Broken (22 page)

When we couldn't possibly eat anymore we lay down in a
clearing and started playing, lashing our paws at each other lazily and
nuzzling, as we stayed as close as possible, forgetting who we were and our
circumstances, forgetting our troubles and worries. Only with her this close
was possible for me to truly live. The rest of my life was a distant nightmare,
a pain that was no longer real to me. This was real. She was real.

Soon the drowsiness took over and we fell asleep our
bodies curled up in one another.

We woke with a start. Our
bodies had started to transform back and soon we lay close to one another with
our naked human bodies touching.
Aiyana
suddenly and
stared at me. Her eyes were filled with horror.

"We fell asleep! Christian. The sun has risen.
We’ve transformed back!"

I looked at her, startled by her beauty in the ray of
the rising sun. Her skin was shining and her eyes still glowing. I was
speechless.

"Christian," she said again. "We need
to get back. Now!" She rose to her feet. I smiled as I gazed upon her
naked body.

"And how do you think we are supposed to get
back? Walk along the road naked? We would get arrested for that."

Aiyana
moaned. "But ... but ...”

I grabbed her hand and dragged her closer, forced her
to come back down on the ground to me. "Stay," I whispered.
"Stay here with me."

"What about
Luyu
? What
about William?"

"Sarah will take care of William. Michael will
take care of
Luyu
. They'll be fine."

She sat on her knees. I felt her desperation as I
entered her mind. Once again our thoughts met. We were one.

Michael will be mad, she thought.

He's already mad, I argued. We have no choice but to
stay here until sunset. Maybe he will even have calmed down by then.

She hid her face in her hands. This is bad. This is
really, really bad.

I sat up and pulled her close to me. I hugged her and
rocked her in my arms while she cried. I try so hard. I try so hard to be a
good wife to him. It's never good enough. Nothing I do is ever enough.

I know how that feels,
I
thought and pictured my relationship with Heather in my mind. I pushed the
pictures at
Aiyana
. I showed her scenes from my own
life.
Aiyana
lifted her head and looked at me. She
understood. I didn't have to read her mind to know. I could see it in her eyes.
I spotted the bruises on her arm. "Did he do this to you?" I asked
out loud. "Did Michael make these bruises?"

She dropped her head.

"He did. Didn't he?"

"Does it matter?"

"Yes! It matters. Of course it matters."

"He’s never done it before. Not like this. When
he realized I had tried to hide
Luyu’s
surgery from
him he got so ... so mad. He didn't believe that I did it because I knew he
would have said no to let you perform the surgery. He thought ... well you know
what he thought. It's just ... he can't control it. He gets so jealous.
Especially because I am out all night. It breaks his heart. He hates that he
doesn't know where I am or who I am with."

I nodded and stroked her cheek as she let me enter her
thoughts again and showed me how these last ten years with Michael had been for
her. I saw a charming sweet guy who treated her like a queen at first. I saw
him bring her flowers, I saw them laugh together and enjoy each other's company
so much I was jealous. But then she showed me how she noticed a change in him.
The first time she saw the anger in his eyes when he slapped his sister across
the face for a comment he didn't care for. Then the constant reproach from him
followed. Every day the same. Complaining that
Aiyana
didn't love him. By then it was too late for her. She was already pregnant with
Luyu
and she had to stay with him for the child's
sake. Then he started getting mad every time she visited her mother or spoke with
her on the phone. So slowly she stopped talking to her family. For his sake, to
not upset him. He thought she changed every time she was with her family and
that they tried to turn her against him. His paranoia increased and soon she
wasn't even allowed to read books or write.

As she showed me all these things I was there with
her. I was there in the bedroom when he yelled at her for not respecting him; I
was there in the kitchen when he deliberately smashed his plate on the tiles
because he was mad about the tone in her voice. I felt her pain, grief, horror
and the fear as she slowly gave up who she was and let him change her. She
tried to cope and survive in a house with a husband so unpredictable that she
quivered whenever she heard his key inserted in the door.

I ran my hands gently over her hair. She lifted her
head and looked at me with tears in her eyes. I wiped them away with my hand.

"I didn't realize how bad it had become until
just now," she said. "I guess I figured it would be better eventually.
All I had to do was to change myself. I was the one causing these troubles in
our lives. If I only would behave it would all be better." She chuckled
lightly.

Then she sat up next to me and put her face close to
mine as we had done so many times as jaguars. I closed my eyes. I opened my
mouth to speak but she put two fingers on my lips to stop me.

"I need you," she whispered in my ear. Her
hands were all over my face. Touching it, feeling it like she wanted to
remember all my features. She ran her fingers through my curls and pulled them
slightly. She touched my neck with her fingers, then ran them over my ears to
my cheeks and stopped at my mouth.

"Those lips," she murmured. "I remember
kissing them. I remember their softness on my skin. I remember shivering from
their touch on my body.

"Please
Aiyana
,” I
exhaled deeply. ”Don't toy with me. Don't play with me."

"I'm not. I want you. I want to feel you inside
of me again. I want to feel the touch of your lips again. I don't want you to
be only a vague memory anymore. I want to be with you again."

