Change of Heart 05 - Forging the Future Read Online Free PDF Page B

it’s your job,” the little girl’s mother told him. “And just so we’re clear, anyone even fires at that cat on my land, and I’ll turn them in for poaching.”
    “And if he attacks your cattle?” one of the men asked her.
    “Whatever he wants is his,” she said quickly, her gaze meeting mine. “Go on, now.”
    I was gone seconds later and off the ranch by dusk.
    “How long did you remain in your panther form?” Wick asked, bringing me from my reverie.
    “I don’t know, a couple months? I think I run faster than other panthers, at least it feels like that.”
    “Of course you do,” Dov said, encouraging me.
    “I shifted back in Baton Rouge, went to a homeless shelter, got some clothes, and then stayed at a church for a while before I got a job washing dishes.”
    “And then?” Wick pressed.
    “Well, my boss at the diner where I worked, he’s a panther, and he told me to leave Baton Rouge because his semel didn’t like outsiders at all. I wasn’t safe, so I left.”
    Dov nodded, and Wick pulled a phone from the breast pocket of his suit jacket and made a note. I wondered if they would have a word with that semel.
    “My boss suggested I come to New Orleans and get a job waiting tables, and that’s exactly what I did. It seemed like as good a plan as any.”
    Wick and Dov were scrutinizing me.
    “I like bartending better, so I’m doing that now instead.”
    Their faces were hard to read.
    “I swear that’s what happened.”
    “We believe you, mate,” Wick said quickly.
    “Thank you,” I mumbled, hoping my trepidation didn’t come through. I hadn’t told anyone about the little girl or how I had regained consciousness, because it was troubling. Evidently I’d been awake for some time before that but hadn’t been aware of what was going on around me. The loss of time was scary.
    “Something wrong?” Dov queried.
    “No,” I assured him. “It’s just sort of scary not to know yourself or where your home is.”
    “Well, whatever happened, we’ll find out.”
    I nodded.
    “It’s a good thing you shifted back,” Wick chimed in. “Panthers who remain in their animal state too long tend to forget that they were ever human.”
    “I didn’t know,” I said, even though maybe I had at one time.
    “I wonder what prompted you to shift back to human?”
    It had been the dream…
    “Do you have any idea what it could have been?”
    …and it was private.
    “Jim?”
    I couldn’t answer; it would give away too much.
    “You can trust us.”
    But I couldn’t, not with something I didn’t understand myself.
    In the dream, there was a blond man, more beautiful than any I’d ever seen and probably one that didn’t exist anywhere outside of my subconscious. And even though, because he was running, I never saw his face, I heard him laughing, deep and rumbling, so I got the feeling that he wasn’t running away from me, but instead with me. We were going somewhere together, and I kept reaching for his back, trying to touch him, to get him to stop and turn around. I wanted to feel the powerful muscles moving under his sleek, golden skin, but I just couldn’t reach him. What was odd, though, was that I felt like if I’d just been able to reach him, he would have stopped and turned and taken me into his arms. It was a game, except he didn’t know I wasn’t playing. He was used to me being right there with him, and if I’d been able to touch him, he would have known that.
    The husky sound of his laugh made my heart pound and my throat dry and my dick harden between my legs. Every night I woke up throbbing with need and hunger, and I wanted him desperately. My dream man made me yearn for him, and it was ridiculous; he didn’t exist, but still, I woke almost feverish with heat every morning. The strangest part of the dream, though—I was in human form, not my animal one, and so because of that, because I wanted to be running with the handsome stranger, I’d apparently shifted back to human