Change of Heart 05 - Forging the Future (15 page)

It took the little girl to bring me back because she had needed me, and I knew—the reah in me knew—that I was a parent, a guardian, a caregiver. And so I had returned to my own mind and become what I was first once more, the mate of my semel.

Even without my memory, I had begun to yearn for him, and once that was sated, once I was a reah again and reunited with my semel, then I had been ready for my child to be restored. Once I had him as well, then the nekhene power returned and with it, my memory.

Logan had broken me with his distrust and then remade me with his love. It was sad that I couldn’t do it alone, but I was half of a whole. Neither he nor I existed without the other.

I understood what Russ had said, that Logan was weaker because of me. But what Russ was missing was that together, we were stronger than
any
other mated pair.

I was the nekhene cat, he was the semel-netjer, and no one should have leveraged their power against us. It was unwise. Everyone thought they knew what I was, but truly, I was a feral creature, just as much as I was a reah with a mate I craved with a voracious hunger and a child to love and protect and teach.

I might never find cohesion, no spiritual blending, just as Logan and I were one and not. I might never be whole, never align all that I was under the yoke of the reah, but that was
maat
. Balance was a far greater goal. I’d been in possession of it before that day and now, was again.

I was restored.

“Papa?”

My son.

My mate.

All there was.

And now….

Now.

Russ thought he could take my mate, take my son. Peter thought the same thing. Koren… the tribe… everyone?

His sigh was so sweet, so content, so sure of his place in my world. “I should go put clothes on, huh?”

“Yes, you should. You don’t want anyone seeing your bare butt.”

He laughed. “I didn’t want to move without you and Daddy, but Babushka said I had to.”

“It was a good thing to listen to your grandmother.”

“I came with Babushka and Auntie Del and Uncle Markel and Jinny and Suki.”

Crane had named his daughter, Jin, after me, and Suki was for Yusuke’s mother.

I had to lean on my son for a moment, and he kissed my temple and pushed my hair out of my face.

“I like your hair long. You have to let it grow, okay?”

“I will, angel.”

“I missed you calling me your angel.” His face fell. “Everyone was so mad, and I think Daddy was too.”

“Oh no,” I promised, hugging him again, feeling warm wind on my face as Ilia wrapped his thin arms around my neck. “Your father loves you more than anything. He could never be mad at you. He might be upset with something you do, but never
at
you. Do you understand?”

Ilia nodded absently, leaning back so he could see my face. “Papa, are you making the wind?”

“I am,” I answered firmly, everything clicking into place like the tumblers on a lock. “My power’s rising.”

“Your eyes turn all black when your power makes the wind.”

I nodded. “Shall I shift for you?”

His eyes were gleaming with excitement as he nodded frantically.

“Can you shift with me?”

He pursed his lips together tight. “Uncle Koren and Dedushka say it’s bad to shift.”

“I’m your father,” I reminded him. “Who do you listen to?”

“You, Papa!” he crowed, pulling off my cardigan and shifting that fast, fluidly, like a cascade of water, reforming into the gryphon he had been
that
day.

But it was different now, because he had shifted out of joy of being with me—not out of fear. He wanted to be by my side, and there was only happiness in the act.

In the funnel of wind, I stripped naked and thought
gryphon
. When the wind calmed, stilled, my son was bouncing around, flying and hopping, rolling on his back and gazing up at me with enormous eyes.

He was as big as a rhinoceros, and I was, from the height I was looking down at everyone, easily the size of an elephant. The looks on all their faces, stunned awe, brought a roar of happiness from me that must have physically tickled Ilia, because he broke into booming laughter.

It was fun to watch a gryphon laugh, even better to watch his father, my mate, stumble forward, fall to his knees, and cover his face with his hands.

We were there, immediately beside him, both of us, father and son, held in thrall to the semel on the ground, crying softly.

They were joyful tears, though, and I bent my head, bumping him gently.

“You remember me,” he whispered hoarsely, clutching at my head, a hand on my beak. “Oh baby, please shift back, I want to talk to you and tell you my plan.”

“Wait,” Crane ordered, running and yelling at the same time, back fast with blankets, one for me and one for my son.

Ilia rolled through his shift, and again, it was beautiful because his had a very liquid feel to it, and though not slow by any stretch of the imagination, it could still be tracked by the eye, watched, and reveled in.

Crane bent and wrapped up my boy, lifting him up off his feet to his shrieks of delight.

Instantly—because while Ilia had nekhene cat in him, I was pure-blooded nekhene—I stood before Logan, my hands in his hair as my best friend wrapped me in a beautiful silk quilt.

Logan rose fast, tucked the blanket around me, and yanked me forward, hand around my neck as he tipped my head back and bent to kiss me.

I nipped his bottom lip, and he pulled back, startled.

“I don’t kiss you in front of others anymore,” I reminded him. “My passion is for your eyes only.”

He squinted, nodding fast. “I missed you and your fierceness, my reah.”

“As I did you,” I replied frankly. “Now give me the words.”

Leaning close, he touched his forehead to mine. “Forgive me for sending you—”

“What? No, Logan, I don’t need to hear—”

“Yes, you do,” he said hoarsely. “I screamed at you, and oh baby, I’m so sorry.”

Instantly tears blurred my vision.

“I thought… from where I was….”

“You thought I killed your son,” I whispered.

“Our son,” he corrected, gathering me to his chest, hugging me tight. “I thought when I felt the reah that everything would be all right, but then when I saw him shift back and go limp, I lost it.”

I nodded against him.

“I came at you, and you dropped Ilia, and when you shifted back, your face was so hurt, and your eyes… and you came for him, for me, and I— I….”

