat on the bed, putting his back against the headboard, and patted the mattress beside him.
“On the bed. Of course.” Kim put her hands on her hips. “If kidnapping and arguing don’t work, try seduction.”
“No seduction.” How Liam could claim that while looking at her with those sinful baby blues, she didn’t know.
Why did no seduction sound so disappointing? Maybe because Kim had felt a tingle of attraction for him since the moment she’d met him? As she’d talked to him throughout the day, she’d been lulled by his deep voice with its Irish lilt, softened by the warm blue of his eyes. Even him turning into a wildcat and killing a wolf on her bedroom floor hadn’t quite brought her to her senses.
Kim gave up and sat down beside him, stretching her legs out next to his. His hard thigh warmed hers.
“What did Glory mean when she said you ‘scent-marked’ me? That sounds disturbing.” Kim didn’t smell anything different about herself, but then she wasn’t a Shifter.
“Protection, love. Shifters know their families and friends faster by scent first, then sight. I made sure that when they smell you now they smell me and know to leave you alone.”
“I don’t remember you spraying me or anything.” She wrinkled her nose.
“When I hugged you outside Sandra’s house, I let my scent twine with yours.”
“Oh.” She’d remembered that hug all day, his body hard and strong against hers, his arms so comforting. She’d thought it part of the Shifter’s strange need to touch. “But I went home and took a shower.”
Liam gave her the smile that made his eyes sparkle. “It’s more than smell—the scent-mark is a little bit magic as well. It fades with time if you never see the Shifter again, but for now, everyone in Shiftertown knows I’m taking care of you.”
Kim was uncertain how to feel about that. She didn’t like being “protected,” but then again, having Liam charge in to save her from the feral had been a good thing. She’d also noted how the Shifters at the bar had sized her up. Without Liam’s mark, would she have been fair game? Unnerving thought.
Liam had fallen silent, as though lost in thought. His big body took most of the bed, leaving Kim only a tiny portion. She wondered what it would be like to sleep in this small bed with him. A woman would have to cuddle up to him, maybe spoon against his back. Her arm would snake around his waist, and she’d want to tickle his belly button.
“Do Shifters have belly buttons?” she asked.
Liam’s preoccupied look dissolved into a smile. “You’re a treasure, lass. The gods sent you to us, I think.”
“It just occurred to me.”
Liam eased his T-shirt upward. His jeans rode low on his waist, baring his flat stomach and the indentation of his navel.
“I’m human in every way when I’m in this form,” he said. “It’s not only our appearance that changes. It’s everything. Bones, muscles, organs. It’s hellacious painful when we first do it.”
“How old were you when you shifted the first time?” Kim couldn’t drag her gaze from his abdomen. She wanted to taste his belly button and slide her tongue down from there to his low-riding waistband.
“I was about five as humans count years. I was still a cub. I remember thinking I was dying.”
“It must have been weird to suddenly be a wildcat—whatever kind of cat you are.”
“It’s called a Fae-cat. But you’ve got it the other way ’round, love. I lived as a wildcat for five years before I shifted to human. Standing up on two feet and having eyes that couldn’t see so well in the dark—it scared the bejesus out of me.”
“You were born a cat?”
“My parents were both full-blood Feline Shifters, so yes. When there’s a mix—wolf and cat Shifter, or wolf and bear, say—then you’re born a human babe. You shift to whatever is the dominant gene when you’re about five or six.”
Interesting. None of her research had told her any of this, which made her realize just how little humans knew about Shifters. “What is a Fae-cat, exactly? I couldn’t decide if you were mountain lion or leopard or what.”
“It’s hard to explain to a non-Shifter. We’re a unique breed, left over from times before humans populated the earth. The Fae made us. They bred in the strengths of all members of the big cat family, at least the big cats of ancient times, the ancestors of wildcats that exist now. We’re fast like cheetahs, can see in the dark like leopards, have the power of lions, the cunning of tigers. That’s why we call ourselves Felines, not a specific breed. The Lupines are wolves, but not exactly like any wolves you’d find in the wild.”
“In other words, the best of the entire species.”
“You could say that.”
“So, if you can crossbreed, like you said, then your dad and your next-door neighbor could produce children. In theory.”
“In theory, though cross-species fertility is not as high as fertility within a species. Dad’s only about two hundred, so he can still father cubs. Glory won’t tell her age, but she’s still in the fertile range.”
“Dylan is two hundred years old?” Kim asked in amazement. “He doesn’t look much into his forties. How old are you?”
“I was born in 1898, as humans count years. Sean came along in 1900.”
Holy shit. “You look damn good for a centenarian. What about Connor? Don’t tell me he’s eighty-two.”
“He’s twenty. Born right after we took the Collar. His mum died of bringing him in, poor lass.”