Her hands moved to my shoulders and my chest keeping
her lips so close I could almost taste her, but she didn't kiss me yet. She
explored my body with her hands once again with her lips open close to mine. I
could feel her breath on my face. When the kiss came it felt like an explosion
inside of me. I drank from her lips, I smelled her, clutching her face with
both of my hands. The kiss was gentle then stronger still while she was
touching my neck, my shoulders, and my chest. Then she grabbed my sex. I
gasped. I put my hands on her breasts. I touched them gently before I leaned
over and kissed them, feeling their softness on my lips, tasting them, smelling
them, causing her to moan and her chest to elevate. Gently I pushed her towards
the ground and placed myself on top of her. Then I sank into her with a bestial
scream and the feeling of being finally completed.

Chapter 26

We
talked all day
. Lying on the moist soil of the swamps
we talked like never before. She told me everything and then she showed me by
letting me inside of her memories. So now I knew. I knew everything about her,
everything she had ever felt. We made love again. She rose to my touch and
guided my fingers across her body. I wanted to cry with happiness, stay curled
up next to her body forever, stay in her mind knowing every emotion, knowing
all she felt. I wanted to be complete and with her I was just that.

At least for a while.

We swam naked in the river and enjoyed the water
against our bare skin. We kissed and touched and held each other close. I
savored these precious hours while we waited for the sun to set and the
transformation to begin. We sat together watching the sun slowly set over the
river and as the darkness gradually fell on us we watched each others body
gently change. It was a beautiful scene I will cherish forever in my heart when
Aiyana's
body slowly grew the tawny fur with black
rosettes, when her face changed in front of me so only the eyes remained the
same even if they did become more yellow and glowing – they were still
Aiyana's
eyes and I would recognize them anywhere. I adored
her both as human and jaguar. She stroked my cheek one last time before her
fingers became claws and her hands turned into paws. She smiled one last time
before her mouth dissolved and out grew the face of an animal with fangs and a
ferocious bite. It was a stunning sight. I had never seen it occur and it quite
amazed me. I could tell by the look in her eyes that she was startled as well
by my transformation. Now we were predators, savage beasts to most people.

Then we ran. Jumped the trees and leaped from one
branch to another following nothing but a scent, the smell of a kill. I let out
a huge roar when I spotted a big deer between the trees. It was running,
jumping over fallen branches and bushes trying to escape the danger it sensed
approaching. I descended on it from a tree gripping it between my claws.
Aiyana
jumped in from the side and sank her fangs into its
skull. I snarled and stared at her while she finished it off. Then we feasted
on the dripping meat. Our eyes met and I felt happier than ever.

I think we both wanted to stay out there forever. The
idea was enthralling. But we had our children to think of.

We went our separate ways
just before sunrise and I made it back to the house as the sun rose from the
edge of the Intracoastal water behind my house. I barely made it through the
backdoor before I changed back. I fell to the floor in the living room as my
human body returned. I felt a thrill like never before and smiled widely. I
even laughed.

I was in love again.

Sarah must have heard me because she came into the
room in her pink bathrobe with a gun in her hand looking scared to death. I got
to my feet immediately.

"Doctor?" she asked and put the gun on the
dresser when she realized it was me. "Oh my God. What happened to
you?" She covered her eyes when she saw I was naked and ran for the couch
where she found a big pillow for me to cover my sex.

"Please. Sarah. Just go back to your room,"
I said and grabbed the pillow as she handed it to me still covering her face.

"Everything is alright."

When the pillow was in place she looked at me harshly.

"Well I am certainly happy to hear that the
doctor is alright. I know it is none of my business but if the doctor intends
to spend thirty-six hours out I would prefer to be informed first." She
snorted slightly. "I worry too, you know," she continued. "I am
after all human. And when people don't come home then I worry that something
might have happened. Something bad. And so does William. And just what am I
supposed to say to your sweet secretary when she calls the house ten times to
ask where you are? A little heads up would be nice next time. A note, a call,
anything."

"I promise it won't happen again," I said. I
was still smiling, overloaded with joy like only someone falling in love could
be.

She snorted lightly again. "Now I think I will
make the doctor a nice bubble bath. He looks like he needs it badly, and smells
like it too. Smells like he has been drinking in a bar filled with animals
escaped from the zoo."

"That would be really nice. Thank you. And thank
you for taking care of everything while I was gone."

Sarah snorted again before she turned around and
started walking upstairs to prepare my bath.

William was quicker to
forgive. After my bath I went to his room and woke him up.

"Time for school, buddy. Time to get up," I
whispered.

He groaned a while before he finally opened his blue
eyes and stared at me. "Far. You can't make Sarah this worried. It's not
nice," he said. He sat up pointing his finger at me. "You have to
remember to call her next time."

I smiled. Then I leaned over and kissed his forehead.
"I will, buddy. Don't worry. It won't happen again. I promise."

"Where were you actually?"

"I'll tell you another day. Now get up or you'll
be late," I said and looked at my watch.

"Okay."

I observed him closely as he devoured his cereal and I
drank my coffee. Sarah was mumbling and tossing things around preparing
William's lunch.