“It’s over,” I soothed. “And now I will hear only
your
words, my semel.”

A sharp inhale. “I love you, Jin, and not because you’re mine or because you’re my reah, but because you have my heart. Always.”

“Yes,” I murmured, lifting to kiss the corner of his mouth and suck his bottom lip between mine before taking another delicate nibble. “And I will have you and claim what has always been and will always be mine.”

“As will I,” he promised darkly, and a flush of heat ran through me.

“Jin!” Delphine yelled as she ran over to us, unable, it seemed, to wait any longer.

Turning, I held the blanket closed as I put an arm around her, wiggling like a puppy excited to see its favorite human. She hugged me tight, kissing my cheek, and then it was Markel’s turn, and Logan’s mother’s.

I sighed. “I’m sorry you had to choose between your children, but I’m overwhelmed that you’re here with us, with Logan and Delphine.”

“And you, my sweet boy,” Eva said gently, hands on my face, smiling through her tears.

I hugged her again because she and I had always understood each other. She was a gift, and I’d always treated her that way.

“Go shower, and then put on some clothes,” Crane groused at me.

I gestured for him, and he made a big deal of pretending he didn’t want to touch me before he lunged and grabbed me into a mauling hug.

“Don’t—leave me again,” he muttered.

“No,” I promised. “You will remain forever at my side.”

Crane shoved his face down against my shoulder and inhaled deeply before he stepped back. “God, that’s amazing.”

“What is?”

“You smell like you and you sound like you all at once.”

My chuckle was low. “And who else would I be?”

“Just go shower,” he groused.

“First I need to hug your wife,” I baited as Yusuke flew into my outstretched arm.

It was so very good to be home.

Chapter 9

D
ELPHINE
TOOK
Ilia to shower and change after he and Logan snuggled together on the couch. It was obvious that Ilia wanted to stay with his father, nestled in his lap, and sleep. But he needed to shower and get cleaned up after he’d been a panther for more than five, close to six, months. It was interesting that adults, left in animal form for that long, would have had trouble returning to talking and interacting and simply being human. Children had a far easier time because they were not yet locked into one reality or one way of thinking about themselves.

As I stood under the hot water in our huge walk-in shower, I tried to imagine what Logan could be planning, and then it hit me as I heard the snick of the enclosure door opening.

“This is what we fought about,” I said as my beautiful man joined me under the spray, putting a tube down beside the shampoo on the shelf.

“Did we fight?” he asked as he bent to kiss me.

“You know we did,” I flared, angry, remembering what he wanted to give up even as his lips opened for me.

“You said you would claim what was yours,” he whispered, lost in his desire, nothing else mattering at the moment.

I reached up and coiled my arms around his neck, letting him lift me off my feet and into his hands. His fingers dug into my ass before gripping my thighs, wrapping them around his waist and then taking hold of my thickening cock.

He stroked me from base to tip, and the water allowed it to be smooth before he twisted for the lube he had carried in.

“Maybe I don’t want to be taken against the wall,” I said breathlessly, shivering with just the thought of such a show of strength.

His low, seductive chuckle brought a moan from deep in my chest as he slid me up the wall, pinning me there with his big, hard body as he fumbled with the lube.

“It’s enough,” I insisted, not caring, just wanting him in me, how easy the slide would be of no concern.

“Patience,” he rumbled before he tossed the bottle away and lifted his chin for my kiss.

I took him ravenously, open-mouthed, sucking on his tongue, his lips, wanting all of him, certain that he’d forgotten he was as much mine as I was his.

“Fuck, Jin, you smell so good.”

My pheromones were unleashed, trying to drive him crazy; our bond was there, pulsing between us, and even more, the reah that I was yearned to be claimed by my semel.

Sex, the physical act, was always furious and wild between us, but now, I knew who I was, and it was hard even to breathe around my need.

“My semel,” I ground out, bucking against him as I felt my fangs erupt and my claws come out.

He lowered me slowly, holding my gaze as my ass settled over his glans, and then he drove up into me in one powerful thrust.

“Logan!” I yelled, and he peeled me off the wall and sat down hard on the marble bench, impaling me completely on his enormous length.

My left hand clutched at his broad muscular back, my claws slicing into his skin as I wrapped the other around his head, hugging him close as he pistoned up into me. His hips snapped furiously as I finally got my knees under me and bore down.

“Take me in,” he groaned raggedly as I rode him hard, my claws buried in his shoulder blades, blood flowing freely with the water.

I could never deny Logan Church any part of my mind, my body, or my soul. All of it, all of me, was his.

“Jin… tell me now.”

My gaze traveled his powerful, delectable frame, up the massive chest, across the gorgeous pectorals, and then slid to his eyes, locking in place.

“Do I feel good?” he asked with a smile that was pure sex.

“Oh yes.” I shivered as he throbbed inside me. “I want you deeper.”

“I want you to come,” he almost snarled, fisting my cock, squeezing tight, slamming up into me as I begged him for more.

He roared my name and then stood easily, even with me writhing against him, flipped off the water, and then rolled me to the floor. I braced my hands on the marble wall behind me and arched my back as he curled over me, pounding inside of me, taking me fast—each thrust, each roll of his hips harder than the last.

Before, without my memory, he would have never trusted himself to simply unleash his animal. But now, I saw his skin run with fur as I went from having a man fucking me to a beast.

Logan’s claws dug into my skin, and my blood joined his in the shower drain as he rammed into my ass with strength that could have hurt me, broken me, if I was anything but his mate. The reah that I was, was made to take him in any form he possessed, and so my muscles rippled around his length as I came, shuddering in pleasure, his weight pinning me to the floor, utterly necessary.